DOCTOR WHO BONANZA
It can’t have escaped many people’s attention that Doctor Who is a massive success on television at the moment, and with anything that’s popular comes a slew of spin off items. We sent David J Howe down the shops to see what he could find …
WALL STICKERS, ART SQUARES and LIGHTING
DECOFUN | AVAILABLE NOW FROM TOYS R US AND FROM THE MANUFACTURERS ON 01257 267006 | UPLIGHTER: £12.99, ART SQUARES: £8.99; WALL STICKERS: £9.99
Kids today don’t know they’re born … a totally Doctor Who themed bedroom is finally within reach. The Wall Stickers pack contains six sheets of plastic, stickybacked photographs. There are three designs, and the images range from the Doctor and the TARDIS to Daleks, Cyberman and Ood, together with some random sticky words of ‘Fantastic’ and of course, ‘Exterminate’. The Art Squares are three impressively detailed photographic collages of Daleks, Cybermen and a selection of TARDIS, Sycorax, Ood and K9. Like the stickers, these are plasticised and are intended to brighten up a plain painted wall. From the same company comes a sturdy Uplighter – a shade for a ceiling light – which is decorated with current Doctor Who imagery. I would guess that the stickers may be a little hard to apply without getting air bubbles under them, but as always there’s a knack to these things and kids are never too young to learn …
THE FACE OF BOE and MICKEY 5” ACTION FIGURES
CHARACTER OPTIONS | AVAILABLE NOW FROM TOYSHOPS | FACE: £14.99; MICKEY: £6.99
Character Options’ range of action figures is currently the toast of the toy industry, winning awards, selling in their millions and causing headaches for shops who just cannot keep them in stock. Joining the range is the big old Face of Boe. The Face is … well … a giant face in a mobile life-support tank, and the toy details his craggy features and dreadlocks perfectly. A button on the top allows Boe to close his mouth – for some reason it’s spring-loaded open, which lends the character a somewhat gormless air. Mickey Smith was the somewhat hapless boyfriend of Billie Piper’s Rose, and an action figure is long overdue. It’s a great likeness, and he’s flexible in all the right places. The figure has additional articulation on his arms so he can supposedly hold a big gun which comes with him. Great for posability, less effective in holding a gun.
MAGNETIC CYBERMAN
CHARACTER OPTIONS | AVAILABLE NOW FROM TOYSHOPS | £9.99
Whatever will they think of next … this cool magnetic kit in the Supermag range is a Cyberman … but a strangely anorexic one as his legs, arms and waist are jointed with sticks and metal balls. You need a degree in mechanical engineering to be able to build him, and disappointingly it’s only the arms which are held on with magnetism. The rest of the kit comprises rods which screw into the balls, and plastic joint-cups which hold the balls securely.
3D POSTER
PYRAMID POSTERS | AVAILABLE NOW FROM SPECIALIST SHOPS | £14.99
I think £14.99 is expensive for a poster … even one as good as this. It’s an awesome creation, using lenticular technology (where a layer of small plastic ridges on the surface of the poster allow the viewed image to change as you move around it) to create a very effective three dimensional image of the Doctor and a Cyberman. The effect is so real that it has to be seen to be believed, and you really do find yourself tentatively touching the poster to see if your hand will disappear into it.
FRUBES TUBES
YOPLAIT DAIRY CREST | AVAILABLE NOW FROM MOST SUPERMARKETS | £1.99 BOX
Last year we had Dalek and TARDIS cakes, and now we have yoghurt in tubes. There is a Doctor Who promotion running on cyber-strawberry flavour packs and there are 24 different designs of tube to collect, as well as nine different boxes ranging from cut-out figures and photographs to a door hanger and 3D models. The yoghurt is tasty, if a little sweet and worryingly pink, and chowing your way through at least nine boxes of the stuff may put you off it for life.
DOCTOR WHO BOOKS
THE BOOK PEOPLE | AVAILABLE NOW FROM WWW.THEBOOKPEOPLE.CO.UK | £10.00
Best bargain of the month: ten of the BBC’s original Doctor Who novels, in exclusive paperback editions, and packaged in an attractive box, for only £10! Madness. The tales cover adventures for the ninth and tenth Doctors with companion Rose tying it all together. If you are a collector then you’ll want to snap these up, and if you just fancy a set for the kids to destroy, which are cheaper than the usual £6.95 each for the normal hardback editions, then this is definitely worth getting.
Showing posts with label Doctor Who Collecting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Doctor Who Collecting. Show all posts
Thursday, 16 May 2013
Doctor Who on Video
Doctor Who On Video
Home video really came into its own in the late seventies, but it wasn't until 1983 that BBC Enterprises finally released any Doctor Who on tape. While the fans had been clamouring for repeats on television (which rarely happened), and for some of the old material to be released on video, the BBC seemed indifferent to the requests. Then, at BBC Enterprises' 20th anniversary Doctor Who convention at Longleat House in Wiltshire, BBC Home Video gave out voting forms to try and gauge the level of support for Doctor Who releases, and to get some idea of what would be popular.
This resulted in the totally bizarre choice of 'Revenge of the Cybermen' to have the honour of being the first BBC Doctor Who release. It was packaged in an oversized box (as were all the BBC releases at the time) and retailed for £39.99 - this was before the days of sell-through video. The second release was 'The Brain of Morbius' and rather than give us the complete four part story, the BBC chose to put out an hour long edited version. This had fans in uproar as not only had the story been butchered, it also cost £19.99.
Eventually, the BBC realised that what the public wanted was un-cut recordings, with all the opening and closing credits intact, and this is how they started to release them. Unfortunately they still couldn't keep their scissors off them and small, insignificant cuts were being made for no apparent reason. All the black and white releases were edited in one way or another and it is only in the last year or so that the tapes have been released completely uncut.
The BBC also realised that if they could ask £10.99 for a four part story on one tape, then they could charge double that for a two-tape release, so six part stories, which had previously fitted onto one tape ('The Seeds of Death', 'The Talons of Weng-Chiang') were now released on two tapes for twice the price. This was acceptable in the case of a story such as the ten part 'The War Games', or when, thanks to fans working in BBC Video's offices, they combined a six part story with the two part story that had preceded it on transmission ('The Sontaran Experiment'/'Genesis of the Daleks'), but for other six-part releases this could only be described as blatant commercialism; getting more money for the same goods.
More recently, effort has been put into releasing special tapes covering a particular Doctor's era, an excellent idea, allowing episodes from stories which are not held by the BBC in their entirety to be released on tape. We have also seen one 'extended edition' tape ('The Curse of Fenric') and other ideas have also been rumoured, for example including some out-takes on the end of the tapes, and releasing other 'special editions'.
Looking through the list of what is currently available on BBC home video, it is interesting how many stories are available from the early Tom Baker years as opposed to the other Doctors. Not counting Years tapes, the breakdown is: Hartnell - 4; Troughton - 6; Pertwee - 7; T Baker - 13; Davison - 3; C Baker - 1; McCoy - 1. Maybe the fact that those Tom Baker stories got some of the highest ratings ever for Doctor Who explains the obvious bias. Cynics can argue that the show was better then, and since the start of the eighties it has been on a downward spiral from which it was just starting to recover when the BBC decided to pull the programme from production. They also decided not to allow anyone else to make it, and to refuse to say when they would make it again. Strange behaviour from a public body which is making enough money from the current video releases of old Doctor Who to make a new series and still have cash in hand.
Here then is a round up of all the Doctor Who available on BBC Video at the moment. There are some gems and some decidedly dodgy choices, and our star rating may help you decide what to look out for.
The Hartnell Years (1991)
Introduced by Sylvester McCoy
Episodes featured: Pilot
The Crusade #3
The Celestial Toymaker #4
The concept behind these 'Years' tapes is to give an overview of that particular Doctor's era by including three episodes from incomplete stories held by the BBC, together with some clips from other adventures and a linking commentary from a well known Doctor Who personality - in this case that of the Seventh Doctor, Sylvester McCoy.
This tape, in common with the other 'Years' tapes, fails on the choice of episodes. Doctor Who's pilot episode, deemed not good enough to transmit back in 1963 and subsequently re-made, is a curiosity piece only. The plot is the same as on the transmitted episode (which can be found on 'An Unearthly Child'), and the production standards are considerably worse, which is why it was re-made in the first place.
'The Crusade' was one of the historical stories favoured by the production teams in the show's first couple of years, and despite bravura performances from the likes of Julian Glover and Jean Marsh, episode three is the traditional 'padding' episode, in which the characters, having survived the perils of the first two parts, wait for the resolution which is to come in the final part.
'The Celestial Toymaker' however, is a classic of its time. With a superb villain in the Toymaker, played with gusto by Michael Gough, and a small cast of supporting characters (including Carmen Silvera, now better known for her role as René's wife in 'Allo, 'Allo), the story involved the Doctor and his friends playing a series of deadly games to win back the TARDIS which has been taken by the Toymaker.
Rating: ***
An Unearthly Child (1990)
First UK Transmission: 23/11/63 - 14/12/63 (4 episodes)
Writer: Anthony Coburn & C E Webber
Director: Waris Hussein
Regular cast: William Hartnell (The Doctor), Carole Ann Ford (Susan), William Russell (Ian), Jacqueline Hill (Barbara)
Starring: Derek Newark (Za), Jeremy Young (Hur), Alethea Charlton (Hur).
This is the first ever Doctor Who story, and while the final three episodes may appear dated today, the first episode still captures a sense of wonderment and awe as we meet for the first time the mysterious stranger known as the Doctor, his unearthly granddaughter Susan and her teachers Ian and Barbara. The Doctor whisks them all back to Paeolithic times where they are captured by a stone-age tribe searching for the lost secret of fire.
Rating: ***½
The Daleks (Two tape set) (1989)
First UK Transmission: 21/12/63 - 1/2/64 (7 episodes)
Writer: Terry Nation
Director: Christopher Barry (1,2,4,5) & Richard Martin (3,6,7)
Regular Cast: William Hartnell (The Doctor), Carole Ann Ford (Susan), William Russell (Ian), Jacqueline Hill (Barbara).
Starring: John Lee (Alydon), Virginia Weatherell (Dyoni), Alan Wheatley (Temmosus).
This was the series which launched Doctor Who in the public's eye. It introduced the Daleks, evil mutated creatures living in mobile metal shells in their gleaming city on the planet Skaro, and their unique appearance and grating voices sent a wave of Dalekmania around the country.
The Doctor, Susan, Ian and Barbara arrive on Skaro which is an apparently dead world apart from a massive metal city. They are captured by the Daleks who plan to wipe out the planet's other inhabitants, the Thals, with a radiation bomb. The Doctor must convince the pacifist Thals that peace is worth fighting for.
Today the story stands up surprisingly well despite one or two naff moments, and overall is an enjoyable if slightly overlong watch. Personally I prefer this TV version to the film version (Dr. Who and the Daleks) as the latter is very cut back and loses much of the impact in the process.
Rating: ****
The Dalek Invasion of Earth (Two tape set) (1990)
First UK Transmission: 21/11/64 - 26/12/64 (6 episodes)
Writer: Terry Nation
Director: Richard Martin
Regular Cast: William Hartnell (The Doctor), Carole Ann Ford (Susan), William Russell (Ian), Jacqueline Hill (Barbara).
Starring: Bernard Kay (Tyler), Alan Judd (Dortmun), Nicholas Smith (Wells), Peter Frazer (David Campbell).
One year later and the Daleks returned by popular demand, and this time their activities were not confined to an alien planet, for they had invaded the Earth. They planned to mine the Earth's radioactive core and thus convert it into a massive mobile power source. The Doctor, with the help of resistance fighters, managed to save the day.
The excellent scenes of the Daleks parading around deserted London sights are regrettably let down by pitiful effects of the Dalek saucer flying and the high pitched and ineffective Dalek voices. The Robomen (humans converted into Dalek slaves) are fairly unimaginative too. The problem here is that the second Dalek film, Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 AD, which is based on this story, is superior in almost every important aspect.
Rating: **
The Web Planet (Two tape set) (1990)
First UK Transmission: 13/02/65 - 20/03/65 (6 episodes)
Writer: Bill Strutton
Director: Richard Martin
Regular Cast: William Hartnell (The Doctor), William Russell (Ian), Jacqueline Hill (Barbara), Maureen O'Brien (Vicki).
Starring: Roslyn de Winter (Vrestin), Arne Gordon (Hrostar), Martin Jarvis (Hilio).
Watching this story really requires a suspension of disbelief beyond all the others. The story's central concept and plot is sound: an alien parasite has invaded a peaceful planet and turned the ant-like Zarbi against the butterfly-like Menoptra; but the budget and technology available back in 1965 were not up to creating the visuals required to make the story work. Vaseline smeared on the lens helps to disguise most of the shortcomings of the costumes and sets, but the adventure often comes over as a pantomime in space rather than the serious political drama suggested by the script. It's all good fun though.
Rating: **
The Troughton Years (1991)
Introduced by Jon Pertwee
Episodes featured: 'The Abominable Snowmen' #2
'Enemy of the World' #3
'The Space Pirates' #2
This tape contains a very poor selection of episodes from the Troughton era. 'The Abominable Snowmen' part 2 is weak compared with episode one of the following Yeti story 'The Web of Fear' (which the BBC also hold) and 'Enemy of the World', despite featuring Troughton in the dual role as the Doctor and as the evil dictator Salamander, is a slow and rambling affair. The same goes for 'The Space Pirates', another tedious space opera included here apparently only because the tape's producer, John Nathan Turner, worked on it.
The episodes they could have chosen included some from 'The Ice Warriors' (a brilliantly directed and atmospheric tale of which the BBC hold four out of six episodes), 'The Faceless Ones' parts 1 or 3 (fairly slow but with good performances from the regulars and the guest cast) or any of the many Dalek/Cybermen episodes still in existence. These were deliberately not included due to the planned release of Dalek and Cybermen compilations, but their omission means that this tape is a very poor representation of Troughton indeed.
Rating: *
The Tomb of the Cybermen (1992)
First UK Transmission: 2/09/67 - 23/09/67 (4 episodes)
Writer: Kit Pedler & Gerry Davis
Director: Morris Barry
Regular Cast: Patrick Troughton (The Doctor), Frazer Hines (Jamie), Deborah Watling (Victoria).
Starring: Aubrey Richards (Parry), Cyril Shaps (Viner), Clive Merrison (Callum), George Roubicek (Hopper), George Pastell (Klieg).
This is the release we never expected to see. Missing from the BBC until the episodes were returned from Hong Kong at the start of 1992, The Tomb of the Cybermen has been hailed as a classic ever since it was first transmitted. Cast and crew recall it fondly and everyone who watched it back in the sixties has some recollection of its power and impact.
A group of archaeologists have uncovered the lost Cybermen tombs on the planet Telos, and the Doctor joins their party as they explore further. It transpires that the Cybermen had set traps to lure the humans into reviving them, and once the silver giants are awakened from their frozen sleep, they set about attempting to convert the humans into Cybermen.
If you want one tape to start with, which will give you a good introduction to Doctor Who and to Patrick Troughton's Doctor then this is the tape for you. It also features a specially recorded introduction by its director, Morris Barry.
Rating: *****
The Dominators (1990)
First UK Transmission: 10/08/68 - 7/09/68 (5 episodes)
Writer: Norman Ashby (pseudynom for Mervyn Haisman & Henry Lincoln)
Director: Morris Barry
Regular Cast: Patrick Troughton (The Doctor), Frazer Hines (Jamie), Wendy Padbury (Zoe).
Starring: Ronald Allen (Rago), Kenneth Ives (Toba), Arthur Cox (Cully).
Not a bad story, but the acting and effects let it down. The planet of Dulkis is invaded by two alien Dominators and their robot servants the Quarks. The Dominators want to convert Dulkis into a radioactive power source for their fleet, and the pacifist Dulkians seem powerless to stop them.
Troughton is on good form here, and Ronald Allen makes a convincingly ruthless alien.
Rating: ***
The Mind Robber (1990)
First UK Transmission: 14/09/68 - 12/10/68 (5 episodes)
Writer: Derrick Sherwin (1) & Peter Ling (2 - 5)
Director: David Maloney
Regular Cast: Patrick Troughton (The Doctor), Frazer Hines (Jamie), Wendy Padbury (Zoe).
Starring: Emrys James (The Master), Bernard Horsfall (The Stranger).
'The Mind Robber' is poles apart from 'The Dominators' which it followed in transmission order. The TARDIS arrives in a strange white void where a force tempts Jamie and Zoe away from the ship. From here they arrive in a world of words where myths and legends are real if you believe in them. Encountering Medusa, a Unicorn, clockwork soldiers and eerie White Robots, they finally meet the Master of the Land, a writer kidnapped from Earth who expects the Doctor to take his place.
While the first episode is very atmospheric with good use made of visuals and sound, the story is let down by its ending, which seems slightly silly given all that has gone before.
Rating: ***½
The Krotons (1991)
First UK Transmission: 28/12/68 - 18/01/69 (4 episodes)
Writer: Robert Holmes
Director: David Maloney
Regular Cast: Patrick Troughton (The Doctor), Frazer Hines (Jamie), Wendy Padbury (Zoe).
Starring: James Copeland (Selris), Gilbert Wynne (Thara), Terence Brown (Abu), Madeleine Mills (Vana), Philip Madoc (Eelek), Richard Ireson (Axus), James Cairncross (Beta).
Another brilliant script let down by the appearance of the title monsters. On an unnamed planet the Gonds are taught and ruled by a machine and their brightest students are sent to the Krotons in the machine from which they never return. The Krotons are crystalline beings awaiting enough mental power to revive themselves and leave the planet. The Doctor and Zoe unwittingly supply the power and the Krotons revive. The Doctor discovers that they are susceptible to Sulphuric acid and so disables their machine thus freeing the Gonds.
The Krotons unfortunately look as if they were constructed from egg-boxes, and although the sound effects and voices are very good, the overall impression on watching the story today is that the budget must have been even smaller than usual.
Rating: **
The Seeds of Death (1985)
First UK Transmission: 25/01/69 - 1/03/69 (6 episodes)
Writer: Brian Hayles
Director: Michael Ferguson
Regular Cast: Patrick Troughton (The Doctor), Frazer Hines (Jamie), Wendy Padbury (Zoe).
Starring: Alan Bennion (Slaar), Philip Ray (Eldred), Louise Pajo (Gia Kelly), Ronald Leigh-Hunt (Radnor), Terry Scully (Fewsham).
I have a soft spot for this second Ice Warrior story, even though it is not as good as their first appearance. The Warriors have invaded the moon, and are using a matter transmission system - T-Mat - to send Martian seed pods to locations across the globe. The pods emit spores which absorb the oxygen in the atmosphere, thus changing the climate to that suitable for the Martians. The Doctor is on hand to discover the solution to the problem.
The story rattles along at a fair old pace, and although the trip to the moon in a rocket seems dated even by 1969 standards (remember the real-life journey was mere months away), most of the effects, in particular the Ice Warriors themselves, are effective.
Rating: ****
The War Games (Two tape set) (1990)
First UK Transmission: 19/04/69 - 21/06/69 (10 episodes)
Writer: Malcolm Hulke & Terrance Dicks
Director: David Maloney
Regular Cast: Patrick Troughton (The Doctor), Frazer Hines (Jamie), Wendy Padbury (Zoe).
Starring: Jane Sherwin (Lady Jennifer Buckingham), David Saville (Carstairs), Terence Bayler (Barrington), Noel Coleman (General Smythe), Edward Brayshaw (War Chief), Philip Madoc (War Lord).
Patchy is the best word to describe this epic ten part adventure which brought to a close Patrick Troughton's era as the Doctor. The plot trundles along with numerous capturings, escapes and chases, until at the end the Doctor is brought to trial by his own people, the Time Lords, for his past crimes and exiled to Earth in the 20th century.
There are some good performances from the guest cast and the final two episodes are almost worth the price of admission as they lay the groundwork for many stories to come.
Rating: ***
The Pertwee Years
Introduced by Jon Pertwee
Episodes featured: 'Inferno' #7
'Frontier In Space' #6
'The Daemons' #5 (B/W)
The third of the 'Years' tapes is slightly better than the others, and features a selection of episodes chosen by Pertwee himself.
'Inferno' is quite a fun story, and the final episode is included here. The monsters are suitably hairy and nasty and the story's climax is pretty effective.
'Frontier in Space' part six features the last appearance of Roger Delgado as the Master. This is a good and sensible choice, as we get to see not only the Draconians and the Ogrons, but the Daleks and the Master too.
On the other hand, 'The Daemons' is one of the best stories from the Pertwee years, and what we have here is a black and white copy of the final episode. As the BBC have an American standard colour copy of the story, and as the recent repeat of 'The Sea Devils' was partly from a converted American copy, I don't understand why a colour copy of 'The Daemons' part 5 could not have been included instead.
The stories these three episodes come from are potentials for release anyway and eventually this tape will be of interest only for Pertwee's linking commentary (which like all the 'Years' tapes is bland and gives no feel for the era at all) and for some clips showing unused experimental footage of the Pertwee title sequence.
Rating: *
Spearhead from Space (1988)
First UK Transmission: 3/01/70 - 24/01/70 (4 episodes)
Writer: Robert Holmes
Director: Derek Martinus
Regular Cast: Jon Pertwee (The Doctor), Caroline John (Liz Shaw), Nicholas Courtney (Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart).
