The Doctor Who Real Time Marathon

The Talons Of Weng-Chiang: Part One (26/02/17) Just when you think the series can't get any better they pull out a story set in Victorian London with theatres, Tongs and grizzly murders! Funny things are going on at Mr Jago's theatre, not least the disappearance of eight girls in the area which somehow seem to be connected to Magician and Ventriloquist Li H'sen Chang and his creepy puppet Mr Sin (who clearly isn't a puppet as he murdered the husband of one of the missing girls!). Jago is suspicious as he noticed blood on Mr Sin's hand, and stagehand Casey has seen ghosts sub-stage. Meanwhile, the Doctor and Leela have become embroiled in affairs after stumbling across the husband being carried off by some Tongs. Leela apprehended one while the others fled into the sewers, and she and the Tong were arrested. Li H'sen Change turned up at the police station as an interpreter (despite the Doctor trying to get the Tong to chat) and failed to convince that he ha...

The Robots Of Death: Part One (29/01/17) From the beautifully designed forest sets of the last story to the gorgeous sets of a Sandminer with its Art Deco robot crew. Chris Boucher is back with a murder mystery - except that the title sort of gives it away. However, the Human crew in their lavish clothes and weirdly stylish hats aren't aware that Chub, the annoying crew member who took great pleasure in telling Borg about a masseur robot who twisted a client's arm off (while a robot was massaging Borg's shoulder) was strangled by one of their robot servants. The Doctor and Leela, meanwhile, arrived in one of the mining scoops and while they were exploring, the TARDIS was taken away because it was causing an obstruction (great model work). Fortunately, they managed to avoid getting cut to shreds by an oncoming sandstorm when the mining work was aborted after Poul found Chub's body. Oh, this all came after a great scene in the TARDIS where the Doctor had a go at exp...

The Face Of Evil: Part One (01/01/17) A new year and a new companion, and I have to say she's already a vast improvement on Sarah Jane! She's a warrior of the Sevateem, a primitive tribe living in a rather stylish forest that rivals 'Planet Of Evil's sets, surrounded by remnants of equipment belonging to Survey Team 6 - I suspect there may be a lot more to them than just being a group of Humanoid aliens. She's already killed three people (mostly in self defence), been thrown out of her tribe for blasphemy (against their god Xoanon who is being held captive by The Evil One who just happens to look exactly like the Doctor), had her father sacrificed, and rescued the Doctor from a similar fate! Meanwhile, there's some political and religious commentary going on in the background with the usual power struggles and a High Priest who actually communicates with Xoanon (who actually sounds a lot like the Doctor). And, having escaped being sacrificed, the Doctor has ...

Tom Baker's time on Doctor Who can fairly easily be split into three distinct eras: The Hinchcliffe Years, which had an increasing lean towards Gothic Horror pastiches and violence; The Graham Williams Years, which saw an increase in college humour and a more Science Fiction bent; and Season 18, which brought in more stylish production values and eschewed humour for serious scientific ideas. Each of these eras had their high and low points, with Hinchcliffe usually being regarded as producing some of Tom's best serials. Williams has received a less consistent level of fan appreciation over the years but oversaw some fantastic stories, worked alongside literary icon Douglas Adams and took the show abroad to film for the first time. In turn, John Nathan-Turner brought the show straight into the Eighties with the changes he made for his first season as Producer making it look sleek and modern for the post-Punk, electronic age. Each year brought us some classic stories from The ...

The 1970s saw a complete turnaround for Doctor Who with the Doctor's exile to Earth and the change from Black & White to Colour. The new Doctor, also, was a contrast to what had gone before; whilst Troughton had introduced more physicality to the role, Jon Pertwee went one step further and made the Doctor an action hero. After a debut series with a much grittier, adult look, heavily influenced by the BBC's earlier Quatermass productions, Producer Barry Letts and Script Editor Terrence Dicks brought in a softer approach which took advantage of the new colour recording, and widened the cast beyond the companion to encompass not only new series regular Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart but his group of UNIT soldiers including Sergeant Benton, Captain Yates and (briefly) Corporal Bell. The 'UNIT Family' came to epitomise the Pertwee era, along with the introduction of new arch-nemesis the Master, and 1970-1974 was something of a 'Golden Age' for the show seeing it...

The Deadly Assassin: Part One (30/10/16) Gosh! What a change in quality! Clever, witty, nicely paced - I guess I should've expected this when it said Robert Holmes wrote this episode. Receiving a telepathic warning that the President of the Time Lords was to be assassinated, the Doctor headed back to Gallifrey to prevent it. First off, he avoided the guards by setting up a hookah in the console room - which we saw much more of in all its Jules Verne glory this week - but some grotesque, cadaverous bloke seems to be setting the Doctor up, lurking in the shadows and watching what he's doing. He's not the only one, either, as Castellan Spandrell and his sidekick, the very funny Coordinator Engin, are on the Doctor's trail aware that he's a convicted felon. Speaking of which, they appear to be working with a Chancellor Goth who I'm sure is one of the Time Lords who tried the Doctor in 'The War Games', and the Doctor has apparently been working for the Ce...

Patrick Troughton's take on the Doctor was very different from William Hartnell's, necessarily so, and his time on the show saw it evolve from an adventure series about travelling through time into one very much about aliens. It took a while for the actor to settle into the role, and for the production team to settle on the right formula for his interpretation, but they eventually hit the right mix with my favourite Troughton story: The Macra Terror You're probably all thinking there are far better stories than this missing Season 4 caper. Troughton got a lot of memorable and classic stories; his debut in The Power Of The Daleks is brilliant, the Season Four finale is equally stunning killing off the Daleks (at the time) once and for all, and David Whitaker arguably understands the Daleks far better than their creator did. Likewise, later stories such as The Enemy Of The World , The Invasion and The War Games are epic tales with great direction and wonderful lo...

As my Doctor Who Real Time Marathon posts are rapidly catching up with my viewing 40 years on from transmission, I've been thinking about what I can do to expand my Blogs beyond my original remit. I'm not just a Doctor Who fan (in fact it's actually only my second favourite Sci Fi series) so there's the possibility of starting posts about the likes of Farscape , The X-Files , Defiance , Babylon 5 , Star Trek , etc. However, I want to stick to Doctor Who for the time being so  I thought I'd take the opportunity to share my thoughts on my favourite stories for each Doctor so far. I know that there's a lot of this out there - for example, Brendan Jones produces videos on YouTube which appraise episodes, stories and seasons brilliantly - but I've always found my thoughts on various stories tend to be at odds with the majority of fandom, and whilst my DWRTM blog is a journal of my thoughts on individual episodes in order directly after watching them, th...