Spearhead from Space Episode 4 review

Season 7 @50. Watching an episode a week you can see this is a slim storyline which has an unfinished or rushed sense to it. The way the Doctor and Liz knock up a machine overnight seems too perfunctory with the resulting device not being convincingly strong enough to defeat such a powerful creature as the Nestenes. What actually even happens there? How do those globes help `create` the Nestene? The concept of the globes suddenly seems out of kilter with what we’re seeing- we’ve been told this final one is the Swarm Leader but its just a globe like the others and the Doctor has worked out that it contains nothing sentient. Channing places it on a receptacle and some noises happen. We see something moving in the front of the glass tank yet the tentacles that later emerge are surely the wrong scale for the whole creature? The thing is there’s been plenty of time and opportunity to smooth out these edges.

Spearhead from Space Episode 3 review

Season 7 @50. Meg Seeley is not be trifled with. While earlier in this episode Ransome runs in total terror from an Auton, Meg’s reaction to our plastic pal’s incursion is to reach for her shotgun and let loose both barrels. Never mind UNIT, they should send her down to Auto Plastics to sort the situation out. Even the Auton, which happily fired at Ransome, doesn’t kill Meg on the spot as it could easily do but seems to just knock her over. On the upside, her husband’s light fingered tendencies mean their cottage will soon have a full stock of replacement items for all the damaged furniture. A curious collection of scenes, episode 3 confirms the story’s slender narrative has room to spare as you realise that most of the well remembered moments are actually in the other episodes.

Spearhead from Space Episode 2 review

Season 7 @50.  This episode is home to some of the most filmic direction original Doctor Who ever staged. Derek Martinus never misses an opportunity to exert maximum big screen camerawork when he can utilising the generous locations and accentuating the creepiness of the Autons. Shots zoom in and out at the Auton scout as it seeks the signal. There is an almost cartoon style impact to these flourishes most noticeably in the final shot of a terrified Ransome. It is rare to end an episode with someone other than either the Doctor or companion in danger and odd too that we’ve already seen an Auton in action so we know what he doesn’t. 

Spearhead from Space Episode 1 review

Season 7@50. 

Remarkably it is fifty years – half a century! -since Jon Pertwee debuted on screen as the Doctor. A new Doctor is a tricky proposition for which there are two ways to go. One is to make them totally eccentric and over the top, the other is to have them largely sleeping establishing the other characters before the Doctor wakes largely fully formed. Given that the season 7 team had to establish a new format they wisely plumped for the latter. It does mean that Jon Pertwee has little screen time save for scrambling about trying to find his shoes though when he does get the key hidden in them there’s definitely a Troughtonesque look on his face. Other than that we don’t really get much chance to say whether we like the new Doctor or not. 

The Deadly Assassin@43

One of the most iconic, divisive stories in the Doctor Who canon, `The Deadly Assassin` comes loaded with baggage. With no companion and set entirely on Gallifrey it broke the narrative mould, especially the surreal episode 3, while certain scenes caused such strong controversy that the future direction of the series was affected. Fans at the time pilloried it for supposedly ruining the Time Lord mystique if not the wider mystery of the central character. Yet this is not the whole picture. The story most resembles one of the BBC’s classic period dramas housing a gaggle of verbose eccentrics dressed in colourful finery, steeped in procedure and tradition. They shuffle through the rituals as they always have and the Panopticon even has a church organ plus a wonderfully applied echo to emphasise its cathedral like status. If Spandrell had to catch a coach and horses to go see Engin it wouldn’t look out of place! Doctor Who of this era was always theatrical and populated by larger than life characters but `The Deadly Assassin` is the chance to do this on the Doctor’s home world. It may present a futuristic exterior but this is Victorian political melodrama of the most enjoyable kind. 

Fan Scene CT 1983 #4

October introduces us to The Sixth Doctor, 40 year old Colin Baker and the lead story has a brief resume noting he’s the first actor to play the Doctor who had previously had a role in the series. There’s nothing especially unusual in this announcement which comes accompanied by a shot from the official photocall though it’s impossible not to think of what happened next. As often is the case, the actor looks Doctorly enough in what he was wearing that day but, oh no, someone had to conjure up a costume! That’s all in the future in October 1983 though. Other news this month includes news of the theft of an art display from the Blackpool exhibition with over £1,000 and guest star news for the forthcoming `Resurrection of the Daleks`. The DWAS’ 20^th anniversary party event which had barely been mentioned in CT has now happened as well and it seems was successful. 

