Two previously missing Doctor Who episodes from the 1965 First Doctor adventure, 'The Daleks' Master Plan', have been found!

Episode One (The Nightmare Begins), and Episode Three (Devil's Planet) were discovered in an "eclectic" collection by Film is Fabulous! – a charitable trust run by film collectors, cinema lovers and vintage television enthusiasts. The trust approached BBC Archives after finding them in a private collection.

This brings the total number of discovered episodes from the serial to 5 (Episodes 1, 2, 3, 5 & 10), with the most recent episode from the serial (Episode Two: Day of Armageddon) having been recovered in 2004 from a former Yorkshire Television engineer who rescued it from a junk pile in the 1970s.

Written by Terry Nation, the story featured William Hartnell as the Doctor and Peter Purves as Steven Taylor. It also featured Nicholas Courtney (who would later to go on to play Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart) as Bret Vyon, Adrienne Hill as Katarina, and Kevin Stoney as Mavic Chen.

Peter Purves, was invited to the Phoenix Cinema in Leicester on Wednesday under false pretences to view the two episodes, and said:

"My flabber has never been so gasted. I've never forgiven the BBC for losing those episodes, it would be really nice to get a few royalties. I'm not sure I even saw those programmes go out originally - I remember the stories, but having seen them, the pictures are unfamiliar to me.

I didn't remember the first one when I was still almost comatose following the injury I received fighting in Troy in the wonderful Mythmakers - which of course is missing.

It was just a job. It sounds silly but we did an episode of the programme each week, in the year I did 46 episodes. It was great fun and was great to be doing a series that was hugely popular. But it was a difficult time, I won't pretend it was easy, the cast kept changing and it seemed a bit of a time of flux.

In the two episodes we've seen there was a great performance by Nick Courtney playing Bret Vyon. I was concerned very much that he was there as a replacement for me. As it happens, he got killed in episode four or five."

Noreen Adams, Director of BBC Archives said:

“We’re thrilled to have worked with the team at Film is Fabulous! to bring these lost Doctor Who episodes to viewers on BBC iPlayer this Easter. BBC Archives has been working to restore the original recordings and update these to broadcast quality, ensuring fans can enjoy a little extra treat with their Easter Eggs this April.”

BBC Archives has worked to restore the original 16mm telerecordings – meaning viewers will be able to watch them in the best possible condition on BBC iPlayer this April!

A full Press Release can be found on the Film is Fabulous! website.

The BBC have released the trailer for The Power Of The Doctor - Jodie Whittaker's final outing as the Thirteenth Doctor!

In the trailer we see The Master, Daleks, Cybermen, and appearances from previous companions Ace & Tegan.

The Power Of The Doctor airs on Sunday 23rd October at 7:30pm.

[Source: BBC]

Manufacturer: Big Finish Productions

Written By: Roy Gill, John Dorney & Robert Valentine

RRP: £24.99 (CD) / £19.99 (Download)

Release Date: July 2021

Reviewed by: Robert Emlyn Slater for Doctor Who Online

"These tales take the Tenth Doctor, Anya Kingdom and Mark Seven deeper into family histories, aboard the strangest of space stations and to a truth that might tear them apart...

2.1 Cycle of Destruction by Roy Gill

After Mark starts behaving oddly, the Doctor and Anya find themselves on a strange planet with their friend missing. Searching for him they find their way to an isolated research base. The corridors show signs of animal incursions and the scientists are behaving strangely. But a big surprise is waiting for them.

Because this is where Mark Seven came from. They’re about to find out who he is. But is that information too dangerous to know?

2.2 The Trojan Dalek by John Dorney

The Doctor, Mark and Anya head for an SSS space station searching for the missing temporal scientist, Arborecc. But the officer in charge denies all knowledge of his presence and demands their departure.

Unwilling to leave so easily, the group split up to investigate... and uncover a heinous plot involving the Doctor’s oldest foes. Or do they?

2.3 The Lost by Robert Valentine

When the Doctor’s latest scheme to get back to the future fails, the team’s ship crashes on a strange world, potentially trapping them for ever.

Searching for replacement parts, they find their way to a building where heart-breakingly familiar faces await them.

Lies are about to be exposed. Everyone will learn the truth. And nothing will be the same again.

This boxset release contains all three stories, plus additional behind the scenes interviews."

WARNING: The following review contains spoilers. You have been warned!

The Tenth Doctor, Anya Kingdom, and Mark Seven’s adventures continue in the second volume of the Dalek Universe trilogy. In these three adventures, histories are explored, hearts are broken, secrets are revealed, and the Daleks finally turn up. Sort of. 

Last time out, the Daleks were nothing more than a 10-second cameo. Though their presence was felt throughout, it wasn’t their story just yet. Fans will therefore be pleased to know that they do have much more to do in this volume, though by the end of the boxset, you still don’t really feel as if they’re properly here yet. Everything seems to be leading into the final volume of the set, which looks like it’ll see the dastardly pepper-pots finally make their big entrance. I hope.

So if the Daleks don’t really feel as if they’ve arrived yet, then just what is Dalek Universe 2 actually about? Well, if anything, it’s an exploration of who the members of this TARDIS team actually are, what makes them act the way they do, and what they do when experiencing grief, loss, and anger. It really is as intriguing as it sounds. 

The first episode, The Cycle of Destruction by Roy Gill, gives us an opportunity to learn more about the android Mark Seven, and his ‘life’ before he joined the Space Security Services. 

Gill’s story follows straight on from the cliffhanger that we were left with at the end of the first boxset. Mark has started to behave oddly and has rendered the Doctor and Anya unconscious whilst flying a ship. The pair wake up to find that the ship has landed and Mark isn’t anywhere to be seen. It is here that we’re introduced to ALARC, an android development centre, and Mariah Six (Nina Toussaint-White), an android who wants freedom. 

Cycle of Destruction is essentially the counterpart of volume one’s House of Kingdom, in that it takes a detailed look at Mark Seven’s past, giving the character even more, well, character. We get glimpses of Mark’s past, which sounded utterly horrific and explains why he’s fighting against the Daleks and looks at how the lines blur between humans and life-like androids. Though this is a trope that has been done many times before, this is still an interesting take on it all the same.

Though this story does feel like more of a pit-stop than an integral part of the overall Dalek Universe arc, it’s a great addition to the story all the same, mainly due to how much it makes you care for Mark Seven, a literal robot. Gill’s script gives the listeners an opportunity to learn more about this particular TARDIS team and their dynamic, which just makes the next entry into the series that much more tragic.

The second episode, The Trojan Dalek by John Dorney throws us back into the Dalek Universe story proper with a trip to Beltros Station, with the TARDIS team in search of Arborrec, the temporal scientist who the Doctor is relying on to get him back to the right side of the Time War. 

We’re past the halfway point now in the Dalek Universe saga, and things are starting to get serious, and very, very dark. With shades of Revelation of the Daleks present, The Trojan Dalek sees the return of the Daleks, but not as we know them. 

The Trojan Dalek is excellent. As well as being a very disturbing story that left me feeling a little uncomfortable, this episode also features yet another brilliant performance from David Tennant. His fury at finding out what Major McLinn (Blake Ritson) and the SSS have been up to is spine-tingling, and his explosive confrontation with Ritson’s character when he learns the shocking truth about the ‘Daleks’ return is the highlight of the episode. 

Without going into too many spoilers, we learn that really nothing and nobody is safe in this episode, with a shocking twist in the final few minutes devastating our TARDIS team, leaving us wondering where the hell the story is going to go next. 

The third and final episode of this boxset is The Lost by Robert Valentine, and if you thought The Trojan Dalek was good, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. This, for me, is the highlight of the boxset, though choosing my favourite episode was obviously a tough decision. 

When the Doctor’s plan to travel through time back to his time goes wrong, their ship crash lands in a bubble universe that is in the process of breaking apart. There they meet Lost, a god-like entity who wants to escape from his self-built domain and get back into the universe proper, a premise that sounds very similar to series eleven’s It Takes You Away. 

This story is very different from what’s come before in Dalek Universe 2, and is, essentially, an hour-long character piece with a minimal cast that examines, mainly, the Doctor’s psyche, grief for all those he’s lost, and guilt for all those he failed to save. 

Facing familiar faces from the past, as well as having devastating secrets revealed, this story changes the relationship of this particular TARDIS team forever. It also felt to me personally, like the last slower story we’re going to have before the third volume of adventures. 

And that cliffhanger? I loved it, though I wish Big Finish hadn’t revealed the cover and cast details for Dalek Universe 3 so far in advance. You’ll understand what I mean when you hear it. It’s still great though and has definitely left me counting down the days until the next volume is released in October. 

As with the first volume, and as is expected when Tennant is involved, the performances from all three main cast members (David Tennant, Jane Slavin, and Joe Sims) are of a very high quality, and by the end of this volume, I really felt as though I knew who these characters were, and was beginning to really enjoy their dynamic and bickering by the end. Nicholas Briggs somehow, yet again manages to find a new, interesting take on how to perform the Daleks, and the guest cast, in particular Blake Ritson, give excellent and enjoyable performances throughout. 

Overall, whilst I don’t feel as though this volume is any better than Dalek Universe 1, I don’t think it’s any worse either. It’s three enjoyable, well-written adventures that get progressively darker as the boxset goes on, and the volume as a whole is an interesting and emotional look at who these characters are and what makes them tick. Whilst these stories may not impact the overall arc in a big way (though this remains to be seen), the impact they have on the Doctor, Anya, and Mark, and their friendship, will be felt in the next volume for sure. Ultimately this an equally enjoyable volume as the first that has really whet my appetite now for whatever comes next in October.

+ Dalek Universe 2 is OUT NOW, priced £24.99 (CD) / £19.99 (Download).

+ ORDER this title from Big Finish!

One of the most iconic characters in the Whoniverse is returning for the upcoming Festive Special of Doctor Who as John Barrowman MBE puts on his famous coat once more and reprises his role as Captain Jack Harkness.

The cheeky Captain left viewers reeling in the series 12 episode, ‘Fugitive of the Judoon’, when he made a brief surprise appearance with a stark warning for Yaz, Ryan and Graham to pass on to the Doctor before disappearing.

In the upcoming special titled, ‘Revolution of the Daleks’, Captain Jack will be on hand to help ‘the fam’ as they discover a disturbing plan forming involving one of the Doctor’s most feared and dangerous enemies, the Daleks. With the Thirteenth Doctor locked away in a space prison, will Captain Jack be able to help save planet Earth?

On returning for the Festive Special, John Barrowman MBE revealed:

“Putting on Jack’s coat and setting foot back on the set of Doctor Who was just like going back home.  It’s always thrilling  to play Captain Jack. He’s a character very close to my heart who changed my life, and to know the fans love him as much as I do makes his return even sweeter. I hope everyone enjoys Jack’s Heroic adventure with Thirteen.” 

