BBC Studios have kindly sent DWO a copy of the upcoming 'Doctor Who: The Collection - Season 26' blu-ray box-set, and we've just uploaded an unboxing video to the DWO YouTube channel, which you can view, below:



Stay tuned to DWO for our full review of the set will be online later next week.

+ Doctor Who: The Collection - Season 26 is released on 27th January 2020.
+ PREORDER this title from Amazon.co.uk for just £39.99 (RRP: £56.15)!

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[Source: DWO]

Amazon.co.uk have confirmed that the upcoming Doctor Who: The Collection - Season 26 set (due out on 23rd December) has been delayed until 20th January 2020.

In an email to customers who have preordered the title, the company stated: 

Unfortunately, the release date for the item(s) listed below was changed by the supplier, and we need to provide you with a new estimated delivery date based on the new release date:

"Doctor Who - The Collection - Season 26 [Blu-ray] [2020]"

Estimated arrival date: January 20 2020

One of our aims is to provide a convenient and efficient service but in this case, we've fallen short. Please accept our sincere apologies.

The news didn't come as a surprise to many fans owing to the fact that previous releases in the collection series have all faced delays. That being said, the general consensus from fans is that, due to the fantastic quality of the sets, they are happy to wait a little longer for the release. On the plus side, we all have something to look forward to, to help get rid of the January blues!

+ PREORDER this title from Amazon.co.uk for just £39.99 (RRP: £56.16)!

[Source: Amazon.co.uk]

BBC Studios continues to offer Doctor Who fans the opportunity to build their own home archive on Blu-ray. Debuting on Monday 23rd December is Doctor Who: The Collection - Season 26; the acclaimed final season from the series’ original run, starring Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred.

The set includes four stories: 

BATTLEFIELD
GHOST LIGHT
THE CURSE OF FENRIC
SURVIVAL

In 1989, Doctor Who was on a creative high, with the Seventh Doctor and his companion Ace revitalising the programme for a new generation. Season 26 featured four epic adventures traversing a future Britain invaded by inter-dimensional knights, a strange Victorian house haunted by ghosts from Ace’s past, an alien world populated by Cheetah People and a 1940s army camp under siege from monstrous vampires.

With guest stars including Nicholas Courtney (Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart), Anthony Ainley (The Master), Jean Marsh, Nicholas Parsons, Anne Reid, Ian Hogg, Sylvia Syms and comedy duo Hale & Pace, this fondly-remembered set of stories saw the end of an era for Doctor Who, and set the stage for its hugely successful revival.

With all episodes newly remastered from the best available sources, this Blu-ray box set also contains extensive and exclusive special features including:

Rare Restored Extended Cuts
The Curse of Fenric VHS Extended Version The Curse of Fenric DVD Special Edition Battlefield VHS Extended Version Battlefield DVD Special Edition, plus

5.1 surround sound & isolated scores
On all 14 broadcast episodes, plus 5.1 sound on all extended versions of The Curse Of Fenric and Battlefield.

Behind the Sofa
New episodes with Sylvester McCoy, Sophie Aldred, plus companions Janet Fielding, Sarah Sutton, Anneke Wills and Jodie Whittaker-era writers Pete McTighe & Joy Wilkinson.

Showman - the Life of John Nathan-Turner
A feature-length look at the life and career of Doctor Who’s longest-serving producer, who fought to keep the programme on-air during the 1980s. Contributors include Peter Davison and Colin Baker.

Making ‘The Curse of Fenric’
A brand new documentary featuring Sylvester McCoy, Sophie Aldred, Tomek Bork, Nicholas Parsons, Cory Pulman, Marek Anton, Ian Briggs, Andrew Cartmel, Mark Ayres and Ian Collins featuring unseen behind-the-scenes footage and photographs.

In Conversation
Matthew Sweet chats to companion Sophie Aldred.

