The Collection - Season 2

The Collection – Season 2 Blu Ray

What a tremendous undertaking this Blu Ray release is, not just for the avid Who viewer but for the talented team of documentary-makers and perhaps more importantly the sound and visual restorers of these incredible looking episodes, hitting a Blu Ray milestone at a massive 37 instalments (plus 2 very fine reconstructions). This is the biggest Blu-Who hit so far. I’ve never had the joy of viewing this season in order before. The Time Meddler’s 1992 repeat and The Chase’s Dalek VHS tin release of 1993 were my introduction to Season 2 at the tender age of seven. Back then, my opinions were clear: Time Meddler was moody but boring, The Chase was funny and thrilling. Now, given the intervening years of discovering Season 2 in different forms (VHS and DVD editions or UK Gold repeats spanning almost a decade), I come finally to this masterful release and get to watch it in order. It’s the story of Doctor Who’s growth from naivety and self-importance to maturity and expansion. These are the stories on which Doctor Who has been hitherto built and even almost 60 years later, they’re incredibly powerful and awe-inspiring.

We begin with a held over story from Season One and it certainly feels like a relic of a simpler time. The story’s pace, as noted by the BBC high-ups, is sluggish. Its problem lies in the fact that the episodes take place in real time, so we end up watching the TARDIS crew pace from one - admittedly tremendous - set to the next with no real sense of energy and the cameras pan across with them into new elements such as the – admittedly tremendous – giant ants or giant flies which the characters would have been able to see if only they’d shunted along a little faster or perhaps just opened their eyes. Whilst the design work stuns, Raymond Cusick and Barry Newbury proving bona fide heroes across the season (all their work dazzles), the otherwise inventive director Mervyn Pinfield, can’t get past the 50s style of camera movement, the characters unnaturally noticing things as they appear on the screen, rather than as they would spot them in reality. The same problem persists in the later, similarly plodding Space Museum which, despite an arresting first episode, then falls into this story’s similar trap of watching the heroes walk around the setting in real time. Sadly, on that occasion, the sets are all life-size.

Conversely, at the other end of the season, we have episode one of The Time Meddler which exemplifies a completely different approach to camerawork and storytelling, and it feels far more modern. Almost a year apart, the stark difference between where Doctor Who was and where it is going is marked. Here, the 25 minutes cover a whole evening, the sun falling away into the darkness of the episode’s climax. Although it feels relatively leisurely, the idea that we follow the lead characters in their every move is now a thing of the past and we can span a greater timeframe than at the season’s outset and a greater breadth of locations. It’s what gives The Romans its grand sense of scope. The back-projected sky here in Time Meddler is a touch of genius from director Douglas Camfield who, ironically cut his teeth on the final truncated episode of Planet of Giants. The boy’s obviously learnt a lot over the year and - like his designers - makes for a key player in Team Season 2.

Camfield’s episodes of The Crusade and The Time Meddler are positively sumptuous. There’s a rich confidence in their rigorous approach to television-making. The forests in both convince far more than, say, the jungles of Mechanus with its drab studio floor and invasive studio cameras. It’s a marvel to see Camfield come to life with his exciting film-work early in the newly remastered and now beautiful-looking The Lion. It’s terrifically shot action followed by the slow, lingering shot later in The Wheel of Fortune of Saladin talking almost directly to camera. Here’s a director with a keen sense of comparison, pace, story-telling and beauty. It’s a heart-breaking irony that The Crusade may be the masterpiece of Season 2 we’ll never get to fully enjoy. Derek Handley’s excellent reconstructions go a good way to helping us understand what it may have been like though and they’re very welcome for this reviewer who feels as if he’s finally experienced the story, as near as dammit, in full. Thankfully, the story’s best scene comes at the end of Part Three, in which two of Doctor Who’s later guest stars prove their brilliance in a fiery row in which the offscreen Pope destroys the King’s desperate plans and tears out his fighting heart. It’s also William Hartnell’s best performance in a season full of tremendous moments for him as an actor.

Christopher Barry also excels as director on six episodes here. The Rescue is a perfect little vignette, introducing Vicki with well-scripted efficiency, a strong performance and acute direction. Barry proves in The Romans that he can give us action (the dynamic sinking of Chesteron’s ship) and comedy (the way the camera pans round before Derek Francis’s exquisitely timed coo-ey wave to Barbara). These are masterclasses in how to do successful 60s sci-fi and successful 60s romp. Those early scenes with our TARDIS crew whiling away the hours in the villa are completely charming. Vicki’s invitation at the end of The Rescue must have been irresistible and it’s in these six episodes we see how perfectly she slots into place in this very effective TARDIS team.  

At the bleaker end of the directorial scale comes Richard Martin, a notoriously contention auteur. Martin provides a useful backbone to Steve Broster’s Season 2 Era documentary (Flight Through Eternity) which suffers slightly from its key players no longer being with us, but on the evidence of Martin’s episodes here, he’s the one fellow you wouldn’t want to employ again. The Dalek Invasion of Earth is his best work but even there, he misses out on key moments. Where is that iconic shot of the Daleks crossing the bridge, Big Ben behind them, that made for such a ubiquitous press photo? When are we going to get a decent shot of the Slyther? Time and again in a Richard Martin-directed instalment, the cameras and actors seem to be all at sea. The fight to capture the Dalek saucer at the end of Part Two is a muddled mess, Bernard Kay (so captivating as Saladin in The Crusade) wondering around as if looking for a lens and some motivation. Images are formed in cramped three and four-shots on tiny sets which rarely convince. In The Chase, we see actors waiting for their cue after the cameras have cut to them. This isn’t a common occurrence in the rest of this 60s season. It’s only the Martin episodes which feel quite this feeble. He also has a strange tendency to crash-zoom his cameras into indistinct areas. The cliff-hanger at the end of Part Three of The Chase exemplifies this best, as Hartnell’s line is interrupted by a crash-zoom on… some circuitry. Thankfully, Martin’s got the season’s big blockbusters to bolster his work and it’s probably their all-out ambition (and inherent sense of fun) that makes up for his fudging of much of them.

Carole Ann Ford’s last scene as Susan is one of the most magical moments in all of Doctor Who. It epitomises 60s parental attitudes and William Hartnell is never more on point than here. He’s dignified and gracious, holding it together before the TARDIS dematerialises and the studio lights go out. He could be patronising but he’s gentle. He could be melodramatic but he’s quiet and precise. Hartnell seems to know this is a moment that will live in history, and he is an absolute boss. When Ian and Barbara leave in their joyous montage of (incidentally Douglas Camfield directed) film and photography, we’re left with another golden moment for Billy. His grief at the loss of his co-stars is palpable. It’s such a shame that a wretched boom mic seems to conspire to spoil the stillness of this moment of devastation, but Hartnell emerges victorious. The Web Planet desperately wants to be a season spectacular too. Admittedly, Part One largely succeeds with its distinctly weird atmosphere and climate, aside from an otherwise superb Hartnell experiencing a rare half-hour of dying on stage, the lines always just beyond his grasp. But for the remainder, there’s too little action and the performances are too mannered to be comprehensible. The Web Planet is a story so easy to admire, so ambitious, so beautiful (in terms of costume and design and the filmed Menoptera invasion is superb) and its rich life outside the TV show in comics, annuals and other media speaks volumes but it’s so terribly difficult to genuinely enjoy. All three of Martin’s stories are noisy too, with music used strangely and creaks and bangs of shambolic studio sessions immortalised now on Blu Ray in all their wincing beauty.

Highlighting Hartnell’s struggles in the first episode of The Web Planet leads me to praise him from the hilt for the many glorious performances he gives elsewhere on this boxset. Watching in order, there’s a palpable truism to the way in which he mellows after Susan’s departure. He needs to spoil Vicki, his surrogate grand-daughter to whom he doesn’t owe the same all-consuming responsibility. From The Rescue, we see the playful Doctor we have come to know and love arrive. He’s more polite to Ian and Barbara, more mischievous by the time he reaches Ancient Rome and in that episode of The Web Planet, he’s near-enough manic. The great, great scope and journey of this actor’s performance as Doctor Who is a privilege to be able to enjoy here in 2023 so beautifully remastered, every tic and scowl and squint, there to see. And Hartnell is so in the moment. His growth across the season as a leading character is natural and effective and above all, earned. The loss of his grand-daughter leading him ultimately to be kind.

Watching in sequence also draws out some lovely continuity. Vicki cheekily asks Barbara to make her a dress in The Romans. By the time we reach The Chase, Barbara’s making it and ironically, sadly, it will never get finished. As the Doctor’s relationship with Vicki grows throughout The Romans, The Web Planet and The Crusade in which they’re paired together, so Ian and Barbara become heroes in their own right and the more distant from the Doctor they become. When the chance to leave him eventually comes, it feels like the right time. The natural order has changed. The Doctor has his grand-daughter of sorts back with him, and this time she has nowhere else she wants to be. The kick-arse Maureen O’Brien excels throughout a season in which she’s given much to do. The actor’s irritation at the way Vicki was underwritten is perhaps not backed up by the evidence here. Or perhaps her vocalising her issues propelled writers to throw her into the action. Nevertheless, when Ian and Barbara are gone on their beautifully understated and romantic bus ride, the Doctor and Vicki are the true TARDIS unit. And just when you’re getting used to that idea, the terrific Steven Taylor comes along to add a nuisance brother to the family mix.

