Spearhead from Space
“I am the very model of a modern Major General” The Long Way Round Upgrade now Frequent readers will be aware of three things I’m going to skip through very...
The Robots of Death
The Long Way Round “They're programmed to destroy us. She's gotta be strong to fight them. So she’s takin’ lots of vitamins.'Cause she knows that it'd be...
"Number Nine. Number Nine."
“Who’s to know?” The 1972 series of Doctor Who was the first during which no actor or character arrived or departed. It was also the first series of Doctor...
The War Machines
“Who Are You? Who? Who? Who? Who?” Last Saturday I had the great joy of seeing The War Machines on a cinema sized screen at Riverside Studios in Hammersmith:...
Turn Left
“Things can only get better” There was a Doctor Who Prom at the Royal Albert Hall this year. The first for over a decade. It was presented by Catherine Tate...
The Woman Who Fell To Earth
On a recent anniversary of the transmission of Rose, I took the opportunity to re-run a review of it I’d written immediately after its transmission and for a...
"It's A Matter of Memory" - Part Two
“Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes. Turn and face the strange ch-ch-changes.” Last month, we were looking at the question of multi-Doctor stories, and whether the “past”...
The Masque of Mandragora
“Looking for words to say. Searching but not finding understanding anywhere. We're lost in a Masquerade.” The initial impetus for The Masque of Mandragora...
“It’s A Matter of Memory” - Interlude: Companion Piece
“Should old acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind.” A side issue of all the memory man stuff we discussed last week, and the question of whether...
"It's A Matter of Memory" - Part One
“I made myself a promise, that I'd soon forget we ever met. But something sure is wrong. I forgot to remember to forget” In the years immediately following...
The First Doctors
“I am the one and only. Nobody I’d rather be.” On the 5 November 1988 episode of BBC One’s Saturday morning children’s magazine programme Going Live!...
Famous Last Words - Part Two
“You’re never gonna see me cry the last goodbye.” Yes, that title is more than a trifle oxymoronic. But bear with me. Earlier this month, we looked at the...
Famous Last Words
"What was the last thing you said? It took like over a year to get you out of my head." A couple of odd, plot adjacent thoughts flashed through my mind...
Death to the Daleks
“There may be a powercut, and the candles burn down low, but something inside of me, says the bad news isn't so.” Many fans have stories about reading Target...
Comic Cuts
“Battle, battle, battle, battle, battle. Battle someone, oh. Battle, battle, battle battle someone, oh. Completion search. Here I love the bow.” I’ve had a...
Day of the Daleks
“Let’s start a war! Let’s start a nuclear war!” Day of the Daleks has never, as far as I’m aware, been involved in a legal tussle about its storyline. On the...
The Seeds of Death
“The space race is over. It's been and it's gone, and I'll never get to the moon. Because the space race is over - and I can't help but feel we've all grown...
“Lloyd George Knew My Father”
Back in the early noughties, Britain was a different place. It was governed by a Labour Party led by a barrister with asymmetric hair, whose attempts to...
It Takes You Away
Anyone who thinks Psychic Paper skipped a week in the last few days is right. Apologies. To make up the difference, there will be at least two e-mails for...
Pyramids of Mars
“Spirits of ancient Egypt. Hung on the telly. Hung on the telly.” I enjoy a good coincidence. There are times when I feel like coincidence is the operating...
Boom / 73 Yards / Dot and Bubble
“Trio. Trio. I want a Trio and I want one now.” Most the posts I write for Psychic Paper are about twentieth century Doctor Who. This isn’t, as someone...
Revenge of the Cybermen
“What some men will do here for diamonds / What some men will do here for gold.” Towards the end of 1987 my next door neighbour Matthew, who was a year older...
Dragonfire
“Ice Ice Baby. Ice Ice Baby.” Immediately before the transmission of its first episode, BBC1 announced that Dragonfire was “the 150th adventure” for Doctor...
Seasons in the Sun
It is a source of joy to me that the fabulous The Church on Ruby Road is a Doctor Who special transmitted in 2023 and yet it is not, according to wikipedia...
Delta and the Bannerman
"Here's to the Future. Love is the answer" In both the Doctor Who Magazine and Doctor Who Appreciation Society polls of the 1987 series of Doctor Who, each...
Paradise Towers
"Let's clean up the ghetto" Finding new writers for Doctor Who has never been easy. In 1978 Douglas Adams, determined to bring in fresh voices, worked with...
