The Doctor Who Real Time Marathon

Colin Baker's time on the show has always been divisive. It marked a point in the series when scripts tended to lean more toward pandering to what the vocal areas of fandom claimed they wanted, an increase in violence which mirrored the direction popular cinema was taking, and a tendency toward visual excess, be it Colin's garish costume and Nicola's plunging neckline, the OTT characters (and their wardrobes) or the less-than-subtle commentaries on contemporary society. Colin Baker's era was big, bright and bold, whether you liked it or not, and his relationship with his companions was equally extreme. The 6th Doctor's treatment of Peri throughout Season 22 has often been criticised for having the pair bicker and fight, and I've always thought that, whilst having the Doctor and his companion not get on after he's regenerated is a good idea, within a few stories they need to have accepted each other or replaced the companion (it's a mistake Moffat repea...

The Ribos Operation: Part One (02/09/18) An inauspicious start to the new season. To be honest, it was rather dull! The premise seems a good one - some bloke called the White Guardian, who appears to be some sort of all-powerful being (but not that  all-powerful else he'd be able to do it himself!) has sent the Doctor on a mission to recover the six segments of the Key To Time in order to stop everything and prevent chaos, or something. The Doctor has built himself a new K9 (who was barely in this episode!) but has also been lumbered with a posh Time Lord woman called Romanadvoratnelundar (or Romana - or Fred - for short). She's pretty stuck up and unlikable. Anyhow, they've been given a locator which has led them to the planet Ribos, a Russian-influenced planet with a possibly pre-Industrial society which hasn't had contact with any other planets despite being populated with Humans who have a remarkably similar culture to Northern Europe. A couple of Earthlings...

Regarding the Peter Davison era, I have a lot to choose from as my favourite story! As with William Hartnell, there's no actual story which I really dislike and plenty which are remarkably good. Even snoozefests like Time-Flight , Arc Of Infinity and Resurrection Of The Daleks have a lot going for them, and Kinda , Snakedance , Enlightenment and Frontios are all fantastic serials. And whilst I could easily go with the flow and pick The Caves Of Androzani (it has so many things which make it great - scripted by Robert Holmes, Directed by Graeme Harper, everyone acting their socks off and the only two female characters being the only survivors at the end of it all), as good as it is I find it a little too grim and gritty, and isn't a story I can just sit down and watch. No, my favourite Peter Davison story is a little two-parter called The Awakening This story from Davison's final season has everything in it which worked best with the 5th Doctor apart from Nyssa...

The Invasion Of Time: Part One (04/02/18) That was an interesting start! It looks like we have a direct sequel to 'The Deadly Assassin'! It started off with the Doctor already aboard an alien spaceship making a deal to help them in return for complete control over the Time Lords. Leela and K9 were locked in the TARDIS and so know nothing about this, and then the Doctor took them to Gallifrey where he met up with Cardinal (now Vice-Chancellor) Borusa and reclaimed his right to be President of Gallifrey (which he technically gained the right to last series). He's been acting very angry and treating Leela quite badly - at one point he got K9 to tell her to shut up and point his laser at her so she wouldn't ask any questions. He's up to something, though. The aliens are monitoring him and he must know this so that would explain his odd behaviour. You got to see the Panopticon again (rebuilt after 'The Deadly Assassin'), some more Time Lords including, it s...

Underworld: Part One (07/01/18) So, after a short break the Doctor, Leela and K9 are back with a rather interesting and quite brilliant episode. It all started off looking a bit like 'The Invisible Enemy', which is interesting as it's by the same writers, but it's already so much better! Materialising near a nebula, the Doctor was forced to land the TARDIS on a nearby spaceship to avoid being dragged in. Turns out it's a Minyan ship, one of the last of a race which caused the Time Lords to adopt a non-intervention policy; seems in the early days of their Time/Space exploration they discovered Minyos and attempted to aide the peoples' advancement by giving them advanced technology. The Minyans used the technology to develop weapons, cast the Time Lords out (who they viewed as gods), went to war amongst themselves and destroyed the planet. The TARDIS is on one of the last ships to escape which is on a quest to locate the P7E (another Minyan colony ship conta...