The hardest Doctor Who reviews to write, for me, are the ones where I have priors. Stories that I haven’t watched before are very easy to write for; stories which I have watched before but produce no strong memories or opinions are also straightforward. It’s the ones that scared me […]
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Doctor Who A-Z #28: The Smugglers (1966)
The ‘pure historicals’ – stories whose only science-fictional aspect is the TARDIS and the Doctor – haven’t been subjected to much scholarship compared to the rest of Doctor Who. This is probably because they’re superficially harder to relate to the modern version of the show than anything else from the […]
Favourite Discoveries (London Film Festival 2024) Feat. Last Swim, Stimming Pool & More!
To cap off my coverage of London Film Festival I want to spotlight six of my favourite discoveries from this year. There’s nothing quite like sitting down and discovering a new voice, an emerging actor or experiencing a fresh way of challenging perceptions. Mahmood Bakri and Aram Sabbah deliver stunning […]
Doctor Who A-Z #27: The War Machines (1966)
Remarkably, Doctor Who had never done a story set on a recognisable contemporary Earth before The War Machines. There had been one – Planet of Giants – set on an unrecognisable contemporary Earth, and it had stopped off briefly in modern-day England to either pick up or drop off companions. […]
Memoir of a Snail, the Order and More: Montclair Film Festival 2024 in Snapshot
The Montclair Film Festival is held in Montclair New Jersey at the Clairridge (A non-profit cinema in the area) every year during October. The festival includes American films, foreign films, short films and documentaries. Some of the films that were shown this year included Anora, The Order, The Piano Lesson, […]
Doctor Who A-Z #26: The Savages (1966)
This is the first Doctor Who script by Ian Stuart Black. For all he won’t be one of the series’ most prolific or acclaimed writers, he’ll always be a step or two ahead of where the show is headed. His next story, The War Machines, maps out the core subject […]
Doctor Who A-Z #25: The Gunfighters (1966)
The first episode of The Gunfighters is titled ‘A Holiday for the Doctor’, and that fairly describes the mood as the story opens. Not since The Romans have we seen a TARDIS crew so eager for a vacation: Steven and Dodo, a duo who even seemed to be having fun […]
Doctor Who A-Z #24: The Celestial Toymaker (1966)
The format of Doctor Who is famously one of the most expansive in television history, and it is to the writing team’s immense credit that they took about a year to get bored of its limitations. Terry Nation’s idea to have the Doctor and his companions enter the human imagination in Season […]
Doctor Who A-Z #23: The Ark (1966)
Doctor Who is a fantastical show, so much so that every time a character does something banal, your ears prick up. When Dorothea “Dodo” Chaplet, the Doctor’s newest companion, steps out of the TARDIS on her first voyage and immediately sneezes, we know there has to be some reason for it. […]
Doctor Who A-Z #22: The Massacre (1966)
Also known as The Massacre of St. Bartholemew’s Eve, this is a case of crazy name, surprisingly sober story. The Massacre sees John Lucarotti return to Doctor Who after taking a break for the show’s second season. By the 1970s, that kind of break would be unremarkable; Robert Holmes sat […]