Whovember - 2020 to 2023

Our last Whovember!  What a journey it’s been, looking across sixty years of this remarkable franchise, with bits and pieces from so many forms of media!  Let’s wrap up with another TV episode and a pair of boxsets from Big Finish…

Whovember - 2017 to 2020

Two days left, and three years apiece, we’ve in the home stretch!  We’re into the Chibnall years, and before I carry on, I will say that I like Jodie’s era overall, there’s plenty to love in here.  I can get the writing not being to everyone’s taste, but I won’t say it’s better or worse than parts of the Davies or Moffat eras, just different.  Besides, if you want to see bad Who writing, go watch the depths of Eric Saward’s time as script editor.  Anyway, besides the point, let’s get into these choices…

Whovember - 2013 to 2017

Another bumper crop for Whovember today to make up for lost time, four more years today, and three each Wednesday and Thursday, let’s jump right on in…

Whovember (delayed!) - 2009 to 2013

Sorry folks, got a bit behind; hit by a stinker of a cold Friday night (as did EVERYONE at work!), just about over it now (I can actually… think now).  Plus, what lucid time I did have was taken up by raving about The Star Beast (Wasn't it great?).  So, making up for lost time, the next few days, I’m going to cover four years in each of the remaining blog posts, which will take us up to 60 by the 30th.  So, let’s jump right in with…

Whovember 23: 2007 to 2009

Today’s the anniversary day!  A fine Wholiday for us all!  Not long now until an all new age begins...

We still have sixteen years to cover before we’re done, so let’s jump right into things; firstly, I am going to be taking one more little peak at the comic strip, followed by another range from Big Finish…

Whovember 22: 2005 to 2007

Into the Tennant Years now.  I should mention that though we have the TV series back on and regularly, I will still be having stuff from the various spin-offs on here too, as Big Finish and such didn’t just go “oh well, that’s Who covered, never mind, pack up lads” when the series started, they instead upped their game.  Plus, do you really need yet another analysis of Blink on the Internet?  So I thought I might focus on a few other things going on too, stuff that might be a bit overshadowed by TV Who, let’s do a little bit of redressing the balance.  So then, we’ll start with a Tennant episode, before moving onto a different season opener, broadcast not on BBC One, but on Radio 7 (what Radio 4 Extra used to be called).

Whovember 21: 2003 to 2005

So, here we are with the start of New Who!  A whole new era, bringing in a new generation of fans... and a lot of whining from older fans, naturally.  Yeah, no hobby is immune from old men yelling at clouds.  But anyway, let's look at this turning point, with one of the last truly great stories to come out of the Wilderness Years, followed by looking inside number nine...

Whovember 20: 2001 to 2003

We’re hitting the 40th anniversary today; both momentous in itself, but also for what happened during that year, when in the corridors of power at the Beeb, a great decision was made.  But before that, let's look at a story that, though only on audio, has profoundly influenced one of the series’ star monsters.

Whovember 19: 1999 to 2001

 Oooh, I’ve been looking forward to this one, as I now get to talk about Big Finish, yay!  Now they actually got started a few years earlier with their Bernice Summerfield ones, and they did their first fully licenced Who ones in 1999, here we’ll be looking at their first two full years of the main monthly range of audios.

Whovember 18: 1997 to 1999

This is exciting, as today we get to look at some actual televised Doctor Who from the era, and also it’s the first time in this list I’m going to be talking about a very influential strand of spin off media, the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip.  Again, I’m going to be talking in reverse order about these years, to allow for some spoiler space, so let’s dig into the first TV episode of Doctor Who by Steve Moffat…

Year 36: 1998 to 1999 - The Curse of Fatal Death

It’s kind of cool that this is one of the few things on this list I can actually show in full, so if you haven’t seen it already, take twenty minutes and give it a go, it’s good for a laugh.  It’s also a bit topical, given that I’m writing and posting this after the Children in Need skit Destination:Skaro yesterday.  (“Say Ed, wasn’t there another Children in Need thing before thi-” WE DON’T TALK ABOUT THAT!).  This charity special was indeed written by Moffat, back when he was probably still best known for Press Gang (in fact this features one of the Press Gang cast, Julia Sawalha), and just before he hit really big with Coupling.  Now it’s a fun parody of Who tropes, clearly being written from a place of love; only a true fan would have gone to the effort of specifically naming the planet Tersurus, which was one mentioned in The Deadly Assassin.  It’s quite well made for this sort of thing, I especially appreciate that they got in Zippy himself Roy Skelton to voice the Daleks one last time, and all the cast are clearly game (including Richard E. Grant who had no idea about the show before doing this, yet still does well in his small appearance).