Starring: Hugh Burden (Channing), Derek Smee (Ransome), John Woodnutt (Hibbert).
The first ever colour Doctor Who and the first to feature Jon Pertwee in the title role. The story sees the Doctor arrive on Earth to start his exile, and this coincides with an invasion by the Nestenes and their plastic Autons. Forced on location by a BBC strike, the story is well directed and features some excellent performances and effects.
Rating: ****
The Claws of Axos (1992)
First UK Transmission: 13/03/71 - 3/04/71 (4 episodes)
Writer: Bob Baker & Dave Martin
Director: Michael Ferguson
Regular Cast: Jon Pertwee (The Doctor), Katy Manning (Jo Grant), Nicholas Courtney (Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart).
Starring: Roger Delgado (The Master), Peter Bathurst (Chinn), Paul Grist (Bill Filer), Donald Hewlitt (Hardiman), Bernard Holley (Axon Man/Voice of Axos).
An alien spacecraft, Axos, arrives on Earth containing a race of beautiful golden humanoids who offer a rare mineral in exchange for hospitality. The aliens turn out to be a hostile energy-sapping parasite intent on draining the Earth. The Doctor joins forces with the Master (who had brought Axos to Earth in the first place) to defeat it when it threatens their lives as well as the future of the Earth.
I like this story despite its shortcomings. It has some excellent monsters in the Axons, and imaginative use is made of numerous video effects. It falls down on some of the effects and on a dreadful American accent effected by Paul Grist, but overall it is an enjoyable little tale.
Rating: ***
Day of the Daleks (1986)
First UK Transmission: 1/01/72 - 22/01/72 (4 episodes)
Writer: Louis Marks
Director: Paul Bernard
Regular Cast: Jon Pertwee (The Doctor), Katy Manning (Jo Grant), Nicholas Courtney (Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart).
Starring: Wilfrid Carter (Styles), Aubrey Woods (Controller), Anna Barry (Anat), Jimmy Winston (Shura), Scott Fredericks (Boaz).
The Daleks have invaded Earth again, this time in the 21st Century, and freedom fighters have travelled back in time to assassinate the minister they see as responsible for starting the wars which eventually led to the Dalek invasion. The Doctor realises that the wars had actually been started by the fighters themselves and that they are caught in a time paradox.
Day of the Daleks is a fun story which saw the return of the Daleks to our screens after a five year gap. Like all the Pertwee stories, it contains a fair share of action and running about, and the Daleks are quite entertaining in their way.
Rating: ***
The Three Doctors (1991)
First UK Transmission: 30/12/72 - 20/01/73 (4 episodes)
Writer: Bob Baker & Dave Martin
Director: Lennie Mayne
Regular Cast: Jon Pertwee (The Doctor), Katy Manning (Jo Grant), Nicholas Courtney (Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart).
Starring: William Hartnell (The Doctor), Patrick Troughton (The Doctor), John Levene (Benton), Stephen Thorne (Omega), Rex Robinson (Tyler), Laurie Webb (Ollis).
The Three Doctors celebrated Doctor Who's tenth anniversary and brought together all three incarnations of the Doctor to fight Omega, a renegade from the Doctor's planet, who was trapped inside a black hole.
As an anniversary story, this show hit it just right. There is an excellent villain in Omega, and many interesting effects, as well as a traditional 'globby' monster.
Lots of fun, and it's good to see Troughton and Pertwee obviously enjoying themselves immensely.
Rating: ***
The Time Warrior (1989)
First UK Transmission: 15/12/73 - 5/01/74 (4 episodes)
Writer: Robert Holmes
Director: Alan Bromly
Regular Cast: Jon Pertwee (The Doctor), Elizabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith).
Starring: Kevin Lindsay (Lynx), David Daker (Irongron), John J Carney (Bloodaxe), Donald Pelmear (Reubish), June Brown (Lady Eleanor), Jeremy Bulloch (Hal).
The Sontaran Lynx has crashed on Earth in Medieval times and is kidnapping scientists from the future to help repair his ship so that he can leave. The Doctor investigates and becomes embroiled in some Medieval rivalry between the robber baron Irongron and the local gentry.
There is some good location work here, as well as some excellent dialogue courtesy of Robert Holmes. Lynx the Sontaran is an excellent character, and the make-up effects are superb. All in all a good little tale. Look out for June Brown in her pre-Dot Cotton days as Lady Eleanor.
Rating: ***½
Death to the Daleks (1986)
First UK Transmission: 23/02/74 - 16/03/74 (4 episodes)
Writer: Terry Nation
Director: Michael Briant
Regular Cast: Jon Pertwee (The Doctor), Elizabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith).
Starring: Arnold Yarrow (Bellal), Duncan Lamont (Galloway), John Abineri (Railton), Julian Fox (Hamilton), Joy Harrison (Jill Tarrant).
This story seems to have a very bad press and I've never been quite sure why. The Doctor and Sarah arrive on the planet Exxilon where a mysterious city drains all the power from the TARDIS. The Doctor meets a human expedition, sent to get a rare mineral which is the only known cure to a space plague. The Daleks arrive - they too are after the mineral - but their exterminators will not function due to the power drain. The Daleks are helpless. The humans and Daleks make an uneasy truce until they can resolve the problem of the lack of power.
Personally I like this story a lot. The Daleks are devious and memorable, the humans wimpish and hopeless and the whole thing hangs together very well. True, there are some naff moments like when the city's venom-spitting roots attack a mining operation, but on the whole the production is enjoyable and there are more Daleks in it than Day of the Daleks.
Rating: ***
Planet of the Spiders (Two tape set) (1991)
First UK Transmission: 4/06/74 - 6/07/74 (6 episodes)
Writer: Robert Sloman
Director: Barry Letts
Regular Cast: Jon Pertwee (The Doctor), Elizabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith).
Starring: Richard Franklin (Yates), John Dearth (Lupton), Cyril Shaps (Clegg), John Kane (Tommy), Ralph Arliss (Tuar), Geoffrey Morris (Sabor), Gareth Hunt (Arak), Maureen Morris (Voice of the Great One).
The Doctor took a blue crystal from the planet Metebelis Three and the giant Spiders that live there want it back. That's basically the plot, and it is padded out with to-ings and fro-ings between Earth and Metebelis Three, and sub-plots involving the simpleton Tommy gaining intelligence, and one of the Doctor's Time Lord mentors posing as the Abbot of a monastery.
The final Jon Pertwee story, Planet of the Spiders works well on a number of counts. I don't believe that anyone could mistake the eight-legged creatures in here for the real thing, but they do occasionally look pretty authentic. There is a lot of action, with a classic chase sequence on road, air and sea to look forward to.
A fitting end to one of the better Doctors.
Rating: ***½
Robot (1992)
First UK Transmission: 28/12/74 - 18/01/75 (4 episodes)
Writer: Terrance Dicks
Director: Christopher Barry
Regular Cast: Tom Baker (The Doctor), Elizabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), Ian Marter (Harry Sullivan).
Starring: Edward Burnham (Kettlewell), Alec Linstead (Jellicoe), Patricia Maynard (Miss Winters), Michael Kilgarriff (Robot).
The first story to feature Tom Baker's shambling bohemian Doctor, 'Robot' succeeds and fails in equal parts. Michael Kilgarriff is superb as the towering metal creature, and manages to imbue it with pathos and sympathy through his voice alone. The Doctor is recovering after his regeneration and seems scatty and unpredictable, and the other characters are all well acted, in particular Patricia Maynard's icy feminist Miss Winters.
Where it fails is on the special effects. There is a sequence involving an obviously toy tank, and the effects of the robot growing to giant size are typical of the period - all blue fuzzy lines and bits disappearing into the sky.
'Robot' kicked off Doctor Who's twelfth season, the only one so far which is all available on home video.
Rating: **
The Ark in Space (1989)
First UK Transmission: 25/01/75 - 15/02/75 (4 episodes)
Writer: Robert Holmes
Director: Rodney Bennett
Regular Cast: Tom Baker (The Doctor), Elizabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), Ian Marter (Harry Sullivan).
Starring: Wendy Williams (Vira), Kenton Moore (Noah), Christopher Masters (Libri), John Gregg (Lycett), Richard Morgan (Rogin).
Compared to its preceding story, 'Robot', 'The Ark in Space' is a masterpiece. The TARDIS arrives on a space ark containing the last survivors of the human race in suspended animation, which has been invaded by the Wirrn, an alien parasitic insect species. A handful of humans must battle to prevent the Wirrn from using humanity as fodder for its young.
With its small cast, claustrophobic sets, and the image of a man being slowly converted into an alien Wirrn, 'The Ark in Space' has all the elements that made the 1977 film Alien so successful. The formula works here as well, and this story is one of the best available.
At the end of the adventure, the time travellers use the Ark's transmat system to pop down to earth to see how things are looking down there. This leads into the next adventure ...
Rating: *****
The Sontaran Experiment/Genesis of the Daleks (Two tape set) (1991)
First UK Transmissions: 22/02/75 - 12/04/75 (2 episodes and 6 episodes)
Writer: Bob Baker & Dave Martin (Sontaran), Terry Nation (Genesis)
Director: Rodney Bennett (Sontaran), David Maloney (Genesis)
Regular Cast: Tom Baker (The Doctor), Elizabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), Ian Marter (Harry Sullivan).
Starring: Sontaran: Kevin Lindsay (Styre), Peter Walshe (Erak), Terry Walsh (Zake), Glyn Jones (Krans), Peter Rutherford (Roth), Donald Douglas (Vural).
Genesis: Michael Wisher (Davros), Peter Miles (Nyder), Guy Siner (Ravon), Dennis Chinnery (Gharman), Stephen Yardley (Sevrin).
In an increasingly rare move towards value for money, these eight episodes, transmitted consecutively back in 1975, are available together.
'The Sontaran Experiment' was filmed on location on Dartmoor, and the windswept plains and rocks act as a marvellous backdrop to an effective little two part story about a Sontaran (Styre) testing a group of humans. The Doctor arrives from the ark in time to thwart his plans. This is just the starter and the main course is 'Genesis of the Daleks', possibly the best Dalek tale released on video to date. The Daleks don't appear until the end, but the show is completely stolen by Michael Wisher's superlative Davros, the Daleks' creator, and Peter Miles as his devious, sadistic side-kick Nyder.
This is a classic package and is well worth getting.
Rating: *****
Revenge of the Cybermen (1983)
First UK Transmission: 10/04/75 - 10/05/75 (4 episodes)
Writer: Gerry Davis
Director: Michael E Briant
Regular Cast: Tom Baker (The Doctor), Elizabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), Ian Marter (Harry Sullivan).
Starring: Alec Wallis (Warner), Ronald Leigh-Hunt (Stevenson), Jeremy Wilkin (Kellman), William Marlowe (Lester), David Collings (Vorus), Michael Wisher (Magrik), Christopher Robbie (Cyberleader).
'Revenge of the Cybermen' ended the twelfth season, and is the weakest of the five stories. The Doctor and his friends arrive back on the ark only to find that they are in an earlier time period when it was still a beacon. A space plague has wiped out most of the occupants leaving only a handful still alive. The Doctor discovers that the plague has been caused by the Cybermen and that they want to destroy the planet Voga - around which the beacon is orbiting - as it is rich in gold deposits which are lethal to the Cybermen.
This adventure has little in its favour. The Cybermen do not work well within the story's structure - why, for example, would they go down to a planet which is full of gold if they can be killed by the stuff? - and the dialogue is corny and forced.
Considering that this was chosen to lead the video releases, it is surprising that it did well enough to warrant any others!
Rating: *
Terror of the Zygons (1988)
First UK Transmission: 30/08/75 - 20/09/75 (4 episodes)
Writer: Robert Banks Stewart
Director: Douglas Camfield
Regular Cast: Tom Baker (The Doctor), Elizabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), Ian Marter (Harry Sullivan).
Starring: Nicholas Courtney (Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart), John Levene (Benton), John Woodnutt (Duke of Forgill/Broton), Angus Lennie (Angus), Robert Russell (The Caber), Lillias Walker (Sister Lamont).
The Doctor is summoned to Scotland by the Brigadier to investigate the mysterious destruction of a number of oil rigs in the North Sea. The cause turns out to be the Skarasen, 'pet' of the alien Zygons who have their base under Loch Ness. The Zygons want to prepare the Earth for invasion, but the Doctor, as always, prevents them.
This is another of my favourite stories, in this case because I am a sucker for a well executed alien: the Zygons are orange foetus-like creatures and are quite horrific. Camfield's direction is impeccable and the only thing which lets the story down is the dreadful model-work for the Skarasen. If not for this, it would be another classic.
Rating: ****
Pyramids of Mars (1985)
First UK Transmission: 25/10/75 - 15/11/75 (4 episodes)
Writer: Stephen Harris (Pseudynom for Robert Holmes & Lewis Griefer)
Director: Paddy Russell
Regular Cast: Tom Baker (The Doctor), Elizabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith).
Starring: Bernard Archard (Marcus Scarman), Peter Mayock (Namin), Michael Bilton (Collins), Peter Copley (Dr Warlock), Michael Sheard (Laurence Scarman), Gabriel Woolf (Sutekh).
This period of Doctor Who's history was consistently full of well made and entertaining stories and many of them are now available on video. 'Pyramids of Mars' is one of the best. It tells of an ancient Egyptian god Sutekh who was imprisoned in a pyramid on Mars by his brother Horus. Now Sutekh has taken control of a human and is planning his escape ... unless the Doctor can stop him.
'Pyramids of Mars' was strongly influenced by the legends and myths of the Egyptians, and indeed Sutekh's robot servants look like mummies. The story blends horror and excitement, and moves at a strong pace.
Rating: *****
The Brain of Morbius (1984 - edited version, 1990 - full version)
First UK Transmission: 3/01/76 - 24/01/76 (4 episodes)
Writer: Robin Bland (pseudynom for Terrance Dicks & Robert Holmes)
Director: Christopher Barry
Regular Cast: Tom Baker (The Doctor), Elizabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith).
Starring: Philip Madoc (Solon), Colin Fay (Condo), Gilly Brown (Ohica), Cynthia Grenville (Maren), Michael Spice (Voice of Morbius).
Doctor Who's re-working of the Frankenstein story, this is a fun tale featuring a mad scientist (Solon), his deformed assistant (Condo), a supernatural Sisterhood, thunder, lightning and headless bodies. Morbius was an evil Time Lord and Solon saved his brain when his body was destroyed. Now Solon needs a head to finish his work and who should turn up but the Doctor.
Considering the limitations of budget and studio space, this story does very well indeed. Philip Madoc excels as Solon, and Michael Spice's voice for Morbius is powerful and memorable.
Rating: ****
Masque of Mandragora (1991)
First UK Transmission: 4/09/76 - 23/09/76 (4 episodes)
Writer: Louis Marks
Director: Rodney Bennett
Regular Cast: Tom Baker (The Doctor), Elizabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith).
Starring: John Laurimore (Count Federico), Gareth Armstrong (Giuliano), Tim Pigott-Smith (Marco), Norman Jones (Hieronymous).
This is one of the better period pieces presented by Doctor Who. We are back in the 15th century and an alien energy force, the Mandragora Helix, has hitched a lift on the TARDIS. It takes over the high priest Hieronymous who is also leader of a secret brotherhood of star worshippers, and attempts to establish a bridgehead to Earth. The Doctor saves the day by draining its power.
Good performances from all the cast, some nice effects and a superb location in Portmerion in North Wales (where The Prisoner was filmed) add up to a good piece of entertainment.
Rating: ****
The Deadly Assassin (1991)
First UK Transmission: 30/10/76 - 20/11/76 (4 episodes)
Writer: Robert Holmes
Director: David Maloney
Regular Cast: Tom Baker (The Doctor).
Starring: Peter Pratt (The Master), Angus Mackay (Borusa), Bernard Horsfall (Goth), George Pravda (Spandrell), Erik Chitty (Engin).
'The Deadly Assassin' was the first adventure to blow the lid off the Doctor's home world of Gallifrey. We had always believed the Time Lords to be all-powerful beings, and here they are presented as a bunch of old men, obsessed with ritual and internal politics.
As a story it works very well indeed, and episode three, which for the most part takes place in a fantasy world inside the Time Lords' main computer, is still as powerful as when first transmitted. Here we are re-introduced to the Master, a wizened and disfigured creature who hopes to gain a new lease of life through harnessing the Time Lords' power systems. This story paved the way for the Master to return at a later date.
Rating: ****
The Robots of Death (1986)
First UK Transmission: 29/01/77 - 19/02/77 (4 episodes)
Writer: Chris Boucher
Director: Michael E Briant
Regular Cast: Tom Baker (The Doctor), Louise Jameson (Leela).
Starring: Russell Hunter (Uvanov), Pamela Salem (Toos), David Collings (Poul), Miles Fothergill (SV7), Gregory de Polnay (D84).
The TARDIS arrives on a sand-miner combing an alien planet for precious ores. The mine has a robot crew and a handful of humans to watch over things. Unfortunately the robots are being reprogrammed to kill the humans, and the Doctor is under suspicion from the start.
'The Robots of Death' is a hokey title which does not do justice to the superb drama of the story. Like 'The Ark in Space' it pits a small band of humans against a strong destructive force and expects them to win out. The strength here is in the magnificent art deco design of the sets and robots, and Miles Fothergill's impersonal and murderously calm SV7 is chilling in the extreme. Gripping stuff.
Rating: *****
The Talons of Weng-Chiang (1988)
First UK Transmission: 26/02/77 - 2/04/77 (6 episodes)
Writer: Robert Holmes
Director: David Maloney
Regular Cast: Tom Baker (The Doctor), Louise Jameson (Leela).
Starring: John Bennett (Li H'sen Chang), Deep Roy (Mr Sin), Michael Spice (Weng-Chiang), Trevor Barnes (Litefoot), Christopher Benjamin (Jago).
Another of my favourite stories. This time set in Victorian London, 'The Talons of Weng-Chiang' involves the Doctor playing Sherlock Holmes to track down a war criminal from the future. Magnus Greel is draining young women of their vitality in an attempt to prevent himself from dying before he can recover his time cabinet and continue his experiments. He has taken on the persona of the Chinese god Weng-Chiang to enable him to hide behind the facade of a Chinese Tong operating in London.
This story epitomises all that the BBC does right with regards to period drama. The sets, the costumes, the acting and the script are all excellent, and with only a couple of shots of a 'man-in-suit' giant rat to lower the tone, this is yet another classic. All the cast are superb, from John Bennett's misguided oriental to Benjamin's blustering theatre owner and the overall impression is of a very rich and enjoyable story.
Rating: *****
City of Death (1991)
First UK Transmission: 29/09/79 - 20/10/79 (4 episodes)
Writer: David Agnew (pseudynom for Douglas Adams & Graham Williams)
Director: Michael Hayes
Regular Cast: Tom Baker (The Doctor), Lalla Ward (Romana).
Starring: Julian Glover (Scarlioni), Catherine Schell (Countess Scarlioni), Tom Chadbon (Duggan), David Graham (Kerensky).
A location trip to Paris makes 'City of Death' visually very interesting. The script is a complex beast involving a time-splintered alien directing the course of history to allow a splinter of himself to travel back in time and prevent the splintering happening in the first place.
There are fine performances as one would expect from Glover and Schell, and Chadbon is just right as the bumbling detective. Watch out for a cameo appearance from John Cleese and Eleanor Bron as art lovers in part four.
Rating: ***½
Logopolis (1992)
First UK Transmission: 28/02/81 - 21/03/81 (4 episodes)
Writer: Christopher H Bidmead
Director: Peter Grimwade
Regular Cast: Tom Baker (The Doctor), Sarah Sutton (Nyssa), Matthew Waterhouse (Adric), Janet Fielding (Tegan).
Starring: Anthony Ainley (The Master), John Frazer (Monitor).
The final outing for Tom Baker's Doctor, 'Logopolis' is a bit of a mixed bag. The plot concerns a plan of the newly regenerated Master to hold the universe to ransom. Apparently the universe's life has been extended by an alien races mathematical calculations holding open holes into other universes to drain off the excess entropy from ours.
Like much Doctor Who in the eighties, 'Logopolis' looks very nice, but has little meat to it. John Frazer makes an admirable attempt as the leader of a race wiped out by the Master, but he ultimately comes over as completely impotent. Ainley's Master, seen here for the first time, is not a patch on Delgado's and the Doctor's companions, Nyssa, Adric and Tegan, are a totally mis-matched trio - Adric in particular is simply dreadful.
Rating: **
Castrovalva (1992)
First UK Transmission: 4/01/82 - 12/01/82 (4 episodes)
Writer: Christopher H Bidmead
Director: Fiona Cumming
Regular Cast: Peter Davison (The Doctor), Sarah Sutton (Nyssa), Matthew Waterhouse (Adric), Janet Fielding (Tegan).
Starring: Anthony Ainley (Master), Derek Waring (Shardovan), Michael Sheard (Mergrave), Frank Wylie (Ruther).
As Tom Baker bowed out, so Peter Davison checked in. 'Castrovalva' comes from the same mould as 'Logopolis', indeed it follows on directly, and has only a slightly more comprehensible plot. The newly regenerated Doctor is lured to the fictional city of Castrovalva by the Master who has kidnapped Adric and is using his mathematical skills to create the illusory city. Once there, the Doctor only realises it is a trap just in time to escape.
