7th Doctor Audio Overview (2 of 7)

 Audios

Main Range

·         The Harvest

·         Dreamtime

·         Live 34

·         Night Thoughts

·         The Settling

·         No Man’s Land

·         Nocturne

·         The Dark Husband

·         Forty-Five

Meet Hex – full name Thomas Hector Schofield, he was working as a nurse at St Gart’s Hospital when he bumped into the Doctor and McShane. This is the part where I tell you that there’s nothing special about Hex (he realised that the middle name ‘Hector’ did him no favours back in school), that until he met the Doctor and Ace he was perfectly ordinary, and from his perspective, that would, to an extent, be true. But there’s something about Hex that makes him special that he doesn’t know. Something the Doctor is keeping secret from him.

It seems to be a bad habit of the Seventh Doctor’s, meeting companions that he immediately keeps secrets from. First when he met Ace, he later admitted he knew or at least strongly suspected right then that Fenric was the reason why she ended up on another planet, that she had Fenric’s curse, but he never told her, right up until he broke her faith in him. It almost destroyed the relationship between the two. Now? It’s interesting to note in these audios that not only has Ace noticeably grown up and matured, but she’s clearly learned a lot from the Doctor. That’s one thing that’s great about introducing a new companion like Hex into the mix – really seeing how much she’s generally become used to the TARDIS life. More than that – she’s become used to the Doctor, even grown fond of him. Now in some cases, this could be just considered rather sweet in a Doctor/companion relationship. But there’s an element to it that’s also slightly worrying. Because the Doctor is not the man he once was, nor the man he’s going to be. He’s not so upfront with his companions in this incarnation. He’s a man who likes his secrets, who is always keen to state that he may not know things but he “has his suspicions”, and these secrets sometimes gets his friends in danger. Sometimes, they’re worse than that. They’re important facts that his friends have a right to know, secrets he likes to keep to himself for a very long time…

Hex, on the other hand, at least questions the Doctor’s methods from time to time. While Ace simply complains and practically jokes about how the Doctor is always deliberately landing them in trouble, Hex will, from time to time, question him and his motives. (And oh boy, does he have a very good reason for that.) This is why the Doctor-Ace-Hex dynamic is so excellent to listen to. Hex isn’t actively against the Doctor, but it’s nice that while one companion will not only be defensive but also joke of the Doctor’s behaviour, the other will, quite rightly, from time to time at least question it.

So, after listening to Hex’s first 9 stories in the main range, what were the highlights?

The Harvest

Hex’s introduction story is a great listen. The way the companion is introduced to the TARDIS especially has a very modern feel to it, which considering this was released a year before the TV series came back, is very impressive. Dan Abnett – an excellent science fiction writer that I’m always keen to read or hear more of – writes the whole team really well here, especially Hex, who’s very much grounded in an almost but not quite (it’s set in the near-future) modern day setting. Add to that a new take on one of my favourite enemies and some slight hints of what’s to come, and you’ve got a really solid introduction story for a great companion. 8/10

Live 34

This might just be the highlight of these early stories. Being a wildly different take on a Doctor Who adventure, the entire story is in the format of four instalments of a radio show for another planet, colony 34, as the Doctor, Ace and Hex investigate a corrupt political system. There’s a lot we have to piece together, as a lot of usual key elements to a Who story – open the story with the team arriving, have them slowly find out what’s going on etc. – are something we only learn about from the main characters being “interviewed”, rumours that the radio reporters here about, scraps of information that we have to piece together. I love the wildly different approach to this, but more than that – dramatically, it’s an approach that completely works. I cannot overstate how impressive that is – for a similar but far weaker approach of having a Doctor Who story told from a completely outside perspective, see Love & Monsters. Unlike a lot of fans, I don’t completely detest the story, but it’s far, far from the best it could’ve been, and Live 34 really shows just how it’s done. There’s some fantastic and absolutely thrilling drama, with one hell of a ridiculously fucking awesome climax in which the Doctor once again proves just how goddamn badass he is. Highly recommended to anyone, whether you’re a Who fan or not. 10/10

Night Thoughts

Night Thoughts is also worth a listen for its sheer creepiness factor alone. It’s interesting in that this story explores time travel and changing history in a way that I’ve never quite seen before, almost like a new spin on classic stories like the Monkey’s Paw or Pet Semetary. There’s some really grotesque and horrific imagery throughout the story – bodies found in a lake, eyes ripped out of sockets, walking embalmed dead girls – and even more disturbing ideas, as most of the main characters in the story try to make up for a terrible, terrible mistake they made ten years before by changing history. It’s also got a fantastic moment for McCoy’s Doctor (and spoilers for the story for what I’m about to describe): the Doctor trying to stop the main characters from changing history. Which sounds like an obvious goal, but in this case, the history that needed to be changed was the team killing an innocent young girl due to believing her to be suffering from a terrible disease and simply easing her pain, when all she had was an eye infection, which they only discover afterwards. A truly horrible decision, but even worse is what happens when they try to change history by sending a message back in time to warn them: only a minor change occurs. They all still have the knowledge of killing the girl, nothing major has changed for any of them in the present day…except this time, the girl is both dead and alive, a walking corpse as a result of history trying to correct itself. It’s a truly horrific idea, and a wonderfully original combination of both time travel and classic horror. Knowing the consequences, the Doctor goes back in time and tries to force them to kill the girl anyway. When they refuse, the Doctor makes the shocking decision of killing the girl himself with carbon dioxide. This was a moment that really shocked me. Even knowing what would happen, killing a young girl still seemed like a step too far for even this Doctor, an incarnation who has been more willing to do terrible things for the “greater good” to take. Could he really do it? As it happens, no, in the end, he reveals to his companions that he couldn’t go through with it. To me, that summed up McCoy’s Doctor nicely and what makes him so great: he may have shades of darkness to him, and he may try to see the “bigger picture” at times, but he is still the Doctor, still someone who wouldn’t kill an innocent life, even for the “greater good”. For that alone, Night Thoughts is well worth listening. 7/10

