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

Day 666: Revelation of the Daleks, Episode One

Dear diary,

This is more the relationship that I like to see between the Doctor and Peri. Yes, they're poking fun at each other's weight and having a bit of a bicker, but it comes across more as good-natured joking around than anything malicious. I think it's clearest when the pair are trying to scale the wall into Tranquil Repose, and the Doctor makes a point of saying he may not be able to lift Peri, considering how much she weighs. She then calls him 'porky' in response. It feels perhaps more natural to a real friendship, where you might joke around and call each other names, and I think I quite like that. I could have done without all the innuendo with the Doctor's fob watch, though! This is the last story in which the Doctor is given his very 'rough' persona, before it all gets toned down a bit for Trial of a Time Lord. On the whole, I've enjoyed the concept of having a less-likeable Doctor, but I think they did mis-step a little bit in first giving him four episodes at the end of the previous season (leaving the audience nine months before the next one to muse on the fact that they don't like the new Doctor), and in planning to soften him across his entire era - I think we needed to see more of this incarnation's softer side as this season wore on, just to reassure us that he's the same Doctor underneath it all.

This is also the last story to feature 45-minute episodes during the 'classic' run of the programme. Again, I think it can be a good idea - the 21st century series has shown that - but the production team at this point just haven't quite known what to do with them. In the making of documentary on the Attack of the Cybermen DVD, Eric Saward comments that he liked the 45-minute format because it allowed you longer to really flesh out your characters, but I don't think many of the writers have really done that! Robert Holmes has still been the master with The Two Doctors, and even Saward himself is doing a better job than usual of populating his world in this story (though here perhaps more than ever, you can see him trying to emulate Holmes' style), but I think episodes have largely felt a bit clunky this season. It was most highlighted in Timelash, when the episodes just dragged on-and-on, well past the point when I would have comfortably have liked a break from them. I'm almost wondering if I might watch that story again at some point with the international-style cliffhangers reinserted to make it four episodes - it could fare better!

Thankfully, there's a lot more to like in today's episode than there was in the last few. I really wasn't sure what I'd make of this story - it's been so long since I've seen it that I couldn't remember a great deal. I think I quite like it, with plenty of action going on to keep me interested, and I almost like the fact that the Doctor and Peri don't actually get involved with the main plot at all in this first half. I'd worried that it would feel like it was taking the mick too much, but it's allowed the cast of guest characters to firmly establish themselves before our regulars arrive. I'm looking forward to seeing what it's like once the two worlds collide - I don't think we've ever had so much time setting up the guest cast before the Doctor or his companion meets them, have we?

Perhaps the one slight disappointment that I've got about it is the way the Daleks have been used. We're introduced to their part in the narrative without any fanfare - we simply cut right to some of them in Davros' lair. I know I used to joke about the fact that the 'Episode One Cliffhanger' would be the pepper pots turning up, even though we know they're in it from the title, but I sort of want a bit more of a song and dance made of them. The best Dalek moment in the entire episode, for instance, is as we watch the Doctor and Peri walking off down a large ramp into the complex, and suddenly behind them, right up close to the camera, a Dalek whizzes by. That's actually scary. If we hadn't seen the Daleks in the story yet - and if you didn't know that they were in it - I think that would be a real 'heart skips a beat moment'.

It would also be helped by the fact that we've got Daleks in this episode quite unlike the ones we're use to. Back in Day of the Daleks, I complained that in the colour-era stories, the Daleks always looked a bit rubbish. They're tatty, and broken. The different props have been mixed and matched and put together wrong, so they don't fit. The paint work has been touched up in dribs and drabs, where you can still see the wet patches, and they're that dull grey colour. It worked well for the bleak Genesis of the Daleks, but they just don't have the flair or style of the 1960s versions. But here! Oh! They're white and gold! They're brand new, and I've always loved this colour scheme on them. It adds to the moment when one glides past the camera, because you're almost not quite sure. It looked like a Dalek, but could it be…?

This episode is also home to the glass Dalek, and it's - you've guessed it - another image that's been seared on my brain from reading Doctor Who: The Legend years and years ago, before I saw this tale. There's something so wonderful about the idea, and I love the way it's been lit, sat up on its little platform. Beautiful. I'm sure that a similar creature appears in Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks, and it's no wonder that it's made the jump from page to screen, because it's such a beautiful visual concept.

While I'm on the subject of visuals - how lucky were they to have been hit by so much snow during the filming of this one? That opening shot of the TARDIS arriving on the bank of a river, with the snow being blown around by the wind, and the winter sun sitting in the sky… oh, it's beautiful. As the Doctor and Peri explore, you can't help but think that there really is something a bit alien about all of this, and it seems so perfectly suited to a story that's so steeped in the tones of death. I can't help but think that had they filmed this simply on a regular wet autumn day, it would have looked pants.

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

Day 665: Timelash, Episode Two

Dear diary,

I don't know if I'm just in a more forgiving mood today, but this episode has been much more enjoyable than the first one was. Even some of the sets that seemed ridiculously bland yesterday have grown on me - and I rather like the light design on the wall of the Council Chamber! Not all the decor is to my tastes, though - the mural of the Third Doctor I could do without. It just seems far too much a fan-pleasing exercise than a good idea…

If I'm being honest - there's lots that I've enjoyed in this episode, but I think the whole is a great deal less than the sum of its parts. Lots of the things that I've liked don't really bare talking about at any length, so among them are the android's voices (and the way that they seem to be so at odds with the stature and shape of the creatures), The Timelash itself (I know it looks a bit rubbish, but an image of Colin being lowered down it on a rope is another one that captivated me as a young fan, seeing it for the first time), the cell that Peri is chained up in very briefly (possibly the best set in the entire story - a great design that wouldn't feel out of place in a German Expressionist film), and the smug look that Colin has on his face when he's ten seconds in the future and gets to push people; he science is nonsense, even by Doctor Who standards, but he just looks so pleased about it.

There's two things in today's episode that really are worth mentioning separately. The first is the make up on the Borad. Let's be honest, it's some of the best make up in all of Doctor Who, from 1963 right up to now. It's a great design, it's been well applied… yeah, it's hard not to like. I think I'd go as far as to say that it's the best thing in the entire story, and it's sort of a shame that it's let down by everything else around it - make up like this would still be the best thing in a fairly good story, so why waste it here!

The other thing I've loved… Herbert! Haha! I've never noticed before, but you wait nineteen years for a real-life historical figure to put in an appearance (the last such instance was right back in 1966 and The Gunfighters), and then you get two in one season! After George Stevenson, we've not got H. G. Wells, too. And you know what? I rather like the way that he's been used in this story - usually, we go in to them knowing who our famous 'historical celebrity' is going to be, but this time it comes as a surprise reveal in the final few minutes. There's loads of allusions to Wells' work throughout Timelash, but I'm not overly familiar with his stories, so I can't claim to have picked up on them all.

I just think that Herbert works ridiculously well with Colin's Doctor, and he's even become another one of those characters that I'd love to see return in an audio adventure some time - putting him up there with the likes of Duggan! I laughed out loud ridiculously hard when the Doctor has forcibly removed Peri from the TARDIS, only to take off and be confronted with Herbert. There's something about the way that they exchange 'hello' before getting in to everything! I love the scene in the first episode, too, where Herbert comes wandering out from the TARDIS corridors to explain that the ship is bigger on the inside… and the Doctor simply replies 'I know!'

Sadly, Herbert getting on so well with the Doctor comes at a price - he's especially awful to Peri in this story. Their relationship has never been quite as pleasant as, say either the Third or Fourth Doctor with Sarah Jane, or the Second Doctor with Zoe, but it's felt in the last couple of stories that they've settled into a groove where they bicker and argue, before they hug and make up, and simply love being with each other. In Timelash, he's perhaps worse to her than at any other time (even when trying to kill her!), and that's also put me off the story just a bit.

Sorry, Timelash, but great make-up and Herbert just isn't enough to stop you from becoming my lowest-rated story.

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

Day 664: Timelash, Episode One

Dear diary,

Although I try to keep an open mind about every story in this marathon as I reach it, I have to admit that I've been dreading this one. Unlike, say, Underworld, which had a bad reputation, but I'd never judged for myself, or The Twin Dilemma, which I'd enjoyed in spite of such an awful reputation, Timelash is a story that I can remember coming away from on a previous viewing and actively thinking that it had a well-deserved reputation for being rubbish. Ever since, it's existed on my list of 'stories I don't plan to watch again'. Now, this isn't the first time in this marathon where I've come across such a story, and it can usually swing wildly in one direction or the other - I'll either come away loving it because it's better than I'm expecting, or I'll hate it even more because I've spent the last few days being so sure that I would. Sadly… I think we're falling in to the later of those two categories.

Something that's been becoming more and more prevalent this season is that the Doctor and Peri spend such a long time in the TARDIS. In this episode, they don't make it out of the ship until something like 23 minutes through - in 'old money', that would mean the entire first episode stuck in there! It's a trend that's been steadily growing for a while now (especially through the last two seasons, but it started as far back as Season Eighteen), and I think I'm just a bit bored of it. There was a time, when I was quite a new fan of Doctor Who, when the more time spent inside the TARDIS, the better the episode was - I was absolutely fascinated by it, and loved a chance to just look at the console room. Now, I'm not so sure. I'm also not keen on the way that the TARDIS is being set up this season.

Put simply, it no longer feels like a powerful time and space machine in the way that it did right back at the start of the programme, and it's all down to the way it's being treated. In Vengeance on Varos, when the Doctor retires to muse on the rest of eternity being spent in a dying ship, he sits on a garishly 1980s chair, that just happens to be plonked in the console room, away from anything else! It doesn't feel as though it's part of this console room at all (and neither, for that matter, does the entirely different chair which occupies a similar spot in The Twin Dilemma). Way back when, the TARDIS console room used to contain a little wooden chair, and various other odds and ends like that, but they somehow seemed to fit in perfectly with this strange place inside the police box. During the events of The Edge of Destruction, for example, the chair Barbara has to slump in doesn't feel incongruous, it simply feels natural that it should be there. I think the fact that the TARDIS is now less a collection of different elements - different attempts at making roundel walls, and fault locators, and ceiling lights - and more of a white void, coupled with the fact that the chair is so dated by being made in the mid-1980s, really does harm it.

In today's episode, it's the sudden appearance of straps being used like seat belts which feels out of place. When the Second Doctor gets up from regeneration and starts rummaging through a chest in the TARDIS console room, pulling out knives and cloaks and mirrors, it somehow feels natural. Similarly, when the Tenth Doctor does the same in The Unicorn and the Wasp, I'm somehow able to suspend my belief for long enough to just accept it. Here, though, it simply feels odd, and completely out-of-place with the set. If anything, it comes across as an excuse to pad out the running time a little (and I think I'm right in saying that the second episode, at least, did need some padding out with extra TARDIS scenes, so I may not be that far off the mark…!)

All that said… maybe they're better off being stuck inside the TARDIS, because the set design on Karfel leaves plenty to be desired. I get the impression that they're going for a kind of totalitarian minimalism effect - all blank walls and very little to inspire the people - but it just comes across as looking bland. Note how much more interesting it all looks, and how much my attention picked up, when we go in to the… I don't know, 'power chamber'? Suddenly, the lights are down, and they're trying something interesting with the colours. The sets aren't just flat blank walls, but rather there's some detail to them. Even the bland costumes look rather nice when there's some shadow to them!

I've little else to add, really, because Timelash simply isn't inspiring me to talk about it all that much! I'm in the sorry position of simply wanting to get tomorrow's episode over with, so I can move on to something that's hopefully a little bit better…

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

Day 663: The Two Doctors, Episode Three

Dear diary,

The one part of this story that I've never been very keen on is the Second Doctor's transformation in to an Androgum. It's always just felt a bit odd, and seemed like such a strange thing to do to Patrick Troughton - surely if you'd got the Second Doctor back for one story, you'd want to spend as much time as possible with him simply being the Doctor? Watching it this time, though, I suddenly 'get' it - Patrick Troughton is absolutely relishing the part, and I dare say that he's giving a better performance as an Androgum than he is as the Doctor! He's really going for it, and I can't help but love that!

It's nice that he gets to spend some time with Colin Baker in this episode, too. I always think of the Second and Third Doctors failing to get on with each other, but the way that these two gently tease each other is brilliant, and I'm almost sorry that we don't get more of it. From the way the Second Doctor tells his Sixth self not to expect any thanks for saving him, through to the little jibe at the end about keeping out of each other's way… it's all just such good fun! There's a clip on Youtube from an American showing of Doctor Who in the 1980s, where they have a quick chat to Troughton, and ask him to introduce one of Colin's adventures. He makes a point of referring to Colin's Doctor as 'miss piggy', and it's clear that the good-natured playfighting continues well beyond the screen - I can imagine that the pair of them had a great deal of fun, sending each other up in rehearsals!