Chris Chibnall, Executive Producer, said:

“A Doctor Who Festive Special means treats galore, and there’s no bigger treat than the return of John Barrowman to Doctor Who, for an epic and emotional feature-length episode. If anyone can blast away the sheer rubbishness of 2020, it’s Captain Jack. Daleks beware!”

Matt Strevens, Executive Producer BBC Studios, added:

“After a tantalisingly brief appearance in Fugitive of the Judoon it’s a total joy and thrill to welcome back John as Captain Jack. One of the most iconic characters in Doctor Who lore, his presence ignites this Festive Special from the start.”

‘Revolution of the Daleks’ will air over the festive period on BBC One with more details to be revealed soon.

[Source: BBC Studios]

Following on from the summer’s B&M release, Character Options is delighted to announce a brand new wave of Doctor Who action figure sets for Autumn 2020. The new collection will be available in the UK on shelf in B&M Stores from early October. Sales in the US will begin mid-October via The Official North America Doctor Who Store, and Amazon.

This exciting launch will introduce six brand new Action Figure Sets - an all new look for the Friends of the Thirteenth Doctor set, a new Companions of the Third and Fourth Doctors set, a very special U.N.I.T set, plus a Fifth Doctor & TARDIS set. Rounding up the release will be two more History of the Daleks Sets which chart their chronological TV appearances.

Each and every set of this detailed series will include highly detailed 5.5 inch scale figures featuring multiple points of articulation and come presented in the now well established ‘classic’ Doctor Who packaging.

The sets in detail

The Companions of the Third & Fourth Doctor set features new figures of Sarah and Romana 1 and 2 and spans the dates April 1974 to December 1979. This set includes Sarah Jane Smith in her outfit from 1974’s ‘Monster of Peladon’ story, Romana 1 in her outfit from December 1978’s ‘The Power of Kroll’ story and Romana 2 in her red outfit from the story ‘The Horns of Nimon’.

Staying with the ‘companion’ theme, is the Friends of the Thirteenth Doctor set with updated figures of companions Yasmin (Yaz) Khan, Graham O'Brien and Ryan Sinclair. These, most recent companions all feature in a brand new set of outfits inspired by their onscreen adventures.

For many collectors, the arrival of the 1971 U.N.I.T Claws of Axos Set can’t be bettered but with the addition of the 1975 U.N.I.T Terror of the Zygons Set, Character Options has added what is possibly the most anticipated and eagerly awaited variant of the Fourth Doctor to the mix; decked out in his fetching tartan scarf and Tamm ‘O’ Shanter hat. The set is completed by the addition of Sergeant John Benton, this time in camouflage fatigues and an additional U.N.I.T trooper, both with Sterling SMG machine guns as seen in the timeless 1975 story battling the shape shifting Zygons.

Next up is the updated release of the Fifth Doctor and TARDIS Set featuring detailing from February 1982’s ‘The Visitation’. The set comprises a crisp moulding of the Fifth Doctor with his floppy hat, while the TARDIS comes in a pristine blue livery.

Finally, Character Options is to release the next two History of the Daleks Sets.

“The Daleks’ Collector Set Number 3 comprises of a Twin Dalek Set and features the Daleks as seen fully in in 1965’s ‘The Chase’. This set features one of the ‘guest’ Daleks brought in from the Doctor Who and the Daleks film which appear in the Dalek Control room sequences of Episode 3 and one of the Standard silver drone Daleks.

Additionally, “The Daleks’ Collector Set Number 4 features two Daleks as seen in 'The Dalek's Master Plan' from 1966. This set features the attractive Black Dalek with Grey shoulders, a silver neck bin and silver solar struts alongside one of the Silver Drones seen in the jungle sequences clearing foliage with a flame

Al Dewar, Character Options’ Creative Director, said:

“This is another first for the Doctor Who line and good news for the fans in what has been a difficult year. We are delighted therefore to announce this full second wave of figures being released which has comes in addition to our recent Internet exclusive.

We were determined to give the fans something exciting and again hopefully we have genuinely surprised them with the new additions that have been coupled with some of our previous released figures. The inclusion of a new Fourth Doctor, Sarah and Romana 1 will hopefully surprise everyone in what is an astounding number of new figures this year and hopefully we will continue to exceed the expectations of fans and collectors alike.”

+  All sets will be available from B&M Stores from 5th October. RRP will be around £19.99 each.

[Source: Character Options]

BBC Studios today announced the final, missing piece in Doctor Who: Time Lord Victorious with a five-part CGI animation launching in November this year. Daleks! will be available for fans to watch for free, weekly on the Doctor Who YouTube channel.

Daleks! is a 5x10 min animation and will feature a star-studded voiceover cast with Nicholas Briggs (voice of the Daleks in Doctor Who) Joe Sugg (YouTube, Strictly Come Dancing), Anjli Mohindra (Bodyguard, The Sarah Jane Adventures) and Ayesha Antoine (Holby City).

Nicholas Briggs said:

“This latest, fantastic, thrill-packed venture into the world of animation, with the Daleks as the stars of the show, is something so many of us have been craving for years. And for me it’s been a marvellous challenge, as usual playing every single Dalek in action, but with the added excitement of portraying some beautifully written, leading Dalek characters. It’s been a blast, and I can’t wait to see the finished production."

 Joe Sugg said:

“I’m super excited and thankful to have been invited to play a role in this new animation. I’ve been a fan of Doctor Who from a young age so to be a part of it is a dream come true.”

Anjli Mohindra said:

“When I saw that this series was about THOSE iconic villains I knew it was going to be one hell of a ride and I couldn’t wait to sign up!! I had so much fun being thrown into the wonderfully weird world of remote recording and so thrilled that I was able to be part of something that feel so special!”

Ayesha Antoine said:

“I have never been more fascinated to see the final product of a show. To be a part of the animated story of these iconic baddies is really special. The recording session was a whole new adventure - another surreal moment to add to the growing list from 2020”. 

Written by James Goss and created by Salford-based animators Studio Liddell, Daleks! is a BBC Studios Digital production.

Time Lord Victorious officially launched earlier this month, with products and experiences dropping every week until early 2021. The multi-platform story brings together eleven partners across ten platforms for the first time ever to tell a brand new Doctor Who adventure for fans across the world. Fans can enjoy as much or as little of the adventure as they choose, exploring the animation as well as novels, magazines, comics, escape rooms, audios, games, immersive theatre, vinyl, figurines and t-shirts. 

More information about Daleks! will be announced soon. Details about Time Lord Victorious along with a full timeline of product launches can be found on the Time Lord Victorious website. 

[Source: BBC Studios]

BBC Studios have just announced the surprise updated special edition release of The Power Of The Daleks on DVD & Blu-ray.

While no complete film recordings of The Power of the Daleks are known to have survived the purge of the BBC’s archive in 1975, fresh animation in high definition breathes new life into this much-loved story.

The six animated episodes replace the 2016 physical and digital release, with new and improved animation and authentic black and white visuals. The latest release also showcases a vast array of exciting new special features, in addition to all of the VAM on the 2016 release.

New additional material includes:

·  Two new documentaries about Power of the Daleks.
·  1993 BBC audio version of The Power of the Daleks narrated by Tom Baker.
·  Raw incidental music.
·  Photogrammetry Featurette.
·  Whicker's World - I Don't Like My Monsters to Have Oedipus Complexes.
·  Daleks - The Early Years: A 1992 documentary presented by Peter Davison.
·  Robin Hood - 1953 Episode: Patrick Troughton’s earliest surviving TV appearance.
·  BBC archive footage from BBC regional news, BBC Breakfast, Blue Peter and Newsnight.
·  Previously unreleased animation trailers and animatics.
·  Easter Eggs.

And old favourites including:

·  Audio commentaries by Anneke Wills on each episode
·  Animation test footage
·  Photo Gallery, including previously unreleased and rediscovered full colour on-set photos from 1966.
·  Servants & Masters - The Making of The Power of the Daleks
·  Doctor Who – The Highlanders

+  The Power Of The Daleks: Special Edition is released on 6th July 2020.
+  PREORDER this title from Amazon.co.uk! 

[Source: BBC Studios]

Following the recent popularity of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and The League of Gentlemen releases on vinyl, Demon Music Group presents The Daleks’ Master Plan, a narrated full-cast TV soundtrack adventure. Starring William Hartnell as the First Doctor, in a battle against his arch- enemies, the vinyl will be released on 15th February 2019 and is now available for preorder. RRP £99.99.

Ben Stanley, Head of Product & Marketing, Demon Music Group, said:

"We’re very excited about the first release in our ‘Vinyl Who’ collection - it’s a new way for fans to discover lost episodes of Classic Doctor Who."

Two versions of the set will be available to purchase: 

-  Standard edition: 7LP x 12” Heavyweight Translucent Blue

-  Amazon exclusive edition (limited to 1000 units): 7LP x 12” Heavyweight Splatter Viny

In this classic 12 part ‘lost’ adventure, first shown on TV from October 1965 to January 1966, the Daleks threaten to destroy the fabric of time itself. In their quest to control the Solar System, they have taken possession of the devastating Time Destructor. Determined to stop them, the Doctor steals the core of the weapon before he and his friends are pursued across time and space by his ruthless, powerful nemeses.

From the eerie sonics of Ron Grainer & Delia Derbyshire’s original theme tune and the familiar ‘wheezing, groaning’ of the TARDIS, to soundscapes illustrating the jungles of Kembel and alien spacecraft, the story is brought to life by the unique sounds produced by the BBC’s Radiophonic Workshop .

Written by Terry Nation and Dennis Spooner, this is the longest single Doctor Who adventure ever made for television. Linking narration is provided by Peter Purves (Steven) and the cast includes Kevin Stoney as Mavic Chen, Nicholas Courtney as Bret Vyon, Jean Marsh as Sara Kingdom and Peter Butterworth as the Meddling Monk. The film recordings of all but three episodes of this story are lost from the BBC archives.

The prelude episode Mission to the Unknown is presented on its own single-sided disc with a unique Dalek (exclusive edition) or TARDIS (standard edition) etched reverse.

+  The Daleks' Master Plan is released on 15th February 2019, priced £99.99.

+  PREORDER the standard edition on Amazon.co.uk!

+  PREORDER the exclusive edition on Amazon.co.uk!

[Source: BBC Studios]

Our friends over at TBT Props have been in touch with an exciting opportunity for die-hard Doctor Who collector's to get their hands on a Dalek, which appeared in the 50th Anniversary Trailer.

Truly a piece of art, it mimics in a hyper realistic appearance what an original 1970’s Dalek would have appeared on screen in Planet of the Daleks. It was used on screen in the 50th Anniversary Trailer, at the Doctor Who Exhibition in Cardiff, London Excel, a Tom Baker Photoshoot, and various promotional photoshoots.

Although only a quick trailer appearance on screen, it can be classed as an official screen used Dalek, as was seen and used in the official BBC Doctor Who 50th Anniversary trailer.

Construction is a mixture of fibreglass, wood and metal. It has had a replacement gun put on as the old gun was sold separately.

