The Talons of Weng-Chiang
“I’ve got the real Limehouse Blues… Rings on your fingers and tears for your crown. This is a story of the old Chinatown.” In early 1989, in a post twenty-...
"Is it just me that's taking the mick? Or are other people waiting for it?"
Doctor Who fans don’t, on the whole, much like our show being parodied. For those of a certain age or or beyond, it probably conjures memories of playground...
Death Flower!
Death Flower! ran in TV Comic #1204 - #1214 in early 1975. With #1204 being published the same day as Part Two of Robot was transmitted, it also served as...
“I'm going through changes."
“My friends just can't understand this new me.” Watching Spearhead from Space at the BFI earlier this month two paradoxical things struck me. The first was...
Terror of the Zygons
“Eighteen months is too long to wait.” Terror of the Zygons (1975) and The Talons of Weng-Chiang (1977) came out on VHS towards the end of 1988, having been...
Spearhead from Space @ the BFI Special (RPT)
This is a very lightly edited version of a piece I wrote 18 months ago, when Spearhead from Space was screen at the BFI as part of the “Film on Film” season....
“N n n n n Nineteen”
Season by Season Doctor Who had started the 1970s with a clean break. A new regular cast, a new format and the series in colour for the first time. The...
"I'm in pieces, bits and pieces."
I’ve been luxuriating in “The War Games in Colour” a bit since Christmas. A favourite story in a new edition, skilfully cut down to TVM length, and coloured...
The Greatest Show In The Galaxy
“‘Ha! Ha!’ said the Clown. ‘Is it bringing you down, that you’ve lost your chance?’” I’ve said before that it can sometimes be harder to write about an...
Planet of the Dead (1988)
“If they were me, and I was you. Would you’ve liked a present too? Happy Birthday!” There never seems to have been serious consideration of doing a multi-...
Silver Nemesis
“Ooh, baby, you couldn't have done a worse thing to meIf you'da taken an arrow and run it right through me.” 23rd November 1988 was a significant day in the...
Step Into Christmas
“GOOD KING WENCESLAS LOOKED OUT ON THE FEAST OF STEPHEN?” We all know that Doctor Who and Christmas are inextricably linked, probably. But here are some...
A Ghost Story for Christmas? 73 Yards
A Christmas Eve interlude, as guest writer Dale Smith offers some thoughts on this year’s instant classic, 73 Yards. The consensus on 73 Yards already seems...
The Happiness Patrol
“Blue is the colour...” At the turn of this century, a marginally pre-fame Charlie Brooker published a website called “TVGoHome”. This consisted of parodies...
Remembrance of the Daleks
“Oh what a night, late December back in sixty three, what a very special time for me.” It is 1988 and I am watching Remembrance of the Daleks, in black and...
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...
