The First Doctor Adventures - Volume 1

Twice Upon a Time secured David Bradley’s status as a bona-fide, real-deal First Doctor on Christmas Day. An hour later, Big Finish released their First Doctor boxset in which the cast of An Adventure in Space and Time got together to record their own take on Doctor Who’s fledgling years. And it’s a funny old thing. Whilst David Bradley can be acknowledged as an in-universe Doctor Who, the same cannot really be said of Jamie Glover, Gemma Powell and Claudia Grant as Ian, Barbara and Susan: The actors played William Russell, Jacqueline Hill and Carole Ann Ford respectively in the BBC2 anniversary drama as opposed to their characters. If they had appeared in a TV episode as Ian, Barbara and Susan, the stories on offer here wouldn’t feel quite so Unbound.

Which brings me to why this boxset is such a fascinating paradox. It does feel like an Unbound version of the First Doctor era: the actors are all quite different to their TV counterparts and there is a definite strangeness in hearing the regulars we know and love being performed in such an off-kilter fashion. But ironically, writers Matt Fitton and Guy Adams don’t make the most of this. They want the box set to feel authentic, with references to Marco Polo in both stories to add verisimilitude. In the end, once the oddness of the performances has bedded in, this really does feel like the First Doctor era: two lost stories brought back from the dead, such is the structural mirroring, pacing and laudable earnestness of the tales. It’s like no other Doctor Who ever produced, at once completely faithful and totally different.

The Destination Wars begins with an attack on the senses. The first few moments scream The Sixties at the listener who is instantly transported backwards in time as the TARDIS travels forwards to the Space Year 2003. This is a very clever piece of dating jiggery-pokery on the part of Matt Fitton and its in-text explanation warrants applause. His sci-fi tale of a world at war is terrific. Whilst it seems almost inconceivable to imagine a First Doctor Versus The Master story appearing on TV, James Dreyfus as the Inventor makes the mischievous Time Lord’s appearance seem like a missing link, giving David Bradley’s First Doctor a big ol’ villain to stand up against. Can you imagine Hartnell rubbing shoulders with the Master? It would have been to die for. “You Sir, are an abomination! An outrage! How dare you, Sir, how dare you?” Whilst The Destination Wars could be accused of having a slower pace than is strictly necessary in 2017, the feeling of listening to a story that could have been made in black and white is such a thrill that I’ll allow the more languorous narrative moments and wallow in the insanely good Master that is James Dreyfus. I’d love to hear him chewing a bit more scenery in other ranges.

In a shamelessly fannish move, The Destination Wars ends with a typically naff cliff-hanger into the next story The Great White Hurricane. A big hand for that title everyone and for the inspired choice to link the stories seamlessly.

The Great White Hurricane is a traditional historical tale. It has the earnest tone of The Aztecs or The Massacre and the regulars are split into two factions as they are in Dennis Spooner’s The Romans. By the time we reach the TARDIS at the conclusion, neither team really knows what the other has been up to. Ian and Barbara spend time with Rosalita in the search for her missing son at the hands of an abusive father. The Doctor and Susan become involved in the machinations of New York street gangs. The content on offer here is pretty bleak and the story becomes about light in the darkness. The way people stop to help each other in the face of the hurricane mirrors and accentuates the way characters behave in the wake of familial devastation. The civilians, helping each other from a train adrift in the snow or the members of the public desperate to get home stopping to aid those trapped on the frozen lake, are synonymous with a story about hope: a drama which, too rarely in Doctor Who, is actually about something. 

It is perhaps irritating that the complexity of the violent characters gives way to two fairly easy endings. Spoiler alert: abusive father is told he’ll see his son when mother says and he agrees to her terms because Ian says he’s good with his fists. The gang members who are seeking revenge against the death of one of their own simply decide to forgive and forget because their target is from “the streets.” These somewhat twee resolutions seem to worry the writer as just before the end of the tale, we find the dead body of an old man in the snow, allowing Barbara to venture that “History can be a cruel place to visit.” On everything but this evidence, history is, in the end, quite nice. Ultimately though, these minor details fail to detract from a very strong story with some complex and interesting character dynamics at play and a vivid feeling pf place and time.

