Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Doctor Who is the world’s longest-running science fiction programme. Oh, sure, it’s not been in constant production for the whole time since An Unearthly Child first appeared on the nation’s screens, but it’s been around, in some shape and form, since 1963. Indomitable, as the Doctor might say. That’s a brilliant thing! Wonderful! Fifty years of time and space, all seen through the unique prism of our favourite time-travelling madman in a box.

But the sad fact of the programme running just so long is that, more and more, we’re going to be saying goodbye to those pioneers who’ve worked on the series on both sides of the cameras. It’s always the same when someone connected to Doctor Who passes away - whispers ripple out through fandom, and you all find yourselves stopped for a second while you think of all that a person has done to contribute to the ever-growing legacy of the series.

It was with sadness that today I was told of Christopher Barry’s death. As a director, his is one of the more well-known faces. Indeed, I only finished watching one of his stories, Robot, a few days ago. Barry really was an integral part of the programme’s life, from almost the very beginning. He was the second director to work on the fledgling series, coming in to direct episodes of The Daleks way back in 1963. He’s the man responsible for that iconic image of a plunger creeping into frame, backing Barbara against a wall as she becomes the first person to ever set eyes on a Dalek.

And it didn’t stop there! Christopher Barry returned to direct nine more Doctor Who serials over the years, notching up work with each of the first four Doctors. He was the creative vision behind The Rescue and The Romans in Season Two, The Savages in Season Three (still right up towards the top of my ‘most wanted’ list of recoveries - the telesnaps make the direction look stunning), The Dæmons, The Mutants, The Brain of Morbius, and The Creature from the Pit. Years later, he’d even return to helm the Great Intelligence’s third attempt at world domination in the spin off video Downtime.

But perhaps more crucially, he was the director for both The Power of the Daleks and Robot - two of the first three ‘first’ stories for a new Doctor. Throughout the various tributes and obituaries that have been popping up across the internet today, that’s the fact that people seem to be bringing up the most. It’s as though it’s taken us all by surprise - I’d certainly not really considered it before - this is the man who helped to ease in Patrick Troughton and Tom Baker, two of the most popular Doctors ever.

It’s always a shame to say goodbye to someone who holds such a vital part in our favourite show’s history, and Barry has always seemed so alive in his appearances across various special features on the Who DVDs - a man filled with a real energy, and a genuine love for the work he did on the programme, even after all this time. I’ve still got several of his stories to go, so it’s not as though I’ll never see his work again, but for now, I’ll be raising a glass to one of Doctor Who’s true greats as I bid him a fond farewell.

Day 406: The Ark in Space, Episode Two

Dear diary,

Back when Character Options first started releasing a wide range of Doctor Who action figures, I used to be really in to taking photographs of them. I’d spend hours sorting out the lighting and posing them into scenes just to take that perfect shot. I even went as far as to commission a model TARDIS console room in the right scale, with light up walls, and a working scanner screen, just so that I could take some photos on there. But when I first started on this kind of thing, all my photos set the TARDIS down on some futuristic space station, where the Doctor and Rose were being menaced by some Cybermen (hey, they were the best figures available right at the beginning. They even travelled with K9 for a while in my images, simply because he was a great figure).

The types of sets that I built for those earliest photographs were all based around one simple template – the Nerva station from this story. It’s your traditional ‘sci-fi’ set, isn’t it? Lots of large, white, sterile spaces. Big banks of technical looking equipment, all of which really boiled down to a load of buttons arranged in neat little rows, or in blocks. It’s such a typical ‘space’ design, that even the TARDIS console used elements of it by the time you reach the mid-1980s.

And yet, I don’t think that Doctor Who has ever done it better than they do here with Nerva. It’s the same kind of style that the programme was fond of back in the 1960s (it brings to mind images of the Wheel), and returning here for this story suddenly feels like Doctor Who heading out into its old familiar territory. The crowning piece of the design has to be that curved corridor, with the big windows thorough which you can see out into space. Younger Will, on the commentary for this episode, describes it as ‘a typical Doctor Who corridor… but it really looks good’, and I have to confess that my opinion has never really changed about that. When I talk about making those little sets for my action figures to pose in, it’s this set that I was always trying to recreate, but instead of using any kind of ‘space’ backdrop, I used to use bright green paper to simulate a ‘green screen’ effect that I could key out later once the pictures were uploaded to the computer.

The only issue that I have with this set is that I’ve never quite figured out where it’s meant to be within the Nerva space ship model. For a long, long time, I assumed that it was that outer ‘ring’ that runs right the way round. But when you look closer, that clearly isn’t the case. A quick check of some images on Google highlights that it’s actually an inner ring, behind that large one on the outside… so then why don’t you see the larger ring through the great big windows? They just stare out into the starry image of space. The fact that they don’t quite match up irritates me more than it should, and I think that’s simply because both elements are so nicely designed in their own way.

Younger me goes on to point out just how great the Solar Stacks look in comparison to the rest of the set. On their own, there’s nothing really all that special about the set (although the use of different levels with the steps is quite nice), but it provides such a stark contrast to the rest of the station that it really does stand out. It feels just like the kind of run-down, rough setting that several of David Tennant’s futuristic stories are set in (I’m thinking especially of something like 42), and it helps to highlight just how much of an artifice the nice sterile effect really is. Young Will goes on to point out that it’s a shame the close-up of the creature trapped in the machinery - which actually looks quite good, even if it is a mass of writing bubble wrap with an eye in the centre - doesn’t match up with the longer shots of it seen while the Doctor, and later Noah, explore the area.

Quite apart from all the set design and the model work, I’m really liking the costume design for this one, too. It’s one of those occasions where everything feels really cohesive, and you get the impression that all the various design teams have really been communicating with each other. The beautiful white outfits fit in really well with their surroundings, and Sarah Jane looks rather wonderful in hers! I love that they’ve all got different colours built into them to denote rank - its a very Star Trek idea, but it works beautifully here.

Although we’ve had several instances before where all the elements of design on a story really pull together to make a great looking final product, I think this may be the best example that we’ve had to date. I can’t find a great deal to say negatively about the design aspects of this story, and that’s always a good thing.

It is with deepest regret that DWO announces the passing of Classic Series Doctor Who Director, Christopher Barry.

Christopher was perhaps best known to Doctor Who fans for directing the Classic Series adventures; The Daleks, The Rescue, The Romans, The Savages, The Power of The Daleks, The Daemons, The Mutants, Robot, The Brain Of Morbius and The Creature From The Pit.

He was one of only three people to direct stories featuring the first four Doctors (William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker).

DWO would like to extend our sympathies to Christopher's family and friends.

[Source: Tim Vine]

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 405: The Ark in Space, Episode One

Dear diary,

Before I start on today’s entry, a little side-step. During the 2009 break from a regular series of Doctor Who, I decided that the time had finally come to sit down and do a marathon. I’d managed to collect most of the stories by now on a combination of DVD and VHS, and with no 13-week run to look forward to, the time finally felt right. There was no way I’d manage to do it alone, though. At the time I was sharing a flat with my then-girlfriend, and she’d expressed a vague interest in the classic series, even watching a few stories with me from time to time. Along with her and my friend Alex - a massive Doctor Who fan whom I’m lived with briefly when first moving out from home - we decided that we’d start from Robot and work our way forward. The reasoning was simple: we didn’t want to have to deal with all those missing episodes, and Alex hated the Pertwee years as much as I did. It was only logical that we should start from Tom Baker and work our way forward.

We decided that we’d do six episodes a week, all in one go on a Friday night. Alex would come over bearing takeaway, or we’d cook, and then we’d all settle down to enjoy that week’s episodes and discuss them aloud. In the corner of the room, my laptop would record everything that we’d said, so that I could write it up later on that weekend to post on one of the Doctor Who forums as a record of my experiment. I’ve always been the same - I can’t just sit and watch a marathon of a TV show, I need to document it to feel like I’m actually doing something with my time that’s vaguely meaningful.

Over the next couple of weeks, we made our way through Robot, The Ark in Space, The Sontaran Experiment, and the first two episodes of Genesis of the Daleks. Things all sort of fell apart after that. I can’t remember why we didn’t keep on watching (though I have a vague memory that Alex moved house around this time, so popping over on a Friday night became a more mammoth task, involving several busses instead of a 20-minute walk), but I know we only made it that far. I continued on with Revenge of the Cybermen and Terror of the Zygons, but then found myself giving up, too. And you wonder why I didn’t expect to keep The 50 Year Diary going for this long!

And now, here we are, five years on… and I’ve forgotten pretty much everything. I can’t remember a single word that we said about the stories, or really how I felt about them at the time. All of it, completely lost as my mind has moved on to think about other things. I know I wrote the first couple of stories up, but I don’t think I ever did anything with those write-ups. It wasn’t until starting on Robot the other day that I could even remember doing this mini-marathon. But then I got to thinking. I’ve still got the laptop I had at the time, because it’s the computer I take whenever I go away somewhere, so that I can still watch episodes for the Diary.