The Settling

This is a brilliant drama, for two reasons. One, it’s a great story that really uses its historical setting well, really examining both the kind of man Oliver Cromwell was and the lives he affected, most notably those he fought against. Secondly, Hex: this story is a really great one for putting him centre stage and really pushing him into new directions. Firstly, he’s forced to confront not just the ugly side of history, but a history that he knows about, stories of how truly terrible and awful Cromwell was as told by his nan, stories of how he slaughtered so many Irish lives. When Hex finally meets him, is he as terrible as Hex was lead to believe? Well, he’s not quite the completely inhuman monster that Hex was lead to believe, and in some ways, that makes it worse. Because Cromwell is a man of reason, who believes when it’s right to kill and when it’s right to show mercy, who really believes that what he does is right, but is open to some of Hex’s suggestions, finding him an intelligent man and engaging in lively (and more importantly, for serious male bonding, drunken) conversation. Hex wants to try and change history and make Cromwell a better man, which makes the story all the more tragic when, of course, the inevitable happens and Cromwell commits the terrible atrocities that he’s infamous for.  The feeling of knowing the inevitable is increased further in the fact that the story is told almost entirely in flashback, with Hex and Ace going over the events afterwards and trying to work out what went wrong. Even these scenes are important, as Hex begins to realise something: he loves travelling with the Doctor and the adventures, as difficult and terrible as it can be sometimes…but he’s beginning to love Ace even more. And the sad fact is that it’s clear she doesn’t feel the same way, only thinking of him as a friend. This angle of a companion feeling unrequited love for another is another reason why I love the Ace/Hex dynamic, and it’s something that’s explored or at least hinted at more in subsequent releases. In short, a fantastic release for Mr. Hex. 9/10 (One more thing: LOVE the fact that the TV movie TARDIS is “introduced” in this story. It’s another nice link between the end of the classic series and the start of the TV movie, where an older 7 is seen travelling alone in his wonderfully Gothic TARDIS. But more on that later.)

Forty-Five

A great release to celebrate 45 years of Doctor Who (at that point), this is a slightly different release in that it’s four short stories written by four different writers. What’s very impressive about this release is how consistent in quality all the stories are – all the stories are great to listen to and pack in a lot of plot and drama into 25 minutes. Particular favourites are episodes 3 and 4: the former for not only examining more of Ace’s past and mother issues but also for having Hex closer to finding out the truth, and the latter episode for just being so fucking excellent on so many levels. Seriously, The Word Lord, the only episode I had listened to before (as preparation for a later story), strongly stands up to repeat listening. That’s because of the brilliantly clever and bonkers ideas, strong characters and of course, a fantastic villain: Nobody No-One, a being from a far off dimension where the rules of physics are completely different to our own. A smart but completely insane and ruthless bastard, he might just be one of the most powerful foes the Doctor has ever faced, for one simple reason – if someone says that he can do something, he can and probably will do it, and with a name like his, that basically means he can do the impossible. In this story, stuck in a remote and cut off base, he’s not even at his most dangerous. It’s much later, in one of the greatest stories ever (and I mean ever) that we really see just how dangerous he is, and what it would take to truly stop him. And believe me, the cost is higher than you dare believe. But, again, more on that later. (Yes, I am a big fan of How I Met Your Mother. Why do you ask?) For this story, it’s an excellent one-off listen, borderline perfect for a 25-minute episode. 10/10 for The Word Lord alone.

So what do I think of the other releases from this individual run? Dreamtime was a bit too strange for me, especially for Hex’s first journey in the TARDIS. There’re some nice ideas in there, but a little too flat out weird for me. Nocturne was ok, but despite some interesting ideas, the story just didn’t grab me. I’ve also never been particularly keen on stories where the Doctor returns to one of his favourite places in the universe that he’s visited plenty of times and yet we’ve never heard of before. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t – in this case, for me personally, it didn’t quite work. Neither did much of the comedy in The Dark Husband, although there were some cool moments, including the Doctor arranging to get married, the exploration of a single race deeply divided into two, and more hints of just how much Hex really likes Ace, to put it very mildly. No Man’s Land is actually pretty good, but I didn’t enjoy it as much as the highlights in this blog. There’s some nice exploration of Hex’s past as we learn more about his life as an orphan, about how he never knew his mother, and I loved those scenes. I also loved a lot of the drama and exploration of World War I and the different reactions from the soldiers. I think for me the story felt just a bit padded at times and didn’t quite drag me in. I love World War I stories, but this took place far from the true horrors of it for it to interest me, focusing more on brainwashed soldiers being programmed to hate and obey orders, and I would’ve loved it if there was less sci-fi and more exploration of that time period. If it had explored more the horrors of war like the Settling, I think I would’ve loved it, but then, considering it came so soon after that particular story, (including a rather direct reference to it at one point,) I can understand why it didn’t quite go with that angle.

I will admit though that there was something I enjoyed about the ending – namely, the revelation of who were behind the sci-fi elements of the story. A nasty little group that the Doctor has encountered twice before, who like to use alien technology and do what they like in the name of “King and Country”. They’re known as the Forge. And the last time he encountered them, it nearly destroyed a close friendship.

In his Sixth incarnation, he travelled with Evelyn Smythe. The first time they had met the Forge, they had made friends with a young woman, Cassie Schofield. Her life was ruined however when she was infected with a virus and turned into a vampire. The Doctor promised her a cure, and so she waited…and waited…until she was finally picked up by the Forge and turned into one of their most dangerous agents. During the second time she met the Doctor and Evelyn, she was understandably pretty pissed off, but one thing got through to her. One little thing that made her decide to help the Doctor and Evelyn, even at the cost of her own life – her infant son, Tommy. Her death and the Doctor’s shockingly casual reaction to it badly shook things between the Doctor and Evelyn. Eventually, they recovered, but things were never quite the same between the two again.

Eventually Evelyn left the Doctor, fell in love and got married. She eventually reunited with the Sixth Doctor though, and after a rather taxing ordeal which endangered her life, she was recovering in hospital when a little man with a Scottish accent and umbrella appeared. It didn’t take her long to realise that he was the Doctor – from her perspective, the future Doctor, the Seventh Doctor. He decided he owed her, and told her that he had found Cassie’s son, or rather, Thomas Hector Schofield had found him. He hadn’t told Hex about his mother, but he will, in time. He just wanted to tell Evelyn to at least try to make things up to her…not realising that, by keeping such a huge secret from Hex, he’s going to do have to do the exact same thing for him ten times over.

That’s the tragedy of the Seventh Doctor – he doesn’t learn from his mistakes, but instead keeps repeating the same ones over and over. He keeps things from his closest friends because he’s so sure he knows what’s best and always ends up breaking their hearts. He knew about Ace and her relation to Fenric and never told her, and almost destroyed their friendship over it. When Hex finds out about the Doctor’s history with his mother and how he watched her die and never told him, will it finally force the Doctor to change his ways?

What do you think?