I figure that this is also the perfect point to bring up one of my favourite legends about the programme. There's a long-standing rumour that at one point in the 1980s, Patrick Troughton came back to the show and played a monster (possibly only for a single scene during the studio day). I've never known of the rumour being confirmed at any point… does anyone know? I'm aware that Troughton stood in for Peter Davison during some of the camera set ups on Castrovalva, but I'd love to think that he's inside a monster costume at some point in this period! It wasn't that long after this story that Troughton died, and so the thought that he may have made just one more appearance somewhere is appealing!

As for this story on the whole… Oh, I can't help but quite like it. The Sontarans are bumbling fools (but they're rarely anything else), lots of the stuff about the way that time machines work doesn't really tally with anything else we've ever been told about them, and there's really no point at all for being in Spain, but everyone is clearly having a good time making the story, and that enthusiasm is infectious.

I'm also wondering if I can find a way of incorporating this one into my ever-growing narrative of the Time War. The Time Lords are worried about the emergence of potentially viable time machines within the Third Zone, and send a Doctor to help… could it be that it's because they're worried that the Daleks might get their protrubances on one of the crafts? Equally, could it be that the Sontarans don't want the machine simply for the reasons they claim here, but because they're still trying to 'audition' for the Time War (as I postulated during The Invasion of Time)? Or, even, is it viable to imagine that maybe Chasene isn't simply working for herself to take over the universe, and is actually working for some more Dalek-y pay masters behind-the-scenes? 

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

Day 662: The Two Doctors, Episode Two

Dear diary,

I can clearly remember buying this story on DVD. I was at college, and we'd taken a trip to Cambridge for the day, for some reason. I'd decided at some point on the route down there that I'd be picking up this story at some point, and when the time came, my friend Ben and I slipped off to the local WH Smiths to collect it. I recall this distinctly, because when the time came to pay, I realised that I was a few pounds short, and I remember being overjoyed that Ben agreed to foot the shortfall. On the trip home, I tried to explain the plot of the story to him (by this point, I was fairly clued up on most of the general plots of the older stories), and he was completely baffled by the fact that there could be two Doctors in one story. I only bring this up because it's another one of those weird coincidences that The 50 Year Diary throws up from time-to-time. I've only ever been to Cambridge properly that once. When I travel back home from Cardiff now and then to visit family, I sometimes end up at Cambridge station, but we're only there a matter of minutes and there's not a great deal to see. Today, though, I'm trying a bus across the country, and it just so happens that while I'm watching this episode on my iPad… we've pulled up outside the WH Smiths in Cambridge! The exact shop that I bought this DVD from seven or eight years ago! These little coincidences do crop up from time to time, and they always fascinate me a bit!

Anyway, today's episode. It's all a but of a mixed bag, isn't it? On the one hand, Robert Holmes is peppering the script with lots of his trademark elements, and that' always fun to have. On the other… it feels as though everything is just a bit wasted. We've got Patrick Troughton back as the Doctor for three nights only… and he's spent most of it either unconscious or strapped to a table (at times, both! I'll come back to the Second Doctor in a minute). We've headed off to Spain for the annual trip abroad… and it doesn't look all that much like there was any point. Oh, sure, the Hacienda looks nice enough, I guess, as does the olive grove, but I'm not convinced that they couldn't have replicated this kind of look back home for a bit less money. I think I'm right in saying that before they ended up in Seville, this story was planned to take place in New Orleans, which may have added more character perhaps? Still, I know we venture into the town itself in the next episode, so maybe that will help out a little?

So, the Second Doctor. As I've said, it feels almost as though he's being wasted in this episode. He gets some nice scenes in yesterday's instalment, getting to do his conversation with Dastari, but here he really is kept under wraps a fair amount, isn't he? It's telling, I suppose, that Patrick Troughton can still absolutely shine even in this diminished state, though. His chat with the Sontaran is fantastic, and I really laughed right the way through (of particular highlight was him asking 'tea time already, nurse?' as a trolley of medical equipment was wheeled in, and then commenting that the Sontaran's don't have faces built for laughter.)

Speaking of the Sontarans… I can never quite make my mind up on this pair. For a start, they're that bit too tall to be Sontarans (In my write-up of the species for the Doctor Who: Adventure in Time and Space Role Playing Game, I made a point of saying that Sontaran scientists are somewhat taller than the regular soldiers. It doesn't quite hang together, but it's close enough for me to squint and believe it), but it's really the masks that I'm not sure about. I think they're very good - the features are harder set and more 'militaristic' than any of the previous versions we've seen - and they've lost that heavy eye-shadow they'd become so fond of for The Invasion of Time. But then, the mouths don't really work, with the actor's lips visible behind the sculpted Sontaran lips. That's off-putting. And then there's the fact that the neck-rings seem to have beed just placed on to the costume, and not affixed in any way! There's several shots in today's episode where they seem to just float independently of the body, and that certainly doesn't look right to me!

And then you've got the Sixth Doctor and his companions. I've not really touched very much on the way that the Sixth Doctor and Peri's relationship seems to work - where he's often a bit of an arse to her, and she simply goes along with it - but I think this story shows it up very nicely. He is an arse to her, but you can see that they share a deep bond under all of that. Peri seems to go along with him because she knows that under all the pomposity and bluster (and rudeness, let's be honest!), he's a very good man, and she's proud to travel alongside him. As Clara said recently in The Caretaker, you get to see wonders, and Peri's willing to put up with this guy for those! I think she's the perfect companion for him in many ways, and I always love it when she cuts right through his showboating and brings things back down to earth. We get it in today's episode, where he ruminates on the approaching end of the universe, and then announces that it'll take a 'very few centuries' to occur. Peri laughs this off, and ventures off to find Jamie, leaving the Doctor performing to an empty room.

Jamie is working very well here, too, for that matter, and I'm enjoying the way he bounces off the Sixth Doctor. I think if I had to pick my favourite exchange from the episode, it would be from the Doctor trying to explain his different incarnations to the Highlander;

JAMIE
He's not the Doctor I know.

DOCTOR
I am too, Jamie McCrimmon. I am another aspect of him, just as he is of me.

JAMIE
Eh?

DOCTOR
I was him, he will be me.

JAMIE
Who will I be?

Although I'm longing to get just a bit more time of Jamie with his Second Doctor, I'm glad that he works so well with the Sixth, at least. By the time The War Games rolled around, and we waved goodbye to Jamie, I'd had more than enough of him, and was ready for him to leave. Enough time has passed now, though, that it's great to see him again - I'm glad to have him back, if briefly! I know he was paired with the Sixth Doctor again on audio a few years ago, and I think that might be worth checking out once this marathon is complete!

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

Day 661: The Two Doctors, Episode One

Dear diary,

The Two Doctors has always felt like a bit of an oddity. It's not an anniversary story, like The Five Doctors, or an excuse to bring back all the previous incarnations, as in The Three Doctors, but rather an excuse to get Patrick Troughton and Frazer Hines back together again for a bit of a knees up in Spain. Who am I to complain about that, though? There's something a little bit magical about the way the titles fade into a black an white image of the pair (heightened by the fact that the titles are especially saturated today!), and the story starts off from there. Indeed, we don't even see Colin Baker's Doctor until almost ten minutes in to the episode!

The only issue that I now have, coming to this story having watched all the episode that precede it, is how wrong it feels for the Doctor and Jamie to be talking so casually about running a mission for the Time Lords, and the fact that he's able to pilot the TARDIS so well (for him, anyway). When I first saw The Two Doctors, it was simply The Second Doctor coming back in to the programme after many years away, and that was simply brilliant. Now it's all just a bit… off. I'm not going to go wildly in to the theory of Season 6B (I've never really decided if I like it as a concept or not…), but I can at least understand why people feel the need to explain these oddities away - they really do stand out.

Having had the Second Doctor and Jamie taking up the majority of the tale for the first ten minutes… we then barely see them again for the rest of the episode! The space station is attacked by an unseen menace (though we already know it's the Sontarans), and then we're more-or-less with the Sixth Doctor and Peri for the rest of the running time. That's not a bad thing, though, and in fact it may be some of the best time we've spent with the Sixth Doctor so far. There's something so sinister about the way that the Doctor comments on the work being done on this station 'threatened no one', and being answered by a booming voice, 'it threatened the Time Lords…'

I almost wonder if I would have liked that to come before we spend any time with the Second Doctor? It would be a wonderful hook for opening a story - the Doctor collapses and feels unwell, he goes to see Dastari, finds the station in ruins, hears the booming voice of the computer… and then starts to remember the last time he visited the station. Cue Jamie and the Second Doctor arriving at the station in their TARDIS, and deciding to slip in quietly. There's nothing wrong with what we've got here, but it seems odd to have such a wonderful mystery being set up for the Sixth Doctor while we already know what's happened!

While I'm on the subject of the station - isn't it a lovely design? I really like every bit of it, from the main station design right through to the service areas down below. There's something very 1980s about the style, but it really appeals to me. It also look fantastic when the Doctor and Peri get to explore in the dark, silhouetted against small pockets of colour and light. It's not often that Peter Moffat gives us something this well executed, so it's always nice to see when he does!

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

Day 660: The Mark of the Rani, Episode Two

Dear diary,

Well… we do have to spend a lot more time in the studio today than we did in yesterday's episode, but we still get a fair few sequences shot out on location, too, where the direction really does continue to be fantastic. It feels a bit like I'm watching a proper drama, with lovely close-ups of the actors, and beautifully composed three shots. I think, if there's one thing I'll be taking away from The Mark of the Rani, then it'll be just how good it looks.

There also needs to be a certain amount of love given for the location that they've used here. I think I'm right in saying that this story carried a dedication from the BBC to the 'Ironbridge Gorge Museum', where much of the story was filmed, and it's not hard to see why. I often find myself in stories like this praising the way that the BBC can build fantastic historical sets in the studio, but this is probably the best location that we've had for a historical tale in ages. I have a feeling that even going off for a holiday in Spain for the next episode is going to pale in comparison!

I'm also compelled to praise the Rani a little bit more with this episode, because she's brilliant! This story makes quite a point about the way the Master operates - seemingly always obsessed with killing the Doctor over anything else - but it also presents the Rani as the character that should be the Doctor's nemesis. Do you remember, back in The Mind of Evil, how I praised the way that the Master was able to control all of the events while sitting quite happily in the back of a car, smoking a cigar? Or the way he moves all the pieces in The Time Monster, sat in a high-backed chair before a fireplace? That character hasn't regenerated into the Master that's been doing battle with the Doctor from Traken to Sarn, that character became the Rani as we see her here.

She's not on Earth with some diabolical plan - she's here because she needs to be. There's no grandiose attempts to take control with robots shaped like the king, or huge radar dishes. She's here, she's set up everything she needs, and she's getting on with it. I also love that when the Master tries to get her assistance in killing the Doctor and taking control of Earth, she points out that she doesn't need to do that - she's already the ruler of a planet, and she's quite content, thank you very much. I'm even impressed by a fact about the Rani that's always left me a little cold in the past. It's said that she was exiled from Gallifrey because she bred giant mice, and one ate the Lord President's cat. It's always seemed like such a silly idea to me in the past, but the way that Kate O'Mara delivers the line is wonderful.

I can't talk about this episode without mentioning another one of the most famous things about it… the trees. Oh dear, the trees. I'm sure you know the story: Luke has been hypnotised by the Master. He's led Peri off to get her out of the way. The Rani has set some lethal land mines for the Doctor. Luke steps on one of these mines… and it turned in to a tree. Later on, a group of rebels carrying the Doctor on a pole also find themselves turned in to a tree… with the Doctor's pole suspended between branches. It should be silly, and indeed, I've always thought of it as being so… but I rather enjoyed it here! The trees don't look all that convincing, and the moment when Tree-Luke swoops down a branch to save Peri from the same fate is a bit ludicrous, but I rather like the actual transformation effect! I think it's generally a result of simply enjoying the episode so much that it can do very little wrong in my eyes!

The Mark of the Rani is Pip and Jane Baker's first contribution to the programme, but they'll be back for a few more stories over the next few years. They've never been hailed as the greatest writers Doctor Who has ever had (indeed, I was hugely saddened, and more than a little offended, recently when Jane Baker passed away and there were some comments on my Facebook News Feed to the effect of 'good riddance, her episodes were rubbish'. Suffice to say, those people no longer show up on my newsfeed), but I have to say that I've really enjoyed this particular story. There are more than a few examples of their trademark thesaurus-needing dialogue on show, but I didn't find it distracting to the plot in the way that I'd expected to. That's another thing to keep an eye on, I think, over the next few stories from them. So as far as I'm concerned, they're very welcome to the programme with a story like this, and I'm actively looking forward to their next one (which I seem to recall enjoying more than any other part of the Trial season…!)