A bit of digging around in the various long-forgotten files of the hard drive turned up five separate audio files. ‘Ark 1’ to ‘Ark 4’ and ‘Sont. Exp.’. A quick play through iTunes revealed that these were the original recordings we’d made all those years ago. Then it sparked up a bit of a mystery. ‘Ark 1’ was only 16 minutes long, and clearly started right in the middle of the first episode. There was no sign of Robot, and nothing for Genesis, either. I was rather liking this. It was all a bit like archaeology, trying to figure out what had happened to these other recordings - where had they gone?

Eventually, I realised. There’s no recordings for Robot, because we never made any. For that first serial, I wrote out in shorthand all the things we were saying so that I could write them up later. It was obviously somewhere early in the first episode of this story that I realised we could simply be recording our thoughts directly into the computer. As for Genesis… that’s still a mystery. I could just be that I’ve deleted the files over the last five years, and these five have somehow survived the cull, like a crop of missing episodes turning up in deepest Africa. It could be that they’re on there something but listed under some obscure name (my digital filing system has never been particularly easy to follow). Or, it could be that I’m mis-remembering, and we never even made it as far as that, stopping after The Sontaran Experiment.

Anyway, I’m excited by this find, because it means that - for the next six episodes, I’ve got a rather unique perspective on these stories: my own. When we recorded them, I’d just turned 20, David Tennant still had three episodes to go before handing over the TARDIS key, there were 106 missing 1960s episodes, I’d yet to move to Cardiff, and I never dreamt that I’d actually do a proper marathon, day by day, that everyone could read. I’ll be spending the next few days watching the episode through, writing down my thoughts, and then doing it all over again but with younger me on the commentary track. I want to see how much my opinions of these episodes - and of Doctor Who in general - have changed in the last half-decade, and I hope you’ll put up with having two of me around for a week or so!

- - -

It’s funny that, over the course of the last few Jon Pertwee seasons, I’ve been pointing out more and more instances of 1963-style opening episodes. It’s usually in a Terry Nation script (Planet of the Daleks and Death to the Daleks both spring to mind!), but we’ve seen a bit of a return to the idea of the TARDIS crew being alone for much of the first episode. I’d thought that they were just strange leftovers from a bygone age, and caused simply because Terry had been invited back to the programme after such a long absence. I’d completely forgotten that not only does this episode adhere to that format, but it actually doesn’t feature anyone other than out three regulars.

Oh, sure, there’s a pre-recorded voice being played while Sarah undergoes her cryogenic suspension (she must be getting used to that by now, having woken up from a supposed long sleep during Invasion of the Dinosaurs), and we get both a small, slug-like creature and the Wirrn in the cupboard, but there’s no other characters present aboard Nerva at this stage who haven’t arrived there in the TARDIS.

In some ways, it’s quite reminiscent of The Dead Planet - that first episode of The Daleks - where much of the threat comes in the form of sliding doors closing behind the characters, or the potential that there could be some kind of threat lurking just out of sight around the corner. It’s quite a laid-back episode, but it never allows itself to be boring in any way. I’m also impressed by the way that it once again separates the Doctor from Sarah Jane: it’s very much about him and Harry exploring the ship, and for a large portion of the episode, Sarah is completely out-of-the-loop.

It’s lucky, then, that Harry is such a loveable character. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone say a bad word against either him or Ian Marter, and this is the perfect showcase for all that is right with him. He sparks so nicely with Tom Baker, and it’s not hard to picture those anecdotes Lis Sladen used to tell about the pair scurrying off into a corner at rehearsals, making notes and plans for their own Doctor Who film. The Doctor is, on the whole, quite dismissive of Harry at times, but you always get the sense that it’s done with a sense of kindness and gentle teasing - the Doctor likes him, really.

It turns out that he’s rather fond of human beings on the whole, really. I try not to quote big lots of text, but I think this may be one of those times where I can allow an exception to the rule;

THE DOCTOR
Homo sapiens. What an inventive, invincible species. It's only a few million years since they crawled up out of the mud and learned to walk. Puny, defenceless bipeds. They've survived flood, famine and plague. They've survived cosmic wars and holocausts. And now, here they are, out among the stars, waiting to begin a new life. Ready to out sit eternity. They're indomitable. Indomitable.

It’s such a lovely speech, and it’s delivered with real charm, too. The direction, the timing… everything really pulls together to make it a real highlight. I’ve always known about it being here, but I’d completely forgotten just how much there was to it. I could recall the Doctor describing us as ‘indomitable’, but I had no idea just how lovely everything leading up to that moment is.

As for what the ‘me’ of five years ago had to say about this one… I’m missing all the earliest parts of their arrival because of starting the recording so late in to the episode, but I tend to pipe up throughout the rest of the time. It’s perhaps surprising that there’s two things I point out during my earlier observations that I considered writing down on this watch through, too, before completely disregarding them and deciding against making the note.

The first was the pulsating light in the wall when Sarah Jane is about to be teleported off for the suspension process. The second comes not long after, when the voice starts to play out, welcoming her to Nerva and preparing her for what’s about to happen. Upon being greeted, Sarah gives a small, drowsy wave into the air. It’s such a small moment, but it really is rather lovely. I’m not sure why I decided to ignore it this time around - despite it raising a smile - but it’s interesting to know that it did catch me on both occasions.

I’m hoping that with tomorrow, and the first ‘full length’ commentary for an episode, I may continue to see these little things that I’m not bothering to really make a note of anymore. It’s interesting to see how my observations have changed over the years, and it’s great to be watching that change in the first proper story of a bold new era for the programme.

Surely, though, the noise on these recordings isn’t really what my voice sounds like?

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 404: Robot, Episode Four

Dear diary,

‘Gentlemen, I’m afraid I have some bad news. This room is surrounded by film!’

There was a time, when I used to just dip in and out of various Doctor Who stories at random and not pay a great deal of attention to them, when I never really noticed the difference between film and video tape. I mean, I was always aware that the majority of location scenes were shot on film, while anything built in a BBC television studio was more often than not videotape, but I never really noticed it. Since starting out at the pace of an episode a day, I’ve become much more accustomed to the differences, and I’ve grown rather used to noticing when a fight or special effect is about to kick off, because we switch to film (which usually - if not on location - means we’ve moved to Ealing film studios, where they can better execute their plans).

It reached the point once we’d switched to colour in the Jon Pertwee years that I couldn’t help but notice just how much better the series looks on film. Oh, I’ve banged on about it enough times over the last few months, so I won’t do so again here, but suffice to say I’m a total film convert. I find it ironic, therefore, that the very first Third Doctor story is the first Doctor Who story to be shot entirely on film, while the first Fourth Doctor story is the first to be shot entirely on video! They even use the same location for bits of the outside filming!

The purpose for switching to all-video here was to cover several bases. For a start, Outside Broadcast (OB) cameras were now becoming lighter and easier to take out on location. Not for the first (or last) time, Doctor Who became something of a testing ground for a new technique and the idea of shooting all-video was carried forward by Barry Letts into some of his later positions within the corporation. By the time we reach Season Twenty-Three, John Nathan-Turner will take the decision to shoot everything in this format as standard, which is why the picture quality of some later McCoy stories doesn’t always hold up.

The second reason for this new approach to production was to try and better integrate several of the effects shots in this episode. In the making-of feature on this story’s DVD, Barry Letts talks about how poorly the shots of the models from Invasion of the Dinosaurs, shot on videotape in the studio, match up to the location footage shot on film. I can’t say I really noticed it as being a problem at the time, but some of the shots used to highlight his point do seem to make it rather stand out. Therefore, in his last story as producer, he decided to try and blend things better. Trying to do the shots of the robot growing to an enormous size and stomping around the Think Tank grounds in film would be possible, but it would take a lot of time, effort, and money. It’s easier therefore to do the whole thing on video tape, so that the CSO shots in the studio can line up better with what they’ve filmed outdoors.

I’ve seen people over the years really knock the sequences with the giant robot from today’s episode, and while it’s true that they don’t always work, there’s an awful lot that they do get right. The shot of him growing to the larger size, for example, is great! It’s almost a good excuse for shooting the whole story on video…

…Except that it does lend the whole production a far cheaper look than usual. I’ve not mentioned it until this final episode because I didn’t really know how to sum up my thoughts on the way it looked, but then it clicked for me today - it has the same kind of finish as a ‘fan film’. There’s a few sequences - especially looking back - of people walking and talking out on location, and it has the same feel as something like Downtime did in the 1990s. That’s nothing against fan productions (there are some fab ones out there!), but they do have a look about them that instantly tells you it hasn’t been made in the same way as regular Doctor Who. We’ve got another ‘all-video’ production later in the series with The Sontaran Experiment, so I’m keen to see if it works any better for me there.

I think I’ve realised today why it was I couldn’t get a handle on this story in the first couple of episodes. I suggested that it was a hollow shell in which Tom Baker could find his feet, but that was proved wrong in the second episode, when he’s already settled in and the story starts to take a more central place. It then turned quite dark in episode three, with lots of Nazi imagery inside the SRS meeting, before all our human enemies have fled, and we’re left with a monster story which takes heavy inspiration from King Kong. Robot as a story shifts it focus a lot more than some others do, and that’s made it difficult for me to really get a grip on.