It feels prudent to mention the qualities of William Russell and Jacqueline Hill here, who are utterly dependable every single week. They are the touchstones of the series, our ways in. They act with incredible dignity and understatement throughout and viewing their very long journeys across the season here, their unflappability and strength, seems even greater achievements. Miraculously, they’re replaced by Peter Purves, who provides an equally assured and trustworthy performance. In the company of these fine actors, we forget they’re acting. They completely inhabit those roles and make a massive contribution to the show which we’re still thankful for today.

The Time Meddler is unusual because cannily, at season’s end, we’re introduced to a brand-new type of Doctor Who story which asserts that, just as Steven believes, we cannot possibly be in 1066 due to the anachronisms we find ourselves surrounded by. The viewer is wrongfooted by the wristwatch and when the monks’ chanting hymns suddenly warp it might be safe to assume that Richard Martin’s back in the gallery, but Hartnell proves in his sharp, mercurial look that this is for real: things are about to change. The Doctor seems to know more about The Monk than he’s telling us, and there’s a real feeling of a shared history, the mystery of which is vividly exciting. The programme is flexing its wings. There’s no doubting the variety of story-types on display across this season – from the Saracen hordes to the butterfly men of Vortis, this show can do anything - but at its finish, we realise that there are more tricks up our favourite programme’s sleeve. And we end with our three thoroughly modern heroes, looking out through the stars. Although they may have just travelled into the past, they are most definitely headed for the future.

Special Features

Leading this box set’s new deluge of attractive special features are two interviews conducted by the ever-elucidatory Matthew Sweet, whose knowledge of the show and indeed the pop culture of its respective eras seems gloriously unending. William Russell and Maureen O’Brien make for the most charming company. Recorded in 2018, Russell’s elderly appearance belies a sharp mind, keenly aware of his gentlemanly obligations to his co-stars, about whom he talks with adoration and happiness. Maureen O’Brien doesn’t have any such guardedness, exposing Hartnell as a “racist, homophobic” but also brittle man, whose complicated nature she had to deal with daily. Far from being declamatory though, O’Brien is humble, self-deprecating and beautifully honest. Both conversations are incredibly touching and a reminder that although the time we have left with our beloved heroes is on the wane, their status and our fondness for them will be eternal.

The aforementioned Flight Through Eternity from Steve Broster is a strong addition to the now-copious documentaries spanning whole eras. It’s a lovely touch to use the same incidental music as was used in the DVD-era’s Origins documentary on Season One (as well as the Season Three era doc) and feels like a subtle binding tie across the Hartnell years home video documentation. Whilst the stories told within are explanatory, amusing and irreverent – Richard Martin and Peter Purves proving to have meticulous memories! - there’s a feeling that we’re too late to be told the big ones because the people we need to hear from are no longer with us. The section on The Crusade, for instance, spends its time talking about David Whittaker himself rather than the TV serial, whilst The Space Museum section talks more about changes in the staff office. It’s a bit of a shame as this is possibly the last time these stories will be regaled in these talking heads documentaries by those involved. Elsewhere, Broster delivers a cracking first instalment of Doctor Who and the Collectors, in which Emily Cook interviews fans with particular penchants for 60s merch. This feels so fresh and invigorating, an outside-the-Blu-Ray-box thinking, if you will, as to what could be included. Cook is a refreshing presenter, youthful, excitable and respectful, and a visible change in a landscape often populated by us white boys. Best of all though, Chris Chapman’s latest Looking For investigates the life of David Whitaker, perhaps Doctor Who’s real founding father. It’s a story of sadness and joy, and seeing and hearing Whitaker on screen allows him the chance to live again.

With masses of PDF material scanned by the extremely thorough Richard Bignell (praise be), staggeringly beautiful artwork (Lee Binding - praise be), and picture and sound restoration of extraordinary quality (praise be to Peter Crocker and Mark Ayres), this is such a glorious achievement, ensuring that the Who-Ray range engineered by Russell Minton (praise be) is the very greatest Doctor Who product on the market. These are sets which I personally completely cherish. I can’t wait for the next one.

JH

The Collection - Season 22 Blu Ray

Cards on the table: Season 22 has never been a personal favourite. As a child, I came to the stories in piecemeal form: some early VHS releases, the Revelation repeat and UK Gold. Whilst I’d LOVED Revelation, the tantalising glimpses of Colin’s first season on Resistance is Useless and even The Troughton Years led eventually to some stories which looked great ultimately feeling flat. The childhood “first look” tends not to lie. Who doesn’t still love those films they watched over and over again as children? (I’ll throw Romancing the Stone in the Blu Ray player any day.) Watching the 1985 season this week, I’d still stand generally by the assertion that Season 22 looks fizzy but tastes flat. However, the year 2022 represents the most enjoyable experience I’ve ever had with these grizzly, dazzling, bright and in their own way intriguing tales.

Colin Baker strides through the season as if this were the part he was born to play. It’s impossible to view the series without the knowledge that the Sixth Doctor has recently attempted to strangle Peri and failed to apologise for it though. As Attack of the Cybermen begins, we’re not quite sure he won’t do so again and the relationship between Doctor and Companion feels worryingly akin to an abusive husband and an abused wife. Peri just keeps doing as she’s told and the Doctor keeps putting her in unforgiveable positions: asking her to shoot Terry Molloy’s Russell; pushing her off in the direction of David Ashton’s Karfelian “tour”; dismissing her fears of rabid dogs and relentlessly belittling her dialect. Even when she asks if she has a say, he responds, “Of course not. Be quiet,” in a tasteless bit of ha-ha 80s mansplaining. It’s a wonder she stays with him and an even bigger wonder that Colin Baker manages to make our lead such a charming and loveable Time Lord. He rails against the lines, finds a nuance that often isn’t there and smiles through moments which could be needlessly terse. The lengthy TARDIS scenes which delay our heroes’ arrival become a somewhat irritating staple. Whilst events unfold on Karfel, for instance, Peri is busy looking at a curve on a screen, wondering when it might become a line. Whilst events unfold on Varos, Peri is busy finding a big book for the Doctor to unceremoniously slap on the floor. Whilst events unfold on Necros, Peri and the Doctor climb over a small wall. Having two actors of such calibre, such dependable and cherishable leads who are, without fail, acting their hearts out, finding depth, unpredictability and surprise in their dialogue, demoted to C-plot status and given so little to do, is the biggest crime of Season 22 and chiefly its script editor.

There are glimpses of greatness though. Peri wonders what her “first trip to London” might look like above ground, lending a sense of reality to the American botany student in the early moments of Attack. Her interest in the hedgerows in The Mark of the Rani and the unusual flora on Necros remind us that Nicola Bryant is playing a real person with a history. Equally, the Doctor is given some occasionally terrific scenes to play. Colin Baker feels completely relaxed in the role by the time he’s locked in the cooler with Flast the Cryon, finding diverting ways to play some over-verbose speeches. His apparent death at the end of the first episode of Vengeance on Varos feels real and is harrowing. His dialogue with Davros is eminently Doctor-ish and Colin plays his first meeting with Timelash’s Herbert with cool comic timing. He's also a match for the great Patrick Troughton in The Two Doctors, a show which – perhaps more than any other multi-Doctor Classic Who tale, feels like a story with equally billed leading men with equal screen time of equal quality. This should be a show that is working well, that is firing on all cylinders. The ingredients are all there – even including JNT’s infamous “shopping list” stories (This is a season with Cybermen, Daleks, Sontarans, the Master and the Second Doctor, for heaven’s sake – It should fly!) but nothing quite gels. Because, and it must be laid at his door again, Eric Saward doesn’t really know what to do with his stars and he doesn’t quite know how to solve a problem like 45 minutes.

Four of the six stories here have massive pacing issues. (The other two suffer from minor pacing issues too.) Attack of the Cybermen feels like a hodgepodge of random ideas cobbled together with little coherence and certainly doesn’t feel like a story in two acts. Despite the fact that fans often point to Part One being the more successful though, I’d argue that Part Two is far surer about the tale it wants to tell. There remain so many questions in the end: why, for instance, does Lytton affect a diamond robbery, gathering together some cronies, to then find the Cybermen who are in the sewers (for what reason?), for them to take him to Mondas, for him to steal a time-ship for the Cryons, whom he presumably left there in the first place? Jesus, he even knew about Stratton and Bates. The diamond job seems like a bloody long-arse way of going about things, Lytton. Resultantly, in Attack things just happen, one event after the next, with little regard for cause and effect, ironic for a time travel story. In The Mark of the Rani, the script starts strongly, with the promise of a meeting of great scientific minds to be crashed by the Master remaining a dangling narrative carrot. Unfortunately, when we should be tearing towards a climax which might leave history devastated in its wake, the Rani (and her companion the Master) are wondering around an empty forest placing land mines on the ground which turn people into trees. The story doesn’t even seem to finish. The Doctor simply fiddles with the Rani’s TARDIS and leaves her and the Master in limbo. Despite a cracking cliff-hanger at its mid-point, Part Two of The Mark of the Rani is arguably the weakest episode of the season and feels constantly as if it’s coming to a grinding halt. The Two Doctors also starts well – we get a whole twenty minutes of Patrick Troughton and Frazer Hines having an adventure. It’s a bold way to begin. And when we meet Colin and Nicola, we’re even happier that we’re getting an extra adventure with them. Unfortunately, the plot meanders around the block a few times, with Part Three enjoying at least three unrelated endings: the Sontaran ship exploding, Oscar Botcherby’s horrible death and then (the least effective) Chessene falling out of a plastic DIY time machine with a half-arsed yelp. Part Two opens with a huge scene wherein the Doctor deduces that the universe is collapsing, ruminates on the effect that will have on the butterfly, then changes his mind and realises that he’s wrong. It gives the show a questionable air of seeming partly pointless and most definitely playing for runtime. Timelash, too is an oddly formed beast, the greatest of which (Paul Darrow) is offed too early into Part Two. As Darrow himself asserts on the show’s Making Of: “When I’m dead, stop watching. It’s boring.” There are exceptionally tedious TARDIS scenes in the programme’s later stages leading to yet another story that doesn’t know how to fill its allotted minutes successfully. Revelation of the Daleks is surprising in how so assuredly and successfully it breezes across the screen in all its violent glory, its narrative threads working beautifully in parallel with one another, the one story written with only Eric Saward at the helm. (Perhaps he just couldn’t fix other writers’ scripts?) Vengeance on Varos – the outlier – shows how to structure things more traditionally, Part One’s cliff-hanger perhaps the best moment of the season, so satisfyingly meta is it in its timing. Its only fault is that the big finish doesn’t quite work in studio, the poisoned tendrils seeming rather feeble and trifling when compared to the hangings, the acid baths and the giant flies of earlier threat.