But what it makes so amusing now is how it prefigures a lot of later developments in the show.  Firstly, Richard E. Grant mentioned above would get to be the Doctor properly in the animated pilot Scream of the Shalka, which represents a fascinating “What if…” possibility if the New Series hadn’t been commissioned.  Then, it’s funny that we have all the regenerations and the thirteenth Doctor is a woman, and blonde at that!  But the biggest one is that, with a story featuring the Master, Daleks, and where a big deal is made of sewers, Moffat must have had this thing in mind when he wrote The Witch’s Familiar!  So, for being an interesting little blip on the TV radar in the Wilderness Years, for being very classic Who in style but foreshadowing a surprising amount of New Who, and for having the utterly filthy sonic screwdriver gag, this earns a spot in here.  

Year 35: 1997 to 1998 - The Final Chapter/Wormwood

This entry I have been itching to write for a while; not necessarily this particular pair of stories, but where they are from, the DWM Comic Strip.  Now the strip has been going since back when it was Doctor Who weekly in 1979, and has offered some great and influential stories.  In fact, in a week’s time we’ll be experiencing one of them, as The Star Beast was a story that originally ran in the pages of the magazine in 1980 (I’ll be talking a bit more about one other case of RTD being involved in a comic story in a later entry).  Of course I didn’t get into it until I started collecting the magazine in 1996, but it was a great time to do so with the start of the Eighth Doctor stories, which kicked off well with the story Endgame featuring the return of the Toymaker.  (Man, imagine if he ever showed up again!).  I do hold the whole run of the comics from 1996 to 2005 as the high water mark for Doctor Who in that medium.  (Although there has been some fine stuff since then; I highly recommend the recently releases graphic novella Once Upon A Time Lord by regular Spider-Man scribe Dan Slott.)

So to these two stories then; this represents a bit of a transitional period for the comics; until The Final Chapter most of the Eighth Doctor comics were written by Alan Barnes, and from Wormwood onwards the regular writer would be Scott Gray.  It also represents a sort of “Season Finale”, as it’s the end of a story arc that had been building since the shocking end of the Seventh Doctor comics, featuring new villains The Threshold, this group of strange dimensional mercenaries and manipulators who appear to be made of Kirby Dots.  (If you want a real reason to hate these villains, in the comics their schemes got Ace killed!  Yeah, something tells me that’s not canon anymore…)  It’s an epic end, with The Final Chapter featuring a trip back to Gallifrey, and the return of some characters from when the strip did stories of the Fifth Doctor, specifically the Time Lord construct Shayde.  Then Wormwood has a final face off with the Threshold and their creators, and oh look, they are the result of yet another screw up by the Time Lords.  These stories are great fun, they are in the collected trade edition called Endgame, i highly encourage you to track them down.  Now, I am going to add in a SPOILER SPACE here, and talk about why this pair of stories in particular had a big impact.

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So, I’ll just straight up show you the reason; the ending of the Final Chapter had… this happen!

Yep, you saw that, it showed the Doctor regenerating!  If you wondering who that is he’s regenerating into, this “Ninth Doctor” is based off Nicholas Briggs; you might know him now as the voice of the Daleks, but back in the day he was part of a group called Audio Visuals who did fan audios, and he played The Doctor in them (and the Daleks; multi talented guy!).  You are probably all confused, well imagine how we, and the Doctor’s companions Izzy and Fey, felt in the day!  Now after this it’s no spoiler to say that we went back to McGann’s Eighth Doctor after Wormwood, but how it’s all resolved is actually pretty clever, and a great reveal.  What’s more, the story does this by pulling off a trick with the rest of the magazine… but I won’t reveal all here.  Seriously, if this gets your attention, go find the Endgame trade and give this a read.  Whilst you’re at it, give the rest of the Eighth Doctor run a go too, with the trades The Glorious Dead, Oblivion, and The Flood… actually, I’ll have more to say about that one in a future Whovember…

Next time on Whovember, it’s time to talk a bit about what has probably become one of the strongest sources of Who spin-off media, something that’s in its own way still contributing to TV Who to this day…

Whovember 17: 1995 to 1997

Today we’re covering an interesting time in fandom, as these years include the TV Movie being broadcast.  I won’t be covering it in here, but I will be talking about plenty of Eighth Doctor stuff later on.  I’ll just say that the TV Movie’s biggest mistake was trying to have so much of the show’s “lore” in the plot, as Who has never been about that, and it makes the film a terrible place for a new viewer to start, something that should have been the main goal.  Still, there is a lot to like in there, and it did lead to an interesting new age of Who spin-off fiction; speaking of…

