Over the years there have been a few individuals who have helped formulate the Doctor Who Online you see before you today. One of those people (and we're sure he'd be surprised to learn of this) is Doctor Who fan, author and publisher, David J. Howe. At a Doctor Who Appreciation Society event, back in the early days of our online journey, David gave us some sage advice about cutting our own path and being original with the site. For too long we had followed too closely in the footsteps of Outpost Gallfrey and tried to emulate their style, and it was David who kindly set us on the right path and helped us carve our own direction.

David J. Howe is a name that most Doctor Who fans worth their salt, will know - and those who do not, really should! He has authored and co-authored some of the best factual Doctor Who books in many a fans collection. Titles such as The Sixties, The Seventies, The Eighties - not to mention the Handbooks and the Transcendental Toybox books, have all been a companion to this site, as well as important reference points.

What David doesn't know about Doctor Who merchandise isn't worth knowing, and with the recent news that he plans to open a merchandise museum, showcasing his lifetime's collection, we were incredibly excited. The whole operation needs your help though - the fans! David, and his lovely wife Sam, have started an Indiegogo campaign to raise the £30,000+ needed to open the museum. Fans can help from as little as £1 and there are some truly fantastic perks, ranging from getting a shout out from the man himself, to having Dinner with Chase Masterson or Frazer Hines!

To give you an idea of how popular the campaign has been, its only been live for 48 hours and has already accumulated £2000+ of donations, and we want you to help them smash their target, so please donate whatever you can afford and in the Summer of 2018 we can all be rewarded with an incredibly exciting museum experience!

+  SUPPORT The Doctor Who Merchandise Museum Indiegogo Campaign!

+  BUY some fantastic Doctor Who books from Telos Publishing. 

[Source: Doctor Who Online]

Manufacturer: Big Finish Productions

Writer: Nicholas Briggs

RRP: £10.99 (CD) / £8.99 (Download)

Release Date: August 2015

Reviewed by: Nick Mellish for Doctor Who Online

“The Doctor reveals to Leela that they’re heading for the planet Telos. And K9 has new masters...

On Telos, in the past, the Second Doctor and Jamie are exploring the ‘tomb of the Cybermen’.

Meanwhile, the Cyber-Controller and Cyber-Planner consolidate their plans. Spare parts from Krelos are being used to construct a mighty Cyber army. The Doctor must be captured.

Out of control, the TARDIS tumbles down a chasm and the Doctor and Leela find themselves caught up in full-scale planetary invasion.”

There is a school of thought that says that big is better, and you can see that in work here: an adventure with the Cybermen! Ah, but let’s go one further: bring in an old companion! But we can do more: make it a sequel to a past adventure! Brilliant. But: no, let’s go further: we can set it during the past adventure! And let’s not just do any old story, no! Let’s set it during a much-loved classic: The Tomb of the Cybermen!

On paper, it probably sells: the Fourth Doctor and Leela meeting Jamie on Telos is a scenario which is going to get a certain type of fan tingling with anticipation, and it’s no great leap to put both Nicholas Briggs and David Richardson in that category seeing as they’ve gone ahead and made this tale.

It’s not the first time that this approach has been taken. We had The Five Companions by Eddie Robson taking place within another story, and it worked really well: it was a neat fit that took advantage of a period within the existing story when it could logically have taken place without too great a pinch of salt.  So, we have previous, and a successful example at that.  You can see why they felt confident enough to go down that road again.  Indeed, we’ve had mixed-up Doctor/Companion tales very recently, too, and sequels to popular stories in the past time and again.  How does it fare here, though?

First things first: the ‘fit’ between new tale and old tale is pretty sloppy, and I’m being generous here.  We get Frazer Hines doing his Troughton impression to try and help gel things, but… well, it sounds good in small doses, but often it just sounds like Frazer Hines pretending to be Patrick Troughton, so the effect is not as seamless as everyone seems to think it is if the Extras to this play are anything to go by.  The fit in with the plot of Tomb itself can conceivably work I suppose, but only at a push and certainly not as smoothly as Robson managed before.  This feels far more like someone desperately trying to squeeze something in than something that clicks; like someone pushing the incorrect part of the jigsaw into the wrong hole. You can make it fit, but it’s a clumsy mess.