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

Day 659: The Mark of the Rani, Episode One

Dear diary,

The Mark of the Rani is, for me, another one of those 'fact' stories. What I mean is that I can rattle off plenty of information about it - it's the first Pip n' Jane story, the first appearance of the Rani, the Master's first face off against the Sixth Doctor - but I couldn't have told you just how good it is! I'm watching today's episode on a coach, making my way across the country, to visit family. I was praying that it might be an interesting enough instalment of Doctor Who to help break up the monotony… and is it ever! I've loved it!

The thing which is appealing to me the most here is the direction. It's genuinely some of the best we've ever had in the programme (it's better than The Caves of Androzani, which is the one every bangs on about direction-wise in this era, though for different reasons), and I'm gutted to know that this story represents Sarah Helling's only work on the programme, because she's got a talent that really could help improve the stock of the series.

I think it's partly helped by the fact that so much of today's episode takes place out on location (is this one of the highest film-to-videotape ratios that we've ever had?), and regular readers of the 50 Year Diary will be well aware of my feelings towards film in Doctor Who. There's lots of shots that look simply gorgeous here - beautifully framed - and I'm a little bit stunned by them. I've seen The Mark of the Rani before, but couldn't remember it being this visually gorgeous! I'm just hoping now that I won't have to pay the price tomorrow, and spend most of the episode trapped inside on video…

I've already made brief mention of the fact that this is the first appearance of the Rani in the programme. She's built up something of a reputation over the years for being a bit of a rubbish character, but I have to confess that I'm rather fond of her. I think it helps that this is the serial in which she's given less over-the-top eccentricities, and her plan is half-way decent, too. She's not here trying to impersonate the Doctor's companion, or trap him in a time loop on Albert Square, but rather because she's got her own experiments to work on.

I'm less thrilled to see the Master turning up, and surely this is the most ridiculous disguise that he ever wears? There's something quite creepy about the way the scarecrow's head moves as he watched the Doctor and Peri depart, but then when he takes off the costume (in one of the few poor areas of direction, sadly), there seems to have been no reason for the disguise at all. I can just about buy that he's ended up in the same place and time as the Rani, because he claims to have followed her here, but he seems to have been standing in the field just for something to do on a Tuesdays afternoon!

That said, when he's paired up with the Rani, I can't help but really love it. The way the pair spark off each other is hilarious, and you can't fault the Rani's description of the Master's schemes - ' It'll be something devious and over-complicated. He'd get dizzy if he tried to walk in a straight line.' The one area which does feel a bit out of place is that they seem to all subscribe to the Gallifreyan Academy's alumni newsletter. The Rani is well aware that the Master's last plan went wrong for him and seemed to finish him off, and they both know on sight exactly what this new Doctor looks like! It must be terribly awkward for him - every time he turns up to a reunion, he's got a different companion in tow, the old dog!

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

Day 657: Vengeance on Varos, Episode One

Dear diary,

Although the Baker years on the whole have something of a bad rep, there are a few stories that tend to break the pattern, and garner a fair amount of praise. Both of Philip Martin's contributions to the series (this story and The Trial of a Time Lord: Mindwarp next season), are usually considered to be some of these exceptions. I've seen this story before - it was one of the first that I picked up on DVD, but I have to admit that I can't recall it making all that much of an impact.

That said, the story's rather strong visual style did stick in the memory - I commented about the very 1980s hair on display in Terminus, but even that story has nothing on this one! Oh dear?

There's plenty to enjoy in this episode, though, and a fair amount of that needs to be put at Philip Martin's door. The script is filled with great dialogue, and possibly the best description of politics I've seen in a while;

ETTA
What would the next [Governor] do any different?

ARAK
Everything! Anything.

It's just one of many rather nice examinations of the way people in power work throughout this episode (another notable example is the difference between being allowed an opinion and a vote). It's in these moments that Martin really flies with the writing here - and it's some of the best commentary on the subject that Doctor Who has done in a long time. I'm hoping that we get plenty more of it in the next episode, too.

Elsewhere, the thing that people usually point out when discussing this story is how relevant it is to 'reality' TV these days. It has to be said that it does seem to be especially perceptive of the way that TV has moved, right down to being able to vote for what you want to happen, and it really does work as quite a nice idea for a Doctor Who story. My only concern is that I'm not really feeling the threat of the Punishment Dome yet; We've spent a lot of time in the hallucination areas, whereas I'm a vindictive sort of chap, and I'd rather see more of the other types of torture. I'm just not quite feeling the threat yet.

Also a little bit vindictive in this episode is Sil. He's often touted as a real stand-out character from this period of the programme (and he'll be back in Martin's next story for the programme, too), and I'll be honest when I say that I've never really understood the love for him. Actually, though, he's great! I can't help but like him, even when I know that he's trying to cheat the Governor (and, indeed, the whole planet). I'd imagine that I'll be discussing him more tomorrow - because he may well be one of my favourite things in the story!

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

Day 656: Attack of the Cybermen, Episode Two

Dear diary,

Just how many stories is this one a sequel (or at least a follow-up) to? There’s the obvious ones - we’ve come back to Telos and the Cybercontroller from The Tomb of the Cybermen, and their planning to alter the events of The Tenth Planet - but then we’ve got Cybermen in the sewers (as in The Invasion), the TARDIS returning to Totter’s Lane (An Unearthly Child, and seemingly for no reason at all), Lytton’s story continuing from where it was left off in Resurrection of the Daleks… People talk about needing to be a fan of Doctor Who with a degree in time and space to understand this story, and mostly, that all comes down to the fact that there’s so much pointless continuity in here!

The sad thing is… I think it could almost work, but not like this. Yes, that’s right, it’s time for another instalment of ‘how I would have done it’. If you’re going to insist on having so many old elements come back in this story, then it really needs to be done as a kind of nostalgia piece. You can have the Cybermen in the sewers, but make them the design from The Invasion, because by 1985 that design has already become something of a retro thing, and if you’re catering to an audience of people who remember and love those earlier stories, then it’s the perfect way to hook them in. While you’re at it, hire better actors to play them. Then, once you’re on Telos, do the tombs in the same style as the ones from the 1960s! This bit seems so bloody obvious that I can’t believe they missed it. In the making of feature on this story’s DVD, Eric Saward even mentions the fact that he saw a photograph of the original Tomb of the Cybermen set and was so impressed that it inspired this story… and then they go and build the hideous version we see on screen here. Oh dear.

As for the story itself… to a certain extent, I rather like the idea. A time machine has crash-landed on Telos, and the Cybermen plan to travel back in time and stop their home world from getting destroyed. That’s the simple plot at the heart of this story, but it doesn’t come across because it’s buried under pointless trips to Totter’s Lane, and other assorted rubbish. What I want to see is a small group of 1960s-style Cybermen who have been woken from their hibernation by a time ship crashing on the planet. They’re alone in the universe, the last desperate survivors of the Cyber-race, and they plan to go back in time to change that. There’s a fairly simple - yet, hopefully - exciting - story to tell, as the Doctor and Peri battle to save the Web of Time.

Under that circumstance, you don’t need to worry about the fact that you’re following up on Tomb of the Cybermen and The Tenth Planet, because everything you need to know can be explained away in a few lines of dialogue - the Cybermen come from the planet Mondas. They tried to invade the Earth, but their planet was destroyed. The few survivors settled here and went into hibernation. Done. There’s no need for some of the convoluted explanations given in today’s episode, which seem to be there more to make it look like the writer has seen lots of Doctor Who, and not because it needs to be said.

I think this is just one of those stories that frustrates me because it should be good. There’s a few really nice ideas in here - like the Cybermen going mad when not revived properly, and even the plan to crash a comet into the Earth, which would have been topical at the time, with Halley’s Comet coming back around. In the end, though, it’s just become a great big mess, and I can’t really forgive it that. A pity. 

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

Day 655: Attack of the Cybermen, Episode One

Dear diary,

This feels as though it should be a real shot in the arm for Doctor Who. After three seasons of being shown twice-weekly in a mid-week slot, the programme has returned to its ancestral home of Saturday night. Not only that, but after the forced experiment of screening Resurrection of the Daleks as two 45-minute episodes last year, the programme has been switched permanently to that format. It’s almost like growing up, and a chance to really tell a great story with a bit more time to breathe in each part. We’ve got a new Doctor, who’s somewhat eider and less predictable than his immediate predecessor, a companion who’s also relatively recent and has been rather good so far, and in case you’re still not excited, they’ve even brought back the Cybermen, in sequels to… well, pretty much everything.

And you know what? It’s bloody rubbish.

I never set out in to any story in this marathon with a ‘mission’. Sometimes, I go in expecting to like something and I will. Sometimes, I go in expecting not to like something, and I don’t. Sometimes - and these are the best of times - I go in expecting to hate something, and end up finding loads to love, making a story a bit of an undiscovered gem in my Who knowledge, and rocketing it right up my list of favourites. But I go in to each story, and every episode, with an open mind. I rate each one on gut instinct from watching, and take it day-by-day. That said, while I don’t enter in to any story thinking “I’m join to rate this one highly no matter what”, I do go in to them looking for the best. It doesn’t always work, as the likes of The Dominators, The Curse of Peladon, or Logopolis will attest. On the whole, though, knowing that the Sixth Doctor’s era isn’t rated very well, I think I’m consciously making an extra effort to find things that I can love. I didn’t have to try all that hard with The Twin Dilemma, but today’s episode… oh dear. It’s really irritated me.

Let’s start with the biggie: the Cybermen in this story are downright s*t. I try to refrain from swearing in these entries, so knowing that I’m resorting to it hopefully helps to make my point. The Cybercontroller moves around as though he’s a stereotypical robot, while the others working around him wobble around as they speak and move, as if they’re all having a bit of a boogie. Worst of all is the over-eager Cyberintern who’s helping out with their base in the London sewers - jumping in at every opportunity to kiss the arse of his cyberboss! This particular Cyberman has *really started to annoy me, and by the time we’ve reached the end of the episode, where he’s popping up over his boss’ shoulder to enthusiastically point out that the Doctor’s presence would explain the time distortion they detected, I’d genuinely lost the will to live. I’m not going to bother going in to the whole debate over who wrote what in this story (frankly, they should all be clambering to wash their hands of it), but it’s highly likely Eric Saward had a major part in it. I’m stunned, therefore, that the man who gave us such great Cybermen in Earthshock not all that long ago has managed to make such a complete mess of the characters here!

Then you’ve got the return of Lytton. Much awaited by… well, by Eric Saward, presumably. Lytton was in last season’s Dalek story, and it’s telling that even though I watched it a little over a week ago, I’ve pretty much forgotten everything about him. My friend Nick summed it up perfectly for me;

”He Argued with the Black Dalek, killed his workmates, and never met the Doctor”

I think that’s my biggest issue with his return here - the Doctor reacts to news of the man’s involvement with ‘I should have guessed’, but I was sure that the pair hadn’t actually crossed paths before! It’s a shame, because actually, that final scene of Lytton cutting his losses and wandering off into the sunset with his two ‘policemen’ was great, and having them return here should be a great idea… but it just doesn’t work. They’ve been taken out of the wonderful gritty locations of that earlier story, and plonked down here, in a tale that I couldn’t care much less about.

Still, let’s look on the positives, shall we? Starting with the Cybermen, I do enjoy the way that they get properly beaten up on the surface of Telos. In the same way that there’s something really pleasing about watching them get massacred during the events of The Five Doctors, there’s something about seeing their heads and hands knocked off here that would really appeal to me as a child. That sounds quite sadistic, actually.

The Doctor and Peri are also continuing to be something of a highlight - I love the way that their relationship has mellowed, and that the Doctor has decided that the time to fix the TARDIS up is now. In many ways, I also love that they’ve ditched the Chameleon circuit… but it feels too much like a gimmick. I know it’ll be reset by the end of the story, and it doesn’t feel as though they’ve gone to all that much trouble of thinking about what it could turn in to here. The ornamental pillar and the organ feel that bit too much like they’ve simply been hauled out of some BBC props store, and trundled along to the location. At least turn it in to a red telephone box or something, so that Peri’s joke about it being ‘much better’ now could be funny (NB: I’d find that funny. Your milage may vary!)

