The Doctor Who Real Time Marathon

Leviathan: Part One   (15 /02/26) Wow! Now that was good! It shouldn't really be a surprise that, with the success of Robin Of Sherwood  on ITV, a story like this was proposed. Right now, in some other universe, Robert Holmes would have got as far as scripting Yellow Fever And How To Cure It  and Big Finish no doubt would have adapted that to great acclaim (I'm sure) and I'm listening to the Sixth Doctor and Peri battling the Autons in Singapore with possibly the Master or the Rani or both involved, too, but I honestly don't think it would have been a patch on this story - or the first episode, at least.  The influence of ITV's Robin Hood drama is very clear from the start. The TARDIS arrives in what appears to be a Medieval English woodland to witness Gurth (I wonder how he got that name!), a young local, being hunted by Herne the Hunter and a pack of dogs. Peri, at this point, looks up the history of Herne for context, leaving out the part that the figure of Brit...

Mission To Magnus: Part One   (01 /02/26) Wow. That was... something. Philip Martin is back with a sequel to last year's Vengeance On Varos ; sort of. It has Sil in it, anyway. Things got off to a start, however, with the TARDIS being called into the future to aid another TARDIS which was being held in a forcefield by a spaceship orbiting the planet Magnus. Unfortunately (for everyone, including the viewers), it was being piloted by Anzor, a Time Lord who used to bully the Doctor as school, and we subsequently had to endure some very cringy scenes where the two interacted. Witnessing the Sixth Doctor cower and be dominated by a rather camp and pompous Time Lord apparently dressed like an undertaker resurrected the ghost of The Twin Dilemma again . It really does seem that the worst elements of that story are set to haunt this incarnation and I really wish such scenes were struck from the scripts before recording occurred. Anyway, Anzor was on his way to Magnus to liaise with Sil. B...

The Ultimate Evil: Part One   (18 /01/26) Shades of Vengeance On Varos  this week. An alien called Mordant from a  race who engineer addictions or problems on planets in order to sell the inhabitants the drug or solution is using a 'Hate Ray' on the people of Tranquela (is this a Terry Nation script?), a country on the planet Amaltron, who have a tentative peace treaty with their neighbouring nation of Ameliora. He intends to start a war after 150 years of peace (and no contact between the two nations), in cahoots with the rather obvious Tranquelan, Escoval (who, as a high ranking member of the Second Family, has designs on becoming ruler) so that he can sell them weapons. Yes, it's another commentary on the evils of Capitalism and, subsequently, very much of its time. Much of the episode was spent world-building and we have a few more interesting characters here than we did on Varos or Karfel. T he Tranquelans have the ability to teleport to anywhere they think of, an ab...

The Nightmare Fair: Part One   (04 /01/26) As was the case about six years ago, I've slipped through a crack in space and time to experience Doctor Who which never made it to the screen. Last time, strikes prevented Shada  from being completed, meaning Season 17 never got its six part finale. This time, dissatisfaction in the series by a Sci-Fi-hating upper management led to the entirety of Season 23 being scrapped! Of the six stories commissioned, three had completed (or as near as) scripts with a fourth by former Script Editor Christopher Hamilton Bidmead being close to completion. Robert Holmes' three part story Yellow fever And How To Cure it had draft episodes and planning had gone in to filming it in Singapore but that's as far as things had got. The Season was due to conclude with The Children Of January  which, like Holmes' script, has so far never seen the light of day. However, the first three stories - The Nightmare Fair, The Ultimate Evil and Mission To Mag...

  Slipback: Part One   (25/07/25) So, with the future of the show in the balance and the next series a long way off we've been given a bonus story c/o Script Editor Eric Saward consisting of six ten minute episodes broadcast on BBC Radio 4 - or 'Pirate' Radio 4 as this three hour kids magazine programme calls itself. Today we get Parts One and Two and they've got off to an interesting start aboard a ma-HOO-sive Space Freighter where the crew are being eaten by a large, growling monster in the ducting. This was set up in an effective pre-credits sequence relayed to another crew member, called Grant, by the ship's Computer who has a voice like that annoying bitch Peter Davison is married to; the one who played Trillian in The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy . We then joined the Doctor and Peri in the TARDIS, the Doctor hearing a voice in his head talking about 'Full Circle' as he woke with a hangover (!), and Peri informing him that he'd got his hangover a...

Revelation Of The Daleks: Part One   (23/03/25) There was a hell of a lot going on this week but it was actually incredibly good. The episode is written by Script Editor Eric Saward who seems to be channelling Robert Holmes' approach with Davison's last story, or maybe that's down to it having the same Director. We're on the planet Nekros where the Doctor's old friend, Professor Arthur Stengos, has been interred at Tranquil Repose, a repository where the terminally ill are kept in suspended animation until a cure can be found for whatever ails them. The episode itself dealt with setting up the mystery of what's going on there and fleshing out the large supporting cast. This meant that the Doctor and Peri spent the entire episode travelling to Tranquil Repose and only encountered one other person (who Peri promptly killed!), but it was all done on wonderfully snowy location. The fact that they spent the entire episode in each other's company also did wonders ...