That’s not to say I haven’t enjoyed it, though. A lot of that praise has to be given over to Tom Baker, who has so completely settled himself in as the new incarnation of the Doctor. Had this been a Pertwee story, I don’t think it would have rated as well with me. That’s not trying to take away from Pertwee, but a lot of the fun and charm in these four episodes is hinged on the fact that we’ve got a new leading man who’s bubbling with a very different kind of energy to the one I’ve been used to for so long.

And with the first two instances of ‘would you like a jelly baby?’ - a phrase which in many ways is so integrated with the programme, and yet I realise someone asked me today and I completely failed to make a Who-related joke! - we’re off into time and space again. I’m in for a long, long, haul with this new Doctor, so I’m thrilled that he’s made such an impression so quickly. Frankly, I can’t wait to see where we go from here!

Time is running out! This issue will no longer be available from 26th March 2014 so make sure you don’t miss out. From the lavish presentation pack to a beautifully framed set of stamps, the Royal Mail Doctor Who stamp collection offers fans the perfect souvenir of the world’s longest running science fiction series. 

Explore the Doctor Who collection now at Doctor Who Stamps at Royal Mail Shop or call one of the team on 08457 641 641 (+44 131 316 7483 from overseas) who will be more than happy to help. Phone lines are open between the hours of 8.30am and 5pm, Monday to Friday. 

+  Explore the collection now at Doctor Who Stamps at Royal Mail Shop.

[Source: Royal Mail]

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 403: Robot, Episode Three

Dear diary,

It’s odd that as I write this, the actual K1 robot is stood less than a mile away in the Doctor Who Experience. I visit far more often than I should – it’s the stockist of Doctor Who Magazine and the new DVD releases closest to my front door – but I love seeing so many of the original props and costumes up close. The K1 robot has always been something of a highlight, because it’s such a fantastic design. The prop has been through a number of hands in the last 40 years, and it’s not always looked as good as it does in the original story (I believe for a while, it had been painted a horrible matt grey over the reflective silver!), but the restoration work that’s gone into it for display in its current home is flawless.

A few years back, when they released the first wave of ‘classic’ figures, they each came with a part of the robot, which could be clicked together to build up the full model, which would tower over the other figures. I loved it – bought the entire wave on day of release, and snapped together the large figure as soon as I got home. For ages, it remained the only figure out on the shelf which wasn’t one of the Doctors. Since moving a few months ago, all my figures have been up in the loft, but I do miss having it out on display.

There’s so much to love about it, but for me the best bit is the shoulders and the head. There’s something about the chunky design which really appeals, and the sudden flash of red across the creature’s ‘face’ is a lovely touch. When it lights up, it really does look great. The only thing that really lets the design down is the wrists. You’ve got those big, chunky shoulders, which lead down to thick metal arms, at the end of which are these strong vice-like claws… connected by a tiny, thin little bar, which wobbles around quite a bit when they’re required to move. The problem is really highlighted during a sequence in Episode One when we follow the shadow of the robot across a wall, in full on Nosferatu mode… and those tiny wrists really look a bit pathetic in amongst the rest of the body. They also have a tendency to bend a bit when he’s forced to hold anything - like the disintegrator gun at the end of today’s episode. It somewhat lessens the effect, but it’s a minor flaw in an otherwise great design, so it’s easy enough to ignore, I guess!

There’s something really quite great about the creature in this episode - it’s the first chance we’ve had to really see it in action. First fighting the Doctor at Kettewell’s place (and what a great opportunity for Baker to show us just how nimble he can be! All those worries about needing to bring Harry in as the ‘action man’ were unfounded!), and then against UNIT out in the open. Things are slightly let down by the moment the robot is seen being helped down a few steps, in case he goes toppling over, but aside from that, it’s all pretty good.

I’d forgotten just how like the Nazi’s the Scientific Reform Society were made out to be in this tale. I’ve always known that there’s a general resemblance in the style of the uniforms and the way that their rally is held, but I’d never before realised that it was so overt. There’s not much room left for ambiguity - these are the bad guys, because they’re designed to resemble a - relatively recent, at the time - political party that was widely feared. It’s great, though, because ti shifts the story into a whole new direction. Up to now, things have all been rather cosy, with the Doctor settling in and UNIT running around trying to work out what’s happening, but now things are getting serious.

You’ve got a full-scale battle, the likes of which we’ve never really seen UNIT get in to. Sure, there’s only a few soldiers involved which lessens the scope, but the Brig has even layed on a tank for the occasion…! Ah, yes. The toy tank which trundles onto screen for a few seconds at the end of this episode is somewhat infamous within Doctor Who history. Admittedly, it’s not the best effect they’ve ever achieved, and I don’t think the forced perspective of the shot works, either, but thankfully it gets disintegrated before we can take much of a look at things!

Here at DWO, we love to get behind a great Kickstarter project, and one of our old team members, George Watson (creator of our awesome Series 4 flash animations), has teamed up with Doctor Who Writer, Tom MacRae, for an awesome short film project titled 'Time Tramp'.

'Time Tramp' is the story of brothers Sammy and George who come across a tramp living in a shed claiming to be from the future.

Written by Tom MacRae ('Doctor Who', 'Threesome', 'Lewis', 'As If'), directed by George Watson ('Twelve', 'Child') and produced by Tom Webb ('Twelve', 'Child'), 'Time Tramp' is a coming-of-age story set somewhere between the real world and the imagination of the younger of the two brothers that the story follows. The pre and early teenage years are some of our most formative, children find themselves torn between wanting to be old enough to cross the road by themselves rather than hold mummy’s hand, but also young enough to still be lost in their own imaginary worlds. This story crosses those two worlds.

George (14) and his younger brother Sammy (8) live in a small council flat in London’s docklands. They are just a stone’s throw from the vast financial citadel that is the Canary Wharf district, but they might as well be in another world. And Sammy often is. He spends his time dreaming of ‘Space City’, the world that he imagines and the gods and monsters that occupy that world. Back in reality the two brothers spend their time trawling the Thamesmead post-industrial wasteland, George always looking after his dreamer younger brother. One day they come across the TRAMP after he saves young Sammy’s life when he slips off a roof. The tramp claims to be from the future and to have important information that will change both their lives for the better. Sammy, of course, is quick to believe him, whilst George remains cautiously cynical. The information that he wishes to impart is that Sammy has something special to offer the world, but it is up to George to make the right decisions to ensure he gets there.

'Time Tramp' is a short film with a heart warming story aimed at the whole family. It is the third collaboration between up-and-coming director George Watson, and producer Tom Webb, and the first time the pair will have worked with the incredibly talented writer Tom MacRae, who as George's mentor, came to write the script due to his passion for the story.

The reason the team are utilising crowd funding is because of the ambition of the project. The last short they worked on was the intense relationship drama 'Twelve' (recently shown at the London Short Film Festival) which stared BAFTA winner Monica Dolan, and Joseph Mawle, but this is a much bigger adventure! The shoot will be predominantly outside - using London's ever changing docklands landscape as a fourth character - there is a stunt, many visual effects that capture the imaginations of the young boys, and none of that comes cheap! The other reason is so that the audience for the film - you! - can stay in constant contact with the filmmakers, and let them know your thoughts and have your input, in what will be a two-way process. 

This film is for its audience, the team want you to be involved at all stages, and that is why many of the rewards include visits to the set and even the opportunity to star as an extra! So, please pledge generously...!

Watch the promotional trailer, below:

+ Support the 'Time Tramp' Kickstarter Project!

[Sources: Ben Stoddart, George Watson]

Here at the Post Office Shop we were engrossed by The Day of the Doctor special TV episode to mark 50 years of Doctor Who as well as the Christmas special The Time of the Doctor. 

The Day of the Doctor celebrating 50 years of Doctor Who certainly lived up to our expectations here at the Post Office Shop. Viewing figures prove that Doctor Who achieved his own worldwide domination with this one-off show!

It appears that sci-fi fans of the TV series from all four corners of the globe witnessed the one-off  75 minute TV drama marking the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who with the fervour generated likened to a Royal Wedding or a momentous Sporting Occasion.

In the UK alone, the Doctor Who 50th anniversary special featuring Matt Smith and former Time Lord David Tennant achieved an average television audience of 10.2 million.

It wasn't just millions of people glued to their TV sets at homes up and down the country and worldwide though – more than half a million tickets were sold for cinema screenings at 1500 venue around the world with The Day of the Doctor making more than £6m in box office takings in its first three days.

A month later the final part in a loose trilogy of episodes, The Time of the Doctor followed The Name of the Doctor and The Day of the Doctor and was the farewell episode for Matt Smith. The Time of the Doctor also marked the first regular appearance of Peter Capaldi as the twelfth doctor following his brief cameo in The Day of the Doctor. It was actually the 800th episode of the science fiction phenomenon and also featured Jenna Coleman as the Doctor's companion Clara Oswald. 