Year 33: 1995 to 1996 - The Sands of Time

Now this is something of a last minute addition; I originally had in here my first ever issue of Doctor Who magazine, 245, however given a few things I wanted to discuss later on, I didn’t want to repeat myself too much.  As luck would have it, a few people on social media chose this book, bringing back good memories for me, so I grabbed a copy and yep, agreed, this is a good ‘un, well worth talking about.  Besides, I’ve had a few from the New Adventures line, so let’s have one from the Missing Adventures line to balance things out.

The Missing Adventures line was the companion piece to the New Adventures, focusing on stories for the past Doctors; this one stars the Fifth Doctor, Tegan, and Nyssa, and as you can probably guess from that cover image, it's a sequel to Pyramids of Mars.  Now Sutekh the Destroyer himself isn't in this one, but here we have the threat of another Osiran potentially rising to deal with.  Writer Justin Richards later mentioned that with Pyramids of Mars, though it's often said to be a pastiche of, say, the Universal Mummy movies, it doesn't really have that much of them in its plot.  To be a proper Universal tribute, there would have to have been some plot point like Sarah Jane being the image of Sutekh’s long lost love, or something like that.  Well, for this one Richards is doing a proper pastiche, this time one for Bram Stoker's tale The Jewel of Seven Stars (or perhaps more accurately the Hammer film version Blood from the Mummy's Tomb).  It's one that actually works really well in the format of a Doctor Who story, with the concepts of reincarnation etc given a fun sci-fi update.

What's more, if you think that Who only got “Timey-Wimey” in Moffat’s stories, you are very wrong, as we get a truly mindbending chain of events that crosses backwards and forwards in time, from the British Museum in Victorian times, to the height of Ancient Egypt, and then to 1996 London… with A LOT of extra twists and turns along the way.  It all hangs together marvellously, and has some great set pieces, many of which could potentially have been pulled off on the TV series in the Davison era, such as any times the robot mummies turn up.  The story even takes something that was set up in a TV story that never got used to full effect, but makes fantastic use of here.  It's a great page turner of a read that got a reprint a few years ago, so you might have better luck tracking this one down than a few of the other books I have mentioned.

Hmm, the fifth Doctor faced Mummies here, vampires in the first Missing Adventure, Goth Opera, and werewolves in the audio Loups Garoux.  BRB, need to draft out a Frankenstein story and a good Sea Devil tale for him too, get the full Monster Squad set together.

Year 34: 1996 to 1997 - The Dying Days

The last of the Virgin New Adventures… well sort of, they’d actually continue with stories following the adventures of Professor Bernice Summerfield, the break out companion character of the range, for a bit.  But this was the end of the official Doctor Who ones before BBC books picked up the range.  It's a big blow out of a story to end on, and notably the only one to feature the Eighth Doctor, in a story alongside Bernice, UNIT, and the Ice Warriors.  Consciously paying tribute to everything from War of the Worlds through Quatermass and even with a bit of needling Independence Day in there, it's a really fun ride, with a very cheeky sense of humour at points.

This book is also notable for a bit of trolling at the expense of the TV movie; see, there was an interview with producer Philip Segal, he was asked why they didn’t do a more simple traditional alien invasion style story for it.  He gave an answer along the lines of such a thing being too expensive requiring lots of alien costumes, props etc, citing other big budget SF.  So to prove a point, Lance Parkin wrote this in such a way where, if you read carefully you’ll notice that at no point in the entire book are there ever more than two Ice Warriors around at any one time.  If this story was filmed, you would only need the two costumes.  It highlights the fact that back in the day TV Who did that sort of thing all the time and got away with it; you can achieve a lot, with a little, if you just use your imagination a bit.  Mind the sheer cheek of the story doesn’t end there; fans were up in arms about the Doctor sharing a kiss with Grace in the TV movie; this ends by implying… a lot, let’s put it like that.  Now this one, being the end of the line of the books is a bit rare, going for stupid money on eBay these days, and the BBC website that hosted the book went down a while ago, so this is one of the harder things to find on here, but if you can, it’s well worth tracking down, if only to see a stealth cameo from a character from Thunderbirds in here…

Next time, we take a look at the Doctor Who magazine comic strip pulling off something that could only have been done in that format, followed by some TV Who for Red Nose Day…

Whovember Part 16: 1993 to 1995

I’m going to do something a bit weird today, I’m actually going to talk about my Year 32 choice, then my year 31 choice.  Why?  Well, with Year 31, I’m picking one of my favourite New Adventures, but the problem with it as a story is that it’s really hard to talk about without having to reveal a bit of a spoiler, so by putting them the other way around, I can add in a bit SPOILER SPACE section for the book.  Right, after my usual case of making things too complicated for myself, let’s dig into my choices.

