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

Day 414: Genesis of the Daleks, Episode Four

Dear diary,

It’s a mark of the quality of this story that when I mentioned it to a colleague at work yesterday, who grew up watching Doctor Who in the 1970s, but only really takes a passing interest in it these days, his face lit up as he declared Genesis of the Daleks to the ‘the best Doctor Who story ever’. It seems to be a really common opinion, and I’m somewhat surprised to see it being shared by even people we’d consider to be ‘not-we’. I guess I shouldn’t be all that surprised, really, since this story has been repeated on terrestrial television more than any other from the classic series’ run – it must be doing something right!

What’s made a mark on me today is just how much you’re tricked into thinking that it really is the end for Sarah and Harry. The Doctor reminds us that he’s sent them off to the Kaled dome and then we’re forced to watch with him as the dome is completely obliterated. As if it needed any extra impact, the Doctor laments that he’s sent his companions into ‘that holocaust’, and seems genuinely defeated, before resolving that he’ll need to carry on with the task he’s been given, so that they’ve not died for nothing.

He then meets Thal, and minutes later saves her from a Dalek attack – it’s done almost in the way of him meeting a new companion for the first time. If I didn’t know that Sarah and Harry go on to have more adventures after this, and I were coming to this story cold for the first time, I think I’d genuinely believe that we’d lost the pair off-screen in the attack. As the episode then continues, we don’t actually see them until around ten minutes in – there’s not even a hint that they could have survived. In some ways it’s quite bleak, but it fits the tone of the story perfectly, and it does provide some great drama.

When my colleague was raving about how much he enjoyed this story, he did manage to inadvertently spoil a bit for me (in as much as you can spoil a story made and broadcast almost 40 years ago!) regarding the scene today where Nyder meets with scientist in the lower levels of the bunker and tricks him into revealing the names of the people who are plotting against Davros. He pointed it out as a scene that’s a little bit silly, specifically in regards to the way Peter Miles snaps back to attention when he’s got the information that he needs and responds with a clipped ‘thank you’. Watching the events unfold, I clearly knew where we were headed, and he was right – that moment is a bit silly. That said, there’s also something really menacing about the way that Davros then emerges from the shadows to greet the pair.

I’m a fan of the 1980s Davros, but the character we see in those three stories has nothing on the one we see here. The Davros of this story is perhaps the cruellest villain that we’ve ever been given in the programme. He’s willing to see his own race utterly destroyed in fire and pain simply because they dared to stop his experiments. He’ll have people killed when needed, and if he still requires their skills, then he’ll simply have their brains altered to support his way of thinking. There’s something really rather brilliant about it all, sinister and evil as it may be.

And yet, we’re starting to see a transition into the version of the character we get in the later Davros stories. Here, we get to witness him ‘ranting’ on more than one occasion, but it feels like the character’s decent into madness rather than simply something that he does. The ultimate rant then comes right in the closing moments, when he demands that the Doctor give him information on every Dalek defeat, so that he can make sure to overcome it. How do you think the Doctor will explain the one where they’re tricked into leaving Exxilon with bags full of the wrong minerals, and then get blown up?

I joke, of course, but this really does feel a million miles away from the Dalek story we were given in Season Eleven. I don’t know how much of this is down to Terry Nation upping his game (Terrance Dicks tells the story that Nation submitted his script for this story and they found it to be a complete rehash of all the ideas he’d used in Planet of, and Death to, so they suggested that he go away and given them something new, possibly about the Daleks’ origins), or how much comes from Robert Holmes’ input as script editor, but something has really gelled – this is in a whole other league.

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

Day 413: Genesis of the Daleks, Episode Three

Dear diary,

You can forget your Davroses and your Daleks. Your Sontarans and your Giant Spiders. Forget all about Ice Warriors and Dinosaurs, because the scariest thing that we’ve seen in Doctor Who during these last few seasons comes early on in today’s episode, when Sarah Jane has to jump a small gap between the scaffolding platform and the rocket.

It sounds like I’m being facetious, there, but genuinely, that’s the scariest that I’ve found Doctor Who in a very long time. It’s not the jump that’s actually worrying - it’s the way that Sarah reacts to it. She is clearly scared of heights. She’s just made her way, with difficulty, up that scaffold. She’s one of only two survivors. Her captors aren’t far behind, and their armed with guns, then then she has to go and look down, and realise just how easily she could fall. People talk about Lis Sladen being a fantastic actress, and I think the way she shakes while preparing to jump is one of the finest performances that we’ve ever had in the programme. There’s no debating it - that’s genuine fear.

And yet it comes in the episode containing perhaps the most infamous part of this story - the Giant Clam. I’ve been in Doctor Who fandom long enough to know that - supposedly - the only blemish on this story’s otherwise perfect six episodes is the presence of a Giant Clam chewing on Harry’s leg. I think I’m right in saying that the clam appears in another scene later on, too, which is even more ridiculous. I can’t say I was all that bothered by it, to be honest. It comes as one of those typically Terry Nation action-adventure-serial moments, where there needs to be some threat to the Doctor and Harry’s journey through the tunnels.

I’m surprised just how much of a team the Doctor and Harry are, to be honest. People always talk of the Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane, and though they will get their time in the spotlight in the next season-and-a-half, it’s feeling increasingly as though Harry is the Doctor’s favourite. They’re separated off together for much of The Ark in Space, and they’ve been firmly in each other’s company for the three episodes of this story, too. I love the way that they bounce off each other, with Tom and Ian really gelling together. I’m drawing closer to the end of Harry’s travels in time and space now than I am to the beginning of them, and that’s a great shame, because he works so well as a companion. I’m hoping he’s given a few more chances to shine before the season is out.

There was a moment in today’s episode, when the Doctor’s exploring ways to sabotage the Thal rocket and the guard begins to come round again, where I wondered if we might get our first Pertwee-style fight scene for the new Doctor. He engaged in armed combat with Styre during the last story, but I thought we may be in for a bit of Venusian Akido here. This is a very talk-y story, though, with a lot of focus being placed on the dialogue. That the Doctor and Harry made it through to the Kaled leaders to have a proper conversation with them really surprised me - I fully expected them to go through some more chasing, capture, and escape. Indeed, there’s a moment when Ronson is told that they’ve made it to the dome and into a meeting with the leads where I fully expected that to be a trick, a way to force him into slipping up and admitting his guilt. I rather like that the Doctor’s approach to stopping the creation of the Daleks is to talk to the people with the power rather than simply go in and fight his way through - it really is something that sets him apart from other heroes.

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

Day 412: Genesis of the Daleks, Episode Two

Dear diary,

Since Lis Sladen joined the series with The Time Warrior, I’ve been taking the opportunity to listen to the audio book of her autobiography again. I’ve heard it all before when it was first released a couple of years ago, but having her turn up in the show has given me a real desire to hear all of her anecdotes again. There’s one she tells about this story, and specifically about the filming of the sequence in today’s episode where Sarah Jane and the other prisoners make a break for the scaffolding in an attempt at freedom.

She talks about David Maloney’s desire to make the scene the best that it could be, so while she’d expected it to be a short day filming a simple climb up the scaffolding, they were up and down all day until they had the scene just right. Sladen’s biggest complaint is that the bars of the scaffolding were that bit too far apart, which made it more of a struggle to climb, and even more exhausting than it might have otherwise been. You can see that, watching the finished scene, and she really does have to struggle to reach every new rung during the climb… but it’s so effective! Had the bars been closer together and the actors were able to climb up just like a ladder, it would have made the escape attempt look too easy. As it is, you can really see them having to work for it, and it adds a certain layer of realism to the proceedings.

