The Brain of Morbius

 

`Brain of Morbius` should not work. Studio bound yet including such locations as a cliff edge and the exterior of a stormy planet and populated by characters whose larger-than-life personas fill up the screen it would surely be a mess? Yet it’s like a glorious, bonkers stage play that should really have transferred to the West End and run for years. It has that melodramatic edge to it which is what happens when you get a cast that is willing to hurl themselves into something as mad as this. In any other season this would be the pinnacle, here it has to make do with sharing the acclaim with others. Whatever the disagreements about the script that led to the credited `Bland` pseudonym this is a story that proves that classic Doctor Who is always more about the story than it is about the effects.

 

Fan Scene #4 Tardis Issue 6 1976

Does Doctor Who frighten you? asks the strap line for issue 6’s cover. I don’t know about that but the drawings above the question certainly do frighten me! It’s April 1976 and the Westfield College Doctor Who Appreciation Society is a heartbeat away from going national (check out last year’s posts about the Society’s early years). Before it does though there’s one more issue of `Tardis`. News items this issue include Tom Baker being mobbed in Southampton, the new season featuring “more space and historical flavoured adventures” and first news of a forthcoming record that would turn out to be `The Pescatons`. Somehow though there’s room for speculation about why there was no Tardis sound during one of the take offs in `Pyramids of Mars`.