Aired on Christmas Day, The Time of the Doctor addressed numerous plots developed over Matt Smith's tenure including the prophecy of the Silence and the Doctor's fate on the planet Trenzalore. Notable enemies encountered by the Doctor included the Cybermen, Silence, Daleks and Weeping Angels in the festive special was witnessed by 8.3 million viewers. 

Doctor Who was in fact the second most watched programme across all channels on Christmas Day with the popularity of Doctor Who continuing to fascinate sci-fi fans both young and old. So now it's over to Peter Capaldi and here's to another 50 years of everyone's favourite Doctor as the Time Lord continues to travel through time in his TARDIS.

[Source: Post Office Shop]

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 402: Robot, Episode Two

Dear diary,

I was wrong. Yesterday, I said that Robot wasn’t really about the titular mechanical creature, but rather an excuse to introduce us to the new incarnation of the Doctor. I mused that UNIT, the Robot, Think Tank, everything was just set dressing around a few episodes of Tom Baker finding his feet in the role. But actually, watching today’s episode, I was completely wrong.

You see, all of that was true of yesterday’s episode. Not only the scenes early on in the UNIT lab where the Doctor roams around in his pyjamas and tries to prove to Harry that he’s perfectly well, but throughout the rest of the episode, too. Even the cliffhanger is given over to Sarah Jane in danger rather than out new man, as though they don’t feel like he’s quite embedded enough to have a cliff hanger of his own yet.

It’s all change today. Tom has completely settled into the role – though I’m not sure if he looks quite comfortable surrounded by Pertwee’s trappings, it could be more that it doesn’t look right to me because I’ve just come from a long period in the company of these characters and this style – and it feels almost as though he’s been the Doctor for ages, certainly not just two episodes. I think it may be helped by the casual way in which he plays the role. There’s a moment in today’s episode where he lies down and goes to sleep on the Doctor’s lab table, and he’s just got a complete disregard for the whole place. You can’t imagine Pertwee’s Doctor behaving in the same way, and though you sometimes got the impression that the Third Doctor was simply tolerating the Brigadier, the Fourth really seems to give off a sense of complete ambivalence towards both the Brigadier and the situation they’re facing.

It works, though! The Doctor never seems like he’s actually bothered by any of this, almost as though he’s not even paying attention - he spends most of the time building piles of random electronic equipment, or looking around wondering where Sarah Jane is, or simply napping. Even in yesterday’s episode, he says his piece before disappearing into a bundle of hat, and scarf, and curls. Underneath it all, he’s fiercely intelligent. It’s the same kind of thing we saw with the Second Doctor, whereby you don’t really pay him much attention, but then he opens his mouth and comes out with exactly what you need to hear.

People always talk about Tom Baker as being the best of all the various Doctors (‘the definitive article’, as he himself puts it during this story), and it does have to be said that he’s instantly watchable here. Even when he’s not the focus of a scene, you can’t help but watch him. Over such a long time in the part, it’s obvious that he’ll evolve the character, and that’s one of the things that I’m looking forward to watching over the next few months, but it’s amazing just how well he lands on his feet here – there must have never been any doubt that they’d found the right man for the job.

There’s plenty to love with the introduction of Ian Marter to the cast, too. Harry jumps right in to the action, suggesting that they should have someone on the inside at Think Tank (though it’s the Doctor who nudges the conversation towards sending Harry), and then turning up in full on ‘Steed’ gear, complete with bowler hat. There’s no other indication at this stage that he’ll become a regular companion for the rest of the season, as opposed to just being a one-off UNIT member, but it’s nice to see him getting involved in the action all the same. Elsewhere in UNIT, Benton has been promoted! I didn’t have a clue that this had happened at any point after him becoming Sergeant, but I love the idea that he receives a UNIT promotion every time there’s a new Doctor on the scene!

Doctor Who Magazine have sent DWO the cover and details for Issue 470 of DWM.

The new issue of Doctor Who Magazine is out now, and looks back on Matt Smith's four years as the Doctor.

"A big part of me wanted to stay because it’s a wonderful job and he’s a wonderful character. My life will never be the same. I’ll never play another part quite like this…"

Also in this issue:

-  Model-maker extraordinaire MIKE TUCKER and members of the Model Unit talk exclusively to DWM about creating the visual effects for Doctor Who in 1980s.
-  Doctor Who's new executive producer BRIAN MINCHIN writes exclusively for DWM in Production Notes.
-  A detailed look at the Fact of Fiction of 1980's Meglos.
-  The Blood of Azrael – the first part of a new comic strip adventure for the Doctor and Clara.
-  The Time Team welcome Donna aboard the TARDIS as they watch Partners in Crime
-  A preview of the recently rediscovered The Web of Fear on DVD.
-  A review of the newly released Moonbase DVD from Matthew Sweet.
-  Jacqueline Rayner debates the ethics of telling the truth to her children in Relative Dimensions.
-  The Watcher his favourite Doctor Who planets, and outs another helpless supporting artiste in Wotcha!.
-  Reviews of the latest DVDs, CDs and books.
-  Competitions, puzzles, and much more!

+  Doctor Who Magazine Issue #470 is out on Thursday 6th February, priced £4.99.

+  Subscribe Worldwide to DWM for just £85.00 via CompareTheDalek!

+  Check Out The DWO Guide to Doctor Who Magazine!

[Source: Doctor Who Magazine]

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 401: Robot, Episode One

Dear diary,

Last year, the BBC released a special DVD box set containing all of the regeneration stories. I bought a copy - despite having all of the stories in question on DVD anyway - because I liked the packaging. Simple as that. I’m a sucker for nice DVD packaging. Anyway, it’s a nice enough set, and I popped in the DVD of Tenth Planet Episode Four just to take a look at the animation, but since then it’s simply sat on the shelf and looked pretty. But I’ve always thought that it was a bit of a shame that it’s just the regeneration stories - because to me they’re only half the tale. The Tenth Planet certainly sees the First Doctor wearing a bit thin and then collapsing onto the floor of the TARDIS to change his face for the first time, but it’s the events that follow directly on in The Power of the Daleks that I found most interesting. Similarly, the opening of Spearhead From Space gives extra weight to the end of The War Games, because we get to see the Doctor in his new face, just as confused as the rest of us are.

I’ve seen Robot several times before now. I can distinctly recall the very first time I watched it - sat on a beach in Tunisia. It had just been released on DVD that Monday, so I copied the whole thing to my pre-iPad style device to take with me and enjoy in the sunshine. I’ve never really been able to get my head around sunbathing - it’s so boring! What are you supposed to do, just lie there? - so it was a good enough way to while away the hours. I’ve seen it two or three times since then, too, in whole or in part, but this is the first time that it’s ever really meant anything to me.

I’ve often thought of Robot as being a bit of a spare part from the Pertwee era - a leftover adventure with UNIT into which the new Doctor is shoehorned. I’ve also never really thought of it as being a particularly big threat to them - oh, sure, there’s the possibility of a nuclear war before the story is out, but it lacks the sheer scale of a dinosaur invasion of London, or The Green Death, or any of their earlier efforts. It feels like a rather low-key story, and that’s always left it a bit insignificant for me.

But now I’m seeing it in context, it’s clear that the story isn’t supposed to be particularly brilliant. Despite the title, these four episodes aren’t really about the robot, but rather about introducing us to the new Doctor while he’s surrounded by all his old friends. Everything with the robberies, Think Tank, Professor Kettlewell… it’s all just window dressing to allow Tom Baker an opportunity to bed himself in and find his feet in the role.

Thankfully, he doesn’t waste any time doing so. Right from the off, his energy is simply absorbing. The way he bounds around the UNIT lab without ever really touching any of the Third Doctor’s equipment is fab - Pertwee used to be fiddling with some gadget or gizmo, but this new incarnation has no interest in any of that. As he’ll go on to say later in his lifetime - he doesn’t work for anybody here, he’s just having fun. That really is the only way to describe the Doctor in his earliest post-regeneration madness. The look of sheer glee when he turns round and sets eyes on the TARDIS for the first time can’t help but raise a smile from anyone watching, too, and I think it’s probably the moment that you come to completely accept this new incarnation.

I love the way that he interacts with the Brigadier, too. Over the last few months, I’ve become very accustomed to the way that the Third Doctor interacted with what was effectively his boss, so it’s great to see the new guy being completely bored by the man. He doesn’t even really look at the Brig if he can help it, instead choosing to stare off into the middle distance somewhere and steer his companions into the right direction. He’s also go a real dry wit that doesn’t come across quite as forced as it sometimes did during the Pertwee years, and I found myself laughing out loud at a number of moments throughout the episode - all related to the Doctor.

