William Russell

Previously … Crisis (broadcast 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. In […]

43. Crisis (extended)

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Previously … Dangerous Journey … In the style of the old serial cliffhangers, it turns out that the Doctor and Susan had already hidden in the overflow pipe.  Funny how this wasn’t seen last week. Is the episode call “crisis” because “The Dangerous Telephone Receiver” wouldn’t have given the same […]

43. Crisis

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Previously … Planet of Giants … The Doctor and Susan climb through a plughole, Barbara faints at the sight of a fly, and Ian opens a briefcase. Some of the sets/props are fantastic (the plug & plughole, the briefcase, etc), while others are less successful (the rack of testtubes). Planet […]

42. Dangerous Journey

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Doctor Who, season 2 begins … The second season begins with a good opening to the first of a three-part story.  Hartnell continues on fine form.  Ian & Barbara have pretty much been reset to how they were at the beginning, and Susan provides her usual array of screams. The […]

41. Planet of Giants

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Doctor Who continued … The final episode of this serial, and the first season of Doctor Who, is a fast-paced piece with revelations that resolve the plot and plot turns that sync with established history. William Hartnell again has a great scene as the First Doctor rescuing Susan from the […]

40. Prisoners of Conciergerie

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Doctor Who continued … The second animated episode of The Reign of Terror. At last the plot really moves on apace.  Ian is captured and shackled for information.  Barbara is allowed to speak to the Doctor so that they can be overhead.  Oddly, Barbara says that Susan had a fever […]

39. A Bargain of Necessity

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Doctor Who continued … Some of the early episodes of Doctor Who are missing from the BBC archives.  For this serial, The Reign of Terror, the BBC had the missing episodes animated.  This is the first of those animated episodes. The plot again doesn’t go anywhere.  Ian (back from William […]

38. The Tyrant of France

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Doctor Who continued … Ian escapes thanks in part to a convenience of a key being left in the lock and also by intention of being allowed to escape. Again it’s Hartnell that steals the show, both in bluffing the shopkeeper and then at the jail carefully taking things in […]

37. A Change of Identity

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Doctor Who continued … An episode that doesn’t really further the plot much.  Susan devolves back into the screamer with alarming ease, apparently not being able to do anything without the men being there.  I rather felt for Barbara at the time, particularly the expression on her face when Susan […]

36. Guests of Madame Guillotine

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Doctor Who continued … I thought the early scenes in the TARDIS were superb, with Hartnell in particular being really on form.  The only trouble is that he’s suddenly gone back to being this irrational grumpy Doctor that we saw in the first episode, as though his mellowing, trust, and […]

35. A Land of Fear

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Previously … Kidnap A Desperate Venture finishes the story adequately, but it felt like a bit of a poor pay-off after waiting six episodes (weeks) for this.  A bit more could have been made of the few people scavenging away underground.  Also, given that episode 5 came across as little […]

34. A Desperate Venture

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Previously … A Race Against Death With the episode being called “kidnap”, I spent the entire episode thinking “so who’s been kidnapped?”  Apparently it refers to the cliffhanger at the end of the episode.  That made me think that a number of these episode titles have done that.  They don’t […]

33. Kidnap

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