Second up: Jamie in a Fourth Doctor story. Now, Jamie seems to continually bump into the ‘wrong’ Doctor whilst facing the Cybermen, so this feels less novel and more old and worn than it should do.  Sadly, again it’s a clumsy fit.  Quite simply, there is no need whatsoever for this tale to take place during Tomb beyond it being set on Telos, which it could be at any time.  It’s been done purely to try and shift CDs and with no regard to the story itself.  We’re looking at quantity over quality with regards to elements here.

Thirdly, the story. Again, it’s pretty poor. Cybermen are nasty to K-9, things happen, technobabble, reset, the end.  It’s dull at best, predictable at worst, and sadly as jaded and boring as the inclusion of Jamie and the notion of setting it within another story.  I understand that Big Finish tend to keep things as they are and the risks are normally minimal and then repeated– the four-by-four format was successful once and so we have it once a year now; a Northern companion worked well, so they’ve been aping Lucie Miller ever since; the false-departure for Charley worked well, so let’s do it again (and again and again…) with Hex! Heck, even the covers tend to stick to a type nowadays and take few risks– but this is about as boring an execution of old tricks that we’ve seen.

We need more, especially after a story in which nothing much happens whatsoever, but what we get here, though it has more incident than Krelos, shows less flair or innovation.  Not a good sign.

More than anything else, this feels like a huge disappointment after how strong this series of The Fourth Doctor Adventures has been.  We’ve had sparks and new things, and then… this.  A story so keen on continuity, it forgets to do anything interesting whatsoever. I really wish Big Finish would stop doing this; it’s utterly without point, and I can’t see who it appeals to.  Certainly not this listener.  I’m only giving it two out of ten because the Cybermen voices are at least pretty good. That’s overly kind of me, though.

 “You will be like us,” say the Cybermen. If that entails being anything like this play, then that is a threat indeed.

Manufacturer: Big Finish Productions

Writer: Nicholas Briggs

RRP: £10.99 (CD) / £8.99 (Download)

Release Date: July 2015

Reviewed by: Nick Mellish for Doctor Who Online

“There are dark skies on Krelos… and something gigantic is descending.

Meanwhile, the Doctor and Leela set off for some fishing in the mountain pools of Krelos. K9 has interfaced with the TARDIS and has reactivated the architectural configuration from the days of the Doctor’s second incarnation. In passing, the Doctor notes it could do with a good clean. And there’s a familiar piece of material snagged on the console.

Far up the mountain, an aged explorer is in trouble. Will the Doctor and Leela be able to save him and his planet? And what is it that K9 has discovered in the TARDIS?”

The Doctor gets up to an awful lot of things when we’re not looking.  We know this from various sources: the Doctor himself, glimpses of downtime in stories such as Midnight, The Romans, Army of Ghosts and Turn Left (it all goes to pot there, but to start with at least, Donna and the Doctor are just having fun exploring an alien market), companions reciting stories not seen on screen (Rose in Boom Town, for example), and the nagging sense that it can’t all be continual peril for the Doctor and his friends, or you wouldn’t go travelling, would you? There are definitely times when the Doctor and his entourage take a break and simply have a good time.

Why, then, have we not seen this in full before? The argument will no doubt be that if nothing much happens, then it’s not going to be the most exciting of tales, but as if that were a gauntlet thrown on the table, Big Finish have decided to try and prove us wrong and The Fate of Krelos is the result.

What happens in this story, then? Well, Leela and the Doctor wander around the TARDIS for a bit and decide to go fishing whilst K-9 is on the blink. They meet the locals and have a jolly.  And that’s it.