7th Doctor Audio Overview (1 of 7)

Audios

·         The Lost Stories: Season 27

-          Thin Ice

-          Crime of the Century

-          Animal

-          Earth Aid

·         Destiny of the Doctor

-          Shockwave

·         Main Range

-          The Fearmonger

-          The Genocide Machine

-          Dust Breeding

-          Colditz

-          The Rapture

In my last blog, I mentioned how it was such a crushing shame that Doctor Who originally ended when it did – when it had been at its best for the first time in over a decade and had seemed to be given a new lease of life. With a new direction in the series of companions with more depth, stories for the family with a touch of darkness, and a Doctor with more mystery to him than ever, it seemed like the show was finally starting to find its feet again, and it looked like the BBC had cancelled it at the wrong time.

However, having listened to the stories that were originally planned for season 27 before its cancellation, I’m instead now wondering if, as terrible as it is to say it, the BBC made the right decision after all.

That’s not to say that season 27 is terrible, in fact, there’s a number of things to enjoy about it. There’s the brilliant character of Raine Creevy for a start, perhaps the only companion in Doctor Who history where the Doctor’s not only been there at her birth, but delivered it, too! I love her mixture of having an excellent education, well manners, and of course, the pleasure she gets from being a thief. Beth Chalmers is excellent at not just playing the posh, clever girl but also Raine’s own mother. That’s one thing I really loved about this season – that it had such a cool idea as introducing a character first as a baby, then have the Doctor skip ahead over 20 years to when she’s grown up and have her tag along for a few adventures. With some characters, that’d probably be considered creepy, but for someone like the Doctor, especially the Seventh Doctor, it’s almost Gandalf-ish in the way he turns up out the blue (or in this case, out of a safe that Raine was trying to break into) and brings Raine along for an adventure due to knowing her parents first.

There’s something else I like about the season – there’s a little more development of the Doctor’s character, of seeing a little more of the man with the master plan at work. What I love is how he not only comes up with such brilliant schemes to fight his enemies with, but how one little thing can bring those plans crashing down. And that’s where the Doctor really shines – when he has to think of something on the spot at the very last minute to save the day, and the fact is, he usually does it brilliantly.

So what’s the problem? Why don’t I enjoy “season 27” as much as seasons 25 and 26? Well, for one thing, there are the stories. Again, they’re not terrible, and I really enjoyed both Thin Ice for the really strong ideas (then again, it was written by Marc Platt), and Crime of the Century especially is such a ridiculously fun listen. But while those two stories are pretty good as the highlights of the season, there’s nothing that matches the greatness and multi-layered complexity of stories such as Remembrance of the Daleks, Ghost Light, or The Curse of Fenric.

One thing that possibly doesn’t help is that, surprisingly, there’s a considerably lighter tone throughout this season, which is a shame, as the darker storytelling of season 26 in particular made it one of my favourites. This is especially noteworthy of the Doctor – while he’s still a man who likes to have his plans, we see less of the secretive, darker nature that we caught glimpses of in Ghost Light and Curse of Fenric, although I must say (and this is another reason why I enjoyed Thin Ice), it was great to see him testing Ace, sometimes being forced to leave her in the lurch to see if she’s ready for a potential major change in her life. It’s disappointing that there wasn’t more of this throughout the season, really.

Interestingly, had Thin Ice been made on television as originally planned, this would’ve been Ace’s last story in the series, as she would’ve been sent away to Gallifrey to become a Time Lord. However, Big Finish made the bold move of adjusting the story accordingly so it fitted better with the continuity that Big Finish had created rather than simply aiming for a “what if?” season and have Ace fail to enter the Time Lord Academy – as a result, the rest of the season contains a significant difference than its original televised form by including Ace for the entire run.

Neither Animal nor Earth Aid left much of an impression on me. There were some good ideas in there, but neither story grabbed me. Good ideas were that in Animal, there was a nice way of dividing the 4-part story into two distinct halves, the first half involving flesh eating plants at a university, the second involving altogether different aliens on a spaceship. Earth Aid has the return of an alien race introduced in Crime of the Century and even reveals more about their origins, so I liked that the season had a number of arc elements throughout.

What I didn’t like was how the stories were executed. The aliens in Animal weren’t particularly interesting, a complaint I also have of another race entirely that’s introduced in Earth Aid. There was also a potentially interesting idea of Ace pretending to be the captain of a starship in the final story, but I felt that it wasn’t written quite as well as it should’ve been, as I often found myself questions such as “Why wasn’t the Doctor pretending to be the captain when he clearly knew more about the job than she did? Wouldn’t it have made more sense for him to be undercover instead of her?”

Overall, I found season 27 to be good with a couple of hit-and-misses, but after the excellent season 25 and 26, it’s just a bit of a disappointment, especially with its slightly lighter take of the 7^th Doctor than what we had seen previously.

The next story I listened to was the seventh release of the Destiny of the Doctor series, which focuses on a different incarnation with every story, all in very different adventures and yet with hints of a much larger story, especially the messages that every incarnation is receiving from a certain guy in a bow tie. Listening to this between season 27 and Big Finish’s main range’s story of the Seventh Doctor and Ace seemed as good a place as any, and honestly, I thought this was much more in tone with the darker Doctor we had seen in the final TV season than in what would’ve been the 27^th. The Doctor and Ace arrive on a spaceship escaping from an exploding star, and Ace thinks that they’ve arrived to help everyone. But the Doctor has his own agenda, arriving there specifically at a point in history when it’s easy to retrieve an object that’s usually impossibly secure. This idea of the Doctor working towards his own agenda and even using history itself in his aims to achieve it, no matter how terrible Ace might feel about it, fits in much more with the Doctor who kept secrets from his companion on why she was taken away from her home in the first place, or forcing her to confront a childhood nightmare than the portrayal we got in the Lost Stories. He may still try to save people, but more and more, he’s becoming more interested in something that’s potentially dangerous: the ‘greater good’. It’s this part of the Seventh Doctor that makes him such an interesting character to me.

Of course, he’s not all bad – after all, the key thing about the Doctor is that, no matter what incarnation he’s in, he always tries to be a hero. This is something I saw throughout the earliest productions from Big Finish featuring the Seventh Doctor and Ace. His character isn’t as dark as what I saw in season 26, but it’s hardly as light as what I listened to in season 27, either. This is helped by the stories having a somewhat darker tone than even the TV series a great deal of the time, although overall I’d say it doesn’t venture too far into ‘adult’, with the possible exception of the Rapture, which I’ll get round to. Grouped together, these 5 stories aren’t perfect, but overall, I enjoyed them more than the Lost Stories.

Highlights are The Fearmonger, Colditz and, for originality and radicalness at least, The Rapture. The Fearmonger’s an excellent tale that examines fear, paranoia and mob mentality. The alien in the story is an intriguing premise in that it’s not out to take over the universe or even ‘possess’ people, it’s just a creature that feeds on fear itself, and the way it does it in the story is so brilliant that I really can’t give anything more away. But it was a story that felt modern while also feeling like a natural extension of where the series was heading, and an excellent use of the audio medium of storytelling, especially with the monster.