What we learn from this story is that Matthew Waterhouse (Adric) really is a hopeless actor in this role, and that the new Doctor is strangely attracted to cricket and celery.
Rating: **
The Five Doctors (1985 - edited version, 1990 - full version)
First UK Transmission: 25/11/83 (1 90 minute episode)
Writer: Terrance Dicks
Director: Peter Moffatt
Regular Cast: Peter Davison (The Doctor), Janet Fielding (Tegan), Mark Strickson (Turlough).
Starring: Richard Hurndall (The Doctor), Patrick Troughton (The Doctor), Jon Pertwee (The Doctor), Philip Latham (Borusa).
Whereas 'The Three Doctors' worked as an anniversary story because it did not try to be too clever, 'The Five Doctors' is too clever by half. Dicks was asked to write a script which would encompass five Doctors, numerous returning companions (Susan, Jamie, Zoe, Liz Shaw, Yates, the Brigadier, Sarah Jane Smith and K9) plus a Dalek, the Cybermen, the Master, the Yeti and a clutch of Time Lords.
That it turned out as entertaining as it did is a miracle in itself. The production is quite fun, with familiar faces cropping up all over the place, but ultimately it is a celebration of twenty five years of Doctor Who and not a story in its own right. Perhaps only of interest to the knowledgeable fan.
Rating: ***½
The Caves of Androzani (1992)
First UK Transmission: 8/03/84 - 16/03/84 (4 episodes)
Writer: Robert Holmes
Director: Graeme Harper
Regular Cast: Peter Davison (The Doctor), Nicola Bryant (Peri).
Starring: Christopher Gable (Sharaz Jek), John Normington (Morgus), Robert Glenister (Salateen), Maurice Roëves (Stotz), Roy Holder (Krelper), Martin Cochrane (Chellack), Barbara Kinghorn (Timmin).
Davison's last story as the Doctor and Robert Holmes pulls out all the stops to make it a good one. The Doctor and Peri arrive on the planet Androzani Minor during a gun-running war. They meet up with the insane Sharaz Jek who takes a shine to young Peri and kidnaps her. The Doctor must rescue Peri and save both her and himself from the deadly illness they have contracted.
'The Caves of Androzani' is perhaps the best Davison story, featuring loads of action, violence, impressive acting (especially Gable as the tormented Jek), startling effects and a brilliant script.
It's a shame that there weren't more of this quality.
Rating: *****
The Twin Dilemma (1992)
First UK Transmission: 22/03/84 - 30/03/84 (4 episodes)
Writer: Anthony Steven
Director: Peter Moffatt
Regular Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), Nicola Bryant (Peri).
Starring: Maurice Denham (Edgeworth/Azmael), Kevin McNally (Hugo Lang), Edwin Richfield (Mestor), Paul Conrad (Romulus), Andrew Conrad (Remus), Oliver Smith (Drak).
This tape is released as a Woolworths special, changed at the last minute from the excellent Hartnell historical story 'The Aztecs' which will now be released by the BBC later in the year. Woolworths may well regret whatever circumstances prompted this change as 'The Twin Dilemma' is possibly the worst ever Doctor Who story with nothing at all in its favour.
The plot is rubbish, concerning a giant slug, Mestor, who wants to take over the galaxy by sending a planet into a sun so that his eggs will be scattered in the explosion. Colin Baker makes his debut as a totally unlikeable Doctor, prone to fits of manic depression and quoting poetry, and the cast, with possibly the exception of Denham who must have wondered why he ever agreed to appear, are uniformly dreadful. The crowning glory is the casting of twins in the roles of the pre-pubescent Romulus and Remus who cannot pronounce the letter 'r' (consider in this light their names!) and they are equally unable to act, making Adric look good by comparison.
Steer well clear of this one. Don't even be tempted because it really isn't worth it!
Rating: -* (minus one)
The Curse of Fenric 'Extended Edition' (1991)
First UK Transmission: 25/09/89 - 15/11/89 (4 episodes)
Writer: Ian Briggs
Director: Nicholas Mallett
Regular Cast: Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor), Sophie Aldred (Ace).
Starring: Dinsdale Landen (Dr Judson), Alfred Lynch (Millington), Nicholas Parsons (Rev. Wainwright).
By far the best of the more recent Doctor Who adventures, 'The Curse of Fenric' delivers on almost every count.
This tape is a special extended edition with about 6 minutes of additional material not in the original TV transmission. This helps to explain the story and adds some depth to the characters.
The Doctor arrives on an army base near the coast during the Second World War to find that his old enemy Fenric is afoot. Fenric has taken over the commander of the base and calls from the waters a race of vampire creatures called Haemovores.
Of particular note here is the Ancient Haemovore, a superb piece of state of the art animatronics. Also watch out for effects like the runes writing themselves on the crypt wall and the dissolution of the vampires. Even Nicholas Parsons is excellent as the doubtful vicar. Great stuff.
Rating: *****
Finally, a peek at the BBC's schedules for the rest of the year and on into 1993 reveals that there are more Doctor Who adventures to come. 'The Invasion' is a brilliant 1968 Troughton Cyberman story unfortunately with two of its eight episodes missing. The gaps will be filled by Nicholas Courtney (who played the Brigadier) explaining what happened. 'Shada' was a six part 1979 Tom Baker story which was never completed due to a technicians strike at the BBC. Baker will be providing a narrative to fill the gaps. 'Vengeance on Varos' was originally transmitted in the UK as two 50 minute episodes but this 1985 Colin Baker adventure will be released as a four episode version. It's good to see 1964's 'The Aztecs' appearing, one of the better historical adventures from William Hartnell's era. The Tom Baker Years, unlike the other 'Years' tapes, will have no complete episodes, instead it features Baker talking about each of his stories, prompted by short clips. There is also a Dalek Special and a Cyberman Special which will feature some of the remaining material from the sixties. Expect episodes 5 and 10 from 'The Daleks' Master Plan' (Hartnell 1965/66) and part 2 of 'The Evil of the Daleks' (Troughton 1967) presented by Peter Davison on the Dalek tape, and parts 2 and 4 of 'The Moonbase' (Troughton 1967) and 3 and 6 of 'The Wheel in Space' (Troughton 1968) presented by Colin Baker on the Cyberman tape. The tapes will also feature interview material with some of the people involved in the making of the stories. It is odd that one of the three surviving episodes from 'The Tenth Planet', the Cybermen's first appearance back in 1966 is not included.
David J Howe
1992
Home video really came into its own in the late seventies, but it wasn't until 1983 that BBC Enterprises finally released any Doctor Who on tape. While the fans had been clamouring for repeats on television (which rarely happened), and for some of the old material to be released on video, the BBC seemed indifferent to the requests. Then, at BBC Enterprises' 20th anniversary Doctor Who convention at Longleat House in Wiltshire, BBC Home Video gave out voting forms to try and gauge the level of support for Doctor Who releases, and to get some idea of what would be popular.
This resulted in the totally bizarre choice of 'Revenge of the Cybermen' to have the honour of being the first BBC Doctor Who release. It was packaged in an oversized box (as were all the BBC releases at the time) and retailed for £39.99 - this was before the days of sell-through video. The second release was 'The Brain of Morbius' and rather than give us the complete four part story, the BBC chose to put out an hour long edited version. This had fans in uproar as not only had the story been butchered, it also cost £19.99.
Eventually, the BBC realised that what the public wanted was un-cut recordings, with all the opening and closing credits intact, and this is how they started to release them. Unfortunately they still couldn't keep their scissors off them and small, insignificant cuts were being made for no apparent reason. All the black and white releases were edited in one way or another and it is only in the last year or so that the tapes have been released completely uncut.
The BBC also realised that if they could ask £10.99 for a four part story on one tape, then they could charge double that for a two-tape release, so six part stories, which had previously fitted onto one tape ('The Seeds of Death', 'The Talons of Weng-Chiang') were now released on two tapes for twice the price. This was acceptable in the case of a story such as the ten part 'The War Games', or when, thanks to fans working in BBC Video's offices, they combined a six part story with the two part story that had preceded it on transmission ('The Sontaran Experiment'/'Genesis of the Daleks'), but for other six-part releases this could only be described as blatant commercialism; getting more money for the same goods.
More recently, effort has been put into releasing special tapes covering a particular Doctor's era, an excellent idea, allowing episodes from stories which are not held by the BBC in their entirety to be released on tape. We have also seen one 'extended edition' tape ('The Curse of Fenric') and other ideas have also been rumoured, for example including some out-takes on the end of the tapes, and releasing other 'special editions'.
Looking through the list of what is currently available on BBC home video, it is interesting how many stories are available from the early Tom Baker years as opposed to the other Doctors. Not counting Years tapes, the breakdown is: Hartnell - 4; Troughton - 6; Pertwee - 7; T Baker - 13; Davison - 3; C Baker - 1; McCoy - 1. Maybe the fact that those Tom Baker stories got some of the highest ratings ever for Doctor Who explains the obvious bias. Cynics can argue that the show was better then, and since the start of the eighties it has been on a downward spiral from which it was just starting to recover when the BBC decided to pull the programme from production. They also decided not to allow anyone else to make it, and to refuse to say when they would make it again. Strange behaviour from a public body which is making enough money from the current video releases of old Doctor Who to make a new series and still have cash in hand.
Here then is a round up of all the Doctor Who available on BBC Video at the moment. There are some gems and some decidedly dodgy choices, and our star rating may help you decide what to look out for.
The Hartnell Years (1991)
Introduced by Sylvester McCoy
Episodes featured: Pilot
The Crusade #3
The Celestial Toymaker #4
The concept behind these 'Years' tapes is to give an overview of that particular Doctor's era by including three episodes from incomplete stories held by the BBC, together with some clips from other adventures and a linking commentary from a well known Doctor Who personality - in this case that of the Seventh Doctor, Sylvester McCoy.
This tape, in common with the other 'Years' tapes, fails on the choice of episodes. Doctor Who's pilot episode, deemed not good enough to transmit back in 1963 and subsequently re-made, is a curiosity piece only. The plot is the same as on the transmitted episode (which can be found on 'An Unearthly Child'), and the production standards are considerably worse, which is why it was re-made in the first place.
'The Crusade' was one of the historical stories favoured by the production teams in the show's first couple of years, and despite bravura performances from the likes of Julian Glover and Jean Marsh, episode three is the traditional 'padding' episode, in which the characters, having survived the perils of the first two parts, wait for the resolution which is to come in the final part.
'The Celestial Toymaker' however, is a classic of its time. With a superb villain in the Toymaker, played with gusto by Michael Gough, and a small cast of supporting characters (including Carmen Silvera, now better known for her role as René's wife in 'Allo, 'Allo), the story involved the Doctor and his friends playing a series of deadly games to win back the TARDIS which has been taken by the Toymaker.
Rating: ***
An Unearthly Child (1990)
First UK Transmission: 23/11/63 - 14/12/63 (4 episodes)
Writer: Anthony Coburn & C E Webber
Director: Waris Hussein
Regular cast: William Hartnell (The Doctor), Carole Ann Ford (Susan), William Russell (Ian), Jacqueline Hill (Barbara)
Starring: Derek Newark (Za), Jeremy Young (Hur), Alethea Charlton (Hur).
This is the first ever Doctor Who story, and while the final three episodes may appear dated today, the first episode still captures a sense of wonderment and awe as we meet for the first time the mysterious stranger known as the Doctor, his unearthly granddaughter Susan and her teachers Ian and Barbara. The Doctor whisks them all back to Paeolithic times where they are captured by a stone-age tribe searching for the lost secret of fire.
Rating: ***½
The Daleks (Two tape set) (1989)
First UK Transmission: 21/12/63 - 1/2/64 (7 episodes)
Writer: Terry Nation
Director: Christopher Barry (1,2,4,5) & Richard Martin (3,6,7)
Regular Cast: William Hartnell (The Doctor), Carole Ann Ford (Susan), William Russell (Ian), Jacqueline Hill (Barbara).
Starring: John Lee (Alydon), Virginia Weatherell (Dyoni), Alan Wheatley (Temmosus).
This was the series which launched Doctor Who in the public's eye. It introduced the Daleks, evil mutated creatures living in mobile metal shells in their gleaming city on the planet Skaro, and their unique appearance and grating voices sent a wave of Dalekmania around the country.
The Doctor, Susan, Ian and Barbara arrive on Skaro which is an apparently dead world apart from a massive metal city. They are captured by the Daleks who plan to wipe out the planet's other inhabitants, the Thals, with a radiation bomb. The Doctor must convince the pacifist Thals that peace is worth fighting for.
Today the story stands up surprisingly well despite one or two naff moments, and overall is an enjoyable if slightly overlong watch. Personally I prefer this TV version to the film version (Dr. Who and the Daleks) as the latter is very cut back and loses much of the impact in the process.
Rating: ****
The Dalek Invasion of Earth (Two tape set) (1990)
First UK Transmission: 21/11/64 - 26/12/64 (6 episodes)
Writer: Terry Nation
Director: Richard Martin
Regular Cast: William Hartnell (The Doctor), Carole Ann Ford (Susan), William Russell (Ian), Jacqueline Hill (Barbara).
Starring: Bernard Kay (Tyler), Alan Judd (Dortmun), Nicholas Smith (Wells), Peter Frazer (David Campbell).
One year later and the Daleks returned by popular demand, and this time their activities were not confined to an alien planet, for they had invaded the Earth. They planned to mine the Earth's radioactive core and thus convert it into a massive mobile power source. The Doctor, with the help of resistance fighters, managed to save the day.
The excellent scenes of the Daleks parading around deserted London sights are regrettably let down by pitiful effects of the Dalek saucer flying and the high pitched and ineffective Dalek voices. The Robomen (humans converted into Dalek slaves) are fairly unimaginative too. The problem here is that the second Dalek film, Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 AD, which is based on this story, is superior in almost every important aspect.
Rating: **
The Web Planet (Two tape set) (1990)
First UK Transmission: 13/02/65 - 20/03/65 (6 episodes)
Writer: Bill Strutton
Director: Richard Martin
Regular Cast: William Hartnell (The Doctor), William Russell (Ian), Jacqueline Hill (Barbara), Maureen O'Brien (Vicki).
Starring: Roslyn de Winter (Vrestin), Arne Gordon (Hrostar), Martin Jarvis (Hilio).
Watching this story really requires a suspension of disbelief beyond all the others. The story's central concept and plot is sound: an alien parasite has invaded a peaceful planet and turned the ant-like Zarbi against the butterfly-like Menoptra; but the budget and technology available back in 1965 were not up to creating the visuals required to make the story work. Vaseline smeared on the lens helps to disguise most of the shortcomings of the costumes and sets, but the adventure often comes over as a pantomime in space rather than the serious political drama suggested by the script. It's all good fun though.
Rating: **
The Troughton Years (1991)
Introduced by Jon Pertwee
Episodes featured: 'The Abominable Snowmen' #2
'Enemy of the World' #3
'The Space Pirates' #2
This tape contains a very poor selection of episodes from the Troughton era. 'The Abominable Snowmen' part 2 is weak compared with episode one of the following Yeti story 'The Web of Fear' (which the BBC also hold) and 'Enemy of the World', despite featuring Troughton in the dual role as the Doctor and as the evil dictator Salamander, is a slow and rambling affair. The same goes for 'The Space Pirates', another tedious space opera included here apparently only because the tape's producer, John Nathan Turner, worked on it.
The episodes they could have chosen included some from 'The Ice Warriors' (a brilliantly directed and atmospheric tale of which the BBC hold four out of six episodes), 'The Faceless Ones' parts 1 or 3 (fairly slow but with good performances from the regulars and the guest cast) or any of the many Dalek/Cybermen episodes still in existence. These were deliberately not included due to the planned release of Dalek and Cybermen compilations, but their omission means that this tape is a very poor representation of Troughton indeed.
Rating: *
The Tomb of the Cybermen (1992)
First UK Transmission: 2/09/67 - 23/09/67 (4 episodes)
Writer: Kit Pedler & Gerry Davis
Director: Morris Barry
Regular Cast: Patrick Troughton (The Doctor), Frazer Hines (Jamie), Deborah Watling (Victoria).
Starring: Aubrey Richards (Parry), Cyril Shaps (Viner), Clive Merrison (Callum), George Roubicek (Hopper), George Pastell (Klieg).
This is the release we never expected to see. Missing from the BBC until the episodes were returned from Hong Kong at the start of 1992, The Tomb of the Cybermen has been hailed as a classic ever since it was first transmitted. Cast and crew recall it fondly and everyone who watched it back in the sixties has some recollection of its power and impact.
A group of archaeologists have uncovered the lost Cybermen tombs on the planet Telos, and the Doctor joins their party as they explore further. It transpires that the Cybermen had set traps to lure the humans into reviving them, and once the silver giants are awakened from their frozen sleep, they set about attempting to convert the humans into Cybermen.
If you want one tape to start with, which will give you a good introduction to Doctor Who and to Patrick Troughton's Doctor then this is the tape for you. It also features a specially recorded introduction by its director, Morris Barry.
Rating: *****
The Dominators (1990)
First UK Transmission: 10/08/68 - 7/09/68 (5 episodes)
Writer: Norman Ashby (pseudynom for Mervyn Haisman & Henry Lincoln)
Director: Morris Barry
Regular Cast: Patrick Troughton (The Doctor), Frazer Hines (Jamie), Wendy Padbury (Zoe).
Starring: Ronald Allen (Rago), Kenneth Ives (Toba), Arthur Cox (Cully).
Not a bad story, but the acting and effects let it down. The planet of Dulkis is invaded by two alien Dominators and their robot servants the Quarks. The Dominators want to convert Dulkis into a radioactive power source for their fleet, and the pacifist Dulkians seem powerless to stop them.
Troughton is on good form here, and Ronald Allen makes a convincingly ruthless alien.
Rating: ***
The Mind Robber (1990)
First UK Transmission: 14/09/68 - 12/10/68 (5 episodes)
Writer: Derrick Sherwin (1) & Peter Ling (2 - 5)
Director: David Maloney
Regular Cast: Patrick Troughton (The Doctor), Frazer Hines (Jamie), Wendy Padbury (Zoe).
Starring: Emrys James (The Master), Bernard Horsfall (The Stranger).
'The Mind Robber' is poles apart from 'The Dominators' which it followed in transmission order. The TARDIS arrives in a strange white void where a force tempts Jamie and Zoe away from the ship. From here they arrive in a world of words where myths and legends are real if you believe in them. Encountering Medusa, a Unicorn, clockwork soldiers and eerie White Robots, they finally meet the Master of the Land, a writer kidnapped from Earth who expects the Doctor to take his place.
While the first episode is very atmospheric with good use made of visuals and sound, the story is let down by its ending, which seems slightly silly given all that has gone before.
Rating: ***½
The Krotons (1991)
First UK Transmission: 28/12/68 - 18/01/69 (4 episodes)
Writer: Robert Holmes
Director: David Maloney
Regular Cast: Patrick Troughton (The Doctor), Frazer Hines (Jamie), Wendy Padbury (Zoe).
Starring: James Copeland (Selris), Gilbert Wynne (Thara), Terence Brown (Abu), Madeleine Mills (Vana), Philip Madoc (Eelek), Richard Ireson (Axus), James Cairncross (Beta).
Another brilliant script let down by the appearance of the title monsters. On an unnamed planet the Gonds are taught and ruled by a machine and their brightest students are sent to the Krotons in the machine from which they never return. The Krotons are crystalline beings awaiting enough mental power to revive themselves and leave the planet. The Doctor and Zoe unwittingly supply the power and the Krotons revive. The Doctor discovers that they are susceptible to Sulphuric acid and so disables their machine thus freeing the Gonds.
The Krotons unfortunately look as if they were constructed from egg-boxes, and although the sound effects and voices are very good, the overall impression on watching the story today is that the budget must have been even smaller than usual.
Rating: **
The Seeds of Death (1985)
First UK Transmission: 25/01/69 - 1/03/69 (6 episodes)
Writer: Brian Hayles
Director: Michael Ferguson
Regular Cast: Patrick Troughton (The Doctor), Frazer Hines (Jamie), Wendy Padbury (Zoe).
Starring: Alan Bennion (Slaar), Philip Ray (Eldred), Louise Pajo (Gia Kelly), Ronald Leigh-Hunt (Radnor), Terry Scully (Fewsham).
I have a soft spot for this second Ice Warrior story, even though it is not as good as their first appearance. The Warriors have invaded the moon, and are using a matter transmission system - T-Mat - to send Martian seed pods to locations across the globe. The pods emit spores which absorb the oxygen in the atmosphere, thus changing the climate to that suitable for the Martians. The Doctor is on hand to discover the solution to the problem.
The story rattles along at a fair old pace, and although the trip to the moon in a rocket seems dated even by 1969 standards (remember the real-life journey was mere months away), most of the effects, in particular the Ice Warriors themselves, are effective.
Rating: ****
The War Games (Two tape set) (1990)
First UK Transmission: 19/04/69 - 21/06/69 (10 episodes)
Writer: Malcolm Hulke & Terrance Dicks
Director: David Maloney
Regular Cast: Patrick Troughton (The Doctor), Frazer Hines (Jamie), Wendy Padbury (Zoe).