If James Dreyfus was the star of The Destination Wars, then Jamie Glover is undoubtedly the star of The Great White Hurricane. His voice is imbued with a comfortable “leading-man” quality and he drives through the narrative like the hurricane itself. Sadly, the boxset’s lead actor is not quite the William Hartnell we hoped he would be. In fact, most of the characters from Hurricane find him annoying and I’m sadly inclined to agree. Like the very early Hartnell Doctor, Bradley's is passive, the narrative happening around him. It is Ian and Barbara who find their way back to him in The Destination Wars and their journeys are granted equal air time in Hurricane. This is an ensemble show and Bradley makes up just one member of the foursome. This passivity is also heightened by a weaker performance than his co-stars. I’m not sure what he’s doing with his voice - in that his speech patterns are all over the place - but he sounds nothing like Hartnell, nor anybody else alive for that matter. The cliff-hanger to Part Two of The Destination Wars falls flat because of his delivery, coupled with some equally flat sound design. He sounds weak and old. Hartnell never did. Hartnell was raging against the dying of the light all the time. There is simply no fire in Bradley. He just isn’t strong enough. (I’d like to add the disclaimer that I usually love David Bradley – have done since Our Friends in the North, through True Dare Kiss, Harry Potter and Broadchurch. Here though, he’s all at sea.) It must be said though that his Doctor is consistently well-written across the two stories, and has a distinct and assured "voice."

Sound design here is definitely a mixed bag. There are some terrific, Sixties seeming sound effects and the music is authentic: orchestral with some BBC Special Sound thrown into the mix. In that respect, much of the sound design is delightful. Elsewhere, though, it’s a mess. Track 3 of Disc 2 of Great White Hurricane includes an actor fluff a line, then go back a couple of sentences and repeat it for the re-take! The whole thing is there for us to hear. Maybe it’s an ode to the Hartnell era? There are some poor fade-ups during cliff-hanger reprises and there’s a half-finished feel to much of the second story. Even the hurricane doesn’t sound remotely dangerous, amounting only to some wispy background wind effects. Now, though I love Howard Carter's music, he's never managed to orchestrate a decent cliff-hanger sting and perhaps, just perhaps, Mr Carter is being overstretched? It's a testament to the fine scripts that these problems don't detract too much from the overall enjoyment of this set.

The First Doctor Adventures are – on the whole - a resounding success. After almost 20 years of audio production and almost 2000 Doctor Who episodes, Big Finish have managed to create something quite magical: stories which look backwards but are also refreshingly, inspiringly new. What a thrill.

8/10

JH

The Fourth Doctor Adventures: Series 7 - Part 1

For quite a long time now, Tom Baker has been striding across the Big Finish landscape, as only a voice like Tom Baker’s is able. He has enjoyed 6 series so far: 3 with Louise Jameson’s Leela, 1 with the late Mary Tamm’s Romana and 2 with Lalla Ward’s second incarnation of Romana. He’s also had 4 adventures written in partnership between former producer Philip Hinchcliffe and Classic Series writer Marc Platt, as well as 2 Lost Stories originally considered for TV production in the 70s and 3 terrific novel adaptations from the 90s. Besides that, he’s also appeared in the Classic Doctors, New Monsters series, the Diary of River Song series and the anniversary special, The Light at the End. With rumours that he is to appear in a Comic Strip range as well, that’s not bad going for an actor who once said the Big Finish scripts he’d received had fallen from his lap and into a bin.

This month sees the release of the first half of a fourth series of adventures with Leela. And it’s pretty brilliant. If you’re feeling over-faced by the huge amount of Tom on offer, start here. It includes something for everyone. There’s a traditional sci-fi adventure story with the Voc Robots, an experimentally told surreal departure from the norm in The Crowmarsh Experiment and a 4-part Bladerunner-style thriller. Also, in terms of cost, it’s much kinder on your wallet. This and the second half of the series (out in May) cost £45 to subscribe: that’s 8 discs. Last year, Tom’s season of 9 discs cost £75! 

Before I begin my review, I must say I’m a staunch supporter of The Fourth Doctor Adventures range. I’ve read on less positive parts of the internet that people have problems with the unambitious nature of the series, and that the majority of stories feel like wallowing in nostalgia for its own sake. Now, there are a fair amount of returning villains to be sure (perhaps more than I’d like) and some of the stories in their hour-only running time can feel a bit slight. But in the 50 releases since Destination: Nerva there are only a handful I’ve been disappointed by and although I hate to join the chorus of naysayers in this (whose persistent verbal abuse of the Big Finish Executive Producer I find irritating and abhorrent) they’re usually written by Nick Briggs.

So what of Series 7 so far?

