Television


Doctor Who, season 3 begins … Galaxy Four is one of the many early Doctor Who adventures that no longer exist in the BBC archives.  Other than audio-only, some enterprising fans have made it possible to “watch” the adventure.  The version I’m watching uses a version of CGI created by […]

80. Four Hundred Dawns


Doctor Who, season 2 continued … The Doctor gets the Monk to lead him to his TARDIS, where they meet up with Vicki & Steven.  Hartnell is clearly revelling in working with an actor of Peter Butterworth’s standard, and is enjoying the scenes they have together. There’s talk about not […]

79. Checkmate


Doctor Who, season 2 continued … A continuation of the previous episode, with the Doctor reaching the village before Vicki & Steven.  The monk tends to one of the villagers (the monk’s “accidental” anachronisms – like mentioning penicillin, and then blood transfusions – doesn’t really do the character justice). The […]

78. A Battle of Wits



Doctor Who, season 2 continued … Not the best episode, but they make up for Hartnell’s absence quite well and the cliffhanger at the end is great. The Vikings come to town (“Tell the other 10,000 to stay off-camera!”), which leads to a fairly poorly choreographed/rehearsed fight in the woods. […]

77. The Meddling Monk


Doctor Who, season 2 continued … Inside the TARDIS, the Doctor is still in a contemplative mood over the loss of Barbara & Ian.  Vicki tries to console him.  They’re interrupted by a noise from the living quarters, and they fear a Dalek got on board. The introduction of Steven […]

76. The Watcher


Doctor Who, season 2 continued … We now get to the “city” part of Mechanus and meet the Mechanoids.  I understand that the Mechanoids were an attempt at replicating the success of the Daleks.  I can’t honestly see how they expected that to happen.  Daleks may have had trouble getting […]

75. The Planet of Decision



Doctor Who, season 2 continued … Landing at last on Mechanus, the TARDIS crew encounter a planet of living plants – not too dissimilar to one of the locations from back in The Keys of Marinus. Not entirely convinced by the “light stick”, but more confused that the Doctor’s own […]

74. The Death of Doctor Who


Doctor Who, season 2 continued … Otherwise known as “the one in the haunted house”.  Having watched it before, this episode holds very little rewatch value except that William Hartnell and William Russell seem to be having a grand old time pretending it’s real. More should have been made of […]

73. Journey Into Terror


Doctor Who, season 2 continued … More silly music leads us into the Doctor realising that they’re being followed through the timestream by the Daleks. We see inside the Daleks’ time machine, and are introduced to some comedy Daleks – the one that hesitates while replying to one of the […]

72. Flight Through Eternity



Doctor Who, season 2 continued … I’m not sure what the episode title has to do with this episode, but it’s a valiant attempt at doing a one-story episode.  The plot is little more than the crew meeting the alien race, the Daleks issue ultimatum, the alien race holds the […]

71. The Death of Time


Doctor Who, season 2 continued … A great start to the 6-part The Chase and an immediate improvement on the previous story. Beginning with a fun TARDIS sequence, enjoyable because we get to see the crew interacting without any jeopardy, the episode opens with the Doctor fixing the Time/Space Visualiser […]

70. The Executioners


Doctor Who, season 2 continued … After Ian rescues the Doctor, what follows is an episode of everyone sitting around waiting for the plot to unfurl around them.  A rather muted end to a rather muted story. The Doctor comes up with some gadget doohicky reason for the “time track” […]

69. The Final Phase