It also helps that it’s such a lovely set. Right from the first forced perspective shot of a model rocket, the whole room simply works. Once we’re onto film for the climb sequence, it just looks brilliant. The lighting is very well done, the direction makes good use of switching from longer shots to close ups… yeah. It’ all just holds together well. It’s something that’s evident right the way through this episode – the sets and the design are all very well done. I spent a fair bit of time praising the way in which everything held together during The Ark in Space, but then this is just on a whole new level.

Everything is drawn from a very muted colour palette. The entire world of Skaro is painted in blacks, whites, greys, and silvers. Even when we get glimpses of the ground outside, it’s a kind of flat, washed-out brown. Everything from the barren, smokey landscape outside to the reflective corridors of the Kaled bunker conforms to this simple palette, which makes it all the more exciting when the Doctor, Sarah, or Harry arrive on screen (it’s not – ironically – the multi coloured scarf which helps the Doctor stand out, but rather the deep burgundy of his jacket), or when we get our shot from the inside of the ‘incubation chamber’, and the screen is filled with a vivid green light.

It’s almost cinematic in the way that colour is being used here, and you really get the impression that a great deal of work and thought has gone into making it all look just right. The only thing which I’m finding distracting is the Thal’s guns… because they’re the same ones as used by the Drahvins in Galaxy 4! I noticed it yesterday, when the Doctor compares the weapons as being several centuries apart in their development, but assumed they’d just pulled something out of the BBC props store for use in the one scene, but it seems like they’re continuing to use them throughout the rest of the tale, too. I rather like the idea that these props still existed ten years after their initial use, and can be pressed into service once more for the Doctor’s adventures.

When I’m not sat thinking about how good this story looks, I’ve been admiring the dialogue. There’s some really great exchanges scattered throughout these 23 minutes, and I’ve written down far more snippets of conversation than I could ever repeat here in one blog entry without simply replicating the script. All of this great dialogue is helping the cast to turn in some absolutely stellar performances, and once again I find my praise being drawn to our new Doctor. Genesis of the Daleks was the penultimate story filmed during Tom’s first production block (Terror of the Zygons was filmed after this one, but was then held back for Season Thirteen when the start date was brought forward), and you can really see that he’s found his feet by now. I’ve been singing his praises since the very first episode of Robot, but here he’s really managed to get the performance down to an art. The key moment has to be when scientist realises that the Doctor must be from an alien world, and as he spells out the realisation… the Doctor just grins at him. We’ve seen Tom flash his huge smile plenty of times by now, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen it quite like this.

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…

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

Day 410: The Sontaran Experiment, Episode Two

I really like the idea of Sarah watching our Sontaran friend emerging from his spaceship, and removing his helmet, while thinking that it’s Lynx. As she rightly says here, it can’t be him, because she saw him blown up during her first trip in the TARDIS, but it creates such a great moment of surprise, and it’s a shame again that the title of the episode somewhat gives the game away. But then the cliffhanger is already ruined to some extent by the fact that the Sontaran mask has been redesigned since their first appearance a year earlier.

There’s nothing wrong with this new mask – indeed, it’s quite well done once again – but it just doesn’t have the same impact as the last one did. It looks more like a mask than before, and that takes away from the effect a little bit. It also somewhat spoils the idea that the Sontarans are all identical (which is something done so nicely when we’re put in contact with the general via video phone), and Sarah’s assertion that he’s so similar comes across a bit silly. This was the main topic of conversation during our earlier commentary for the episode, where both Alex and me lament the difference in the mask.

Thankfully, though, Styre is just as ruthless as Lynx – if not more so. There’s a lovely moment here where he spits at Sarah with ‘You are nothing, do you understand? You are a mistake and therefore must be eliminated’. He’s very brutal, perhaps more than we’re used to in the series – it seems to be another sign of the programme moving into slightly darker territory with the introduction of a new producer.

The biggest cause for disappointment for all of us watching on the commentary from 2009 was Styre’s pet robot. The spaceship crew all live in fear of this machine (more because of what happens after it’s captured you, in fairness), but it’s just a bit… well… pathetic, isn’t it? The moment when the Doctor manages to disables the machine and I tell my assembled friends that the moment was ad-libbed on location, because the robot prop collapsed during the middle of a take, and they decided to incorporate the footage into the story. Perhaps unsurprisingly everyone simply replied that it seemed likely! I told them that I’d been joking, but the general consensus seemed to be that the prop probably did fall apart more than once during the filming!

Perhaps the thing that people know most about this story is that Tom Baker injured himself during the filming, and broke his collar bone. Of all the places to do so – the middle of Dartmoor is probably about the furthest away from a hospital that he could have been! I don’t think it impacts on his performance greatly, but if you know what you’re looking for, it’s quite obvious which scenes have been filmed after the accident, because his arm is always held in the same position! If anything, it makes the final shot of him departing in the middle of the transmit ring all the more unusual, because he’s able to use his arms freely again, having held it static for such a long time!

Ultimately, I think The Sontaran Experiment has just suffered from that age old issue – I’ve spent a while expecting to not really enjoy it all that much, and so no matter what it did, I was never going to be impressed. It’s not a bad story, by any means, but it’s neither here nor there, and it’s simply failed to really capture my imagination.

It’s been a bit of an odd experience over these last six episodes, listening to commentaries featuring myself on them, among a few friends. I’m most surprised by just how little we actually say in the recordings – I don’t know how I ever really thought that they would be of much interest to anyone. I know my plan at the time was to write them up and do something with them, but I can’t imagine that being very popular! I’m really glad that we’d done it, though, because it’s been a really interesting experiment to copare my thoughts from five years ago with what I think now.

It’s strange just how much I’d forgotten about these stories in the last five years – I couldn’t have told you how The Ark in Space ended, for example – and even stranger to see just how much I’d missed first time around. I’m still most stunned by my earlier assertion that the lighting on Nerva was rubbish, considering how much I loved it this time around! I suppose it brings to mind some of the Eleventh Doctor’s final words, where he talks about the way we all change, right the way throughout our lives. If anything, it makes me keen to repeat this ‘complete marathon’ experience a few years on from now, using The 50 Year Diary as my chronicle of what I thought here and now: I’d love to see how my opinions on Doctor Who stories change in the future…

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

Day 409: The Sontaran Experiment, Episode One

Dear diary,

The episode select screen seems so bare with just the two episodes on there - we’ve not had that since The Rescue almost a full year ago! It’s also been worrying me a little bit as today’s worn on, because I really couldn’t remember much caring for this story. In my mind it was a bit throwaway and dull, with a spaceship crew that I wasn’t keen on, and a robot design that just didn’t work for me. It’s one of those days - the first one in a while, actually - where I wasn’t excited to be sitting down for my dose of Doctor Who.

Which is odd, frankly, because I really rather liked the last story to feature a Sontaran, and this marks the first time they’ve gotten their name in an episode title, which makes them officially one of the Doctor’s most popular foes. Unfortunately, as the episode wore on, and I realised that we were heading for a cliffhanger reveal (in true … of the Daleks fashion) of the titular monster, I couldn’t help by feel even more that the story boils down to very little. The return of a Sontran was planned partly because they had the costume in the cupboard (although they’ve had to recreate the mask, so it’s not quite the cost-saving measure they’d planned), but also partly because of how well received they were last time around, so it seems a shame to have all the Sontaran action confined to a single episode.