The Writers’ Room
Ben Aaronovitch, Marc Platt, Ian Briggs, Rona Munro and Andrew Cartmel discuss their work on Season 26.

Becoming The Destroyer
Actor Marek Anton and prosthetics designer Stephen Mansfield recall the creation of one of Doctor Who’s best ever monsters.

Blu-Ray trailer
Sophie Aldred back in character as Ace.

Brand new Ghost Light extended workprint Unseen studio footage

Rare archive treats

Convention footage

HD photo galleries

Scripts, costume designs, rare BBC production files and other gems from our PDF archive

And lots more!

The seven-disc box set also includes hours of special features previously released on DVD.

+ PREORDER this title from Amazon.co.uk for just £39.99 (RRP: £56.16)!
[youtube:sgHRLi02JAc] 
[Source: BBC Studios]

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

Day 724: Dimensions in Time

Dear diary,

It’s Chriiiiiiiistmaaaaaassssssss! Fitting, then, that I should be watching a strange kind of ‘panto’ episode of Doctor Who to celebrate…

Oh, the hate that Dimensions in Time has received over the years. Is there a more loathed fifteen minutes of Doctor Who than this? I have to admit, though, that I rather like it - because I’ve never taken it seriously, but simply enjoyed it for what it is; a fun runaround, celebrating Doctor Who for its thirtieth birthday, and raising money for a great cause at the same time. Indeed, it’s perhaps fitting that I’m watching this one on Christmas Day, because it’s the perfect time to enjoy it on its own merits.

You’ll also have to excuse that this isn’t going to be a particularly ‘in-depth’ entry of the Diary (as though I’m able to really call any of my insights all that ‘in-depth’), because there’s not an awful lot that i can actually say about Dimensions in Time, is there? I’ve even made Emma sit and watch it with me - it helps the Christmas dinner go down - but she spent most of the time with her head cocked to one side, somewhat confused as to what the heck was actually happening. Immediately afterwards, though, we watched the out-takes and amused ourselves with how Davison spends the entire recording looking as though he’s made a huge mistake in agreeing to turn up that day.

Over the last couple of weeks, when I’ve told people that I’ll be watching this story as part of the marathon, it’s been met with a fair bit of negative reaction. I’ve been told - several times - that it’s not a proper part of Doctor Who, so I needn't bother watching it (equally, many of those same people have gone on to tell me that I ‘have’ to watch The Curse of Fatal Death, though…!), but for me it’s an important part of the entire Doctor Who mythos, and I’ve never realised it mores than now - at the very end of a two-year marathon of all the ‘classic’ episodes. It’s the capstone for ‘classic’ BBC Doctor Who, and looked at like that, I think it fills the part admirably. 

It’s a final chance to see lots of our old favourites running around, doing (and saying) things that the general public automatically think are ‘very Doctor Who’. It’s the final time we get to see Jon Pertwee don his cape and strut around like he owns the place. It’s also the last appearance in televised Doctor Who for almost the entire cast - save for Elisabeth Sladen. No, the plot doesn’t make a great deal of sense (Every time I watch, I think I’ve sussed out what’s happening, but then we cut to the Fifth Doctor with both Peri and Nyssa, and the whole plan goes out the window), and shoehorning in Eastenders doesn’t fit quite as well as they suspected it would (that said, I’d probably enjoy that element more if I could remember more than a handful of the Eastenders characters), but it’s a fun way to spend fifteen minutes - and a great celebration of Doctor Who to wrap up the ‘classic’ era before I head on in to the TV Movie and the 21st century version of the programme beyond that. 

It’s the season to be jolly, so crack open some Bucks’ Fizz and pop on Dimensions in Time. Have a laugh with it. Enjoy quoting along with the best bits (‘who was that terrible woman?!?!?’) and celebrate the magic of Doctor Who.

