The Doctor Who Real Time Marathon

The Trial Of A Time Lord: Part One (03 /09/26) After an incredibly long 18 months, we finally have a new series and much has changed. Most strikingly, we have a new version of the theme tune which is punchier and more modern than the previous update from 1980; still synthy, but darker (which suits Colin's Doctor and the new series quite well). I like it. We're also back to 25 minute episodes which is quite jarring, despite there only having been 45 minute episodes in the last season - the end credits arrived and I was quite disappointed that it was over so soon!  That might just be down to the quality of the script, though. Not everything has changed and here we have Robert Holmes back, and this certainly isn't anything like the tripe he served up last season. For a start, the relationship between the Doctor and Peri is wonderful. There's still that air of tension but it's a friendly ribbing rather than pointless bickering. Mention was made of Peri's botany stu...

The Macros: Part One (22 /03/26) That was a really interesting episode with some clever ideas and plenty of atmosphere and tension. Most interesting, though, is that it's written by actress Ingrid Pitt and her partner, Tony Rudkin! It's based around the legendary Philadelphia Experiment with the Doctor and Peri arriving on the USS Eldridge. These early scenes of the Doctor and Peri walking around the decaying remains of the naval vessel were the most atmospheric and very reminiscent of both The Space Museum  where, as here, they were invisible to the people they encountered, and the SS Bernice sequences of Carnival Of Monsters . The ship is being eaten away by a green rust and they soon encounter Professor Tessler and the ship's Bosun who were shielded from the effects of the experiment (apparently) because of where they were inside the ship. The Doctor commits to helping them and, after analysing the green rust, figures out the Eldridge is trapped in a time loop it can...

The Hollows Of Time: Part One   (08 /03/26) So, we're back with the stories which were actually  commissioned for Season 23 and this one, by former Script Editor Christopher Hamilton Bidmead, is a doozy! This follows his previous form as a script writer on TV where each script improves on the last, from the dire Logopolis  to the vastly superior Castrovalva  to the brilliant Frontios , and gives us an engaging mystery in a quaint English village which turns out to be a sequel to his last story and sees the return of the Tractators. Sort of. Because we've not actually seen any yet - well, not full ones, and not especially alive  ones, either. Arriving in the coastal village of Hollowdean on the premise of visiting the Doctor's friend the Reverend Foxwell (who used to work alongside Alan Turing as a code breaker), the Doctor and Peri encounter a cult who follow the mysterious Professor Stream (Stream? Why, that's an anagram of...!). The Professor, it seems, also w...

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...