The Doctor Who Real Time Marathon

Colony In Space: Episode One (10/04/11) Ooh! Time Lords! An alien planet! Aliens and Colonists! The Master has nicked some files on a Doomsday Weapon off the Time Lords so they've decided to send the Doctor to deal with it. So the next time the Doctor went into his TARDIS (to plug in his newly fixed Dematerialisation Circuit and show Jo around) the doors closed and they were off to the planet Uxarieus where a group of colonists crops are failing while they're being attacked by giant lizards. Meanwhile, there are some weird local aliens who are green and lanky with fucked-up faces. Most of the episode was spent scene setting, introducing the characters - people from the year 2472 who have set off to form a colony away from the totalitarian and overcrowded Earth. They live in fear of mineralogists who come and gut planets for fuel, and now in fear of giant Iguanas! Two of their colony - the Leesons - have been killed by the lizards but the Doctor is suspicious because...

The Claws Of Axos: Episode One (13/03/11) Oh. Um. Well, that was surreal, if nothing else. Very colourful this week with the overriding colour being ORANGE. Started like Spearhead From Space on a budget, then went to the Brigadier - apparently the Government has sent some fat idiot called Chin (should be plural) to investigate the Doctor. Meanwhile, UNIT's Washington HQ has sent an operative to liaise with the Brigadier concerning locating the Master. However, a UFO turned up, headed for the South coast of England and Chin decided to (unsuccessfully) fire missiles at it. Then he took control of the situation (unrequested), ordered American Bill Filer to fuck off as it was an internal matter and headed off with UNIT to the spaceship's landing site. Bill Filer got there first, however, and was captured - not before the aliens aboard 'Axos' had caught, processed and disposed of a comedy tramp! Axos has landed next to the Nuton Power Complex which supplies the count...

The Mind Of Evil: Episode One (30/01/11) Wow! Really good this week, possibly the best Pertwee episode so far! The pace was more even this week, too, with events unfolding at a more leisurely speed. The Doctor and Jo have gone to Stangmoor Prison to witness the 113th criminal to undergo processing by the Keller Machine, which removes all negative impulses from the brain and stores them. The Doctor was the rudest he's been since, well, early Troughton during Professor Kettering's demonstration, contradicting him and talking over him to Jo.  The criminal, Barnham, must've been a nasty bastard because the machine overcompensated and, not long after, one of the medical students attending was found dead of heart failure. Meanwhile, UNIT have their hands full with the first World Peace Conference where the Chinese delegate's security officer, Chin Lee, is stirring up trouble, seemingly under some form of control. First she reported some documents stolen, then went to ...

Terror Of The Autons: Episode One (02/01/11) Another new series, another new look! Liz has gone back to Cambridge and the Brigadier has provided the Doctor with a replacement: Jo Grant, an eager young woman training to work for UNIT who has relatives in high places and, so it seems, is a bit of a div. And instead of Industrial complexes we have circuses and radio-telescopes in the English countryside. A renegade Time Lord called the Master has come to Earth, stolen the last Auton energy unit with the aid of a circus owner, shrunk a radio-telescope technician and recharged the unit, gone to a plastics factory, and started making new Autons. He's also intent on bumping off the Doctor; he left a bomb at the radio-telescope, but a Time Lord turned up and warned the Doctor; Jo somehow found the plastics factory but got herself caught and hypnotised, then the Master put another bomb in the UNIT box that had contained the Auton unit, and left it in a field for them to find and for Jo ...

Inferno: Episode 1 (09/05/10) Another week, another research station, this one pretty cool being all industrial buildings and wasteland. The Doctor, Liz and the Brigadier took their time making an appearance, the narrative focusing on the nature of the research. Professor Stahlman is leading a project to drill through the Earth's core (stupid idea!) to tap the hugely powerful natural gasses there. His efforts are being thwarted by the safety-conscious Sir Keith Gold who is Director of the project (but only responsible for the cafeteria, according to Stahlman) and has brought in blokey, sexist drilling expert Greg Sutton from Kuwait to advise. He's already pissed off Stahlman's personal assistant, Petra Williams, but she told him where to stick it. Meanwhile, UNIT are supplying security and allowing the Doctor (in another advisory role) to use the power from the Nuclear reactor (yes, another one!) to experiment with the still detached TARDIS Console in a storage unit ...