Fan Scene CT 1983 #3

CT's 1983 editor Gordon Roxburgh did not have a way with headlines. Or perhaps he just didn’t have a lot of letraset. The July edition has the headline `Return`. A big picture of a Dalek sort of gives away what is returning but couldn’t he have at least managed something a bit more dynamic than `Return`. He does go on to describe `Destiny of the Daleks` as “dreadful” too which it isn’t. Tucked away deep inside the issue are the results of the 1983 season poll. It seems an oddly quiet way to declare them especially as the editor has said on the cover it is a slow news month. He probably didn’t have enough Letraset to add the story `Mawdryn Triumphs in Season Poll`. Yep by a margin of almost a thousand votes it is spaghetti head’s deserved victory in a poll I remember was the easiest to vote in for years given the varying qualities of the stories. Despite some peoples’ griping over the dating, `Mawdryn` struck me as the season’s only classic, a rich mixture of nostalgia and ideas. “Brigadier was superb” is the write up it gets in a tiny summary of some views below. In second place was `Enlightenment` whose visual extravagance masked a rather slow story but the surprise for me was seeing `Snakedance` coming fifth beaten by both `The Kings Demons` and- gasp- `Arc of Infinity`. The latter which I have always seen as the real turkey romps in third though if you re-ran this poll today I bet it would trail last. You only have to see it a second time to remember just how bad the Ergon is and how little sense the story makes. All of which means `Terminus` is bottom proving that disrobing companions and a giant cuddly bear are not certain to win people’s hearts!

Fan Scene CT 1983 #2

Well actually April and June as for some reason my copy of the May issue is nowhere to be found. It probably turned out to be the most newsworthy month of the year unlike April which apart from further additions to the ever growing cast of the anniversary special is scant on news. And still nothing about the enigmatic Tacecon! One of the more interesting things that CT always did was include press clippings and its surprising how much coverage Doctor Who got from the nationals in those days. You’d imagine a fair proportion of it came from the production office pro-actively pushing stories as the guest casts often included well known names of the time. For example Lynda Baron’s turn in `Enlightenment ` is the topic of a Daily Mirror piece reprinted this issue in which the actor discusses what real female pirates were like. Elsewhere there’s a piece about Mark Strickson joining the series and one concerning the Longleat Celebration event in which Lord Bath is seen signing the contract under duress from a Cyberman. 

Mission to the Unknown (2019) review

Exactly 54 years after it was broadcast, `Mission to the Unknown` or `Dalek Cutaway` or  `The Beasts from UGH` is back, Back BACK!  The most stunning aspect of this faithful remounting of one of many missing episodes is that after less than a minute you believe you’re watching something from 1964. The tone of the picture, the way it is acted, the tight sets and most of all the odd tilt of those old heavy cameras all seem so authentic. Perhaps the only thing that betrays this as a product of 2019 is that the cast are younger than possibly anyone looked in the Sixties! The product of painstaking research courtesy of the University of Central Lancashire this is quite an achievement. 

Fan Scene - CT 1983 #1

Things had changed a lot in the DWAS by the time the anniversary year of 1983 began. The Society was now nearly seven years old and its newsletter CT had moved on from the fannish enthusiasm which earlier editors had deployed. It was now very much a factual newsletter albeit one that showed just how much activity there was in fandom at the time. Edited by Gordon Roxburgh, the 1983 CT maintained the same look throughout the year and was home mostly to news, longer departmental columns, shorter headlines and zillions of fanzine adverts. Averaging 6- 8 pages per issue ensured each was packed with material. The January issue was Gordon’s first as editor and means both the DWAS’ publications were helmed by Scotsmen. The year started with some bad news as the last story of season 20 was cancelled due to yet another industrial dispute at the BBC. At that moment there was no certainty even that `The Kings Demons` would be able to be completed (don’t say anything….). 

