The Doctor Who Real Time Marathon

Death To The Daleks: Part One (23/02/14) Oh dear. It's another Terry Nation Dalek story. I freely admit when I read the title and saw who wrote it I wasn't enthused, especially after his last 'effort'. However, it wasn't terrible (yet it did feature a number of his 'trademark' plot points. The overall atmosphere was good and held throughout the majority of the episode, largely thanks to very good night filming. The opening sequence featured the Doctor taking Sarah to Florana (as promised at the end of '...Dinosaurs') when, a la 'Planet Of...' something went wrong with the TARDIS, this time a power drain. Armed with a gas lamp, the Doctor used a crank to open the doors and step out onto the clay-quarry-like surface of Exxillon. Whilst Sarah put something brown and unflattering over her turquoise swimwear, the Doctor buggered off and got caught by the locals - who seem to dress in leather sacking held over their heads like children pretendi...

Invasion: Part One (12/01/14) Candidate for BEST EPISODE EVER! Really atmospheric from the start with the TARDIS arriving in a deserted London - the opening shots of Westminster Bridge, Covent Garden, Trafalgar Square etc. all desolate and empty were amazing, as were the shots of abandoned cars and smashed up houses. Some great sound design with just lots of bird call underscoring every scene for the first half. Very shocking bit where the Doctor and Sarah Jane found the bloody corpse of a looter who'd just threatened them and driven his car into one of the unnamed 'monsters' who've invaded. Turns out they're Dinosaurs (by the look of it) - first a Pterosaur attacked the Doctor and Sarah in a garage leading to an escape in a stolen jeep, then UNIT soldiers were machine gunning and grenading a Tyrannosaurus Rex (to no avail) whilst the Doctor and Sarah were being caught by the army elsewhere. Meanwhile, the Brigadier is trying to keep control of everything and ...

The Time Warrior: Part One (15/12/13) New series; new opening titles! And we're back in the Middle Ages where an alien called Linx, a Sontaran, has landed his small, round, damaged ship and enlisted the help of a local Lord, Irongron, to help him fix it. Seems he's able to travel forward in time, though, as he's kidnapping scientists from a space research institute and, obviously, the Brigadier and the Doctor are investigating. Overnight, one of the scientists - Rubeish (a rather doddery old fart who's clearly only technically intelligent whilst socially naive) is kidnapped and the Doctor uses his Delta Wave Detector to track the trace back to the Middle Ages in the TARDIS. Stowed away is a journalist called Sarah Jane Smith who's infiltrated the institute with her virologist Aunt Lavinia's visitor pass in search of a good story. Stepping out the TARDIS and distracting an assassination attempt of Irongron by a poncy local lord's archer, she's been ...

The Green Death: Episode One (19/05/13) A massive improvement this week! In Llanfairfach, South Wales, something in a closed down mine is turning people green and killing them. Professor Clifford Jones, an Ecological Scientist (and Nobel Prize winner) who runs a local eco-research centre thinks the local oil refinery, Global Chemicals, is responsible but they claim to be producing oil with an almost negligible amount of waste. It just so happens that Professor Jones is one of Jo's heroes and she's determined to go and join him at the Wholeweal Farm (or Nuthutch, to the locals). Luckily, the Brigadier is off to investigate the Green Death, so gives her a lift in his fancy cream Mercedes convertible!  The Doctor, meanwhile, wold rather fanny about on Metebilis III collecting blue crystals. Learning from Professor Jones that he thinks Global Chemicals are pumping toxic waste into the mines, Jo goes off to investigate while the Brigadier meets the man in charge at G.C., Steve...

Planet Of The Daleks: Episode One (07/04/13) So, having sent his message, the Doctor promptly went into a freezing coma (on his fancy new pull-out Ikea bed) and told Jo to record anything important in the TARDIS Log (which seems to have been cobbled together using circuits and an empty cassette box) from the cupboard above the bed (in his fancy new Ikea unit). The TARDIS has arrived on a Jungle Planet - Spiridon - and Jo's gone out to explore, hoping to find the Doctor a doctor. Instead, she got jizzed on by an Evil Fungus Plant and found the crashed spaceship of a band of Thals. Having persuaded them to go and help the Doctor, she hid in their ship, successfully concealing herself from one of the inquisitive, invisible natives, before discovering she had a fungal infection and passing out. The Thals rescued the Doctor from the TARDIS (now covered in fungus jizz), whom he recognised. They, however, found it hard to believe he's the Doctor who helped them against the Dalek...

Frontier In Space: Episode One (24/02/13) Ooh! Space Opera! This one looks quite stylish already, and the Ogrons are back (properly, this time, not just a cameo) so could this be a Dalek story? (The Doctor doesn't think so - the Ogrons are mercenaries and will work for anyone). So, the TARDIS materialised in yet another cargo hold, this time on a spaceship transporting bulk flour. Almost immediately, the ship was attacked by Ogrons who are using some form of transmitter to make their victims see Draconians. Now, Draconians are the other great power in the Universe at this point in History who are at peace with Earth following a nasty, intergalactic war (very B5) and the Ogrons seem to be trying to provoke another war as they appear to be attacking Draconian ships disguised as Humans, too. The Doctor reckons they're being employed by someone quite advanced as the technology they're using is too advanced for them alone (I'm hoping Cybermen, personally). Jo hallucina...

Carnival Of Monsters: Episode One (27/01/13) Well, that was a decidedly odd episode that became more and more interesting as it went on. At first it seemed there were two unconnected storylines going on; one on an alien planet populated by grey men with male pattern baldness and a worker species with the most ridiculously unconvincing alien masks I've seen on the series, dealing with a Humanoid couple who are basically Carnies; a second where the Doctor and Jo arrive on a ship in the Indian Ocean taking a Major Daly and his daughter Claire (along with some chickens) to Bombay when the ship is attacked by a Plesiosaur! The Doctor and Jo were caught, accused of being stowaways and locked in Major Daly's cabin. And that's where it became interesting. The Doctor's convinced they can't be on Earth, having set the TARDIS for Metebilis III, but everything we see indicates it's Earth on the 4th of June 1926. However, there's a big silver hexagon in the floor out...