So if the unusual structures of these episodes don’t quite work, what is so great about Season 22? Most obviously, the production values are absolutely worthy of note. The Mark of the Rani looks the most sumptuous, every aspect of the serial convincing in its historic detail and the Rani’s TARDIS interior is shockingly grand and original; Attack of the Cybermen has a contemporaneous feeling of urban grit in in its filmed sequences; considering it’s all shot in studio, there is a feeling of dread and hostility running throughout Vengeance on Varos; and the fortuitous snowy sequences of Revelation end the season with a peculiar touch of class. There is some fantastic design work, especially in Attack of the Cybermen. The tomb sequences, although not quite evoking the Tombs of the 60s, boast a robustness and realism often lacking in “futuristic” sets. Varos has a holistic feeling to its world’s design, domestic home dwellings looking almost identical to the prison cells from which they have evolved. Revelation too boasts a world we can thematically believe in, the creams and pastels of the DJ booth and Kara’s offices belying the dark underbelly of Necrosian society.

There’s also a real feeling of diversity to the stories on offer which is deeply pleasing. Attack’s large-scale planet-hopping gives way to the oppressive darkness of a series of claustrophobic tunnels on Varos which in turn opens up to the expansive location shooting on The Mark of the Rani and the foreign shoot of The Two Doctors. Each story feels visually different and arresting and there’s a sense of scale and variety across the season. As a body of work, the series is allowing each story a chance to pop, to show off what makes it individual. There’s a sense that the series, despite what Michael Grade asserts elsewhere on this Blu Ray release, can feasibly and believably create alien worlds and a wealth of varied vistas.  

Directorially, there are some excellent decisions made across the season, with Matthew Robinson and Graeme Harper staggering the viewers with their often viscerally thrilling choices, whilst Ron Jones – now a director of considerable Who experience – proves his reason for being on the rota in his best work for the show. Newcomer Sarah Hellings puts some lovely classical work to camera, but also presents some markedly poor fight sequences, whilst staple directors Peter Moffatt and Pennant Roberts ultimately disappoint. Moffatt at times seems to be in battle with the script, the notorious reveal of a Sontaran in long shot only the tip of the iceberg. Look at the TARDIS’s first materialisation. Where is the establishing shot of the kitchen? He’s not even obeying the ordinary go-to rules of a director. We simply cut to Shockeye as if we ought to know who he is. This is a director who doesn’t really understand how to tell the story he has been handed because as I am sure he would have admitted, he didn’t really understand it at all. At best, he succeeds in putting a show on camera. Pennant Roberts, on the other hand, tries his best but struggles with a studio-bound tale without a budget. Viewed in the context of the season, Timelash is easily spottable as the cheapie. Roberts does manage some striking reveals – the Borad himself is shot sparingly and his eventual realisation is a masterclass in make-up and camerawork. Unfortunately, the Borad is the best thing in a show which does unfortunately fail quite catastrophically. The eponymous punishment is a dangerous pit you have to be thrown up into, made even more bizarre by being thrown up into it by an android who lightly taps its victims skyward. The Doctor’s escape from the android via mirror and electronic soundtrack is so awkwardly staged as to be embarrassing and the less said about the Bandrils, the better. For much of its screentime, however, Timelash is mostly tedious and slow. Even the new CGI which works wonders can’t save a story without a shape.

There are shows in Season 22 which should be fantastic. The Two Doctors is full of craftsmanship; look at the cast: John Stratton, Jacqueline Pearce and James Saxon giving performances of supreme skill and personality with dialogue which soars, but the scenes feel disjointed and without consequence. The music from Peter Howell is one of the best of the classic series and the Spanish film work is spectacular. But the uneven structuring and the lack of narrative momentum often brings things to a stuttering pause. What’s missing from this and other tales elsewhere on this boxset is a real sense of purpose. There are no narrative bombs, at least not bombs which are exploded. Why isn’t The Mark of the Rani racing to the finish as its successor, the less-celebrated Time and the Rani most definitely is? Why does the otherwise superb Revelation rely on a few Daleks from a previous story to come to the rescue at the end? Why aren’t the Cybermen’s converting of workers in the sewers the real heart of their particular story? Season 22 is full of ideas which don’t coalesce. Perhaps that’s because they’re ideas thrust upon Eric Saward by John Nathan-Turner rather than ideas which have come into their own fruition via the story writers? For instance, the only bit of the otherwise brilliant Revelation (apart from the slightly fudged ending) that abjectly doesn’t work is the statue of the Doctor which JNT insisted be inserted into the narrative. It’s quite clear that Robert Holmes favours the Androgums to the Sontarans and that Pip and Jane Baker prefer their own Rani to the Master. So JNT’s menu – whilst exciting the fan genes superficially – in the end comes off poorer than the delights found elsewhere in these stories. It’s striking that perhaps the most memorable character in all of Season 22 is Philip Martin’s Sil, the most original creation, embodying an actual socio-political idea.

Season 22 may still fall some way short of greatness, but this boxset does illustrate it at its best. We’re now a healthy distance away from its airing which was poisoned by the announcement of cancellation, and so instead of despairing at Peter Moffatt’s Sontaran in longshot for instance, we can instead thrill at the spaceship explosion behind the villa. We can appreciate and balk at what was great and be a little more relaxed about aspects of the show which didn’t work quite so well. I can’t spend enough words praising Revelation either which I feel I’ve given short shrift here: it’s fantastic. William Gaunt, Alexei Sayle, Terry Molloy, Clive Swift, Eleanor Bron and indeed our regulars shine in a script which is rich in detailed, lyrical dialogue, is blisteringly funny, melodramatic, violent and savage. This Grade A story alone is worth the entry price.

As ever, the team led by Russell Minton have produced a most staggering presentation of a hefty chunk of our favourite show. Whilst the DVD range chose often, rightly, to analyse and digest the shows, the Blu Ray range chooses to celebrate the whole lot, whatever fan opinion might be. Whereas Timelash, for example, was chosen as a “vanilla” DVD release given its reputation, here it’s adorned with new CGI which affects to make the inside of the timelash itself feel joyously dangerous. Attack is gifted a terrific new 5.1 mix and Varos boasts a newly edited full-length rough-cut which proves intriguing and worthwhile.

New documentaries Location, Location, Location and The Making of The Two Doctors are celebratory and touching. As we witness Colin Baker in the twilight of his career reminiscing of happy days, it’s so much easier to feel fondly about these stories. For our stars, these were crowning achievements. Their interaction is full of love and joyful memories. Despite an interview with Nicola Bryant which discloses a worrying and awkward relationship with JNT, Bryant is still clearly so fond of her days with the Doctor. Michael Grade comes across as crass and uninformed which makes his decision to cancel the show seem even more miscalculated. I was loathe to watch the interview given my opinion of Grade but the tyrant exposed himself as the narrow-minded conservative that he undoubtedly is. Colin Baker, on the other hand, is utterly charming and here, more than ever, proves why he was such a fantastic choice to play our leading man. His interview with the fantastically skilled Matthew Sweet allows us a chance to explore a more personal and tragic side to Colin’s tale and viewed through this sadness, his achievements throughout this boxset are even more miraculous. What a talent.

In the end, Season 22 has the last laugh. Here we are, over thirty years later, enjoying the season anew, through the often-reviving lens of the Blu Ray range, brightening the show’s memory and doing justice to these less appreciated eras. I feel better about Season 22. Whilst it has its faults, there is so clearly much to enjoy and here, perhaps finally, it is allowed to shine once more in its inherent brilliance. Thank goodness for this indomitable Blu Ray range.

JH

Doctor Who As Long Form

 I loved Flux. Chris Chibnall and his team promised the biggest story ever last year and – remarkably – their promotion was absolutely on point because Flux was massive. We journeyed from Halloween 2021 to the creation-spanning flux event, via the Crimean War, the 1960s and even the space between universes. We met Ood, Sontarans, Angels, Daleks and Cybermen, all in the one story which, on the whole, boasted an exhilarating sense of cohesion and confidence, only stumbling at its clunky climax, perhaps failing as a result of having a little too much to do. But the ride is indeed a thrill and it begs the question: is long-form Doctor Who the future? Indeed, is long-form Doctor Who better?