I think we’re in one of those awkward situations, where I’ve spent such a long time thinking that I’ll probably not like a story, that no matter how much good there is, I just can’t get myself interested in it. I started my notes today by commenting how nice the opening tracking shot across Dartmoor looked… and then went on to wish that they’d shot this entire serial on film (like Robot, it’s been recorded on video), because everything comes across looking just a bit flat. I visited Dartmoor a few years ago, and my main memories are driving down the roads where you’ve just got these stunning vistas laid out before you. It’s a beautiful landscape, and while some of the bits we see cropping up in this episode are quite nice, it seems a shame that so much of the story feels very confined, and you don’t get a real good look out across the vistas very much. Filming miles and miles away from anywhere should mean that they use the remoteness of the location as an advantage, but that feeling just doesn’t come across.

My then-partner sums it up best on our five-year old commentary for this episode, when Sarah says that this doesn’t feel like Earth at all: ‘she’s obviously never been to Dartmoor’. I then go on to muse that if they’ve supposedly landed right in the remains of Piccadilly Circus (it’s not clear wether the Doctor is joking or not), it would have been nice to see one or two bits of evidence. Something like a crumbling Nelson’s Column in the distance, for example, just to make the landscape feel that bit more alien.

So: time for something a bit more positive, I think. As younger me points out, I rather like the ‘serial’ nature of Season Twelve, where very story leads directly into the next one. There’s a very clear through-line from Robot (or, if I’m honest, Planet of the Spiders) to around Terror of the Zygons - though I think I’m right in saying that some of the other Season Thirteen serials link back in, coming one-after-the-other, too. It’s not something I’d like all the time, as it has the danger of making the Doctor’s life seem that bit shorter, but it’s nice as an occasional one-off. It also means that this story retains several links to the previous one, leading to…

The ‘legend of the lost colony’. I love this whole idea. Nerva has been floating about in space for 10,000 years now, carrying a subset of the human race. It’s completely over-slept the alarm clock, and has been all but forgotten about. Vira is somewhat thrilled to learn during The Ark in Space that other pioneering attempts from her own time to reach out into the stars proved successful (even if they did lead to the war against the Wirrn), and it’s great to see some of these other areas of humanity, to whom the Ark is a legend older to them than even the Bible is to us. Of course it’s slipped into obscurity and myth. It also leads to my favourite line from this episode: ‘you’ve done nothing for 10,000 years, while we made an empire!’

The only bit of all this which doesn’t quite ring true with me is the idea that Nerva has never been found. The model shots in the previous story showed it floating in space not all that far from the planet - even if this group of humans managed to miss it on their way in (they may have landed on the wrong side of Earth, but even then you’d expect their ship to pick up on it), surely enough people must have seen the station over the millennia? Maybe Nerva sightings in the future are the same as bigfoot sightings currently, and everyone considers them to be fakes? I’ve got images of people creating a Nerva model out of washing up bottles and stringing it up next to a photo of Earth to try and fool their friends…

I’d completely forgotten this whole aspect of the story, but it’s a lovely little link, and adds a nice dimension to the whole Ark storyline. Harry goes on to mention that they’ve got no end of animals and fauna aboard the station, ready to bring back to Earth, and I’m somewhat surprised that we’ve never had a follow-up story showing the inhabitants of Nerva starting to re-establish the Earth. Big Finish have given us stories set during the Wirrn Wars and which return the Doctor to Nerva… maybe a follow-up could be the next story they tell us in this ‘era’?

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

Day 408: The Ark in Space, Episode Four

Dear diary,

I’ve been trying to find the right word to describe what we’ve seen of this story (and thus, of the Hinchcliffe producership so far), and I think I’ve worked it out today: it’s confident. I thought it by about the time Episode Two of Robot had rolled around, but it’s hard to think that Tom Baker hasn’t been playing this part for years already. He’s just so sure of the performance, and I’m completely sold on his version of the Doctor.

It also has to be said that the style of the show has already started to assert itself very strongly. This is possibly the biggest tonal shift that we’ve seen the programme attempt up to this point, and yet it’s doing it with such bravado – there’s no gentle easing into this new format of Doctor Who. I was mentioning this to a friend earlier today, who pointed out that it’s no greater change than any other regeneration. But I think we’re prepared for the way the Troughton yers begin because The Tenth Planet is something of a template for his era, and we’re prepared for the Pertwee years by the presence of stories like The Web of Fear and The Invasion. Although the Third Doctor had started spending more and more time away from Earth as his era went on, the adventures he had out in space were of a different style to the one we’re seeing here. To put it bluntly, they simply weren’t as scary as this story.

The Wirrn themselves are a great design, and I’m really surprised that they haven’t turned them into an action figure yet – they’d look great on the shelf! My only complaint about the costumes is that they’re too dry. That sounds a bit odd (and it probably is), but it feels as though they should be at least shiny, if not slightly dripping with goo. It’s not the first time that I’ve felt this – I thought the same about the maggots in The Green Death, a great design, but one that’s let down by the fact that they’ve been so obviously created for a television programme, and they don’t seem to have anything making them look a bit more… natural.

I’ve seen it said over the years that the one moment which lets this story down is the Wirrn crawling their way across the surface of the Ark in an attempt to reach the rocket. I’ve known, therefore, that such a shot was coming up, and I’d been sort of dreading it. With everything else pulling together so well in this story, I didn’t really want it to be let down in a few seconds of screen time during the final episode. I rather liked the shot, though! It’s certainly not the worst model effects that we’ve ever seen in the series, and it may even be the moment where I find the Wirrn most effective! When it comes to the full-size models, younger me on my commentary recording makes a point of describing them as not being the most mobile of creatures, and I think that thought holds true now. It’s a lovely design, but a bit… bulky. No wonder they couldn’t follow Sarah down the ventilation shafts!

I think I sort of lost track of what was happening at this point, because when the Wirrn suddenly find themselves blasted off into space I was completely stumped by it. I’d not registered that they’d entered the shuttle at any point, and figured that they were just making their way towards our heroes to try and cut them off before… oh, I don’t know. I’d just sort of lost my place with things. Still, it’s nice to see Noah retaining some of his human spirit right until the very end of the story, and that’s something that younger me had picked up on, too (even if I’d forgotten all about it by the time of this viewing).

It’s been interesting listening to the commentary I recorded for this story five years ago as I’ve made my way through – mostly because I’ve completely forgotten everything about it. I’ve know that I’ve watched this story right the way though to the end before now – and I’ve even got the audio recording to prove it! – but I couldn’t have told you anything about what happens at the end here. I’ve got a commentary recording for The Sontaran Experiment, too, and I’m hoping it continues to be a novel experience for me to listen back to them. I’ve been struck so far by how little we’re actually saying on the commentaries, but there’s steadily more coming out with each passing episode. I think we’re finding our feet with the process as we go along!

At the end of today’s recording, the title credits play out and I make a point of asking Alex and Stevie what their favourite moments from the story were. Alex’s answer is jokey to begin with (he plumps for the little blue ‘splat’ effect when a gun is fired early on) before deciding that he was rather fond of the Doctor teasing Sarah Jane in this episode to spur her on in a moment of need. Stevie simply liked the moment when the Doctor got punched for his own good, and I decided that the best bit of the story was that moment in Episode Three where the door opens and we find Noah in a half-infected state on the other side.

While I’d still single that out as being a fantastic moment in the story, I think I’d like to change my answer now. This time around, I was more struck by Kenton Moore’s earlier performance in Episode Three, where he wrestles against his infection to try and warn Vira that she needs to get off the Ark while she still can. It still stands out as being one of the greatest performances we’ve seen in the programme, and I’m surprised I didn’t say much more about it the last time I watched the story – I think I was too busy looking at the bubble wrap!

