FANS WHO: Dr Who Meets the Scorpion

Mandy Rose and Phillip Roy in Dr Who Meets the Scorpion

Dr Who Meets the Scorpion - what a fun title. The sort of title that’s both lurid and mysterious. A new fanfilm from PREP-B Productions, this is a full ninety-minute movie now streaming on YouTube. It’s a love letter to classic Doctor Who - sixties, seventies and eighties. The title is styled like that of the first Dalek movie, Dr Who and the Daleks, with various nods to that film and its sequel, with many of the sound effects taken from it. The theme tune used for the striking title sequence is the beloved seventies version of the classic Grainer-Derbyshire theme, while the visuals mostly call back to the mid-70s to early 80s, with the Doctor himself looking like he stepped out of The Sweeney or Gangsters. 

The Doctor is played by Phillip Roy, who also writes, produces, co-directs, and co-edits. A bit of a vanity project, then, creating the entire film and casting himself in the title role? To be honest, with the opportunity to create my own version of Doctor Who, I’d do the same. Fortunately, Roy makes a decent Doctor. There’s something of David Collings to him, a softly-spoken charisma that makes him very engaging. He comes across as quite a sentimental incarnation, very reassuring, while occasionally ruthless, with a sharp sense of humour. I like him.

The film begins at the tail end of an adventure, with the Doctor finishing another plot by the Daleks (in glorious technicolor Cushing-style). The Daleks’ varied accents pulled me out of it a little, but it’s a solidly produced scene that gives a good flavour of the kind of Doctor we’re going to be watching. Then it’s back to Earth for a holiday… or rather, another adventure and a brush with death. Naturally.

While he’s travelling alone to begin with, it isn’t long before the Doctor finds himself thrown together with a new companion. Jennie, played by the beautiful Mandy Rose, is a resourceful and courageous young woman on a mission of her own, which brings her, the Doctor, and his kipper tie face-to-face with the story’s initial villain. However, this time the Doctor is facing that most callous of enemies - corporate business - and there’s a ladder of villains, each answering to someone higher up the chain. The immediate threat, the smug, yet almost likeable Mr Taylor (Brian Smith) answers to the more alien, and more arch head of the company, the Scorpion himself (Lucas Edwards, under some decent make-up effects). As for who the Scorpion answers to… that’s a mystery left open.

The story jumps from setting to setting as the Doctor and Jennie trace the villains’ base of operations, visiting alien worlds that look like they’ve stepped straight into 70s Doctor Who (and I do mean that as a compliment). There’s a flashback to an old-fashioned night club cabaret night which has some interesting moments but slows things down a bit too much, but on the whole, this is a pacy, entertaining adventure.

The only thing that lets it down, for me, is the reliance on callbacks in the script. Naturally, this is a film by fans, for fans, and we all love some little kisses to the past. Some of them work very well, particularly when they actually influence the plot (including a very unexpected voice role for a star of 80s Doctor Who), but a lot of them are simply throwaway lines, and after a while they wear a bit thin. It’s a shame, because when the dialogue is original, it works well, being frequently touching, other times very funny.

Still, Dr Who Meets the Scorpion is one of the best fanfilms I’ve seen; certainly one of the most professional. I hope when the sequel arrives, Roy is confident enough to let his Doctor stand on his own, and rely less on well-remembered lines from his predecessors (how far ahead he is isn’t clear, but he’s clearly a future incarnation from beyond the Ncuti Gatwa series). I can definitely recommend this as an entertaining diversion for fans of classic, twentieth century Doctor Who.

You can watch Dr Who Meets the Scorpion here. 

To help fund the proposed sequel, Dr Who and the Doomsday Weapon, please visit here.

The latest reviews at Television Heaven

2026 has started strong with reviews of Matt Smith's grimly comedic Brighton drama The Death of Bunny Munro and Doctor Who spin-off The War Between the Land and the Sea. Plus, season four of classic Doctor Who is now complete, with my reviews of The Smugglers, The Underwater Menace (what a classic) and The Moonbase, plus The Highlanders and The Evil of the Daleks from site chief Laurence Marcus.

So if you want to know what Matt Smith got up to in the block of flats where I live, how underwater civilisations looked in 1967and 2025, and just which alien menace mocks "stupid Earth brains," you're just a click away.

WHO REVIEW: Destination: Skaro

 It's a bit odd to be sitting down and reviewing a five-minute skit from Children in Need, but here we are. There's already been a minor explosion in online discourse about this silly thing, thanks to its gleeful rewriting of Doctor Who continuity.

Look, the thing about Doctor Who is that it's been going for sixty years, has been written by dozens of people, many of them gleefully contradicting their own material, let alone everyone else's. And that's only if you watch the actual TV series and ignore all the expanded universe stuff. It's fun to try to make it all fit, but it's essentially impossible, because it is, after all, made up.

At the end of the day, this is a bit of fluff, nothing to take to seriously, even if RTD has declared it canonical. I rather enjoyed it - a fun skewering of the Daleks, who are wonderful but also very silly. It's our first proper look at David Tennant in his return to the role, and from what little we've seen so far there's no difference between the Tenth Doctor and the Fourteenth.

Julian Bleach does a good job in his old role of Davros, seen here presumably some time before his terrible injuries. I understand that RTD didn't want to continue to depict Davros as a disabled character who was therefore considered evil and monstrous, and this is one of Doctor Who's Victorian fiction holdovers that probably doesn't have much place today. Still, it's not always a good idea to mess with such an iconic character. Then again, a few minutes in a charity skit is hardly going to overwrite the popular image of the villain, any more than this story will overwrite the actual events of Genesis of the Daleks.