A brief history on the Dalek and its components:

Uses a Planet of the Daleks Eye Stalk

Planet Style Eyestalk came from the collection of JNT through a friend and is believe to have been production used, the eye stalk was then put onto the Dalek to contribute to it’s highly accurate nature.

Doctor Who Experience Cardiff

This was a long term resident Dalek at the Official BBC Doctor Who Experience, if you visited the Exhibition or have seen photos from the Exhibition, it is more than likely that you will have seen or touched this Dalek.

Doctor Who London Excel

Dalek made appearance at the London Excel Doctor Who exhibition

Screen Used in BBC Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Trailer

Dalek was used in the Official BBC 50th Anniversary Doctor Who Trailer, making the Dalek Screen Used. We have attached screens shoots of the Dalek where it was used exterminating a unit soldier

Dalek Used in Promotional Photoshoot with Tom Baker in 2014

The dalek was used in a promotional Photoshoot with Tom Baker in 2014 to celebrate his small part return on Doctor Who – http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2605430/Doctor-Who-Tom-Baker-meets-old-enemy-launch.html

Price does not include shipping and will need to arrange shipping quotes, please call / contact TBT Props before purchasing for payment option at: web@tbtprops.com.

[Source: TBT Props]

BBC DVD have sent DWO the DVD cover and details for the upcoming 2nd Doctor release of 'The Power Of The Daleks'.

Product Synopsis:

50 years after its only UK broadcast on BBC One, one of Doctor Who’s most celebrated, lost adventures is regenerated, with a brand new hand-drawn black and white animation, synchronised with a digitally remastered recording of the original 1966 audio. The six-part adventure takes place immediately after the first regeneration, as the Time Lord and his companions, Polly (Anneke Wills) and Ben (Michael Craze), do battle with an old foe on the mysterious planet Vulcan. How will Polly and Ben cope with a new Doctor? How will the Doctor take to his new body? And how will they ever overcome the power of the Daleks?

Special Features:

Alternate soundtracks – DVD only
The option to listen to the story with a series of completely new digital re-masters of the original soundtrack – a stereo mix; a 5.1 surround sound mix and version of the original 1966 mono sound mix.

Animation Test Footage
A compilation of animation tests, created during the production of the new animated series. 

Audio Commentaries on all 6 episodes – DVD only
Members of the original cast and crew are joined by members of the new animation unit to discuss the production of the story and its new animated reconstruction. Moderated by Toby Hadoke. Includes archive audio.

Booklet with Production Notes – DVD only
An extensively researched set of production notes, written by the noted television historian Andrew Pixley, covering the behind the scenes story of how the original production was made. 

Original Camera Scripts – DVD only
Selected items of original production paperwork and a complete set of original camera scripts.

Original Title Sequence - new restoration
An unedited presentation of the full original 'Doctor Who' title sequence, prepared using an all new HD re-master of the original film elements.

The Power of the Daleks Animation and Photo Gallery
An extended gallery of images, featuring production photographs from the original 1966 series and artwork from the latest animated production, accompanied by incidental music from the story, which has been digitally re-mastered from the original music production tapes.

The Power of the Daleks Surviving Footage & Original Trailer – BBC Store/EST only
A compilation of short film fragments and clips from the original 1966 BBC television production - the only surviving footage to remain of the show's original BBC1 run.

Original Dalek Voice Session Recording (1966) DVD only
Rare and previously unreleased sections from the studio recordings that were made at Maida Vale Studios in 1966 for the Dalek voices.

Servants and Masters - The Making of The Power of the Daleks
A specially prepared documentary directed by John Kelly and featuring interviews with members of the original 1966 cast and crew. 

Telesnap reconstruction.
Around 400 individual still frames of film exist from the original 1966 television production of The Power of the Daleks. These images were kept in the programme's production files by the BBC Written Archive Centre. These images are here combined with the programme's soundtrack to present a photographic reconstruction of the original programme.

+  The Power Of The Daleks is released on 15th November (DVD), priced £20.42.
+  PREORDER The Power Of The Daleks DVD from Amazon.co.uk for just £13.50!
+  Discuss all the Doctor Who DVD releases in the DWO Forums.

[Source: BBC Worldwide]

It's one of The Doctor’s most celebrated adventures and yet no complete film recordings of The Power of the Daleks are known to have survived. The master negatives were destroyed in an archive purge in 1974. 

BBC Worldwide has announced that a brand new black and white animation based on audio recordings of the programme using the original cast, surviving photographs and film clips will be released 50 years to the minute after its only UK broadcast on BBC One.

The six half hour episodes feature the regeneration, or as it was then called ‘renewal’, of First Doctor William Hartnell into Second Doctor Patrick Troughton, as the Time Lord and his companions Polly (Anneke Wills) and Ben (Michael Craze) do battle with the Daleks on the planet Vulcan.

Doctor Who: The Power of the Daleks is being produced by the team behind the highly successful animation of lost Dad’s Army episode A Stripe For Frazer, first released on BBC Store in February this year. The producer and director is Charles Norton, with character designs from acclaimed comic book artists Martin Geraghty and Adrian Salmon.

Charles Norton says:

“The Power of the Daleks animation is the most ambitious Doctor Who archive restoration ever attempted and we’re all very honoured to be a part of such a an exciting project. Intelligent, suspenseful and magnificently staged, Power of the Daleks is one of the great lost classics of 1960s television and a superb example of the black and white era at its finest.”

Paul Hembury, Executive Producer, BBC Worldwide says:

“Charles and his team are remarkably talented and passionate about Doctor Who and we are thrilled that fans will soon be able to enjoy this rather sinister but wonderful, classic story.”

Doctor Who: The Power Of The Daleks will be released on BBC Store on Saturday 5th November followed by the DVD on Monday 21st November.

+  Register your interest in the BBC Store download!
+  Pre-order the DVD from Amazon and HMV (£20.42 RRP)

On Saturday 5th November there will be a special screening of episodes 1-3 of Doctor Who: The Power of the Daleks at BFI Southbank, London which will also include a Q&A with Anneke Wills, Charles Norton and Frazer Hines. Further information will be available from bfi.org.uk from Monday 19th September.

Watch the glorious trailer in the player, below:
[youtube:3Ib3IEIT0Yw] 
+  Follow Doctor Who Online on Twitter (@DrWhoOnline)!

DWO ChatBack:
Are you looking forward to this release? Is there a missing episode of Doctor Who that you'd like to be animated in this way? Let us know in the comments box, below! 

[Sources: BBC Worldwide]

Our friends over at Toybox Treasures recently got in touch with DWO with some rather exciting news regarding a classic series VFX Dalek prop that they've recently discovered.

The Dalek prop, which featured in the 1973 serial 'Planet Of The Daleks', was given to the daughter of Fred Elphick; a worker at EMI Central Research in Hayes, where he designed parts for TV cameras and equipment. On several occasions Fred would speak with Roy Field of Pinewood Studios on his visits to the site, which is where they formed a friendship.

The Dalek is modelled on the Louis Marx toy from the 1960's, where a mould was made and subsequent Daleks reproduced in plaster - a cheap material to save money due to the sheer volume they needed to produce for the cave scenes. If you look closely, you can actually see mould join on the rear of the Dalek. The other benefit from making the Daleks out of plaster was because they needed to be weighty as there was going to be a lot of liquid emptied on them by the Doctor. They made some alternations to the dome ears, the eye stalk was a more accurate looking eye stalk and made out of a golf tea, also a total rework of the gun box section.

Unfortunately, after filming, the majority - if not all of the Dalek models were thrown away, and as a result they are now extremely rare. Roy kept this prop and gave it to a friend before his death in 2002. It is now in the collection of Matt Doe of Toybox Treasures who is inviting fans to make offers on this rare collectable and encourage offers to be emailed to: sales@toybox-treasures.co.uk.

Matt Doe explains his excitement at the find:

"All that was going through my head was "I'm going to own a screen used/ production Dalek!". Every who fans dream is to get a full size Dalek and this was one step closer. Due to the rarity and high costs of owning a full sized screen-used Dalek, this is a more affordable way of owning one, even if it is 6" in height."  

+. Check out this item and more at www.toybox-treasures.co.uk
+  Find out more about the VFX Daleks at www.dalek6388.co.uk

+  Follow @DrWhoOnline on Twitter!
+  Follow @DrWhoOnline on Instagram!

[Sources: DWO; Matt Doe; Dalek 6388]

 

DWO’s Spoiler-free preview of Episode 9.2: The Witch's Familiar:

The Doctor's trapped - a prisoner of Davros in the city of the Daleks. His two best friends in all time and space - Missy and Clara - have both perished in the cold blast of exterminations, and the TARDIS has been destroyed. As first adventures of a new series go, the Doctor's not having a particularly good day, is he?

If you think that the series is going to go easy on us after that opening, though, you'd be wrong. The Witch's Familiar continues to take the knife and twist it in the Doctor ever further, playing on his grief over abandoning the child Davros out on the battlefields of Skaro, and using his compassion to engineer possibly the biggest mistake the Time Lord has ever made.

As with the first episode of this story, it's tricky to tell you very much without giving the game away. You don't want to know how the Doctor escapes Davros' clutches (though trust us when we say it is brilliant - even if Davros might struggle to see the funny side), or what lurks in the sewers beneath the Dalek City, biding time until revenge can be enacted. It's another episode which works all the better simply if you watch the doors in the city slide slowly open on each revelation.

What we can say is just how brilliant it is to have Julian Bleach back as Davros once again. Whereas The Magician's Apprentice confined him to a deathbed, this episode gives him a chance to really *live* again, and there's some lovely flashes of the mania he displayed back in Journey's End. There's very few privileges in Doctor Who greater than watching Peter Capaldi's Doctor and Davros slowly counter each other, playing a great game of chess with the Daleks, and ancient Time Lord secrets, as the pieces. It's quite easy to believe with this pair that they could have, in another life, been the very best of friends, and it's great to see them given so much screen time.

Also given a turn in the spotlight this week are the classic Daleks. Fans who were disappointed when 2012's Asylum of the Daleks left them as largely background cameos will no doubt be far happier with this - even the Special Weapons Dalek gets a chance to shout a bit! How very Dalek!

Five Things to Look Out For;

1) A character gets to pay homage to a sequence from the very first Dalek story from 1963.

2) Why did the Doctor *really* leave Gallifrey, all those centuries ago?

3) 'Where did he get the tea? I'm the Doctor. Just accept it.'

4) How does the Doctor always manage to win?

5) Mercy.

[Sources: DWO, Will Brooks]

Manufacturer: Big Finish Productions

Written By: Jonathan Morris

RRP: £14.99 (CD) / £12.99 (Download)

Release Date: July 2015

Reviewed by: Nick Mellish for Doctor Who Online

Review Posted: 12th September 2014

The year is 1987, and Britain is divided. In Bradford, strikers are picketing and clashing with the police. In the City of London, stockbrokers are drinking champagne and politicians are courting the super-rich. The mysterious media mogul Alek Zenos, head of the Zenos Corporation, is offering Britain an economic miracle. His partners wish to invest – and their terms are too good to refuse.