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

Day 723: Survival, Episode Three

Dear diary,

I feel oddly… hollow at the end of today’s entry. Survival, Episode Three, is a huge milestone to reach in The 50 Year Diary - the end of Doctor Who’s original 26-year run on television - but it just sort of gets swept up as part of the ongoing marathon. The episode itself isn’t anything particularly special (that’s not to say it’s bad - I’ll come to the quality in a moment), just that it’s not been made as any kind of final ‘cap’ for the programme, and that final speech aside, it really does seem like an odd way to bring an end to such a long-running journey, that started all the way back on Totter’s Lane in 1963. I don’t know what I was expecting to feel at this point, but probably some huge sense of accomplishment? Or some sadness that a big phase of the marathon is over? I think the problem might be that there’s now so much to come that Survival doesn’t feel as poignant as it once did, and yet not so much to come that the real end of the marathon feels like a million miles off. I think my brain is just delaying all the emotions until I reach The Time of the Doctor in a few weeks…

I mentioned the other day that I’d always found Survival to be the oddest way to bring Doctor Who to a close. It sees the return of the Doctor’s arch enemy, sure, but not a great deal is made of that fact. It just happens to be A.N.Other battle between the pair, and the Doctor comments at the end that the Master will be back again, because he always is. When I first watched it, I couldn’t understand why they hadn’t done something more spectacular - if this was to be the Doctor’s final adventure, possibly ever, then why not go all-out? Do an ‘End Of Season Fourteen’ and say to hell with the budget, really pushing the boundaries as far as you could possibly take them? Of course now, several years on, I’m well aware that it wasn’t actually conceived as being the final story of the programme, and that the fact only became clear later on during production. Seen in that sense, that final speech is lovely, and it’s one I’ve known the words to off by heart for as long as I can remember. Of course I was going to have to quote it here;

DOCTOR

There are worlds out there where the sky is burning, where the sea's asleep, and the rivers dream. People made of smoke, and cities made of song. Somewhere there's danger, somewhere there's injustice, and somewhere else the tea's getting cold. Come on, Ace, we've got work to do!

All things considered, I think that the Doctor and his companion walking off into the sunset, at the end of an adventure which reaffirms the TARDIS as their ‘home’ is probably the best possible way to leave things. It’s also for the best that this is a relatively simple story of the Doctor vs the Master - because it’s the heart of what the programme has always been; good vs evil. What I’d also not realised before is just how bloody good this story is, so all in all I think we’ve probably done fairly well in the whole ‘final adventure’ stakes!

It seems odd to start an entry by discussing the very end of the episode, but that needed to be gotten out of the way, really. This episode’s position in the overall narrative of Doctor Who makes it something of an elephant in the room that needs to be discussed before we can really get down to the actual content of the story.

Once again, I’ve really enjoyed this final episode, and while it’s not perfect, it’s certainly rocketed right up towards the top of my ‘favourite stories’ list. The tale is so much richer than I’d ever realised before, and I’m certainly going to be revisiting it again in the near future. There’s a very real danger here that I’m just going to end up repeating everything that I’ve been saying in the last couple of days, about the very real setting and the characters who populate it, and the fact that we get a fantastic version of the Master to see Ainley bow out on. Instead, i think it’s only fair that I think about Ace a little bit, considering that (save for Dimensions in Time tomorrow), this is her last story.

I’ve praised the character a fair bit over the time she’s been with us - and I think it’s a testament to the way that she’s developed over her time in the programme that it feels like Ace has been a part of the show for much longer than nine serials. It’s an attempt at character development and an ‘arc’ that the programme hasn’t attempted for a long time - and I’m not entirely sure that it’s ever attempted it on this scale before now. This final season in particular has been wonderful for her, with three of the stories really focussing on her, and making the adventures about her own experiences. I mused the other day that I’d love to listen to all the Big Finish Seventh Doctor plays, and I think that’s doubled for me over the last few days, because I’m sad to see Ace go.