Whovember 15: 1991 to 1993

We’re covering Who’s Thirtieth Anniversary year this time, which means we’re past the halfway mark!  Let’s jump on into another New Adventure, and then tune in to Radio 2…

Whovember 14: 1989 to 1991

 A major turning point, we are into The Wilderness Years, so as such, I think it appropriate to set my stall out early…

Thanks Randy.  Now then, let’s look at the tail end of Classic Who, and an early gem from where the franchise went next…

Whovember Part 13: 1987 to 1989

We’re coming to the end of Classic Who, there’s only one more small bit to cover after today before the end of the series, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves, let’s look at today’s choices.

Whovember Part 12: 1985 to 1987

We’re finally past my birthday, from this point on it’s Who from the time when I existed on this Earth.  So today I’m looking at the best story of the Trial of a Time Lord season, and then the dawn of the final era for classic Who.

Whovember Part 11: 1983 to 1985

Today we have the end of the Davison days, and the start of the Colin Baker era.  I have to say, for those throwing a somewhat unwarranted amount of spite on the Chibnall and Whittaker years, you have no idea what a show in crisis looks like, as the Saward era I would mark as Who’s low point.  But I get ahead of myself, and trying to stay positive, so let’s begin with what’s easily the highwater mark of the season, and quite possibly eighties Who...

Whovember Part 10: 1981 to 1983

We’re in the era of the pleasant, open faced one, Peter Davison, today, with tales of snakes and the solar winds...

Whovember Part 9: 1979 to 1981

We’re into the 80s with Tom’s last season!  For today’s choices, start by putting on your headphones for the full effect, and then turn down the lights for the most gothic Who ever got…

Whovember Part 8: 1977 to 1979

Hey everybody, Doctor’s orders, time for your Whovember medicine.  We are now past the halfway mark for Classic Who, into the latter half of the Graham Williams era, and this would be the time that a certain Hoopy Frood by the name of Douglas Adams would come on board (after pitching to the show a lot of times before).  Let’s dive right into the search for the Key to Time…

Whovember Part 7: 1975 to 1977

 For today’s Whovember, I’m actually picking two serials that are pretty close to each other in the running order, two from Season 14, as the dates just allow it.  The era with Philip Hinchcliffe as producer and Robert Holmes as script editor is one hell of a high watermark for the show, an era of true consistency of vision and boundless imagination, and I’ll be highlighting two of their top serials today…

Whovember Part 6: 1973 to 1975

In today's Whovember, we are taking a look at the end of the Pertwee era, and the beginning of the Tom Baker years, which also features some more famous firsts...

Whovember Part 5: 1971 to 1973

Today in Whovember, it's still the Pertwee years, with two memorable stories; one that featured monsters that have stuck in public imagination for many years, and one that became the template for how the show would handle anniversaries...

Whovember Part 4: 1969 to 1971

Time for another installment of Whovember, and this time we're into the Pertwee years.  You know, in an odd way, Pertwee was my Doctor, partially down to how his stuff got a few repeats in the 90s, partially for a lot of his stories coming out on VHS then, and for the way he actually did a whole bunch of weird appearances in character ... and boy do I mean weird.  Here's one for a game show the BBC did called Happy Families, which I see as them trying for their answer to Gladiators, and missing by a mile, partially down to the guest score keepers being saddled with an absolute lead balloon of a catchphrase.  Pertwee even did a pair of radio serials then with Elizabeth Sladen and Nicholas Courtney, ones that I am hmming and haaaing about going back to, as one was pretty fun, but the other went somewhere I really think Who shouldn't really go.  But enough of that, time for my choices.

Whovember Part 3: 1967 to 1969

 Welcome back to Whovember, where this time, we're taking a look at the last of Doctor Who's black & white years...

Whovember Part 2: 1965 to 1967

Welcome back to Whovember, my journey through sixty years of Doctor Who in thirty days.  Today we're looking at a major turning point in the show's history, and I share a bit about my Whovian origin story...