I think what’s surprising me is how little time he’s actually spending with Sarah Jane - his actual companion. She’s the one who, early on, manages to call him back as he tries to escape in the TARDIS, but after that they seem to just go their separate ways. I know that their two stories will dovetail before Robot finishes, but here they don’t seem to have much care for each other. Sarah’s not even present when the Doctor chooses his new costume - that scene is left for the Brigadier. I’ve never noticed it before, but it does seem really odd to keep them so far apart for much of the story. I’m wondering if it’s because chinks of this story were filmed alongside Planet of the Spiders, so Lis Sladen is kept away from the rest of the cast on location as much as possible, to allow double-banked shooting? Whatever the reason, I’m hoping to see it rectified sooner rather than letter, because I want to settle in and watch how this pair develop their relationship in the early days of the new incarnation…

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 400 Extra: The Third Doctor Overview

Writing back in September of last year during my overview of the Second Doctor, I looked ahead to the five seasons that lay ahead of me in the marathon:

”And now it's onto the 1970s. I've made no secret as I've gone along that the next decade (and the Third Doctor's era in particular) has never been a favourite of mine, but I'm actually really excited to be moving on. I'm ready for the programme to do something different, and the success of stories like The Web of Fear and The Invasion have actually geared me up ready for the next massive change.”

I wondered at that point exactly what I’d be saying by now. Would I have had all my fears proved right and be writing about how awful the Pertwee years were? Would I be singing their praises from the heavens, after five seasons of straight 10/10 episodes? Would I even make it to this side of the era and still want to continue with watching and writing the Diary? In hindsight, the answer seems to be obvious. The Pertwee years of Doctor Who are just like any other period in its history - a mixed bag. There’s been some real stand out gems in the last twenty four stories, and one or two clunkers that I don’t plan on revisiting any time soon.

I think it helps that the era starts with Season Seven - one of the most perfect runs the programme has ever experienced. It’s not great surprise to me that three of the seasons four stories fall within the top seven from this era overall, and that it’s become one of my highest rated seasons, falling only marginally behind Season Five. Spearhead From Space spoils you as an introduction to the colour years of the programme, and the blu ray transfer is so beautiful. I’ve banged on enough over the last few months about how good this series would look shot entirely on film, but Season Seven does a good job of looking like one of those glossy ITC serials all on its own. It’s telling that the lowest rated story from that run - Ambassadors of Death, coming in not far from the bottom of the pile - is the one with the worst picture quality. I’m sure that were we able to get hold of a better copy, the story may fare better in my mind.

But then things took something of a drastic turn with the arrival of Jo and the Master in Season Eight, and we went from one of my highest rated seasons to my lowest rated one. With an average rating of 5.95, it’s the only season so far not to have hit at least an average of 6, and three of its stories occupy places in the bottom five from this era for me.

When I look back at the Pertwee years, I think of those middle three as being my lest favourites, but actually Season Ten manages to break free of that and average a rating of 7.21, among it my third favourite overall. Looking at the numbers, it’s certainly a golden period for the programme - The Monster of Peladon is the only story between The Three Doctors and the end of the era to not receive an 8/10 for its first episode (it managed only a ‘7’, but gained a ‘9’ later on in the tale). Season Eleven then experiences quite a drop off, pulling in an average of 6.76 - although I feel like I’ve enjoyed it more than any season since Pertwee’s first!

It’s funny how things like that happen to you as you watch though. Sometimes, hindsight isn’t completely accurate to the way that I felt at the time. For example, I look back at the Hartnell years as pretty enjoyable at the time, and especially the run through Season Three. Looking at the numbers, though, Hartnell is currently my lowest rated Doctor. Jon Pertwee comes in just fractionally ahead with an average rating of 6.63 (compared to Hartnell’s 6.54), while Troughton continues in the lead at 6.85.

On the whole, I have to admit that I’ve enjoyed this period of the programme far more than I was expecting to. I’d been actually dreading it, really not knowing what I’d do if I hit a brick wall and felt as though I just couldn’t continue on with the marathon. thankfully, that’s simply not happened, and I’ve come out of this era with a new appreciation for it. Are things perfect? Well, no, they’re not. Will I be hurrying to rematch lots of Pertwee stories as soon as the marathon is over? Well… no, I doubt that I will be. Have I found a number of stories that I’d like to rematch in the future, which I’d previously nave spared a second thought to? Absolutely.

And now I’m off into a bold new era. It’s a bit of a false start from tomorrow, because while Tom Baker is new to the mix, we’ve still got the same UNIT lab, with Bessie, and the Brig, and Barry Letts in the producer’s chair. It’s a few days from now, when The Ark in Space rolls around and Philip Hinchcliffe takes over the reigns that I’ll be entering the period that’s repeatedly held up as being ‘the best Doctor Who ever made’.

I’m not as against Tom as I was with Jon Pertwee, but I’ll admit here that I’ve never really understood the fuss. I’ve seen plenty of his stories before (including all of the ones in his first season), and while I know he’s very good in the role, I’ve never been completely floored by his performance in the way that people seem to expect you to be. But I’m excited. Watching through this far has given me a whole new perspective and insight into the first eleven years of the programme, and I’m sure I’ll keep finding things to love as I move into the Fourth Doctor’s era. 

Hold on tight, this is going to be a long stretch…

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 400: Planet of the Spiders, Episode Six

Dear diary,

How very fitting that the Fourth Doctor should be born on Day 400 of the diary. After all this time, I’ve finally made it through the Pertwee years - the era of Doctor Who that I was most dreading from this marathon. I’ll be writing up my thoughts on this early-70s period of the programme as a whole in another post, which you’ll find on the Doctor Who Online News Page today, too, but for now, let’s take a look at the Third Doctor’s final episode…

Well, it’s a blinder, isn’t it? There’s so much to love in here that I don’t really know where to start. Last night, I found myself reading the ‘daisies daisy’ speech from The Time Monster. I’ve known for years that the Doctor’s guru friend - spoken of in that story - turns up at the end of this one to help guide the Doctor through his regeneration, but it was purely by chance that I found myself looking at a transcript from that scene. I didn’t even really mention it at the time, and I can’t say I recall the speech making that much of an impact on me, but last night I suddenly realised just how beautiful it was. I even hunted down a clip (it’s on the BBC’s YouTube page) just to watch back and see if, like the Doctor with the daisy, I’d suddenly appreciate it all the more.

It’s certainly a good performance by Pertwee, but I can’t say it hit me particularly harder than it might have otherwise done. Really, it was the words that made an impact on me, and I’m really glad that I took the chance to read them again, because it ties so beautifully with the events in today’s episode. The Doctor’s slow realisation of who the old man sat before him really is gets played very well, and then their exchanges, as he guides the Doctor towards making the right choice simply by nudging him in the appropriate direction is lovely. It’s hard not to really enjoy his discovery that all of this is his own fault, and that he set his fate in stone some time ago, with his desire to visit Metebilis III and learn its secrets.

A big plot point of this exchange - and, indeed, this story as a whole - revolves around the fact that the Doctor actively went to the planet to steal one of these crystals, even if he didn’t think of it as theft at the time. I can’t recall wether, back in Season 10, the Doctor was actively desiring one of the stones (As far as I remember, he just really anted to see the blue planet), but it’s great that it’s been building up for so long. People complain these days about the way the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors have elements of their regenerations seeded in years in advance of them leaving the programme, but it’s been going on for a long old time.

Indeed, this is the first of what I think of as a modern regeneration. The first and, to some degree, second regenerations are played as something mysterious and scary, while this story has gone out of its way to reassure us that everything is ok, that the Doctor will be different, but still the same man. It even takes the trouble to show us another regeneration before the Doctor’s, just to ease us in to the process.

Thinking about it, this may be the most important regeneration of the entire classic series run. Hartnell’s regeneration was new, untested, and exciting, but it came at a point where the programme was still stretching the boundaries of what it could and couldn’t do. It was just the next unusual thing to take place in Doctor Who. By the time of Troughton’s departure, it was just something that the programme did. This time around, Pertwee has been the Doctor longer than any of his predecessors. While they all fall within a handful of episodes from each other, Pertwee has been the face of the programme for five whole years now, and that’s almost as long as the first two Doctors combined.

This is perhaps the first time that the young audience watching won’t be able to remember the last time the Doctor changed, and so it’s key that they ease you into it and reassure you. We even get a bit of a description from the Doctor, explaining to Sarah Jane how Time Lords are able to escape death. A similar tick is employed just before Christopher Eccleston regenerates - warning the viewers that a change is on the way, but not to worry about it, as it’s just something that happens.

We’re also seeing the first of the sad regenerations. Oh, sure, Troughton’s final episode isn’t all jolly romps, but the real ‘tug your heartstrings’ moments come earlier, when he’s saying goodbye to Jamie and Zoe. Here, the entire final scene is played as a very sad moment, and I have to admit that I even welled up a little! I’ve seen this scene plenty of times over the years. I think most fans have seen the regeneration scenes more times than any other bit of the programme - there are whole videos dedicated to them all on the web. While it’s always been quite downbeat, with Sarah’s brief ‘please, don’t die’ and the Doctor’s pained final words being cut off by his last breath, I’ve never really felt it before.

