The Doctor Who Real Time Marathon

The Ultimate Evil: Part One   (18 /01/26) Shades of Vengeance On Varos  this week. An alien called Mordant from a  race who engineer addictions or problems on planets in order to sell the inhabitants the drug or solution is using a 'Hate Ray' on the people of Tranquela (is this a Terry Nation script?), a country on the planet Amaltron, who have a tentative peace treaty with their neighbouring nation of Ameliora. He intends to start a war after 150 years of peace (and no contact between the two nations), in cahoots with the rather obvious Tranquelan, Escoval (who, as a high ranking member of the Second Family, has designs on becoming ruler) so that he can sell them weapons. Yes, it's another commentary on the evils of Capitalism and, subsequently, very much of its time. Much of the episode was spent world-building and we have a few more interesting characters here than we did on Varos or Karfel. T he Tranquelans have the ability to teleport to anywhere they think of, an ab...

The Nightmare Fair: Part One   (04 /01/26) As was the case about six years ago, I've slipped through a crack in space and time to experience Doctor Who which never made it to the screen. Last time, strikes prevented Shada  from being completed, meaning Season 17 never got its six part finale. This time, dissatisfaction in the series by a Sci-Fi-hating upper management led to the entirety of Season 23 being scrapped! Of the six stories commissioned, three had completed (or as near as) scripts with a fourth by former Script Editor Christopher Hamilton Bidmead being close to completion. Robert Holmes' three part story Yellow fever And How To Cure it had draft episodes and planning had gone in to filming it in Singapore but that's as far as things had got. The Season was due to conclude with The Children Of January  which, like Holmes' script, has so far never seen the light of day. However, the first three stories - The Nightmare Fair, The Ultimate Evil and Mission To Mag...