Whovember Part 1: 1963 to 1965

 Welcome to my blog and Whovember!  What is Whovember?  Well, as this month marks Doctor Who's 60th anniversary, it seems right to celebrate it in style, with a whole month of posts about it.  But what to write about?  Well, I was toying with a few ideas, including some top ten lists, but social media gave me the idea (despite the efforts of certain emerald mine inheritors, it can still do some good).  There has been a trend to do posts of favourite things from each of the show's years, leading up to the anniversary date of the 23rd.  So then I realised; 60 years, 30 days in November, why not do that here?  Each day I will look back at two years from Who's history, and pick out something from each to talk about. It could be a particular story, a moment in the show itself, an event in the history of the show, a character, anything goes.

Now not all of these will necessarily be my favourite things per se, but they will all be things I think are worth talking about, memories about the show that I treasure and would like to share with you all, to help you understand a bit about why this daft old thing means so much to me.  Also, I will almost certainly cheat a little bit, more use the thing that happened on that date to go off on some other tangent, but what the hell, it’s my list, my Who celebration, I’ll do it how I like. Finally, as I said, this is my list, it's likely to be very different to yours so if your favourite Who things aren't on here, don't worry, it's just my opinion.  So, firing up the TARDIS wiki to check all these dates (each year will go from November 23rd one year to November 22nd the next), let’s begin!

October Horror Movie Challenge 2023

Cue the music! :Turn down your lights where available:

Spoopy and Creppy Season approaches once more folks!  Yep, I’m going to be delving into the murky depths of the horror genre again, as part of the thing from the old IMDb message boards that just, Won’t, DIE; the October Horror Movie Challenge.  Same procedure as every year; if you want to play along at home, you simply have to watch at least 31 horror movies across the 31 days of October, over than half of which (so 16 or more) must be ones you are seeing for the first time.

2023 Movie Half Term Report

Decided it's about time I did this again; a half-term report for the films I've seen this year!  This is a quick top ten of the best new films I saw in UK cinemas this year so far, as I think it will be interesting to see which of these end up in my final top ten of the year, how will my feelings on them change by then, and to reflect that a lot has happened in 2023 so far.  Now keep in mind, this is based on UK release dates, a few of these technically aren't 2023 films, but I am counting it as new to British screens as of January 1st.  I set that rule now because if I didn't, I'd be faffing about what did or didn't count so much, I'd never get the article done.  So with that in mind...

The Morlocks Will Be Right - Too Much Johnson

Yeah, going political on here again, it's been a while, but you have to admit, the last few days have certainly been proof that "A week is a long time in politics". (Whilst I started writing this, Nicola Sturgeon got arrested!  I wish the news would slow down a bit more these days.)  So, now I am no longer one constituency over from The Johnson's, and not because I moved further away.  I know he is going to stick around in some way for a while, he is the proverbial Turd That Will Not Flush, but I am going to enjoy this little moment.  Now I am not going to do a full autopsy on his time as an MP and as PM, not enough time and far wiser souls than I have done so.  Instead, what I want to discuss is the thing that really gets me about the whole sorry saga of Partygate; the fact that it was all for nothing.

I always play this song when a truly terrible person has their downfall... well, one of their downfalls.

Lessons Not Learned - The Horror Hiatus of the 1930s

It's long past overdue, but I think now's the time for another instalment in my Zero Punctuation inspired looks at notable disasters, mess ups, and embarrassments from the history of motion pictures, to see what could have been learned from these... and what decidedly wasn't.  This time, it's not a film itself we're looking at, it's something that happened to almost an entire genre.  Over the years, the horror film has had its ups and downs, including some dry spells; I know for a fact that a few fans in particular do not look at the Nineties terribly kindly at all, bar perhaps Scream.  I don't think that's fair; for a start there were at least horror films being made then, unlike the time we're going to discuss, when after defining what a monster movie was, Hollywood straight up gave up on them for a while..

This is the story of how the above film was the triumphant return for the whole genre!

Just One More Thing: This is What You Want, This is What You Get...

I'd like to tell you a little story about me and a guy called Richard Stanley.  Many years ago, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, and the most Boris Johnson had fucked up so far was the buses, I was attending the SCI-FI-LONDON film festival at the Apollo Cinema in Regent's Street.  I had picked on a whim a showing of a 1990 film called Hardware, not knowing a whole lot about it, and after the film started late due to the guest who was going to introduce it, 2000AD's Kevin O'Neill, turning up late (whole other matter), I was really impressed.  That began a fascination with the writer/director Richard Stanley, which led me to a lot of fascinating titles… and a later crushing disappointment.