We might look back at the show’s past and sideways into its own varied universes to answer this poser. Because arguably, Doctor Who has spent much of its time operating in long-form. We can see a direct throughline from An Unearthly Child to the end of The Time Meddler, which acts as coda to the Ian and Barbara romance, opening up new possibilities for the show to move ever onward, and ending with its own bespoke closing titles which accentuate the end of one story and the start of another: the Doctor and his new companions looking out to pastures new through a universe of stars. Those early tales didn’t even have their own titles. Instead, each episode ran into the next and with only a few weeks off for the summer holiday, early Doctor Who had the staying power of a soap opera, its ending never really a consideration for the viewers. Tellingly though, the story of Ian and Barbara – the longest run of episodes in the show’s history to boast the story of companions is as blisteringly effective as no doubt it was in the 60s. As Hartnell and O’Brien walk away from the time-space visualiser, their sadness is palpable. After 77 episodes, the viewers must have felt equally destitute.

Ironically, the following year, the series offers up its first explicit epic in The Daleks’ Master Plan, the 12-part masterpiece so big it got its own prequel. Terry Nation and Dennis Spooner present a pulpy, comic strip adventure with a hard edge, not unlike the later Flux. Its scope is similar: several alien planets, spaceship travel, a range of villains and creatures and varied tones and registers. Perhaps Master Plan employs a more innocent, linear story-telling form but boasts several dramatic narrative punches including the violent and felt deaths of key characters. There are many four-parters which feel more sluggish than the Hartnell epic, and the vinyl release makes for perfect comfort-listening over the Christmas period. Flux meanwhile is purposefully disjointed and boundless, even de-constructing its own form by having the Hartnell-era closing titles of Episode 4 interrupted by guest characters from the previous episode updating us on their progress and Next Time trailers which boast surprises that leave the viewer aching for more. Perhaps given the success of Doctor Who’s two largest stories, there’s an argument to suggest we should get these megathons as a matter of routine.

The moody Master Plan and the following doom-laden Massacre is interrupted by a mini-season from Big Finish Productions: the Oliver Harper trilogy which consists of three stories by Simon Guerrier – The Perpetual Bond, The Cold Equations and The First Wave. Despite being what is probably extremely niche, even amongst Big Finish followers, this set of terrific tales ought to be heard by many. Threads of science, philosophy and finance run through a unique trilogy with an atmosphere all of its own. Richard Fox and Lauren Yason provide an unsettling and beautiful soundtrack and Guerrier’s final scene is haunting and ethereal, cementing this run as pivotal to the journey of the First Doctor and prizing itself into the even longer story around it forever. Guerrier’s similarly atmospheric Sara Kingdom trilogy (Home Truths, The Drowned World and The Guardian of the Solar System) tells another long story up there with some of the best Doctor Who ever written.

Other televisual season-long arcs include The Key to Time and The Trial of a Time Lord, both criminally under-rated. The Key to Time is discrete in the fact that it features no returning elements at all from previous stories and even introduces new companions and new (old) friends and acquaintances of the Doctor. The season feels fresh, limitless and full of optimism, each of the stories breezy, larkish and fun. The Trial, despite its concept clearly not quite knowing what it wants to do with itself, boasts stark, memorable scenes such as the death of Peri and the machinations of the Valeyard inside the Matrix, as well as a stellar cast of season-long regulars, not least the great Michael Jayston. Whilst these seasons may not represent Doctor Who at its absolute prime, there’s something to be said about their wide-reaching ambitions and the overpowering feeling that this is stirringly epic stuff.

At around this time, the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip begins to come into its own, the Sixth Doctor adventure Voyager in particular offering majestic imagery certain to print itself indelibly on the minds of younger readers. Arguably, however, it’s in the strips of The Eighth Doctor that the magazine stops seeing itself as lesser than the series from which it was spawned and forges ahead with its own identity building a distinct continuity for itself. Alan Barnes’s Endgame begins the story of Paul McGann’s cartoon incarnation with bravado and romance, a reinspired joi de vivre evident from the off, that first panel of Eight stepping out of his TARDIS into Stockbridge heralding a new era of bonhomie and fun. Boldly, the centrepiece of this ecstatic era is the 10-part The Glorious Dead, a story which reinvents the Master and tells tales in a way only a comic can, panels decorated with shredded newspaper clippings in spiralling vortexes. This to the Eighth Doctor and his Master is what The Sea Devils is for the Third and Delgado or Last of the Time Lords is for the Tenth and Simm – era-defining.

DWM tells huge stories for later Doctors too. The Child of Time thread running through several of the Eleventh Doctor strips is mysterious and gripping. The return visits to the planet of Cornucopia create a lovely narrative thread between the adventures of the Eleventh and Twelfth. Best of all though is the story of the Tenth Doctor and Majenta Price, presented in all its totemic glory in the DWM Graphic Novel, The Crimson Hand. Giving the Doctor a comic-only companion after having stuck so firmly to the world of the TV series since 2005 allows the strip to flourish again as it did under the Eighth Doctor and what the TV show loses in the Specials year of 2009, we gain in DWM. Arguably, the strip has never enjoyed a better uninterrupted run, before or since, than the stories from Hotel Historia to The Crimson Hand.

Elsewhere in the Whoniverse, we’ve got the Twelfth Doctor book trilogy The Glamour Chronicles which mirrored the longer tales of that year’s TV series; the media-spanning labyrinthine headfuck that was Time Lord Victorious; and the 50^th anniversary BBC Audio series Destiny of the Doctor which allowed each Doctor and era their time in the spotlight – every story presenting an authentic representation of the respective era from which it sings. Big Finish’s take on the Hartnell epic in their own equally thrilling Syndicate Master Plan is just one example of their season-long successes, the others including the massively lauded adventures of the Eighth Doctor and Charley which climaxed in the characteristically massive Neverland via the poll-topping The Chimes of Midnight, spring-boarding from the grand and gorgeous Storm Warning (also from Alan Barnes, whose palpable affinity with Paul McGann’s Doctor seems undeniably inherent). The company’s 20^th anniversary 6-hour tale The Legacy of Time was a success on every level, each story offering its own thrills and hoorahs – after 20 years, that’s really something.

Longer TV stories always seem to fare well in the polls: The War Games was voted the best story of the 1960s in DWM’s latest fan survey in 2014 and Season 7’s clutch of 7-parters is widely regarded as a huge success. What all the best of these novel-size stories do is offer a narrative which is as thrilling in its constituent parts as it is marvellous from a holistic perspective. You can pick any episode of The Daleks’ Master Plan and find an enjoyable 25-minutes (yes, even The Feast of Steven) but viewed in all its 12-part glory, it represents a hugely satisfying body of work. Similarly, the gripping edge-of-the-seat horror of Village of the Angels on its own is as admirable as the wild ambitions and twists of Flux in its entirety. But longer series of stories which may not have been as well received at the time seem to meet with greater acclaim over time. Russell T Davies’s epic three-parter - Utopia, The Sound of Drums and Last of the Time Lords (charting at 55 in the DWM poll) – now feels mythic. Similarly, his at-the-time-bloated-seeming The End of Time now feels like its tone meeting moniker: The Best. More recent finales seem also to do well in the polls: World Enough and Time/The Doctor Falls is hailed as a modern classic on fan forums and always fares well in online polls. Stand-out episodes of the series such as Heaven Sent, A Christmas Carol and Voyage of the Damned (boo to the miserable nay-sayers) are improved by dint of their increased running time. If there were an episode that could feel like a bona-fide Doctor Who Movie it’s Voyage of the Damned, although Deep Breath and of course, the official number one, The Day of the Doctor, are equally totemic, and of course, enjoyed cinema screenings.

When Doctor Who returned to the screen in 2005, many criticisms were made of the 45-minute format, fans feeling that stories of this brevity simply didn’t work as well as longer ones. I was not in this camp: Father’s Day and Tooth and Claw are two of the most perfectly formed Doctor Who stories in the arsenal, each making a virtue of their runtime. But maybe there is something in Doctor Who as a long-running series? The Top 20 stories in that 2014 poll run as follows:

The Seeds of Doom – 6 parter
The Power of the Daleks – 6 parter
Inferno – 7 parter
The Eleventh Hour – Feature length episode
The Web of Fear – 6 parter
Dalek
Terror of the Zygons
Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways – 2 parter
The War Games – 10 parter
The Robots of Death
Remembrance of the Daleks
Human Nature/The Family of Blood – 2 parter
Pyramids of Mars
The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances – 2 parter
The Talons of Weng-Chiang – 6 parter
City of Death
The Caves of Androzani
Genesis of the Daleks – 6 parter
Blink
The Day of the Doctor – Feature length episode

Only eight of the twenty stories above have running times which could be deemed as standard for the show in their respective contemporary periods. Several of the stories in those eight - Dalek, Terror of the Zygons, The Robots of Death, Remembrance of the Daleks, Pyramids of Mars, City of Death, The Caves of Androzani and Blink - can’t even be said to be typical of the format. Blink, most obviously, tells a very different “short story” style narrative; Androzani is a theatrical Jacobean tragedy and neither Pyramids nor arguably City of Death boast masterclasses in how to structure a well put-together tale. Tellingly, at the other end of the scale, only five stories run longer than usual: The Space Pirates, The Dominators, The Time Monster and The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe and The Sensorites. The King’s Demons, also in the bottom 20 is actually shorter than usual and Meglos sports unusually slight episodes, perhaps suggesting more obviously that longer is better?

