William Russell

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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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Doctor Who, season 2 continued … Due to the “missing” nature of some early Doctor Who adventures, The Knight of Jaffa is reviewed here as the audio version. It’s difficult to get a true understanding of the episode without the visuals and, indeed, the last few minutes prior to and […]

63. The Knight of Jaffa

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Doctor Who, season 2 continued … What a exceptional first episode of The Crusade! Preceded by a lovely introduction by Ian Chesterton (looking like an older William Russell), reminiscing about his time with the Doctor, the episode begins in a forest in Jaffa with King Richard and his hawk leading […]

62. The Lion

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Doctor Who, season 2 continued … I haven’t had time to post recently, so here’s a summary of the remaining episodes of The Romans. Taking the story as a whole, it’s a bit of a mixed bag that doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be.  A whole story […]

53-55. All Roads Lead To Rome, Conspiracy, Inferno

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Doctor Who, season 2 continued … For a story that’s become renown for its humour, The Romans has some very dark elements in it. On the one hand we have much humour from the sparkling performance by William Hartnell (with the excellent “Chesterfield”, to which Barbara corrects to “Chesterton,” leading […]

52. The Slave Traders

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Doctor Who, season 2 continued … Except for the rather iffy cliffhanger – that wasn’t at all convincing, really – the rest of the story is fine.  There isn’t enough there to fill any more episodes, and the whole convincing of Vicki to join the crew feels a little bit […]

51. Desperate Measures

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Doctor Who, season 2 continued … A  much lower-key adventure than the previous Dalek story, with just two other cast members, primarily designed to introduce Susan’s replacement.  The mask of Koquillion is particularly effective.  The effects crew have got better with their miniatures and the split-screen effect of looking out […]

50. The Powerful Enemy

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Previously … Crisis (extended version) … The DVD release of Planet of Giants included a reconstructed 4-part version.  It was originally intended to be broadcast as a four-part story, but was trimmed down to three parts, presumably because it didn’t have enough story to make it to four full episodes.  […]

43b. The Urge To Live

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