Starring: Jane Sherwin (Lady Jennifer Buckingham), David Saville (Carstairs), Terence Bayler (Barrington), Noel Coleman (General Smythe), Edward Brayshaw (War Chief), Philip Madoc (War Lord).
Patchy is the best word to describe this epic ten part adventure which brought to a close Patrick Troughton's era as the Doctor. The plot trundles along with numerous capturings, escapes and chases, until at the end the Doctor is brought to trial by his own people, the Time Lords, for his past crimes and exiled to Earth in the 20th century.
There are some good performances from the guest cast and the final two episodes are almost worth the price of admission as they lay the groundwork for many stories to come.
Rating: ***
The Pertwee Years
Introduced by Jon Pertwee
Episodes featured: 'Inferno' #7
'Frontier In Space' #6
'The Daemons' #5 (B/W)
The third of the 'Years' tapes is slightly better than the others, and features a selection of episodes chosen by Pertwee himself.
'Inferno' is quite a fun story, and the final episode is included here. The monsters are suitably hairy and nasty and the story's climax is pretty effective.
'Frontier in Space' part six features the last appearance of Roger Delgado as the Master. This is a good and sensible choice, as we get to see not only the Draconians and the Ogrons, but the Daleks and the Master too.
On the other hand, 'The Daemons' is one of the best stories from the Pertwee years, and what we have here is a black and white copy of the final episode. As the BBC have an American standard colour copy of the story, and as the recent repeat of 'The Sea Devils' was partly from a converted American copy, I don't understand why a colour copy of 'The Daemons' part 5 could not have been included instead.
The stories these three episodes come from are potentials for release anyway and eventually this tape will be of interest only for Pertwee's linking commentary (which like all the 'Years' tapes is bland and gives no feel for the era at all) and for some clips showing unused experimental footage of the Pertwee title sequence.
Rating: *
Spearhead from Space (1988)
First UK Transmission: 3/01/70 - 24/01/70 (4 episodes)
Writer: Robert Holmes
Director: Derek Martinus
Regular Cast: Jon Pertwee (The Doctor), Caroline John (Liz Shaw), Nicholas Courtney (Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart).
Starring: Hugh Burden (Channing), Derek Smee (Ransome), John Woodnutt (Hibbert).
The first ever colour Doctor Who and the first to feature Jon Pertwee in the title role. The story sees the Doctor arrive on Earth to start his exile, and this coincides with an invasion by the Nestenes and their plastic Autons. Forced on location by a BBC strike, the story is well directed and features some excellent performances and effects.
Rating: ****
The Claws of Axos (1992)
First UK Transmission: 13/03/71 - 3/04/71 (4 episodes)
Writer: Bob Baker & Dave Martin
Director: Michael Ferguson
Regular Cast: Jon Pertwee (The Doctor), Katy Manning (Jo Grant), Nicholas Courtney (Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart).
Starring: Roger Delgado (The Master), Peter Bathurst (Chinn), Paul Grist (Bill Filer), Donald Hewlitt (Hardiman), Bernard Holley (Axon Man/Voice of Axos).
An alien spacecraft, Axos, arrives on Earth containing a race of beautiful golden humanoids who offer a rare mineral in exchange for hospitality. The aliens turn out to be a hostile energy-sapping parasite intent on draining the Earth. The Doctor joins forces with the Master (who had brought Axos to Earth in the first place) to defeat it when it threatens their lives as well as the future of the Earth.
I like this story despite its shortcomings. It has some excellent monsters in the Axons, and imaginative use is made of numerous video effects. It falls down on some of the effects and on a dreadful American accent effected by Paul Grist, but overall it is an enjoyable little tale.
Rating: ***
Day of the Daleks (1986)
First UK Transmission: 1/01/72 - 22/01/72 (4 episodes)
Writer: Louis Marks
Director: Paul Bernard
Regular Cast: Jon Pertwee (The Doctor), Katy Manning (Jo Grant), Nicholas Courtney (Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart).
Starring: Wilfrid Carter (Styles), Aubrey Woods (Controller), Anna Barry (Anat), Jimmy Winston (Shura), Scott Fredericks (Boaz).
The Daleks have invaded Earth again, this time in the 21st Century, and freedom fighters have travelled back in time to assassinate the minister they see as responsible for starting the wars which eventually led to the Dalek invasion. The Doctor realises that the wars had actually been started by the fighters themselves and that they are caught in a time paradox.
Day of the Daleks is a fun story which saw the return of the Daleks to our screens after a five year gap. Like all the Pertwee stories, it contains a fair share of action and running about, and the Daleks are quite entertaining in their way.
Rating: ***
The Three Doctors (1991)
First UK Transmission: 30/12/72 - 20/01/73 (4 episodes)
Writer: Bob Baker & Dave Martin
Director: Lennie Mayne
Regular Cast: Jon Pertwee (The Doctor), Katy Manning (Jo Grant), Nicholas Courtney (Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart).
Starring: William Hartnell (The Doctor), Patrick Troughton (The Doctor), John Levene (Benton), Stephen Thorne (Omega), Rex Robinson (Tyler), Laurie Webb (Ollis).
The Three Doctors celebrated Doctor Who's tenth anniversary and brought together all three incarnations of the Doctor to fight Omega, a renegade from the Doctor's planet, who was trapped inside a black hole.
As an anniversary story, this show hit it just right. There is an excellent villain in Omega, and many interesting effects, as well as a traditional 'globby' monster.
Lots of fun, and it's good to see Troughton and Pertwee obviously enjoying themselves immensely.
Rating: ***
The Time Warrior (1989)
First UK Transmission: 15/12/73 - 5/01/74 (4 episodes)
Writer: Robert Holmes
Director: Alan Bromly
Regular Cast: Jon Pertwee (The Doctor), Elizabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith).
Starring: Kevin Lindsay (Lynx), David Daker (Irongron), John J Carney (Bloodaxe), Donald Pelmear (Reubish), June Brown (Lady Eleanor), Jeremy Bulloch (Hal).
The Sontaran Lynx has crashed on Earth in Medieval times and is kidnapping scientists from the future to help repair his ship so that he can leave. The Doctor investigates and becomes embroiled in some Medieval rivalry between the robber baron Irongron and the local gentry.
There is some good location work here, as well as some excellent dialogue courtesy of Robert Holmes. Lynx the Sontaran is an excellent character, and the make-up effects are superb. All in all a good little tale. Look out for June Brown in her pre-Dot Cotton days as Lady Eleanor.
Rating: ***½
Death to the Daleks (1986)
First UK Transmission: 23/02/74 - 16/03/74 (4 episodes)
Writer: Terry Nation
Director: Michael Briant
Regular Cast: Jon Pertwee (The Doctor), Elizabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith).
Starring: Arnold Yarrow (Bellal), Duncan Lamont (Galloway), John Abineri (Railton), Julian Fox (Hamilton), Joy Harrison (Jill Tarrant).
This story seems to have a very bad press and I've never been quite sure why. The Doctor and Sarah arrive on the planet Exxilon where a mysterious city drains all the power from the TARDIS. The Doctor meets a human expedition, sent to get a rare mineral which is the only known cure to a space plague. The Daleks arrive - they too are after the mineral - but their exterminators will not function due to the power drain. The Daleks are helpless. The humans and Daleks make an uneasy truce until they can resolve the problem of the lack of power.
Personally I like this story a lot. The Daleks are devious and memorable, the humans wimpish and hopeless and the whole thing hangs together very well. True, there are some naff moments like when the city's venom-spitting roots attack a mining operation, but on the whole the production is enjoyable and there are more Daleks in it than Day of the Daleks.
Rating: ***
Planet of the Spiders (Two tape set) (1991)
First UK Transmission: 4/06/74 - 6/07/74 (6 episodes)
Writer: Robert Sloman
Director: Barry Letts
Regular Cast: Jon Pertwee (The Doctor), Elizabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith).
Starring: Richard Franklin (Yates), John Dearth (Lupton), Cyril Shaps (Clegg), John Kane (Tommy), Ralph Arliss (Tuar), Geoffrey Morris (Sabor), Gareth Hunt (Arak), Maureen Morris (Voice of the Great One).
The Doctor took a blue crystal from the planet Metebelis Three and the giant Spiders that live there want it back. That's basically the plot, and it is padded out with to-ings and fro-ings between Earth and Metebelis Three, and sub-plots involving the simpleton Tommy gaining intelligence, and one of the Doctor's Time Lord mentors posing as the Abbot of a monastery.
The final Jon Pertwee story, Planet of the Spiders works well on a number of counts. I don't believe that anyone could mistake the eight-legged creatures in here for the real thing, but they do occasionally look pretty authentic. There is a lot of action, with a classic chase sequence on road, air and sea to look forward to.
A fitting end to one of the better Doctors.
Rating: ***½
Robot (1992)
First UK Transmission: 28/12/74 - 18/01/75 (4 episodes)
Writer: Terrance Dicks
Director: Christopher Barry
Regular Cast: Tom Baker (The Doctor), Elizabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), Ian Marter (Harry Sullivan).
Starring: Edward Burnham (Kettlewell), Alec Linstead (Jellicoe), Patricia Maynard (Miss Winters), Michael Kilgarriff (Robot).
The first story to feature Tom Baker's shambling bohemian Doctor, 'Robot' succeeds and fails in equal parts. Michael Kilgarriff is superb as the towering metal creature, and manages to imbue it with pathos and sympathy through his voice alone. The Doctor is recovering after his regeneration and seems scatty and unpredictable, and the other characters are all well acted, in particular Patricia Maynard's icy feminist Miss Winters.
Where it fails is on the special effects. There is a sequence involving an obviously toy tank, and the effects of the robot growing to giant size are typical of the period - all blue fuzzy lines and bits disappearing into the sky.
'Robot' kicked off Doctor Who's twelfth season, the only one so far which is all available on home video.
Rating: **
The Ark in Space (1989)
First UK Transmission: 25/01/75 - 15/02/75 (4 episodes)
Writer: Robert Holmes
Director: Rodney Bennett
Regular Cast: Tom Baker (The Doctor), Elizabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), Ian Marter (Harry Sullivan).
Starring: Wendy Williams (Vira), Kenton Moore (Noah), Christopher Masters (Libri), John Gregg (Lycett), Richard Morgan (Rogin).
Compared to its preceding story, 'Robot', 'The Ark in Space' is a masterpiece. The TARDIS arrives on a space ark containing the last survivors of the human race in suspended animation, which has been invaded by the Wirrn, an alien parasitic insect species. A handful of humans must battle to prevent the Wirrn from using humanity as fodder for its young.
With its small cast, claustrophobic sets, and the image of a man being slowly converted into an alien Wirrn, 'The Ark in Space' has all the elements that made the 1977 film Alien so successful. The formula works here as well, and this story is one of the best available.
At the end of the adventure, the time travellers use the Ark's transmat system to pop down to earth to see how things are looking down there. This leads into the next adventure ...
Rating: *****
The Sontaran Experiment/Genesis of the Daleks (Two tape set) (1991)
First UK Transmissions: 22/02/75 - 12/04/75 (2 episodes and 6 episodes)
Writer: Bob Baker & Dave Martin (Sontaran), Terry Nation (Genesis)
Director: Rodney Bennett (Sontaran), David Maloney (Genesis)
Regular Cast: Tom Baker (The Doctor), Elizabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), Ian Marter (Harry Sullivan).
Starring: Sontaran: Kevin Lindsay (Styre), Peter Walshe (Erak), Terry Walsh (Zake), Glyn Jones (Krans), Peter Rutherford (Roth), Donald Douglas (Vural).
Genesis: Michael Wisher (Davros), Peter Miles (Nyder), Guy Siner (Ravon), Dennis Chinnery (Gharman), Stephen Yardley (Sevrin).
In an increasingly rare move towards value for money, these eight episodes, transmitted consecutively back in 1975, are available together.
'The Sontaran Experiment' was filmed on location on Dartmoor, and the windswept plains and rocks act as a marvellous backdrop to an effective little two part story about a Sontaran (Styre) testing a group of humans. The Doctor arrives from the ark in time to thwart his plans. This is just the starter and the main course is 'Genesis of the Daleks', possibly the best Dalek tale released on video to date. The Daleks don't appear until the end, but the show is completely stolen by Michael Wisher's superlative Davros, the Daleks' creator, and Peter Miles as his devious, sadistic side-kick Nyder.
This is a classic package and is well worth getting.
Rating: *****
Revenge of the Cybermen (1983)
First UK Transmission: 10/04/75 - 10/05/75 (4 episodes)
Writer: Gerry Davis
Director: Michael E Briant
Regular Cast: Tom Baker (The Doctor), Elizabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), Ian Marter (Harry Sullivan).
Starring: Alec Wallis (Warner), Ronald Leigh-Hunt (Stevenson), Jeremy Wilkin (Kellman), William Marlowe (Lester), David Collings (Vorus), Michael Wisher (Magrik), Christopher Robbie (Cyberleader).
'Revenge of the Cybermen' ended the twelfth season, and is the weakest of the five stories. The Doctor and his friends arrive back on the ark only to find that they are in an earlier time period when it was still a beacon. A space plague has wiped out most of the occupants leaving only a handful still alive. The Doctor discovers that the plague has been caused by the Cybermen and that they want to destroy the planet Voga - around which the beacon is orbiting - as it is rich in gold deposits which are lethal to the Cybermen.
This adventure has little in its favour. The Cybermen do not work well within the story's structure - why, for example, would they go down to a planet which is full of gold if they can be killed by the stuff? - and the dialogue is corny and forced.
Considering that this was chosen to lead the video releases, it is surprising that it did well enough to warrant any others!
Rating: *
Terror of the Zygons (1988)
First UK Transmission: 30/08/75 - 20/09/75 (4 episodes)
Writer: Robert Banks Stewart
Director: Douglas Camfield
Regular Cast: Tom Baker (The Doctor), Elizabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), Ian Marter (Harry Sullivan).
Starring: Nicholas Courtney (Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart), John Levene (Benton), John Woodnutt (Duke of Forgill/Broton), Angus Lennie (Angus), Robert Russell (The Caber), Lillias Walker (Sister Lamont).
The Doctor is summoned to Scotland by the Brigadier to investigate the mysterious destruction of a number of oil rigs in the North Sea. The cause turns out to be the Skarasen, 'pet' of the alien Zygons who have their base under Loch Ness. The Zygons want to prepare the Earth for invasion, but the Doctor, as always, prevents them.
This is another of my favourite stories, in this case because I am a sucker for a well executed alien: the Zygons are orange foetus-like creatures and are quite horrific. Camfield's direction is impeccable and the only thing which lets the story down is the dreadful model-work for the Skarasen. If not for this, it would be another classic.
Rating: ****
Pyramids of Mars (1985)
First UK Transmission: 25/10/75 - 15/11/75 (4 episodes)
Writer: Stephen Harris (Pseudynom for Robert Holmes & Lewis Griefer)
Director: Paddy Russell
Regular Cast: Tom Baker (The Doctor), Elizabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith).
Starring: Bernard Archard (Marcus Scarman), Peter Mayock (Namin), Michael Bilton (Collins), Peter Copley (Dr Warlock), Michael Sheard (Laurence Scarman), Gabriel Woolf (Sutekh).
This period of Doctor Who's history was consistently full of well made and entertaining stories and many of them are now available on video. 'Pyramids of Mars' is one of the best. It tells of an ancient Egyptian god Sutekh who was imprisoned in a pyramid on Mars by his brother Horus. Now Sutekh has taken control of a human and is planning his escape ... unless the Doctor can stop him.
'Pyramids of Mars' was strongly influenced by the legends and myths of the Egyptians, and indeed Sutekh's robot servants look like mummies. The story blends horror and excitement, and moves at a strong pace.
Rating: *****
The Brain of Morbius (1984 - edited version, 1990 - full version)
First UK Transmission: 3/01/76 - 24/01/76 (4 episodes)
Writer: Robin Bland (pseudynom for Terrance Dicks & Robert Holmes)
Director: Christopher Barry
Regular Cast: Tom Baker (The Doctor), Elizabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith).
Starring: Philip Madoc (Solon), Colin Fay (Condo), Gilly Brown (Ohica), Cynthia Grenville (Maren), Michael Spice (Voice of Morbius).
Doctor Who's re-working of the Frankenstein story, this is a fun tale featuring a mad scientist (Solon), his deformed assistant (Condo), a supernatural Sisterhood, thunder, lightning and headless bodies. Morbius was an evil Time Lord and Solon saved his brain when his body was destroyed. Now Solon needs a head to finish his work and who should turn up but the Doctor.
Considering the limitations of budget and studio space, this story does very well indeed. Philip Madoc excels as Solon, and Michael Spice's voice for Morbius is powerful and memorable.
Rating: ****
Masque of Mandragora (1991)
First UK Transmission: 4/09/76 - 23/09/76 (4 episodes)
Writer: Louis Marks
Director: Rodney Bennett
Regular Cast: Tom Baker (The Doctor), Elizabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith).
Starring: John Laurimore (Count Federico), Gareth Armstrong (Giuliano), Tim Pigott-Smith (Marco), Norman Jones (Hieronymous).
This is one of the better period pieces presented by Doctor Who. We are back in the 15th century and an alien energy force, the Mandragora Helix, has hitched a lift on the TARDIS. It takes over the high priest Hieronymous who is also leader of a secret brotherhood of star worshippers, and attempts to establish a bridgehead to Earth. The Doctor saves the day by draining its power.
Good performances from all the cast, some nice effects and a superb location in Portmerion in North Wales (where The Prisoner was filmed) add up to a good piece of entertainment.
Rating: ****
The Deadly Assassin (1991)
First UK Transmission: 30/10/76 - 20/11/76 (4 episodes)
Writer: Robert Holmes
Director: David Maloney
Regular Cast: Tom Baker (The Doctor).
Starring: Peter Pratt (The Master), Angus Mackay (Borusa), Bernard Horsfall (Goth), George Pravda (Spandrell), Erik Chitty (Engin).
'The Deadly Assassin' was the first adventure to blow the lid off the Doctor's home world of Gallifrey. We had always believed the Time Lords to be all-powerful beings, and here they are presented as a bunch of old men, obsessed with ritual and internal politics.
As a story it works very well indeed, and episode three, which for the most part takes place in a fantasy world inside the Time Lords' main computer, is still as powerful as when first transmitted. Here we are re-introduced to the Master, a wizened and disfigured creature who hopes to gain a new lease of life through harnessing the Time Lords' power systems. This story paved the way for the Master to return at a later date.
Rating: ****
The Robots of Death (1986)
First UK Transmission: 29/01/77 - 19/02/77 (4 episodes)
Writer: Chris Boucher
Director: Michael E Briant
Regular Cast: Tom Baker (The Doctor), Louise Jameson (Leela).
Starring: Russell Hunter (Uvanov), Pamela Salem (Toos), David Collings (Poul), Miles Fothergill (SV7), Gregory de Polnay (D84).
The TARDIS arrives on a sand-miner combing an alien planet for precious ores. The mine has a robot crew and a handful of humans to watch over things. Unfortunately the robots are being reprogrammed to kill the humans, and the Doctor is under suspicion from the start.
'The Robots of Death' is a hokey title which does not do justice to the superb drama of the story. Like 'The Ark in Space' it pits a small band of humans against a strong destructive force and expects them to win out. The strength here is in the magnificent art deco design of the sets and robots, and Miles Fothergill's impersonal and murderously calm SV7 is chilling in the extreme. Gripping stuff.
Rating: *****
The Talons of Weng-Chiang (1988)
First UK Transmission: 26/02/77 - 2/04/77 (6 episodes)
Writer: Robert Holmes
Director: David Maloney
Regular Cast: Tom Baker (The Doctor), Louise Jameson (Leela).
Starring: John Bennett (Li H'sen Chang), Deep Roy (Mr Sin), Michael Spice (Weng-Chiang), Trevor Barnes (Litefoot), Christopher Benjamin (Jago).
Another of my favourite stories. This time set in Victorian London, 'The Talons of Weng-Chiang' involves the Doctor playing Sherlock Holmes to track down a war criminal from the future. Magnus Greel is draining young women of their vitality in an attempt to prevent himself from dying before he can recover his time cabinet and continue his experiments. He has taken on the persona of the Chinese god Weng-Chiang to enable him to hide behind the facade of a Chinese Tong operating in London.
This story epitomises all that the BBC does right with regards to period drama. The sets, the costumes, the acting and the script are all excellent, and with only a couple of shots of a 'man-in-suit' giant rat to lower the tone, this is yet another classic. All the cast are superb, from John Bennett's misguided oriental to Benjamin's blustering theatre owner and the overall impression is of a very rich and enjoyable story.
Rating: *****
City of Death (1991)
First UK Transmission: 29/09/79 - 20/10/79 (4 episodes)
Writer: David Agnew (pseudynom for Douglas Adams & Graham Williams)
Director: Michael Hayes
Regular Cast: Tom Baker (The Doctor), Lalla Ward (Romana).
Starring: Julian Glover (Scarlioni), Catherine Schell (Countess Scarlioni), Tom Chadbon (Duggan), David Graham (Kerensky).
A location trip to Paris makes 'City of Death' visually very interesting. The script is a complex beast involving a time-splintered alien directing the course of history to allow a splinter of himself to travel back in time and prevent the splintering happening in the first place.