Perhaps as a fandom we do want our stories to feel bigger, more epic, more universal, in keeping with the breadth and imagination of the show itself. The Daleks’ Master Plan, as I have argued before, is perhaps the story that best typifies the programme as a whole: planets, history, space, Daleks, Time Lords, starships, contemporary Earth, fun, danger, comedy and tragedy, all vying for attention across its five hours, the very distillation of Doctor Who. When the show returns in 2023, rumour has it that RTD will produce three feature-length specials. Judging by fandom’s bent towards the epic, we could be in for a treat. Hell, we all know we’re going to be spoilt by the boss. Steven Moffat’s The Day of the Doctor topped the polls in the 50^th anniversary. Will RTD manage to top it come the 60^th? With longer stories, I’d put money on it.

JH

All of Doctor Who from the Start

Some of you may know I like to “do voices.” Since I was a child, my brothers and I would always act out stories, films or TV series. My speciality was of course, Doctor Who. It’s a matter of personal pride that my brother Jim, who has very little interest in our show, can spout “This woman can rot in one of Saladin’s prison cells until her hair turns white before I’ll trade with the man that killed my friends!” at a second’s notice. The younger brothers, the twins, will often look across the room in a moment of silence and drop the “Bitey!” bomb. This is something Elizabeth Sladen’s husband, Brian Miller, playing the tramp in Deep Breath says off-handedly but which caused untold amusement in our house. When I was growing up in the 90s, I wasn’t quite sure that other people as weird as this existed until I went to a fan event at the Blackpool Exhibition and heard a fellow fan trying to find his friends in the dark corridors, calling casually “Robot, rooo-bot!” in the style of Chub. Yes! Other people did that too. In recent years, William Hartnell’s drying up at the close of The Space Museum Part One was something Andy (Twin Brother B) and I re-enacted far too many times than is good for a person when we lived together. “And it’s so shimple!” “How simple, Doctor?” Yes, so shimple!”

During lockdown, with extra time on my hands and an iPad at the ready, I embarked on a mission to re-create All of Doctor Who from the Start! In the last three days, I’ve managed to film and edit together Seasons One and Two available at the links below. The videos are hopefully short and sweet: Season One is four minutes long! As I create more, I’ll add the appropriate links to this article. I’m hoping to do the lot, new series too! If you have a favourite era, I very much hope that I do it justice and that some of the lines you’ve always laughed at, mimicked or remembered fondly get a look-in. This is made with deep love and fondness. I hope, in these troubling teams, you can feel a bit of that too.

Season One

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=814Jg6mjeOc

Season Two

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGdjxFadKvg&t=57s

Season Three

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7XlOCVHEh0

Season Four

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxRHcfcsmeM&feature=youtu.be

Season Five

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFuy0yddl-4&feature=youtu.be

Season Six

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCwDaIdwjYo&feature=youtu.be

Season Seven

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKF6dQgwsS8

Season Eight

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3faCf6B_cLI

Season Nine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zX-7ReHTs4&feature=youtu.be

Season Ten

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=py2bUqF6GgU&feature=youtu.be

Season Eleven

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGTFVAU9dcY&feature=youtu.be

Season Twelve

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUVDbtNU-1Q&feature=youtu.be

Season Thirteen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQqPnou3dmo&feature=youtu.be

Season Fourteen

https://youtu.be/uJfUi4vdE6A

Season Fifteen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpIcQRhDTs0&feature=youtu.be

Season Sixteen

https://youtu.be/mHI4HUFNDsI

Season Seventeen

https://youtu.be/fXrXEnwgrfc

#DoctorWhoLockdown - The McCoy Years

Sylvester McCoy was my Doctor. I was born in 1985 and grew up repeatedly watching recordings of Seasons 25 and 26. I waited for what seemed like an eternity before Season 24 emerged on VHS. Imagine my disappointment! It would be a full season before the great Andrew Cartmel could firmly put his stamp on the show. All these years later though, I find that there’s more to enjoy than I first saw in Season 24 and it is in fact only Time and the Rani that seems like the aberration. However, it would still take a year before John Nathan-Turner and his production crew managed to recognise how to produce the scripts delivered by Cartmel and his gang of budding new writers. Look at the difference in tone for instance between Paradise Towers and The Curse of Fenric: the same director responsible for two wildly different shows in terms of pace, performance and energy. With only twelve shows to his name, I’ve decided to also include the 1996 TV Movie in this article on Sylvester's time, making sure to include Paul McGann’s Doctor in the lockdown listing too, his one TV adventure proper, not quite enough to make up a list all of its own. And that one night in 1996 was an unforgettable event for Doctor Who fans – the best of the decade.

13. TIME AND THE RANI

Whether or not you enjoy Time and the Rani is arguably a matter of taste. It does what it sets out to do pretty well, with bravado and accomplishment. The bubble traps, the modelwork, the monster costumes and the sets would be hugely celebrated elsewhere in the series. Here though, in Time and the Rani, the look of the programme is probably its only blessing. Had this show actually been Colin Baker’s final adventure, as was the intention, it’s easy to see how it might have worked. He would have been killed by his era’s biggest new nemesis and he would have been written by Pip and Jane Baker who gave him his best, most charming material in Terror of the Vervoids. As it happens, it’s Sylvester’s first and ends up falling between two stools. It’s the only story of the era to feel like yesterday’s news, the verbose, over-mannered script a relic of the way things were done before. McCoy’s dialogue will never feel this forced and unnatural again. There’s a certain amount of fun to be had in the pink, campery of it all but actually the four episodes feel saggy, talky and lacking in drama. Far better was to come, but as a statement of intent, Time and the Rani finds itself seriously lacking, with one foot in the grave.

12. PARADISE TOWERS

The differences in scripting between this and Time and the Rani are manifold. Here is a writer engaged with creating an alien society (if we are to believe that Paradise Towers itself is off-world – we never find out). This hadn’t happened since Timelash and is done here with far more maturity and imagination. The Rezzies, the Kangs and the Caretakers are all elaborate creations making for a sense that this world has cogs and workings. It’s a real place. There’s wall scrawl, there are wipe-outs, things are ice-hot and people are made unalive. This is a world with its own language. The key failing of Stephen Wyatt’s fairytale council block story is not the script but its appalling production. The Kangs are too old, Pex isn’t butch enough, the Cleaners look rubbish and the Caretakers are dressed bizarrely like little Hitlers. Imagine the version shot on location, in which the residents of the towers are played by people the right age in costumes that look in some way wearable. It could have been an 80s film classic. But here, everyone’s playing the heightened world a little too heightened, a little too CBBC. (I see that comment levelled at much of the new series and I don’t really give it much credence but there’s a definite sense that people are unforgivably playing down to the children here. Look for instance at how Julie Brennon’s Fire Escape spells out the people of Paradise Towers: “There are old ones…” etc. The less said about Briers’s zombie Kroagnon the better.) What isn’t always mentioned about the four-parter though is Wyatt’s admission that he wrote Part One on spec and didn’t know where the rest was going. Despite his luxuriating in the tale’s world, Wyatt doesn’t really know what to do in it. Things become a bit repetitive, a bit flabby. There are two too many lift sequences, two too many cleaner attacks. And with a production so at odds with the scripts, we really don’t want to stay here longer than we need to.

11. DRAGONFIRE

It’s a show which feels as if it’s just finding its feet again. Dominic Glynn returns with a strong score, there are some lovely high sets and some strong performances from an experienced cast: all giving the feeling of solidity to this production, of a confidence otherwise missing in Season 24. With the arrival of Ace we have a new direction for the show and it could be said that Andrew Cartmel’s era really begins in earnest here as he writes out Mel and veers off in his own direction. Unfortunately, Dorothy Ace McShane here, and probably nowhere else but certain scenes in Fenric, is overwritten. Ian Briggs’s scripts are pointed, clunky and on the nose. “Bet you’ve never had a milkshake tipped over your head before either,” is a particularly egregious mouthful of a line. The literal cliff-hanger doesn’t work. The philosophical guard doesn’t work. There’s a feeling that this is a student production, led by a slightly arrogant clique of arty types wishing to show off how much they know. There’s an attempt to be meta but when the show is about a man trapped in an ice prison by a dragon there’s not much to be meta about. Scenes clang together beside one another with no real propulsion, purpose or geography. And Tony Selby shows up to remind us all that The Trial of a Time Lord happened. But then, there’s Edward Peel being magnificent and addressing the camera as he basks in his own glory. There’s his fabulous demise and the “take the coin” scene. There’s Sylvester saying a rather understated and beautiful goodbye to Mel and then there’s Ace – not quite fully formed here and we’re missing some vital information about her origins on Earth but the future is certainly looking bright.

