The Doctor Who Real Time Marathon

The Power Of Kroll: Part One (23/12/18) Much better this week down to a script by Robert Holmes, although it started to drag in the last five minutes. Lots of location filming - both day and night (unlike 'The Stones Of Blood' which gave us day-for-night footage which isn't as effective) out in East Anglia (lots of fens, marshland, reeds and water). The Doctor and Romana have arrived on a moon of Delta Magna which is populated by green-skinned 'Swampies' who were moved there from the planet a couple of centuries ago by Earth colonists. Now the colonists are starting to exploit the moon by building a methane refinery and, understandably, the 'savage' Swampies are a bit pissed off. Fortunately, they're being aided by a colonial group called The Sons Of Earth who have provided weapons via renowned gun runner Rohm-Dutt (a man with a dodgy Irish-cum-faux-American accent). Unfortunately, they've captured Romana and are sacrificing her to their god, ...

The Androids Of Tara: Part One (25/11/18) The search for the Key To Time continues on the planet Tara, another Earth-type planet where the culture is a mix of Late Renaissance and advanced technology. Everything looks very nice with woodlands, castles and rivers, but with the addition of electric rapiers and android doubles. Bored of running around after the White Guardian and playing chess against K9, the Doctor decided to go fishing and leave Romana to do the hunting. He should perhaps leave her to it more often as she located it straight away! However, while snoozing the Doctor was found by two of Prince Reynart's men and taken to see His Majesty when they learnt the Doctor wasn't a peasant and knew a bit about androids. It turns out Reynart is one of two heirs to the Taran throne, the other being the missing Princess Strella, and he needs his android double to work in order to have a decoy to distract his arch enemy, Count Grendel, while he attends his coronation. Grend...

The Stones Of Blood: Part One (28/10/18) Happy fucking Hallowe'en, bitches! Just like last year's Hammer Horror tribute 'Image Of The Fendahl' (Is it really only a year since???) we enter All Hallow's slap bang in British Horror territory! There are Stone Circles, crows, Druidic sacrifices, Archaeologists, old mansions, Celtic folklore, missing portraits! It's much better than the Fendahl story already and by far the best episode this series. Arriving on Earth and following the tracer to the Nine Travellers, a stone circle in Cornwall which a local cult use to perform sacrifices, the Doctor and Romana (now dressed in a fetching, orange trouser suit and flat cap) met Professor Amelia Rumford and her assistant, Vivien Fey. Beatrix Lehmann is absolutely fantastic as the Professor, dotty and eccentric and full of dry facts about her subject which she reels off regardless of whether you want to know or not. She's basically every old Archaeologist I've eve...

The Pirate Planet: Part One (30/09/18) Well, this one started off with a truly terrible model shot followed by some incompetent camera work in the opening scene with the Captain and Mr Fibuli, but it's turned out to be a very entertaining if slightly confusing episode. The next segment of the Key To Time is on the planet Calufrax, but when the TARDIS tries to land it can't. Then Romana has a go and succeeds, but the planet they're on isn't Calufrax even though it's exactly the right point in time and space! Elsewhere on the planet, a guy called Pralix is having some sort of psychic reaction (as he's apparently a telepath) and his grandfather is going spare worrying that the neighbours will report it to the Captain's guard, and his sister Mula just wants to know why it's happening. 'Why', apparently, is a forbidden question, and Romana's been arrested for asking it. The Doctor has tracked down Pralix, but so have the Mentiads - weird z...