And that, I think, is the heart of why the programme has managed to be so successful again in its final few years. I don’t feel sad to be at the end of the ‘classic’ run, and I won’t be mourning the loss of this stage of the marathon, no matter how much I’ve enjoyed it over all. Instead, I’m sadder to be moving on from our current crop of characters. Doctor Who has been many things over the years, and in these final few it’s managed to recapture some of the spirit that made it brilliant so many times before. A large part of that is entwined with Ace as a character, and I think that’s why I’ll be missing her so much.

I’ve mentioned briefly above that I’ll be watching Dimensions in Time tomorrow, so I think it’s worth filling you in on how the next week is going to play out. I’ve been wondering about the ‘Wilderness Years’ for a while now, and specifically how best to tackle them. Do I read all the New Adventure novels? Or listen to all the Audios? Do I skip them entirely and move on to the TV Movie then on to Rose?

What I’ve decided on is keeping it simple. It doesn’t feel right to go from the Seventh Doctor to the Ninth in the space of three days, but equally, I don’t want to artificially prolong the period to the point that it becomes ridiculous. So, I’ll be doing Dimensions in Time tomorrow - both episodes, but believe me, I considered doing one a day - and then Downtime after that. I spent so long trying to work out the Great Intelligence’s timeline back in Season Five, and I want to see how well it corresponds! Besides, what better way to celebrate reaching the end of the ‘classic’ run than with a return for several much loved characters?

The TV Movie will follow that one, after which I’ll be doing The Curse of Fatal Death. For so long, I’d been sure I’d not be doing that one - it doesn’t feature any of the regular cast, and it’s a parody of the programme… but Steven Moffat has gone on to incorporate so many of the ideas into Doctor Who proper, and I want to refresh my memory of the story before heading off into the 21st century series. Finally, I’ll be doing Scream of the Shalka over the course of three days - two episodes each day, since they’re only short. After that, I’ll be on to the ‘new’ series, just in time for the new year. Perfect!

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

Day 722: Survival, Episode Two

Dear diary,

‘Master Reveals’ have been the subject of a fair bit of discussion in the last couple of months, largely because of that moment in Dark Water, when we were introduced to the latest incarnation. There’s certainly been enough of them over the years, but I’d guess that the most dramatic have to be the aforementioned Dark Water, plus Utopia, and probably The Deadly Assassin. I’m now thinking that this story might well classify, too. The Master had sort of become a bit of a joke by the time he turned up in The Trial of a Time Lord (you could argue, quite easily, that he’d become a joke long before that, but…). He’d taken to popping up once a year to torment the Doctor, and he’d end up being waved off with a tricky situation. Oh, he’s trapped on prehistoric Earth! Or burnt to death! Ar stuck with the Rani and a growing T-Rex! His plans never used to end well, but when he’s popping up so frequently and losing so often, it does start to become more than a little bit silly.

But we’ve not seen him since the events of The Trial of a Time Lord, and they were two whole seasons ago! It’s the longest gap between Master stories that we’ve had since before The Keeper of Traken, and when the Doctor pulls back the flap of the tent, to reveal his old foe sat there… well, it’s actually terribly exciting! It helps that we’ve not had a proper look at him up to that point, and the difference in his eyes serves to better hide him, too. And then, you’ve got Anthony Ainley playing the part in a way that’s entirely unlike the performance we’re used to receiving from him. Way back when he first played the part properly, in Logopolis, I commented that he even pressed buttons in an over-the-top, pantomime way. There’s none of that on display here, though. He’s toned everything right down, and it’s almost as though he’s giving a real performance. I’ve seen it said that this is the way he’d always wanted to play the part, but was convinced otherwise by John Nathan-Turner. I don’t know how true that statement is, but I’d love to see this version of the Master facing off against Davison or Colin Baker’s Doctors.