While the Doctor investigates Warfleet, a new computer game craze that is sweeping the nation, Mel goes undercover to find out the truth about Zenos’s partners.

The Daleks have a new paradigm. They intend to conquer the universe using economic power. The power of the free market!

* * *
The Seventh Doctor and Mel are back! Hurrah! If that’s not cause for celebration, then I don’t know what is. Often sadly poorly written for on screen, Mel has enjoyed a fantastic revamp akin to the Sixth Doctor’s here in the audio world. Bonnie Langford, forever brilliant whatever she is handed, has really stepped up to this and has continually proven how good she is and, indeed, how good Mel as a character is: enthusiastic and optimistic, someone smart and genuinely just wanting to have a good time.  I like that.  I like that in the end, she is someone who just enjoys travelling and exploring, and so she fits in wonderfully with those early, carefree days of the Seventh Doctor. Again, a lot of Season 24 never translates as well on-screen as it arguably should do, but in much the same way that Series 4 was so exhilarating to watch as it was all about the Doctor and his friend, Donna Noble, just having fun, so it should have been with the Doctor and his friend Mel, and so it has been at times thanks to Big Finish.

Of course, the Seventh Doctor’s era is well known for its sudden lurch from being light and more like a children’s show than we’d arguably ever had before, to something darker and more complex.  Whereas no attempt was really made to bridge that gap on TV, again some plays have tried to do it, and We Are the Daleks falls neatly in that slot. We have a recognizably human background (London), some nice iconography (a giant Dalek-shaped building), intelligent use of the current companion (Mel, the computer programmer, actually gets to do some computer programming!), and the slight reinvention of an old foe (the Daleks themselves) as well as a smattering of political commentary going on. It’s a neat-enough fit with the era of Doctor Who in which we find it, then, and provides some nice retroactive continuity creation to smooth over some elements of Remembrance Of The Daleks along the way.

(In addition to this, having recently criticized some of the CD covers for being very generic or lacking in risks, this one is pleasingly different and eye-catching and easily my favourite piece of work from Tom Webster for quite some time now.)

There is a lot to like in Jonathan Morris’s script, and the character of Celia Dunthorpe is superb: chillingly realistic and despite the awful things she says and does, you can see her justification and reasoning behind it all.  It makes what could be a simple caricature all the more effective and resonant.

Sadly though, despite all of these good points, there is something not quite 'there' with this play. On paper it all works, but in execution, I could never quite warm to it.

Was it the similarities to past Dalek stories? (We have a part where the Doctor explicitly compares a situation to the Dalek Civil War from The Evil Of The Daleks, and right on cue the Daleks start parroting dialogue from that tale.)

Was it the subplot with a computer game, that was very obvious from the off and felt very convenient to the plot than a natural off-shoot? (Maybe, though it does let Mel do something that her character excels at.)

Was it the sense that this sort of iconography, use of the Daleks in unfamiliar situations and liberal taking of continuity has been done before several times over now, and more often that not with the Seventh Doctor? I think perhaps that’s just it: this story is far from generic and has some great parts, but as a whole it’s in no way as fresh as perhaps it ought to be, and is perhaps a bit Remembrance-lite in parts? Last month’s play, The Secret History, had parts so shockingly like The Name Of The Doctor that I was surprised BBC Wales let it pass, but managed to feel different all the same. Perhaps it’s the use of the Seventh Doctor: he gets this sort of tale a lot, so similarities are all too easy to spot.

I know, whatever else, that many people will really enjoy We Are the Daleks, and I can’t blame them for that - there’s a lot to like.  For me though, its parts shine brighter than the whole piece.

DWO’s Spoiler-free preview of Episode 9.1: The Magician’s Apprentice:

He’s back, and it’s about time (etc…)! 

Doesn’t it seem strange to think that a little over a year ago, we had yet to see Peter Capaldi in a full episode of Doctor Who? He’d taken a dislike to his kidneys, managed to crash the TARDIS, and showed up alongside his other selves as the Time War came to a climax, but he still wasn’t quite the Doctor. Not yet. Fast forward thirteen months and we’re about to dive into another twelve weeks alongside this incarnation of the Time Lord, traversing time and space in his second series in the role.

It’s perhaps the highest compliment that I can give to say that Capaldi isn’t even trying in this episode. He simply walks through every scene as himself… and is so completely the Doctor in doing so. Having spent a bit of time in this new body, the Doctor seems to have relaxed a bit - this is much more the Doctor of Last Christmas than Into the Dalek - but he’s still got a slightly darker side, and isn’t afraid of making decisions that previous incarnations would have balked at. It’s nice to see a character who’s slightly more at ease with himself, but people fearing that the Doctor would simply be softened up this year needn’t worry.

Of course, every great Doctor needs a great arch-enemy, and Michelle Gomez’s incarnation of the Master - Missy - simply goes from strength to strength. She takes a prominent role in this episode alongside Jenna Coleman’s Clara, as they search for the missing Doctor having received his last will and testament in the form of a ‘Confession Dial’ sent to his closest friend on the eve of his final day.

There’s very little that we can actually tell you about this episode while still remaining spoiler-free, but perhaps that’s a good thing - this is an episode which really does work best if you’ve no clue what’s about to come. Every time you think you’ve had the final big surprise, or the last big reveal, there’s another one along to keep you glued to the action. Seriously, try to avoid the spoilers, the cryptic hints about what’s to come and what’s going on. What the Doctor’s done and who’s hunting him down as a result of it… they’ll be all the greater coming fresh.

In many ways, The Magician’s Apprentice feels more like a season finale than it does an opener. The stakes are high, there’s cameos for many people and places from across the Doctor's previous adventures in a manner resembling The Pandorica Opens or The Wedding of River Song, and they’re really going for broke in the drama department. As a hook to the new run of adventures, Doctor Who has rarely hit the ground running this hard. 

Five Things to Look Out For;

1) ‘One of those was a lie…’

2) You So Fine.

3) ‘Tell me the name of the boy who isn’t going to die today!’

4) Beware of the Hand Mines.

5) ‘Doctor… what have you done?’

[Source: DWO, Will Brooks]

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

Day 837: The Day of the Doctor

Dear diary,

Oh, d’you know, as the TARDIS was hauled across London and David Tennant’s name flashed up on the screen, I felt really excited for this one. I’ve been excited by several episodes through the course of this marathon - one’s I’d never seen before, ones that have been recently recovered, ones that I’d recalled liking a lot on first run through… but this was somehow different. There’s something in the air about this 50th anniversary episode that even eighteen months on still makes it something really special. A chance for the programme to stop and congratulate itself for being something so brilliant for so long. Steven Moffat is right when he says you couldn’t do a story like this every week, because the series would drown in self congratulation, but let’s be honest, when you reach the golden anniversary, it’s only fitting that the show should get something so good.

I think there’s also an extra thrill because this episode is very special in terms of The 50 Year Diary - because it was supposed to be the final entry! The 50 Year Diary. The clue is in the name, really. The plan devised way back in the dying days of 2012 was to start the marathon with An Unearthly Child on January 1st, and then watch every episode in order, one a day, until I hit the 50th anniversary story. The first 50 years of the programme neatly summed up. Only then Matt Smith went and threw a spanner in the works by announcing that he’d be leaving in the episode immediately after the 50th. Right, okay. Not an issue, I’d go the the 50th and then finish the marathon off with his final story. Done. Easy. Oh, but those decisions were made way back when, and now I’m here… well, as someone pointed out when I raised the question with you lot, it would be a shame to end here, only a handful of episodes short of doing them all in this format, so you’re stuck with me for another two weeks yet.

So. The Day of the Doctor had a pretty unenviable task, didn’t it? Work as a standalone episode celebrating the first 50 years of the programme for an audience that would no doubt be significantly higher than usual, while at the same time provide the kind of fitting multi-Doctor extravaganza that we fans are always so keen on, just like they did for the 20th, 30th, and 40th anniversaries. I can remember watching the Tennant era and thinking ahead to the 50th anniversary which felt like just a million miles away. As things always tend it, it came round rather fast and I think it did the best possible job of being everything it needed to - I still see people complain that it’s an ‘8th anniversary special’ as opposed to a ‘50th anniversary’, but frankly they always come off as stubborn for the sake of it. Did they miss the frankly brilliant ending in which all the Doctors turn up to save Gallifrey?

You might have noticed that I’ve not really got a particular focus today, because it’s tricky to do that with an episode quite as expansive as this one, so I think I’m going to have to resort to simply going through things in brief as I think of them. Bear with me…

First of all, that multi-Doctor thing. I think we all assumed that it would be happening because that really is the template. I think we also had a fairly good inkling that Christopher Eccleston wouldn’t fancy popping back to Cardiff for a bit. What we didn’t expect, I feel pretty confident in saying, was a whole new incarnation of the Doctor that we’d never even known about before. Oh, but it’s clever done, isn’t it? John Hurt (also, while I’m on the point: John bleedin’ Hurt!) doesn’t just get dropped into the programme and left for us to accept as a whole new Doctor - they went to the trouble of getting Paul McGann to come in for a regeneration scene! Oh, all those years where his regeneration only took place across a million YouTube videos! Hints and suggestions that we’d be getting such a scene were fairly thick in the air, but it didn’t stop it from being any less amazing when a friend text me at work to say that the scene had arrived on the website, and I found an excuse to leave my customer for ten minutes while I went and watched the birth of the War Doctor. And he’s good, isn’t he? I mean, obviously, when you canst John Hurt as the Doctor, you’re bound to get something a little bit special, but I mean he’s really very good. A world weary soldier who still can’t quite shake off that twinkle that the Doctor always had in his eyes. He plays so well opposite Tennant and Smith, and really is a fantastic edition to the world of Doctor Who.

As for the story itself, I rather like that, too. I remember coming out from the cinema screening of this (which I’d told myself I wouldn’t go to until about eleven pm on November 22nd, when I realised that of course I would), and wondering what happened with the whole Zygons plot. Not even a cursory line to the effect of things being resolved. And yet, watching it again today, I realise that you don’t need that line. That’s part of the point - the Zygons adventure is something the Doctor would usually be all over (and indeed is with queen Elizabeth), but not today, because before the adventure can even get started, he’s been whisked off to meet his former selves and start devising a plan to end the Time War without killing them all. As stories go, it’s a pretty perfect idea for the 50th - it’s an excuse to pick up on all these elements of the programme’s mythology, and to bring back lots of Doctors, while also taking something the show has been for the past few years and shaking it up again, setting up the next stage of its long history. Well played, Steven Moffat.

