The Doctor Who Real Time Marathon

The War Games - Episode Six (24/05/09) This story continues to be very good. Jamie isn't dead and was taken for interrogation by the Security Chief who, having spoken with the Alien Scientist, believes that the War Chief is betraying the aliens to his own people, a race called the Time Lords. The War Chief interrupted the conversation before the Security Chief could find much out and they had an argument over how stupid the Security Chief [Argh! Why don't they give these characters proper names??? From now on they're Time Lord and Spectacles!] would look alleging Time Lord's betrayal with no proof when his master, the War Lord (who we haven't met yet) arrives. Meanwhile, the Doctor, Zoe and Carstairs rescued Russell from the Scientist before he was reconditioned, rescued Jamie, got disguised as soldiers (WWI) and legged it to the transmat-thing bay. Russell and Zoe headed back to the American Civil War Zone where the guy guarding the Yankee/German Ge...

The War Games - Episode One (19/04/09) Another radical shift in quality! For the first time since The Abominable Snowmen we're back in Earth's past, this time on the front line during the First World War. Immediately, the quality was remarkably better than  during the last story in the script, the direction, the design and the acting. The location footage is excellent, really evoking the grimness of the time. The Doctor, Jamie and Zoe arrived just in time to be barraged with shells then rescued by WVR Lady Jennifer Buckingham who was driving an ambulance through No Man's Land. Hijacked by Germans, they were rescued by Lt. Carstairs and taken to Major Barrington in the trenches. Suspicious of the three civilians in No Man's Land (obviously) he sent them to General Smythe at a nearby chateau - and this is where it stopped being a straight Historical. I was quite excited that we might have a proper Historical story again, as the last one was way back when Jamie arriv...

The Space Pirates - Episode One (08/03/09) Well, that was different! Firstly, it was a full 15 minutes before the TARDIS even arrived - that's well over half way in - and then all the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe did was run away from some space soldiers and get trapped in an exploding beacon! Secondly, what wonderful model work! In a script which comes across as some sort of space adventure akin to Flash Gordon (but without the planets) or Barbarella (ditto) the production have really pulled out the stops with the design. I don't think I've seen such cool spaceships in the entire series - miles away from the last story's crappy rocket. That kind of makes sense, in a way, as the rocket was meant to be primitive and contrasts greatly with this far future society for whom space travel is like cycling. So, what was it about? Um, well, there's some space pirates (duh) who are attacking beacons, breaking them up and carting them off to plunder for their Argonite (the mo...

The Seeds Of Death - Episode One (25/01/09) The Ice Warriors are back! They tried to keep it a secret throughout the episode by having only point-of-view shots and keeping them off camera until the end, but I recognised their guns and their voices. Their leader's got a sleek new costume which looks quite cool (a bit like the head of an Alien, actually!) and they've invaded the Moonbase for T-MAT - a transmat system that has left rocket engineering defunct. They killed the main Lunar controller for burning out the controls and now his simpering, useless deputy is trying to fix it for them. Meanwhile, at T-MAT Control, London, Gia Kelly (the only person qualified to fix the system - bit of a flaw, that) is having to explain the situation to her Commander, Radnor, who believes only one man  can help them send a rocket into space. Elsewhere, the TARDIS has landed in a museum of Rocket Science owned by Daniel Eldred, an old man who used to design rockets and who has been ...

The Krotons - Episode One (28/12/08) Interesting episode. We're on an alien planet again inhabited by the Gonds. Apparently it stinks of rotten eggs and has two suns. Anyhow, the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe arrived in time to witness a Gond exit a machine and get vaporised. Confronting the Gonds, they learnt (eventually) that thousands of years earlier 'silver men' (if we hadn't just had 8 weeks of Cybermen I'd be thinking them) landed on the planet and waged a war, turning the surrounding area into a wasteland. The surviving Gonds built their community around the Krotons' spaceship and basically developed thanks to the Krotons' teaching and laws. Every so often, the Krotons would demand the most promising pupils join them in their spaceship. Then the Doctor turned up and revealed that it looks like the Krotons have been doing something to the students' minds and vaporising them. They tried to do this to Vana, who the son of Selris (the Gonds' Scottish...