Terrance Dicks 1935- 2019

Terrance Dicks was the last of the big beasts of classic Doctor Who and his place in the pantheon of its writers is legendary. Not only did he oversee one of the most popular periods of the programme’s history but he also penned many Target novels which kept us close to the series when it wasn’t on. Later on his genial yet open responses in countless interviews earned him the kindly sobriquet `Uncle Terrance` though he had claws when he wanted to notably his reaction to the 1996 TV Movie or calling John Nathan-Turner “not fit for purpose” or in reference to 70s campaigner Mary Whitehouse- “If there’s one thing she hated more than sex, its Doctor Who”. More than anything- in fiction and in life- he told it how it was.

The Decline of Doctor Who Fanzines

Once upon a time, there were loads of Doctor Who fanzines and even when the Internet arrived they thrived for a while because they tended to go into more depth than was generally acceptable on websites or blogs. Yet now the generational shift means that younger fans don’t really know paper fanzines because they are growing up with the brevity and instant opinion that current social media, blogs and forums tend to suit. Why bother constructing an elaborate argument when you can Tweet your opinion in a handful of words and an emoji to a greater audience than most fanzines ever achieved?

The word `fanzine` is a simply an amalgam of `fan magazine` and was first coined as far back as 1940 by someone called Russ Chauvenet. Prior to this amateur magazines were called fanmags or letterzines and the earliest recorded example is believed to be `The Comet`, a science fiction zine that appeared in 1930 in Chicago. The first Doctor Who fanzine was probably `Tardis` edited by Andrew Johnson from the mid -1970s though the BBC recognised Doctor Who Fan Club did have a monthly newsletter which might be considered a fanzine of sorts. The boom really began with the formation of the Doctor Who Appreciation Society (or DWAS) in 1976. This itself was partly brought together by `Tardis` readers and contributors as it became the Society fanzine. 

Thirds

It is fifty years since Jon Pertwee became the Doctor and 100 years since his birth. He is the first Doctor I remember and even though I became a big Tom Baker fan I still hold his predecessor in high regard. I took much too from the stories of his era, a linear method that may seem strange in today’s climate but which I still like. The abiding memory that I have of Jon Pertwee is that of a mega star. His appearance was once the climax of many an event and always announced with the appropriate fanfare. Then Pertwee himself, sporting some variation of the third Doctor costume, would stride up the central aisle occasionally pausing to acknowledge the tumultuous applause. He’d arrive on stage, turn to the crowd, his cloak outstretched to grandly announce; “I am the Doctor” to even more cheers and camera flashes. Then with a swish of that cloak he would sit down to survey his followers. Many politicians would do anything for such an appreciative response. It’s unclear who was the more thrilled by this entrance – the actor or the audience.

DWM's Third Doctor World Cup!

Can you imagine the characters from the Third Doctor’s era taking to the football pitch? The Doctor sporting velvet shorts and a cape, Jo Grant stopping to pick daisies, the Autons walking rather than running, the Sea Devils preferring the dressing room bath to the outdoors. Alpha Centauri in goal of course. This is actually not what DWM’s Third Doctor World Cup is about at all. To celebrate fifty years since the Big P became the third Doctor, their Twitter page has been running what must be one of the most fun Doctor Who related ideas in a long time. Based on the format of soccer’s biggest competition the process divided Jon Pertwee’s stories into random groups and then asked people to vote for their favourite in each group. The story with the fewest votes was knocked out. As we’re used to polls in which you award a mark for each story or episode, this process brings with it all the fascination and frustration any football fan will recognise with mismatched draws, very closely fought contests, shock eliminations and unexpected results. It also shows from the first round how consistent a period in the show’s history this was with some excellent stories exiting right away. Goodness knows how hard it would be to vote like this in a Fourth Doctor poll.

The Third Doctor's goalkeeping skills were legendary!

The Macra Terror review

The idea of animating a whole, unavailable old Doctor Who story is a step forward from filling in missing episodes and judging from what’s been done here, a fascinating opportunity. Originally shown in 1966 and long since wiped, this 52 year old tale has always been one of the less regarded of the canon. Those who did see it at the time don’t rate it highly, those who have seen telesnap reconstructions or heard audios don’t seem much more enthusiastic either. This release lifts `The Macra Terror` from its foggy origins and gives it a chance to succeed. It can’t be some huge re-make nor can it alter the overall plot but it does take liberties with the original to service a better story and also to make the Macra more memorable for those who only know them from their surprise re-appearance in `Gridlock` and those couple of photos. Purists may carp – and a telesnap version is included for them – but this is as good as `The Macra Terror` can be- and it’s better than you think it will be.