I think it also helps that he’s being given much better dialogue here than he has been in the past. There’s not ridiculous technobabble, no over-complicated speeches, and no swallowing of a thesaurus - he’s been written as a desperate man trapped on an alien world, and looking for an escape while he still has a chance. It’s actually making the character scary, and it’s been a long time since that was the case. While I’m at it, I’d love to mention his outfit here, too, because that’s also brilliant! I commented the other day about the programme bringing back so many of its icons before it heads off into cancellation, and it’s lovely to see that they’ve managed to do something different - and brilliant - with the Master before the end.

It’s also somewhat fitting that we’re back in a quarry for the last time in the programme’s original run! They’ve been a staple of the programme for as long as I can remember now (was The Dalek Invasion of Earth the first one? A quarry was being used here as… well, as a quarry, so I think we probably have to move through to The Savages before we hit the ‘Quarry As Alien World’ trope, but they’ve become somewhat ubiquitous in the years since then), and it’s only right, I suppose, that we get to visit one last one. They’ve done a brilliant job with that, too, though! During The Greatest Show in the Galaxy, I said that you could see the through-line from Mindwarp to there in terms of the ‘alien skies’ effects they were applying to location work, and this is yet another stage in that evolution. I think it stands up wonderfully. I suppose in many ways, it all comes back to my comments during Ghost Light that Doctor Who has a team at this point in its history who are able to pull together against the odds and create something really rather special. I’m so glad to see the programme going out on such a high.

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

Day 721: Survival, Episode One

Dear diary,

I can’t quite believe that I’m actually at Survival. I’ve said plenty of times throughout the course of this marathon that I never expected to actually make it much past The Sensorites Episode Three, but now I’m staring down the final story of the programme’s original run. There’s something really rather exciting about that, and if I’m honest, I’m a little bit proud of myself for actually getting to this point!

And how brilliant that this final story should start out so well! I’ve never really cared all that much for Survival. I don’t mean that I’ve actively disliked it, but my memories of watching it before are that it was ‘okay’, but a bit of a strange way to end the programme*. Therefore, as I’ve moved closer and closer to seeing this one, I’ve been setting up its importance as a milestone for the Diary, but not especially looking forward to it on its own merits. How wrong that may have been!

The first thing to note is just how closely this resembles the 21st century series. I’ve brought that up a few times in the last week or so, but it’s never more prevalent than it is in this one episode. We’re set in ‘modern day’ London, with ordinary people whose worlds just happen to collide with the Doctor and the monsters. There’s a great central mystery in the disappearance of the locals, and there’s even the perfect ‘pre-titles’ sequence, in which the man washing his car gets chased by an un-seen ‘something’ before completely vanishing and leaving us with an empty street. Already, I’m wondering about an edit of this story compressing it down to 45 minutes…

While I’m on the subject of that opening scene, I just want to draw attention to how beautifully directed it is - and that goes for the rest of the episode, too. It was no surprise during the credits to see that this one is directed by Alan ‘The Greatest Show in the Galaxy’ Wareing, who was responsible for Ghost Light, too. That shot I’ve mentioned, as the camera pans up and then chases its prey from that height is so simply effective, and it becomes a great visual shorthand for what’s happening. Late in the story, when we watch the same camera move happen while framing Ace in shot, it’s actually scary, because we know just what it’s signifying.

And it’s not just the direction that’s standing out for me in this one - the script itself is wonderful. As I’ve said, it’s far closer in style to the modern series than it is anything else from the ‘classic’ run, and I’d love to see what Rona Munro would do with another story. It seems such a shame that we’ve only got the one story from her. There’s a way that she writes all these characters - including Ace - and makes them instantly real and relatable. Ace has always felt like a more naturalistic character than some of the previous companions did, but it’s a credit to Munro’s skill that she can be so brilliant when placed back in her natural setting. The way she interacts and speaks with people she knows from her old life is lovely, and different from the way she reacts to the Doctor. It means that Sophie Aldred is given more chances to shine, too, which is always welcome.