There are fine performances as one would expect from Glover and Schell, and Chadbon is just right as the bumbling detective. Watch out for a cameo appearance from John Cleese and Eleanor Bron as art lovers in part four.
Rating: ***½
Logopolis (1992)
First UK Transmission: 28/02/81 - 21/03/81 (4 episodes)
Writer: Christopher H Bidmead
Director: Peter Grimwade
Regular Cast: Tom Baker (The Doctor), Sarah Sutton (Nyssa), Matthew Waterhouse (Adric), Janet Fielding (Tegan).
Starring: Anthony Ainley (The Master), John Frazer (Monitor).
The final outing for Tom Baker's Doctor, 'Logopolis' is a bit of a mixed bag. The plot concerns a plan of the newly regenerated Master to hold the universe to ransom. Apparently the universe's life has been extended by an alien races mathematical calculations holding open holes into other universes to drain off the excess entropy from ours.
Like much Doctor Who in the eighties, 'Logopolis' looks very nice, but has little meat to it. John Frazer makes an admirable attempt as the leader of a race wiped out by the Master, but he ultimately comes over as completely impotent. Ainley's Master, seen here for the first time, is not a patch on Delgado's and the Doctor's companions, Nyssa, Adric and Tegan, are a totally mis-matched trio - Adric in particular is simply dreadful.
Rating: **
Castrovalva (1992)
First UK Transmission: 4/01/82 - 12/01/82 (4 episodes)
Writer: Christopher H Bidmead
Director: Fiona Cumming
Regular Cast: Peter Davison (The Doctor), Sarah Sutton (Nyssa), Matthew Waterhouse (Adric), Janet Fielding (Tegan).
Starring: Anthony Ainley (Master), Derek Waring (Shardovan), Michael Sheard (Mergrave), Frank Wylie (Ruther).
As Tom Baker bowed out, so Peter Davison checked in. 'Castrovalva' comes from the same mould as 'Logopolis', indeed it follows on directly, and has only a slightly more comprehensible plot. The newly regenerated Doctor is lured to the fictional city of Castrovalva by the Master who has kidnapped Adric and is using his mathematical skills to create the illusory city. Once there, the Doctor only realises it is a trap just in time to escape.
What we learn from this story is that Matthew Waterhouse (Adric) really is a hopeless actor in this role, and that the new Doctor is strangely attracted to cricket and celery.
Rating: **
The Five Doctors (1985 - edited version, 1990 - full version)
First UK Transmission: 25/11/83 (1 90 minute episode)
Writer: Terrance Dicks
Director: Peter Moffatt
Regular Cast: Peter Davison (The Doctor), Janet Fielding (Tegan), Mark Strickson (Turlough).
Starring: Richard Hurndall (The Doctor), Patrick Troughton (The Doctor), Jon Pertwee (The Doctor), Philip Latham (Borusa).
Whereas 'The Three Doctors' worked as an anniversary story because it did not try to be too clever, 'The Five Doctors' is too clever by half. Dicks was asked to write a script which would encompass five Doctors, numerous returning companions (Susan, Jamie, Zoe, Liz Shaw, Yates, the Brigadier, Sarah Jane Smith and K9) plus a Dalek, the Cybermen, the Master, the Yeti and a clutch of Time Lords.
That it turned out as entertaining as it did is a miracle in itself. The production is quite fun, with familiar faces cropping up all over the place, but ultimately it is a celebration of twenty five years of Doctor Who and not a story in its own right. Perhaps only of interest to the knowledgeable fan.
Rating: ***½
The Caves of Androzani (1992)
First UK Transmission: 8/03/84 - 16/03/84 (4 episodes)
Writer: Robert Holmes
Director: Graeme Harper
Regular Cast: Peter Davison (The Doctor), Nicola Bryant (Peri).
Starring: Christopher Gable (Sharaz Jek), John Normington (Morgus), Robert Glenister (Salateen), Maurice Roëves (Stotz), Roy Holder (Krelper), Martin Cochrane (Chellack), Barbara Kinghorn (Timmin).
Davison's last story as the Doctor and Robert Holmes pulls out all the stops to make it a good one. The Doctor and Peri arrive on the planet Androzani Minor during a gun-running war. They meet up with the insane Sharaz Jek who takes a shine to young Peri and kidnaps her. The Doctor must rescue Peri and save both her and himself from the deadly illness they have contracted.
'The Caves of Androzani' is perhaps the best Davison story, featuring loads of action, violence, impressive acting (especially Gable as the tormented Jek), startling effects and a brilliant script.
It's a shame that there weren't more of this quality.
Rating: *****
The Twin Dilemma (1992)
First UK Transmission: 22/03/84 - 30/03/84 (4 episodes)
Writer: Anthony Steven
Director: Peter Moffatt
Regular Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), Nicola Bryant (Peri).
Starring: Maurice Denham (Edgeworth/Azmael), Kevin McNally (Hugo Lang), Edwin Richfield (Mestor), Paul Conrad (Romulus), Andrew Conrad (Remus), Oliver Smith (Drak).
This tape is released as a Woolworths special, changed at the last minute from the excellent Hartnell historical story 'The Aztecs' which will now be released by the BBC later in the year. Woolworths may well regret whatever circumstances prompted this change as 'The Twin Dilemma' is possibly the worst ever Doctor Who story with nothing at all in its favour.
The plot is rubbish, concerning a giant slug, Mestor, who wants to take over the galaxy by sending a planet into a sun so that his eggs will be scattered in the explosion. Colin Baker makes his debut as a totally unlikeable Doctor, prone to fits of manic depression and quoting poetry, and the cast, with possibly the exception of Denham who must have wondered why he ever agreed to appear, are uniformly dreadful. The crowning glory is the casting of twins in the roles of the pre-pubescent Romulus and Remus who cannot pronounce the letter 'r' (consider in this light their names!) and they are equally unable to act, making Adric look good by comparison.
Steer well clear of this one. Don't even be tempted because it really isn't worth it!
Rating: -* (minus one)
The Curse of Fenric 'Extended Edition' (1991)
First UK Transmission: 25/09/89 - 15/11/89 (4 episodes)
Writer: Ian Briggs
Director: Nicholas Mallett
Regular Cast: Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor), Sophie Aldred (Ace).
Starring: Dinsdale Landen (Dr Judson), Alfred Lynch (Millington), Nicholas Parsons (Rev. Wainwright).
By far the best of the more recent Doctor Who adventures, 'The Curse of Fenric' delivers on almost every count.
This tape is a special extended edition with about 6 minutes of additional material not in the original TV transmission. This helps to explain the story and adds some depth to the characters.
The Doctor arrives on an army base near the coast during the Second World War to find that his old enemy Fenric is afoot. Fenric has taken over the commander of the base and calls from the waters a race of vampire creatures called Haemovores.
Of particular note here is the Ancient Haemovore, a superb piece of state of the art animatronics. Also watch out for effects like the runes writing themselves on the crypt wall and the dissolution of the vampires. Even Nicholas Parsons is excellent as the doubtful vicar. Great stuff.
Rating: *****
Finally, a peek at the BBC's schedules for the rest of the year and on into 1993 reveals that there are more Doctor Who adventures to come. 'The Invasion' is a brilliant 1968 Troughton Cyberman story unfortunately with two of its eight episodes missing. The gaps will be filled by Nicholas Courtney (who played the Brigadier) explaining what happened. 'Shada' was a six part 1979 Tom Baker story which was never completed due to a technicians strike at the BBC. Baker will be providing a narrative to fill the gaps. 'Vengeance on Varos' was originally transmitted in the UK as two 50 minute episodes but this 1985 Colin Baker adventure will be released as a four episode version. It's good to see 1964's 'The Aztecs' appearing, one of the better historical adventures from William Hartnell's era. The Tom Baker Years, unlike the other 'Years' tapes, will have no complete episodes, instead it features Baker talking about each of his stories, prompted by short clips. There is also a Dalek Special and a Cyberman Special which will feature some of the remaining material from the sixties. Expect episodes 5 and 10 from 'The Daleks' Master Plan' (Hartnell 1965/66) and part 2 of 'The Evil of the Daleks' (Troughton 1967) presented by Peter Davison on the Dalek tape, and parts 2 and 4 of 'The Moonbase' (Troughton 1967) and 3 and 6 of 'The Wheel in Space' (Troughton 1968) presented by Colin Baker on the Cyberman tape. The tapes will also feature interview material with some of the people involved in the making of the stories. It is odd that one of the three surviving episodes from 'The Tenth Planet', the Cybermen's first appearance back in 1966 is not included.
David J Howe
1992
Out of the Toybox 2007
OUT OF THE TOYBOX
David J Howe delves into the festive toybox for a roundup of some of the goodies in the shops this Christmas.
2007 was not a good year if you were a collector of Doctor Who merchandise. A dramatic increase in the quantity and general quality of what was available meant that many had to make some hard decisions as to what to buy and what to leave on the shelves. Well over 400 individual items have been released so far this year, with no slowing down, and every aspect of merchandise has been explored, from clothes to yoghurt, toys and games to jigsaws and scooters, chairs and furniture to hot water bottle covers, lampshades, books, CDs, DVDs and magazines. It seems that every shop carries a Doctor Who range of some description, with many stores featuring their own unique variants. Here, then, are some of the items vying for your attention this Christmas …
How long have we wanted our own Dalek … one that would obey commands and which would happily exterminate younger sisters? Well this year we have our wish. The astonishing Voice Control Dalek from top toy producers Character Options, is without a doubt the most amazing and cool Doctor Who toy to date. It comes at a price though, £100, enough to make grown men weep, never mind howevermany weeks of pocket money it might take to save up. For your money you get an 18 inch tall Dalek (which actually comes in three types: a standard bronze, or a black Dalek Sec from Toys R Us, or a bronze claw arm variant from Woolworths … this is assuming you can find one at all as they are in short supply) which needs a degree in advanced origami to remove it from its box, as well as strong fingers to undo all the metal ties which hold it in place. But once out of the box and fitted with what seems like a hundredweight of batteries, the Dalek comes alive …
First off, there’s standard remote control which you can use to guide it around, moving the head and eyestalk and making it speak phrases. The movement is fast and efficient and the range seems pretty good. But then there’s the Voice Control mode which is where the fun really starts. A booklet details all the phrases and how to speak them. So when you say, ‘Dalek’, the Dalek looks at you and says, ‘Yes’. You can then order it into patrol mode, to work as a room guard, or to find and detect intruders. It can follow you, or give you information about several Doctor Who characters … you can turn its eye off (‘My vision is impaired!’) or program it with a number of movements to then enact (this feature doesn’t seem to work on mine and the stupid thing kept doing other actions instead). My inner fanboy leaped with joy as it made the distinctive Dalek ‘throb’ sound on start up, and I loved the movements and voice. There are enough phrases for the action to stay interesting, and lots to explore (even a couple of phrases which are not documented seemed to have an effect). Just make sure you have enough batteries as this is one toy that, I suspect, will be used over and over. One downside is that the environment needs to be pretty quiet for it to work, and if your Christmas is anything like mine, then ‘quiet’ is not a word I would use to describe it.
With the runaway success of Character’s Cyberman voice changer helmet last year, it was inevitable that we’d see something similar in 2007. Following the relatively boring Judoon Sound Effects Helmet, comes the Dalek Sec Voice Changer Helmet. Once you’ve clipped three of the dangling sausage-like appendages which rim the face into place, you’re all set. The £29.99 toy is a remarkable likeness, although the sounds it makes aren’t quite loud enough to drown out your own voice as you intone Dalek-like into a small and fairly rubbish microphone inside the head. The American/Dalek Sec voice comprises recordings, and are each followed by a screeching standard Dalek voice on the same push of the button. It would have been nice to have different buttons for the two. I also found the Dalek voice changing effect to be a little disappointing, not really sounding much like a Dalek at all and more like your own voice through a crackly speaker. However when worn, the overall effect is very creepy. I can see Auntie Edna having the fright of her life when confronted on the stairs in the middle of the night by little Johnny wearing this – a pint sized horror!
Another new item is Character’s Flight Control TARDIS which lights up and makes swooshy zoomy noises as you move it around. If you put it down, it makes landing noises. Pick it up and the dematerialisation sound activates, then whoosh it through the air and it makes … erm … wooshy noises. It’s in scale with Character’s small figures so is the ideal companion for them – the Doctor and Martha can even fit inside! It’s the small details like the parquet flooring inside the console room, the lights showing through the windows and the slightly weathered, battered look it has on the outside which make it special though. The price is also an excellent £14.99.
Speaking of the £6.99 small figures … wow! With every release Character seem to outdo themselves, and the detail and articulation has improved in leaps and bounds. The year started with some disappointing re-issues, which did not bode well. At least Captain Jack was teamed with a new figure of the spookily pointing stiff-legged Empty Child, and the Slitheen was re-released with the small Space Pig (even characters with about 30 seconds screen time are being released!) However the rubbish funky dancing Rose from the original Battle Packs could easily have been left on the shelf. Mickey Smith was a nice addition – only a year too late – and he arrived with a big gun so that’s good! But then came Series Three. Unfortunately arriving in the shops far too late to take full advantage of the series on television, there were eventually excellent new figures of the Doctor (in glasses) and Martha. But the monsters … oh the monsters. We had the Judoon, Dalek Thay (with damaged back panels), the Dalek Sec Hybrid, Lilith the Carrionite and Novice Hame. All wonderful little toys with additional arm articulation where needed and all great likenesses. These were later joined by Irish cat-man Brannigan, a couple of lolloping Scarecrows, the piggy Laszlo and an awesome serene Weeping Angel. Moreover, some additional figures were released from earlier seasons: old folks Dr Constantine and Mrs Connolly arrived, both having exchangeable heads: a gasmasked version and a ‘blank face’ version respectively (but this also allows Dr Constantine to cross-dress as an old lady) and Mrs C also came with a small television set showing The Wire in all her glory; the Hoix showed up (another momentary appearance on screen immortalised in plastic) without buckets of either colour; as did the fairly boring Possessed Toby and the Doctor again in a funky orange Space Suit from Sanctuary Base. The small figures really are excellent, it’s just a shame that the distribution is so poor such that you can’t actually find them in shops, and also that the Series Three figures weren’t on sale closer to transmission of the episodes.
If larger figures are more your cup of tea, then maybe the £14.99 twelve inch range appealed. There was Martha, complete with leather jacket and jeans. Novice Hame is also quite lovely, able to sit cross legged and carrying a massive gun. But a doll of a gun-toting cat-woman dressed as a nun? It’s a strange, strange world we live in. Finally, the Dalek Sec Hybrid made an appearance, impressive in his suit and with dangly bits around his head. For £39.99 you could get another 12” remote control Dalek toy as Damaged Dalek Thay arrived. By far the best, however, was the £19.99 Judoon Captain. This cataloguing creature was just made for immortalisation in plastic, and ol’ rhino-head has been perfectly captured in all his glory, complete with blaster and translator device. A wonderful model.
With Character Options stealing almost all the kudos for their new series ranges, we mustn’t forget the impressive releases from Product Enterprise, who this year brought us some glorious 12” remote control Movie Daleks. These are fully equipped with barked phrases from the sixties films, and, in a touch of genius, the remote control is shaped like their spaceship. They operate well, and come in three colours (four if you include the limited edition gold chrome one). If £49.99 for these is somewhat out of your price range, then look out for the teeny Movie Talking Daleks. Product Enterprise are onto a winner with these small three-inch high Daleks which loudly screech movie dialogue when their heads are pressed. You get three colours in a box for £29.99.
If figures, dolls and Dalek models are not your thing, then there are several games to keep everyone busy this Christmas until Kylie thrills us on the Titanic. First out of the toybox is a brilliant Dalek Operation game from Hasbro. Replacing the usual portly man figure with a Dalek, the idea of the game is to remove components from his casing with a pair of metal tweezers, making sure you don’t touch the metal edges. If you do then the Dalek will threaten all manner of calumny at you. I had forgotten (or probably never knew or realised) that Operation also involves cards and money, and these are also supplied in Dalek variants. A classic game given a wonderful Doctor Who twist for only £14.
The £25 Time Travelling Action Game is an impressive new board game from Toymasters, and it’s a masterpiece of frustration. The idea is to move your counters around a board, landing on monsters and villains based on cards you have in your hand. As you land on each so you can discard your cards … and so on until you have no cards left. Except that the board is motorised and randomised and every so often some of the characters completely change position, meaning that you have to aim for somewhere else on the board. I have a feeling that this might result in one of those eternal Christmas games which goes on into Boxing Day and maybe even New Year’s day before it finishes. It’s a beautifully designed item and the electronic board with rotating 3D TARDIS model is truly wonderful.
If all these things seem too complicated for Christmas, then how about a simple game of Uno … Dalek style! Contained in a neat Dalek-shaped box are three coloured packs of Doctor Who Uno cards. The game is the perennial classic, and this item is at a pocket money price of £8 so should be very popular indeed. It’s certainly one of my favourite items from the year, nicely designed and packaged and a game that all ages can play.
If you are still feeling peckish after a hefty Christmas dinner, and also want to play a game, then from Marks and Spencer comes the Time Travel Chocolate Game; a board and chocolate pieces to while away some time with. While from BonBon Buddies comes the nicely produced After Dinner Trivia Quiz – a knowledge game in an illustrated metal box with Trivial Pursuit-type question cards and chocolates to munch. Both items are nicely designed and put together, and both retail for about £5 each.
All this talk of toys and games … but what of the more technologically-minded? Well Wesco to the rescue with a couple of computer-based items. First off is a £19.99 TARDIS USB hub. These days you can’t move without devices requiring USB ports littering up your desk, and often the humble PC only has 4 or so slots available … well worry no longer as you can plug this USB hub into one of them and create yourself an additional four slots! The TARDIS makes its usual wheezing and groaning noise when you add and remove devices from it which can be a little disconcerting, but it’s a nice, practical item. Far more groovy is a little £24.99 Dalek Webcam. I love this item. It’s a tiny Dalek with a camera hidden in its base (with a protective cover for when not in use) with both sight and sound capability, so you can see and listen to friends online. It comes with software on CD which installed for me first time, and it even worked perfectly first time … something of a rarity in the computer world. My only complaint is that it comes with a clip to hold the Dalek to the screen, however I have yet to find a screen or indeed anywhere that the clip will attach to! Aside from this it’s a nicely designed and impressive little beastie.
SEASONAL CALENDARS
SWEETS BonBon Buddies
PRICE £1.99/£2.99 | OUT Now
Christmas wouldn’t be the same without an Advent Calendar (or Christmas Countdown Calendar). Eschewing any religious imagery or significance whatsoever, this year we have an Advent Calendar featuring a giant Cyberman head and 24 little doors to open, each hiding a chocolate square, or perhaps a special gift. At the time of writing, I have not as yet ripped open my Calendar to find out what the gifts are … that needs to wait until December, but we’re promised foil wrapped chocolate coins, little note pads, and pen-topper figures. The Christmas Countdown Calendar only contains chocolate – but 32 days of it – and features the Daleks in all their wintry glory.
CHRISTMAS SWEETS
SWEETS BonBon Buddies
PRICE Cyber-head £4.99/ tube £1.49/ tin £1.99 | OUT Now
You cannot really miss the sweet-filled Cyberman Head gracing the shelves at the local supermarket. It’s wonderfully large and yet filled with a small amount of candy … reverse transcendental engineering perhaps. The Jelly Tube is a nice idea, a themed square tube containing jelly sweets … great for munching away at. And finally, a zippered metal keepsake tin, or pencil case perhaps, which has a couple of mallow ropes in and more jelly sweets. It’s a shame that the jellies aren’t Dalek shaped but all three are lovely items, and the Cyber-head especially is a gorgeous little scale model.
CYBERMAN TOOTHBRUSH
BATHROOM Hasbro
PRICE £6.99 | OUT Now
You can just see the product manager at Hasbro pondering on how to get kids to keep their teeth clean when faced with innumerable items containing jelly sweets … a Cyberman toothbrush would be just the answer. Of course, no-one asks how Cybermen brush their teeth … badly would probably be the answer, and just how do you get oil stains off anyway? This neat little vibrating toothbrush has a Cyberman to hold it for you, and it’s a smashing item which may just get the kids deleting plaque over Christmas.
JUDOON PYJAMAS
CLOTHING Ladybird/Woolworths
PRICE £11.00 | OUT Now
Over the last year, there have been numerous pairs of Doctor Who pyjamas released, but none so nice as this Judoon pair from Woolworths. As with the majority of the store-branded clothing it’s well made, and very visually appealing. You even get a little button to press which makes the end of the Judoon’s gun-thing light up red. Really neat. No idea how you wash it though. Doctor Who clothing can usually be found in all the high street stores like M&S, BHS, Woolworths, Next, John Lewis and Mothercare, so it’s easy to get the kids togged up to the nines for bedtime as wannabe Daleks, Cybermen and Judoon.
‘BLINK’ BATTLES IN TIME CARD
TOYS G E Fabbri Ltd
PRICE £1.50 per pack of 9 cards | OUT Now
How do you review a collectible card game? With great difficulty. And the Battles in Time game is one of the most frustrating to collect as the manufacturers have gone out of their way to make getting a complete set as hard as possible. Not only are the packs containing rare cards near-impossible to discern before opening them, but the distribution is dreadful, with many boxes containing numerous duplicate packs, and the chances of anyone getting a set by buying the packs alone is out of the question. One of the cards in the new ‘Invader’ set is genius though. ‘Blink’ is an awesome lenticular image of a Weeping Angel … serene in one position, and then attacking in the other. A work of sheer inspiration.