The Sons of Kaldor opens brilliantly. Tom and Louise are on terrific form. The soundscape is wonderfully nostalgic (the door pin codes and the hum of the ship beautifully echoing The Robots of Death and instilling a kind of childhood comfort we couldn’t have expected from 70s sound effects alone). Toby Hadoke and John Dorney make for excellent Vocs and the pace of the story rattles along as it does in any script written by Andrew Smith. Part Two is a little disappointing although the plot is very cleverly unravelled. Oliver Dimsdale as villain Tace however gives a one-note performance and the threat he poses feels small, unconvincing and not altogether dramatic. Once the mysteries of The Sons of Kaldor have been unlocked, the story feels a little hollow and there isn’t very much left for any of our characters to do.

The Crowmarsh Experiment raises the game. It has to be said that Louise Jameson has always been incredible as Leela and here she gifts us with perhaps the best performance she has ever given. Confused, vulnerable and hardened, Jameson fights her way through a story which puts Leela front and centre. A philosophical, esoteric battle perhaps wouldn’t seem like a natural fit for Leela as a companion, but David Llewellyn makes such a tale feel like the missing link. The narrative only heightens Leela’s strength of character. Tom Baker is – unusually - subtly wonderful here. His performance as The Other Doctor is a muted, weird affair giving the play a definite sense of strangeness and unease. It is as if he is narrating one of his Late Night Stories such is his lightness of touch. The Crowmarsh Experiment stands as one of the very finest Fourth Doctor Adventures and deserves to be heard again and again.

The final two stories are really, as we all know, one story. The Mind Runners/The Demon Rises is a traditional four-parter when it comes to structure. In terms of pace, we do slow down a little. The first episode feels like one long conversation, although scriptwriter John Dorney is drip-feeding elements cleverly which will be important later and the dialogue between The Doctor, Leela and Taraneh sparkles. Dorney’s scripts are in fact adroitly structured. The story is expertly executed in the way Dorney reveals elements of his very clever plot. There is a memorable, well-performed villain in Mr Shift, a brutal, shocking death and a most unusual monster, all revealed at tipping points in terms of our understanding of the narrative. Whilst The Mind Runners/The Demon Rises is not as showy or as spectacular as some of its contemporaries, it is difficult not to admire the immaculate craftsmanship at work here. This is a taut, gripping thriller, brilliantly written and very well-acted.

Half way through, this series is shaping up to be another goldmine. Is it May yet?

9/10

JH

A Cosmos Without the Doctor: Big Finish and the Companion Chronicles

When The Companion Chronicles began, they were an effort on the part of Big Finish to represent the eras of those Doctors unavailable to them: William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker. Now, of course, we have Great Uncle Tom chomping at the bit to record stories, Jon Devon Roland is represented by the superb Tim Treloar and Hartnell and Troughton have their ranges of Early Adventures as well as continued Chronicles boxsets. 

But back in 2007, the inception of The Companion Chronicles failed to set the world on fire. David Tennant was breezing across the TV screens with Freema Agyeman and a series of CD adventures without the stories’ respective Doctors involved seemed like a bit of a reach. I didn’t pick up any until a few years down the line, when a couple of titles and narrators sparked my interest. And suddenly I realised what I’d been missing out on. Because The Companion Chronicles were and remain utterly superb.

I’d turned my nose up at the idea of listening to stories without the bona fide actors involved, foolishly without thinking that I might actually enjoy simply listening to stories. Some of the tales in the Chronicles are so far beyond what the TV series was and is capable of. Some delight in what has been lovingly referred to as “fanwank.” (The idea of setting a story within the closing minutes of The Tenth Planet as the First Doctor stumbles towards his regeneration doesn’t seem quite so “out there” now that Steven Moffat has presented it as a Christmas Special. But The Companion Chronicles got there first in a truly heart-breaking story.) The return of WOTAN might feel like an indulgence the TV show wouldn’t aspire to but its arrival happens in one of the best scripts our programme has ever enjoyed. Other stories are completely original, outlandish and experimental. Some of our finest Big Finish writers produce their finest works in this range, with Simon Guerrier surely the undisputed King of the Chronicles. Jonathan Morris, Marc Platt, Eddie Robson, John Dorney and Jacqueline Rayner also produce phenomenal pieces of writing for the range. 

At their best, The Companion Chronicles are intricate and emotional and take one right back in time to the respective TV eras. But also they can be tremendously audacious. There are stories set within 1970s kids’ puppet shows, toyshops whose doors all lead to the same room, airlocks with the oxygen slowly running out. There are stories which detail the intricacies of the Master’s Earthly life from his prison cell. There are stories told as jigsaw puzzles, where track-listings can be moved about. There are stories so beautiful it makes one balk in wonder.