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

Day 407: The Ark in Space, Episode Three

Dear diary,

The Ark in Space has always been something of a fan-favourite in the world of Doctor Who. Russell T Davies has cited it as being his favourite ‘classic’ story, while Steven Moffatt has hailed it as the best of all the Tom Baker stories (perhaps a worrying sign for me, so early into his tenure - will it all be downhill from here?), and for as long as I can remember, it’s been one of those Doctor Who classics that you just can’t fault.

I think a lot of the praise for this has to be given over to the story’s casting. There’s a scene early on in this episode in which Kenton Moore, in the role of Noah, has to struggle against his spreading infection, and try to send a warning to the rest of his waking crew to get them away from the possible danger. The only way I can think of to describe the scene is that we’re watching a proper actor at work - he’s taking it all very seriously. If you can overlook the bubble wrap hand that he’s sporting throughout the scene, it’s possibly the closest to real drama that we’ve seen the programme attempt in a very long time. It’s being played as scary, and serious, and even though Tom Baker grins his way through much of the episode, it’s got a far darker tone than anything the show’s given us since probably Season Three.

Later on, the Doctor and Vira encounter him in the corridor, and he’s been significantly more overtaken by his Wirrn persona. The design on this ‘phase’ looks significantly more effective than the earlier hand effect, and it’s possibly the scariest bit of the transition. While the hand and the larvae don’t really work for me (though bubble wrap would have seemed more alien in 1975, by 2014 it’s just that bit too common place to really have any effect on me!), this half-converted Noah really does do the trick. This same scene has a bit of awkward editing where they’ve cut a line of Noah begging to be killed, and based on the performance being given elsewhere in the story, I’m not surprised it was cut.

It’s amazing, too, how simply changing the lighting setup can make this previously huge, white, open set feel small, and claustrophobic. It’s like getting up in the middle of the night in a house you know so well… and suddenly finding it strange and not how you remember it. I get the sensation whenever I visit the farm back home - I grew up in that house for 17 years before moving out, so I know it like the back of my hand, but if you get up in the middle of the night and make your way to the bathroom with very few lights on, the whole place feels different. It’s great to see this being put into practice with the Nerva set, and especially after I spent so long yesterday praising the way the set looks. Here, we’re given a whole different viewpoint on the place.

Ironically, listening to the commentary I recorded five years ago for this episode with some friends, only one thing stood out to me. Once I’d heard it, I couldn’t really pay much attention to anything else, because I’d somewhat shocked myself! My then-partner points out how the bubble wrap looks so much better when it’s being used for the half-converted Noah compared to when it was just on his had. I thought that was a fairly good observation, and indeed I’d made the same one in my notes while watching today. But then younger me cut in on the commentary; ‘I don’t think the bubble wrap is helped by the fact that this set is lit like it’s from the mid-1980s’.

Within Doctor Who fandom, it’s generally accepted that during the mid-80s (Some of Colin Baker’s stories, and Warriors from the Deep in particular) suffer because they’re lit so bright and flat throughout. There’s not much room for atmosphere, because you can see every nook and cranny of the set. I’d not really considered the fact that his set is being given the same treatment during my current watch-through, though as Alex then says on my old commentary: ‘I think it’s supposed to be lit like this, though. That’s part of the style’

He’s right, of course, and I’m surprised that younger me was so dismissive of the lighting during that watch. I can’t remember ever being anything less than loving of this set (especially when - as I said yesterday - I used to use it as my default ‘space’ set when thinking of Doctor Who), so I was really surprised to hear myself saying this. Assuming it is me, of course. I’m convinced that I don’t really sound like that, but Emma assures me that my voice hasn’t changed in the last five years. She seems to find it quite amusing.

Despite my shock at the statement, it’s exactly the kind of thing that I was hoping for these recordings to throw up. I genuinely can’t recall ever thinking that about these sets, and as my entry yesterday praising the design of the Nerva station will attest, it’s certainly not something that I’d agree with now. I love seeing just how much my opinions have changed over the years, and I can’t wait to revisit some stories in the future and see how my views then compare with the ones I record in this diary now. It’s a great time capsule, and I really am enjoying this chance to revisit my earlier feelings on things…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Day 406: The Ark in Space, Episode Two

Dear diary,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Day 405: The Ark in Space, Episode One

Dear diary,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

- - -

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Day 404: Robot, Episode Four

Dear diary,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Day 403: Robot, Episode Three

Dear diary,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Day 402: Robot, Episode Two

Dear diary,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Day 401: Robot, Episode One

Dear diary,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Source: io9]

Manufacturer: Big Finish Productions

Written By: John Dorney

RRP: £10.99 (CD) / £8.99 (Download)

Release Date: January 2014

Reviewed by: Matthew Davis for Doctor Who Online

Review Posted: 17th January 2014

Dowcra base. The third Elite Sontaran Assassination Squad closes in on its target. A dozen trained killers, but even they will be unable to bring down the invincible Strang…

Manipulated by the Time Lords, the TARDIS also arrives on Dowcra. And the Doctor is set to encounter the greatest Sontaran ever cloned...

* * *

As we begin a new Big Finish year, we start off with a brand new season of adventures for the Fourth Doctor and Leela. 

After the excellent second season in which we sadly got to hear the lovely Mary Tamm as Romana one last time, Louise Jameson returns as Leela. 

With an excellent script by John Dorney, The King of Sontar plunges us directly into a battle zone and does not slow down in a story full of action, humour and with a rather unexpected ending.

Since making their Big Finish debut in Heroes of Sontar, the Sontarans are quickly becoming a favourite monster in the company’s output. The casting of seasoned television Sontaran Dan Starkey as Strang is a brilliant move as his performance is a definite highlight of this release.  Similar in vocal patterns to Commander Strax, Strang possesses a more fanatical personality and he is certainly no one’s comic relief. He is a superb antagonist who works very well with Tom Baker’s Doctor. 

The supporting cast is headed up by the great David Collings who puts in a lovely performance as Rosato the scientist in a terrible moral dilemma which makes for some interesting exchanges with the Doctor. If The Pirate Planet taught us anything, it's that The Fourth Doctor knows how to put forward a case of moral outrage and this part of his personality comes out again throughout this story.

In fact morality is a running theme throughout The King of Sontar.

In the story there are characters that completely lack morality or have distorted and polarising views of what is right and wrong. The culmination of this occurs in the rather surprising final scene between the Doctor and Leela.

Big Finish have said that the theme of the first Fourth Doctor season was the Doctor educating Leela in an almost Pygmalion fashion. Rather than simply keeping the relationship the same as that of their television years, Big Finish have been keen to develop this relationship between the Doctor and companion and The King of Sontar is a great example of this. 

The Doctor and Leela come to a crossroads bringing out some excellent performances from both Baker and Jameson. It will be fascinating to see how this plays out in the rest of the season.

Strong and defining moments such as this do not usually occur until much later in a season’s run but the fact that Big Finish has pulled this out so early is another example of how much they have done to develop the characters.  It is a real standout moment from the tone of the previous Fourth Doctor releases and a great shift in direction for future stories.

The King of Sontar is a fantastic opening story for the new season which promises great developments to come.

In late 2013, DWO caught up with Doctor Who Actor, Tom Baker, to discuss his recent role in the 50th Anniversary Special; 'The Day Of The Doctor', Christmas and his future plans.

Millions of Doctor who fans worldwide were given a very special treat when we all saw you return in the ‘The Day Of The Doctor’. How long ago did you find out you would be in it, and what was it like coming back to the main TV series after 32 years?