The next story, The Genocide Machine, wasn’t so great. Worth listening for being the beginning of the Dalek Empire arc that continued with 6^th Doctor story The Apocalypse Element (featuring the first time the Daleks invaded Gallifrey), 5^th Doctor story The Mutant Phase and 8^th Doctor story Time of the Daleks (with the arc also setting up events for the excellent spinoff series Dalek Empire), but the story of the Daleks invading the greatest library in the universe just didn’t grab me. I loved the return of the Emperor of the Daleks though, and the story is great at highlighting just how dedicated and cunning the Daleks idea – the idea of an ancient ziggurat on the planet turning out to be a Dalek ship that had waited thousands of years for the opportunity to enter the library was especially brilliant.

The story also introduced thief Bev Tarrant, who bumps into the Doctor and Ace in the following story Dust Breeding. Overall, while there were a few characters who didn’t grab my interest (the psychotic artist especially was one I really wasn’t keen on), I liked it a little better than the Genocide Machine, quite possibly helped by the fact that the second part of the story has an AWESOME twist that brought back a much loved enemy into the Big Finish audio range. With how vicious the Krill are, the story could be considered a little too violent at times (although hardly much of a problem on audio), and the story of possessed dust and artwork is ok, but the story didn’t interest me quite as much as it should have.

Thankfully, this is where the excellent Colditz comes in. The Doctor and Ace arriving at an important place in history – in this case, the prison Colditz castle in World War II – is refreshing, and there are a number of excellent characters throughout. The Nazi soldier Kurtz (played by at the time future Doctor David Tennant) is a wonderfully evil and sadistic character who believes that what the Nazis are doing is right but frustrated and paranoid at the thought that he might be too easily ignored by his superior officers. Schafer’s equally excellent in that, while he might be in charge of his prisoners, he treats them with respect, particularly Gower, a man more eager for himself and his fellow prisoners to escape than anyone. It comes as quite a blow when Gower pushes Schafer to do as he asks or Gower will inform the Commandant for all the favours that Schafer has already done for him. As I said, all the characters in this story feel real and three-dimensional, and the fact that the historical part of the story is (minus the Doctor and Ace, of course) inspired by real events more than likely helps.

But the best character of the story, and indeed the best reason for listening to the story in the first place (yes, better than hearing the Tenth Doctor play a Nazi) is Elizabeth Klein. She’s a Nazi, but not from 1944 Germany – she is, in fact, from England in the 1960s, or rather, an alternative timeline accidentally created by the Doctor and Ace’s arrival in Colditz. Played brilliantly by Tracey Childs, Klein is someone who genuinely believes that England is a better place under Nazi leadership, who believes that living in a country of peace is more than worth the cost of both countless lives and freedom. More interestingly, she believes her version of history to be “the real one”, and is surprised that the Doctor seems keen to change it for reasons such as genocide when in her mind there have been far greater crimes across history. Considering how excellent and intriguing Klein’s character is, and the implications of not just an alternative history, but also an alternative timeline Doctor manipulating Klein to alert ‘our’ Doctor and put history back on track, it’s no wonder that Klein not only returned later in the audios (much, much later – it was 8 years before Klein finally returned in a Big Finish story), but has arguably become one of its most popular original characters. As for how her story develops, well…more on that later.

Overall, I’d rate Colditz as highly as my favourite 7th Doctor TV stories, and believe me, that’s saying a lot. A mixture of some fantastic time travel ideas with excellent characters and a great use of history, this is a highly recommended listen.

The Rapture, while not being quite as good, is still another great listen in how radical its approach to Doctor Who really is. Featuring the Doctor and Ace arriving in Ibiza and a story that involves clubbing, drugs and long lost family members, this story at times almost seems closer to Torchwood than Doctor Who (unsurprisingly, writer Joseph Lidster later wrote an episode for series 2 of Torchwood). And that’s why I like it. It tries something different, and while at times, especially with the clubbing scenes, it tries too hard to be ‘hip’, for the most part, I think it succeeds really well. With a story that features characters trying to escape depression through drugs and dancing and one of the alien characters of the story being less ‘mad’ and more genuinely mentally ill, this is certainly a story with a lot of darkness to it. But, and this is where I really appreciate Lidster as a writer, he’s not afraid to throw in some humour in there, too.  The Doctor’s usual routine of trying to check up on Ace is given a great twist when Ace is at a club and the Doctor is struggling to convince the bouncer to let him in is a wonderful example. There’s not a lot of humour, but it’s enough to add a little bit of light in a very dark story with some surprising depth.

Overall, the audios have been enjoyable to listen to so far. A little hit-and-miss in some places, but ultimately worth it for such excellent stories like The Fearmonger and Colditz. And thinking about that, it brings me back to my earlier point. When I began this blog, I said I wondered if the BBC actually made the right decision in cancelling Doctor Who when it did, which I’ll finally explain. Firstly, as I mentioned, the stories planned to follow the final season of classic Who weren’t particularly great, or at least, they didn’t match the standard that had been set by the previous 2 seasons, and Doctor Who had been living with the axe over its head for a number of years at that point. I was frustrated that the BBC had decided to end it just as it was starting to become great again, but having listened to season 27, I beginning to wonder if it might have been a blessing in disguise. When the show finished, it ended at such a high point that it left the fans wanting more and no one felt it had outstayed its welcome (well, not the people who were still watching the show at least, anyway).

The second reason why I think that the BBC letting Doctor Who go is a good thing is that, as I said before but to re-emphasise, the fans wanted more. And one way or another, we got that. It was no longer on television, but we got it. We got it from books, we got it from comics, and of course, we got it from audios. Based on Big Finish’s earliest stories featuring the excellent pair of the Doctor and Ace and compared with what was planned for season 27, in my opinion I think we’re rather lucky with the directions they’ve taken both the Doctor and especially Ace in, the latter of which growing up in Colditz and finally deciding to use her real name of “Dorothy McShane” (well ok, maybe not the first name, but it’s still a wonderful bit of development). I’ve really been enjoying the earliest Big Finish stories featuring the two, and I can’t wait to hear the next lot. Especially as they’re about to introduce the brilliant companion Thomas Hector Schofield aka Hex. I am so eager to start listening to that team from the start.

