The Doctor Who Real Time Marathon

The 7th of November 1987 marks the date that Pete Tyler died. Paul Cornell's 9th Doctor story Father's Day is probably my favourite of Christopher Eccleston's episodes for very selfish reasons - at the time it aired it was only a little over six years since my mother had died - but aside from the purely personal reasons for it being my favourite, it's also a dramatic, tense episode which deals with it's subject matter with the sensitivity and understanding it deserves. Just as The Aztecs illustrated to Barbara Wright that you can't rewrite history, not one line, Father's Day shows Rose Tyler what happens when you take action and succeed. In a way, this follows on from The Long Game in setting up the rules of time travel for a new audience; whilst that episode had shown Adam using his trip to the future for personal gain, and the Doctor's (rather cruel) response, Father's Day puts Rose in a position where she can alter the past and save he...

Selecting a favourite 8th Doctor story is always going to be difficult simply because there is both an unfortunate lack of 8th Doctor stories and, at the same time, more 8th Doctor stories than any other!  On TV, he only officially appeared twice as the lead - first in the 1996 TV Movie and again in the 50th Anniversary short The Night Of The Doctor . Out of those, Night Of The Doctor is by far the better, giving a taste of his character in under ten minutes and leaving you wanting more. The 1996 TV Movie is a great runaround and far from terrible, but has as many things which make you wince as make you love what you're watching. The stunning TARDIS interior, the brilliant direction of Sylv's death scene (including the frankly horrific sudden last gasp after you think he's gone), the 8th Doctor and Grace working out who he is outside her home, McGann's breathless performance as they try to avert the end of the world in the TARDIS and Grace's possession, rel...

I always thought there was something quite ironic about my favourite 7th Doctor story. I view the Colin Baker era as the point where the show really lost its way making mistakes in the longevity of the effects of the 'difficult' regeneration, the personality of the 6th Doctor himself, and his relationship with his companions. There were hints at the warmth needed in one or two stories in Season 22 (mainly The Mark Of The Rani ), but it only actually showed in the high point of Colin's run - The Mysterious Planet . The following instalment of The Trial Of A Time Lord failed to maintain this partly because of the 'interference' by the Valeyard, inserting false sequences showing the Doctor torturing Peri, amongst other things, and the Time Lord at his most bombastic. The next serial suffered from the introduction of a rather grating companion to accompany the rather grating Doctor and the finale was an utter mess, largely due to the unfortunate events taking place b...

The Armageddon Factor: Part One (20/01/19) A very good start with lots going on. The Doctor, Romana and K9 have gone to the planet Atrios in search of the final segment of the Key To Time. The planet is in the middle of a nuclear war with its twin planet Zeos, its ruler - the Marshall - intent on winner no matter the cost. He's opposed by figurehead Princess Astra who is having a covert affair with Surgeon Merak, and colluding with him to try and contact Zeos and come to a peaceful truce. The Marshall is either insane or is being controlled by something (the Black Guardian?) behind a mirror - or both - and has had one of his guards lock Astra in a high radiation zone (then shot the guard to shut him up). The Doctor, Romana and K9 landed near where Astra was imprisoned and found her by using the Locator (I think the segment is Astra's coronet as it fell off just before her unconscious body was dragged into a transmat by a cloaks figure with a fucked up face) and K9 blasted a...

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...

Colin Baker's time on the show has always been divisive. It marked a point in the series when scripts tended to lean more toward pandering to what the vocal areas of fandom claimed they wanted, an increase in violence which mirrored the direction popular cinema was taking, and a tendency toward visual excess, be it Colin's garish costume and Nicola's plunging neckline, the OTT characters (and their wardrobes) or the less-than-subtle commentaries on contemporary society. Colin Baker's era was big, bright and bold, whether you liked it or not, and his relationship with his companions was equally extreme. The 6th Doctor's treatment of Peri throughout Season 22 has often been criticised for having the pair bicker and fight, and I've always thought that, whilst having the Doctor and his companion not get on after he's regenerated is a good idea, within a few stories they need to have accepted each other or replaced the companion (it's a mistake Moffat repea...