"If Jesus was a Sheriff, and I was a Priest"
Falsification is an essential part of many intellectual processes, especially in the sciences. If you have a theory, you should be looking for the evidence...
"Only U Can Make The World Seem Right"
I have recently been wondering if there’s a “core canon” of twentieth century Doctor Who stories. I don’t mean that in the sense that Doctor Who fans usually...
Time and the Rani
"Push me in a corner and I'll scream. Just give me one more, one more chance. One more, one more chance. Tonight." Nicholas Pegg, the writer, actor and...
Gridlock - “God Knows I Want to Break Free…”
It's a guest post this week, as the brilliant Philip Purser-Hallard offers his thoughts on the magnificent Gridlock to celebrate its (gosh) 17th birthday....
The Trial of a Time Lord Epilogue: "The Final Countdown"
"I guess there is no one to blame... Will things ever be the same again? It's the Final Countdown." Doctor Who was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt...
Season 15 - Part Two
“Why take the smooth with the rough? When things run smooth, it’s already more than enough.” This month Doctor Who The Collection Season 15 is released on...
Season 15 - Part One
“Why take the smooth with the rough? When things run smooth, it’s already more than enough.” When Doctor Who returned to BBC1 in September 1977, it must have...
“Spoilers, Sweetie.”
Another cultural discussion about spoilers is upon us, with a chunk of online discourse devoted to their definition and their statute of limitations. This...
A Brief History of Timeslots
The brief trailer at the end of the achingly brilliant The Church on Ruby Road managed to break the hearts of much of Doctor Who's audience by saddling us...
Turlough and the Earthlink Dilemma
“And If You Can't Be With the One You Love, Honey …” It's our first ever guest post on Psychic Paper this week, as the brilliant Dale Smith takes us for a...
"The Ultimate Foe" (The Trial of A Time Lord Parts 13 and 14)
"I am he as you are he as you are me." Seen: 29th November and 6th December 1986 The Long Way Round Robert Holmes died on 24th May 1986. The conclusion on...
"Terror of the Vervoids" (The Trial of A Time Lord Parts 9 to 12)
"And the leaves that are green turn to brown, and they wither with the wind. And they crumble in your hand." Seen: 1st to 22nd November 1986 The Long Way...
"Mindwarp" (The Trial of A Time Lord Parts 5 to 8)
"We can't go on together, with suspicious minds." Seen: 4th - 25th October 1986 The Long Way Round If the first section of The Trial of a Time Lord found...
"The Mysterious Planet" (The Trial of A Time Lord Parts 1 to 4)
"What number is this?""Seven-A!""Okay, know what I mean, like, don't get excited, man. Just cos I’m short.” Seen: 6th to 27th September 1986 The Long Way...
Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150AD
“When tomorrow becomes yesterday, and tomorrow becomes eternity, tomorrow will be the 22nd Century.” Now you can see them in colour on the small screen....
House of Lords Temporal
As I type this there's almost exactly a year to go until the last plausible date for the next UK general election. Now, this is a Doctor Who newsletter not a...
"Who will buy?"
"So I could see at my leisure, whenever things go wrong. And I would keep it as a treasure, to last my whole life long." The appearance of (almost) all of...
Dr Who and the Daleks
“Red and Yellow and Pink and Green, Purple and Orange and Blue” Seen: 20th April 1985 Dr Who And The Daleks,a 1965 cinema film adaptation of Doctor Who’s...
Doctor Who And The 1979 ITV strike
"There was a clown strike, and the clowns threw down their tools." The viewing figures for Destiny of the Daleks and City of Death, the first two Doctor Who...
The Trial of a Time Lord - Prologue
“I sentence you to be exposed before your peers.” It would be surprisingly easy for me to claim that Psychic Paper's hiatus over Christmas and New Year...
Revelation of the Daleks
“I'm crazy flowing over with ideas. A thousand ways to woo a lover so sincere. Love and hate what a beautiful combination." The Long Way Round Seen: 23rd and...
“In a little while I'll be gone. The moment's already passed. Yeah, it's gone.”
The scripts for The Imps1 were commissioned on 17th October 1966 from William Emms, an Australian born schoolteacher and screenwriter then active in British...
"Divided by! Divided by! Zero. Zero."
Doctor Who fandom and its attendant pseudo academe have long had our own argot. Its uses vary. There are, for example, in-jokes undetectable outside a...
“AI AI AI AI AI like you veeery much.”
Doctor Who fans like making lists. Lists of companions. Lists of monsters. Lists of underrated stories. Lists of overrated stories. Lists of lists of...