I was invited to be in the Special about 7 months before transmission. I was reluctant at first but a very persuasive Miss Skinner convinced me that it was a good idea and that the fans would be happy to see me again. The second part of that argument convinced me: I never wanted to do more than please the fans. By the time the shooting date drew near Miss Skinner had disappeared though her argument remained, so I stood by my promise.

I was driven through the night to record the scene in Cardiff on a very cold and dreary morning. No glamour on a film lot, caravans scattered everywhere and tea was simply a dream of long ago when I was in lovely Sussex: long ago? well five hours but this was BBC Cardiff at 5 am! Never mind. At last 8 am crawled into view and make-up, costume and weak tea too! And then the scene.

Matt Smith came to find me with such affectionate enthusiasm that my anxieties were allayed. The film set was packed with people, scores of them, full of curiosity to see the old Doctor with the reigning one. Whatever I offered, Matt responded with terrific jollity: he was just so generous and I was grateful. As you know the scene was very brief, very, very brief; and in 4 and a quarter hours it was complete and I fled.

Your Big Finish range continues to do very well indeed. Now that you’re coming up to 2 years with them, how have you found working with your past companions and what can we expect to look forward to in the upcoming series?

I don't know exactly how long or how many adventures I have recorded for Big Finish but I am full of enthusiasm for whatever they offer me this year. I have told David Richardson more than once that I have never been happier than I am doing their scripts.

I have not discussed happiness with the other actors, except Louise, and she tells me she is delighted to be part of the group. I think that means she is very happy. But I can tell from the atmosphere in the Green Room and from the waves of laughter I hear that Big Enthusiasm is the house style at Big Finish. I have mostly had a happy time with other actors; not always but mostly. Generally actors are nice people to be with.

With the Christmas season upon us, do you have any traditions you like to keep each year? 

I don't have any particular rituals at Christmas. Nearly all the planning and organising is done by my wife. I try to help out by doing my share of shopping and by being sociable at mealtimes. Christmas is no longer a novelty at my age; nor is New Year.

Do you have a particular favourite Christmas Movie, Song or Book?

I used to like the Alistair Sim Christmas Carol for many years but now I would prefer to watch Frank Capra's film "It's a Wonderful Life."

Last year I recorded the complete Dickens' script, “A Christmas Carol”, not a word missed out. One person told me she liked it, so I got something right. I think one can justifiably make some cuts to the text as there are some obscurities here and there. But James Stewart was such a wonderful actor in “It’s a Wonderful Life”, so warm and sincere and so funny; and that slightly cracked voice and his hesitant quacking just makes me yelp with joy. And the title of the film is great, eh? 

Your autobiography has recently been released on Kindle, but you’ve had some more adventures since its original release in 1997, and with the recent success of ‘The Boy Who Kicked Pigs’ as a stage play, do you have any plans to write any more books?

My autobiography and “The Boy who Kicked Pigs” remain in print and that pleases me. The pig book is published in 5 languages including Chinese, Dutch and German. But I'm not a writer and those two efforts were little attacks of inspiration, so I don't feel another book coming on.

I still enjoy going to conventions and interacting with the fans who have supported me for so long. Some of them I know quite well and some I even know their grandchildren!  

I wish you all a heartfelt Happy New Year and many thanks for all your encouragement over so many years. 

From old Tom Baker

Watch Tom Baker's DWO video greeting:

[youtube:tlDY49cfHQ0]
+ Buy Tom Baker's Autobiography for Kindle on Amazon for just £4.94!

[Source: DWO]

 Manufacturer: Big Finish Productions

Manufacturer: Big Finish Productions

Written By: Nicholas Briggs

RRP: £14.99 (CD) / £12.99 (Download)

Release Date: October 2013

Reviewed by: Matthew Davis for Doctor Who Online

Review Posted: 25th October 2013

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

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

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

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

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

* * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here’s to the next 50 years...

Manufacturer: Big Finish Productions

Written By: Nicholas Briggs

RRP: £10.99 (CD) / £8.99 (Download)

Release Date: June 2013

Reviewed by: Matthew Davis for Doctor Who Online

Review Posted: 13th July 2013

'These creatures have ravaged half the cosmos. They're experts at this kind of thing. Nothing can stand in their way.'

The Doctor and Romana find themselves in the Proxima System, where enigmatic Conglomerate CEO Cuthbert has been conducting his infamous 'experiment'. An experiment which might accidentally rip the universe apart.

Meanwhile, living conditions on Proxima Major have become harsh and hostile. Climate change has turned the landscape into a freezing wasteland and an alien power has condemned much of the population to life inside internment camps. For those still clinging to their freedom, the struggle for survival is now beyond desperate and outsiders such as the Doctor and Romana are only seen as a threat.

What is Cuthbert really up to in the Proxima System, and just how does he expect the dreaded Daleks to fit into his plan?

* * *

The mysterious and scheming Cuthbert returns in the first of a two part finale for the second series of The Fourth Doctor Adventures. 

The problem with any two part story is that it is difficult to review without having the story as a whole, but The Dalek Contract is a fun and intriguing set up for next month’s concluding story.

The Daleks are used well, working as Cuthbert’s hired hands but it is almost certain that they have their own agenda at hand.

The cast is on excellent form with Tom Baker providing a fine balance of madness and profound insight. It is worth noting that this story was one of the earliest recorded and you can hear that he has found his Doctor again after a slight shaky start. 

It is coming closer to the last adventure that we will have with Mary Tamm’s Romana which will be very sad indeed. Tamm is excellent in this as her incarnation of Romana finally gets to meet the Daleks. Her interaction with Baker in the opening scenes is wonderful and shows what a great partnership they made as Doctor and companion.  

The highlight of the cast is of course David Warner who returns as Cuthbert, a man who seems more concerned with brown sauce being on his chips instead of worrying whether the Daleks have more nefarious machinations than just being his hired security force.

The supporting cast is on excellent form too with Toby Hadoke returning as Cuthbert’s rather toady right hand man Mr Dorrick and a great performance from Dominic Mafham as Chidak who shares a lovely scene with the Doctor about the importance of hope against the Daleks.

Whatever the Dalek’s insidious plans are and Cuthbert’s true nature, The Dalek Contract is certainly a very good set up for what is to come next month.

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

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

Matt Smith says:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Source: BBC Worldwide]

="" />

Philip Hinchcliffe, who produced Doctor Who from 1975 to 1977 and oversaw many all-time classic stories including Pyramids of Mars and The Talons of Weng-Chiang, is returning to The Fourth Doctor and Leela in an audio drama collaboration with Big Finish.

Doctor Who: Philip Hinchcliffe Presents is a box set of two brand new audio adventures that will evoke the tone of the series from his era.

Big Finish Producer, David Richardson, had the following to say:

“When we were recording series three of The Fourth Doctor Adventures, Philip asked if he could come along to the studio and observe. I know that Tom Baker and Louise Jameson were thrilled to have him there, and they both enthused to him about what a great time they were having working for Big Finish. After the recording ended, Philip took me and executive producer Nicholas Briggs aside, and pitched the idea of doing a set of stories of the kind he would have hoped to have done, had he stayed on to produce the series for longer. We just said ‘yes’ instantly!”

The first story in the set will be an epic six-parter set in Victorian London, adapted by Marc Platt (Ghost Light), which will be paired with a four-parter.

Hinchcliffe describes the project:

“My aim with the box set is to create stories that feel they could belong to my second or third season. They are not designed to follow on from my era, more to re-evoke it for fans who enjoyed the originals: and so the Doctor and Leela in these new stories are the same as they were then, in the glorious seventies! That's the beauty of radio - they look and sound the same!"