And then there’s that moment at the end - ‘you know, I really think you might…’. Oh, the chills that caused. A whole ripple of emotion across the entire cinema screening (and, if it doesn’t sound too hokey, right across the world), because of course Tom had to be in there somewhere himself. Even after all these years, he still very much is Doctor Who. I remember people being incredibly impressed because he’d never come back to the programme before (which is wrong, he came back for Dimensions in Time, too, which is surely a career highlight), but I was just impressed that they’d managed to slip such a wonderful moment in right at the very end - the final treat in this great big box of chocolates. Had this ended up being my final entry in the Diary, I think I’d have been pretty pleased with it. 

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

Day 727: The Curse of Fatal Death

Dear diary,

I’ve never been all that fond of The Curse of Fatal Death. It’s the way that I often seem to encounter other fans who tell me that it’s the funniest thing in the world, and I sort of smile and nod while secretly thinking that, yes, it’s a good laugh, but no, it’s not that good of a laugh. So why the decision to take a whole day out of the marathon in order to watch it? Ah, well, that’s simple. It’s become something of a joke over the years between a friend and me to view this short story as something of a template for Steven Moffat’s time on Doctor Who proper. Every year or so, something seems to come along which can be linked back (sometimes very tenuously - we seem to try and out do each other in that area) to Fatal Death. By my count, we’ve currently got;

A humanoid augmented by Dalek technology (Asylum of the Daleks, The Time of the Doctor), The Doctor getting engaged/married (A Christmas Carol, The Wedding of River Song et al…), A plot that gets a bit wibbly-wobbly (take your pick), a get out clause of engineering your escape after you’ve made said escape (The Big Bang), A Time Lord trapped on one planet for the better part of a millennium (The Time of the Doctor), Regenerating in to the opposite sex (Dark Water), Daleks needing the Doctor’s help (Asylum of the Daleks), The Doctor retiring from his role as saviour of the universe (The Snowmen), The universe not wanting to let the Doctor die (The Wedding of River Song), “Never cruel, never cowardly” (The Day of the Doctor, although this in fairness is a crib from Terrance Dicks), The Doctor and the Master flirting openly with each other (Death in Heaven), and The Sonic Screwdriver being used for innuendo (The Day of the Doctor).

As I say, some of those are extremely tenuous links, while some are more obvious, and I’m sure that we must have missed something somewhere. Quite a lot of them tie in to several other aspects of Doctor Who, too, and can’t simply be called something Steven Moffat does with the show. But I wanted to refresh my memory of the story before heading off into the revived series, so that it’s fresh in the mind when we reach some of Moffat’s later stories. Certainly, there’s a few links in that list that I’d not thought about until today!

The other thing that I have to confess to enjoying about this one is that it gives us some glimpses - some very brief - in to ‘could-have-been’ Doctors… and some are rather good at it! Rowan Atkinson, for example, plays the part up a little as the script requires him to… but he somehow makes it work perfectly well, and I could just about imagine him taking on the roll full-time in a not-too-dissimilar manner. I think I’d list Rowan Atkinson as the one actor I’d love to have seen helm the role at some point.

But then you’ve also got the likes of Hugh Grant turning in a decent performance in the part at pretty much the height of his fame, but the difference with Grant is that while I can enjoy his performance in this story as a bit of a one-off, I don’t think I could take him seriously in the show proper if he played it the way he does here. The same could be said for Richard E. Grant - but of all these temporary Doctors, he’s the only one who will get the chance to explore the character more over the next few days. Jim Broadbent’s Doctor is completely out there for the few brief moments he’s on screen (but even then, there’s shades of Matt Smith’s Eleventh Doctor in there!), and even Joanna Lumley makes a great Time Lord for a short time!

Is The Curse of Fatal Death the funniest Doctor Who comedy ever? Well… no. I don’t think so. Is there a lot in here to like? Very much so. I’ll be keeping it toward the front of my mind as I move on in to the 21st century series…

DWO’s spoiler free preview of Episode 8.2: Into the Dalek:

The Daleks have been locked in a constant battle with the Doctor ever since the second story way back in 1963, and every incarnation of the Time Lord has faced off against them at some time in some form. The Twelfth Doctor wastes no time in coming face-to-eye-stalk with his greatest foes - as they turn up in his very own second story, Into The Dalek.

The episode is very much Fantastic Voyage - a 1966 movie, in which a group of scientists are miniaturised and injected into a person’s bloodstream - meets a war film, and there’s plenty of spectacle to be seen with Daleks being blown up left right and centre. It’s in this element that Into The Dalek is most successful, and at times it’s one of the nicest looking episodes of Doctor Who ever. Director Ben Wheatley, who also helmed last week’s Deep Breath, has clearly revelled in the chance to destroy the Doctor’s greatest enemies, and it’s easy to see why new Doctor Peter Capaldi turned up to set on his day off just to watch.

We get to see the Daleks in a slightly different light here. They’ve not got some big, season-ending scheme for universal conquest, but rather are just tearing their way through the galaxy, making sure to wipe out anything that stands in their way. It doesn’t feel as though they’re plotting and planning at all, but rather just getting on with what they do best - exterminating. The absence of any master plan for the creatures means that we’ve got more time to explore the way that the Doctor feels about them, and though the explosions may look lovely, they’re just window dressing to a story that looks into a Dalek’s - and the Doctor’s - soul.

The Twelfth Doctor hasn’t lightened up here from the last episode - he’s still a colder character than we would expect from either of his immediate predecessors, but it’s nice to see him face up to his greatest foe so early on. It feels as though we’ve ticked a box, and you can clearly see why it’s an important step on this incarnation’s journey to ‘find himself’.

It’s also a chance for Clara (Jenna Coleman) to continue getting used to this very different man in her life, and she serves as a nice moral compass for him. There’s an introduction for the character of Danny Pink, welcoming Samuel Anderson to the programme, too, which feels as though we’re setting up all the pieces for the next stage of the programme’s life.

There’s little else to say without spoiling the episode for you, so we’ll leave it there, but if you’re a fan of the Daleks, or have been following the Doctor’s conflict with them for a long time, you’ll not be disappointed… 

Five things to look out for:

1) You can always find something to distract you.

2) Is he mad, or is he right?

3) Clara doesn’t know… and neither does the Doctor.

4) It’s a roller-coaster with you lot…

5) Don’t be lasagne.
 

[Sources: DWO; Will Brooks]

A third teaser trailer for Series 8 of Doctor Who has aired.

The trailer kicks off inside the TARDIS with explosions around the console, whilst a voice, very similar to Davros is heard stating:

"I see into your soul, Doctor. I see beauty, divinity, hatred..."

As the line is spoken it changes from the Davros sounding voice into that of a Dalek.

Watch the trailer in the player, below:

[youtube:W5mS0FnXrB0]
Below is DWO's guide to the confirmed and rumoured titles for Series 8:

8.1: Deep Breath - written by Steven Moffat
8.2: Into The Dalek* - written by Phil Ford
8.3: Robots Of Sherwood* - written by Mark Gatiss
8.4: Listen* - written by Steven Moffat
8.5: Time Heist* - written by Stephen Thompson
8.6: [Untitled] - written by Gareth Roberts
8.7: Kill The Moon*
8.8: Mummy On The Orient Express*
8.9: Flatline*
8.10: [Untitled]
8.11: [Untitled]
8.12: [Untitled]

* Unconfirmed

+  Series 8 of Doctor Who will air in the UK on 23rd August 2014, on BBC One.
+  Series 8 of Doctor Who will air in the USA on 23rd August 2014, on BBC America.
+  Series 8 of Doctor Who will air in Canada on 23rd August 2014, on SPACE.
+  Series 8 of Doctor Who will air in Australia on 24th August 2014, on ABC1. 

[Source: BBC]

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

Day 411: Genesis of the Daleks, Episode One

Dear diary,

I’m always very weary of any story which gets described as a ‘classic’ for Doctor Who. You know the type - those stories which can do no wrong in the eyes of fandom, and which always appear near the top of ‘favourite stories’ lists. There’s a few titles that spring to mind (The Evil of the Daleks, Fury From the Deep, Inferno, The Dæmons), including this story. Throughout my time doing The 50 Year Diary, I’ve often found that I don’t really agree with the general consensus (Inferno is the only one of those stories which rated very well with me), and usually the knowledge that a story is supposed to be one of The Very Best is enough to ruin it a little bit for me. Ergo, I’m often let down by the finished product.

Over the years, I’ve found that my friend Nick Mellish and I tend to have some very similar tastes when it comes to Doctor Who stories, and he’s always been of the same opinion as me that many of these supposed ‘flawless’ stories are just that bit over sold. I mentioned to him the other day that I was gearing up for another of them - Genesis of the Daleks - and he replied with some encouraging words: “Ah, now I love Genesis! One of the few that lives up to the hype. Avoided it for years and then watched it: marvellous.” Now, I tend to trust Nick’s opinion on Doctor Who more than anyone else’s, so this was a positive sign. I’d been instantly turned from dreading another six-part Dalek story into actually looking forward to it.

Right from the moment the titles faded away and the episode started, I knew that he was right. For a start, we’re back on good old film for the location footage. I know I’ve moaned on about it an excessive amount recently, what with Robot and The Sontaran Experiment shooting all their exteriors on video, but it really is wonderful to be back in this format again. It just adds so much more depth and atmosphere to the proceedings, and I don’t think that this episode would have been quite so wonderful were it shot on plain old video. Those opening shots of the misty wastelands, into which the gas-mask-clad figures emerge is stunning. Watching them go ‘over the top’ and then get gunned down in slow-motion was genuinely gripping, and then to see the Doctor emerge from the smoke looking just as lost and confused as we are… beautiful.

And then it doesn’t let up from there. While there’s plenty to love from the studio scenes, the highlights of this episode really are all the film sequences. We get a real sense of space during these scenes that I can’t remember ever seeing in the programme before - there’s one shot when the Doctor and Harry make their escape from the Kaled dome that’s shot from a very high angle, and the location seems to stretch out for ages in all directions. Equally, there’s shots early on with our three regulars exploring the landscape and you can see bodies, weapons, and rubble strewn everywhere. There seems to be more effort put into this than we often see - it’s certainly one of the best location shoots that Doctor Who has ever seen.

To some extent, it also adds credence to my complaint in an earlier Dalek tale, Planet of the Daleks that adding in more smoke would help the atmosphere of the tale, because this story is dripping in it. When we switch from location to studio, while the change is still evident, the use of such a thick coating of smoke really helps to make it all feel like one shared world. I was going to say that it reminded me very much of The War Games, not just because it has a similar setting, but because of the style of the direction, and it wasn’t until the end credits rolled that I realised we’ve got David Maloney back behind the cameras. He was also responsible for the earlier Planet story, but I’m much preferring his work here.