Actually speaking of which, there’s a lot of things I’m looking forward to about listening to all of the Seventh Doctor audios in chronological order. These include:

·         Arcs. Bloody hell, there’s so many that I don’t even know where to start. The excellent thing about Big Finish is that they love setting up arcs or little threads that can take years to pay off – there’s a secret the Doctor keeps from Hex that Hex doesn’t find out about until six years after he was introduced. Admittedly, this is helped by the fact that Big Finish have not just four Doctors to include in their main range but even more multiple on-going storylines – in fact, Big Finish being able to have such variety based on one single series is just another reason why I love Doctor Who so much – but still, having on-going threads that pay off in big ways like Project: Destiny and Gods and Monsters is a rewarding experience. The latter especially had so many details – including elements from a whole mixture of arcs, not just the season it was in but the Black TARDIS from the season before, the Elder Gods appearance from Lurkers at Sunlight’s Edge from the season before that and even a hint of a returning villain in 2009’s The Magic Mousetrap – that I’ve been dying for an excuse to listen to all of it all over again and try and make as much sense of it as possible.

·         The return of Klein. Like I said, I loved her first appearance in Colditz, and I’m really keen to re-listen to her further appearances, especially the excellent epic UNIT Dominion. She’s also in the current season that Big Finish are releasing, which I’m really eager to get round to, especially as it’s set very near to the Seventh Doctor’s final chronological appearance in the TV movie, but I think it’s better to wait it out and reward myself with such a trilogy when I finish.

·         A Death in the Family. I love this story. I think it’s a beautiful, beautiful story that…well, like I said, more on that later, but it honestly is one of my favourite Doctor Who stories in any medium, and I’m hugely eager to re-listen to it.

·         Hex. Did I mention Hex? Hex is awesome! But shockingly, there are a number of his earlier stories that I’ve yet to listen to, which is almost everything between his first story The Harvest and The Magic Mousetrap, so it’ll be great to hear his whole story for the first time.

Right, that’s my thoughts on the first part on my journey with the Seventh Doctor done. Time for me to take a short break by listening to Dalek Empire III while waiting for my next cds to arrive. Hope you enjoyed the blog!

Big Finish Review - January

It occurred to me earlier that, with this year being the 50^th anniversary of one of the greatest shows ever, audio company Big Finish has a number of ranges dedicated to telling a large number of Doctor Who stories every year. Hell, at the moment, I’m currently subscribed to 4 monthly ranges – that’s 4 Doctor Who stories every month on audio alone! Fortunately, I subscribe well in advance, but for those who can at best afford only one cd per month, out of each month’s releases, what would be the best ones to buy? That is why I’ve written this: the first in what I hope will be a regular review of the monthly output of a number of ranges of Doctor Who that Big Finish releases. A great way to further blog and discuss my favourite show, and, to those who can afford it, to perhaps help some decide what would be the ideal releases to listen to, including a couple of recommendations, one for the new fans and one for those who appreciates their serious continuity.

Main Range

The Wrong Doctors

What better way to kick off the 50^th anniversary year than by having a multi-Doctor story? But this is a “multi-Doctor” story with a difference. It does feature two Doctors, but instead of the usual take of having multiple incarnations argue with each other, we instead have something quite original in which its two versions of the same incarnation, at two different points in life. Really thinking about it, this is probably the most full-on multi-Doctor story we’ve had from Big Finish – others have involved either clones, doubles or the briefest of exchanges (yes, this includes The Four Doctors, although to be fair, that’s still a cool story). But here, we have two Doctors, one older and wiser than the other, arguing with himself. Himself. Thank you, Big Finish, for finally having the balls to do something like this.

Bear in mind though that this isn’t just about the gimmick of having two Sixes. This is a tribute to two things. The first is Mel Bush, of which this story pays a lot of respect to, as the Sixth Doctor finally tries to meet her. Tries and spectacularly fails as…well, I’d rather not go into detail, as (a) I wouldn’t want to spoil too much here, and (b) it’d just be too difficult to explain even if I did want to spoil it (especially for those who haven’t seen The Trial of a Time Lord). We get it all here – her home of Pease Pottage, her excellent memory, her knack at computers and her travels with the Doctor – all are important to the story here, and it’s a testament to Matt Fitton’s writing ability that none of it feels forced whatsoever.  I’m not sure I completely understood the plot all the time, but it didn’t matter: there were numerous well drawn out characters, especially the villain, Mr Petherbridge, brilliantly played by Tony Gardner, to really draw me into the world of the story, at least.

There’s something else that’s great about this story though, and what really makes it a good one to kick off the anniversary year – the Sixth Doctor. Specifically, the Sixth Doctor of the Big Finish adventures at least, with a few nods to even beyond that. (Including BBC novel Business Unusual, where the Sixth Doctor really meets Mel for the first time – yes guys, amazingly, this story doesn’t contradict that story whatsoever.) The contrast of the two Doctors is amazing – yes, they’re the same incarnation, but still quite, quite different. Whereas the younger Doctor is his usual “bolshy” self as we saw on television, his older self is definitely mellower by comparison – both of which are of course amazingly portrayed by Colin Baker. We’re reminded that really, this is a Doctor that we never really saw on television, at least not with this amount of development. He is the Big Finish Doctor – a kind, intelligent, at times sombre but mostly happy incarnation who is, at least in the audio medium, considerably popular. There is no finer way for Big Finish to kick off such an important anniversary of a show nearly half a century old than to celebrate just what they (and indeed other formats of the expanded universe) can do that the tv series couldn’t or wouldn’t – take the scattered seeds that were left untended in the tv series, and let them grow. And that includes the potential brilliance of the Sixth Doctor. 8/10

Companion Chronicles

The Flames of Cadiz

Marc Platt? Writing a story that’s purely historical? Can it be true? Indeed it is! And, even better folks, compared to the usual 1 disc release of the Companion Chronicles, this is the special 2 disc release that comes every January, so it feels even closer to the more fleshed out 4-part historicals of the early seasons.

I was pretty impressed with this story. Partly for how much it draws you into its historical setting, with its fleshed-out characters, both regular and of the story in particular, giving you a good insight in what it was like living in the time of the Spanish Inquisition, specifically near the time of the Spanish Armada.

Another thing I was impressed by was how much Platt nailed the era of the kind of story this would’ve taken place in, tv series wise. The dark tone of the story showing the horrors of history, the well fleshed out companions of Ian and Barbara being caught up in it, sometimes being caught up in the sheer thrill of it, and of course, just how alien, dark and mysterious the Doctor is at this point – one of the best traits of a great deal of Platt’s stories is reminding us that the Doctor is an alien, not just biologically but psychologically, seeing people, events and morals completely differently to how a human would. This is a key aspect to the first Doctor at this point, so it’s no surprise that Marc Platt has written a number of stories for this particular incarnation, even one set before the beginning of the tv series. (One Companion Chronicle I’m especially looking forward to that’s released in November has the simple title of The Beginning, a story involving the Doctor and Susan leaving Gallifrey. Naturally, I’m greatly looking forward to listening to such a story.)