DALEK HOODED TOP
CLOTHING Next
PRICE £16.00 | OUT Now
Sometimes a piece of clothing comes along which is so well put together that you want to shout about it from the rooftops. This black fabric hooded top from Next is among the best of the items released this year. It’s really well made, with a sturdy zipper up the front. The front depicts a Dalek against a background of symbols and Dalek-type circuitry. The back features the word ‘Exterminate’ across the bottom. It’s just wonderful. Alongside some of the clothing from Marks and Spencer and British Home Stores, Next have really done fans proud with their support for the show and the items they have released tieing into it.
TARDIS ICE BUCKET & ICE CUBE TRAY
GADGETS Wesco
PRICE £17.99/£4.99 | OUT Now
This is a great idea, but sadly fails in execution. The ice cube tray allows you to make ice cubes shaped like Daleks, K9s, TARDISes, Cyberman heads and Who logos … and the bucket is to put them in. Or would be if it wasn’t so small. I suspect that the folks at Wesco have very small dinner parties as it would be hard to fit enough ice in this TARDIS to supply three glasses! And it’s certainly not big enough to pop a bottle of wine in to chill. £17.99 is overpriced for this item. Of course, the ice cube tray can be used to make Who themed chocolate shapes instead … possibly a better use than the one intended.
David J Howe delves into the festive toybox for a roundup of some of the goodies in the shops this Christmas.
2007 was not a good year if you were a collector of Doctor Who merchandise. A dramatic increase in the quantity and general quality of what was available meant that many had to make some hard decisions as to what to buy and what to leave on the shelves. Well over 400 individual items have been released so far this year, with no slowing down, and every aspect of merchandise has been explored, from clothes to yoghurt, toys and games to jigsaws and scooters, chairs and furniture to hot water bottle covers, lampshades, books, CDs, DVDs and magazines. It seems that every shop carries a Doctor Who range of some description, with many stores featuring their own unique variants. Here, then, are some of the items vying for your attention this Christmas …
How long have we wanted our own Dalek … one that would obey commands and which would happily exterminate younger sisters? Well this year we have our wish. The astonishing Voice Control Dalek from top toy producers Character Options, is without a doubt the most amazing and cool Doctor Who toy to date. It comes at a price though, £100, enough to make grown men weep, never mind howevermany weeks of pocket money it might take to save up. For your money you get an 18 inch tall Dalek (which actually comes in three types: a standard bronze, or a black Dalek Sec from Toys R Us, or a bronze claw arm variant from Woolworths … this is assuming you can find one at all as they are in short supply) which needs a degree in advanced origami to remove it from its box, as well as strong fingers to undo all the metal ties which hold it in place. But once out of the box and fitted with what seems like a hundredweight of batteries, the Dalek comes alive …
First off, there’s standard remote control which you can use to guide it around, moving the head and eyestalk and making it speak phrases. The movement is fast and efficient and the range seems pretty good. But then there’s the Voice Control mode which is where the fun really starts. A booklet details all the phrases and how to speak them. So when you say, ‘Dalek’, the Dalek looks at you and says, ‘Yes’. You can then order it into patrol mode, to work as a room guard, or to find and detect intruders. It can follow you, or give you information about several Doctor Who characters … you can turn its eye off (‘My vision is impaired!’) or program it with a number of movements to then enact (this feature doesn’t seem to work on mine and the stupid thing kept doing other actions instead). My inner fanboy leaped with joy as it made the distinctive Dalek ‘throb’ sound on start up, and I loved the movements and voice. There are enough phrases for the action to stay interesting, and lots to explore (even a couple of phrases which are not documented seemed to have an effect). Just make sure you have enough batteries as this is one toy that, I suspect, will be used over and over. One downside is that the environment needs to be pretty quiet for it to work, and if your Christmas is anything like mine, then ‘quiet’ is not a word I would use to describe it.
With the runaway success of Character’s Cyberman voice changer helmet last year, it was inevitable that we’d see something similar in 2007. Following the relatively boring Judoon Sound Effects Helmet, comes the Dalek Sec Voice Changer Helmet. Once you’ve clipped three of the dangling sausage-like appendages which rim the face into place, you’re all set. The £29.99 toy is a remarkable likeness, although the sounds it makes aren’t quite loud enough to drown out your own voice as you intone Dalek-like into a small and fairly rubbish microphone inside the head. The American/Dalek Sec voice comprises recordings, and are each followed by a screeching standard Dalek voice on the same push of the button. It would have been nice to have different buttons for the two. I also found the Dalek voice changing effect to be a little disappointing, not really sounding much like a Dalek at all and more like your own voice through a crackly speaker. However when worn, the overall effect is very creepy. I can see Auntie Edna having the fright of her life when confronted on the stairs in the middle of the night by little Johnny wearing this – a pint sized horror!
Another new item is Character’s Flight Control TARDIS which lights up and makes swooshy zoomy noises as you move it around. If you put it down, it makes landing noises. Pick it up and the dematerialisation sound activates, then whoosh it through the air and it makes … erm … wooshy noises. It’s in scale with Character’s small figures so is the ideal companion for them – the Doctor and Martha can even fit inside! It’s the small details like the parquet flooring inside the console room, the lights showing through the windows and the slightly weathered, battered look it has on the outside which make it special though. The price is also an excellent £14.99.
Speaking of the £6.99 small figures … wow! With every release Character seem to outdo themselves, and the detail and articulation has improved in leaps and bounds. The year started with some disappointing re-issues, which did not bode well. At least Captain Jack was teamed with a new figure of the spookily pointing stiff-legged Empty Child, and the Slitheen was re-released with the small Space Pig (even characters with about 30 seconds screen time are being released!) However the rubbish funky dancing Rose from the original Battle Packs could easily have been left on the shelf. Mickey Smith was a nice addition – only a year too late – and he arrived with a big gun so that’s good! But then came Series Three. Unfortunately arriving in the shops far too late to take full advantage of the series on television, there were eventually excellent new figures of the Doctor (in glasses) and Martha. But the monsters … oh the monsters. We had the Judoon, Dalek Thay (with damaged back panels), the Dalek Sec Hybrid, Lilith the Carrionite and Novice Hame. All wonderful little toys with additional arm articulation where needed and all great likenesses. These were later joined by Irish cat-man Brannigan, a couple of lolloping Scarecrows, the piggy Laszlo and an awesome serene Weeping Angel. Moreover, some additional figures were released from earlier seasons: old folks Dr Constantine and Mrs Connolly arrived, both having exchangeable heads: a gasmasked version and a ‘blank face’ version respectively (but this also allows Dr Constantine to cross-dress as an old lady) and Mrs C also came with a small television set showing The Wire in all her glory; the Hoix showed up (another momentary appearance on screen immortalised in plastic) without buckets of either colour; as did the fairly boring Possessed Toby and the Doctor again in a funky orange Space Suit from Sanctuary Base. The small figures really are excellent, it’s just a shame that the distribution is so poor such that you can’t actually find them in shops, and also that the Series Three figures weren’t on sale closer to transmission of the episodes.
If larger figures are more your cup of tea, then maybe the £14.99 twelve inch range appealed. There was Martha, complete with leather jacket and jeans. Novice Hame is also quite lovely, able to sit cross legged and carrying a massive gun. But a doll of a gun-toting cat-woman dressed as a nun? It’s a strange, strange world we live in. Finally, the Dalek Sec Hybrid made an appearance, impressive in his suit and with dangly bits around his head. For £39.99 you could get another 12” remote control Dalek toy as Damaged Dalek Thay arrived. By far the best, however, was the £19.99 Judoon Captain. This cataloguing creature was just made for immortalisation in plastic, and ol’ rhino-head has been perfectly captured in all his glory, complete with blaster and translator device. A wonderful model.
With Character Options stealing almost all the kudos for their new series ranges, we mustn’t forget the impressive releases from Product Enterprise, who this year brought us some glorious 12” remote control Movie Daleks. These are fully equipped with barked phrases from the sixties films, and, in a touch of genius, the remote control is shaped like their spaceship. They operate well, and come in three colours (four if you include the limited edition gold chrome one). If £49.99 for these is somewhat out of your price range, then look out for the teeny Movie Talking Daleks. Product Enterprise are onto a winner with these small three-inch high Daleks which loudly screech movie dialogue when their heads are pressed. You get three colours in a box for £29.99.
If figures, dolls and Dalek models are not your thing, then there are several games to keep everyone busy this Christmas until Kylie thrills us on the Titanic. First out of the toybox is a brilliant Dalek Operation game from Hasbro. Replacing the usual portly man figure with a Dalek, the idea of the game is to remove components from his casing with a pair of metal tweezers, making sure you don’t touch the metal edges. If you do then the Dalek will threaten all manner of calumny at you. I had forgotten (or probably never knew or realised) that Operation also involves cards and money, and these are also supplied in Dalek variants. A classic game given a wonderful Doctor Who twist for only £14.
The £25 Time Travelling Action Game is an impressive new board game from Toymasters, and it’s a masterpiece of frustration. The idea is to move your counters around a board, landing on monsters and villains based on cards you have in your hand. As you land on each so you can discard your cards … and so on until you have no cards left. Except that the board is motorised and randomised and every so often some of the characters completely change position, meaning that you have to aim for somewhere else on the board. I have a feeling that this might result in one of those eternal Christmas games which goes on into Boxing Day and maybe even New Year’s day before it finishes. It’s a beautifully designed item and the electronic board with rotating 3D TARDIS model is truly wonderful.
If all these things seem too complicated for Christmas, then how about a simple game of Uno … Dalek style! Contained in a neat Dalek-shaped box are three coloured packs of Doctor Who Uno cards. The game is the perennial classic, and this item is at a pocket money price of £8 so should be very popular indeed. It’s certainly one of my favourite items from the year, nicely designed and packaged and a game that all ages can play.
If you are still feeling peckish after a hefty Christmas dinner, and also want to play a game, then from Marks and Spencer comes the Time Travel Chocolate Game; a board and chocolate pieces to while away some time with. While from BonBon Buddies comes the nicely produced After Dinner Trivia Quiz – a knowledge game in an illustrated metal box with Trivial Pursuit-type question cards and chocolates to munch. Both items are nicely designed and put together, and both retail for about £5 each.
All this talk of toys and games … but what of the more technologically-minded? Well Wesco to the rescue with a couple of computer-based items. First off is a £19.99 TARDIS USB hub. These days you can’t move without devices requiring USB ports littering up your desk, and often the humble PC only has 4 or so slots available … well worry no longer as you can plug this USB hub into one of them and create yourself an additional four slots! The TARDIS makes its usual wheezing and groaning noise when you add and remove devices from it which can be a little disconcerting, but it’s a nice, practical item. Far more groovy is a little £24.99 Dalek Webcam. I love this item. It’s a tiny Dalek with a camera hidden in its base (with a protective cover for when not in use) with both sight and sound capability, so you can see and listen to friends online. It comes with software on CD which installed for me first time, and it even worked perfectly first time … something of a rarity in the computer world. My only complaint is that it comes with a clip to hold the Dalek to the screen, however I have yet to find a screen or indeed anywhere that the clip will attach to! Aside from this it’s a nicely designed and impressive little beastie.
SEASONAL CALENDARS
SWEETS BonBon Buddies
PRICE £1.99/£2.99 | OUT Now
Christmas wouldn’t be the same without an Advent Calendar (or Christmas Countdown Calendar). Eschewing any religious imagery or significance whatsoever, this year we have an Advent Calendar featuring a giant Cyberman head and 24 little doors to open, each hiding a chocolate square, or perhaps a special gift. At the time of writing, I have not as yet ripped open my Calendar to find out what the gifts are … that needs to wait until December, but we’re promised foil wrapped chocolate coins, little note pads, and pen-topper figures. The Christmas Countdown Calendar only contains chocolate – but 32 days of it – and features the Daleks in all their wintry glory.
CHRISTMAS SWEETS
SWEETS BonBon Buddies
PRICE Cyber-head £4.99/ tube £1.49/ tin £1.99 | OUT Now
You cannot really miss the sweet-filled Cyberman Head gracing the shelves at the local supermarket. It’s wonderfully large and yet filled with a small amount of candy … reverse transcendental engineering perhaps. The Jelly Tube is a nice idea, a themed square tube containing jelly sweets … great for munching away at. And finally, a zippered metal keepsake tin, or pencil case perhaps, which has a couple of mallow ropes in and more jelly sweets. It’s a shame that the jellies aren’t Dalek shaped but all three are lovely items, and the Cyber-head especially is a gorgeous little scale model.
CYBERMAN TOOTHBRUSH
BATHROOM Hasbro
PRICE £6.99 | OUT Now
You can just see the product manager at Hasbro pondering on how to get kids to keep their teeth clean when faced with innumerable items containing jelly sweets … a Cyberman toothbrush would be just the answer. Of course, no-one asks how Cybermen brush their teeth … badly would probably be the answer, and just how do you get oil stains off anyway? This neat little vibrating toothbrush has a Cyberman to hold it for you, and it’s a smashing item which may just get the kids deleting plaque over Christmas.
JUDOON PYJAMAS
CLOTHING Ladybird/Woolworths
PRICE £11.00 | OUT Now
Over the last year, there have been numerous pairs of Doctor Who pyjamas released, but none so nice as this Judoon pair from Woolworths. As with the majority of the store-branded clothing it’s well made, and very visually appealing. You even get a little button to press which makes the end of the Judoon’s gun-thing light up red. Really neat. No idea how you wash it though. Doctor Who clothing can usually be found in all the high street stores like M&S, BHS, Woolworths, Next, John Lewis and Mothercare, so it’s easy to get the kids togged up to the nines for bedtime as wannabe Daleks, Cybermen and Judoon.
‘BLINK’ BATTLES IN TIME CARD
TOYS G E Fabbri Ltd
PRICE £1.50 per pack of 9 cards | OUT Now
How do you review a collectible card game? With great difficulty. And the Battles in Time game is one of the most frustrating to collect as the manufacturers have gone out of their way to make getting a complete set as hard as possible. Not only are the packs containing rare cards near-impossible to discern before opening them, but the distribution is dreadful, with many boxes containing numerous duplicate packs, and the chances of anyone getting a set by buying the packs alone is out of the question. One of the cards in the new ‘Invader’ set is genius though. ‘Blink’ is an awesome lenticular image of a Weeping Angel … serene in one position, and then attacking in the other. A work of sheer inspiration.
DALEK HOODED TOP
CLOTHING Next
PRICE £16.00 | OUT Now
Sometimes a piece of clothing comes along which is so well put together that you want to shout about it from the rooftops. This black fabric hooded top from Next is among the best of the items released this year. It’s really well made, with a sturdy zipper up the front. The front depicts a Dalek against a background of symbols and Dalek-type circuitry. The back features the word ‘Exterminate’ across the bottom. It’s just wonderful. Alongside some of the clothing from Marks and Spencer and British Home Stores, Next have really done fans proud with their support for the show and the items they have released tieing into it.
TARDIS ICE BUCKET & ICE CUBE TRAY
GADGETS Wesco
PRICE £17.99/£4.99 | OUT Now
This is a great idea, but sadly fails in execution. The ice cube tray allows you to make ice cubes shaped like Daleks, K9s, TARDISes, Cyberman heads and Who logos … and the bucket is to put them in. Or would be if it wasn’t so small. I suspect that the folks at Wesco have very small dinner parties as it would be hard to fit enough ice in this TARDIS to supply three glasses! And it’s certainly not big enough to pop a bottle of wine in to chill. £17.99 is overpriced for this item. Of course, the ice cube tray can be used to make Who themed chocolate shapes instead … possibly a better use than the one intended.
Sunday, 12 May 2013
The Doctors: Thirty Years Of Time Travel And Beyond
THE DOCTORS: THIRTY YEARS OF TIME TRAVEL AND BEYOND
Adrian Rigelsford’s book The Doctors: Thirty Years of Time Travel was easily one of the worst books ever to be released on the subject of Doctor Who. Sloppily researched and containing numerous factual errors as well as much material of unconfirmed origin, if ever there was a book not to use as the basis for a video, then this was it. Unfortunately Rigelsford’s agent also happens to be involved in a video company …
The video version of Rigelsford’s book is a poorly constructed affair which completely fails to effectively cover the history of Doctor Who by speaking to a mere 23 people. Of these, the inclusion of some is a complete mystery (Brian Blessed, Don Henderson (who says nothing), Sally Faulkner (who can’t remember anything), Pip and Jane Baker, Kevin Davies (who is credited as ‘The Dark Dimension’ but no explanation is forthcoming as to what his involvement was or who he is)), some have nothing of interest to say having covered it all previously for their Reeltime Pictures’ Myth Makers interviews (Wendy Padbury, Caroline John, Louise Jameson) and some simply retread old ground.
The camerawork for all the interviews is simply dreadful, with much shaking and juddering and microphones intruding at every opportunity. The direction too is pedestrian with little or no attempt made to make the locations and interviewees interesting to watch. There are occasional questions and comments fired off-camera from persons unknown and the apparent absence of anyone on the production who actually knows anything about Doctor Who results in valuable time spent by the interviewees pondering on whether memories and events are true or not and in which adventure they occurred. The locations seem ill-chosen and at least two of them (a wood apparently from 'Mawdryn Undead' and a wood from 'Mark of the Rani') appear identical so what was the point? There are also numerous background noises while the subjects are speaking (including cars, planes and clinking cutlery) and the whole effect is of a hastily and cheaply put together amateur effort.
There are numerous photographs from Doctor Who included on the tape, most of them very poorly reproduced and, despite the fact that this is an unlicensed product, some of BBC origin (some are shown back to front as well). It is nice to see some of the home movie-footage from 'The Smugglers', 'The Abominable Snowmen' and 'The Dæmons' but these very short sequences have captions running over them and do not really make up for the sheer awfulness of this naff product.
If you want to see interviews with the stars of Doctor Who then any of Reeltime Pictures’ Myth Makers series of video interviews (and there are over 30 individual titles to choose from) are better made, better presented and more interesting than this shoddy piece of rip-off merchandise. Don’t waste your money on it.
David J Howe
1995
Adrian Rigelsford’s book The Doctors: Thirty Years of Time Travel was easily one of the worst books ever to be released on the subject of Doctor Who. Sloppily researched and containing numerous factual errors as well as much material of unconfirmed origin, if ever there was a book not to use as the basis for a video, then this was it. Unfortunately Rigelsford’s agent also happens to be involved in a video company …
The video version of Rigelsford’s book is a poorly constructed affair which completely fails to effectively cover the history of Doctor Who by speaking to a mere 23 people. Of these, the inclusion of some is a complete mystery (Brian Blessed, Don Henderson (who says nothing), Sally Faulkner (who can’t remember anything), Pip and Jane Baker, Kevin Davies (who is credited as ‘The Dark Dimension’ but no explanation is forthcoming as to what his involvement was or who he is)), some have nothing of interest to say having covered it all previously for their Reeltime Pictures’ Myth Makers interviews (Wendy Padbury, Caroline John, Louise Jameson) and some simply retread old ground.
The camerawork for all the interviews is simply dreadful, with much shaking and juddering and microphones intruding at every opportunity. The direction too is pedestrian with little or no attempt made to make the locations and interviewees interesting to watch. There are occasional questions and comments fired off-camera from persons unknown and the apparent absence of anyone on the production who actually knows anything about Doctor Who results in valuable time spent by the interviewees pondering on whether memories and events are true or not and in which adventure they occurred. The locations seem ill-chosen and at least two of them (a wood apparently from 'Mawdryn Undead' and a wood from 'Mark of the Rani') appear identical so what was the point? There are also numerous background noises while the subjects are speaking (including cars, planes and clinking cutlery) and the whole effect is of a hastily and cheaply put together amateur effort.
There are numerous photographs from Doctor Who included on the tape, most of them very poorly reproduced and, despite the fact that this is an unlicensed product, some of BBC origin (some are shown back to front as well). It is nice to see some of the home movie-footage from 'The Smugglers', 'The Abominable Snowmen' and 'The Dæmons' but these very short sequences have captions running over them and do not really make up for the sheer awfulness of this naff product.
If you want to see interviews with the stars of Doctor Who then any of Reeltime Pictures’ Myth Makers series of video interviews (and there are over 30 individual titles to choose from) are better made, better presented and more interesting than this shoddy piece of rip-off merchandise. Don’t waste your money on it.
David J Howe
1995
Doctor Who Poster Book / Doctor Who Postcard Book
THE DOCTOR WHO POSTER BOOK
THE DOCTOR WHO POSTCARD BOOK
REVIEW
Before I launch into this review, a declaration of interest is perhaps required. I am the author and co-author of numerous factual Doctor Who books published by Virgin Publishing and I used to run the DWAS’ own Reference Department. Now, on with the review.
It is astonishing that in the space of two pages of introduction, author and compiler of the Doctor Who Poster Book Adrian Rigelsford can make over 20 factual errors and spelling mistakes. These range from the obvious: Doctor Who’s first episode did not start at 5:25, it started at 5:16, to the obscure: Rigelsford seems to believe that each incarnation of the Doctor is a different person when they are all in fact the same person, to the careless: the spellings of Menoptra, and Sensorites are incorrect.