10. SILVER NEMESIS

There is much to enjoy about Silver Nemesis if approached in the right mind. Part One is an unremarked upon tearaway success, the three groups coming together to meet the Nemesis at the climax, though not always necessarily taking the logical route. (Just what route the Doctor and Ace take I have no idea – they seem to flit from one place to another without reason but aren’t they just adorable by the river listening to Courtney Pine and later swimming to the shore worrying about tape decks?) There’s also some beautifully unique garbage later on: the skinhead scene is a peculiar delight; Richard’s claim that the llama “sounds like a bear… but worse!”; “All things shall soon be mine”; and Lady Peinforte’s final descent into madness – “Time, space, the world!” There’s no getting around the fact that Silver Nemesis is dismally scripted, up itself and without much televisual merit to speak of. But watch as the Cybermen follow Ace through the abandoned hangar and onto the gantry – it’s the stuff of the best Doctor Who. Like Dragonfire, there are terrific moments throughout but the scripts are tragically overwritten and too clever by half.

9. DELTA AND THE BANNERMEN

This is a real lark. The most confident of Season 24’s stories and the only one that manages to achieve visually what the script sets out to do. Yes, it’s high camp and 50s rock ‘n’ roll glitz all over but dammit, it’s so good at it. Watching the Doctor dancing suddenly with Ray as she agonises over losing her long-time crush sees Sylvester at his most charming and Doctorish. It’s also some very real human interaction in a season mostly devoid of it. The scenes in the laundry rooms feel like Doctor Who has arrived at its late 80s identity, the show feeling at least like the television around it, rather than a has-been relic. (“Dragging the show into the 90s,” as JNT would have it.) Keff McCulloch provides his finest score here, the 50s themes playing to his strengths. In fact, the music guides us through this tale, letting us know it’s OK to enjoy the campery. Sadly, there a few moments which don’t compute. The death of the bus passengers seems unnecessarily cruel in a story otherwise presenting baddies to “Boo-Hiss!” at. There’s never a real sense that the last of the Chimeron is in any danger and Mel’s reaction to the baby’s green face hatching from the egg seems therefore melodramatic and misjudged. If Delta had really wallowed in its own fun (or weltschmerz as it were), enjoyed its high-octane atmosphere and dispensed of the scenes which try too hard to be frightening, it would probably be far more loved. There’s a huge tonal difference between the (very funny) ionised assassin leaving behind only his blue suede shoes and a terrified Ken Dodd being shot in the back. It’s a dangerous tightrope to walk in terms of tone and Delta doesn’t quite manage it as successfully as it might. That it attempted it all, though, makes it something to be cherished.

8. REMEMBRANCE OF THE DALEKS

Many fans are keen to point out the great rift in quality between Remembrance and Battlefield. Frankly, though, I can’t see it. Remembrance suffers the same issues as Battlefield – characters are introduced thinly and remain vague, the actors bringing more to them than perhaps Ben Aaronovitch does. It’s unbelievable that Big Finish have managed to create their superb Counter-Measures series based on characters as wafer thin as Alison is here! Not even would-be love interest Mike is well-introduced, patronising Ace and wondering repulsively if she’s “from somewhere else.” What gives Remembrance its lofty reputation is context. After Season 24 stumbling to its finish line, Season 25 sprang off its starting blocks with confidence and panache. A rare and well-judged pre-titles sequence makes things feel grand and epic before we’ve even begun, the Daleks fire actual explosives and the Doctor is a mystery again. But to my mind, it’s all a bit po-faced and humourless with the four episodes feeling a little rambling, padded and unstructured. Where a better story would have had the reveal of the Doctor’s historical part in proceedings as probably the Episode Two cliff-hanger, here it’s a somewhat pat companion-threatened-by-Daleks sequence (although the explosive scene in the chemistry lab is viscerally thrilling). Sylvester McCoy gives his poorest performance as the Doctor here, on occasion failing to make any sense of his lines. (Going by the studio footage on the DVD, he was too busy arsing about to commit to a truly focused reading.) There is, of course, lots to enjoy in Remembrance – spooky shots in the school cellars, the café scene, the clever handling of the racism theme, and that amazing, whopping spaceship, to say the least - but it is by no means the classic it’s often purported to be. Even the new-spangled Daleks wobble about and the first reveal of the grey Dalek from the shed is flaccid and clumsy. It’s a generally well-made example of 80s Who but it’s never going to make my All Time Greats list.

7. BATTLEFIELD

Poor Battlefield. There are too many characters, too much plot and not enough focus. I can see Ben Aaronovitch’s second draft in my head. It opens with Bambera transporting the missile and ending up stuck by the lake in the thunderstorm. Then there are lights in the water. Something is coming. This coincides with lights in the sky as the android-soldiers begin to rain down on Vortigern. It’s time for the Brigadier to return to work… Unfortunately, it’s a few edits away from that Nigel Kneale-esque success. All of the guest characters are underwritten. How Shou Yung and Ace strike up a friendship so quickly on the way to the beer garden is quite something. Christopher Bowen is tasked with almost literally laughing his head off at reasons the viewer isn’t made privy to. Where exactly was Morgaine? Why did she need the ritual to bring her back from her crystal ball? Things in Battlefield simply happen, one event after the next with little explanation, reasoning or drama. However, it is still utterly charming, in the same way that The Daemons is charming. Angela Bruce’s Bambera is the only Brigadier substitute ever to be successful. I’d’ve loved to have seen another UNIT story in 1990 with her at the helm of operations. The Destroyer is frightening and grotesque. The fight scenes, undeservedly derided, work surprisingly well and there’s a keen sense of adventure here. And the Brigadier is back and Nick Courtney kicks arse. Far less than the sum of its parts, Battlefield is nevertheless a summer holiday of a story. It’s badly designed, clumsily written, and there’s that dreadful video effects snake, but it’s so much fun that it doesn’t really matter.

6. THE TV MOVIE

Whilst the attendant problems of the TV Movie are well noted (its lack of monsters, its poorly thought-through time travel plot, its over-indebtedness to the old series), it still – like it or not – represents the big budget Doctor Who of the 1990s. It looks like The X Files and feels like ER. The Doctor’s death on the operating table is harrowing and tragic. Geoffrey Sax directs with perhaps undeserving swagger – look at the shot that bleeds from the TARDIS in vortex, to the fish eye, panning backwards through the window of the Chinese restaurant. This is a director thinking about how his shots interconnect and it’s still the most filmic the show has ever looked even almost 25 years later. Paul McGann makes for a majestic Doctor, like Matt Smith, nailing it on his first go. He’s gentle, playful, sweet, funny, confident, vulnerable and by the end is letting out the best screams since Zoe Herriot. In about an hour’s worth of screen-time, he does enough (and so very well) for this incarnation to be enjoying countless adventures through Big Finish and for once in 2013, seven more minutes of television. Perhaps the problem is that the movie sees itself as a continuation of where we left off in 1989 rather than where we’re starting from in 1996. Far better to open with Grace in the theatre, being rushed into surgery because a mysterious patient has just been wheeled in, than the off-putting voiceover which essentially says, “If you’re late to the party, don’t bother.” Still, we then get to spend some more time with an amazingly relaxed Sylvester in the costume he’d always wanted in the TARDIS set he always deserved. It’s best to celebrate the movie for what it did give us, rather than what it failed to achieve as a “backdoor pilot.” Because there’s so much in it to treasure.

5. THE CURSE OF FENRIC

Like Dragonfire, Ian Briggs has overwritten his script which is full of allusion, but really needs to nail its flags to the mast and tell us what is bloody well going on. Just what is Judson and Millington’s history together? Just why do the decryptions of an old curse (which it has to be pointed out has already been decrypted) summon the dead bodies of victims of future chemical bombs from the sea? Just why does Ace telling Judson that the logic diagram is for a computer change things and just why does she consider talking about watches and undercurrents good flirting? There’s so much nonsense in Fenric but it has one vital thing over Dragonfire: a director who creates one of the strongest senses of atmosphere the series has ever had. This is the man who directed Paradise Towers so quite how this turnaround happened, I’ve no idea. Briggs and Mallett are telling a frightening vampiric story about faith and belief – on that score, Fenric is a hit. The frenetic pace helps iron out any creases in logic and we can allow ourselves to become immersed in this grand melodrama. The final episode, it has to be noted, is one of the very best the classic series produced. It’s manic, nightmarish, and the showdown between the Doctor, Fenric and Ace is nail-biting material. Typically of the Cartmel years, there are one or two drafts to go before true greatness but Fenric doesn’t seem to care. It races towards that conclusion with aplomb, its characters living and dying with us on their side. And Reverend Wainwright addressing an empty church in the centre of this thought-provoking yarn is a welcome and powerful moment of reflection.

4. SURVIVAL

Rona Munro’s scripts always betray her true class as writer. Her theatre work is magnificent. Each play has its own language, its own metaphors. Here too, characters speak thematically, even Ace’s charity worker friend, Ange is “hunting saboteurs.” The Sergeant talks about nothing other than the art of survival and the Master’s relationship with the possessed Mitch is one of animal owner and animal. Andrew Cartmel is famously critical of the cheetah people costumes but the masks are beautiful; it’s only the hands that don’t quite work and the protracting fingernails left an indelible impression on this four year old so they were doing something right! The planet itself is striking. It seems to have been shot on an actual alien world, the heat blistering, the habitat rarefied. Dominic Glynn’s evocative guitar music gives the place a feel all of its own too and Perivale looks even more hauntingly ordinary against the otherness of the cheetah planet. This is a Doctor Who story which, despite being exciting and relevant, manages to explore its themes without the need to be high brow or exclusive. That’s something quite spectacular.