One more thing I enjoyed about the story was the added layer of how dangerous it can be wanting to meet your heroes. An old story perhaps, but still a classic, especially when it’s done as beautifully as this. Because some men may disappoint, perhaps inevitably, but still be great men. Not necessarily good men, but still great.

This is a fantastic story that really feels like it could’ve been shot and filmed in 1963 (well ok, maybe 1964, the second story hadn’t even finished in ’63), and is another nice way to kick off the anniversary year – a story that does a great job at reminding us just how wonderful both the first TARDIS crew and their stories really were. 9/10

The Fourth Doctor Adventures – Season 2

1. The Auntie Matter

And so another season begins for one of the series’ most popular Doctors! Last season was set during his time with Leela, which overall I thought was a pretty strong start, including just the right balance between old school and modern day storytelling, with 4^th Doctor stories that fitted perfectly in between the gothic horror of the Holmes/Hinchcliffe era with the lighter scifi of the Graham Williams era, in a faster pace and further expansion of companion Leela, all stories brilliantly performed by Tom Baker and Louise Jameson, acting as though it had only been a matter of months since they worked together and not over 35 years (in the roles of the Doctor and Leela, at least). So that first season has set a very high standard. What of the second?

The second season has gone for a different approach, taking place later in the Fourth Doctor’s life as he travels with Romana in her first incarnation. One thing that comes across clearly right from the start is how easily these two make us believe that no time has passed at all since we last saw the pair on screen, especially with Mary Tamm as Romana, who plays the role with the same intellect and strong attitude that we saw in the tv series. It’s a tragic and shocking loss to think that she’s been gone for over six months now, as her performance here was so full of life, you could really believe that she could’ve easily done it for many more years.

The first story is a bit of a fun if basic romp, taking place in 1920s England and featuring androids, body stealing aliens and ultra-posh Englishmen who can’t pronounce their r’s. Overall, it’s a nice start to the season, but I’m eager for darker and meatier stuff that is surely yet to come. (Or at least, another Doctor Who story featuring the great, great, great David Warner and of course, the reunion of Jago & Litefoot with Four.) 6/10

Destiny of the Doctor

1. Hunters of Earth

The Flames of Cadiz isn’t the only First Doctor story this month. We also have the beginning of a brand new series, specially made to not only celebrate the 50^th anniversary but to also be more welcoming to new listeners who haven’t discovered the wonderful classic Doctors and their stories. This is an unusual series that Big Finish is involved in as (a) the narration for the stories is done in the third-person, unlike the Companion Chronicles which usually use the first-person narrative structure, and (b) due to being co-produced with AudioGo, the later stories will involve Doctors from the New Series, which Big Finish aren’t normally allowed to touch. So it’ll be great to have a series with Big Finish involvement that’ll allow them to make great stories for all the Doctors, not just the first eight.

So how is the first one? Definitely an interesting opening, as it begins not long before the very start of the series. It’s very reflective of both the era and of the very time of when the original series began, in days of when random violence between groups like mods and rockers would break out. And violence is very much key to this story. This is a very dark and disturbing tale in which Susan finds herself not only distinctly branded as an outsider, but dangerously targeted for it. There are some really creepy images – particularly one of Susan being completely surrounded while people try and throw rocks at her – but along the way, the story occasionally soaks in the lighter aspects of 60s culture, too. There’s also a small but vital moment in the story that’s very clearly important to the arc of the whole series. Mostly though, it’s a fantastic standalone story that gives us a glimpse both of Susan’s life (the Doctor is more of a background presense here) before the start of the series as well as 60s life in general. This is a really great jumping on point for anyone who’s yet to discover the joys of the classic stuff. 8/10

Recommendations

For the newbie: Hunters of Earth

If you know nothing of classic Who or even new Who and are wanting to buy a story that you can just switch on without worrying about any background knowledge beforehand, this is definitely your safest bet, as being a jumping-on point is what this particular series was designed for in the first place. It’s also a great standalone drama to boot, so you should fully enjoy it. Another story to enjoy that's also not too bad continuity wise is The Flames of Cadiz.

For the continuity obsessed: The Wrong Doctors

Starting with direct references to previous companions, thorny tv continuity issues and even an out-of-print novel, this is definitely one for someone with at least a basic knowledge of the Sixth Doctor. It’s not too bad, and it is a wonderful celebration of the life that the Sixth Doctor has had in audio form at least, but that’s exactly it – it’s paying tribute to over a decade of this incarnation on cd, and while you hardly need to know all of it, it helps to know just how much this Doctor has changed and why to fully appreciate it.

So overall, a very strong start to the year for Big Finish. Can they continue such a high standard? Who knows. Judging from the February releases I've listened to so far, very possibly, although I'll save discussion for that for the next blog. (Which hopefully won't take too long.) Personal favourite for the month? It's tied between Hunters of Earth and Flames of Cadiz, probably because I have a soft spot for Hartnell's darker and more mysterious Doctor, but mostly because those stories are simply great, mature (but not too mature) stories that completely stand on their own. Keep it coming, Big Finish!

Diary of a Who Addict #5

18/11/12

I haven’t been keeping up with this blog much. This is partially for two reasons: one, I’ve been sick all week, and I haven’t been in the mood for much writing as a result. Two, with the pause in the actual watch, there hasn’t been as much for me to talk about. Of course, that’s just the tv stuff – there’s plenty of other stuff I can discuss.

Like, for example, comics. Read two collections this week: The Crimson Hand and The Child of Time, featuring the 10^th and 11^th Doctors respectively. Both volumes proved to be really great, epic stuff. It’s stuff like that that reminds me that I seriously need to read the Doctor Who Magazine on a regular basis, as it’s amazing how much those guys really plan ahead with their comics stuff, and how they can tie up story threads that have been running for nearly two years, in some cases. Now got all the 8^th Doctor volumes to make my way through, and boy, am I looking forward to that.

But the piece of Who expanded universe I have to give the rave review to this week is without question the Eighth Doctor epic Dark Eyes. I listened to this story the moment it was available for download last week, and now I’ve just finished listening to this wonderful story a 2nd time, to process it a little better. This was a story that I’ve been looking forward to all year, even more so than anything in the tv series this year, if I’m honest.