It’s a strange tale in that the format actively fights against the story being told.  We need a cliffhanger midway through the tale, one at the end, and a healthy dose of leading-into-the-final-play-this-series-style plot for Return to Telos to work properly. Because Nicholas Briggs, the story’s author, wants to tell a tale where the Doctor and Leela just relax instead of rush around, there is an inherent wrestle between these necessities and Briggs’s desires. So, K-9 is not how he should be but everyone ignores it uncharacteristically because that would kickstart a story.  Likewise, we get a truly horrendous and cringeworthy bit of info-dumping early on where Leela learns about Jamie purely so that she will know who he is come the final play this series. It’s a scene that exists purely to push things forward and stands out all the more than it usually would, such is the lax pace and absence of event surrounding it all.

Things suddenly whirl into action right at the end, again because it is needed by the demands of both Doctor Who as a series and The Fate of Krelos’s position in the running order of this season of adventures. Maybe placed somewhere else other than the penultimate adventure, a tale like this one could have worked, but as it is, we have what would struggle to fit a standard twenty-three-minute-long episode stretched beyond breaking point.

In spite of all this though,I cannot help but admire Briggs for giving this a shot in the first place. Does it work? Not really, but as a one-off experiment, it is at least worthy of merit. The use of Michael Cochrane in the guest cast is a nice touch, too, giving The Fourth Doctor Adventures a sense of continuity with its past (he was brilliant as Colonel Spindleton in the first series) in much the same way that repeated appearances of Bernard Horsfall and his ilk used to do on screen.

Telos beckons now, so hopefully this is but a blip in what has been the best series of adventures for the Fourth Doctor from Big Finish so far. At least Leela knows who Jamie is now… 

Nine previously missing episodes of Doctor Who from the 1960s, which have not been seen for over 45 years, have been discovered and will launch exclusively on iTunes Today.

BBC Worldwide announced the find at a press event yesterday, which DWO attended, and we're delighted to announce that nine recordings from the 1960s featuring missing episodes of Doctor Who, were recovered in Nigeria, Africa, and subsequently returned to the BBC.

The episodes were discovered by Phillip Morris, director of Television International Enterprises Archive, by the tracking records of overseas shipments made by the BBC containing tapes for transmission. BBC Worldwide has re-mastered these episodes to restore them to the fantastic quality that audiences expect from Doctor Who.

The stories recovered are The Enemy of the World (1967) and The Web of Fear (1968) - both starring Patrick Troughton as The Second Doctor.

The Enemy of the World, is the fourth six-part tale of Series 5 which first aired on the BBC in December 1967. Episodes 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6 had been missing from the BBC archives. 

Alongside Patrick Troughton who plays both the Time Lord and his antagonist (Ramon Salamander) are his companions Frazer Hines (Jamie) and Deborah Watling (Victoria).

Also recovered is the 1968 six-part story, The Web of Fear. Episodes 2-6 were feared lost forever but now episodes 2, 4, 5, and 6 have been recovered. Unfortunately, episode three is still currently missing but a restoration team has reconstructed this part of the story using a selection of the 37 images that were available from the episode along with the original audio which has been restored. 

Also starring Patrick Troughton alongside Frazer Hines and Deborah Watling, The Web of Fear introduces Nicholas Courtney for the first time as Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart (who later returns as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart). 

All episodes are available to download exclusively from iTunes from today (links at the bottom of this article). The Enemy of the World will also be available to preorder exclusively on DVD from BBC Shop from 11th October for release on 22nd November. The Web of Fear will be available on DVD on 24th February 2013. DWO have been given the preview for the Limited Edition DVD cover which you can see in the right-hand image column.

Phillip Morris says:

“The tapes had been left gathering dust in a store room at a television relay station in Nigeria. I remember wiping the dust off the masking tape on the canisters and my heart missed a beat as I saw the words ‘Doctor Who’. When I read the story code I realised I’d found something pretty special.”

Fiona Eastwood, Director of Consumer Products, BBC Worldwide comments:

“We are thrilled with the recent discovery of The Web of Fear and The Enemy of the World and we’re very happy to be launching re-mastered versions of these treasured episodes to fans as we celebrate the 50th year of Doctor Who.”