There is also a brief Time-Line which contains numerous basic errors: the location filming in Lanzarote ('Planet of Fire'), Amsterdam ('Arc of Infinity') and Seville ('The Two Doctors') all took place the year before the respective stories were transmitted, and Davison first appeared as the fifth Doctor in 1981 (if you count the end of 'Logopolis') or in 1982 (if you don’t), but certainly not in 1980.
But perhaps this book is not about the words, but the pictures, and they are all very nice - despite the fact that one is back to front (the Doctor and Romana from 'The Pirate Planet') and that it has words in the background making this obvious. There are also several errors in the captioning ranging from stating that Mary Tamm played the second incarnation of Romana when she played the first, to an incorrect year for the transmission of 'Revenge of the Cybermen' (it was 1975 and not 1974). It is a shame that the book is marred by these easily correctable mistakes.
Overall this is an interesting selection of 30 photographs but that is all it is. At only 64 pages and 30 images it is hideously overpriced at £9.99. Considering that Virgin’s books have in the past managed to include between 400 and 700 images for the same price and with twice as many pages, as a collection of pictures it leaves much to be desired.
The Doctor Who Postcard Book is slightly better. With 21 postcards for £5.99 (about 29 pence each) this represents far better value than the Slow Dazzle Postcards which retail at 50 pence each (or £15 for all 32). The quality of reproduction is very good but this time three of the pictures are back to front (The Brigadier from 'The Mind of Evil', the group shot from 'The Two Doctors' and the Doctor with Glitz under a rock from 'Dragonfire'). There are far fewer errors in the texts but Rigelsford perpetuates the myth that Doctor Who was originally only to run for 13 weeks, and some of his sentence construction is torturous to say the least.
Of the two releases, I prefer the Postcard Book. The pictures are all nice, if haphazardly chosen and biased towards the last five Doctors. There are no Hartnell pictures here at all, and only one from a Troughton adventure.
In summary, these items are mildly diverting but by no means essential additions to the vast range of Doctor Who merchandise.
David J. Howe
1995
THE DOCTOR WHO POSTCARD BOOK
REVIEW
Before I launch into this review, a declaration of interest is perhaps required. I am the author and co-author of numerous factual Doctor Who books published by Virgin Publishing and I used to run the DWAS’ own Reference Department. Now, on with the review.
It is astonishing that in the space of two pages of introduction, author and compiler of the Doctor Who Poster Book Adrian Rigelsford can make over 20 factual errors and spelling mistakes. These range from the obvious: Doctor Who’s first episode did not start at 5:25, it started at 5:16, to the obscure: Rigelsford seems to believe that each incarnation of the Doctor is a different person when they are all in fact the same person, to the careless: the spellings of Menoptra, and Sensorites are incorrect.
There is also a brief Time-Line which contains numerous basic errors: the location filming in Lanzarote ('Planet of Fire'), Amsterdam ('Arc of Infinity') and Seville ('The Two Doctors') all took place the year before the respective stories were transmitted, and Davison first appeared as the fifth Doctor in 1981 (if you count the end of 'Logopolis') or in 1982 (if you don’t), but certainly not in 1980.
But perhaps this book is not about the words, but the pictures, and they are all very nice - despite the fact that one is back to front (the Doctor and Romana from 'The Pirate Planet') and that it has words in the background making this obvious. There are also several errors in the captioning ranging from stating that Mary Tamm played the second incarnation of Romana when she played the first, to an incorrect year for the transmission of 'Revenge of the Cybermen' (it was 1975 and not 1974). It is a shame that the book is marred by these easily correctable mistakes.
Overall this is an interesting selection of 30 photographs but that is all it is. At only 64 pages and 30 images it is hideously overpriced at £9.99. Considering that Virgin’s books have in the past managed to include between 400 and 700 images for the same price and with twice as many pages, as a collection of pictures it leaves much to be desired.
The Doctor Who Postcard Book is slightly better. With 21 postcards for £5.99 (about 29 pence each) this represents far better value than the Slow Dazzle Postcards which retail at 50 pence each (or £15 for all 32). The quality of reproduction is very good but this time three of the pictures are back to front (The Brigadier from 'The Mind of Evil', the group shot from 'The Two Doctors' and the Doctor with Glitz under a rock from 'Dragonfire'). There are far fewer errors in the texts but Rigelsford perpetuates the myth that Doctor Who was originally only to run for 13 weeks, and some of his sentence construction is torturous to say the least.
Of the two releases, I prefer the Postcard Book. The pictures are all nice, if haphazardly chosen and biased towards the last five Doctors. There are no Hartnell pictures here at all, and only one from a Troughton adventure.
In summary, these items are mildly diverting but by no means essential additions to the vast range of Doctor Who merchandise.
David J. Howe
1995
Dalek Salt and Pepper Pots
THE DALEK SALT AND PEPPER POTS
In this age of ever more expensive ‘collectors’ merchandise items, the latest piece to become available is a twin set of salt and pepper pots in the shape of Daleks. The hype does not stop there, however, as these particular salt and pepper pots are made from fine pewter and have been polished until they shine. These pieces look wonderful. For the most part they are quite accurate, although the plunger arm and exterminator are foreshortened, and the combination of shining, polished edges, and matt black combine to give an impressive and appealing visual effect.
They are also four inches high, hollow, and have a plastic bung in the base. Despite the fact that they are very attractive and well made, the £80 price tag will be enough to put most people off. I would have placed them at around the £40 mark myself.
What more is there to say about them. Well, they come packaged in an attractive cardboard box with a ‘how to look after’ leaflet which provides the advice that salt should be mixed with rice, and that they should not be cleaned with abrasives.
David J Howe
1994
In this age of ever more expensive ‘collectors’ merchandise items, the latest piece to become available is a twin set of salt and pepper pots in the shape of Daleks. The hype does not stop there, however, as these particular salt and pepper pots are made from fine pewter and have been polished until they shine. These pieces look wonderful. For the most part they are quite accurate, although the plunger arm and exterminator are foreshortened, and the combination of shining, polished edges, and matt black combine to give an impressive and appealing visual effect.
They are also four inches high, hollow, and have a plastic bung in the base. Despite the fact that they are very attractive and well made, the £80 price tag will be enough to put most people off. I would have placed them at around the £40 mark myself.
What more is there to say about them. Well, they come packaged in an attractive cardboard box with a ‘how to look after’ leaflet which provides the advice that salt should be mixed with rice, and that they should not be cleaned with abrasives.
David J Howe
1994
Saturday, 11 May 2013
Tardis Tea
TARDIS TEA!
Well ... not exactly. Like the Dinky police box of the fifties, the ceramic London police box models of the seventies and the railway modellers' police boxes of the eighties, this product is not a TARDIS at all, but a reproduction of one of London's late lamented landmarks.
Produced by Disi Lisi Ceramics, the teapot is the latest in their 'London' series of novelty pots. It joins the red and silver 'Routemaster Bus' and the red 'Telephone Box' teapots which have been in production for some time and which have been very popular.
The 'Police Box' teapot has been designed by Jonathan Brookes, one of the half-dozen or so English sculptor/potters who are the current global vanguard of ceramic novelty teapot designers. The design is based on original drawings made available to Disi Lisi by the Metropolitan Police Museum and it has been painted an authentic dark blue lustre with silver windows and top-lamp.
The 'Police Box' has a capacity of about 5 cups (depending on cup-size, of course!) and is available from Disi Lisi Ceramics for £39.50, which includes postage and packing.
David J Howe
1993
Well ... not exactly. Like the Dinky police box of the fifties, the ceramic London police box models of the seventies and the railway modellers' police boxes of the eighties, this product is not a TARDIS at all, but a reproduction of one of London's late lamented landmarks.
Produced by Disi Lisi Ceramics, the teapot is the latest in their 'London' series of novelty pots. It joins the red and silver 'Routemaster Bus' and the red 'Telephone Box' teapots which have been in production for some time and which have been very popular.
The 'Police Box' teapot has been designed by Jonathan Brookes, one of the half-dozen or so English sculptor/potters who are the current global vanguard of ceramic novelty teapot designers. The design is based on original drawings made available to Disi Lisi by the Metropolitan Police Museum and it has been painted an authentic dark blue lustre with silver windows and top-lamp.
The 'Police Box' has a capacity of about 5 cups (depending on cup-size, of course!) and is available from Disi Lisi Ceramics for £39.50, which includes postage and packing.
David J Howe
1993
Doctor Who Script Books
DOCTOR WHO SCRIPT BOOKS
The Masters of Luxor
The Daemons
It is nice to see the Doctor Who script books back again after a long absence, and especially good to see that editor John McElroy is not restricting the range to stories which have been televised.
The Masters of Luxor is a particularly worthy story to choose, simply because not every nuance is known about it. It was written by Anthony Coburn back in 1963, after his first story, '100,000 BC', had been accepted. After completing the six scripts which comprised The Masters of Luxor it was dropped by Verity Lambert and David Whitaker in favour of a different script by Terry Nation, entitled 'The Mutants' (aka 'The Daleks'). The rest, as they say, is history.
The Masters of Luxor is very good. All four of the regular characters are well represented, and the story, whilst reminiscent of Nation's, has many differences. The TARDIS is drawn to a planet where it is immobilised by its power being drained by a seemingly deserted city. The travellers enter the city to find immobile robots which they activate to find out what has been happening. The robots are ruled by the 'Perfect One', a more advanced and more humanoid robot which intends to drain the life from Susan and Barbara to give itself total power. The Doctor and Ian escape from the city and find a survivor from the race which built the robots. This turns out to be the man who built the Perfect One in the first place, and with his help they rescue Susan and Barbara and escape from the city before a bomb linked with the Perfect One's mind explodes, destroying everything.
There are no technical notes appended, presumably because John did not see the point as the story was not made, but he does explain how and why he has altered the script from the original. This is still the one aspect of these books which makes them useless as a true source of reference. In the case of The Masters of Luxor, it is not possible to re-write all the stage notes and dialogue as there is no visual programme to match it to, but in the other books, the dialogue and descriptions are true to what was seen on television and not to what was in the original scripts. When we can go out a buy a video of, say, 'The Daleks' or 'The Talons of Weng-Chiang', there seems little point in releasing a book which reproduces, to the letter, what we can see on screen.
The Daemons therefore is a good reproduction of the televised adventure, even down to the backwards 'Mary had a little lamb' incantation to summon Azal.
The technical notes, this time provided by Stephen James Walker, are interesting, giving an overall background to the story, from its origins as a rehearsal piece used for auditioning for a replacement for Liz Shaw to its final recording and transmission.
Both the covers on these new books are by Alister Pearson, and while The Masters of Luxor is slightly disappointing with a peculiar choice of colours, The Daemons is truly magnificent.
David J Howe
1992
The Masters of Luxor
The Daemons
It is nice to see the Doctor Who script books back again after a long absence, and especially good to see that editor John McElroy is not restricting the range to stories which have been televised.
The Masters of Luxor is a particularly worthy story to choose, simply because not every nuance is known about it. It was written by Anthony Coburn back in 1963, after his first story, '100,000 BC', had been accepted. After completing the six scripts which comprised The Masters of Luxor it was dropped by Verity Lambert and David Whitaker in favour of a different script by Terry Nation, entitled 'The Mutants' (aka 'The Daleks'). The rest, as they say, is history.
The Masters of Luxor is very good. All four of the regular characters are well represented, and the story, whilst reminiscent of Nation's, has many differences. The TARDIS is drawn to a planet where it is immobilised by its power being drained by a seemingly deserted city. The travellers enter the city to find immobile robots which they activate to find out what has been happening. The robots are ruled by the 'Perfect One', a more advanced and more humanoid robot which intends to drain the life from Susan and Barbara to give itself total power. The Doctor and Ian escape from the city and find a survivor from the race which built the robots. This turns out to be the man who built the Perfect One in the first place, and with his help they rescue Susan and Barbara and escape from the city before a bomb linked with the Perfect One's mind explodes, destroying everything.
There are no technical notes appended, presumably because John did not see the point as the story was not made, but he does explain how and why he has altered the script from the original. This is still the one aspect of these books which makes them useless as a true source of reference. In the case of The Masters of Luxor, it is not possible to re-write all the stage notes and dialogue as there is no visual programme to match it to, but in the other books, the dialogue and descriptions are true to what was seen on television and not to what was in the original scripts. When we can go out a buy a video of, say, 'The Daleks' or 'The Talons of Weng-Chiang', there seems little point in releasing a book which reproduces, to the letter, what we can see on screen.
The Daemons therefore is a good reproduction of the televised adventure, even down to the backwards 'Mary had a little lamb' incantation to summon Azal.
The technical notes, this time provided by Stephen James Walker, are interesting, giving an overall background to the story, from its origins as a rehearsal piece used for auditioning for a replacement for Liz Shaw to its final recording and transmission.
Both the covers on these new books are by Alister Pearson, and while The Masters of Luxor is slightly disappointing with a peculiar choice of colours, The Daemons is truly magnificent.
David J Howe
1992
Thursday, 9 May 2013
Transdimensional Texts
TRANSDIMENSIONAL TEXTS
The Doctor, the TARDIS, Time Lords, the Master, Cybermen, Daleks … of course we’re talking about television’s most popular science fiction adventure show Doctor Who. The series premiered on BBC television back in November 1963 and ran for 155 stories and twenty six years before being cancelled in 1989. Since then there has been only one serious attempt to revive the show, when the BBC co-funded a 1996 production with Universal in America. This television movie starred Paul McGann as the Doctor and found an unprecidented UK audience of around 9.2 million viewers. Since then, however, the Doctor has been back in limbo, with only the occasional mention in the media to remind everyone that he was still around.
Although Paul McGann played the official eighth Doctor, the latest outing for the show introduced a series of possible future Doctors in the earthly forms of Rowan Atkinson, Hugh Grant, Jim Broadbent and Joanna Lumley. This was during a four part Doctor Who spoof made for the 1999 Comic Relief evening of fundraising.
Although Doctor Who may not be on terrestrial television any more – repeats can often be found on the satellite channels – his adventures have been kept alive through a series of popular and well received original novels, originally published by Virgin Publishing, and, since 1997, by the BBC themselves.
The first book to be released to tie in with the show was back in June 1964, when Souvenir Press published the first of a number of hardback special books celebrating the Doctor’s greatest enemies, the Daleks. Since then there have been numerous novelisations published of the television adventures, script books, model making and activity books, children’s story books, filofax insert books and anthologies.
The original novels were started by Virgin in 1991 following the series’ cancellation on television. ‘The New Adventures’, as the range was called, featured the seventh Doctor along with his companion Ace, and the books were serious and adult in both intent and execution. No flimsy plots here, but real novel-length adventures full of excitement, action, pain, love and loss. From a bimonthly schedule the books swiftly moved to monthly publication. Between 1991 and 1997, Virgin kept the Doctor alive in over sixty original novels and his seventh incarnation enjoyed more of these licensed adventures in print than he ever did on screen. Realising the success of the format, Virgin started publishing original novels featuring earlier Doctors in 1994 and these too enjoyed enormous popularity.
In 1996, during the lead-up to the Paul McGann TV Movie, the BBC decided to take over the license to publish original Doctor Who fiction themselves, and so Virgin, having kept the Doctor going for five years in the face of the BBC’s apparent disinterest in the series, found themselves with a successful range of books, but no Doctor. They therefore relaunched the range, still with the umbrella title of ‘The New Adventures’, but featuring the exploits of Bernice Summerfield – an ex-companion of the Doctor’s introduced in an earlier Doctor Who novel, who left him to strike out alone. These novels continue to be published on a bi-monthly basis and are firmly in the style of Virgin’s Doctor Who novels, despite there being no mention of any BBC copyright characters.
Over at the BBC, two series of original novels were launched in 1997: one featuring the eighth Doctor and a new companion called Sam, while the other showcased adventures for the earlier Doctors. The books are currently being published at the rate of two a month, and so far over 42 titles have been released.
If full length novels are not your cup of tea, then why not try something shorter? The BBC have published two collections: Short Trips and More Short Trips, edited by the BBC’s range editor Stephen Cole, both of which feature short stories involving all the Doctors and numerous companions.
With a thirty-plus year history to draw on, there is also a wealth of factual behind the scenes books to seek out. Virgin set the ball rolling with a series of three large format lavishly illustrated books which explored the making of the show. Doctor Who The Sixties, The Seventies and The Eighties, all by David J Howe, Mark Stammers and Stephen James Walker were published from 1992 onwards and give a detailed and comprehensive overview of each of Doctor Who’s different decades. Also from Virgin, and from the same writing team, came a series of paperback Handbooks, one for each Doctor. Some of these are now out of print, but most are still available. They cover the history of the show from a different perspective to the ‘decades’ books and the two series are designed to complement each other.
If it’s a basic guide to the TV series that you’re after, then in 1998, the BBC published a weighty paperback called Doctor Who: The Television Companion by David J Howe and Stephen James Walker. This official guide to the series reveals plots, cast, crew, facts and figures about the show, and also includes a critical commentary of every one of the Doctor’s televised adventures, as well as a checklist to their availability as novelisations, audio or video releases.
In the same year, the BBC also published Doctor Who From A to Z by Gary Gillatt, the current editor of Marvel Comics’ Doctor Who magazine. Not an A-Z of Doctor Who subjects as the title may suggest, instead it is a series of twenty six insightful essays each looking at different aspects of the show and exploring how and why the series came to enjoy the levels of popularity that it did. Gillatt’s work is informative and thought provoking and is as much about the impact of popular culture on our lives as it is about Doctor Who.
One final reference book to watch out for is Doctor Who: Regeneration by Philip Segal with Gary Russell, which tells the behind the scenes story of the making of the 1996 Paul McGann movie. Segal was Executive Producer on that project, and this is the definitive account of how it all came to be. Regeneration is another large format glossy hardcover from Virgin and is published in June 1999.
If it’s the actors you’re interested in, then there are several biographical works available. Jessica Carney wrote in 1996, Who’s There?, a detailed biography of her grandfather, the very first Doctor, William Hartnell, and actor Jon Pertwee had just completed work on his Doctor Who autobiography a week before he tragically died from a heart attack in May of the same year. I Am The Doctor, co-written with David J Howe, was published posthumously later the same year by Virgin. The same publishers also picked up Five Rounds Rapid!, the 1998 autobiography of actor Nicholas Courtney, who played the Brigadier in the series. Frazer Hines’ story of his life, Films, Farms and Fillies was published by Boxtree in 1996 and includes anecdotes about the time the actor spent playing the Doctor’s companion Jamie in the late sixties. Finally, in 1997, actor Tom Baker wrote his ribald and uncompromising autobiography Who On Earth Is Tom Baker? which was published by HarperCollins.
As of writing there is no let up in the number of books being published featuring the good Doctor, his adventures, and the background to the series. Indeed, Doctor Who is the only television series no longer in production in any form for which there is an ongoing and successful range of original novels and factual books, not to mention the plethora of other merchandise.
The latest news is that Doctor Who is about to be relaunched as a new series of original audio dramas on cassette and CD. Big Finish productions have obtained the rights to this format, and the first adventure, The Sirens of Time, should be hitting the shops around June. It’s a four part adventure starring Peter Davison, Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy and following this, the company hopes to release a new adventure every two months.
David J Howe is a well known researcher, collector and writer of all things Doctor Who. He is currently working on a complete guide to all Doctor Who merchandise for publication some time in 2000.
FEATURED TITLES
Current New Adventures (Virgin Publishing):
Dead Romance by Lawrence Miles
Tears of the Oracle by Justin Richards
Current Novels (BBC Books):
Revolution Man by Paul Leonard
Players by Terrance Dicks
Dominion by Nick Walters
Divided Loyalties by Gary Russell
Short Story Collections (BBC Books):
Short Trips ed. Steve Cole
More Short Trips ed. Steve Cole
Factual Books (Virgin Publishing):
Doctor Who The Sixties by David J Howe, Mark Stammers and Stephen James Walker
Doctor Who The Seventies by David J Howe, Mark Stammers and Stephen James Walker
Doctor Who The Eighties by David J Howe, Mark Stammers and Stephen James Walker
Doctor Who The Handbook The First Doctor by David J Howe, Mark Stammers and Stephen James Walker
Doctor Who The Handbook The Second Doctor by David J Howe, Mark Stammers and Stephen James Walker
Doctor Who The Handbook The Third Doctor by David J Howe, Mark Stammers and Stephen James Walker
Doctor Who The Handbook The Fourth Doctor by David J Howe, Mark Stammers and Stephen James Walker
Doctor Who The Handbook The Fifth Doctor by David J Howe and Stephen James Walker
Doctor Who The Handbook The Sixth Doctor by David J Howe, Mark Stammers and Stephen James Walker
Doctor Who The Handbook The Seventh Doctor by David J Howe and Stephen James Walker
Doctor Who Regeneration by Philip Segal with Gary Russell
Factual Books (BBC Books):
Doctor Who The Television Companion by David J Howe and Stephen James Walker
Doctor Who From A to Z by Gary Gillatt
Biographical:
Who’s There by Jessica Carney (Virgin)
I Am The Doctor by Jon Pertwee and David J Howe (Virgin)
Films, Farms and Fillies by Frazer Hines (Boxtree)
Five Rounds Rapid by Nicholas Courtney (Virgin)
Who On Earth Is Tom Baker by Tom Baker (HarperCollins)
NOTE: PLEASE CHECK THE AVAILABILITY OF THE BOOKS BEFORE SUPPLYING PURCHASING LINKS. SOME MAY BE SOLD OUT AND UNAVAILABLE. SOME OF THE ‘DECADES’ HARDBACKS MAY ONLY BE AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK.