To be honest, it really is the rubbish Cybermen in this episode that have put me off more than anything. I’m struggling to care about anything much in the plot, because every time we cut back to them, there’s something new there to irritate me. Here’s hoping that things pick up in the next episode, because I’m struggling to find much to love here…

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

Day 654: The Twin Dilemma, Episode Four

Dear diary,

I knew there was something that really perplexed me about The Twin Dilemma, but I couldn’t remember what it was. Today’s episode brought it all flooding back - it’s Mestor’s plan. I rather like the idea that they plan to make the sun expand, pushing the Gastropod eggs out among the galaxy (I’m sure that’s not completely scientifically accurate, of course…), but I’d lost track of why the twins were there. For ages now, I’ve assumed that they were a bit like the Logopolitans, and that they were so good at mathematics that their sums were able to physically change the universe. Indeed, in Episode One, their father tells them that they don’t understand just how powerful their maths can be. I’d figured that Mestor needed the twins to use their maths to aper the state of the sun, therefore bringing it to the point of expansion. Where this had always confused me was that I couldn’t figure out why he didn’t just have them calculate a way to send the eggs scattering anyway. But the impression I get from this episode is that the boys are simply required to do the maths and figure out where to point the Tractor beam, and for how long? Do you see where I may have gorton confused?

It also strikes me as very odd that Azemel can have overlooked the disastrous consequences of this for so long, considering how easily he realises when the Doctor points out that there’s a flaw in the plan. It’s put down to him having a lot on his mind, but wouldn’t it be so much more sensible to have simply said that Mestor was blocking off any thoughts about that? We know the king slug is in the man’s mind reading his thoughts, so it seems so silly to not then use it as a better excuse! It’s just an example, and there are several in The Twin Dilemma, it has to be said, of simply lazy writing. I think I’m right in saying that this story went through several problems at script stage, but you’d think they’d still try and pay a bit more attention at script stage!

Over the last few days, I’ve managed to avoid discussing the Gastopods themselves, but I can’t just ignore them forever! I’m sorry to say that they really don’t work. It’s a pity, because Mestor’s face design isn’t all that bad, but it’s when you see the full body, or watch his soldiers stalk around in the tunnels, that everything simply falls apart. It seems especially sad when you think about how well they did the woodlice-esque Tractators earlier in the season! Another example of the end-of-season budget deficit in action?

I mentioned on Facebook the other day that I’d just started out on this story and that I was really enjoying it. There were a fair few responses, ranging from complete bafflement at the fact that anyone could enjoy this tale, to people agreeing that it’s nowhere near as bad as everyone says it is. I think my friend Malcolm summed it up best, and managed to get in some nice examination of the Doctor’s evolution across the four episode, too;

”It's engaging, and Colin shines really well - and he is really up against it too, but he is committed, as he has been since (in fact no other actor has had his level of commitment to the show in my view). As a kid, the Gastropods made a bigger impact than anything in Androzani, and there's more than a glimmer in truth about the new Doctor not having a certain 'feckless charm’.

Even the scene where he attacks Peri is, at least, a brave, if very misguided, experiment. Horrible, though. And at the end when he says that he is the Doctor 'whether you like it or not' comes after a lot of soul searching - The Twin Dilemma for me is one moment where the Doctor knows he's strange, unlikeable, garish and hard to swallow, and that he even lacks any dress sense. In the end, despite the unsavoury moments, the Doctor's acceptance of himself, whether people externally think he's popular or not, or whether they'd laugh or deride him for his clothes/style, is a really powerful message - you can be different and you can be proud to tell the world that - whether they like it or not.”

Even though the story has slowly gotten bogged down a bit more each day, I can honestly claim that I’ve really enjoyed it. All four episodes have been completely fun and engaging to watch, and I know that it’s a story I’ll be able to throw on again and still enjoy. I dare say that it’s something I could watch over and over far more than something like The Caves of Androzani. While that story may be technically very good, with well-rounded characters, fab direction, and a real sense of doom, The Twin Dilemma is Doctor Who enjoying itself, and that’s always good fun... 

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

Day 653: The Twin Dilemma, Episode Three

Dear diary,

Do you know, I’d quite forgotten that the Doctor makes a comment in this episode about his lack of dress-sense. I suppose that means that this is the right point to actively discuss the Sixth Doctor’s costume, because I’ve not really touched on it before - and I can’t ignore it forever! Recently, I’ve done some graphic design work on a range of postcards for the Doctor Who Experience in Cardiff. One ‘strand’ of the postcards is images of all the Doctor’s costumes, from Hartnell onwards, even side-stepping in to ‘other’ Doctors, such as John Hurt’s War Doctor, Tom Baker’s Curator, or David Morrisey’s Jackson Lake.

The complete set looks - if it’s not immodest to say - fantastic. There’s something really nice about having all of the different costumes displayed like this, and it’s a great chance to really look at each individual one. It has to be said that Colin’s really does stand out, coming between Peter Davison’s outfit (largely beige), and Sylvester McCoy’s first costume (with - again - a beige jacket). Although I’m rather fond of both those costumes, I can’t help but like the way that the Sixth Doctor’s ‘totally tasteless’ outfit shines through in the middle of them.

The same is true when I’ve got the action figures out on a shelf - there’s something oddly pleasing about the way that the Sixth Doctor makes an instant impact. I used to have them on display in the living room of a previous flat, and this was always the one people pointed out when first seeing them. It’s a talking point, if nothing else! Where I think it perhaps went a little bit wrong was in keeping this style for Colin’s entire run on the programme. He’s often spoken in the past about how much he’d have rather Chris Eccleston’s ‘look’, and there’s lots of fan-made examples of this incarnation in various velvet jackets (indeed, when he tries on a Pertwee-style top in this story, it really suits him). I can’t help but think that we needed this outfit here to show him completely at odds with the world, before slowly pairing it back to something a little less brash as time wore on. Still, his comments on the outfit today come as part of him addressing his new persona rather beautifully:

THE DOCTOR
But look at me. I'm old, lacking in vigour. My mind's in a turmoil. I no longer know if I'm coming, have gone or have even been. I'm falling to pieces. I no longer even have any clothes sense.

It’s the Doctor being over-dramatic once again (and, as in Episode One, Peri beautifully cuts through this pomposity by telling him to stop feeling sorry for himself), but it’s possibly the best example of the plan to have this Doctor soften out as time went by. It’s the Doctor actively musing on the way his new incarnation, and it’s not the only example of it in this episode. There’s plenty of self-reflection early on, too, when he contemplates that Peri would still be worried for him, when he’s been rude, and arrogant, and has tried to kill her. I’m hoping that there’s more of this to come - not only in the rest of this story, but the rest of this era - because it’s rather wonderful.

Ah, but hark at me, focussing all of my attentions on Colin Baker again! Around him, The Twin Dilemma continues to lose me a little - but more because it’s falling back into beans simply an ‘average’ story, not because it’s a bad one. I rather like the idea that Azmeal has brought the twins here in an attempt to ‘save’ his world, and I even believe that the idea of the twins could be a good one… but this pair aren’t really the best actors the programme has ever seen, are they? There’s lots of moments in the episodes so far where they’re talking in unison, or even alternating their lines to form a complete conversation with other characters, and it should be unnerving. With a better pair of actors in the role, I think it really would work!

Sadly, they’re not the only performance I’m not completely enjoying. Kevin McNally has something of an unenviable job in the role of Hugo here, and I’m sorry to report that I’m finding him more annoying than anything else. Yesterday, I mentioned that the way he was dressed (both in uniform and then in the… thing he takes from the TARDIS wardrobe did him absolutely no favours, and it seems today that the script has stopped trying to help him either. He gets his feet caught in the Gastropods’ slime trail, with it setting like concrete. It takes ages for him to free himself from the predicament… but why doesn’t he just slip his shoes off? He can even nip back in to the TARDIS for some glittery ones if he wanted! All I can assume is that he has to pay a fine to the space police for every bit of uniform he loses, and he can’t really afford that this month…

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

Day 652: The Twin Dilemma, Episode Two

Dear diary,

Well… yesterday’s entry seems to have ruffled a few feathers! Hugely pleased to see so many comments of praise for the story, too! I’m sticking by it, though, because those first 25 minutes of The Twin Dilemma are brilliant, and easily as good as some of the real ‘classics’ from over the years! That said, I’ll admit that this is the episode where the problems really start to set in. While I’ve still enjoyed today’s instalment, there’s a lot more things cropping up which are harder to see the good in. Let’s start with one of our guest characters: Lieutenant Hugo Lang.

Some characters in The Caves of Androzani - I’m thinking especially of Morgus and the upper ranks of the army - are forced to wear 1980s ‘futuristic’ BBC costumes. They’re not great looks, and they could become quite distracting. What helps is that the people inside those costumes are well rounded, and therefore we spend more time focussing on who they are, and what they’re doing, rather than the clothes they wear. Here, Lang isn’t given a whole lot of character so far, and the frankly awful costume they’ve stuck him in really doesn’t help. He’s not even a tenth as rounded as the characters in Androzani, and that really does count against him. When we first see Lang in the police office, he comes across as - effectively - a junior office boy. He answers the call about the Zanium, and passes the memo on to his superior. He’s then the one tasked with leading the fleet in pursuit, and suddenly he’s supposed to be a somewhat powerful person! We then see him as the only survivor of Mestor’s attack, where he takes it upon himself to apprehend the Doctor and Peri.

In some ways, I’d be able to buy this with only a few minor tweaks here and there. It’s really in this episode that things start to fall apart for him. Passing out, he’s then left alone in the TARDIS, though Peri has taken the precaution of hiding the power pack to his gun. Fine, not a problem. That she chooses to hide it in the wardrobe isn’t all that perplexing, either, considering that they’ve just spent a fair amount of time in there while choosing the Doctor’s new togs. But then, as Lang goes searching for his ‘prisoners’, he happens to stumble into the wardrobe purely by chance. Is it near the console room? It didn’t take long to collect the Fourth Doctor’s coat during Mawdryn Undead, so again, I can just about buy it.

But then! Lang seems to decide that since his clothes are a bit dirty, he’ll try on some of the ones he’s just found in the wardrobe room! Why the heck not? He ends up picking something ridiculous and garish - even more so than the Doctor’s clothes - and it just happens to be the outfit that Peri has stashed the power pack in. It’s all just a bit too much of a coincidence for me to go along with.

To bring this back around to my initial point, the fact that Lang comes across as pretty incompetent as a character isn’t helped by the design that they’ve created for this intergalactic police force. They look like they’re wearing ‘futuristic’ BBC costumes, and not particularly good ones at that. The character already starts off at a disadvantage because he’s been designed to look a bit silly. It’s things like this which harm The Twin Dilemma more than anything.

Thankfully, though, Colin Baker is still electrifying in the role. I enjoy the way that he strides up the hills of Titan 3 performing to Peri, and then has another turn in the tunnels, where he begs the aliens not to harm him, and instead offers up Peri in his place. It’s still quite unlike anything we’ve become used to for the Doctor, and Baker is really going for it! I have a feeling that even when other ares of the stories are letting themselves down, he could well be a saving element! 

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

Day 651: The Twin Dilemma, Episode One

Dear diary,

I feel the need to open today’s post with a confession. I love The Twin Dilemma. I really do. When it first came out on DVD about five years ago, I dutifully picked it up on day of release, took it home and tried to prepare myself for what has consistently been voted the worst Doctor Who story of all time. It’s just a fact that we all know is true. They don’t come any worse than this. But then, the story played out, and I really enjoyed it! It’s bright, and bold, and colourful. It’s bombastic, and loud. Colin Baker hits the ground running just as well as Tom Baker did in Robot, and watching these four episode the first time round is one of the most enjoyable Doctor Who viewing experiences that I’ve ever had. That said, I’m not blind to the story’s faults (and there are many), but I think it’s probably key, in the ‘worst story of all time’, to look on the positive.

In today’s episode, the positive is almost certainly Colin Baker. I’ve already said how well he hits the ground running, and it’s worth repeating, because he’s fantastic in this one! Over the years, a reputation has built up to suggest that he was a rubbish actor, and thus the series went downhill when he appeared. No, sorry, that’s simply not true! He’s great, and I love the way that he’s playing the part here! There’s one moment in the episode where his performance does get incredibly hammy, but then it’s instantly cut through by Peri, and it’s supposed to have been so awful! It’s this exchange;

DOCTOR
Titan Three. Thou craggy knob, which swims upon the oceans of the firmament. Receive this weary penitent.

PERI
I think I'm going to be sick.

That’s just one of the moments that left me hooting loudly in front of the screen today. Having the Doctor and Peri trapped alone in the TARDIS for most of the episode means that we get plenty of time to watch them scope each other out post-regenration. Which brings me to the defining moment from today… the strangling incident. On the one hand, it’s probably not the best idea to show your new Doctor trying to strangle his companion in their first episode together. It’s not exactly the best way to endear the man to the audience. On the other hand, though, it does make a kind of narrative sense!

The Doctor’s fairly stable here, but he occasionally lapses into moments of insanity. During one of these, presumably, he remembers that of his last two companions, one was put aboard the TARDIS by the Black Guardian with a plan to kill the Doctor, and the other was in constant contact with his arch nemesis all along! No wonder the Doctor suddenly suspects that Peri could well be an alien spy - and with the Master’s penchant for disguises, anagrams, and games at this point, calling the spy ‘Peri’ as a nod to Persian mythology is just the kind of thing he would do!