The Press Event

The press event itself kicked off with a statement by Philip Morris, read out by TIEA archive coordinator, Roy Robinson, in which Morris thanked the BBC and Doctor Who fans for their support. This was then followed by a short video presentation by Philip Morris, explaining the story behind the recent finds, and conveying his own childhood memories of Doctor Who.

The room then went dark as Episode One of The Enemy Of The World was shown. It was a surreal experience - actually sitting down to watch brand new, yet old, Doctor Who - unseen for over 45 years! We were quite blown away by the opening scenes on the beach, with helicopters, hovercraft and long johns - and all in the first five minutes! Every moment was filled with joy as the episode unfolded and we got to see Patrick Troughton's dual performance as The Doctor and Salamander.

After the episode had aired, Mark Gatiss introduced Episode Two of The Web Of Fear, citing it perfectly as "the quintessential Doctor Who story that's also the most British thing you could imagine".

On a personal note, this was the story that we were *really* excited to see. To actually see the Yeti / Great Intelligence in action in the London Underground was really special. Interestingly, The Doctor only featured in the recap at the beginning of the episode, and doesn't show up at all in Episode Two - one of the first true examples of a Doctor-lite episode!

After a 10-minute break, we re-entered the screening room for a Q&A with Frazer Hines, Deborah Watling and Mark Gatiss. Below are some highlights:

Total TV Guide: (To Frazer and Deborah) Do you remember doing the scenes?
Deborah: Watching it just now, I knew the next lines!
Frazer: Yeh, but you didn't know them at the time on set, did you?!

Daily Telegraph: (To Frazer and Deborah) What made Patrick Troughton's performance so special?
Deborah: He had a wonderful sense of humour and a twinkle in the eye, but he was also a very, very good actor. We all got on so well and we were like a family. We had a chemistry, and I think it showed today.

Doctor Who Online: (To Frazer and Deborah) Did you keep any mementos from either of the two stories?
Deborah: I had one of the ornamental Yeti's but it broke in the middle, so Andrew Beech was kind enough to fix it for me.
Frazer: eBay! - I also had one of the Yeti's - and space glasses, but my mother told me to throw it all away, so I did.

BBC Worldwide have provided DWO with some trailers and clips from The Enemy Of The World and The Web Of Fear, which you can watch below.

The Enemy Of The World - iTunes Trailer

[youtube:9Kgd8sNJhmU]
The Enemy Of The World - 'Long Johns' Clip

[youtube:ERARlXb_ho0]
The Web Of Fear - iTunes Trailer

[youtube:0-hRRzv2hA8]
The Web Of Fear - 'Pyramid' Clip

[youtube:bSKZvkpy0AI]

As a final treat, DWO caught up with Frazer Hines (Jamie McCrimmon) and Deborah Watling (Victoria Waterfield) who recorded a special video greeting for our visitors:
[youtube:jL7U2P7rbJE]

+  Download The Enemy Of The World for £9.99 via iTunes in the UK.
+  Download The Enemy Of The World for $9.99 via iTunes in the USA.
+  Preorder The Enemy Of The World DVD on BBC Shop for just £13.99!

+  Download The Web Of Fear for £9.99 via iTunes in the UK.
+  Download The Web Of Fear for $9.99 via iTunes in the USA.
+  Preorder The Web Of Fear DVD on BBC Shop for just £13.99!

+  Follow Doctor Who Online on Twitter (@DrWhoOnline)!

[Many thanks to Chris, Phil, Emma and the rest of the BBC Worldwide Team]

[Sources: BBC Worldwide, Doctor Who Online]

Manufacturer: Big Finish Productions

Written By: Eddie Robson

RRP: £8.99 (CD) / £7.99 (Download)

Release Date: May 2013

Reviewed by: Matthew Davis for Doctor Who Online

Review Posted: 30th May 2013

The TARDIS lands in the city of Tromesis on Earth – but it’s a world far from the one that the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe recognize.

The buildings are ruined, the streets deserted. And against the devastation they see a ghostly mirror image of another place – the city as it was before disaster hit.

People vanish here, and huge metal birds attack from the sky.

Can the Doctor find the future, in a place that doesn’t have one?