3. THE HAPPINESS PATROL

Much maligned at the time, The Happiness Patrol is a tight, witty, original three-parter offering genuine scares, intelligent satire and in the Kandyman, an unforgettable, brilliant villain. I don’t care what the naysayers believe. So he looks like Bertie Bassett? Yeah, and isn’t Bertie Bassett a bit bloody frightening? If he were coming at me, stomping like a tantruming child up a pipe, I would be straight out of there. There’s a fairytale darkness to the executions – the cogs and valves slowly spinning, heralding the arrival of the sweet mix which will drown the accused is the stuff of the richest Doctor Who. The cast are terrific: Sheila Hancock excels as Helen A and Harold Innocent is a suitably repulsive Gilbert M. The lingering crane shot as Fifa dies is a thematically resonant moment as is Ace’s re-painting of the TARDIS, order restored after Terra Nova’s happiness finally prevails. The cliff-hangers are scary and funny at the same time, illustrated that Graeme Curry has totally “got” Doctor Who and his clever work across these three episodes should be far more celebrated. Perhaps it’s that fans saw it as a hangover from the previous year’s showy style, but here there’s a darker undercurrent and an all too real parody of our human societies, however you want to interpret it. Aside from that bloody go-kart, I’d say The Happiness Patrol is some of the very best Doctor Who ever made.  

2. THE GREATEST SHOW IN THE GALAXY

Stephen Wyatt’s second Doctor Who script is another imaginative and vivid affair, full of larger than life characters and a language of its own. This time, however, Alan Wareing is directing, Mark Ayres is composing and John Nathan-Turner is determined that this thing get made. There’s a verisimilitude to the circus tent, itself erected in a BBC car park at a time of dire straits. You wouldn’t think this production was one associated with so many behind the scenes problems. It oozes quality. The scene in which Bellboy commits suicide, programming his own robots to strangle him, is an assault on the senses: Christopher Guard screams his commands over Ayres’s stirring music as Ian Reddington smiles and issues his customary clownish salute with a devilish smile. There are similar moments of immersive rapture throughout. Mags’s coruscating wails as Captain Cook reveals “that old devil moon” are literally and metaphorically hair-raising. The moment Sylvester raises his hat in slow motion as the dark circus falls down around him; the desperate kiss between Bellboy and Flowerchild; the pathetic last words of the Whizzkid: this is Doctor Who filled with moment after moment of strange, upsetting, exciting and bravura thrills. In its own wild and unconventional way, unlike the circus it presents, The Greatest Show in the Galaxy never once stops entertaining us.

1. GHOST LIGHT

Of course, this is a marmite choice but I’ve never stopped loving Ghost Light. Marc Platt’s script is the richest in the entire Doctor Who canon. No, it doesn’t work first time round; it demands more careful study. Like an onion, it reveals more beneath every layer, each viewing exposing another delightful Marc Platt morsel. His allusions are wide-ranging and sometimes unexpected. He references Alice in Wonderland, The Origin of the Species, My Fair Lady, William Blake, Franz Kafka, even Douglas Adams. Unlike other stories of the McCoy years which seem overworked, Ghost Light has been cooked to perfection, each element fusing with and enhancing those around it to create a work of art of profound beauty. Like The Greatest Show in the Galaxy and The Curse of Fenric, the experience is immersive. The scenes at the start of Part Two, Ace’s rescue from the cellar, are relentless and energetic, Mark Ayres’s organ-like, almost demented incidental music punctuating them mercilessly. Never have 75 minutes of Doctor Who been so full of plot, allegory, atmosphere, scares and gags. You think the new series moves too quickly? Ghost Light was the forerunner. It’s years ahead of its time and probably, guiltily, a bit too good for Doctor Who. Alan Wareing, Sylvester McCoy and the rest of the fabulous, immaculately well-cast actors know that this is the best and at the very end of the programme’s classic life, that’s exactly what they manage to produce.

JH

#DoctorWhoLockdown - The Colin Baker Years

It was incredibly difficult to rank Colin’s time on the show. Right up until publication, I was chopping and changing the order. One season is embedded in the clutches of the dreaded Trial, the other season is one of 45-minute instalments and his other story is a traditional four-parter. It doesn’t feel as if you’re comparing like for like. What’s more, as committed and bravura a performance as Colin gives, he’s laboured with some tedious, tedious scripts, only one of which – in my humble opinion of course – achieves true greatness. His era is fascinating, however. The traditionally hated stories, I don’t find nearly as offensive as some of his other baggier tales. Whatever the relative highs and lows of the individual stories, and whatever the reasons for the back-stabbing and back-biting backstage, there is one man who comes out of this dignity intact – ironically the man who was asked to walk away. Here’s to you, Colin Baker.

11. THE MARK OF THE RANI

So it looks nice. Like the Davison two-part historicals, this has the feel of those upmarket BBC costume dramas of the day. But the Doctor Who equivalents are criminally lacking in terms of scripting. The Mark of the Rani should be a great tale – that’s its biggest crime. This is a tale of historical meddling, the Master again playing the Monk and attempting to change the course of the timelines forever. However, the promised meeting of the great scientific minds never happens. Instead, we’re arsing about in a forest of fake plastic trees, seeing our hero at his most undignified, avoiding a mine from the shackles of his trussed-up position. It’s decidedly unheroic, as Pip and Jane might have said. They would go on to perfect their verbose, edifying scripts into something approaching charming but here their over-articulate and repetitive dialogue is plain annoying. Why does the Master say aloud the story title to himself twice? The three Time Lords may not be written in the human tongue, but neither are they written in a particularly welcome one. They talk like snotty cleverdicks so keen on excluding those who they see as intellectually inferior, those outside their prissy circle, by speaking in words their present company would never understand. It’s frankly alienating. When I reviewed Shada, I applauded the cleverness of that TARDIS crew, the joy of being around great minds, but they never patronised us nor made us feel small. Here, that’s what this feels like. If Pip and Jane had written something which actually worked, I might forgive them for being a big highfalutin, but The Mark of the Rani is a mess. Look the climax. Are we to see a tale which sees the Luddites and the scientists clash dramatically? No. We get a dinosaur on a spaceship (not nearly as good as that prospect will turn out to be) and then it’s all depressingly over. Ah well. At least Anthony Ainley got to do his Worzel Gummidge bit for absolutely no reason.

10. ATTACK OF THE CYBERMEN

Eric Saward is incredibly frustrating. How can he go from Earthshock to Attack of the Cybermen, or from Resurrection to Revelation of the Daleks? Maybe he has one story on, one story off? Attack has lots going for it: the sewer scenes, the filmic sequences in the London streets and on Telos, the character work and the Cybermen themselves. But they’re strung together with such arbitrary plotting that they end up feeling like beads on a string. It’s such a brittle narrative that one false move and those beads go rolling all over the shop. Why exactly are the Cybermen hiding in a base under the sewers? It must have taken them ages to build that thing. It’s as if Saward has a list of things to include (probably supplied by Ian Levine) and is sewing them together to make a patchwork as unworkable as the Doctor’s coat. But then, this is a sequel to a story from twenty years beforehand, a story nobody (aside from probably Ian Levine) could have had the luxury of re-watching and also sees a return to 76 Totters Lane for reasons best guessed at. So whatever possessed Eric Saward to even begin writing this at all is something I don’t think any of us could even begin to understand. Attack of the Cybermen is a mess.

9. TIMELASH

Much lambasted, but Timelash proves to be great fun if approached in the right frame of mind. Paul Darrow, the fabulously camp Maylin Tekker is the undoubted star of his own show. On the DVD documentary, Darrow advises the viewer to “switch off after I’m dead; it’s boring.” As cocksure as his instructions are, he has a point. There is a luxuriation in his performance which demands to be seen. He introduces Maylin Renis at the opening of the story and is the only member of the cast committing to applause. He prowls through scenes smugly and knows absolutely who we are supposed to be keeping our eyes on; it’s certainly not Colin Baker with whom he seems to be vying. Colin takes it up a notch; Darrow takes it up two. The last quarter of the story - after his death - is not only emptier and less fun, but also more badly written. New writer Glen McCoy has been asked to shorten his scripts to bring them in on time but he’s been ill-advised. There’s another fifteen minutes which needs filling. We end up, therefore, with those awful, awful scenes of Colin overacting with the bumbling young David Chandler, doing his best to be charming and in doing so, quite possibly succeeding. The society of Karfel is simplistic and some of the dialogue notoriously nosedives but this is one of only two stories in Season 22 not reliant on past adventures and returning villains. It therefore has a freshness about it. Timelash inadvertently invents the celebrity historical, has a lovely monster in the shape of the Borad (and indeed, that android!) and the music’s cool. It’s underrated and can be an enjoyable experience if you think of it as a piece of fluff and try to get past the unforgiveable “I’ll explain later” explanation as to how the Doctor manages to outwit a missile.

8. THE MYSTERIOUS PLANET

I like this script a lot. Had it been given to Graeme Harper, he might have found a way to make the underground look like the underground and make the tube trains look like tube trains. But with Nicholas Mallett and John Anderson on directing and designing duties, it looks cheap and nasty. (Funnily enough, this would happen again to Mallett the following season.) Tom Chadbon looks embarrassed to be associated with the show – a far cry from his engaged and funny Duggan. Everybody dresses in a uniform, Tony Selby is grossly miscast as the Del Boy pirate mercenary, Glitz. He can’t even get his lips around Bob Holmes’s characteristically eloquent script. “To rrrender the rrrobot non-operational...” he starts, rolling his rs to buy him time as he thinks about where this line is going. Even the location work looks as drab as the story’s would-be title. It’s a shame because with a better director, a better cast and a bit more money, this could well be one of Holmes’s best – and that’s saying something.