I’m looking forward ti seeing just how well the story holds up now that more of the action has been shifted away from the benign normality of Perivale, and out onto an alien planet, but it looks like the ‘classic’ run is going to be going out with a bang…

*Truth be told, and I only remembered this last night when talking to Emma; when I first watched Ghost Light, I thought that was the end of the ‘classic’ run. I’d obviously read somewhere that it was the final story to be recorded, and just sort of assumed from there. I think that ended up adding to my general not understanding of that story, because it seemed such an odd note to leave things on! When the time finally came to see this one, there was that lovely final speech, but it still seemed like an odd place to leave the programme - of course, I didn’t know the full behind-the-scenes story at that time, but I’m sure I’ll discuss that more in a few days.

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

Day 720: Ghost Light, Episode Three

Dear diary,

Watching this episode today, I’m not sure quite how I was left confused by Ghost Light on my first viewing. It does all make sense… but you have to think about it, because there’s a few key pieces that simply aren’t actually said. I think the only thing I’m not entirely sure about is what ‘Light’ actually is. A god? A living embodiment of light? That’s the one bit left puzzling me, and I may have to do another watch of the story again with this particular question in the front of my mind to try and make a decision on it. Not that it’s any hardship to watch again - I’ve enjoyed these three episodes. I think it is a story which you need to be paying attention to, though, so that’s probably where I went wrong before.

Yesterday, I mused that this felt like the show regaining confidence again after the cancellation in the middle of the decade, and I’ve been thinking a lot about that overnight. I worry that I made it sound there like the programme has all of a sudden managed to pull itself up again suddenly, almost four whole seasons on. No, Doctor Who has been getting its confidence back again for some time now - having really lost it, I think, during Season Twenty-Four - and you only have to look at stories like Remembrance of the Daleks to see a programme every bit as good (and sometimes better than) it was in the 60s, 70s, and early 80s. I think what I mean is simply that Ghost Light is a great example of this; you can really see how well everything has been done, from the writing to the design to the direction. Show this to someone who dismisses the last few years of the programme as rubbish, and they’ll struggle to say it comes off any worse than some other areas of the show’s past. What we’re seeing here is a team working together at the height of their ability, and it’s creating a product which could rival the fabled Hinchcliffe years no trouble. It really is a shame that the seasons are so short in this period - because I’d love to see what they could do with a full twenty-six episode run, especially in regards to Ace’s character story.

The more I thought about this, the more I thought about the programme’s position in general. With Doctor Who up to about the hiatus in the mid-1980s, I can tell you when it was on - if not specifically to the minute, then generally. I know that the first eighteen seasons were on Saturday nights from about 5-ish. Then Peter Davison comes along and it switches to twice-weekly in an early evening mid-week slot, bouncing around the various days over the course of three years. Once Colin Baker takes up residence in the TARDIS, we’re back to Saturday nights, at a slightly later time than before. Fine, that’s all the detail I need to have enough context for the show at those stages. I realised, though, that I didn’t know much about how or when the McCoy era was broadcast. Obviously, I knew that it was pitted against Coronation Street at the time - the ratings giant of British TV - but I realised that I didn’t really know what this meant. A quick look at the recently digitised Radio Times archive tells me that it was a little after 7:30 on a Wednesday evening that the programme aired at this point in its life… which isn’t the slot the programme is being made for at all.

I tried explaining this to a friend this morning, and he couldn’t get his head around what I was trying to say. There’s a high likelihood that I was simply doing an appealing job of making my point, but I’ll try again here. The programme in Seasons Twenty-Five and Twenty-Six doesn’t feel like the type of show you’d sit and watch on a Wednesday evening. The tone is all wrong. Now, I don’t think it’s being made for a Saturday evening, either. To me, it feels more like the type of show you’d air on a Sunday, late afternoon. Is this me just being incredibly strange, or do people know what I mean? Please leave a comment to let me know if I’m mad. I’ve often seen it said that the programme did well to survive for three years, sustaining fairly decent ratings considering that it was up against the big ratings hitter, but I think I’m more impressed that it’s managed to survive in this time slot at all, because it doesn’t feel right for the show in general, and the show at this point isn’t right for it!