* * *

In the latest Companion Chronicle from Big Finish, Frazer Hines once again plays both Jamie and The Second Doctor. This is an impersonation he has become famous for and with good reason as it is rather uncanny. At the beginning of the play, it feels more like a full cast audio drama in parts as Hines plays The Second Doctor as if Patrick Troughton is playing directly opposite Jamie. In fact the recent Companion Chronicles that Hines has been a part of seems to be specifically tailored to allow him to do this impression. It is always fun to hear but I wouldn’t like to see the impersonation overshadow the brilliant work he does as Jamie McCrimmon.

Despite some nice input from Wendy Padbury this is very much Hines’ show. He carries not only the narrative duties but the whole story is told from Jamie’s point of view. You feel somewhat sorry for Padbury because as wonderful it is to hear her once again as a younger Zoe, you begin to get the feeling she was called in simply so Hines didn’t get a sore throat playing two main characters and some supporting roles.

The Apocalypse Mirror has, at its heart, a very interesting and rather conceptual idea, but to reveal too much would be to spoil the revelations. This is a particularly idea-driven story and it is a refreshing change to the standard good versus evil-driven plot.

Eddie Robson has written an interesting story which is an excellent showcase for Frazer Hines, but it suffers somewhat from the lack of material for his co-star. Fortunately Hines’ energetic performance makes for an enjoyable listen.

Manufacturer: Big Finish Productions

Written By: Steve Lyons

RRP: £8.99 (CD) / £7.99 (Download)

Release Date: February 2013

Reviewed by: Matthew Davis for Doctor Who Online

Review Posted: 12th March 2013

The TARDIS has landed in a futuristic space casino, where the Doctor, Ben, Polly and Jamie find fun, games… and monsters everywhere. There are vicious robot dogs, snake-headed gangsters from the Sidewinder Syndicate and a mysterious masked woman called Hope.

In this place, time travellers are to be tracked down and arrested. Yet, as events spiral out of control, time may be Polly's only ally…

* * *

After last month’s reflective and very dark The Flames of Cadiz, we get a little light relief with House of Cards the first of this year’s Companion Chronicles to feature The Second Doctor. 

Despite Jamie’s involvement, this is very much Polly’s story and Anneke Wills has great fun taking centre stage. Usually when Frazer Hines is involved in a Companion Chronicle, his quite brilliant Patrick Troughton impression is never far behind. But this time there is a distinct absence of it, perhaps as to not overshadow Polly’s story, as, in fact, nearly all of The Doctor’s interactions in House of Cards take place with her.

Steve Lyons has written a great little time travel story and has fun in creating a rather ghoulish Casino and it’s unique inhabitants, where snake eyes are not just on the dice. The plot is neatly constructed and has the feel of a Steven Moffat “timey wimey” scenario. It's a nice example of how the new series bleeds into versions of the old one and vice versa.

When I reviewed last year’s Companion Chronicle by the same author, The Selachian Gambit, I was disappointed at how the use of Polly and Anneke Wills were a little wasted, the character being reduced to making the tea at one point. I’m happy that Lyons has written a story which showcases Polly’s strengths and it is a cracker.

House of Cards is good, old fashioned, fun Doctor Who adventure and well worth your attention.

The latest issue of Doctor Who Magazine reports that AudioGO and Big Finish are teaming up for a series of 11 Doctor Who Audio Specials spanning all 11 Doctors for the 50th Anniversary year in 2013.

The series will feature one Doctor per month, and will be overseen by John Ainsworth, with AudioGO’s Michael Stevens and Big Finish’s Nicholas Briggs and Jason Haigh-Ellery executive producing.

The first story, Hunters from Earth by Nigel Robinson is read by Carole Ann Ford and Tam Williams, and is set in that little-charted period after The First Doctor and Susan have arrived on Earth in 1963, but before they depart with Ian and Barbara at the end of An Unearthly Child.

The second story, Simon Guerrier’s Shadow of Death, features The Second Doctor, Jamie and Zoe, and is read by Frazer Hines and Eve Dawnay.