I think this may also be the best use of the ‘Dalek reveal’ cliffhanger since possibly as far back as The Dalek Invasion of Earth. I’d planned to say that once again their presence in the title (and being mentioned early on by the Time Lord) ruins their reveal, and destroys a lot of the subtle hints and piecing together that we get throughout the episode - A particular favourite is the Doctor musing that K-A-L-E-D is an anagram of… well, yes - but actually, it means that we’re actually anticipating them once again. Watching Sarah Jane’s reaction at the end as once of the pepper pots follows orders is lovely, and I’m surprised by how pleased I am to have them back, considering how little time we’ve had since their last appearance in the programme.

Once again, and I fear this may become a running theme in the Diary over the coming months, you can really see the darker tone the programme has inherited. I’ve already mentioned the opening shot in which we witness people’s deaths in slow motion, but this entire episode is laced with death. They’re scattered around the wasteland. They’re propped up against the sides of the trenches. Following a gas attack, Sarah Jane wakes up amongst a pile of corpses! Can you imagine a scene like that occurring at any previous point in the programme’s history? Doctor Who is actively embracing the new horrifying image that it’s taken on, and it’s not difficult to see why Mary Whitehouse started sitting up and taking real notice around this time.

The last few Dalek stories have been set against a background of super-intelligent touch-screen cities, jungles where the plant-life is more animal than vegetation, and a futuristic world in which they use gorillas to do their bidding. Here, they’re simply pitted against a completely bleak background of death, and destruction, and there really is no feeling of hope to be found anywhere at this stage. As with the programme itself, the production team are trying to make the Daleks scary again, and if the tone of the story continues on in this style, then there’s a good chance that they may well succeed!

It has to be mentioned at some point, and here is as good as anywhere else. In recent years, it has been suggested that this story represents the first shots of the Time War being fired - thus making the Time Lords responsible for their own later destruction (or not, as the events of Day of the Doctor now show us). Although I’ve not watched the story before, I’ve always known that Genesis involves the Doctor being sent back to Skaro’s past by the Time Lords to avert the Daleks creation, but I’ve never really given it so much as a second thought.

Having now watched through the Pertwee years, in which missions for the Time Lords became something of a common plot device (even though some stories didn’t mention it directly, there was usually enough evidence to suggest their hand in events), it’s quite interesting to see where we’ve ended up. All their previous missions seems decidedly low-key in comparison to this one, and were it not for the presence of the Daleks lurking in the background, the Doctor would have been completely against it. But this now marks the start of yet another ‘loose story arc’ that I’ll be tracing fro now on - the build up of the Time War. Obviously, it wasn’t the intention at the time, but with retrospect, it is hard not to see this as a declaration of war against the Daleks, even if it’s being done in a slightly sneaky way and somewhat under the table.

So… One of those stone-cold, Doctor Who classics… And perhaps the first one to really resonate with me. This episode is the first non-Troughton one to achieve a perfect score - 10/10. I’m stunned by how much I’ve enjoyed today’s episode, and I was really tempted to simply move right onto Episode Two, without even pausing to write up this entry! I’ll be a good boy, though, and hope that the next few days will prove to be very enjoyable indeed…

The BBC have released some details and a some promo images for the upcoming 2013 Doctor Who Christmas special, which now has a title; 'The Time Of The Doctor'.

Synopsis:

Orbiting a quiet backwater planet, the massed forces of the universe’s deadliest species gather, drawn to a mysterious message that echoes out to the stars - and amongst them, the Doctor.

Rescuing Clara from a family Christmas dinner, the Time Lord and his best friend must learn what this enigmatic signal means for his own fate and that of the universe.

Two promo images have also been released, which can can view in the right-hand column.

Watch the Teaser Trailer for The Time Of The Doctor, below:

[youtube:DMOOLd_44Mo]
+  The Time Of The Doctor will air on Christmas Day, at 7:30pm on BBC One. 

[Source: BBC]

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

Day 320: The Sea Devils, Episode Two

Dear diary,

It’s odd to think that this serial is written by Malcolm Hulke and directed by Michael E. Briant, and yet the whole thing feels so much better than Colony in Space did. I made a note yesterday to talk about the direction of the episode, but it somewhat got lost under lots of other praise for the story. Today, we’ve got even more examples of something interesting and new being done with the direction - it really looks very different to normal.

The best example is probably the Doctor being chased through the fort by a Sea Devil, where the camera angles really help to sell the moment. By the time he and Jo chase the creature back through the same corridors, the cameras seem to have slipped a little, and we’re veering into Batman territory…

My one complaint with the direction is probably the way that the Sea Devil’s initial reveal has been handled. Throughout the first episode, we’re given plenty of shots of a scaled hand creeping into view, over the side of a boat or around a corner on the fort. As the episode goes one, we were given more-and-more glimpses of the creature - shot from behind, or moving through the corridors hidden by shadows. I was rather hoping that we’d be in for a repeat of the situation we had for Doctor Who and the Silurians, where we were teased by the creature for a while, before it finally steps into the room and reveals itself to us as part of a cliffhanger.

The final reveal of the Sea Devil does mimic the earlier example by being about the creature emerging into a room… but it’s done simply with the creature wandering through a doorway, and doing something of a double take when it sees the Doctor. Even the attempt at communication from our Time Lord has nothing on the earlier ‘Hello, are you a Silurian’ exchange. It’s a shame that after some nice build-up, they seem to decide that it’s gone on for long enough and simply give us a full view of the creature.

I am surprised at just how linked to Doctor Who and the Silurians this story is. I’ve always known that it’s a follow-up tale (and that the creatures team up together to fight the Fifth Doctor further down the line), but I think I’d always assumed that it was something applied retroactively to the story by fans further down the line, eventually leading to Warriors of the Deep as one of those ‘fan pleasing’ ideas from the 1980s. Here, though, we’ve got references to ‘those creatures in the caves’, and Jo even gives us something of a potted history of the event. The Doctor uses the opportunity to correct a few mistakes made in the earlier story, too, though I’m not sure that calling them ‘Eocenes’ will ever catch on…

Elsewhere in the story, I find it slightly odd that the Master goes to all the trouble of getting a naval uniform, hiding in the back of a car to sneak onto the base… and yet doesn’t bother to use one of his clever masks. They were all the rage last season, and they were pretty infallible, but here he accidentally allows himself to be seen. I suppose you could argue that he’s not expecting the Doctor and Jo to be there, but in yesterday’s episode he noted that the Doctor will be interested by the boats disappearing, and then finds out that he’s been directly told about it. Surely the Master should have pieced it together? It just seems a shame that he’s still managing to make silly little mistakes when he’s been coming across so well.

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

Day 319: The Sea Devils, Episode One

Dear diary,

It’s always a good sign when my notes seem to keep making reference to how much an episode feels like it’s from Season Seven. Right from the opening of the episode, with the submarine under attack, through the look of the setting, the Doctor’s outfit, and the similarity of the Sea Devils to the Silurians, the last twenty-five minutes have felt like they could have come from two seasons ago.

Even the Doctor seems to be perfectly in-keeping with his Season Seven appearance. Quite apart from the fact that we’ve ditched the red jacket (which has become more-and-more common for his Doctor over the last few stories), his whole attitude is very much in line with the earliest version of his Doctor. He’s full of charm when he’s caught inspecting the charred lifeboat, and grins with a smile that couldn’t fail to sway even the most dedicated of security forces. When he doesn’t need to resort to such pleasantries, he’s back to being aloof and above it all, suggesting that he doesn’t carry any of his official UNIT papers because it’s a load of ‘bureaucratic nonsense’, and being keen to jump right in and investigate before his colleagues can be brought onto the scene. Maybe his trip to Peladon with Jo has given him a liking for working alone with a companion once more?

I’m also actually pleased to have the Master back again! By the time we’d reached the end of last season I was - quite frankly - sick of him, but having now had a couple of Master-less stories on the trot, it’s nice to see him being brought back into the fold. It’s good to see that it holds the continuity with the end of the last season, too, with the Master in custody. He’s also back to being the suave version of the Master. He and the Doctor make small talk like two perfect gentlemen, and then it’s right down to business as it’s revealed that he’s running things from behind the scenes. There’s plenty of parallels between the two Time Lords as they piece together the idea that the sea fort is at the heart of the current mystery, and we even get to see him enjoying an episode of vintage British television in the form of The Clangers.

(While I’m on the subject, here’s another opportunity to look at when the UNIT era is set. I’ve heard people talk of the venetian blind TVs in this story as an indication that the story is set somewhat in the future - and yet the Master still needs to specify that he’d like a colour TV set. BBC2 started broadcasting in colour from the start of July 1967, and BBC1 had been gradually switching more and more of its content over to colour since late 1969. While many people would still have been watching in black-and-white by the time this serial was broadcast, it seems strange to think that they’d predict a ‘futuristic’ telly but not think of colour as simply becoming ‘part-and-parcel’!)

Aside from that opening attack on the submarine, the first ten minutes of the episode are all taken up by the Doctor and the Master having a catch up. I’ve spent the last four days complaining about too much talking and not enough action, but for some reason I’m completely riveted by the pair of them. Delgado and Pertwee really are so perfectly suited to each other, and it’s nice to see them given another opportunity to square off against each other. It also gives me hope that the episode may not end up being too padded out - a worry now that we’re back to a six-parter. If we can spend this long on the set up and still keep it interesting, it bodes well for the rest of the tale…

 Day 318: The Curse of Peladon, Episode Four

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

Day 318: The Curse of Peladon, Episode Four

Dear diary,

You could almost be forgiven for thinking that this might be Jo’s final story in the series. It’s her seventh story, which gives her almost twice as many as Liz, and equal to Victoria and close to Zoe. She’s suddenly become a very useful asset to the Doctor, providing the solution to many of the problems they’ve faced in this story, from finding the tunnel in Episode One to helping keep the peace as best she can. Oh, and then there’s a love story.

I said back at the start of the story that I was hoping Jo would be kept front and centre throughout, and I think it’s fair to say that she’s been pretty well-served in that respect. What’s lovely is how real her personal story throughout the last four episodes has felt. You can really see Jo and King Peladon falling for each other, and the final scene in which he asks her to stay and she has to decline without giving a valid reason is genuinely heartbreaking. That they get to part with a kiss is a lovely touch, and it helps to flesh out the characters even more.

Right back at the start of The 50 Year Diary, I expressed surprise at just how three-dimensional the companions were. There’s something of a myth that’s built up over the years that all the new series companions are fully formed while all the classic ones were merely ciphers. I’m constantly waiting for the standard to drop, but on the whole I’ve not been disappointed. Victoria was something of a blip, but all the companions so far have had a quality to them that I’m surprised to see, and I think it’s another benefit of watching through in order like this.

A lot of my good feeling toward this episode seems to be born from the last five minutes of it. The conversation between the Doctor and Jo about how they arrived on Peladon at this precise point in its history was welcome, as I’d been wondering earlier on how the Doctor had managed to bring them here. It’s nice to see that Jo’s wish to get back to Earth next is echoed by the Doctor. I’ve not really been keeping track of his character’s evolution over the last few stories, but I think we’re seeing a shift now.