Here are some of my very favourites:

MOTHER RUSSIA by Marc Platt

Marc Platt’s florid, lyrical prose style is the perfect fit for The Companion Chronicles and Peter Purves narrates with a crispness that allows the writing to shine. Mother Russia begins with a relaxed and ponderous tone, and takes place unusually over a period of weeks. As we become more attune to and in love with the story’s rich setting, we begin to realise that war is coming, an invasion more threatening and dangerous than any alien attack for we know this one to be the real deal. As the cover art suggests, Napoleon is on his way. Like the best Hartnell historicals, there is a pervasive sense of doom about this Chronicle and it’s all the better for it.

THE GLORIOUS REVOLUTION by Jonathan Morris

After Helicon Prime proved what an uncanny and startlingly accurate Patrick Troughton impression Frazer Hines has been able to master over the years, The Glorious Revolution gives Jamie a story that allows his creator to shine. There are many “Pat” moments which send tingles up the spine, but best of all, this is a story that could only be about Jamie McCrimmon. He and the Doctor find themselves on different sides of an historical argument, and Hines plays the scenes of the Time Lord and his companion arguing astonishingly, well. Jonathan Morris’s script evokes all that was atmospheric and strong about The Highlanders and spins a taut, tense drama from the period. It’s, in lieu of a better expression, glorious.

THE ANACHRONAUTS by Simon Guerrier

There aren’t many thrills for a Doctor Who fan like spending time with those actors from the 1960s era of the programme. To get Peter Purves and Jean Marsh together is completely cherishable and utterly delightful. They are brilliant and here we enjoy double time with them with 2 discs’ worth of adventure. The story is an odd one, which fits perfectly with the unpredictability of Hartnell’s third season and its tendency to hop settings. A desert island and then Berlin via a magic door: this is a story only 1960s Doctor Who could tell, but which it never did. And to hear these two old pros perform such a terrific script is such a moving, bracing pleasure. 

THE ROCKET MEN by John Dorney

If Jean Marsh and Peter Purves are the Prince and Princess of the 1960s companions, then surely William Russell is the King and is to be revered. His earthy reliability and quiet charisma mark him out as a narrator of genuine stature and his Companion Chronicle readings are perhaps stronger than any other actors’. The Rocket Men is a simple story, told out of sequence but at its heart, it’s a story of the relationship between Ian and Barbara. So much of their TV tale was unspoken and it remains unspoken here, and yet their deep, unbreakable love for each other is what powers this extraordinary production, which itself gives way to a raft of Rocket Men tales over the following years. This is nothing short of a masterpiece and like Ian and Barbara’s relationship, rather beautifully it doesn’t feel the need to shout about it. 

THE SCORCHIES by James Goss…

…is a musical! Not only that, it’s set within a TV kids programme hosted by puppets with guest star Jo Grant. It’s a gimmick that shouldn’t work. It certainly shouldn’t be so engaging and entertaining for a whole hour. It certainly shouldn’t feel like the Doctor is genuinely dead at the end of Episode One. It certainly shouldn’t have spawned two direct sequels. And it certainly shouldn’t be ignored. This is as audacious, brazen and valiant as The Companion Chronicles have ever been. In short, it is bloody brilliant.

THE FIRST WAVE by Simon Guerrier

At this point in the series, it really did seem like Mr Guerrier could do no wrong. After two extremely good instalments in what has come to be known as the Oliver Harper Trilogy, he hits us with this. It’s a beautiful story, with a haunting conclusion. Guerrier has an uncanny knack of instilling feelings of the ghostliness of nostalgia. It’s a childhood anxiety felt keenly in Dickens and the last few minutes of this play haunt the memory long after the closing titles. They are heartbreakingly bleak and wonderful. The rest is pretty awesome too.

THE MAHOGANY MURDERERS by Andy Lane

A story that unknowingly launched thirteen 4-hour box sets, a spin-off with Strax, three adventures with the Sixth Doctor, two Short Trips and a loving posthumous release by way of a coda: Yeah, The Mahogany Murderers was pretty good. Aside from the very strong, very funny script (what a cliff-hanger!) the real joy of this release is hearing sparks fly between Christopher Benjamin and Trevor Baxter. They complement each other so very well, Benjamin with his big, brassy boombox and Baxter the more restrained, stiff-upper-lip sort. To hear them together in this first instalment, unaccompanied is something very special, now captured on audio forever.

