The Doctor Who Real Time Marathon

  K9 & Company: A Girl's Best Friend (28/12/21) Well, that was... novel. Nothing quite says Christmas like a confused investigation into witchcraft in deepest Mummerset! Given K9's popularity, it isn't hugely surprising that, having departed the show a year ago, he's been given his own Special, but teaming him up with a companion who'd never met him was, frankly, the first of a long line of mis-steps. The fact that Sarah Jane Smith hasn't exactly become any more likeable since the Doctor dumped her five years ago didn't help, either. It would have made more sense to have had him travelling the universe with Leela and Andred, or adventuring with Romana and the Tharils. Instead, the Doctor apparently dumped a third version of the metal dog at Sarah's house in Croydon in 1978 and she's ignored it ever since, only unboxing him when her Aunt Lavinia left it out for her to find while she went off galivanting at a science convention in America. On the w...

It's a sort of accepted fact in fandom that the Hinchcliffe/Holmes era of Doctor Who (encompassing the first three seasons of Tom Baker's time on the show) is one of the high points of the programme's entire run. It came following the massively popular Pertwee era when the show once more became a teatime adventure series the whole family could enjoy, and cast an eccentric actor in the role, taking him away from the cosy world of Letts and Dicks' mostly-Earth-based stories and the UNIT family into more strange, alien places riffing on the tropes of popular films from the 40s, 50s and 60s; Forbidden Planet, Frankenstein, Invasion Of The Bodysnatchers, The Curse Of The Mummy's Tomb, and Doctor Jeckyl and Mister Hyde are some of the films which are clear influences on the Hinchcliffe era, each an adaptation of a literary work most of which are also very well known. I can't deny that the production quality of these stories is superb. Hinchcliffe opted for a darker lo...

  Well, it’s happened. I’ve reached the end of the Tom Baker era, and it all felt strangely muted and a little underwhelming. Unlike the drama and excitement of his two predecessors, it just kind of happened. Perhaps it’s because I’ve often felt that Baker should have left sooner (especially in the middle of the Graham Williams era), or perhaps it’s because Tom seemed so tired and bored throughout his final season; I suspect it’s a mixture of both. However, I shouldn’t focus on the negatives. This is an overview of his entire era and, whilst he isn’t my favourite Doctor (of the four to have portrayed the character so far I think I place him fourth), there were nonetheless some good times and some absolutely fantastic stories. Tom’s seven seasons on the show were overseen by three different producers – Philip Hinchcliffe, Graham Williams and John Nathan-Turner. Each brought their own different flavour to the show, ably helped by Script Editors Robert Holmes, Anthony Read, Douglas ...

 Logopolis: Part One (28/02/21) The final story of the season (and Tom's last story!) and it seems we have a new companion (just like in the 60s with Steven and Polly and Ben and Victoria and Zoe). She's an Australian whose Aunt was taking her to start her job as an Air Stewardess, but the battered old sports car they were in got a flat tyre and they pulled into a layby. It just so happens that it's the same layby with a Police Box that the Doctor chose to land the TARDIS over - he's going to measure one so he can give the measurements to some mathematicians on a planet called Logopolis so they can fix the Chameleon Circuit...somehow. It's also the same layby where the Master landed his TARDIS over the Police Box, so the Doctor landed his TARDIS over the Master's TARDIS and created a 'Gravity Bubble'. Somehow, this all seems very contrived. The cliffhanger was a bit rubbish, too. Leaving the Gravity Bubble by the TARDIS's back door (it appeared) the ...

  The Keeper Of Traken: Part One (31/01/21) Previously, on Traken:  The Empire of Traken is a world held together by people being 'terribly nice to one another'. It has an atmosphere which calcifies anything evil which approaches the planet and ends up in its Groves. The Groves are tended by Fosters, sort-of-lawkeepers, and the evil - known as Melkur - are tended to by the local children. The most recent one has been tended to by a 'sensitive' called Kassia who, years later, has become one of the ruling class of Consuls and has married one of her fellow Consuls, Tremas, a widower with a teenage (?) daughter. The question mark is because Trakens appear to be quite long-lived - as is shown by their leader, the Keeper, around which this episode revolves. He's ancient and massively powerful - he just appeared in the TARDIS to request the Doctor's help after drawing him to Traken without his knowledge. He knows his time is up and has chosen Tremas as his successor (a...

Warriors' Gate: Part One (03/01/21) Back after New Year and the Doctor, Romana, K9 and Adric are still stuck in E-Space. It was quite nice after the short break to have the Doctor and Romana briefly recap the story so far - Romana called back to Gallifrey, and Adric from E-Space and now travelling with them. First, though, we got a terribly atmospheric opening sequence on board a freighter transporting Leonid aliens which seem to be used by the Human crew as navigators. Their ship seems to have been trapped in a void for months, unable to escape. Their Captain, Rorvik, seems a bit of a hard case, choosing to risk killing the navigator, Biroc, in order to push through to N-Space. They failed and Biroc survived and escaped when he was taken to recover by two of the crew.  Leaving the freighter, he entered the TARDIS (because he was out of phase with the time line) and took it into the void. The freighter crew picked it up on their scanner and went to investigate. There's been a l...

Over the last few days I have watched every episode of Doctor Who from the last two years (except 'Orphan 55' which was utter shite). The modern series has always had its supporters and detractors, but I think that the series of stories which I just watched are some of the strongest episodes for several years (if you don't agree with me, you should probably stop reading now). It all got off to a relatively underwhelming start on NYD 2019 with 'Resolution', the story which sort-of acted as the finale to Series 11 and also brought back the Daleks. I've never been a fan of the Daleks, but this dealt with them rather well, following the resurrection of a lone scout and featuring a fancy new design which purposefully eschewed a Tonka Toy look for Junkyard chic. Unlike Moffat, Chibnall seemed to understand that in most cases less is more. Unfortunately, this doesn't really work when sending the army after the scout in a lone tank which felt more like an homage to ...

State Of Decay: Part One (22/11/20) This week's episode felt more like Doctor Who than the series has in a while! I'd hazard a guess this is partly because it was written by Terrance Dicks, but it also had a very Gothic feel akin to some of the Hinchcliffe era (but better). It opened with scenes which seemed to be set in Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages with the Three Who Rule in their rather gorgeous castle and peasants in the adjoining village being taken away at a selection (including the Head Man's son). I'm guessing that the Doctor and Romana arrived some time later due to the way Ivo and the Head Guard were talking about the fate of Ivo's son. It turns out that the castle and village are the only civilisation on the planet, and the advanced technology K9 detected was because they're all descendants of a ship from Earth which passed through the CVE that brought the TARDIS to E-Space a thousand years ago. The peasants seem to live in fear of the Three Who R...