7. THE TWIN DILEMMA

Another underrated Colin story. I don’t know why it always manages to reach the very bottom of the polls. It’s never in the bottom half; it’s always right at the very bottom by some distance: the supposed nadir of Doctor Who. True, it introduces the coat, the glitz and Old Sixie, who sadly remains not quite so universally loved as other Doctors. But to me, the only true mis-step in The Twin Dilemma is the Doctor’s unwillingness to apologise to Peri. This doesn’t make him dangerous or unpredictable; it makes him an arsehole. That last scene in the TARDIS should be reassurance that he’s still under there, both hearts still beating. It should be a reconciliation between Doctor and Companion. Colin and Nicola wisely play it that way (The clever people – that’s why they’re our new stars!) but that’s not how it’s written. Instead, it sounds like a mission statement. “You thought that was bad? Well, it’s about to get a whole lot worse!” There should have been some empathy here. If Colin’s Doctor had simply admitted that he’d done some terrible deeds, said some foul things, we might be more ready to travel with him. It wouldn’t take away from his behaviour in Season 22 as he still takes a while to settle but it would be a reassurance to the viewer that we’re not about to travel the universe with an oaf who can’t admit when he is wrong. Aside from that, which I admit is an issue of some magnitude, The Twin Dilemma is fresh, colourful, zippy and fun. I don’t even think the twins are that bad and Maurice Denham puts in a quite beautiful performance.

6. THE ULTIMATE FOE

Its production issues are widely noted, but Pip and Jane Baker actually manage to write Eric Saward out of his corner. Cleverly, they use the screen through which we’ve been enjoying the Doctor’s adventures for the last 14 weeks as the weapon that will kill the members of the courtroom. With three days to spare ‘til deadline, that’s an ingenius piece of plotting. The first half is full of startling imagery, the like of which probably hasn’t been seen since Kinda or failing that, understandably, The Deadly Assassin. Geoffrey Hughes is great support as the mysterious Mr Popplewick and Michael Jayston oozes star quality. There’s also the terrific moment in which Anthony Ainley casually throws in the Valeyard’s true identity. But ultimately, there’s no saving the fact that after fourteen episodes, nobody has decided how this thing is going to finish. It’s an example of a season of utter cohesive failure. Getting his best team on it seemed like Eric Saward’s grand idea but events would conspire against him. His striker was taken ill and died; his mid-fielder didn’t seem to have a grasp of precisely what his role in the game was and his substitutes were Pip and Jane Baker. Bless them.

5. MINDWARP

As mentioned above, Philip Martin isn’t quite sure where his story fits in the narrative of The Trial of a Time Lord and seemingly neither does Eric Saward. It’s not clear, nor is it made clear later, which of the Doctor’s activities here are matrix simulations and which are real. With any other Doctor, it might have been obvious but with Colin’s still erratic and unstable incarnation, it’s not the best timing. Seeing him torture Peri on the beach is unsettling viewing and another obstacle to our connecting with him because it might, just might, be real. In the courtroom, his witless bantz becomes irritating quickly. Everything the script is throwing at Colin seems to be doing its best to sabotage his Doctor. It’s a credit to Colin that he comes out of this with head held high. In his realisation that Peri has died, this is his finest moment. Indeed, the best thing about Mindwarp is its moody, despairing atmosphere and cynical hard-hitting ending. Occasionally, the tone is undercut by some ill-judged humour (such as Sil’s “more attractive” line) but for the most part, the lighting design, the incidental music and the tragic structure of events leads to a story of grim atmospherics. Despite its confusing unreliable narrator set-up, there is something alluringly dark about Mindwarp.

4. THE TWO DOCTORS

At three 45-minute episodes, The Two Doctors is a cumbersome beast. There are scenes which seem to last an eternity, the worst being the Sixth Doctor’s reasoning at the start of Part Two. He has a theory about an embolism which he pontificates about for a good while before dismissing it and starting from scratch on an entirely different thesis. Far from enriching the scripts, the longer scenes make it look like the show has put on unnecessary weight. Having said that, there is still a sprinkling of Bob Holmes magic all over the dialogue and characterisations. Typically, he’s more interested in his new creations than those John Nathan-Turner has lumbered him with. His Second Doctor is all wrong. His Sontarans barely feature (although when they do, their voices are the highlight of the respective scenes). No, his clear favourites are Shockeye and Oscar Botcherby, tellingly even given the best names. They are such luscious creations, a language all of their own, their own sets of identifying behaviours. They are the perfect contrast to one another too: Shockeye’s “gratification of pleasure” being his sole purpose and Botcherby exhibiting nothing but the perfect manners the better to save offending. It is as if Holmes himself is battling out his own inner demon and angel. Other moments of boyish devilment delight too: the eating of the rat, the licking of the blood, the shepherd’s pie line. There’s much to enjoy in The Two Doctors. But like any good meal, it’s probably best digested one episode at a time rather than trying, like Shockeye, to digest all three courses at once.

3. VENGEANCE ON VAROS

Possibly the cleverest of the Sixth Doctor’s stories, Philip Martin’s first script for Doctor Who has a very specific job: to tell the story of a world devoted to the selling of home media, filmed as – essentially - a series of snuff movies. Doctor Who might never be able to get away with such a concept today and it’s quite staggering that they managed it in 1985. But it might have even more relevance now. In our age of I’m a Celebrity and TOWIE, we delight in watching real tragedies, genuine terrors. As a society, we bask in the pain of others, as long as we know they’re in no real danger. We’re only one step away from Varos – a world where its inhabitants binge watch executions and vote simply In or Out when it comes to key decisions. Sadly, like most Colin Baker stories, it’s not without its deficiencies. The Doctor and Peri take an age to turn up, the Doctor instead preferring to sulk in his hitherto unseen blue, plastic TARDIS chair. The climax with the poison tendrils doesn’t work at all and the transmogrification scenes seem like an unnecessary jeopardy rather than something which, like everything else, is playing out the satire. But it’s all worth it for Martin Jarvis’s fabulous performance, for Nabil Shaban’s grotesque Sil, for the nightmare of the purple zone or the acid baths scenes (which nobody should have ever complained about), for that riveting cliff-hanger, appropriately perfectly shot. “And cut it… now!”

2. TERROR OF THE VERVOIDS

This is the best Sixth Doctor story. By that I mean, this is Colin Baker’s Sixth Doctor at his very best. Easily. He’s charming, bright, alert and finally, in his last filmed story, finds his voice. I’ve been quite hard on Pip and Jane Baker elsewhere in this article but say what you will about them, they give their leading man his very best material in Terror of the Vervoids. This is a Doctor who isn’t busy with put-downs, embarrassing his companions or letting the world know how much he knows. No, here he charms the stewardess with magic tricks, cleverly sounds the fire alarm, sending the guard off in the wrong direction as he fancies a bit of trespass, and comes up with intelligent solutions to problems such as using the marsh gas against the lunatic Bruchner. After the false start that was The Mark of the Rani, Pip and Jane prove to be the perfect writers for Colin Baker and in Mel, they provide the perfect companion. I’d have loved to have seen a season with them together. It’s worth noting that the recent Blu Ray presentation of the story, divorced from the Trial and with a new title sequence, gives us an indication of what that might have been like. It also highlights the albatross that was the Trial format itself. This version is so much more fun.

1. REVELATION OF THE DALEKS

Eric Saward’s masterpiece, Revelation is an all-time favourite. I prefer it to Androzani, to Talons, to Blink, to all those big hitters. This feels like the sort of thing he was always trying and failing to produce, the sort of thing he wanted to eek out of his writers but could not quite manage. This is Saward Unbound. His characters are free, wild and imaginative, the world of Necros constructed with care and rich, sprawling understanding. Scene after scene impresses with its revelling dialogue, fiendish wit and barbed drama. Each of the inhabitants of Necros are self-dramatising. Look at Vogel, for instance: “And I would give them willingly,” he says of his bones. It’s almost as if he’s begging those Daleks to kill him. William Gaunt’s tremendous Orcini talks about nothing but his honour and his strategy. Jobel is so in love with himself he is blind to how detestably he comes across. Alexei Sayle’s DJ does nothing but talk to himself and then, in the end, proves to be quite a shy, endearing Liverpudlian. Terry Molloy’s Davros is a deliciously evil creation, far removed from the ranting megalomaniac of Resurrection. Here, he’s a sadist, delighting in causing Tasembeker pain before he orders her unnecessary death. This is the story that cemented Davros’s reputation as one of Doctor Who’s greatest villains and textbook nutjobs. With such vital character work in abundance, it’s a shame that Revelation doesn’t end completely conclusively, with Davros escaping for another day after being kidnapped by Daleks from another story entirely. Were it to feel more divorced from Doctor Who’s wider context, Revelation might well stand up as a piece of art in its own right. As it happens, Graeme Harper does such a fine job of making this full-bloodied, violent thriller, poetically arty enough. This is classic Doctor Who pushing the boat out, flexing its wings, at the very limits of what is achievable. It’s ambitious and confident and ultimately one of the very, very best. Well done, Eric Saward!

JH