THE LAST POST by James Goss

Caroline John’s final work as Liz and it’s incredible. We meet Liz’s mother and the story chooses an interesting form to relay its narrative. John is, as ever, unshowily amazing, as is Rowenna Cooper as Emily. The sound design makes for a mesmeric experience and a special shout-out must go to Richard Fox and Lauren Yason who are the unsung heroes of the best Chronicles. After a rattling and emotional yarn, the icing on the cake has got to be when WOTAN turns up at the finish. This is terrific and just the kind of thing Big Finish do so well.

THE COLD EQUATIONS by Simon Guerrier

Again Richard Fox and Lauren Yason make this story feel like it’s spiralling towards a strange, kaleidoscopic conclusion, which is perfectly in keeping with Simon Guerrier’s complex, revolving narrative. Admittedly, the science was a bit beyond me but it didn’t matter as I cared so much for these two men trapped in a tin can spinning in outer space towards their doom. What is so brilliant about The Cold Equations is its remote and claustrophobic atmosphere. The pre-titles sequence alone sold it to me instantly as a classic.

PERI AND THE PISCON PARADOX by Nev Fountain

When the Chronicles launched, I wouldn’t have predicted that perhaps my very favourite would feature Nicola Bryant: it just didn’t seem to fall within the remit of the series. But The Companion Chronicles decided very quickly that actually, they could tell any story they wanted. Nev Fountain here produces a work of magnificence. Not only is it affecting and heartfelt, but it also features Colin Baker dressed in a flappy fish costume. (Inside of which, he’s wearing his TV costume and getting a bit hot.) By the time you reach the end of this terrifically funny couple of hours, you realise that any snobbery you might have had about the range has been completely dispelled. Because Peri and the Piscon Paradox is as enjoyable as any Doctor Who story has ever been. 

Given the vast number of Companion Chronicle releases, it was extremely difficult to whittle it down to just 10 so I’d like to name-check a few which are definitely worth spending money on: Mastermind; The Library of Alexandria; The Suffering; The Transit of Venus; The Flames of Cadiz; The Selachian Gambit; Solitaire; The Pyralis Effect; The Blue Tooth; Across the Darkened City; Fields of Terror and Home Truths. There are untold wonders across every series of Chronicles and all kinds of experimentation, cleverness and invention. 

I hope readers might try to dip their toes into this superlative range. Once they sink their teeth in, these stories really won’t let you go. 

JH

1992 and Me

1992: Hardly Doctor Who’s Golden Age, but for this seven-year-old it was utterly bracing. The BBC decided to repeat one full story from each Doctor (with two from the Pertwee era for good measure). This was the first opportunity for me to watch Doctor Who the old-fashioned way, on a weekly basis with cliff-hangers to mull over all week long. 

I’d seen Sylvester’s last two seasons (88-89) but couldn’t really remember watching them on transmission (although I do have a fuzzy memory of watching the vampire girls approach Wainwright in the graveyard whilst sitting on my Dad’s lap). My videotaped repeats of those stories had been watched to within snapping point and every story after that I was able to blitz through on VHS. I remember my first five were: The Five Doctors, City of Death, Day of the Daleks, Death to the Daleks and The Ark in Space. 

But 1992 was really special. Firstly, we were granted a documentary in the form of Resistance is Useless, which I adored. So many clips from stories I’d never seen before! Highlights included the Kirby dance from The Underwater Menace, the krynoid attacking the house in The Seeds of Doom and Susan hanging from the ladder in The Dalek Invasion of Earth. There was such a viscerally exciting strangeness about these clips that it is probably the one programme that absolutely cemented my adoration of the show. Most of the clips were in black and white but to this seven-year-old they were no less tantalising.

Then the repeat season began. With The Time Meddler. After the promise of Resistance is Useless, The Time Meddler fell a little bit flat, although it has to be said that the opening episode is a masterclass in tension and atmosphere. And it contained my first honest-to-goodness cliff-hanger. Hartnell’s expression as the wooden bars slide down to imprison him completely sells the jeopardy he’s in and the danger of the mysterious monk. I was hooked. The rest of the story though, in complete honesty, I found a bit dull. Even watching now, the Hartnell-less Episode Two grinds to a halt and the narrative has an uphill struggle before it can find its pace again. Still though, there was that other, more celebrated, prize cliff-hanger. I was as gobsmacked as the 1960s viewers – probably – when it was revealed that “The Monk’s got a TARDIS.” Suddenly, there were worlds of Doctor Who I’d never known about unfolding on the TV screen.