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

Day 719: Ghost Light, Episode Two

Dear diary,

Going in to this story, I told myself that I’d steer away from the ‘default’ thing to say about it - that the set design is lovely. It’s something that I’ve trotted out time and time again when the programme is visiting a historical location, and it’s a phrase that I’ve found to be most commonly associated with this story in particular. Indeed, on some DVD feature, somewhere (I’m tempted to say that it’s the look at the proposed Season Twenty-Seven on the DVD for Survival), Andrew Cartmel cites this story as one of the reasons that they’d have continued with lots of Earth-based adventures in the future. It’s hard to not mention the look of this story, though, because it really is beautiful. So yes - one last time for the ‘classic’ series - I’m going to point out what a fantastic job the design departments do when asked to realise a period location.

That entrance hall, for example, with the massive stairwell dominating it, is absolutely stunning - it’s by far the best example of this type of set we’ve ever seen in the programme, and we’ve seen our fair share of ‘country’-style houses over the years (largely in the 1970s…). But beyond that, the spaceship in the basement is rather beautifully realised, too, managing to be simple and somehow just as elegant as all the wood paneling and period detail ‘upstairs’. I loved the spaceship set in Battlefield, too, so I’m wondering if perhaps the programme is just really managing to find its feet again in terms of the ‘look’ for the series.

The gorgeous style in Ghost Light isn’t just confined to the sets, either. Going for the Victorian era means that we’ve got the chance for some lovely Victorian costumes, too. The costumes in Doctor Who often tend to get overlooked when I’m discussing these stories - I often praise (or otherwise) the sets, or the guest cast, or the direction, but the costumes tend to go a little bit unloved by me. This story is probably the perfect time to bring them up, and I love the gorgeous dress that Ace is put in for the remainder of the adventure. I think what works about it is not only how much it suits Sophie Aldred, but how unlike Ace it is. As with the period costume in The Curse of Fenric, it’s a completely different style for the character. At the same time, we’re not abandoning Ace’s past for the sake of a pretty costume - she gets to mess around with clothes before the dress arrives, trying to upset the regular Victorian norms in just the way you’d expect from Ace by now.

I also realised that I’ve never really mentioned the Seventh Doctor’s costume, and he’s been in it for a month or so now! I’m something of a fan of his look - though I prefer the darker jacket that we see in this final year - right down to the jumper! Yes, it’s a bit ridiculous for the Doctor to wander around with question marks all over himself, but it’s almost become enough of an icon in itself as to be quite fashionable in some ways! I think I’d wear one were it given to me (though I’m not sure I’d actually go out and buy it for myself…), and Emma has actually asked for one more than once in the past (Christmas is only a few days away, so she might well have a surprise under the tree this year…).

I’ve little else to actually add to this entry in terms of the story itself, because I’m still piecing everything together as the episode plays out. It doesn’t seem to be as complex as I remember it being, which is probably a good thing, and I’m hoping that it all hangs together in the end because I’m still rather enjoying it! There’s a sense that Ghost Light may be a story where - when you understand everything that’s going on - you can just stick on the TV and watch for the sheer brilliance of how everything gels together. This is Doctor Who being made with a confidence that we’ve rarely seen since the hiatus knocked it for six a few seasons ago, and it’s really rather nice…