Coming at the end of this story, and specifically at the end of this episode, the scene packs a real punch. Pertwee’s been specifically made up to look a bit older and a bit more tired than he did when the story began, and you really feel his pain as he stumbles from the TARDIS and falls to the floor. I fully expected to be jumping with joy by the time I’d reached this stage. No more Jon Pertwee! Bliss! That was, of course, assuming that I’d even make it through his five seasons in the first place. Actually, I’ve rather enjoyed the experience.

And now, hopefully, I’m in for a real treat. Everyone raves about the Fourth Doctor, and as he fades into existence on the floor of the UNIT lab, I’m off on an exciting new adventure…

New Series Director, Ben Wheatley was recently interviewed for Science and Entertainment News site, io9, about the upcoming Eighth Series of Doctor Who, in which he describes it as "More like Classic Who".

Wheatley talks about the dark nature of the show and how Series 8 feels like it's going back to Doctor Who's darker roots:

"Oh yeah, Doctor Who is pretty dark, I think. Generally it's dark, it's always been dark. Even in the more modern ones. If you look at the Tom Baker stuff, it's especially dark. When he leaves Leela - who's a very beloved assistant - he just laughs after it. There's none of the [breaking down and crying]. He just laughs, and "on to the next one," you know. It's a bonkers show. It's a monster. To have a unity that runs eight years [of the new series]… it's pretty crazy.

They've done everything, they've tried all sorts of stuff. It seems to me the episodes that we're doing now seem more like classic Who. We're going back to that style. But you'll have to wait and see."

Wheatley also talks about Peter Capaldi's casting as The Doctor:

"With someone like Capaldi, he's a massive Who fan. He knows Who inside out. And everything he does is very, carefully planned and thought about. I remember when they first started talking to me about doing it, and I was very nervous for just those reasons. How do you shape this performance?

But then when I heard who was going to do it — when they told me it was Capaldi, [I thought] that's not really a problem. He's so good. I was relieved, pretty much. It would have been a very different situation if it had been another kind of Matt Smith character. A guy who you don't know. Molded from the start. But with Capaldi, you look at his career and you look at his performances they are all so brilliant, and all so different as well. It was a lucky break for me, I think that.

It was something I sought out. I got my agent to kind of badger them about doing, because I was a fan as a kid. But also because my kid was a fan of the show and I wanted to make something that he could see, for a change. That was it. And it's been very geeky indeed. Going into the TARDIS, I held the Sonic Screwdriver the other day, and that was a particular thrill. All sorts of stuff. Also stuff I can't talk about, that's been very, very exciting for me."

+  Series 8 of Doctor Who will air in August / Early September 2014.

[Source: io9]

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 399: Planet of the Spiders, Episode Five

Dear diary,

Sometimes, when you’ve spent so long watching Doctor Who, you think you’ve got it all figured out. I’ve watched an episode a day for the last 399 days, so I’ve seen my fair share of cliffhangers, and I know how they work. Peter Davison and Janet Fielding often talk about ‘cliffhanger acting’ when you reach the final sixty seconds of an episode, and so I’ve become used to seeing this in action throughout the last year or so. Now it’s become more fun to try and pinpoint where the cliffhanger is going to fall as early as you can before it occurs. Sometimes, this is easy. Other times, they throw in a rather ordinary-looking tiled floor and if I’d not known it was coming I’d have been left utterly confused.

Today, though, ah today was easy. Of course the cliffhanger is going to be the revelation that Sarah Jane has been possessed by the Queen Spider. It’s one of those images that you just know of when you’re a fan of the classic series - that shot of Sarah in the house, raising her arm and firing some blue energy from it. Truth be told, I’ve been waiting all story for her to get possessed, and I didn’t think that it was going to come quite this late into events. But now, Lis Sladen is acting slightly out of character. She’s struck a deal with the Queen which allows her and the Doctor to escape really easily, and then she’s that bit too eager to get away and find the crystal. The tension’s ramping up, the final few seconds are approaching… Here comes the cliffhanger… Sarah Jane is under the control of… Oh.

So 399 days in, you can still be wrong-footed. That’s half the fun. I’d already got a vague idea of what I wanted to talk about today, and it really does hinge on the fact that Sarah is currently operating under spider control. I thought that the cliffhanger would be that wonderful shot of her shooting out the energy, and then the credits would roll while I typed away into the night. We can’t all be perfect, but since she’s so clearly under the Queen’s power, and because tomorrow probably has a number of other things that I’ll want to talk about, I’m going to stick to my planned discussion topic for the day: the return of the Metebilis Spiders for The Sarah Jane Adventures.

You see, the more that I think about it while watching this story, the more I really wish that they had returned to launch an attack against Bannerman Road while Sarah Jane was in residence. A few summers ago, I met Gary Russell in Cardiff Bay to have a long chat about Sarah Jane and his relationship with both the character and Lis Sladen over the years. I was conducting interviews for a planned Sarah Jane Adventures fanzine, although the project eventually stalled. During our chat, he mentioned that they’d planned at one point to bring the spiders back during the programme’s fourth season, but that it just hadn’t worked out.

I was fascinated. I’d never even considered the idea of the spiders coming back to haunt her (having never seen this story, they weren’t high on my list for a potential revisit). A few days later, Panini released the third volume of their Sarah Jane Companion magazine, which contained breakdowns of several stories that were planned for the series but which never made it off the ground. I can still remember sitting on the train back from Cardiff, opening up the magazine and staring down at the image of a giant spider menacing Sarah Jane! Adrian Salmon’s artwork has always been a favourite, and his drawing of a spider in Bannerman Road’s basement actually does freak me out a little.

The special presents a few different versions of the spiders’ return, in story outlines from Gary Russell, and then Gareth Roberts & Clayton Hickman. Both outlines share elements, such as Sarah Jane stealing crystals and equipment from the Pharos Institute and preparing a machine which will enlarge near-by spiders. In one version of the draft, the whole reason that Sarah Jane came to Bannerman Road was because the spiders guided her there without her even realising it. Despite several versions of the story being planned, the idea was eventually dropped when the team decided that it wasn’t right.

During our chat, Gary told me “There was no way to make that story work with the spiders, and I was so relieved! I’d been so convinced that I had failed on every level, that I couldn’t do this story that Russell wanted, but I was over-the-moon that someone like Gareth could say ‘No, it just doesn’t work.’ But then they went off and wrote Goodbye, Sarah Jane Smith to replace it, which is such a brilliant story.”

At the time, having not seen Planet of the Spiders, I suggested to Gary that they were more the Third Doctor’s monsters than they were Sarah Jane’s. Having actually seen the early stages of her possession by the Queen, I think I’m starting to doubt myself on that point, but all the same, Gary explained: “Spiders are good, though. They’re really good for kids. Scare kids with spiders - it’s always a good idea! It was an early discussion, a very early discussion, when we were planning Series Four, and ‘Giant Spiders’ was the first thing that went up on the board.”

Later in our conversation Gary described planned references to the Mandragora Helix in Secrets of the Stars as being “A really good line for all of us [fans],” though he told me that “If you put that into the second series of Sarah Jane, you’re telling your six-year-old audience that they’re missing something by not seeing a programme made thirty years before they were born. It’s not just like slapping a big, visual monster in. But we didn’t sit there all ‘let’s bring the Wirrn back!’ - just no! Spiders were genuinely the only thing that we came up with. Because they’re spiders, you could have all these continuity references to Metebilis III, because it didn’t need explaining to the kids - there’s a bloody big giant spider! That’s all they need!”

Although the story outlines sound great (and that team would have made them look fantastic!), I think that I can see why they chose not to go with the creatures. In the magazine, Russell T Davies explains that he was cautious of diminishing the spider’s effects - “Those things killed the Third Doctor! Even he couldn’t defeat them, he had to let the Great One destroy herself. So to take creatures that powerful and yet have them defeated in good old Ealing…” It has to be said that I can see his point. There’s a scene in today’s episode where the Great One - unseen off stage, simply as a voice that echoes through the cavern - mentally forces the Doctor to walk around in a circle. Oh, sure, when you write that down it sounds a bit silly, but as a moment in the story it’s actually terrifying. While we’re used to seeing the Doctor lose at some point during a story before he pulls it all back together again, we don’t often see him so totally helpless, fighting against a force which he just can’t resist. Forget the giant spiders - this is the scariest thing in this story.

In all, as much as I’d have loved to see them make a return having finally seen this story, I think I’m in agreement with the ides that it just wouldn’t have been right to reduce them to a spin-off. Plus, from a slightly more wimpish position, can you imagine how well they could have done the spiders for a modern episode? I don’t know if they’d have gone with practical models or CGI (On the one hand, The Sarah Jane Adventures’  budget wouldn’t stretch to CGI on that scale, but surely they must have some 3D spider models in the computer somewhere?), but either way, I have a feeling that they’d be more off-putting than the ones in the original tale!

Following the recent success of their Doctor Who Coins, New Zealand Mint are releasing a new five-coin series featuring Doctor Who Monsters.

The Doctor Who Monsters series is a limited mintage of 5000 coins only per release, and is crafted from ½ Ounce of fine silver (0.999). Each coin is sold with an individual presentation case, along with an individually numbered certificate of authenticity. Like recent releases, the coins will be issued under the licensing authority of Niue.