The Mind Robber was next and how magnificent it was. Just four years after The Time Meddler and the energy, slickness and pace are completely different. The first episode, set in the TARDIS and a white void rattles along, and it’s bloody weird. The special sound gives the story an unearthly lift and images such as a bleached-out Jamie and Zoe beckoning the Doctor smilingly as we hear Zoe screaming epitomise what makes The Mind Robber so spectacular a piece of television. The story speaks to children perhaps even more strongly than adults: it’s about their fairy tales and legends coming to life. The tautness of the episodes means we sometimes get three or four characters personified in each twenty minutes. Clockwork soldiers, Gulliver, Rapunzel, the minotaur, Medusa, the Karkus, Sir Lancelot: across the five instalments, there is so much at which to marvel. As an adult, it’s easy to smirk at the naivety of the structure but for me, it was tantalising. It remains a firm favourite. 

Next came the two Pertwees. Both fabulous. The Daemons had an almost perfect first episode, but one which my Uncle Dave taped over with Episode Two the following week. I was livid. I wouldn’t be able to experience it again. Annoyingly, when the VHS was released, I bypassed it as I had the last four episodes recorded and felt like other, unknown stories were worthier of my pocket money. I didn’t see Episode One again until I bought a deleted VHS copy at a convention during my college days. But I still remembered images from those first spooky 25 minutes so much had they haunted me. Even as a seven-year-old, I had been right: the first night was the best. I vividly remember Bok storming into the dig site at the end of Episode Two though and Azal, the real-life devil, growing at the end of Episode Four. But it was the next story that made me fall in love with the cliff-hanger ending most of all.

Whilst The Daemons had atmosphere, The Sea Devils had pure, unadulterated excitement. It was pacier, more frenetic, it had even madder music, rowing boats, speedboats, carrier ships, motorbikes, submarines and a bona fide swordfight. It caught my imagination like no other story of the repeat season. And most importantly, I finally understood the power of The Sting of the Cliff-Hanger. My brother and I spent a week wondering what the thing was coming towards the Doctor and Jo at the end of Episode One. “It’s the man in the yellow jumper,” we managed to work out after rounds of talking. Episodes Two, Three and Four have equally brilliant cliff-hangers, and the last five minutes of those instalments have to rank amongst the greatest moments in Doctor Who for me. Just when you think the swordfight is over, the Master wields a knife. And only bloody well throws it. The Doctor and Jo are trapped on the beach: guards to the left of them; minefields to the right of them; a Sea Devil in front of them and the Master behind them. The Light Brigade had it bad but it surely wasn’t this harrowing. At the end of Episode Four, I really wasn’t sure what Jo had seen in the capsule: was it empty, was there a body inside? I didn’t have a clue and it was all I thought about that week. The Sea Devils, rubbery turtle heads and all, is a masterpiece. I absolutely adore it. Even with so many belters (and future discoveries - how amazing is Ambassadors?) to contend with, it remains my very favourite of his era.

The other repeats weren’t quite as much fun. By the time Genesis and Caves came around I’d seen them on VHS and the only McCoys I yearned to see were the ones I hadn’t: ironically Season 24 (major disappointments abounded with their eventual VHS releases). But Revelation of the Daleks was… well, a revelation. I loved the violence, I loved the just-a-bit-too-difficult language, I loved the characters and I loved the atmosphere. I have a vivid memory of watching on a tiny TV in my half-attic bedroom and a storm causing signal interference which interrupted my recording. (This happened with Twice Upon a Time this year: the more things change…) I still love Revelation. The only thing to knock it from its pedestal slightly is the moment when the renegade Daleks arrive and you realise you need that awful thing to fully understand it: backstory. I felt left out at the time and I still believe it to be the script’s only failing. The rest is irresistible.

It is an irony that when Doctor Who was at its most unloved – those dark early 90s when its resurrection seemed completely impossible and only darker times lay ahead – a half-arsed repeat season to fill the schedules meant that at least one young boy became a true fan. I learned to love black and white, and Jamie and Zoe, and Roger Delgado and The Grand Order of Oberon and the “Monk’s got a TARDIS!” and Jon and Katy, and Necros, and Patrick Troughton and Douglas Camfield and white robots, and David Maloney and Eric Saward and Michael E Brient, a once glimpsed-never forgotten Episode One of The Daemons and the true majesty of The Sea Devils. These stories caught my imagination like no others. They are examples of the most triumphant television: television that gets kids hooked.

In 1992, there was still light in the darkness. 

JH