Doctor Who: Philip Hinchcliffe Presents will be released in August 2014, and is available for pre-order.

Also available for pre-order now is the fourth series of The Fourth Doctor Adventures, which features eight brand new stories, starring Tom Baker as the Doctor and Louise Jameson as Leela. You can subscribe to all eight, or order a bundle which also includes the Philip Hinchcliffe Presents box set, all at a low pre-order price!

[Source: Big Finish]

Manufacturer: Big Finish Productions

Written By: Jonathan Morris

RRP: £10.99 (CD) / £8.99 (Download)

Release Date: May 2013

Reviewed by: Matthew Davis for Doctor Who Online

Review Posted: 30th May 2013

On their mission to explore the Mariana Trench at the very bottom of the ocean, the deepest and most inhospitable place on Earth, the crew of the deep sea vehicle Erebus make an unusual and startling discovery.

A battered blue police box.

As the Doctor, Romana and K9 join them on their journey, the submariners soon discover that the TARDIS is not the only unusual find lurking on the sea floor.

Super-intelligent squid, long-lost submarines and their miraculous occupants are only the start of their troubles. The Goblins are coming. And they won't let anyone out alive.

* * *

In sharp contrast to his season opening story, The Auntie Matter, Jonathan Morris takes us into the depths as The Fourth Doctor, Romana and K-9 descend to the bottom of the Mariana Trench.

Phantoms of the Deep is a thoroughly creepy play dripping with both atmosphere and tension. At its core this is a base under siege story, which Doctor Who has done many times before. The uniqueness of the location gives the story strong appeal and Morris doesn’t disappoint as he utilises the deep ocean floor and all its weirdness to pepper the play with memorable moments.

The main cast really are excellent here - especially Tom Baker who is his usual witty and mad self, but with that edge of seriousness when events take a dramatically dangerous turn.

Once again Mary Tamm is wonderful as Romana but if I had to pick the real star in this story, it is K-9. Since this season began K-9 has been stuck on the sidelines but now finally gets to do something important. I don’t think enough credit is given to John Leeson as an actor, because even though he may just be voicing a robot dog, it is very difficult to get an audience to invest in a character that could quite easily become cartoonish. Leeson’s performance is a master class in subtly and understatement. He generates real warmth with his portrayal of K-9 and when the robot dog is taken over by a murderous outside intelligence in this story, Leeson’s execution is genuinely unnerving. 

The play is an excellent showcase for the leads but not so much for the supporting characters. Given a four part adventure, there would have been more time for Morris to develop them, but the constraints of a two part story does affect the plot. It is difficult for me to believe one character’s willingness to sacrifice their life, especially when their reason for doing so comes completely out of nowhere.

Having said that, the cast do brilliantly with the material and the strongest of which is Alice Krige as Dr Patricia Sawyer. Her performance is rather understated but within lies an unspoken strength, which, given more time to breathe would have been very interesting to develop.

The other star of Phantoms of the Deep is the superb sound design of Jamie Robertson. One of the greatest additions to recent Big Finish releases, his work on this play’s underwater atmosphere really is a highlight of an already excellent production.

Phantoms of the Deep is a very fine play, and despite some weaknesses in supporting characterisation, the whole product makes for a highly entertaining Fourth Doctor Adventure.

Episode #289 of the DWO WhoCast, Doctor Who Podcast is Out Now!

In this week's episode of the DWO WhoCast...

Dave, Elizabeth and Thomas take a Journey To The Centre of the TARDIS.

Whilst lost in the depths of the time machine, Thomas finds a copy of Festival of Death by Jonathan Morris to review, Dave finds Dean clutching a copy of the latest Big Finish / AudioGO title; Destiny of the Doctor: Babblesphere and have a listen together whilst somewhere near the Eye Of Harmony, Elizabeth reads the Third Doctor eBook The Spear of Destiny.

Only Elizabeth makes it back and she is so distraught that she settles down with Michelle to watch The Ribos Operation.

Listen to Episode #289 of the DWO WhoCast in the player below:

+ Rate / Review the DWO WhoCast on iTunes!
+ Rate / Review the DWO WhoCast on the DWO Forums!
+ Follow the DWO WhoCast on Twitter!
+ Like the DWO WhoCast on Facebook!

[Source: DWO]

Episode #288 of the DWO WhoCast, Doctor Who Podcast is Out Now!

In this week's episode of the DWO WhoCast...

Dave and Thomas Hide as Elizabeth and Michelle face The Talons of Weng-Chiang before Elizabeth and Dean meet up to discuss it all with Jago and Lightfoot.

From the latest series starring Matt Smith to a classic Tom Baker story and the popular Big Finish range of Jago and Lightfoot stories, the DWO Whocast looks at Doctor Who from all angles.

Listen to Episode #288 of the DWO WhoCast in the player below:

+ Rate / Review the DWO WhoCast on iTunes!
+ Rate / Review the DWO WhoCast on the DWO Forums!
+ Follow the DWO WhoCast on Twitter!
+ Like the DWO WhoCast on Facebook!

[Source: DWO]

Episode #286 of the DWO WhoCast, Doctor Who Podcast is Out Now!

In this week's episode of the DWO WhoCast...

Dave and Thomas are transported to The Rings of Akhaten where they witness The Doctor and Clara battle an ancient evil for the soul of a young girl meanwhile Elizabeth and Michelle are stuck in the past with The Doctor and Sarah Jane in Tom Baker's first adventure Robot.

It's like a podcast version of Mawdryn Undead except it isn't really.

Listen to Episode #286 of the DWO WhoCast in the player below:

+ Rate / Review the DWO WhoCast on iTunes!
+ Rate / Review the DWO WhoCast on the DWO Forums!
+ Follow the DWO WhoCast on Twitter!
+ Like the DWO WhoCast on Facebook!

[Source: DWO]

Manufacturer: Big Finish Productions

Written By: Nicholas Briggs

RRP: £10.99 (CD) / £8.99 (Download)

Release Date: February 2013

Reviewed by: Matthew Davis for Doctor Who Online

Review Posted: 12th March 2013

Sheridan Moorkurk has just been elected president of Earth... but the harsh realities of who really runs the planet are just beginning to dawn on her. And what's more, she's starting to hear voices.

Meanwhile, the Doctor and Romana encounter a mass of aliens heading to Earth... Aliens who have already made the mistake of upsetting the infamous Cuthbert, all-powerful CEO of The Conglomerate, by destroying one of his space platforms.

Will the Doctor and Romana be able to avert inter-species war that will destroy all life on Earth?

* * *

After last month’s The Auntie Matter, The Fourth Doctor and Romana are back in a story which promises to have dire consequences for the rest of this season.

Unusually for this series, The Sands Of Life is three-part release of a story that will be continued in March’s War Against The Laan. The Fourth Doctor Adventures have until this point been two part stories but The Sands Of Life has so much to set up that the third part is very welcome. It also allows some breathing room for the characters as the disadvantage with a two part story is that things can get a little rushed.

The story is intriguing and the cast is fantastic too. Tom Baker is firing on all cylinders now and seems so comfortable back in the role of The Fourth Doctor that you know if someone tries to take it away from him, he will go down fighting. Suitably mad and serious at the same time, and his reaction to a comment about badgers is priceless.

After the last story, it is lovely to hear Mary Tamm’s Romana working more closely with Baker’s Doctor. Even though they do get separated by circumstances, it is nice to hear the two characters working together and even teasing one another. It is yet another sad reminder that this is one of the last times we will hear the pairing on audio due to Mary Tamm’s recent passing, but it is something to be treasured.