New Zealand Mint showcased this series at the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Celebration in London last November, and so it is exciting to now see the final product ready to ship. 

As a special value add for customers who purchase from their website, New Zealand Mint have reserved a block of the low certificate numbers in the series, numbers 50-999. These will be exclusively for their retail customers.

In addition, everyone who purchases the Dalek coin will have the opportunity to receive identically numbered certificates for each further release in the series, i.e if you get Dalek coin number 179, then you can also have number 179 of the next coin, and the next e.t.c.

Link: http://www.nzmint.com/coins/shop-online/doctor-who-monsters-daleks

[Source: New Zealand Mint]

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 398: Planet of the Spiders, Episode Four

Dear diary,

While, as we discovered the other day, the vast majority of the guest cast in Planet of the Spiders is made up of Pertwee-era veterans, I think the standout performance has to be from newcomer John Kane, in the part of Tommy. He’s been great to watch since as far back as the first episode, and when I’ve mentioned this story to people over the last few days, several of them have said how much they love the character.

It’s a very strong performance, and one which is very sympathetic. It’s a role which is quite rare within Doctor Who, and a subject such as learning difficulties could be potentially a very dangerous area for the programme. It’s hard not to fall in love with Tommy right from the off, though, and I’m really intrigued by how well his character has been woven into events. We’re given a few episodes being shown how much he loves to collect ‘beautiful’ things, and the point is highlighted when both Sarah and Mike give him gifts for his collection. It therefore feels perfectly natural when he becomes obsessed by the Metebilis crystal and takes it for himself.

Even today is nicely led up to - with him being unable to read the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on the door and then returning to his little cupboard room to read his children’s book. Once he’s looked into the crystal and had his mind changed, it really is a lovely shift in performance, and I’m very impressed by how subtly it’s all been handled. Watching him stock up on books in the library is a lovely touch, and I really can’t wait to see where we go with the character from here.

I’m finding myself less concerned with all the events on Metebilis III. There’s something about the sheer 1970’s-ness of the two-legs that I’m finding really distracting. The fact that I’ve been catching up with a few episodes of The New Avengers lately means that Gareth Hunt is really standing out for me. It’s not what you’d call an understated look, is it?!

That said, I really am enjoying the background to the planet being filled in. I said yesterday that the idea of a crashed spaceship leading to a more ‘historical’ society was so ubiquitous in 1970s Doctor Who that it could fail to hold my interest, but actually they’re doing something really interesting with it. I love the idea that the spiders have come from Earth alongside the colonists, and it’s not something I ever realised about the creatures. It’s such a lovely idea, and that we should find out about the crystals’ special powers at exactly the same time we see them put to work with Tommy is rather well done.

My only question now… if the spiders fled to the mountains where the blue crystals enlarged both their minds and bodies, then am I to assume the same thing happened to that giant chicken that attacked the Doctor during his last visit in The Green Death? I think the whole story might lose some impact if it were a race of super intelligent giant poultry trying to take control…

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 397: Planet of the Spiders, Episode Three

Dear diary,

Fair warning to those of you out there who - like me - aren’t all that fond of spiders. Today, I’ll be examining what made me scared of spiders, and there’s a few anecdotes about them involved. The first five paragraphs of today’s entry are solely confined to the story itself, but after that, I’m a bit ‘off-book’…

It shows how little I know about this story that I didn’t realise the Doctor or Sarah Jane spent any time with the ‘two-legs’ on Metebilis III. I knew that the Doctor wound up on the planet at some point (that image of him stood before the huge Queen Spider is another of those well-known ones, and in case I was in any doubt, it’s replicated on the DVD discs), but I assumed that he just took the TARDIS right to the… spider cave? Centre of the web! (Hah!)

I’m not quite sure how I feel about this strange race of primitives that occupy the surface of the planet, or indeed, what I make of the planet’s surface. The implication from The Green Death and the way the Doctor speaks of it during Carnival of Monsters, I’d always assumed that the rock of the planet was simply blue, thus making it ‘the famous blue planet’. Here, we’re told that it looks blue in the moonlight, but the rest of the time it just looks a bit like a dodgy CSO Utah.

And yet, I am keen on the idea that the spiders are treating humans as a kind of slave race. It’s good to see that they’re used to this kind of relationship with us two-legs, and it informs a lot of the way they act during their exchanges with Lupton back on Earth. I get the impression from a few lines of dialogue about travelling in spaceships the way their ancestors did, that this will be one of those typical 1970s Doctor Who plots, in which they’re the decedents of a human space mission, several generations on. Similar ideas come into play during stories from The Face of Evil to The State of Decay, but in those instances, I’m pretty sure that it’s supposed to come as a surprise to the primitive society, whereas here they’re fully aware of this fact.

Today, we get our first opportunity for a really good look at the eight-legged-enemies in this story. We’ve had a single spider knocking around since the cliffhanger to the first episode, but she’s spent much of her time invisible up to now. Here, we get to see a whole room full of the creatures for the first time. On the one hand, I’m not scared by the sight of it in the way I thought I may have been (I vaguely knew the design of the set from a model in an episode of Blue Peter), but on the other hand, the models are very well done.

I’d say that the problem is how static they all are. During the ‘conference’ scene, in which a floating ‘holographic’ Lupton head converses with the council of spiders, only one of the models is capable of movement, but it’s by far the most effective model in the room. The way it wiggles and moves is very convincing, and - yes - even a little un-nerving. Later, when the spider on Earth is caught in a battle of the wills with her captive mind, the way the model writhes in pain is very effective. And yet, when that same model is required to sit perfectly still a foot or so from a doorway… it’s perhaps the most effective that it’s ever been. I think it’s because I can sympathise with the idea of having to edge my way around a particularly large spider to get out of the room, and I was thinking how much I’d have not wanted to be acting with that prop!

I think I’m going to have to admit… the story has given me a nightmare. I think it’s the first time that this has ever happened to me through Doctor Who. In fairness, it’s not directly related to the story, it was just vaguely spider-related. Last night in bed, for the first time in a few years, I recalled an encounter with a spider that I had when I was very young. Truth be told, I’m almost entirely convinced these days that it wasn’t even a real event in the first place, but rather a nightmare that I had when quite young that has just lived on as a memory in my head.

In this ‘memory’, my parents are away on holiday and I’m staying with my grandparents. Growing up, we lived on this farm out in Norfolk. I lived with mum and dad in the farmhouse, while my grandma and grandpa lived in a converted barn across the yard - literally thirty seconds between the two doors. Mum and nan still live there, although both dad and my grandpas have since passed away. Anyway, I must have been about four or five years old, and I can remember my grandmother taking me over to the farmhouse to get something I needed. Probably a toy or something. I can vaguely recall seeing something unusual as we entered the kitchen, but thinking nothing of it, but then on the way back out of the house, I noticed it clinging to the wall about four feet from the ground - the biggest spider that I’d ever seen.

You see, this is why, over the years, I’ve started to doubt my own recollection of the event, and wonder if it may have all been a nightmare some twenty years ago. Because to this day, I can clearly recall what this spider looked like. I was about ten inches across, and had a body… in the shape of a jelly mold. You know the kind: three-tier, getting smaller towards the top. I can distinctly remember that being the shape of the creature, but it wasn’t until many years later that I realised that - realistically - spiders just don’t come in that shape. Suffice to say, my grandmother has no memory of the event, and you wouldn’t forget a big, jelly-shaped spider in a hurry.

A few years ago, my good friend Nick Mellish and I wrote a book, in which we listened to all of the Eighth Doctor’s audio adventures in order from the beginning. Before staring work on The 50 Year Diary, it was the only Doctor Who marathon I’d ever undertaken. The finale to the Eighth Doctor’s third series of adventures with Lucie Miller is a direct sequel to Planet of the Spiders, and during the audio I shared the above spider memory with Nick. He then admitted that he, too, had a rather horrible memory which left him scared of the creatures:

”When I was around four-years-old, a large, big-legged, fat spider fell off the ceiling in my bedroom, onto my face. I was terrified, screamed, and fled the room. I ran to my parents' bedroom, in tears, and spent the night there. The following day, I was still too scared to return to my bedroom. My Mum told me that it was clearly a nightmare and that spiders don't do things like fall onto people's faces, so she bravely went into my bedroom and pulled back the duvet… to reveal the large, big-legged, fat spider. I can still hear her scream now in my ears; I think it was the first time I'd ever seen one of my parents vulnerable"

With all these various spider fears around, I’ve simply had no real desire to ever check out this story (though ,admittedly, I loved the audio sequel to this story. Well worth checking out!), but I’ve always been vaguely aware of what the spiders look like. I’m not sure when I first saw them, but I know I was testing myself. I was so relieved to find that - in pictures, at least - they looked clearly enough like models that I wouldn’t be scared by them. When the DVD came out, I can remember seeing a few clips posted around here and there (we used to play the new Who releases on a loop in the shop I worked in at the time, so I caught snippets now and then), and while they still didn’t freak me out, I really had no desire to check them out any further.