I think where this starts to fall apart is that it’s over with almost instantly. The Doctor snaps, and tries to strangle his companion. She manages to repel him with his own reflection. The berates him briefly for trying to kill her… and then things just carry on as normal! Oh, sure, she’s not really very happy with him, but it’s as though we’re suddenly supposed to just think that they’re past that little misdemeanour. I think it’s something lacking in the scripting department - in the same way that it bothers me how quickly the Doctor decides to go and get changed. That could be fixed so easily, too: He asks Peri about his appearance, and then adds that the clothes are easily changed. All we need then is a line of the effect of ‘in fact, I’ll do so now!’

I’ll talk about the actual story of The Twin Dilemma, and the guest cast, over the next few days, because I fear I’ll not be able to be as glowing with praise as I am about other things in this episode, but I’d like to point out two things in this episode that are very well done, and might not crop up later in the tale. For a start, the model shots of the Freighter and the Police… vehicle, are fantastic. They’re some of the best models that we’ve had in the show. The surface of Titan 3 doesn’t look too shabby in model form, either! Then you’ve got the wreckage of the crashed spaceship, and it’s brilliant. I mean, really brilliant. By far, it’s the best thing they’ve created for this episode - it’s huge, and set in that landscape, I’m really impressed with it. I think it’s great that even a story which gets consistently voted the worst the programme has ever produced can have so many things to love about it - there’s something about Doctor Who that truly is special. 

Manufacturer: Big Finish Productions

Writer: Justin Richards, Jonathan Morris, Nick Wallace

RRP: £8.99 (CD) / £6.99 (Download)

Release Date: September 2014

Reviewed by: Nick Mellish for Doctor Who Online

Review Posted: 12th September 2014

“An epic adventure uniting the Doctor's friends across time and space, featuring Jago & Litefoot, Counter-Measures, the Vault and Gallifrey!

1: Mind Games by Justin Richards
In Victorian England, Henry Gordon Jago and Professor Litefoot investigate worrying events on the streets of London – which seem to be linked to the New Regency Theatre’s resident act, the mesmerist Mr Rees…

2: The Reesinger Process by Justin Richards
London, 1964, and the repercussions of Jago and Litefoot’s adventure are dealt with by Sir Toby Kinsella and his crack team of specialists at Counter-Measures. What is the Reesinger Process – and who is behind it?

3: The Screaming Skull by Jonathan Morris
Disgraced soldiers Ruth Matheson and Charlie Sato are called back into action by Captain Mike Yates, when the UNIT Vault is mysteriously locked down by a deadly force. Together they must infiltrate the Vault and get those trapped out alive. But what enemy are they facing?

4: Second Sight by Nick Wallace and Justin Richards
The actions of Mr Rees have alerted the Time Lords of Gallifrey, and Romana has assigned her best warrior. Independently, the Sixth Doctor has arrived on Earth. A power from the dawn of the Universe is about to be unleashed once more…”

***

Fifteen years ago, I had my tickets booked to attend Battlefield 3, a Doctor Who convention in Coventry.  I had been lucky enough to grab a copy of Sirens of Time on CD beforehand, and spent the night before transferring it to audio cassette so that it could be listened to in the car on the way there.  I was familiar with the concept of the show on audio: I’d listened to Paradise of Death and The Ghosts of N-Space, and I had long since worn out a tape recording of The War Games which I had made.  This was something exciting and different though; this was new Who with three Doctors and the promise of more adventures to come! I listened to the Big Finish “Talking about my Regeneration” preview CD time and again in preparation, but nothing compared to hearing Sirens on the way to Coventry.  It was a truly magical experience.

Big Finish had a buzz about it and a big crowd at its stall that year, where I purchased Phantasmagoria and listened greedily to their panel, thrilled by the hints of what was to come.

Fifteen years on, it’s amazing to see how massive Big Finish have grown as an entity, and how large it looms in the annuls of Doctor Who as a whole, and so we now have The Worlds of Doctor Who, a celebratory trawl through spin-off series aplenty.  The first thing worth noting is how beautiful the packaging for this CD set is.  The photography inside is very nicely done, the brief essays by actors are sweet, and the individual covers done for the CDs themselves are lovely, with the Jago and Litefoot and Vault ones being of particular note.

As for the story itself, it concerns a mysterious hypnotist named Mr. Rees, whose influence extends far beyond his natural lifespan.  From the Palace Theatre in Victorian England to the 1960s and the present day, his story and threat carries on worming its way through life and history, and touches the lives of many connected to that mysterious traveller in Time and Space, the Doctor.

Across the four CDs, we dip into the worlds of Jago and Litefoot in Mind Games, Counter-Measures in The Reesinger Process, the Companion Chronicles via The Vault in The Screaming Skull, and finally a mixture of both Gallifrey and Doctor Who itself in the finale, Second Sight.  What impressed me the most about this release is how all the series retain their own identities throughout whilst carrying a story thread across them all.  For example, the Jago and Vault stories are a whole world away from one another and perfectly fit their respective story, whilst they also move things on with the overall story.  Ditto comparing the second and fourth CDs.  It shows how strong a hook Big Finish latched onto here with Mr. Rees.

The only tale which perhaps lacks any real clear identity is The Screaming Skull, the but that is perhaps expected.  The previous two outings for the Vault have involved them used as a framing device for other tales, and whilst that it mostly the case here as well, it does at times feel less of an established format than is shown elsewhere, though that doesn’t stop Jonathan Morris from writing a damn good script all the same.  Despite misgivings over its format though, it also feels very sneakily like a pilot episode for a new series: the UNIT old guard, the Vault and maybe the new outfit as glimpsed in both UNIT, the original spin-off series and its follow-up, UNIT: Dominion.  I guess we’ll see, but I wouldn’t be surprised at all.

All of the instalments here are strong though, with Justin Richards doing the majority of the writing (he’s responsible for CDs 1 and 2 and co-writes the fourth with Nick Wallace) and showing us once again why he’s so prominent a name in the world of Doctor Who fiction.  Second Sight may suffer sometimes from its brief length (we get a lot of scenes where characters say “This could be his plan... unless... of course! It could be *this*!” which, by staggering co-incidence and ease of plot, turns out to be the case– but of course) but it wraps up Mr. Rees’s tale well and gives Leela a lot to do, which is always nice to hear.  It also makes good use of the Sixth Doctor, played as ever with gusto by Colin Baker.  It’s the Eighth and Sixth Doctors who have benefited most from Big Finish over the years, so it’s only right to see one of them celebrated and featured here.

What’s a joy over the whole release is hearing everyone in the same place connected to the same story: Ellie Higson, Charlie Sato, President Romana.  Everyone is here, present and correct and this is as fun and enjoyable a celebration of the extended worlds of Who as Big Finish could have given us.  Another triumph for Big Finish.

The fab folks over at Showmasters have put together an even more amazing line-up of Doctor Who related guests for this year's London Film And Comic Con, which include the following:

Steven Moffat - (Showrunner / Head Writer) - Saturday Talk
Jenna Coleman - (Clara) - Autographs / Photoshoot
John Hurt - (The War Doctor) - Saturday Talk / Autographs / Photoshoot
Paul McGann - (The 8th Doctor) - Saturday & Sunday Autographs / Photoshoot
Colin Baker - (The 6th Doctor) - Sunday Autographs / Photoshoot
Bernard Cribbins - (Wilf) - Saturday Autographs / Photoshoot
William Russell - (Ian Chesterton) - Friday Autographs
Jemma Redgrave - (Kate Stewart) - Saturday Autographs / Photoshoot
Sarah Louise Madison - (Weeping Angel) - Sunday Autographs

On Saturday 12th July, there will be a very special Doctor Who talk, featuring; Steven Moffat, John Hurt and Paul McGann. This is a paid-for talk and will be sold on the days of the show. It will be held on the super stage so there will be plenty of seats available.

The talk will last for 45 minutes and the tickets will be £25 each. They will be on sale on the sales desk inside the show at Earls Court 2.

DWO are thrilled to announce we too will be there for all 3 days offering a selection of Doctor Who merchandise, and with every purchase over £10, you will get a FREE Doctor Who gift! We will be offering a wide range of Toys, Books, DVDs, CDs, Radio Times, Autographs, Trading Cards and more, so do pop by and say hello!

We will also be interviewing any fans who want to tell us how much they are looking forward to Peter Capaldi's Doctor, for a short video feature we will be releasing just before Series 8! If you would like to be part of this, please ask a member of the DWO team at our tables!

+ Buy your tickets for the London Film And Comic Con, here. 

[Source: Showmasters]

Manufacturer: Big Finish Productions

Written By: William Gallagher

RRP: £14.99 (CD) / £12.99 (Download)

Release Date: March 2013

Reviewed by: Nick Mellish for Doctor Who Online

Review Posted: June 2014

“Thursday 28 May 2071: the day the Anglo-Indian Salvage 2 rocket launches. Its mission: to clean up space; to remove from Earth’s orbit over a century’s worth of man-made junk…

From the viewing window of a nearby space station, the Doctor and Flip have a unique view of Salvage 2 as it sets about its essential task – and of the disaster that unfolds when Salvage 2 encounters something it’s not been programmed to deal with. Something not of human manufacture…

Back on Earth, the Doctor fights to save Flip from becoming part of a 500-year tragedy being played out in orbit, hundreds of miles above. And millions will die if he fails.”

****

So, here we are: the end of this current run of adventures for the Sixth Doctor and Flip, and what better way to end things by blasting off into space?

Inevitably, a lot of the previews of this play have muttered about the similarities to Gravity, which has had the downright cheek to do rather well in the Oscars around the same time this play has been released.  Both stories are set in space and involve missions going awry, but the similarities end there and the two stand very much alone after this. (Oh, and for the record, Gravity is the better of the two. Sorry, Scavenger.)

There are some things definitely worth highlighting about this play.  To begin with, it is by a long shot William Gallagher’s best script for Big Finish yet.  I was extremely impressed by the way he manages to take two characters at the start (Salim and Jessica Allaway) and transform them steadily over the course of four episodes from being very, very irritating and speaking almost entirely in soundbites with no hint of natural dialogue, to two very intriguing characters with a lot of heart behind them and added dimension.  In many ways, they represent the very best this tale has to offer: two characters starting out bland and developing well as the story carries on.  In the grand scheme of things, it’s a rare Doctor Who story indeed that pulls that off successfully.

On a similar note, the story has a truly brilliant Part Two, improving a lot on the opening instalment and really giving us a lot of energy, tension and plot.  It’s the best half an hour this story has, but that’s no bad thing given how strong it is.

It sadly falls down a little after this, relying on a few slightly old and familiar tropes and steadily wasting the character of Jyoti Cutler, a character so integral to the opening, played with a slightly variable accent by Anjli Monhindra (the rather wonderful Rani from the rather wonderful Sarah Jane Adventures).  However, its main problems lie not with the story itself but in the wider arc and plans that Big Finish apparently have afoot.  I should stress here that major spoilers are coming up, not just for this story but others from Big Finish’s main range of plays, so read on at your peril and don’t complain that you were not warned.

So.

Anyone keeping abreast of the ongoing Hex saga will be aware that Big Finish are increasingly reluctant to finish a character’s story, which is sadly to the detriment of the character themselves.  In short, it’s hard to invest in the build-up to a character’s farewell when the rug is continually pulled from under one’s feet.  Big Finish just about– just about– got away with it with Charley Pollard, but with Hex and now, in a way, Flip, it’s starting to get silly.  Because a lot of this trilogy has been building up to her departure, really, and setting up the start of a new trilogy of adventures with the Sixth Doctor and Peri, but at the last minute... we get none of this.  Instead, we are left with a cliffhanger ending, which is fun in some ways, but frustratingly in others.  Is Flip dead? No.  I mean, it’s not stated, but let’s face it, she won’t be, because that’s an ending and Big Finish aren’t so keen on those at present.  What it means is that we are going to have to twiddle our thumbs somewhat and wait for at least a year before anything is resolved, and in the meantime, the Sixth Doctor and Peri trilogy that has been built up will come and go (probably with a lack of definite resolution there, too) and then have another trilogy of adventures with Sixie and Flip and have to hope for a conclusion there, and if not that, then no hint that such a conclusion will be forthcoming.  Have it like Mary Shelley, where we know things come to an end, but there is no sign of that any time soon and an open ending looking to the future instead.  Do not build up to a departure and then not do it at the very last minute.  It’s just frustrating.

As for the play itself? It suffers from increasingly relying on cliché, but has enough sparkle about it and some good and, contrary to the plot, increasingly well-written supporting characters to recommend it.  Mainly though, it suffers from being part of this wider problem with lack of resolution, and in the end, that has dragged my rating of it down somewhat, which is unfortunate.

