July 20, 2026

Attack of the Cybermen

John Nathan Turner was right when he claimed that “the memory cheats”. At the time he was referring to Sixties and earlier Seventies Doctor Who against which many of his stories were being unfavourably compared. Now that this era is of an even older vintage watching a story like this shows how accurate he was. I’ve always held `` `Attack of the Cybermen` as an example of how terrible the show was at this point. One moment in particular is stuck in my memory when a brick wall sweeps to one side to reveal a brightly lit group of Cybermen like some tv variety show introduction. In fact, this occurs sooner in the story than I recalled and the only reason the light seems so bright is because we’ve spent the previous few minutes mooching around in semi darkness. The story is full of little moments like this which I’d forgotten or mis remembered because it must be more than twenty years since I’ve seen it. That is not to wholly redeem the story which is rather messy at times, but does show its not as poor as I thought it was.

 


July 05, 2026

Doctor Who Annual 1976

 

By 1975/ 76 Doctor Who on tv had become more sophisticated in its storytelling yet the Annuals continued to run stories that more often than not lacked the then current approach of the series. Some of them feel generic as if they might be lifted from a pool that could be applied to any Doctor. The 1976 Annual does at least sometimes have the Doctor, Sarah and Harry sounding (though rarely looking) like they do on screen while there is one story so packed with great ideas it seems too good for this format. Annuals were always dated for the following year and this edition was actually published in September 1975 so the makers would presumably only have seen some of Tom Baker’s first season. Tom’s Doctor stares out from the cover looking somewhat unimpressed. Has he just read the stories?