What really put me off, though was the original design of the Queen Spider. I think there’s only the one image of it floating around out there now, of the model set up in the visual effects department at the BBC, but it terrified me. The only way I can think of to describe it is in the same way I’d described the Mirkwood spiders in the Hobbit concept art - ‘rough’. It looked scary, and a bit ‘butch’ (as as much as a spider can look butch) and it really, really, scared me. It’s probably grown and evolved in my head over the years to the point that I don’t really want to even go and find the image to link to in this entry. Chances are that it’s actually not all that more scary than the ones which have made the final version of the story, but It freaked me out enough at the time, and I could easily see why Barry Letts decided that they needed to be toned down before they could be broadcast..

Oh! And there you go! I’ve just been mentioning to my mother on the phone that I’m watching a Doctor Who story called Planet of the Spiders. She commented that I must be loving it before pointing out that ‘it was your grandmother that made you scared of them’. Now, this isn’t the grandmother I’ve mentioned above, it’s my other grandmother. As mum told me the story, I could actually remember it - every fragment of the tale coming back to me a few seconds before mum recounted it.

I’ll not bore you with all the details, but it boils down to this: Until very recently, my other grandmother lived in an old house which was - for all intents and purposes - right in the middle of the woods. The only house for miles around, and falling down from a lack of repair since its construction several hundred years before. The house was made of flint and other stone, and I can always remember it being cold.

There was only one shower in the house itself, but it was quite a recent addition (I say ‘recent’, it would have been put in about thirty years ago, but this story does take place when I was very young!). Before that, they used to use an old shower in the little outhouses. I never used to like that shower. It was old and rusty, and it was a bit scary, in the way that children’s minds make strange old things like that scary. I can remember my grandmother used to use it as a way of keeping my behaviour good when I went to stay: ‘be a good boy, or you’ll have to use the outside shower tonight…’

One time, my grandmother told me about why they’d decided to get the shower installed inside the house. She told me that the outside one used to draw its water directly from the well (I remember always thinking that this was strange, but the new owners of the house are dismayed to find that there’s no mains water and it all comes from the well - so maybe that was the one bit of the story I should have believed!) and sometimes you’d get bugs come through in the water.

This one day, she went to take a shower, and only a few drips came out. She tried knocking the pipes to remove any blockages, but nothing happened. And then, it started to make a noise as things began to move. She looked up at the shower head… just in time for a shower of tiny spiders to come raining down all over her.

This story used to terrify me as a child. it’s no wonder I’d managed to pretty much block it out! No quirky jelly-shaped arachnids in this nightmare! Anyway, I look forward to going into tomorrow’s episode with this image now firmly re-established in my mind…!

Last summer, Doctor Who Online asked you to submit your ratings for all the televised Doctor Who stories from An Unearthly Child to The Name of the Doctor, and you responded in droves! We received hundreds of voting forms, and now we’re pleased to reveal the results.

Below, you’ll find all 239 stories ranked by their placement in the poll. Entrants were asked to rank the stories between ‘1/10’ and ’10/10’. From there, we worked out the average score for each story to present a guide to the way people saw the series in 2013. The lists below also contain - where relevant - the previous score achieved by the story during the 2009 ‘Mighty 200’ poll in Doctor Who Magazine, so you can see how much opinion of these stories has altered in the last four years. Obviously, we asked you to rate almost the entire Matt Smith era, too, which wasn’t around during that previous poll.

You’ll also find some commentary for each of the sections, pointing out anything that you may find interesting about the results. While you’re likely to find some of more common answers hanging around at the polar ends of the scale, you may well be surprised by some of the placements… 

The bottom ten is made up of stories which aren’t likely to come as a surprise to many readers - sadly unloved tales such as The Twin Dilemma and Time-Flight were always going to come in with lower scores! 

More of a surprise might be the appearance of a Tenth Doctor story taking the lowest spot - with 2006’s Fear Her pulling in an average score of just 40.11%, down massively from almost 49% four years previously!

On the whole, there’s been a decrease in popularity for most stories. 144 adventures received a lower average score this time compared to 2009, while only 56 managed to improve upon their earlier result. That said, the voters of 2013 were generally more favourable towards the programme - no story rated below 40%, whereas in 2009 The Twin Dilemma scraped the barrel with 38.44%

The rest of the bottom 40 is packed out with the lowest ranking stories for every Doctor bar the Eighth - who only appears once on the poll in The TV Movie. 

(The lowest-rating stories for the other ten Doctors were;The Smugglers, The Space Pirates, The Time Monster, Underworld, Time-Flight, The Twin Dilemma, Time and the Rani, Boom Town, Fear Her, and The Rings of Akhaten)

The results for stories 199 - 150 contain a mixture of stories that - while not entirely unloved - rarely appear high on people’s lists of favourite stories. Tales such as 1989’s Battlefield, 2010’s Victory of the Daleks, and 1967’s The Wheel in Space all find themselves confined to these middle-grounds of the results table.

Interestingly, 1967’s The Enemy of the World finds itself placed at number 191. The poll was conducted before its recovery to the BBC was widely known, and long before Doctor Who fans were able to watch the story for the first time in 45 years. All of us at Doctor Who Online are keen to see how that story might place now that it’s complete and back in the archives!

Another lost classic, 1964’s Marco Polo has seen a significant drop in its approval rating since 2009 - tumbling almost 15% to place at just 184 on our poll (in 2009’s ‘Mighty 200’ listings, it was at a much more healthy 65th place). We wonder if this story’s fortunes may take a turn for the better were it to appear back in the archives sometime soon?

Just missing out on a spot in the top 100 Doctor Who stories of all time are a number of stories which seem to generate no strong emotions at all. 1976’s The Android Invasion, 2005’s The End of the World, 1988’s The Greatest Show in the Galaxy, and 1965’s The Chase never seem to draw much negative opinion, but they don’t seem to court a lot of positive reactions either. 

The Eighth Doctor’s single full-length TV outing finds itself sat at number 144, placing it just inside the lower half of all stories, while the very first Doctor Who story - 1963’s An Unearthly Child - just manages to slip into the upper half, sitting comfortably at number 112.

As we move into the top 100 stories, we’re still in a land defined by those so-so tales which never seem to attract a great deal of fuss. The final story of Doctor Who’s original 1963-1989 run, Survival, sits at number 76… making it only one place higher than the first story of the 21st century revival Rose, coming in at number 77.

2013’s The Bells of St John is the lowest-placing appearance of The Great Intelligence on our list at number 84, though the creature’s first appearance also falls within this section of the poll, with 1967’s The Abominable Snowmen falling at number 68, and its return to the programme in 2012’s The Snowmen coming in slightly higher in position 54. 

Another 1960’s creation - The Ice Warriors - find four of their five stories confined to this period of the list with their 1969 appearance in The Seeds of Death being rated as their best adventure, and placing at number 78. 1967’s The Ice Warriors doesn't fall far behind (number 80), with the first of their two 1970’s adventures on Peladon coming in at number 81. Their 2013 return to the series in Cold War rates slightly lower at number 95, while their second outing in the Citadel on Peladon lags way behind at number 217.

Entering the top 50 means that we’re starting to see some familiar names cropping up - stories which are considered to be among the very best that Doctor Who has to offer. 1976’s The Brain of Morbius, 1970’s Inferno, 1988’s Remembrance of the Daleks, and2006’s The Girl in the Fireplace have long geld their position as ‘fan favourites’, and defend that status well here.

We’re also seeing the Eleventh Doctor rating rarely well here, too, with the two highest new entries to the list coming in at numbers 16 and 15 - representing The Name of the Doctor (2013) and 2010’s debut for the character The Eleventh Hour. 

Also missing from the 2009 poll were the Tenth Doctor’s final two adventures, and both of these stories take their places here, with The Waters of Mars gaining a respectable place at number 30, and the Tenth Doctor’s regeneration story - The End of Time - coming in at number 41.

Last but not least, we’ve reached the final nine - those stories which are considered to be the absolute pinnacle of Doctor Who. 

The list is likely no surprise to fans who remember the ‘Mighty 200’ poll, and several stories crop up here which also graced the top spots back then. 1977’s The Robots of Death, 1984’s The Caves of Androzani, and 1975’s Genesis of the Daleks are always considered to be winners, but it’s 2007’s Blink which takes the number one position, pulling in a massive 92.81%.

In one of those perfectly neat little Doctor Who moments, this means that you’ve voted the Tenth Doctor into both the top and bottom places on the poll - there’s a neat kind of symmetry to that! 

We want to thank everyone for voting - it's been really fun to see all the results come in as stories jostled for their positions. The top spot seemed to be on a rotation every day, with each of the top five stories occupying the position at some point before the final list settled into place. Over all, though more stories have dropped in popularity than grown, the scores on average are slightly higher than they were for the 2009 poll, with both the lowest and highest rated stories sporting a higher score than they previously held - we love Doctor Who now more than ever!

[Source: Doctor Who Online]

Will there be a new favourite Doctor Who story in time for the programme’s 50th Anniversary? There’s only one way to find out - get voting!