There’s teasing, there’s misdirection, there’s twists, and then there is having your cake and eating it, and I’m sorry Big Finish, I really am, but I for one am stuffed.

Manufacturer: Big Finish Productions

Written By: Andrew Smith

RRP: £14.99 (CD) / £12.99 (Download)

Release Date: February 2013

Reviewed by: Nick Mellish for Doctor Who Online

Review Posted: 10th March 2014

“Space travellers are warned to keep away from the area of the planet Asphya and its unremarkable moon Erys. Not the best place to materialise the TARDIS, then – as the Doctor discovers when his ship is raided by the imp-like Drachee, and his companion Flip is carried away…

But the TARDIS isn’t the only stricken vessel in the region. Aboard a nearby space yacht, the Doctor encounters a woman who holds in her head the secret of Erys – a secret suppressed by amnesia, or worse.

Flip, too, is about to learn Erys’ secret. But once you know Erys’ secret, you can never escape.”

* * *
Andrew Smith and Big Finish are rapidly becoming closely associated with one another, and it is easy enough to see why with a play like The Brood of Erys.  It has a colourful cast with some pleasingly odd voices, a solid pace and ending which sets up things to come, a story which is at once nice and evocative of past stories whilst also being firmly grounded in ‘the now’, and lots of action set pieces which place the companion in the centre of things: DWM would have had a field day drawing Flip plummeting through space back when they used to paint previews of the monthly releases.

Despite all this though, the adventure lacked a certain spark for me.  It’s certainly a world away from the heights of The First Sontarans and the imagination of Vengeance of the Stones, Smith’s contributions to The Lost Stories and Destiny of the Doctors ranges respectively.  Perhaps oddly, given his first script for Big Finish was set in E-Space, this feels more like Full Circle than any of his post-TV scripts have so far.  Now, that’s not a bad thing at all: Full Circle is not a bad story or script at all, and if you ever get the chance to read Smith’s novelisation of it, then I recommend you do so: it’s lovingly written and oozes imagination, wonder at even getting to write it, and genuine enthusiasm.  I had that feeling when listening to The First Sontarans, too, but there was something about The Brood of Erys which missed the spot for me.  Perhaps it’s because a lot of it felt very... familiar.  Not just to other scripts Smith has written, but in general.  It doesn’t break any new ground, and whilst not every Doctor Who script has to of course, it would have been nice to see it done so here all the same.  It feels like there is a better story hidden in there somewhere.

It feels like I am being rather down on The Brood of Erys and I do not wish to be.  There are other stories out there which deserve that sort of derision, and this story most definitely is not one.  Let’s focus on positives instead, namely the leads.  Colin Baker is forever brilliant as The Doctor (twelve times now they’ve cast the lead role - well, thirteen if we want to throw in John Hurt, and seeing how great he was, I reckon we should– and twelve/thirteen times now they’ve got it so very, very right) and here is no exception.  He sounds like he’s having fun throughout, which in turn makes for a more enjoyable listen, even if the material isn’t the greatest he’s ever had.  Likewise, Lisa Greenwood as Flip is strong.  As a companion, I don’t think she’s ever going to make a real dent for me as Flip is a bit too... generic to really do much.  Greenwood, however, is a different story.  As with Baker, you get the sense that she really wants to be there, acting and playing along.  It makes a real difference and helps Flip stand a bit stronger.  She is a far better actor than her character, though.

All the signs are pointing to an end of an era though, not just for the trilogy but in a wider sense, so it’ll be interesting to see what the third main range release of 2014 has in store for The Sixth Doctor and Flip, and whilst this was definitely better than the rather tedious Antidote to Oblivion, which committed the cardinal sin for any Doctor Who story in that it was really rather boring, I hope that it ends with a tale a little less serviceable than The Brood of Erys was at times.  All that said though, a script by Andrew Smith is always well worth listening to, so I do genuinely look forward to what he comes up with next.

Reviewed by: Matthew Davis for Doctor Who Online

Review Posted: 10th March 2014

After last month’s slightly disappointing Antidote to Oblivion, The Sixth Doctor triliogy picks up with the rather enjoyable The Brood Of Erys.

Andrew Smith is a familiar name to Doctor Who fans having penned the first part of the E-Space Trilogy Full Circle. In The Brood of Erys, Smith deals with some very interesting science fiction ideas but the story towards the end does tend to delve somewhat into sentimentality.

The story deals with the concept of a sentient planet, breeding its own offspring to not only protect it but to follow it’s every command. This is very interesting and is one of the plot lines which keep your attention throughout. The story builds up its mysteries rather strongly throughout the first three episodes but it is only in the last half of episode four that it turns into more of a dysfunctional family drama. I will not give away what happens but for me it was too much of a sudden change of direction in what had been a fascinating and rather dark story.

The cast is one of the strongest aspects of this release with Colin Baker charging full steam ahead in a superb performance as The Doctor. Despite my misgivings about the sentimental ending of the story, Baker brings great subtlety to the dialogue. He truly is a masterful actor, and he has made his Doctor something very special over the years at Big Finish.

Lisa Greenwood gets a lot more to do as Flip in this story, and Greenwood goes for it with gusto. Flip is certainly one of the best foils The Sixth Doctor has had and it remains to be seen if the character’s recklessness in dangerous situations will have dire consequences in the future.

 With a brilliant supporting cast that includes Nicola Sian, better known to us as Clara’s mother and Brian Shelley as Erys, this play has a lot of great talent throughout.

At times comical and serious The Brood of Erys is a very interesting slice of Doctor Who and worth checking out.

The BBC have released Peter Davison's comedy sketch 'The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot', which premiered last night on the BBC Red Button.

Synopsis:
A star studded special written and directed by Peter Davison. With the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who about to film, the 'Classic' Doctors are keen to be involved. But do they manage it?

Make sure you keep watching until the very end, as the implications will make The Day Of The Doctor seem even better :)

Watch The Five(isn) Doctors Reboot, below:

+  Follow @DrWhoOnline on Twitter!
+  Follow @PeterDavison5 on Twitter!
+  Follow @SawBonesHex on Twitter!
+  Follow @TheWitchPrime on Twitter! 

[Source: BBC]

Manufacturer: Big Finish Productions

Written By: Jonathan Morris

RRP: £14.99 (CD) / £12.99 (Download)

Release Date: October 2013

Reviewed by: Nick Mellish for Doctor Who Online

Review Posted: 31st October 2013

“November 1963, and the Soviet space programme reigns supreme. Having sent the first animals, then the first men beyond Earth's atmosphere, now they're sending a manned capsule into orbit around the Moon.

Just as Vostok Seven passes over into the dark side, however, its life support system fails. Only the intervention of the Sixth Doctor and Peri, adopting the identities of scientists from Moscow University, means that contact with the capsule is regained.

But something has happened to the cosmonaut on board. She appears to have lost her memory, and developed extreme claustrophobia. Maybe she’s not quite as human as she used to be…”

* * *

The year is 2013 here at the time of writing this, but it stubbornly remains 1963 in the land of Big Finish now, with this, the second of their 1963 Main Range trilogy, taking us to Russia, Earth and far beyond…

     Whereas Fanfare from the Common Men was nostalgic for the birth of The Beatles and the explosion of the huge cultural shift they were at the epicentre of, The Space Race is focussed instead on... well, on the space race.  Ahem.  It takes us far away from the cosy nostalgia of England, screaming fans and musical genius to Kazakhstan, espionage and scientific genius.  It all feels a bit more serious, a bit less cosy, a lot more dangerous, cloaking a landscape in which women and men aspire towards being the first to visit the Moon and beyond, to stake their claim upon the wider universe... if they can stop betraying and killing one another first.  At the heart of this tale of great aspiration is the petty mechanics of politics, and humanity’s shamefully cruel streak.  It makes a nice contrast and reminds you of both the best and worst that mankind has to offer simultaneously.

   It also manages to take a potentially really, really silly plot device, and make it both sad and terrifying, which is exactly what Doctor Who is so very good at.  It comes as no surprise to me that Jonathan Morris pulls it off so well here whilst writing an article in the 50th Anniversary celebratory edition of Doctor Who Magazine about the show’s quirks and central facets.  He knows his subject back to front, and plays it out somewhat beautifully.

     His script is well supported, too, by a great cast.  It almost goes without saying that Nicola Bryant and Colin Baker are both brilliant (but I’m going to say it here anyway, and hope it doesn’t come across as too sycophantic), but I was most impressed by Samantha Béart, who is so key to the story and walks the lines in just the right way.  That said, I loved her as Random in the final radio series of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and, more recently before financial woes led to it being cancelled, the stage show of that same series, so it’s not such a surprise that she impressed me here, too.  It would be great to hear more of her in the future, so touch wood.

     It didn’t all work for me, I’ll be honest.  There’s a potential love interest for Peri, which is wrapped up rather clumsily, or rather not really at all: it just sort of stops without any consequence, which was a pity.  That said, it’d be hard to deal with that strand without annoying the continuity purists, so perhaps Morris was wise.  I know that there are still people out there, baying for poor Nev Fountain’s blood after writing the frankly marvellous The Kingmaker, which just goes to show that some people are wrong.

     What 1963: The Space Race really shows though is that Big Finish have chosen a good theme to work with, one with lots of potential and drama.  1963 was an important year for the world, not just for Who fans, and I’m intrigued to see how Big Finish wrap things up next month.

 Manufacturer: Big Finish Productions

Manufacturer: Big Finish Productions

Written By: Nicholas Briggs

RRP: £14.99 (CD) / £12.99 (Download)

Release Date: October 2013

Reviewed by: Matthew Davis for Doctor Who Online

Review Posted: 25th October 2013

November 23rd 1963 proves to be a significant day in the lives of all eight Doctors…

It's the day that Bob Dovie's life is ripped apart…

It's also a day that sets in motion a catastrophic chain of events which forces the first eight incarnations of the Doctor to fight for their very existence. As a mysterious, insidious chaos unfolds within the TARDIS, the barriers of time break apart…

From suburban England through war-torn alien landscapes and into a deadly, artificial dimension, all these Doctors and their companions must struggle against the power of an unfathomable, alien technology.

From the very beginning, it is clear that the Master is somehow involved. By the end, for the Doctors, there may only be darkness.

* * *

So here it is at last! The Light at the End is Big Finish’s tribute to the 50th anniversary of our favourite television show and was it worth the wait? The answer is a resounding YES!

The Light at the End is everything you could have hoped for from an anniversary story; multiple Doctors, many companions and a truly exciting story which celebrates the past fifty years with unashamed joy.

Unlike previous releases, Zagreus and The Four Doctors, we get to see all the Doctors interacting with each other throughout the whole story. 

As with past multi Doctor stories there are the inevitable moments such as criticism of taste in fashion , differences of opinion on TARDIS decor and some squabbling. Writer Nicholas Briggs chooses to pair Doctors together before everyone eventually gets together for the final part of the story. This makes for some rather interesting team ups, especially when the Fourth and Eighth Doctor get together. Tom Baker and Paul McGann make a wonderful pairing and they play off each other to great comic effect. Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy also make a brilliant pairing that is somewhat reminiscent of Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee from The Three Doctors, which creates some more wonderful moments.

One of the biggest surprises about the story is that all the classic Doctors make an appearance and I do mean all of them. How this is achieved I wouldn’t dream of spoiling by telling you but Big Finish must be commended for taking on such a risky and delicate matter and achieving a lovely tribute to those wonderful actors no longer with us.

The Light at the End surely must feature the largest cast of guest stars in any single Big Finish release. The cast includes many Companions of the past from Carole Ann Ford to the very welcome return of India Fisher and many more lovely surprises. Wisely, unlike other anniversary specials of the past, Briggs uses them in small but wonderful moments and little flashes of memory - it pulls at the fans’ heart strings and no one outstays their welcome.

The Companions themselves have a really great part to play but ultimately this is a story about The Doctor. That is not to say the companions are wasted; they play a really important part in the story and Ace’s descriptions of each of the Doctor’s incarnations is worth the purchase price itself.

The cast are on exceptional form and an extraordinary script makes this a top notch audio drama.

Briggs must be singled out for great praise. The Light at the End in the hands of a lesser writer could have been a mess. The temptation of an anniversary story is to succumb to all our fan dreams and fill the story with so many references, characters and monsters that the story is crushed under its own weight (I’m looking at you Dimensions in Time!). I take my hat off to Briggs for not only creating a superb script which serves all the Doctors and their legacy but for writing a cracking story in its own right. 

Having The Master as the sole antagonist is a smart move on Brigg’s part, especially as he has been such an important part of The Doctor’s history. This choice of foe gives the story a clear sense of direction and enhances the impact of its message. We are reminded throughout just how important The Doctor is and the impact that he has on those around him and the Universe as a whole is inescapable.