This is due to two reasons: first, the Eight Doctor is my favourite Doctor, particularly his audio stuff, as Paul McGann really does throw himself into the role and always gives a wonderful performance, sometimes portraying the mad eccentric alien, sometimes the ancient traveller, sometimes the dark, weary soul that he’s become – all shades of the Doctor are always performed wonderfully by McGann.

Which leads me to my second point: To The Death. This was a story that marked an end not just to the previous season, but to an entire 4 year storyline that had covered the ongoing relationship between the Doctor and his companion Lucie Miller. That was a series that had begun light-hearted enough, aiming to be a cross between the era of the classic series with the style of the new series, with shorter, faster paced stories and season long arcs mixed in with the Doctor rebelling against his own people the Time Lords (something the new series can’t really do ever since getting rid of them) and the occasional appearance of a classic series monster. But then the fourth season came along, and things began to get noticeably darker and slightly more complex, in a season which carefully looked at who the Doctor had become, how much he valued life and how heroic he really was, before bringing that all down in the series finale To The Death. To those who haven’t listened to it, I won’t spoil it, but I will say this: it more than lived up to its title, so much so that by the end, the Doctor had become a changed man, a much darker figure, and it was unknown just what he’ll do next.

I must admit, the way To The Death ended, I thought, "If Big Finish decide to do no more Eighth Doctor Adventures, at least none set after this one, I'd be happy with that". This is purely because I thought TTD was, in some ways, a really good way to end things with McGann's Doctor. Since Big Finish doesn’t have a license for anything to do with the new series, including covering anything relating to the Time War (in which both the Daleks and the Time Lords were (almost) entirely wiped out) and the regeneration from Eight to Nine, there’s only so much of the Eighth Doctor’s story they could reasonably tell. Leaving him a considerably darker figure and more hateful of the Daleks than ever isn’t that much of a bad way to end things – certainly, it acts as a better bridge to the start of the new series with the battle-scarred lone survivor Ninth Doctor than the ending of the tv movie with the Eighth Doctor having only just been “born”, happy as ever and heading off to see the universe with brand new eyes. So when I heard that his story would continue, I was both incredibly excited and very apprehensive. Yes, as ever, I’m always excited to hear more of McGann’s Doctor – especially considering how his performance in TTD was one of his greatest ever – but how would this new story deal with the aftermath of such major events?

As it turned out, amazingly well. Ok, so this story doesn’t have the Doctor out on a mission to wipe out every Dalek in existence or appeal to the Time Lords to start a war. It’s actually a lot more subtle – and a lot better – than that. Because the Eighth Doctor clearly isn’t the man that he once was. There are moments where he tries to be by making a joke or trying to find just a small moment of fun, but overall, his Doctor is a lot more tired and a lot wearier of life than the man who woke up in San Francisco and found joy in a pair of shoes. He’s a man who begins the story without hope. Dark Eyes is the story of how he recovers some of that back. Not all of it, which is what I was partly afraid of, but a little, anyway. This story of a Doctor without hope works incredibly well for two reasons. Firstly, the continuing excellent performance of McGann as the Doctor. Like To The Death, Dark Eyes really allows him to explore the darker aspects of his Doctor without over-doing it. It’s amazing performances like this that continue to show just why he’s my favourite Doctor, and probably one of the best actors to have ever taken the role.

Secondly, Nicholas Brigg’s writing. He really seems to have found a nice balance between pushing the Doctor into darker emotional territory and adding in a few touches of light along the way. But it’s not just the Doctor he’s written well. The new companion, Molly, (as brilliantly played by Ruth Bradley,) a WWI VAT nursing assistant, not only acts as a way of introducing new listeners to the Eighth Doctor, but feels a fully fleshed out character in her own right. She’s someone who has, understandably, been through a lot already in her young life, but also tries hard not to let any of it get her down. Stubborn with a no-nonsense attitude, she’s exactly who the Doctor needs at one of the lowest points of his life.

Another excellent point regarding the script is the story. Taking full advantage of the unlimited budget of audio, this is a story that is both epic and, due to a surprisingly great deal of the story being effectively carried by McGann and Bradley as Molly, personal, this is a fast paced story that satisfies on so many levels. Whether you’ve followed all the Eighth Doctor’s adventures so far (like myself), or whether you’re looking for an ideal jumping on point, Dark Eyes is well worth listening to, and a brilliant start to a new era in the Eighth Doctor’s life. 10/10

Diary of a Who Addict #4

7/11/12

So, first day of no Who, and even though I’m back to currently watching the amazing show Breaking Bad and the fact that I’ve watched 26 episodes of Who in 4 days this week, not to mention 75 eps in the past 3 weeks alone, I’ve gotta say, I’m still really itching to crack on with another episode. And that’s something that I’m actually surprised about – 75 eps in 3 weeks, maybe even 100 in a month, and that’s not even including the audio stuff I’ve listened to, even I thought I’d be Who’d out. After all, with the first 6 seasons, I’d take gaps where it’d be months before I watched the next ep. Of course, one thing to consider in that case, there’d be a ton of eps missing, with only the soundtracks surviving, which made it a little difficult to get into without that vital visual element. This stood out especially in Troughton’s first two seasons, where the number of surviving eps are sadly very few.

His final season though was mostly watchable, which I started watching last month. Actually watching what was going on rather than listening and trying to guess was a lot more fun, particularly seeing the physicality of Troughton’s performance and his wonderful variety of expressions. There were one or two stories that weren’t quite up to scratch (Dominators, I’m looking at you!), but overall, it wasn’t a bad final season, especially with such classics like The Mind Robber, the Invasion, and the epic War Games, which ended things so brilliantly, and made it clear that whatever happened in the next season, it was going to be a lot different to what we had seen over the past six seasons, with a new Doctor, no time/space travel, and, most important of all: colour!

Then not even a week later I find myself on season 7, and the more I watch of Pertwee’s kick-ass dandy of a Doctor, his reluctant relationship with the Brigadier and UNIT, and his sheer desperation to escape, the more I found myself compelled to watch more and more eps.

I think my increasing addiction to the classic stuff definitely has to do with watching it in order, not random serials of random Doctors as I used to. Because, while a lot of serials are almost completely stand-alone in story at this point, there is something to be said to watching the whole grand story slowly be told, of watching characters slowly develop and relationships grow. The more I watch the series in order, the easier I find myself getting attached to companions and Doctors. For example, before, I liked Jo Grant, but I couldn’t say that she was one of my favourite companions. She did seem to be more than a bit of a ditz at times. However, the more I saw of her, the more I saw her learning, of forming a bond with the Doctor, until it’s now reached a point where the Third Doctor/Jo Grant relationship has become one of my favourites of the series so far. It’s a much more enjoyable experience than watching snapshots of the Doctor’s life at certain points, and better still, I’m getting to watch some of my favourite stories in a whole new light.