The first few stories of this era saw him desperate to get off the planet and return to his wanderings in time and space. Now that he’s getting occasional trips out courtesy of the Time Lords, he seems to be finding himself a bit more settled at UNIT. It’s something that still has a way to go (and I’ll try to remember to keep an eye out for it as I move forward), but I think we’re seeing a very definite change in his persona, and it’s for the better.

I’m also pleased to see the arrival of the real Earth ambassador at the end of the story. It’s something I thought was going to be a bit of a plot hole - and at one stage I even wondered if the Doctor was the real ambassador, set in place by the Time lords themselves. It’s interesting to note how different the Third Doctor is in his assumed role when compared to his Second incarnation during The Power of the Daleks. There’s never been a more clear contrast between the pair!

I’m looking forward to moving to another story, though. The Curse of Peladon simply hasn’t captured my imagination in the way I was hoping it might, and having had a break from him for a week or so, I’m looking forward to seeing the Master again. I’m all for the series trying to break up the monotony of Earth-based a bit, but hopefully the next one will be more to my tastes…

a

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

Day 317: The Curse of Peladon, Episode Three

Dear diary,

Over the first half of this story, my biggest complaint has been that it’s simply too ‘talky’. Almost every scene boils down to the cast (some of whom are dressed in mildly amusing alien outfits) talking at each other, while not a lot else happens.There’s a scene in today’s episode, for example, where the various delegates of the Galactic Federation debate the merits of leaving the Doctor to his fate. It should be a great scene in which Jo finds herself facing a wall of opposition while trying to save her best friend’s life… but I just sort of watched it without engaging.

Equally, today’s episode has shown that when it’s done well, a dialogue-heavy scene can be absolutely brilliant. I’m thinking specifically of the exchange between Jo and King Peladon, in which she asks for his support and he tells her that he can’t give it, before asking for her hand in marriage. If you were to strip away the fact that David Troughton is wearing such a sparkly purple costume, this could very well be a scene from any period drama between a king and his love and set in a castle.

It’s helped, too, by Katy Manning turning in her best performance to date. She’s never been bad in her role, but she’s never been as good as we see here. I’ve heard people hold up her attempt at saving the Doctor’s life in The Dæmons as her golden moment (and, indeed, I believe it was scenes from that story which helped her win the job during auditions), but for me, this episode sees far and away her best acting, and it’s the first time that I think I’ve ever seen Jo as a proper grown up.

It’s a shame, then, when we see her blunder in to the tunnels and interrupt another of the Doctor’s experiments. During Episode One, I said “we’re a million miles away from the character who was introduced at the start of last season”, but suddenly we’re given a scene that’s almost identical to her very first! It feels like they’re trying to use this story to give Jo the space and freedom to grow as a character, but then every so often they need to resort to giving her that traditional ‘companion’ dialogue, so that the Doctor can explain his clever plan to the viewers at home.

It’s quite fun watching the Doctor put together this clever plan, too. Seeing him tinker with odds and ends to create the device he needs is so very right for this incarnation (there’s an image on the DVD cover art for the story that’s taken from this scene, and it’s just looks like the Third Doctor in his natural habitat!), and then it’s good to see him using this device to hypnotise Aggedor (and Jo!)

But I wonder if he’s also one of the things that’s stopping me from engaging with this story. It feels odd to not see this Doctor grounded so much in the Earth. Even during his last excursion from the planet we were in a time that looked even more like the 1970s than the actual 1970s do! For all he may look right tinkering around with technology, the Third Doctor simply looks a little out of place around these corridors and tunnels.

It is nice to see him engaging in the fight sequence at the end, and even though I knew it was a stunt man in the overhead shots, it took me a little while to actually notice it. It’s good to see him refusing to kill his opponent at the end, though I worry that it may come back to haunt him yet. In all, I’m still just not taken by this story. I’m hoping that Jo’s sudden prominence as a character may make her vital to the conclusion, and that it may be enough to give the tale a last-minute surge…

a

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

Day 316: The Curse of Peladon, Episode Two

Dear diary,

The oddest thing about this story is that I keep thinking how much greener the Ice Warriors look here than in their last few appearances. Yeah, yeah, I know that they’ve only ever shown up in the programme during the black-and-white era, but I never imagined them as looking this green before. I wonder if I’ve been thinking of the Cold War colouring, in which it’s more of a muted aqua-green that the all-out version on display in this story?

I’m really loving the struggle between the Ice Warriors and the Doctor, though. The idea that he’s so sure they’re in the wrong based on past encounters is nicely played against the idea that they equally suspect him or wrong doing. Having been involved in Doctor Who fandom over the years means that I’m well aware that the Ice Warriors are an innocent party in this story, but that gives me a nice platform from which to watch the action unfold.

For example, it’s noted early on in the story that the various races of the Federation have all had violence in their history, but that they now keep it under control - a nice foreshadowing of this revelation later on in the story. I’m looking forward to the Doctor’s reaction to the change in lifestyle for the creatures, though I’m suspecting that they may string it out a little bit first, with Jo trying to convince him. Certainly, tension seems to be creeping in among all the delegates now.

Sadly, I’m still just not all that into things. It feels just like The Dæmons, in that there’s nothing inherently wrong with the story, but I’m just not getting hooked in the way that I should be with Doctor Who. This episode is still very talky in places, and I can almost feel my attention beginning to wander as the scenes go by.

I am enjoying the involvement of Alpha Centuri, though. It’s one of those creatures from Doctor Who history that you’re always vaguely aware of. I often group the character together in the same box as the Moxx of Balhoon. When the new series was starting up in 2005, there were loads of images around of the Moxx, so people just sort of knew he was there in the series somewhere. Equally, I think the same is true with Alpha Centuri (although one person when told I was now doing this story responded by calling Alpha Centuri the ‘dick in a cape’…).

There’s just something about the character’s voice that really makes me smile, and I’m rather impressed with the costume, too. I’ve always assumed that it was a fairly basic creature, with everything pieced together as best they could. Actually, it’s really well made. There’s a few moments when the head has to turn, and it just looks good! Usually things like this would leave me complaining that it doesn’t quite work out, but no! Hooray! I think if this story wants to do better in my estimations, we need more of Centuri!

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

Day 315: The Curse of Peladon, Episode One

Dear diary,

Ah, Peladon. This is another one of those stories that I’ve never seen, and I’m in two minds about. On the one hand, I’ve always liked the idea of the Third Doctor making two trips to the planet during his era (for the same reason I enjoy the Tenth Doctor returning to New New York a season after his previous visit). There’s a moment in the Sarah Jane Adventures episode Death of the Doctor in which Jo and Sarah both reminisce about trips to Peladon and get very excited by the very fact that they both visited the same place at different times. That whole scene paints the place as very romantic, and a lovely memory for the pair.

On the other hand, I can distinctly remember my friend Huw reaching the mid-Pertwee era in a marathon of his own last year and suddenly losing the will to continue. When I told him this week that I’m about to start on this story, he rolled his eyes and groaned. It’s hardly the most encouraging of signs, is it?

I don’t think things got off to the best of starts with today’s episode, either. I’m visiting family this week, which means I’ve seen today’s episode on a screen several times larger than I’m used to. The only other episode of the marathon I’ve watched on a screen this size was The Underwater Menace Episode Two. In that instance, I was thrilled to be seeing it on a larger space! The print was in a shocking condition in places, but that just added to the charm of the whole thing! Today, I spent the first five minutes wondering if the restoration work on this story had just gone terribly wrong somewhere. It was all terribly over-exposed, and I could barely make out what was happening in some places. Thankfully, after a while the screen seemed to figure out what was wrong and corrected itself, giving me a far better image than the one I had been watching. A quick check online tells me that The Curse of Peladon is one of the worse-off prints in the archives, so I’m guessing that didn’t help.

Once I was past all of that, though… I was just a bit bored. A lot of this episode seems to just be people standing around talking at each other. To some extent, I don’t mind this. It’s exposition, and it’s necessary to get us up-to-speed with events. Since Jon Pertwee took over the TARDIS, we’ve only had a single story set away from Earth, and even that had a tag scene at the start and the end to give us some context to the adventure. Here, we get a name-check for Mike Yates to explain why Jo is all dressed up, but other than that we’re almost entirely removed from the setting we’ve come to expect from the programme. It needs some exposition to save us from being completely lost at sea.

But then it doesn’t stop. We get long conversations about the legend of the planet (which seems to be coming to the fore in some kind of Scooby Doo-like plot), about ‘protocol’, about the Galactic Federation, about the Ice Warriors, about King Peladon’s ascent to the throne… it just goes on and on. I’m hoping that now we’ve got all of this out of the way, the next three episodes can be all about action and adventure to make up for it.

It sounds like I’m being unfairly harsh on the episode, and in some ways I am. I decided that I just couldn’t forgive it after the entrance of the Ice Warriors was somewhat badly handled. I’m a Doctor Who fan. I know that the Ice Warriors are a part of the Peladon stories (they’re so intertwined with the stories that - along with Alpha Centuri - they’ve been a part of every Peladon story, on telly, in books, and on audio). Despite all this, as today’s episode played out, I completely forgot that the lizard men from Mars would be putting in an appearance.

Therefore, when they do show up for the first time, about three-quarters of the way through the episode, I should have been really excited! A great surprise-that-I-knew-was-coming-but-forgot-about, if you know what I mean. Sadly, they first appear as bumbling down a corridor as the Doctor and Jo first emerge into the castle. An Ice Warrior is shot from behind as it waddles along, and it just left me thinking ‘oh yeah, they’re in this…’

The whole situation worsened as I recalled how well their appearance in The Seeds of Death was handled - teasing the viewer of their presence because you knew they were there, but they just wouldn’t show you! A real shame. It’s odd, and I’ve never noticed it before, that after Pertwee’s first two seasons featured no returning monsters from the 1960s, we now get two in as many stories! The Ice Warriors weren’t shouted about quite as much in the pre-publicity, but they’re very much in the same boat as the Daleks - they’ve both fought the Doctor on multiple occasions in the black-and-white era before vanishing from the screen for a few years. Here’s hoping that my interest will perk up as the story goes on, and that they’re not wasted here in the same way the Daleks were during the last story.

I can’t just complain, though. The scenes between the Doctor and Jo are lovely, and just like various Doctor/companion teams of the past, they’re quickly becoming able to salvage any situation for me. Jo’s been given plenty of opportunities today to prove her worth, and we’re a million miles away from the character who was introduced at the start of last season. It’s Jo who finds the tunnel into the castle, and it’s her intervention that helps out when they’re put under pressure from the members of the Federation. I’m hoping that - with her posing as a princess in a story featuring a king - this can become her story and really let her shine throughout.