David J Howe
1999
The Doctor, the TARDIS, Time Lords, the Master, Cybermen, Daleks … of course we’re talking about television’s most popular science fiction adventure show Doctor Who. The series premiered on BBC television back in November 1963 and ran for 155 stories and twenty six years before being cancelled in 1989. Since then there has been only one serious attempt to revive the show, when the BBC co-funded a 1996 production with Universal in America. This television movie starred Paul McGann as the Doctor and found an unprecidented UK audience of around 9.2 million viewers. Since then, however, the Doctor has been back in limbo, with only the occasional mention in the media to remind everyone that he was still around.
Although Paul McGann played the official eighth Doctor, the latest outing for the show introduced a series of possible future Doctors in the earthly forms of Rowan Atkinson, Hugh Grant, Jim Broadbent and Joanna Lumley. This was during a four part Doctor Who spoof made for the 1999 Comic Relief evening of fundraising.
Although Doctor Who may not be on terrestrial television any more – repeats can often be found on the satellite channels – his adventures have been kept alive through a series of popular and well received original novels, originally published by Virgin Publishing, and, since 1997, by the BBC themselves.
The first book to be released to tie in with the show was back in June 1964, when Souvenir Press published the first of a number of hardback special books celebrating the Doctor’s greatest enemies, the Daleks. Since then there have been numerous novelisations published of the television adventures, script books, model making and activity books, children’s story books, filofax insert books and anthologies.
The original novels were started by Virgin in 1991 following the series’ cancellation on television. ‘The New Adventures’, as the range was called, featured the seventh Doctor along with his companion Ace, and the books were serious and adult in both intent and execution. No flimsy plots here, but real novel-length adventures full of excitement, action, pain, love and loss. From a bimonthly schedule the books swiftly moved to monthly publication. Between 1991 and 1997, Virgin kept the Doctor alive in over sixty original novels and his seventh incarnation enjoyed more of these licensed adventures in print than he ever did on screen. Realising the success of the format, Virgin started publishing original novels featuring earlier Doctors in 1994 and these too enjoyed enormous popularity.
In 1996, during the lead-up to the Paul McGann TV Movie, the BBC decided to take over the license to publish original Doctor Who fiction themselves, and so Virgin, having kept the Doctor going for five years in the face of the BBC’s apparent disinterest in the series, found themselves with a successful range of books, but no Doctor. They therefore relaunched the range, still with the umbrella title of ‘The New Adventures’, but featuring the exploits of Bernice Summerfield – an ex-companion of the Doctor’s introduced in an earlier Doctor Who novel, who left him to strike out alone. These novels continue to be published on a bi-monthly basis and are firmly in the style of Virgin’s Doctor Who novels, despite there being no mention of any BBC copyright characters.
Over at the BBC, two series of original novels were launched in 1997: one featuring the eighth Doctor and a new companion called Sam, while the other showcased adventures for the earlier Doctors. The books are currently being published at the rate of two a month, and so far over 42 titles have been released.
If full length novels are not your cup of tea, then why not try something shorter? The BBC have published two collections: Short Trips and More Short Trips, edited by the BBC’s range editor Stephen Cole, both of which feature short stories involving all the Doctors and numerous companions.
With a thirty-plus year history to draw on, there is also a wealth of factual behind the scenes books to seek out. Virgin set the ball rolling with a series of three large format lavishly illustrated books which explored the making of the show. Doctor Who The Sixties, The Seventies and The Eighties, all by David J Howe, Mark Stammers and Stephen James Walker were published from 1992 onwards and give a detailed and comprehensive overview of each of Doctor Who’s different decades. Also from Virgin, and from the same writing team, came a series of paperback Handbooks, one for each Doctor. Some of these are now out of print, but most are still available. They cover the history of the show from a different perspective to the ‘decades’ books and the two series are designed to complement each other.
If it’s a basic guide to the TV series that you’re after, then in 1998, the BBC published a weighty paperback called Doctor Who: The Television Companion by David J Howe and Stephen James Walker. This official guide to the series reveals plots, cast, crew, facts and figures about the show, and also includes a critical commentary of every one of the Doctor’s televised adventures, as well as a checklist to their availability as novelisations, audio or video releases.
In the same year, the BBC also published Doctor Who From A to Z by Gary Gillatt, the current editor of Marvel Comics’ Doctor Who magazine. Not an A-Z of Doctor Who subjects as the title may suggest, instead it is a series of twenty six insightful essays each looking at different aspects of the show and exploring how and why the series came to enjoy the levels of popularity that it did. Gillatt’s work is informative and thought provoking and is as much about the impact of popular culture on our lives as it is about Doctor Who.
One final reference book to watch out for is Doctor Who: Regeneration by Philip Segal with Gary Russell, which tells the behind the scenes story of the making of the 1996 Paul McGann movie. Segal was Executive Producer on that project, and this is the definitive account of how it all came to be. Regeneration is another large format glossy hardcover from Virgin and is published in June 1999.
If it’s the actors you’re interested in, then there are several biographical works available. Jessica Carney wrote in 1996, Who’s There?, a detailed biography of her grandfather, the very first Doctor, William Hartnell, and actor Jon Pertwee had just completed work on his Doctor Who autobiography a week before he tragically died from a heart attack in May of the same year. I Am The Doctor, co-written with David J Howe, was published posthumously later the same year by Virgin. The same publishers also picked up Five Rounds Rapid!, the 1998 autobiography of actor Nicholas Courtney, who played the Brigadier in the series. Frazer Hines’ story of his life, Films, Farms and Fillies was published by Boxtree in 1996 and includes anecdotes about the time the actor spent playing the Doctor’s companion Jamie in the late sixties. Finally, in 1997, actor Tom Baker wrote his ribald and uncompromising autobiography Who On Earth Is Tom Baker? which was published by HarperCollins.
As of writing there is no let up in the number of books being published featuring the good Doctor, his adventures, and the background to the series. Indeed, Doctor Who is the only television series no longer in production in any form for which there is an ongoing and successful range of original novels and factual books, not to mention the plethora of other merchandise.
The latest news is that Doctor Who is about to be relaunched as a new series of original audio dramas on cassette and CD. Big Finish productions have obtained the rights to this format, and the first adventure, The Sirens of Time, should be hitting the shops around June. It’s a four part adventure starring Peter Davison, Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy and following this, the company hopes to release a new adventure every two months.
David J Howe is a well known researcher, collector and writer of all things Doctor Who. He is currently working on a complete guide to all Doctor Who merchandise for publication some time in 2000.
FEATURED TITLES
Current New Adventures (Virgin Publishing):
Dead Romance by Lawrence Miles
Tears of the Oracle by Justin Richards
Current Novels (BBC Books):
Revolution Man by Paul Leonard
Players by Terrance Dicks
Dominion by Nick Walters
Divided Loyalties by Gary Russell
Short Story Collections (BBC Books):
Short Trips ed. Steve Cole
More Short Trips ed. Steve Cole
Factual Books (Virgin Publishing):
Doctor Who The Sixties by David J Howe, Mark Stammers and Stephen James Walker
Doctor Who The Seventies by David J Howe, Mark Stammers and Stephen James Walker
Doctor Who The Eighties by David J Howe, Mark Stammers and Stephen James Walker
Doctor Who The Handbook The First Doctor by David J Howe, Mark Stammers and Stephen James Walker
Doctor Who The Handbook The Second Doctor by David J Howe, Mark Stammers and Stephen James Walker
Doctor Who The Handbook The Third Doctor by David J Howe, Mark Stammers and Stephen James Walker
Doctor Who The Handbook The Fourth Doctor by David J Howe, Mark Stammers and Stephen James Walker
Doctor Who The Handbook The Fifth Doctor by David J Howe and Stephen James Walker
Doctor Who The Handbook The Sixth Doctor by David J Howe, Mark Stammers and Stephen James Walker
Doctor Who The Handbook The Seventh Doctor by David J Howe and Stephen James Walker
Doctor Who Regeneration by Philip Segal with Gary Russell
Factual Books (BBC Books):
Doctor Who The Television Companion by David J Howe and Stephen James Walker
Doctor Who From A to Z by Gary Gillatt
Biographical:
Who’s There by Jessica Carney (Virgin)
I Am The Doctor by Jon Pertwee and David J Howe (Virgin)
Films, Farms and Fillies by Frazer Hines (Boxtree)
Five Rounds Rapid by Nicholas Courtney (Virgin)
Who On Earth Is Tom Baker by Tom Baker (HarperCollins)
NOTE: PLEASE CHECK THE AVAILABILITY OF THE BOOKS BEFORE SUPPLYING PURCHASING LINKS. SOME MAY BE SOLD OUT AND UNAVAILABLE. SOME OF THE ‘DECADES’ HARDBACKS MAY ONLY BE AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK.
David J Howe
1999
Toyfair 2008
TOYFAIR 2008
A Report by David J Howe
It's always quite hard to be able to sum up Toyfair in words. I think the vision that most people who don't go have is of some fabulous fantasy land of toys where there are wonders at every turn and people clustered around going 'ooh' and 'ahh'. Whereas the reality is that it's like going to a shopping mall where you're not allowed to touch anything, and you can't actually buy anything either ... some of the shops won't let you in unless you have a prior appointment, and others have items so obscure on display that you wonder how they ever manage to make a living selling them.
Perhaps the strangest new toy I saw was a company promoting a game of rock balancing ... yes, that's right ... a small box of rocks and you have to balance them one on top of the other to form a cairn or maybe a small wall ... probably loads of fun though.
I attended on the final day, Saturday, which was the quietest day. There wasn't really any buzz - just lots of stands and not many people. The walking is also exhausting - wandering up and down lines of stands, looking at the wares which each company is hoping will be the next big thing. You also pick up catalogues as you go and so your carry bag (which you obtain as you enter) gets heavier and heavier as the visit progresses.
From a Doctor Who perspective, I'd say that this year was perhaps quieter than last year. The security was exactly the same as last year too, with only Character Options asking for Non-Disclosure Agreements to be signed before you could see the Doctor Who displays, and of course this also means that I can't say anything specific about their Doctor Who ranges.
Wandering through the show, however, there were lots of other things to see. On the Top Trumps stand, for example, I spotted sample packaging for a 45th Anniversary set of cards - appears to be in a TARDIS shaped box. Toybrokers have two smashing new games coming out soon. One is a Trivia Quiz game, and I recognised this as a 2008 variant of the traditional 'Magic Robot' game of yesteryear where you place a Question/Answer sheet on the box, and then turn a small TARDIS to point to the question you wish to ask. Then placing the TARDIS on a mirrored surface inside a circle of answers, and the ship magnetically and magically spins to point at the correct answer.
The other game is a Dalek race through time and has great TARDIS counters and a little motorised Dalek which follows a track on the board and which races around and can exterminate your TARDIS piece if it encounters it on the track ... great fun.
Toybrokers also have a Sarah Jane Smith game and a Primeval game coming out this year.
Ravensburger had great success with their Puzzleball last year, and so there's another larger one intended for 2008 - the design had not been confirmed or approved for it though. There's also more jigsaws coming, and it looks like the range is being expanded slightly with 1000, 100 and 64 piece jigsaws due for release.
Cartamundi who brought us some great playing cards for Doctor Who and Torchwood in 2007, not surprisingly have a Series 4 pack of Who cards intended for later in the year, as well as more multi-packs for specific retailers, and also a Series 2 pack for Torchwood.
Hornby have their initial Doctor Who model kit shipping now, and it should be in all shops very soon, and of course the next kit is of the Daleks, and the model of this on display was very impressive. Wheras the first kit has the emphasis on display and painting, the Dalek kit is more about the detail of the construction and certainly it looked very tricky with lots of small features and details to fit together.
Flair have a second Doctor Who Shaker Maker out now. This one contains Cyberman and K9 moulds and the box has been redesigned (as have all the Shaker Maker boxes) and so expect to see the Dalek/Tardis kit reissued with the new branding soon.
Hasbro had a few items of interest on their stand. Alongside the Black and Gold Dalek and Cyberman bubble baths there would seem to be a new range of flannels coming with Dalek and Cyberman designs, a Dalek toothbrush holder, packs of bath fizzers, and a rather nice spinning TARDIS bubble bath (you press the top of the pack and the little TARDIS there spins and lights up).
On the impressive Character Options stand there were some excellent displays of all the new Primeval toys, and these really do look good. I don't think the photographs that have been seen of them do them justice. The likenesses are excellent, and the various accessories complement the figures nicely. The displays were augmented with some plastic ferns, rocks and other bits and pieces and it was great to see how the addition of some simple display items gave the figures depth and added so much interest to the range.
I was also very taken with a Scooby Doo Haunted house set which was simply wonderful :) A great addition to use with their range of Scooby figures I thought.
On the Doctor Who front, however, as I mentioned, I can't give any details. As you might expect, there are some lovely items coming this year, some expansions to the existing ranges and some new toys as well. On display were the paint masters for many of the new figures from the current Series as well as the forthcoming Classic range, and these really do show the care that has gone into the likenesses and detail of the toys.
Also in the Doctor Who area were little diorama displays of many of the current figures. I thought these were brilliant with some lovely touches used in the displays, like perspex stands and thin wires making the figures fly and to create the illusion of three dimensional scenes from the show. Very nicely done and very inspiring.
Finally, congratulations to Character Options who won the Best Boy's Collectible category in the 'Toy of the Year' Awards announced during the show for their overall range of Doctor Who Figures. For interest, the overall Toy of the Year was the In The Night Garden Blanket Time Iggle Piggle from Hasbro, and the top Boy's Toy was the Ben 10 Omnitrix F/X from Bandai.
Also displaying at the Fair were GB Eye with their impressive new Doctor Who canvas and art boards - they have a *vast* range of images overall and the quality was marvellous. Pyramid Posters had their new 3D poster featuring the Dalek Sec Hybrid and the Daleks - another amazing optical treat. Worlds Apart had a stand with their childrens' ranges, including the Dalek night light and torch, the ready bed, sleeping bag and other items.
GetRetro (aka SciFiCollector aka The Stamp Centre) had their usual stand which was packed with already-released Doctor Who items ... also on display there was the first of their Torchwood action figure range. This was a paintmaster for a Weevil and very impressive it was too.
One slight surprise for me was the Corgi/Cards Inc stand, which had no Doctor Who items whatsoever on display.
Speaking to several of those present at the Fair, there seemed to be a general feeling that Doctor Who was on a bit of a slowdown at the moment. The reasons were felt to be that there was simply too much on the market at present, and that the manufacturers were competing for limited shelf space at all the major retail outlets. Also there was a feeling that Series 3 had perhaps not maintained such a high standard across the board, and that this had resulted in a dampening of interest and enthusiasm. However everyone was very upbeat and positive about how Doctor Who had performed for them as a brand, and the fact that many of the companies had new items lined up for this year shows that, at least for the moment, there is still considered to be ongoing life and interest in the show and in toys and games associated with it.
David J Howe
2008
A Report by David J Howe
It's always quite hard to be able to sum up Toyfair in words. I think the vision that most people who don't go have is of some fabulous fantasy land of toys where there are wonders at every turn and people clustered around going 'ooh' and 'ahh'. Whereas the reality is that it's like going to a shopping mall where you're not allowed to touch anything, and you can't actually buy anything either ... some of the shops won't let you in unless you have a prior appointment, and others have items so obscure on display that you wonder how they ever manage to make a living selling them.
Perhaps the strangest new toy I saw was a company promoting a game of rock balancing ... yes, that's right ... a small box of rocks and you have to balance them one on top of the other to form a cairn or maybe a small wall ... probably loads of fun though.
I attended on the final day, Saturday, which was the quietest day. There wasn't really any buzz - just lots of stands and not many people. The walking is also exhausting - wandering up and down lines of stands, looking at the wares which each company is hoping will be the next big thing. You also pick up catalogues as you go and so your carry bag (which you obtain as you enter) gets heavier and heavier as the visit progresses.
From a Doctor Who perspective, I'd say that this year was perhaps quieter than last year. The security was exactly the same as last year too, with only Character Options asking for Non-Disclosure Agreements to be signed before you could see the Doctor Who displays, and of course this also means that I can't say anything specific about their Doctor Who ranges.
Wandering through the show, however, there were lots of other things to see. On the Top Trumps stand, for example, I spotted sample packaging for a 45th Anniversary set of cards - appears to be in a TARDIS shaped box. Toybrokers have two smashing new games coming out soon. One is a Trivia Quiz game, and I recognised this as a 2008 variant of the traditional 'Magic Robot' game of yesteryear where you place a Question/Answer sheet on the box, and then turn a small TARDIS to point to the question you wish to ask. Then placing the TARDIS on a mirrored surface inside a circle of answers, and the ship magnetically and magically spins to point at the correct answer.
The other game is a Dalek race through time and has great TARDIS counters and a little motorised Dalek which follows a track on the board and which races around and can exterminate your TARDIS piece if it encounters it on the track ... great fun.
Toybrokers also have a Sarah Jane Smith game and a Primeval game coming out this year.
Ravensburger had great success with their Puzzleball last year, and so there's another larger one intended for 2008 - the design had not been confirmed or approved for it though. There's also more jigsaws coming, and it looks like the range is being expanded slightly with 1000, 100 and 64 piece jigsaws due for release.
Cartamundi who brought us some great playing cards for Doctor Who and Torchwood in 2007, not surprisingly have a Series 4 pack of Who cards intended for later in the year, as well as more multi-packs for specific retailers, and also a Series 2 pack for Torchwood.
Hornby have their initial Doctor Who model kit shipping now, and it should be in all shops very soon, and of course the next kit is of the Daleks, and the model of this on display was very impressive. Wheras the first kit has the emphasis on display and painting, the Dalek kit is more about the detail of the construction and certainly it looked very tricky with lots of small features and details to fit together.
Flair have a second Doctor Who Shaker Maker out now. This one contains Cyberman and K9 moulds and the box has been redesigned (as have all the Shaker Maker boxes) and so expect to see the Dalek/Tardis kit reissued with the new branding soon.
Hasbro had a few items of interest on their stand. Alongside the Black and Gold Dalek and Cyberman bubble baths there would seem to be a new range of flannels coming with Dalek and Cyberman designs, a Dalek toothbrush holder, packs of bath fizzers, and a rather nice spinning TARDIS bubble bath (you press the top of the pack and the little TARDIS there spins and lights up).
On the impressive Character Options stand there were some excellent displays of all the new Primeval toys, and these really do look good. I don't think the photographs that have been seen of them do them justice. The likenesses are excellent, and the various accessories complement the figures nicely. The displays were augmented with some plastic ferns, rocks and other bits and pieces and it was great to see how the addition of some simple display items gave the figures depth and added so much interest to the range.
I was also very taken with a Scooby Doo Haunted house set which was simply wonderful :) A great addition to use with their range of Scooby figures I thought.
On the Doctor Who front, however, as I mentioned, I can't give any details. As you might expect, there are some lovely items coming this year, some expansions to the existing ranges and some new toys as well. On display were the paint masters for many of the new figures from the current Series as well as the forthcoming Classic range, and these really do show the care that has gone into the likenesses and detail of the toys.
Also in the Doctor Who area were little diorama displays of many of the current figures. I thought these were brilliant with some lovely touches used in the displays, like perspex stands and thin wires making the figures fly and to create the illusion of three dimensional scenes from the show. Very nicely done and very inspiring.
Finally, congratulations to Character Options who won the Best Boy's Collectible category in the 'Toy of the Year' Awards announced during the show for their overall range of Doctor Who Figures. For interest, the overall Toy of the Year was the In The Night Garden Blanket Time Iggle Piggle from Hasbro, and the top Boy's Toy was the Ben 10 Omnitrix F/X from Bandai.
Also displaying at the Fair were GB Eye with their impressive new Doctor Who canvas and art boards - they have a *vast* range of images overall and the quality was marvellous. Pyramid Posters had their new 3D poster featuring the Dalek Sec Hybrid and the Daleks - another amazing optical treat. Worlds Apart had a stand with their childrens' ranges, including the Dalek night light and torch, the ready bed, sleeping bag and other items.
GetRetro (aka SciFiCollector aka The Stamp Centre) had their usual stand which was packed with already-released Doctor Who items ... also on display there was the first of their Torchwood action figure range. This was a paintmaster for a Weevil and very impressive it was too.
One slight surprise for me was the Corgi/Cards Inc stand, which had no Doctor Who items whatsoever on display.
Speaking to several of those present at the Fair, there seemed to be a general feeling that Doctor Who was on a bit of a slowdown at the moment. The reasons were felt to be that there was simply too much on the market at present, and that the manufacturers were competing for limited shelf space at all the major retail outlets. Also there was a feeling that Series 3 had perhaps not maintained such a high standard across the board, and that this had resulted in a dampening of interest and enthusiasm. However everyone was very upbeat and positive about how Doctor Who had performed for them as a brand, and the fact that many of the companies had new items lined up for this year shows that, at least for the moment, there is still considered to be ongoing life and interest in the show and in toys and games associated with it.
David J Howe
2008
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