So, now that I’m taking a break from the series for a couple of weeks, will I have nothing to post on this blog? Fat chance! While I’ll be taking a break from the series itself, it won’t stop me from checking out the comics or audios, or better still, the spinoffs! The current series I’m listening to at the moment is Dalek Empire, a series I will go into more detail later on. Watch this space!

(By the way, just worked it out: started watching season 6 on the 7^th last month, and the grand total of eps I watched since then? 120. 120 eps in exactly 1 month. Boo ya!)

8/11/12

Current topic at the top of my mind right now (or should that be front of the mind? Do minds have sides?): magazines. Two actually, both to do with the Eighth (and greatest) Doctor.

First one to mention is the most current: the cover for the next issue of Doctor Who Magazine has been unveiled, and it looks terrific! Amazingly, it has nothing to do with the tv series, but in fact promotes the wonderful work of audio company Big Finish by showing the Eighth Doctor in his new bad-ass gear, with the following tagline: “PAUL MCGANN IS THE DARK DOCTOR”. Two things leap out about this: first, it’s amazing how, after more than 16 years since his one-off tv appearance in the 1996 movie, McGann still looks pretty darn great enough to be given an awesome up-to-date photoshoot. In fact, I’m more than pretty sure that his work on Dark Eyes has been the first official photoshoot he’s done as the Doctor since the film – all the covers featuring his Doctor have usually been a stock photo from promotional material for the film. Considering there’s been more than 60 cd releases so far and McGann only ever had the one story on tv, it’s amazing they were able to keep those photos as varied as they did, really.

Secondly, and far more importantly, it’s quite possibly the first time that anything to do with Big Finish has been given the front cover treatment, certainly the first time in years, at the very least. This is no minor achievement. The magazine isn’t just a popular Who magazine – it’s one of the biggest scifi magazines in Britain. Then again, considering Who is easily the biggest scifi show in Britain, that’s no real surprise. What’s more than likely helped is of course the biggest selling point being anything to do with the latest or upcoming series, with covers from the last few years usually showing an important actor/actress from the show or an image from a recent or upcoming episode. Hell, only a couple of issues ago, there were multiple covers used for the same issue, each based on a different ep from the current series. To give the front cover to something that will be listened to by thousands at most instead of watched by millions is a bit of a risk of DWM’s part, but a more than welcome one for both Big Finish and Big Finish fans. If this draws in more listeners to the range, or even better, get people who were fans of the tv series but who had no idea of the audio stuff interested, especially with such a striking cover, then it'd be absolutely marvellous. Big Finish have made some of the best Doctor Who in any format ever, and McGann is an absolutely amazing Doctor, getting a chance to shine in audio format that he sadly never got to on tv, and both fully deserve as much recognition as possible.

There’s also another magazine I’d like to discuss, one that deals with the 8^th Doctor even more directly. No, more than that: it’s to do with my very fandom. It’s a magazine from 1996: The Doctor Who Movie Special. I spotted it on ebay, and I just had to get it for nostalgia’s sake, more than anything. There’s nothing really special about it. It’s got a summary of the plot of the tv movie, mixed in with a couple of interviews from the cast of the film and a brief history on the previous Doctors. Really, it’s just another purely promotional mag you’d expect to find with a number of new films, really. But I think this made at least as much of an impression on me and turned me into the fan I am today at least as much as the 1996 movie itself.

Now, before 1996, it wasn’t like I was unaware of Doctor Who. Hell, back in the really early 90s, when there were still repeats being shown of classic Doctor Jon Pertwee, I used to enjoy watching it. Never had a clue what was going on, of course – I couldn’t have been any older than five, really – but I loved the theme tune. A truly unearthly, synthetic sound with a hell of a hook, it’d pretty much be the biggest reason for me to watch the show. I’d always join in with the main tune especially – “oooh-weee-oooooooooooh!” And the Daleks, of course. Even then, I think I was a fan of the Daleks, even if I wasn’t yet a “fan” of Who itself. Close, but not quite. Anyway, eventually, the repeats stopped, and I forgot all about it.

A few years later (practically a lifetime, or so it seemed to me back then), I started to notice a number of trailers on the telly, most of which had the tagline, “He’s back…and it’s about time!” One thing especially leapt out – it didn’t have the same unearthly quality to it, as it was played by a traditional orchestra, but I still heard it – the “boom-bam-booooooom!” sounding strangely like the beautiful “oooh-weee-oooooooooooh!” of my distant memories. And, to my pleasant surprise, I heard it: Doctor Who was back. “Great!”, I thought. “The show with the greatest theme tune ever is back! Can’t wait!”

Now, I honestly can’t remember what happened first: me watching the tv movie or the magazine special I picked up. I remember how amazed and fascinated I was by certain parts of the film – a ship that was bigger on the inside than outside and looked like an ordinary phone box, a completely bonkers alien that looked human, a man who can die and come back to life, but in a different body (that one blew my mind especially – I honestly had no idea that the man in the new movie was the exact same white-haired old geezer I had seen from before. I must admit, that was the key idea more than anything that made me want to find out more about the show). The tv movie wasn’t exactly popular with the fans at the time, but one thing’s for sure: it certainly got me interested to find out more.

Which leads me to the magazine. Now, the tv movie had my interest, but the magazine helped to cement that as something more than a mild curiosity for an 8 year old boy. It was a rather brief guide to the history of the show. Very brief, not covering much at all on the previous Doctors, but it was enough. It showed me that this was a show that had changed over many years; that it had built up a large history for itself; that it could take such bonkers ideas and somehow make them…magical. For the first time in my life, due to both the movie and a random magazine, I actually had a good idea of what Doctor Who was about. And the moment I did, I wanted to know more. Not just know – enjoy more, too. I wanted to start watching as many episodes as possible, and with a proper new series not looking like it was turning up any time soon (oh, my 8 year old self had no idea), I convinced my mum to get me a video. It starred the Doctor I could remember bits of as a kid: Jon Pertwee, the very Doctor I’m up to in my current watch. It was a long one, too: at 6 episodes it was more than two whole hours! Amazingly great value for money!

Soon as I got home, I put the tape in and watched as stars stretched past me before turning into some kind of strange tunnel of many colours, then the Doctor’s face appearing out of it, all to that wonderful, wonderful music. The title appeared in a diamond shaped logo – DOCTOR WHO – before the story title showed in big white letters: “THE MONSTER OF PELADON…BY BRIAN HAYLES…PART ONE…”

And that, dear reader, is how my lifelong journey/obsession truly began…