The sequence of them climbing the mountain up to the castle looks fab, and it’s one of the best-looking bits of the episode. The Restoration Team website tells me that it’s a film-clip donated by John Ainsworth, reinserted into the rest of the footage, which likely helps with the quality - so thank you, John! The downside is that it doesn’t help the rest of the story - when we cut from the Doctor and Jo on the rain-lashed cliff face directly to a (rather drab looking) BBC studio set it doesn’t half lose some atmosphere…

a

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

Day 314: Day of the Daleks, Episode Four

Dear diary,

Almost as soon as I realised that Day of the Daleks was a story in which people come back from the future to prevent a certain chain of events from happening, I knew that the guerrillas would be the cause of that particular time line. It’s a strand of science fiction that’s reared its head time and time again over the years, in everything from The Twilight Zone (in a story that sees Hitler killed as a baby, and then replaced by another child… who grows up to become the ‘Hitler’ we know from history) to the third Harry Potter book.

There’s a risk that this story could suffer from being based around such a well-known concept, but I’ve rather enjoyed it. Watching the Doctor piece everything together is fun (obviously he’s not read The Prisoner of Azkaban by this point!), and I was even slightly surprised that they’d managed to overturn everything by the end of the story. For a while, I suspected that they’d tie this Dalek occupation of the planet into the one from Season Two, and simply gloss over the fact that this back story doesn’t fit the one we were given way back then. It’s good to see that it’s not the case, and that the Doctor is able to save the day in the end.

I’m disappointed by how much the big ‘Return of the Daleks’ has been wasted in this story, though. The production team at the time really went to town to shout about the return of the Doctor’s greatest enemies, but then they barely feature throughout the entire story. Perhaps the biggest shame is that Pertwee only gets to direct a single line at his foes, when he warns them that they can’t succeed in their plans. Over the years, many of the actors to play the Doctor have commented that they really didn’t feel that they ‘owned’ the role until they’d faced off against the Daleks, so it’s a shame to see that Pertwee’s first meeting with them is a bit wasted.

Even away from the Doctor, these Daleks feel like a bit of an anti climax after nearly five years away. As a fan of the programme, I’m well aware of the ‘Three Daleks and some Ogrons’ battle at the end of the story. Knowing that I was planning to watch an episode of this story in its Special Edition form, I was almost tempted to do so for this one, in the hope that it could improve the scene. As it is, I decided that part of Doctor Who’s charm is that we get the invasion of a world peace conference by three Daleks and a couple of gorillas. The highlight is surely when one of the Daleks gingerly opens the back door to the house, and slowly moves inside, with all the charm of a neighbour calling in for a cup of tea.

When I think back to the Dalek stories of the 1960s, the moments that stand out to me are when they’re at their most impressive. The Dalek production factory from Power. The Egyptian massacre during Masterplan. Even that first shot of the plunger headed towards Barbara. The Dalek image from this story really should be the sight of them filing out of the tunnel interspersed with the Ogrons – in many ways it’s designed to be similar to that shot from Power. Even this doesn’t quite work for me, though. The implication throughout has been that the gold Dalek is the top dog, but they re-use this prop in the sequence a few times, just as they do with the standard grey drones. The ultimate effect is that having only three of them becomes even more obvious.

I’m also surprised to see that the ending to this story is pretty much the same as the ending to the last story – the main building around which the action has been set is blown up. Once again, it’s a very good effect (I’d probably go so far as to say that this shot, along with the destruction of the church in The Deamons count as the best effects shots of the 1970s so far), but when you’re watching the stories in quick succession, it does rather feel like de ja vu.

It sounds like I’m really having a moan about today’s episode. Almost everything I have to say about it is broadly negative. And yet, I’ve really enjoyed it. It’s the kind of episode that I can simply switch off and watch. I don’t need to pay much attention to the plot, because I know what’s happening. For today, it’s all about watching UNIT get blasted by the Daleks. It means, though, that I’m in a bit of a tricky place today.

When I give my rating out of ten to an episode, it’s based simply on gut instinct. I usually declare my score out loud to the flat as the end credits roll, almost as a way of cementing it in my mind. The last three episodes have all been a ‘7/10’, but I’ve enjoyed this one more than the last few episodes. It’s certainly not an 8/10 (it just doesn’t feel like an 8/10), so let’s call it a high…

Mind you, UNIT’s not going to be tasked with any more peace conferences, I’m guessing. The last one saw them lose a missile that could start a Third World War, and even if they’ve managed to save the delegates from death, they’ve failed to spot a man in the basement of the house with a bomb. Having failed to find the Doctor and Jo hidden in the same location a few episodes ago, you think that really someone should have a word with the Brigadier about what this ‘security’ work involves…

a

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

Day 313: Day of the Daleks, Episode Three

Dear diary,

Over the last week or so, people have been getting in touch with me about this story. I've had messages on Twitter, via the 50 Year Diary's Facebook page, and even one text from a concerned friend. All of this correspondence centred around one key issue - ensuring that I watch Day of the Daleks as the original version. I remember the hype surrounding this story's release a few years ago. 2|entertain released a teaser at one stage that said something about a title which would bring an exciting new dimension to the Doctor Who DVD range. Guesses varied from a rerelease of certain stories post-converted into 3D to a release of Dimensions in Time on DVD (I'd buy it. And before anyone else asks, yes it will be getting an entry when the time comes!)

Two years have passed since this story's DVD release, and time doesn't appear to have been all that good to it, because all the messages I received told me to make sure that I steer clear of the 'Special Edition' version of the story, because it's basically pants.

To tell the truth, I'd not even considered watching it any other way than the original broadcast version. I'm not in any way desperate to make this a 'pure' marathon that sticks only to the original versions of the stories (and I'd made a mental note to watch at least one story with new effects switched on), but I'd not even thought about seeing this version in its new, 21st century glory. Of course, once everyone started getting in touch to make sure, it completely settled it. I'd have to watch the special edition.

I've held off until now. Episodes One and Two have been watched via 'disc one', and thus have been the regular versions of the episodes. Today, though, I decided to switch things up a little, and go for the enhanced version. I think I decided that it wasn't for me about thirty seconds into the cliffhanger reprise, when the Dalek-revealing cliffhanger I praised yesterday was smothered by some overpowering CGI materialisation effects. It was probably the perfect example that just because you can add CGI to something doesn't necessarily mean that you should.

After that, I can't really say that the differences really made an impact on me. The sparks and bolts during the trike chase (I know the Third Doctor's a man of action but a trike? Really?) were a nice touch, and certainly made it look a bit more action-packed than the original version, but it didn't really mean all that much to me. As you'll have no-doubt ascertained from that last sentence, I have been back to watch the original version so I could compare the differences, but I only skipped through to key moments.

One thing that I thought looked better in the Special Edition was the Doctor's mind scan. In the original, we get a few still photos of the Doctors flashed up on the screen, and in one instance on a Hartnell photo, you can see where they've failed to frame it properly. That same image also comes across as having a bit too much contrast on - which is an issue I seem to recall that photo having in an early issue of Doctor Who Magazine, too! Obviously the BBC Photo Library didn't have many good-quality copies!

The Special Edition replaces it with clips of the Doctors taken from other episodes instead, and they make a bit more of an impact for me. It's the first time, really, that we've had any kind of flashback like this so blatantly, and I think the moving images made it seem all the more special for me. I wasn't expecting to see the older Doctors, but worried when they flashed up on screen that I might get a nostalgic pang, and long for the days when I could accompany the Doctor down into the Underground or to the Cave of Skulls.

If anything, though, I'm rather liking Pertwee again in this story. I can't describe it (and believe me I've been putting off the writing of today's entry in the vague hope that I'll suddenly find a way!), but Jon Pertwee here looks better than he ever has as the Doctor. There's something about his style in this story, with the shirt slightly undone and looking a bit tired that really works for the character, and it helps to sell the threat of the situation just that little bit more.

That's good! Of course there's a big threat! It's the return of the Daleks - the Doctor's arch enemy! - after almost five years away from the programme! And yet… they're hardly in it. We've had a couple of minutes of Daleks huddled around in a small room (with a single brief excursion to the tunnel), and that's it. I'm hoping they're going to be a big part of Episode Four, or something will have really gone amiss…

The voices surprised me today. I'd completely forgotten that Nick Briggs had re-recorded them for the Special Edition, and about half way through their brief appearance today, I worried that I might have been mistaken yesterday and that they had remembered a ring modulator! So ingrained in my mind is Briggs' Dalek voice that it just feels natural when you hear it!

It's back to the regular edition to round out the story tomorrow, but I'm glad I've taken this little side-step into an alternate reality. I love that the DVD range has been able to include little curiosities like this within the releases, as they help to make the story of Doctor Who just that little bit richer. I think I'll be sticking with the originals from now on, though…

a

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

Day 312: Day of the Daleks, Episode Two

Dear diary,

One of the special features on the Day of the Daleks DVD is a clip from Blue Peter, in which Peter Purves talks about viewers having 'long memories' to remember him ever being a companion in Doctor Who. They go on to talk about receiving a lot of letters asking if the Daleks will ever be returning to menace the Doctor again, and as the three props from this story circle the studio, we're teased that if enough people keep on asking, they just might be there on the Doctor's next adventure.

Purves also says that the Daleks have 'created probably a greater impact than any other monster before or since' within film and television. I'm wondering about these 'long memories' though. As I said yesterday, the four-and-a-half years between The Evil of the Daleks and this story is a really long time, and I'm wondering how many of the younger audience members would have remembered the Daleks at all? Are any of my readers of a vintage that they can remember this story first airing? Were you excited to have the Daleks back, or was it just some monster from the Doctor's past?

(Incidentally, there's another special feature on this DVD in which a class of children receive a Dalek model they've won in a Radio Times competition. The reporter asks - if they're all so scared of the Daleks - why they wanted one in their classroom, and the response effectively boils down to 'it was our teacher's idea… Obviously there were at least some children not all the bothered by the return of the pepper pots.)

It would seem that the programme makers have forgotten all about the Daleks, too. People often talk about this story having somewhat dodgy Dalek voices, and while I can't say that I particularly noticed yesterday, it's definitely obvious today. The voices have been created in the studio, and they've forgotten to bring a ring modulator (even the Daleks on the Blue Peter clip got that right!) It;s almost as though the voices are being provided by people who half remember what a Dalek is supposed to sound like, but hasn't bothered to check. Thus we get them soun-ding out ev-e-ry syl-a-ble, some-times to the point of mad-ness.

It's not all that over powering, because the creatures barely appear in today's episode either. They're playing a really long game with us in this story, but now that Jo is in the 22nd century, and the Doctor has encountered a Dalek in a tunnel (in a great cliffhanger. The effect of the Dalek suddenly appearing is very well done - it's a shame that this wasn't our first sight of them after all this time), I think we're headed for more Dalek action.

One of the sad things about this episode is that we seem to be back to UNIT not really knowing what they're doing. 'We've searched the house and the grounds' Captain Yates tells the Brigadier when reporting the disappearance of the Doctor and Jo. They can't have searched very thoroughly, though, can they? The missing pair were in the cellar the whole time! Added to that, you've got a pair of guerrillas running around the property, too, and you've got a group of actual gorillas running around in the grounds at intermittent intervals!