The Doctor Who Real Time Marathon

 FOUR TO DOOMSDAY (Part One) 18/01/2022 That was quite an interesting episode which felt a lot like some of the old Hartnell stories - The Sensorites in particular sprang to mind as the Doctor and his companions investigated a spaceship on which the TARDIS has materialised. Despite the continuity announcer claiming this story was set in the far future it is, in fact, set in the past; specifically, on the day Tegan walked into the TARDIS. She's having a bad day. Even though she knows she's in a Time Machine (I assume) she thinks the Doctor has lost her her job by taking her to the Urbankan ship instead of Heathrow Airport. As such, she got a bit pissy, not helped by Adric also having a bad day and being openly obnoxious and incredibly sexist, especially to Tegan. It's no wonder the Doctor split them up, taking Tegan with him when Monarch (the leader of those on the ship) acceded to the request that the Doctor meet him (realised by some rather nicely realised floating black o...

  CASTROVALVA (Part One)   04/01/22 It's a new start to the series and a wonderful contrast to the shit K9 story we were fed last week! It wasn't without its faults - the opening scenes as Adric, Nyssa and Tegan carried the newly regenerated Doctor away from the Pharos Project had some horribly stilted dialogue and very dodgy direction, but once everyone was in the TARDIS things started to settle down. This (so far) is much better than Chris Bidmead's last pitiful effort and actually got the new Doctor off to an interesting start. Peter Davison did some wonderful impressions of the first two Doctors and namechecked Vicki, Jamie and the Brigadier as well as the Ice Warriors! Nyssa is coming into her own, finally getting to do something (basically run things and figure things out) although it wasn't clear that she knew the TARDIS was a time machine until she actually stated it could travel in time. I mean, why else would she think it inevitable they'd crash into somet...