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

Day 718: Ghost Light, Episode One

Dear diary,

Ghost Light has something of a reputation for being the most confusing Doctor Who story ever made. I’ve only seen it the once before, and I have to confess that - yes - I was left confused by it. I think it was largely because when I saw it for the first time, I didn’t realise that there were any three-part stories, and so I wondered where the rest of it was on the DVD, and also because I was watching with a friend who really didn’t ‘get’ Doctor Who at all, so I was having to answer lots of his questions about all manner of other things, which probably distracted my attention during a few crucial moments. The sad thing is, though, that it means my memories of the story are tainted, and I’ve never had a desire to watch it again because my mind automatically associates it with being confusing and not one I particularly enjoy. I understand the concepts at the heart of the story, though, so I’m hoping that I’ll be better poised to go along with it this time around…

I’m certainly finding it easier to follow today, but then this first episode is largely about setting up the mysteries and introducing us to all the various characters for the rest of the story. All the same, I think it’s the type of tale which benefits from a second viewing, because I’m watching today largely aware of who everyone is, which means that I can focus more energy into enjoying the rest of the episode. There’s still one or two questions hovering around my head, but I’ll hold off on them for now and see if they’re dealt with in the upcoming episodes.

Something that I’m really revelling in throughout this episode is the Doctor’s Dialogue.. Three of my favourite pieces of Seventh Doctor dialogue all come from this episode (I knew they were all in this story, but didn’t realise that they came so close together); namely, the description of why someone might not like him, the list of things that he despises, and of course;

DOCTOR

We all have a universe of our own terrors to face.

In much the same way that Pertwee’s Doctor got the speech about courage, this is another one of those lines which so completely sums up the Doctor, and I’m surprised that I don’t hear it quoted in fandom more often.

I’m also surprised to find just how much this story is about the Doctor pushing Ace to confront her fears. I’ve mentioned in the past that the line between what actually gets stated (or strongly implied) on screen, and what was added to their relationship later on in the novels and within fandom, has often been a little blurry for me. In the past, I’ve always assumed that the Doctor had brought Ace to this house simply to confront her demons, and that we’d retroactively made it part of his ‘tests’ for her. Actually, though, it’s explicitly laid out as a kind of ‘initiation test’ for Ace, and I think I rather like that. It feels again - and I’m well aware that I’m saying this about once a week at the moment - like the relationship between the Doctor and Ace has moved on once more, and I really can’t help but feel that the time between adventures is much longer for this pair than perhaps any other in there programme’s history. I don’t know what kind of time frame I’d put on this one, but it doesn’t feel like the events of Battlefield were recent - something about their relationship just feels so much different here.

It’s definitely the harshest that we’ve ever seen the Doctor be towards Ace, and the discussion they share towards the end of the episode about her history with this house is a lovely chance for a great Doctor/Companion pairing to shine opposite each other. It’s an idea that’s always fascinated me - that Ace knows this house in 1983, long after its prime, and yet she’s been taken back in time now to become an intrinsic part of the building’s story a hundred years earlier, and tied in to the ‘evil’ that she felt there before. I’ve always loved the idea that building’s can have such long lives, and can experience so much over the years, and seeing images of old buildings in years gone by is the kind of thing which fascinates me. I know the lines get a little blurred later on in the story with some sirens, but it’s almost a shame that we don’t get to see this house in the dilapidated state that Ace did, because it’s exactly the kind of thing that would set my imagination on fire.

That said, the descriptions we’re getting of the place so far are lovely, and a great chance for Sophie Aldred to show us her acting skills. Ace has been with us for a while now, and while I’ve praised the way that the character works with the Doctor, I don’t think I’ve ever really made mention of Aldred herself. I think it’s to her testament that I was so able to buy her as a sixteen-year-old in Dragonfire, and yet feel as though I’ve watched her grow up as the stories have rolled by. She’s giving a lot of thought to the way that Ace works, and I think she’s largely been well-served by a production team who are paying more attention to the way the companion’s story is told than at any point in the last decade. It’s so nice (and also a massive shame) to see the programme going out with such a strong team, both in front of and behind the cameras, and Aldred is a massive part of that.