It is really lovely to hear John Leeson back as K9, and this time alongside his first master. Baker seems to relish the reunion too and their conversations flow as if they never were apart.

Baker has found another sparring partner in the character of Cuthbert wonderfully played by Big Finish regular David Warner. The character is a wonderful play on a tycoon that has power over and beyond government and to see him pout in his place somewhat by Baker’s Doctor is a joy.

An excellent supporting cast compromises Toby Hadoke and Hayley Atwell as Mr Dorrick and President Moorkurk.

If there can be any criticism about this release it is some of the sound design, especially in the temporal effects created by the Laan. Some of the warping sounds used to create this effect can go on for quite a while and drag a little when you’re really anxious to hear just what is going to happen next in the story.

Nicholas Briggs has put together a very mysterious little tale with more intrigue to come in the next story. The problem with a story in two parts is that it is difficult to judge the whole story until you hear the complete product. If this release is anything to go by, I am looking forward to the next release already.

Following a critically acclaimed run at Salford’s The Lowry Theatre in May 2012, Kill The Beast Theatre’s The Boy Who Kicks Pigs is making its London debut at London’s Jacksons Lane Theatre from 5th March 2013 for 2 WEEKS ONLY.

You may know Tom Baker as the fourth incarnation of The Doctor in Doctor Who, as well as the voice of Little Britain, but he’s also responsible for a blackly comic novel entitled The Boy Who Kicked Pigs – a story that has now leapt off the page to splash bloodily onto the London stage.

The Boy Who Kicked Pigs is a macabre, cult children’s classic about an evil thirteen year old named Robert Caligari; a boy who wants to take over the world, cause deadly mayhem and, for reasons of his own, kick pigs. This March, you’ll have the chance to see the tragedy unfold gloriously in front of your eyes. 

If you know the book, you’ll know the challenges in adapting this maniacal tale - as Tom himself said in his recent newsletter: 

“I wondered how a small theatre company could stage my story - which has a cast of hundreds, and includes a motorway pile-up with coachloads of people. I also wondered how they would manage to make my tale of evil horror funny, as I intended it to be” – if you want to find out, you’ll have to come and see for yourself!

Tickets are available from the Jacksons Lane website. Murderous teens, shark mutilation, a nasty incident with weed-killer cornflakes and a potential apocalypse – dare you come along for the ride?

View the trailer for the production, below:

[youtube:CX3rNxjjiJ8]

Reviews:

“Possibly the most well-delivered moment of black humour I have ever seen on stage” - The Public Reviews  *****

“Many deliciously funny moments … Almost constantly, there is laughter throughout.” - What’s On Stage *****

“Distinctive, fully-realised comic characters and a style that carries right through flawlessly from the construction and delivery of the dialogue to the pace of the scene to the whole look of everything: costume, make-up, scenery, projections and physicality.” - The British Theatre Guide 

+  For further information call the Jacksons Lane Theatre Box Office on 020 8341 4421.

+  Follow @Kill_Beast on Twitter.

+  Follow @DrWhoOnline on Twitter.

[Source: Kill The Beast Theatre]

Manufacturer: BBC Worldwide Consumer Products

Written By: Robert Holmes

RRP: £20.42

Release Date: 25th February 2013

Reviewed By: Dale Who for Doctor Who Online

Review Posted: 13th February 2013

The TARDIS arrives on an apparently deserted and deactivated space station Nerva, otherwise known as the Ark, orbiting Earth in the far future.

There the Doctor, Sarah and Harry discover the last survivors of the human race held in suspended animation, Earth having been evacuated thousands of years earlier when solar flares threatened to destroy all life.

* * *

It's another re-release; this time on the tale of the Wirrn and Nerva Beacon. The picture and sound quality have been remastered again, and are as sharp as you're going to get.

Disc One is the original release, complete with two Easter Eggs, and optional CGI effects, and goes as follows.

Disc One:

Commentary - A feature commentary, with Tom Baker (The Doctor), Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), and Philip Hinchcliffe, discussing the story with many memories and anecdotes.

A New Frontier - From ideas, via many rewrites, to screen; the making of The Ark In Space. Philip Hinchcliffe, Rodney Bennett, and various cast members come together to discuss the serial. Wendy Williams (Vira in the story) is especially entertaining looking back at her role.

It's fairly obvious that the cast and crew loved the story, from the warm and glowing way they relate their experiences. From popping bubblewrap to a lack of slime, it's all covered in this entertaining little featurette.

Roger Murray-Leach Interview - The set designed sits on a white sofa and discusses how to make an Ark for Who out of "two and sixpence". Construction of ingenious corridors, multi-level sets, and how to take The Doctor to hospital. Roger's tenure on Doctor Who consists of The Ark In Space, The Sontaran Experiment, The Deadly Assassin, Planet of Evil and The Talons of Weng-Chiang. There's also Blake's Seven, but he doesn't want to talk abut that...

Model Effects Roll - A model of Nerva Beacon, and a particularly troublesome scout ship that simply will NOT take off properly! A short-ish extra, featuring the many tries and takes recorded for the blast off. Seems oddly reminiscent of Button Moon in some parts...

CGI Effects Roll - An altogether more impressive view of the Beacon, courtesy of some computer wizardry from the first release of this story. Beautiful graphics and a very different rocket ship departure from the Model version. It's glorious to look at, but slightly jarring when viewed in the story, which is an option available on this disc.

3D Technical Schematics - More CGI gloriousness, this time showing the layout and specs of Nerva Beacon. Again, beautiful graphics, and a few in-jokes in the names of the devices. Short, but very pretty.

Trail - A proper old school BBC1 trailer for Doctor Who, with Ark's first episode. A short clip, a *huge* lime green logo and a remind that the episode will be on at "5.35, tomorrow, on BBC1."  Wonderful nostalgia trip.  So very different from how it's done these days...

Alternate titles - A few different slide and tunnel effects, and a dreadful version of the TARDIS  leading into a slight variant of the first Tom Baker era title sequence.  

Alternate CGI sequences - Choose between the original model sequences, or the updated, beautiful CGI created for the release.  As previously noted, it might jar a little seeing it in the story but it's only a momentary thing, it never detracts from the story or makes you lose where you were.

TARDIS Cam No.1 - From the "BBC Fictionlab" back in 2002 comes the TARDIS Cam, odd little snippets of footage of the trusty old Police Box in various locations. A lovely model TARDIS, very similar to the ones later sold by ARC models in a limited run.

Photo Gallery - It's time for the usual mix of behind the scenes and publicity stills from the show, set to a variety of weird background FX noises. Particularly enjoyable are the stills with the look of disgust on Sarah's face and she's holding bits of Wirrn innards.

...and that's disc one wrapped up. No "Coming Soon Trailer" on this disc, which is slightly unusual. However that's only half of the story, as there's a helping of new extras on Disc Two!

Disc Two:

TV Movie version - A revised repeat from 1975, cut down to seventy minutes. The BBC used to screen these when live sporting fixtures went awry, due to bad weather or industrial action; or as "Christmas treats" - where this particular edit comes in. Those were the days, when there'd be an unscheduled Doctor Who story on a Saturday afternoon!!

Doctor Forever: Love & War - The story of Doctor Who books from Virgin's New Adventures onwards. When Doctor Who went off-screen in 1989 the books continued to take the TARDIS into new territory, with a new adult take on the Time Lord and his adventures. Talking heads contributing to this history of the New Adventures include Gary Russell, Paul Cornell, and Russell T. Davies. Mark Gatiss reads an excerpt from his book "Nightshade", and reminds us of just why he's SO good at writing Doctor Who and Sherlock; and RTD gives us a glimpse of "Damaged Goods", and then examines how it's inter-related to post 2005 Doctor Who.