As well as marking the first time that Big Finish have tackled stories for Doctors from the current version of the show, it will also be the first time that an original story for The Ninth Doctor will be released on audio.

[Source: SciFi Bulletin]

Manufacturer: Big Finish Productions

Written By: Eddie Robson

RRP: £8.99

Release Date: 31st May 2012

Reviewed by: Matthew Davis for Doctor Who Online

Review Posted: 24th May 2012

Jamie McCrimmon is trapped. Trapped not only within a four wall cell but within several time streams and not all of them are in the right order. 

His interrogator, and at some points prisoner Moran is interested in The Doctor and his agenda towards the local alien race the Unhelt. Jamie maintains that the Unhelt are harmless and that The Doctor trusts them. But why does Jamie keep switching from prisoner to captor and why do the Unhelt seem to be the enemy he believed they weren’t?

It soon becomes clear that someone is playing a game with Jamie. But it seems that there are two more players than just the highlander and Moran. The mysterious Si is behind it all, informing The Doctor that Jamie is indeed part of a game and it is one that will guarantee his freedom, if he can put the pieces of the puzzle in the right order.

Jamie McCrimmon must now face a test not just of his own resources but of his trust in the Doctor as he may not be right this time around.

Big Finish has recently been experimenting with the format of The Companion Chronicles by releasing them as audio dramas rather than talking books. This can be seen in the recent release Binary and the same format is used here to great effect. The nature of the story allows the pace to be kept at a great momentum in the audio drama format and as a result the story never feels boring.

The Jigsaw War is an intriguing play and certainly not one for a causal listen. This story, with its jumping about in time at an almost disorientating pace, demands your attention. Part of the fun is hearing Jamie trying to figure out his escape route as we hear him in both increasingly desperate and relatively calm situations within the same room. 

Frazer Hines is superb as Jamie especially when he is on the defensive about The Doctor towards Moran. This story is again another opportunity to hear Hines’ uncanny impersonation of Patrick Troughton, this time given full credit as The Doctor and not Jamie impersonating him. When these moments come they are delightful as Hines really acts like the Second Doctor which lends it more authenticity than simply doing a heightened impression of Troughton. It is a joy to listen to.

Hine’s fellow cast member Dominic Mafham is terrific as Moran, particularly as the actor has to play the character at several points in a very disjointed timeline. These moments require many different emotional states which Dafham excels at. He makes for a wonderful straight sparring partner against the rough and ready Scot and the contrast is admirably brought to life by both Hines and Mafham.

Deep within the puzzle of the play are some very interesting questions about The Doctor that Moran raises to Jamie during their interrogations. These mostly concern the off audio Unhelt and The Doctor’s opinion of them. The Unhelt to Jamie and The Doctor are simply subjugated and oppressed by Moran’s people whereas Moran present s a plausible case that they are dangerous and his people’s methods in containing them while admittedly cruel do serve a greater purpose in keeping the peace between the races. It is suggested by Moran that The Doctor simply takes things on face value and sees only a small part of the picture without full possession of the facts. This does cause an interesting moral dilemma for Jamie but it is brushed away somewhat by the far bigger puzzle that is the main story.

When the conclusion comes it is rather abrupt and does not really leave the listener fully satisfied. However, writer Eddie Robson has been rather clever to design the story in such a way that when the story is over, a way is offered to the listener to hear the adventure in the correct chronological order of events. It is a clever twist and adds a great deal of replay value to the listener.

The Jigsaw War is an enjoyable Companion Chronicle despite some of the more intriguing ideas being swamped by the main narrative in whatever order you choose to listen to it. A recommended listen.

A forthcoming episode of the popular BBC quiz show, Eggheads, will feature a Doctor Who celebrity team.

The team, which will consist of Colin Baker (The 6th Doctor), Frazer Hines (Jamie), Louise Jameson (Leela), Katy Manning (Jo) and John Leeson (Voice of K9), will battle against the Eggheads to win a sum of money for charity.

The episode, which was recorded in the Summer, will air on BBC Two, on Monday 20th December at 6:00pm.

[Source: Colin Baker]