Just as we are reminded that The Doctor has impacted on the lives of those he meets in his stories, so too are we reminded of the importance he has had to us as listeners. We wouldn’t be listening to this story if hehad not had an impact on us at some point in our lives. This is something that Briggs understands completely, as he is one of us; a true fan. He doesn’t just love the show, he truly understands what makes it important and it is this understanding that really shines through.

The Light at the End really is a wonderful tribute to the power of Doctor Who and its legacy and this is one release you really cannot be without.

Here’s to the next 50 years...

Like the TARDIS materialising from another dimension a giant Dalek has cropped up in a field of maize on the outskirts of York. Is it the work of alien invaders or crop circle pranksters? In fact it is an inspired piece of field art created by Yorkshire farmer and Doctor Who fan Tom Pearcy as his tribute to the 50th anniversary of the show. 

Mr Pearcy’s York Maze design features the biggest image of a Dalek ever created, over 300m (1000ft) long, cut out of an 18 acre field of over one million living maize plants. The design also includes images of the first Doctor in 1963 William Hartnell and the current Doctor 2013’s Matt Smith. The 10km of pathways form an intricate maize maze which visitors can explore. York Maze is the largest maze in Europe and one of the largest in the world.

Tom Pearcy said:

“Like many kids I grew up watching Doctor Who from behind the sofa and fell in love with the show. I wanted to create a piece of art as a tribute to the 50th anniversary and also make it interactive so visitors can have their own adventures in time and space inside the maze.”

The sixth Doctor, Colin Baker met up with some of his old foes the Daleks at the launch of the York Maze.

Colin Baker said:

“It is fantastic to see how much interest there is in the 50th anniversary of the show. I have been invited to join events all over the world this year, but what York Maze have created with their giant maize maze has to be one of the most imaginative ways to mark the 50th anniversary I have seen. Who would have thought almost thirty years after I played the Doctor that the show would continue to go from strength to strength reaching a new generation of fans. It is great that children and their families will be able to have their own Doctor Who inspired adventures in the York Maze this summer.”

A video from today's press launch for the maze can now be watched below:

[youtube:0z6_U0jWiug]

+  York Maze is open to the public from Saturday 13th July to Monday 2nd September. See www.yorkmaze.co.uk for details.

[Source: York Maze]

A fantastic SciFi event for Doctor Who enthusiasts takes place at Spaceport on Saturday 20th July when Doctor Who actor, Colin Baker, visits the Merseyside attraction. 

Colin Baker, who played the sixth embodiment of the celebrated Doctor from 1984–1986, will be at Spaceport between 10am–4pm to meet fans and share some anecdotes from his stint as the Time Lord - plus there will also be replica Doctor Who costume characters ranging from the 1970’s up to the present day. 

Colin’s visit launches a fun packed schedule at Spaceport over the summer holidays, including monster making workshop events and the new Time Travellers exhibition featuring favourites such as life size Daleks, Cybermen, a TARDIS display, a Sontaran, a scary Weeping Angel and K9 –plus prop weapons and an activity area. 

Spaceport hosts the exhibition giving SciFi fans a unique opportunity to experience the creative talents of Hyde Fundraisers, a voluntary organisation who create replica characters from Doctor Who, Star Wars and other SciFi programmes to raise funds for BBC Children In Need and other charities. 

+  For more information visit the Spaceport website.

[Source: Spaceport]

On November 23rd, 2013, Doctor Who fans around the world will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the world’s longest running sci-fi series. We are delighted to announce that current Doctor – Matt Smith – will attend the only official 50th Anniversary Celebration at ExCeL, London alongside special guests confirmed so far: Tom Baker*, Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy who have also played the iconic role of The Doctor.

The event on the 22nd, 23rd and 24th November is a must for the whole family to celebrate their love of all things Doctor Who, with an exciting range of activities to suit all ages. Keep your eyes peeled for further announcements of high profile guests in the coming weeks.

Matt Smith says:

“The event this year will be an extra special occasion for me, I’m truly looking forward to a huge celebration with the fans in the lead up to the 50th anniversary episode.”

Ticket holders to this once-in-a-lifetime event will have access to a whole range of activities including: 

•  Guaranteed seats to two theatre panel shows featuring star guests from 50 years of Doctor Who. 

•  Guaranteed seats in a spectacular special effects show hosted by Doctor Who’s special effects guru Danny Hargreaves. 

•  Activities in the main halls including: stunt workshops with Doctor Who stunt co-ordinator Crispin Layfield and stunt double Gordon Seed, audio and visual effect workshops, on-stage panels with cast members, walk-like-a-monster master-classes with Doctor Who’s official monster choreographer Ailsa Burke, quizzes and games for fans young and old and plenty more to ensure the whole family have an amazing day out celebrating Doctor Who. 

All of the above will be available to guests who purchase a standard ticket to the event. Tickets go on general sale at 11am on Monday 8th July 2013 from celebration.doctorwho.tv. Standard tickets are priced at £45 for adults and £20 for kids, while a family ticket will cost £104** (two adults and two children***). Tickets cover entry to the Celebration for one day. 

There is also an option to purchase a limited edition TARDIS ticket. This ticket guarantees front row seats to the theatre shows, a private lounge for use all day, drinks and light refreshments and a special goodie bag with exclusive merchandise which can be collected on the day guests attend. TARDIS tickets are priced at £95.50 for adults, £44.25 for children and £218 for a family (two adults and two children****).

To ensure every visitor gets access to the best experience, when buying tickets online they will have the option to choose one of two streams – Ice Warrior or Weeping Angel – which will reserve each guest a seat for that day’s shows in the theatre. 

Visitors to the Celebration will also have the opportunity to visit signature and photo booths where they can meet their heroes from 50 years of Doctor Who (photos with Matt Smith should be booked in advance via the website). These opportunities will be available at a fee and subject to availability. 

In addition to the Celebration, further activity is being planned for the Saturday evening and will be announced soon.

For more information on the Celebration and a Plan Your Day guide, visit celebration.doctorwho.tv. To hear who else will be making the journey to this once-in-a-lifetime occasion at ExCeL in November subscribe to the doctorwho.tv newsletter and follow us on twitter at www.twitter.com/dwcelebration.

*Tom Baker is only able to attend the Doctor Who Celebration on Saturday 23rd November.
**Prices shown for standard tickets exclude booking fee.
***Children under five can attend for free, but must be able to sit on a parents lap during the theatre shows as seats are pre-allocated.
****Prices shown for TARDIS tickets include booking fee.

[Source: BBC Worldwide]

BBC Television Centre, once home to Doctor Who and countless beloved TV Shows, is saying its final farewell as the BBC brings down the curtain on 53 years of Broadcasting History at the site.

Yesterday, the BBC celebrated the farewell with a gig by evergreen "nutty boys" turned national treasures Madness.

Speaking to DWO, Colin Baker (The 6th Doctor), had the following to say on the closure:

"All I can really add about TC8 is that I have such fond memories of working in those wonderful studios at TV Centre and they are such iconic symbols of the history of British (and world) Television that it it heart breaking to see something trashed that once gone can  never be restored.

As I recall - and correct me if I am wrong - TC1 and TC8 were the biggest studios.  I think I did War and Peace in TC8 and that's where Anthony Hopkins (as Pierre Bezukhov) hurled me (as Anatol Kuragin) across the set.

I know times move on but in America they treasure the old studio sets and preserve them for posterity - sometimes by creating an attraction there that will bring tourists to the site.  In any event, it's a great shame. But this is the organisation of course that has forced hundreds of people to move to Manchester in the name of regionalism and jettison a wonderful facility in the heart of London that is recognised all over the world."

The final programme which will be made at the site will be for a comedy panel show pilot, to be recorded on 29th March.

The premises have been sold for £200m to property developer, Stanhope, and the 14-acre 'fun factory', complete with the infamous doughnut-shaped inner ring, will be turned into a hotel, cinema, restaurants, cafes, a health club and apartments.

In 2015, the BBC will be back at BBC Television Centre, but will only occupy 20% of the redeveloped site with a 'creative hub', which will include leasing three of the biggest TV studios which will be revamped. BBC Worldwide will return to the space previously occupied by BBC News.

DWO have compiled a guide to Doctor Who stories filmed at BBC Television Centre, below:

Television Centre 1

The Wheel in Space, The War Games, Doctor Who and the Silurians, The Ambassadors of Death, The Three Doctors, Planet of the Daleks, The Time Warrior, Planet of the Spiders, The Ark in Space, Genesis of the Daleks, Revenge of the Cybermen, The Brain of Morbius, The Robots of Death, The Talons of Weng-Chiang, The Androids of Tara, Destiny of the Daleks, The Leisure Hive, Castrovalva, Arc of Infinity, Terminus, Enlightenment, The King's Demons, The Two Doctors, Revelation of the Daleks, Mindwarp, Terror of the Vervoids, The Ultimate Foe, Time and the Rani, Paradise Towers, Dragonfire.

Television Centre 3

The Aztecs, The Sensorites, The Daleks' Master Plan, The Wheel in Space, The Dominators, The Mind Robber, Doctor Who and the Silurians, The Ambassadors of Death, Inferno, The Mind of Evil, The Claws of Axos, Colony in Space, The Curse of Peladon, The Mutants, The Time Monster, Frontier in Space, Planet of the Daleks, The Green Death, Robot, The Ark in Space, Planet of Evil, Pyramids of Mars, The Android Invasion, The Brain of Morbius, The Masque of Mandragora, The Deadly Assassin, The Face of Evil, The Sun Makers, Underworld, The Stones of Blood, The Armageddon Factor, Destiny of the Daleks, City of Death, The Horns of Nimon, Shada, The Leisure Hive, Meglos, Full Circle, State of Decay, Warriors' Gate, Logopolis, The Visitation, Black Orchid, The Mysterious Planet, Terror of the Vervoids, Delta and the Bannermen, Dragonfire, The Happiness Patrol, Battlefield, Ghost Light.

Television Centre 4

The Sensorites, The Reign of Terror, Planet of Giants, The Space Museum, The Chase, The Time Meddler, Galaxy Four, Mission to the Unknown, The Gunfighters, The Dominators, The Space Pirates, The War Games, The Ambassadors of Death, The Claws of Axos, Colony in Space, The Dæmons, Day of the Daleks, The Curse of Peladon, The Mutants, The Time Monster, Carnival of Monsters, Frontier in Space, Planet of the Daleks, Invasion of the Dinosaurs, Death to the Daleks, The Monster of Peladon, The Seeds of Doom, The Ribos Operation, The Twin Dilemma, Timelash, Aliens of London.

Television Centre 4A

The Mutants, The Masque of Mandragora.

Television Centre 6

The War Games, Inferno, Terror of the Autons, The Mind of Evil, The Three Doctors, Carnival of Monsters, Planet of the Daleks, The Time Warrior, Invasion of the Dinosaurs, The Monster of Peladon, Planet of the Spiders, Genesis of the Daleks, Planet of Evil, Pyramids of Mars, The Invisible Enemy, Image of the Fendahl, The Sun Makers, The Pirate Planet, The Androids of Tara, The Power of Kroll, City of Death, The Creature from the Pit, Nightmare of Eden, The Horns of Nimon, Full Circle, State of Decay, Warriors' Gate, The Keeper of Traken, Logopolis, Castrovalva, Four to Doomsday, Snakedance, Mawdryn Undead, Terminus, The Five Doctors, Warriors of the Deep, The Awakening, Frontios, Resurrection of the Daleks, Planet of Fire, The Caves of Androzani, Attack of the Cybermen, Vengeance on Varos, The Mark of the Rani, The Two Doctors, The Mysterious Planet, Mindwarp.

Television Centre 7

The Claws of Axos, Robot.

Television Centre 8

The War Games, Doctor Who and the Silurians, Terror of the Autons, Day of the Daleks, The Sea Devils, The Mutants, Invasion of the Dinosaurs, Planet of the Spiders, Genesis of the Daleks, Revenge of the Cybermen, The Android Invasion, The Seeds of Doom, The Hand of Fear, The Deadly Assassin, The Robots of Death, The Talons of Weng-Chiang, The Invasion of Time, Meglos, The Keeper of Traken, Kinda, Earthshock, Time-Flight, Terminus, Resurrection of the Daleks, Planet of Fire, The Twin Dilemma, Timelash, Revelation of the Daleks, Time and the Rani, Paradise Towers, Remembrance of the Daleks, The Happiness Patrol.

Puppet Theatre

The Web of Fear, The Dominators, The Mind Robber, The Curse of Peladon, The Three Doctors, The Ark in Space, Revenge of the Cybermen, Pyramids of Mars.

Presentation Studio B

Terminus.

* In 2013, BBC Television Centre was used for Mark Gatiss' Doctor Who biodrama, 'An Adventure In Space And Time' which will air later in the year.

