Maureen O’Brien


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


Doctor Who, season 2 continued … The adventure continues but the plot doesn’t progress (which, given how little plot there is, is quite a disappointment).  Hartnell is absent, even from the cliffhanger in which Ian supposedly finds him. Hartnell’s absence is both a blessing and a curse.  We miss his […]

68. The Search


Doctor Who, season 2 continued … The adventure starts now as the regular runabout, with the authorities and the rebels each wanting to get their hands on the intruders.  With the exception of the Doctor’s interrogation, there’s precious little of merit here. Some of the characters (largely the white suited […]

67. The Dimensions of Time



Doctor Who, season 2 continued … This opening episode is intriguing but, having seen it before, it doesn’t really have much rewatch value.  The strange things that happen aren’t given any even vaguely logical explanation – just slipping a groove in time, and the Doctor not being sure about the […]

66. The Space Museum


Doctor Who, season 2 continued … Due to the “missing” nature of some early Doctor Who adventures, I only have the audio version of The Warlords.Once again the “older” Ian Chesterton’s scene (from the original BBC VHS release, included in the DVD set) details as much as is necessary of […]

65. The Warlords


Doctor Who, season 2 continued … The third episode of The Crusades returns to visual as well as audio, giving us a much clearer understanding of what the cliffhanger was all about. Barbara is kept hidden by a hated enemy of El Akir, who himself is shortly captured.  In trying to […]

64. The Wheel of Fortune