The series didn't end terribly happily, and that too is looked at in this featurette. It's an honest look and a worthy new extra. Brilliant.

Scene Around Six - Footage from what happens when a Time Lord is let loose in Ireland. Tom Baker on both sides of the then divide, lighting Christmas trees, bewitching primary schools, and being treated like an absolute hero by hordes of kids. The power of Doctor Who. Tom Baker obviously adores it all, and it's all very light, fun, and heartwarming. Awesome footage of an awesome Time Lord.

Robot 8mm Location Footage - Silent film of behind the scenes filming for Tom Baker's first story. There's Bessie, and UNIT, and rather brilliantly there's the Brigadier in sunglasses. Short, but raises a smile.

Coming soon Trailer - It's another special edition - this time with the original TARDIS crew. When the time travellers arrive in the temple of Yetaxa, Barbara is mistaken for a reincarnation of the Aztec deity; and that's where there troubles really begin. William Hartnell stars in The Aztecs: Special Edition is out soon!

There are, as always, the usual Info Text and PDF Radio Times options, and Subtitles and Audio Navigation are included as standard.

There's a lot to love about The Ark In Space: Special Edition, however most of it was covered on the original release. This special edition re-release doesn't have masses from the era in which it was made added to it, so they've bulked it out with various miscellania (such as the featurette on the New Adventures). The footage of Tom Baker in Ireland is excellent though, and almost justifies the revamp by itself. It's not a stellar DVD release, but a good one all the same.

+  Compare Prices for this product on CompareTheDalek.com!

Radio Times starts its celebrations of 50 Years of Doctor Who with four free postcards of classic Doctor Who Radio Times covers with each issue – there are two sets of postcards to collect.

Also in this week’s Radio Times - What’s coming up to celebrate Doctor Who's 50th birthday:

November 2013 marks 50 years of Doctor Who on TV, and RT will bring you all the news as it unfolds – starting with some of the treats coming up. The most hugely anticipated event is surely the Anniversary special on BBC1.

All details are firmly under wraps – and it doesn’t even start filming until spring, but fans worldwide are praying for a multi-Doctor escapade, perhaps with a few former best friends and best enemies thrown in. Could it actually happen? And would all the surviving actors be available – and willing – to appear in such a celebration?

Tom Baker famously declined to participate in The Five Doctors in 1983, and the first three actors to play The Doctor are now long dead. But if William Hartnell can be recast (in The Five Doctors and now in An Adventure in Space and Time) is it conceivable that other actors might convince in Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee’s shadows? This might all be pure fantasy, but what is known is that showrunner Steven Moffat has been toiling with the script.

He tells Radio Times:

“I’m mostly excited, a little bit nervous, and aware of trying not to let people down.”

An Adventure In Space And Time:

Radio Times is chuffed that Mark Gatiss is calling his drama about Doctor Who’s birth An Adventure in Space And Time. This was the tagline RT printed on the billing for episode one in 1963 (below) and indeed on all 253 editions in the 60s. For Gatiss, the 90-minute special (filming now and due to air in November on BBC2) is “quite simply a dream come true”. He describes it as “the story of how an unlikely set of brilliant people created a true television original”.

David Bradley (Argus Filch in the Harry Potter films) is playing William Hartnell, the actor who was initially reluctant to take on the role of the mysterious time traveller. He soon fell in love with the character and was sad to leave in 1966. He died in 1975. Bradley says when Gatiss offered him the part, “I almost bit his hand off.” Our first picture of Bradley in character shows him on the second day of shooting last week, with Lesley Manville as Hartnell’s devoted wife, Heather.

Call the Midwife star Jessica Raine has been cast as producer Verity Lambert (then just 27), while Brian Cox (the international film star, not the prof) is playing the “father” of Doctor Who, Sydney Newman, a flamboyant Canadian who was BBC head of drama.

The only surviving member of the quartet who created the series is Indian-born director Waris Hussein. He’s helped Gatiss with his “meticulous research” and is delighted to be a key character in the drama. “I am to be portrayed by my doppelganger, Sacha Dhawan, a handsome actor. Vanity prevails!” he jokes. Recently seen in Last Tango in Halifax, Dhawan was one of the original History Boys (in the play and movie).

Filming began on 3rd February at BBC Television Centre, on what is likely to be the last drama made on the site before it’s redeveloped.

Executive producer Caroline Skinner tells Radio Times:

“As the BBC moves out of TV Centre, we are moving the cast and crew for An Adventure in Space and Time in! It’s a fantastic opportunity to film this momentous story in the actual location – a little bit of television history .”

Plus an exclusive shot of David Bradley as William Hartnell on his second day of shooting, we also look ahead to plans for the 50th anniversary and to the new series at Easter.

+  Radio Times is released Today, priced £1.60.

+  Order both issues with all 8 x Postcards from just £5.99 from CompareTheDalek.com.

[Source: Radio Times]

Manufacturer: AudioGO

Written By: Terry Nation

RRP: £13.25 (CD) / £6.79 (Download)

Release Date: 1st November 2012

Reviewed by: Matthew Davis for Doctor Who Online

Review Posted: 11th February 2013

On Skaro, the home world of the Daleks, the Doctor encounters the militaristic Movellans - who have come to Skaro on a secret mission - whilst his companion Romana falls into the hands of the Daleks themselves.

It soon becomes apparent that the Daleks have returned to their abandoned home city with a crucial objective, one which they hope will give them the advantage in a strategic war. When the Doctor realises what the Daleks are up to, he is compelled to intervene.

But he has not bargained for the Movellans having a few secrets of their own, and soon he, Romana and the human refugee Tyssan are wondering who exactly they can trust.

Moreover, will they be able to avert the Daleks from their self-proclaimed destiny?

* * *

AudioGO continues its Doctor Who range by issuing this audio soundtrack for Lalla Ward’s debut story as Romana. The first story to take place after the epic Key to Time season and the one that sees the return to the series of the creator of The Daleks, Davros.

It is difficult for me to review this release as I must admit Destiny Of The Daleks is not one of my favourite Tom Baker stories. It is certainly not the weakest of Terry Nation’s Dalek stories but this is where The Daleks began to be over shadowed by the continuing presence of Davros, such is the shadow cast by him in the excellent Genesis Of The Daleks.

It doesn’t help that Davros has been recast and whilst giving it his all, David Gooderson cannot quite match the tour de force that was Michael Wisher. 

Previous audio soundtrack releases have been fantastic, due to the fact that they provided a way for fans to experience Doctor Who stories that have been lost in the visual format. Destiny Of The Daleks did not suffer the same fate so I find this release to be somewhat unusual. 

If there are any benefits to listening to the soundtrack it is that a lot of the humour that Douglas Adams peppered the script with becomes more obvious, and, (lets be honest), the rather ridiculous looking Movellans gain a bit more weight as characters when we cannot see them.

Destiny Of The Daleks is not a bad story and it is rather fun in places with some intriguing ideas, and the narration by Lalla Ward is lovely and very well placed throughout. 

What makes this release more interesting are the inclusion of the original TV camera scripts which can be viewed as Colour PDF files and a nice interview with Lalla Ward where she speaks rather movingly about Mary Tamm and Douglas Adams.

The Destiny Of The Daleks soundtrack is not an unwelcome release but if you like this story and wish to experience it in another format then this is certainly for you.