+ Do you think BBC Television Centre should have been sold off? Vote Now in the DWO Forums!

[Sources: DWO; The Guardian; TARDIS Wikia]

Manufacturer: Big Finish Productions

Written By: William Gallagher

RRP: £14.99 (CD) / £12.99 (Download)

Release Date: February 2013

Reviewed by: Matthew Davis for Doctor Who Online

Review Posted: 12th March 2013

Welcome to Tantane Spaceport – where the tribes of Business and Economy have been at war for all of four hundred years...

Welcome to Tantane Spaceport – where a terrible creature called the Wailer prowls the corridors around the Control Tower, looking to eat the unwary...

Welcome to Tantane Spaceport – where there is one Arrival: a battered blue Police Box containing the time-travelling Doctor and his companion, Mel...

Welcome to Tantane Spaceport – where there are no Departures. Ever.

* * *

Spaceport Fear has an intriguing premise and its opening episode does generate a certain amount of atmosphere, but unfortunately the whole play doesn’t really come together at the end.

In the behind the scenes interviews, we are told that Spaceport Fear was a quick replacement for a story that fell through. Unfortunately it shows, as elements of this play either plod along or feel very rushed. For instance, the peculiar speech of the inhabitants of the Spaceport, such as airport terminology becoming part of everyday slang is never picked up by The Doctor or Mel. They just seem to accept that these two tribes are called Economy and Business without as much as an audible raised eyebrow. This is a shame as it is this rather fun language that provides many of the play’s laughs and it would have been nice for The Doctor to have made some comment on it.

Overall once the central villain of the piece is revealed, a lot of the tension so marvellously set up in the first episode loses some of its momentum. I for one wanted to know how this civilisation and its warring factions came to be and how they existed for over 500 years rather than what was lurking outside the spaceport.

One thing that cannot be faulted is the cast, as Bonnie Langford continues to impress as Mel and guest star Ronald Pickup brings a delightful sinister glee as Elder Bones. The supporting cast is fantastic with Big Finish regular Beth Chalmers doing an excellent job of playing two completely different roles so well you don’t even notice.

Colin Baker’s Doctor is “in a state of transition” as the actor himself chooses to describe the character in the behind the scenes extras. He is not as mellow but not as rude, but one cannot feel, and to which Baker makes very clear, that we are all tired of a brash Sixth Doctor. Yes he does have some withering put downs but the development of the character of the Big Finish team and Baker’s performance has redefined this Doctor and the occasional glimpse of what came before is fine, but I prefer to move on.

Spaceport Fear is a very good idea and with more time to develop, this could have been a very strong play. Sadly it is just an average one.

Manufacturer: Big Finish Productions

Written By: Matt Fitton

RRP: £14.99 (CD) / £12.99 (Download)

Release Date: January 2013

Reviewed by: Matthew Davis for Doctor Who Online

Review Posted: 30th January 2013

With Evelyn gone, the Doctor sets course for his destiny... in the form of his first meeting with Miss Melanie Bush, a computer programmer from the village of Pease Pottage, currently busy rehearsing with the local Amateur Dramatic Society – and blissfully unaware that her future is on its way, in his TARDIS.

Make that two TARDISes. Because at that very moment, a slightly younger Doctor is flying into Pease Pottage, too – returning his future companion Melanie Bush to her rightful place and time, after they were flung together during the course of his Time Lord trial.

Time travel is a complicated business – the iguanadon terrorising Pease Pottage being a case in point. But how much more complicated could things possibly become, if the wrong Doctor were to bump into the wrong Mel?

* * *

For the first release in the main range this year, Big Finish has given us two Sixth Doctor's for the price of one. As if that wasn’t enough we have two versions of Melanie Bush who is once again played by Bonnie Langford, returning to Big Finish after a lengthy absence.

Melanie Bush is an intriguing character in the Doctor Who universe and her first meeting with The Doctor has never been documented. River Song is not the only companion that The Doctor has met out of sequence. He first encounters Mel during the events of The Trial of a Time Lord, long after she has been travelling with him for some time in his future.

Endeavouring to solve the anomaly of Mel’s arrival in The Doctor’s life, Big Finish has chosen to turn it into a rather mind bogglingly paradox story.

To enjoy The Wrong Doctor’s fully you really need to sit down and listen to it carefully. Writer Matt Fitton wisely throws in little lines, odd nicknames and different coloured coats to help a listener keep up with which Doctor and Mel is which. Get distracted even for a second and you may find yourself rewinding to the last place you were at to fathom just what is going on.

This is not to the discredit of the play at all as Fitton does a very good job of juggling the different characters and the rather bizarre situations that follow. In a story that contains Women of the W.I., rampaging Dinosaurs and Alien bureaucrats, the narrative with our main characters can sometimes get drowned out.

Colin Baker does a tremendous job of playing two versions of his Doctor at different points in the character’s timeline. He adopts the rather arrogant and pompous attitude more commonly associated with the younger Sixth Doctor to easily differentiate between the two.

I was never a fan of Mel on the television and I put that down more to the writing than Bonnie Langford’s performance which is why she is such a joy to listen to in this play. Fitton does a great job of balancing an older and younger Mel throughout the story especially in the very touching climax.

The conclusion of The Wrong Doctors allows us to see the impact that Mel would have on The Doctor’s life and personality. In the Big Finish universe, The Sixth Doctor’s personality was softening with Peri and Evelyn but Mel would serve as that incarnation’s last companion. She is incredibly important to his life and her chirpy personality would be an excellent temperance to his brashness and this play is a great reminder of that.

Bolstered by an excellent supporting cast The Wrong Doctors is a demanding but fun listen.

In light of the recent news reports which appear to be evolving from an original report from the Birmingham Mail story, DWO decided to put together a definitive guide to the 50th Anniversary Doctor Who special, separating fact from fiction, and getting down to the original sources of some of the recent rumours.

What are the rumours?

According to the Birmingham Mail report, all 11 Doctors are set to feature in the 50th Anniversary special. Christopher Eccleston is said to be reconsidering his earlier decision not to take part.

David Tennant, interviewed on a radio show, claimed that he had yet to be invited – but gave the presenter a knowing wink, thus hinting at his possible involvement in the special.

DWO contacted Paul Cole; the writer of the article in question who had the following to say:

"The article in question was a speculative piece based on all the available information, recent interviews with the five Doctors taking part in the 50th anniversary audiobook, comments made by Eccleston. I would be amazed if the 11 doctors are not featured in some form, be it surviving actors, film footage, storyline, plot device or online."

What is the likelihood of past Doctor's returning for the Anniversary special?

This is a difficult question to answer without adding our own flame to the fire surrounding the rumours, but going on what the BBC have done for previous anniversary specials, it would be odd if at least one past Doctor didn't turn up.

- 10th anniversary special was titled 'The Three Doctors' and featured all 3 incarnations of The Doctor.
- 20th anniversary special was titled 'The Five Doctors' and featured all 5 incarnations of The Doctor.
- 30th anniversary featured a short two-part adventure titled 'Dimensions in Time' as part of Children in Need and included performances from 5 of the surviving Doctors (3-7).

All of the surviving actors who have played The Doctor have been asked questions from press and fans regarding their involvement in the 2013 Doctor Who Anniversary special. Here are some of their responses and the original sources:

Tom Baker (The 4th Doctor) - speaking at Collectormania 18 - (June 2012)

"I think if they ask me nicely or I can see what they want me to do, I'd consider it. I think the fans have been so good to me, they'd expect me to at least make an appearance."

Peter Davison (The 5th Doctor) - speaking at New York Comic Con - (October 2012)

“Every day I check the phone to see if Steven Moffat has called me. I don’t know what’s happening next year, I have nothing to report. I’m sure it will be something fantastic! But I don’t know what. I think if [the classic Doctors] aren’t invited, I’m going to make my own rival video. I’ll do my own 50th anniversary special. Colin Baker’s prepared to work for nothing!”

Colin Baker (The 6th Doctor) - speaking via Twitter - (22nd January 2013)

“Alas apart from The Big Finish plans I am not aware of any 50th stories nor have I been approached." When probed further by fans on whether he was double bluffing, Colin then tweeted: "There's no point in me tweeting if you don't believe me".

Sylvester McCoy (The 7th Doctor) - speaking at DragonCon - (2012)

"No. Nothing whatsoever. The only thing I've heard about, and I'm sure you've all heard about is that Mr Moffat and Mr Gatiss are going to write a play about the beginning of Doctor Who. But I haven't heard anything about us, no nothing. Nothing whatsoever."

Paul McGann (The 8th Doctor) - speaking to The Independent - (July 2012)

"I mean, I know it's imminent but no, there's been no invites to or sounding out taking place but maybe it will happen, we don't know."

Christopher Eccleston (The 9th Doctor) - several sources mentioned below - (2011-2012)

In April 2011, Eccleston was famously quoted on Graham Norton's BBC Radio 2 show as saying “No, I never bathe in the same river twice.” when asked if he would ever return to Doctor Who.

In July 2012, Eccleston attended a Q&A at National Theatre. A fan in the audience noted his Doctor Who related comments:

"[He] felt that one series isn’t enough to get under the skin of the character and that if he’d had two or three series he’d have developed the role considerably. He said that if you looked at the other Doctors (with the exception of Tom Baker) you can see them working out how to play the character through their first series because it’s such a complex and challenging role. He said several times that there was more for him to do with the character... "

In November 2012, RedCarpetNewsTV grabbed a very brief interview with Eccleston asking about his involvement in the 50th Anniversary, to which he replied: "Would I like to be involved? If I told you that, I’d have to shoot you”.

David Tennant (The 10th Doctor) - several sources mentioned below - (2012-2013)

In July 2012, Tennant was interviewed on Attack Of The Show. When asked about his 50th anniversary plans, Tennant stated:

"I cannot be drawn on anything. Who knows what will happen next year. I'm sure there are lots of plans being discussed in quiet rooms by men with long beards and great power. I am confirming nor denying anything." When asked if he still has his suit on standby, Tennant added: "I do have it in a very secure location. Yes!"

In November 2012, RedCarpetNewsTV interviewed Tennant at the world premiere for Nativity 2. When asked if he would like to be involved in the 50th anniversary celebrations, Tennant said:

"I can't imagine there even are going to be any anniversary celebrations are there? Look at my agent getting twitchy!"

In January 2013, Tennant was interviewed on The Jonathan Ross Show, and when asked by Ross if he would be returning, Tennant simply stated: "No-one has spoken to me. I know nothing." 

What are the facts for the 50th Anniversary Doctor Who Special?

- The story will be written by Steven Moffat.
- The duration will be 60 x Minutes to be broadcast in Autumn of 2013 (most likely the actual anniversary).
- Matt Smith will be The Doctor in the adventure (but hopefully not the only one). 

[Sources: DWO; Birmingham Mail; New York Comic Con; The Independant; Collectormania 18; Twitter; RedCarpetNews TV; BBC Radio 2; Attack Of The Show; The Jonathan Ross Show]

March 26th 2013 will see Royal Mail celebrate the 50th anniversary of the world’s longest running science fiction series in TV history - Doctor Who - with the launch of a special set of 11 stamps.

The stamps will feature each of the actors who have played the role of the Time Lord over the last 50 years. The stamp design will see the face of each Doctor appearing out of the iconic swirling screen idents, made famous by the opening credits of the TV show. The first two stamps are in black and white, as the first two incarnations of the Doctor were broadcast in monochrome.

Featuring on the stamps are the present Doctor, Matt Smith, as well as David Tennant, Christopher Eccleston, Paul McGann, Sylvester McCoy, Colin Baker, Peter Davison, Tom Baker, Jon Pertwee, Patrick Troughton and the First Doctor, William Hartnell.

In addition to the 11 stamps featuring the Doctors, a five stamp miniature sheet will also be available. In the centre of the sheet is a stamp featuring the Doctor’s space and time travelling machine, the world famous Time and Relative Dimension in Space or the TARDIS as it is more commonly known. The remaining four stamps feature some of the Doctor’s most famous foes; a Dalek, a Cyberman, an Ood and a Weeping Angel.

Andrew Hammond, Managing Director, Stamps and Collectibles at Royal Mail, said:

“We are delighted to be able to celebrate this remarkable 50th anniversary. These stamps pay tribute to the brilliant actors that have played the Doctor over the years as well as the adversaries that helped make the show so popular.”

Fiona Eastwood, Product Development Director, BBC Worldwide Consumer Products said:

“The Doctor Who stamps are the perfect way to mark and celebrate the 50th anniversary of this much-loved programme. The collection is really impressive, and I am sure they will delight all Doctor Who fans.“ 

+  The stamps launch on March 26th 2013, but fans can pre-order today by registering at www.royalmail.com/doctorwho.

[Source: Royal Mail]