Mawaan Rizwan is great as Davros's previously unseen colleague Castavillian (cool name), and there's a pitch perfect impression of Peter Miles's Nyder off screen, and there's even a brief hint at the Daleks' oneday taking on the name Klade (as seen in the far future history of Lance Parkin's works). When it comes to it, though, this is a very limited story only ever intended to be a bit of fun, and that's what it is. And if it distorts Doctor Who's long history for a moment? Why not? This is a show about time travel, after all.

WHO REVIEW: Eve of the Daleks

 

Precisely one year after “Revolution of the Daleks,” we get yet another Dalek episode. Are we at overkill yet? The Daleks were nearly done to death under Moffat and Davies, and then we've had a Dalek special every New Year's Day since 2019 under Chibnall (saving 2020, where we had the first episode of series twelve with the Master instead). While it's fair to say we're now at the end of a trilogy, we're seeing the Daleks far too often. Once, maybe twice per Doctor would probably do, since they're just about the only villain each Doctor has to face in order to really count. Thankfully the Daleks were kept at a minimum in Flux, being there primarily to act as antimatter fodder for the Doctor.

All that being said... “Eve of the Daleks” is a cracking episode, easily the most enjoyable special of this era. While they have a particular reason for being there, this isn't an episode about the Daleks. They're simply an easy and recognisable monster to use, requiring little explanation. This isn't a bad thing; this episode rattles along beautifully and while the Daleks could feasibly be swapped out for the Cybermen, Sontarans or Voord, they work very well in the context of the episode. They're not taken too seriously, but after all this overuse, that's probably for the best. They're relentless enough and gloating enough to be menacing, but silly enough to keep this whole adventure light-hearted.

Which is the best way to take it, after all. While it's not the same as having a Christmas special, the New Year's specials have been entertaining, but this is the first one to feel festive. It's actually about New Year's celebrations (the only time since the TV Movie, set primarily on New Year's Eve 1999 but which came out in the summer of '96). An episode in which time counts down to midnight, when events will come to a head meaning life or death is one thing. An episode in which time is constantly counting down to midnight, resetting each time and repeating the nightmare over and over, that's something else. I do love a time loop episode, but by its nature there's a serious risk it cane become repetitive and thus boring. In spite of being virtually a bottle episode, with a limited cast and very limited, low budget location, the episode remains fun, exciting and surprising throughout.

A lot of this is down to the guest cast, who really do carry the episode through much of its runtime. Aisling Bea is by far the stronger of the two, making Sarah, the unlikely proprietor of Elf Storage (surely a holdover from a time when this was planned for Christmas?) a fully fledged character in her first scene. Charming, put-upon and not particularly nice, Sarah is a likeable but deeply flawed person who becomes more selfless, open and accepting with each iteration of the loop. Adjani Salmon is almost as good as Nick, and in fairness he has the harder job. Nick is written as a deliberately strange and off-putting character, and while he's clearly the nicer, more good-hearted of the two, his oddness is designed to be alienating for Sarah and so it comes close to being so for the viewer. It's down to Salmon that Nick is able to become a three-dimensional and loveable oddity, a “weirdo with a good heart.” He's in love with Sarah – and who wouldn't be in love with Aisling Bea? - but his actions come perilously close to creepiness, which at least he recognises. The script gets away with it on the same sort of knowing good will as most absurdly-plotted romcoms, and by the charm of the cast.

The regulars get some of their best material too. Whittaker has to less of the breathless exposition this time, even though this episode is breathless by its nature and requires a fair bit of explaining. I'm really enjoying the more unlikeable side to the Thirteenth Doctor's character that we've seen in recent episodes, and that comes to the fore here: her short temper, her need to be obeyed when the stakes are high, and her apparent emotional illiteracy. It's an interesting and refreshing choice for the first female Doctor, who we might have expected to be more emotionally aware than her predecessors, but the suggestion in this episode is that she's more aware than she lets on. It's an interesting side to the character that deserves more exploration.

Faring very well is Mandip Gill as Yaz, who shoulders a number of the more emotive scenes. Her brief but understandable anger at the Doctor for abandoning her time and again is well-played, but where she really stands out is in the scene where she accepts her feelings for the Doctor. Her gradually admittance to Dan, and to herself, is beautifully played. It's possible this was all planned from the start, but more likely, Chibnall has responded to the chemistry between the two actors and the relentless shipping by fans. Either way, it's a promising development for the two characters, given that it's actually been given time to develop rather than being forced in. Combined with the personal drama of someone coming to terms with their sexuality, it's strong, effective material. While it's unlikely that Yaz will stay on to travel with the Fourteenth Doctor – Davies likely wanting a clean slate when he takes over – it would be interesting to see how the character reacts to a regeneration.

Bishop doesn't get so much strong material, with Dan mostly being the comic relief, something he is obviously suited to. However, his scenes connecting with Yaz and confronting the Doctor are beautifully played, and his moment of bravery against the Dalek is a nice one. His lighter style suits this episode perhaps better than it did the heavier stuff in Flux. A moment, please, to applaud Pauline McLynn, for making the most of a very limited role as Sarah's mum and somehow stealing scenes from the other end of a smartphone.

Plotwise, the episode is slim, but it doesn't need to be hugely complex stuff for a festive one-off. While the story takes some explaining, as noted, Chibnall assumes that viewers are savvy enough to grasp the idea of a time loop from previous sci-fi and fantasy adventures and hit the ground running. (Dan referencing Groundhog Day helps for anyone lagging behind.) The idea to have the loop shorten by a minute each iteration is a clever one, adding an extra element of danger to the concept. While it's true the plot doesn't quite hold together logistically – when do these kinds of stories, really? - it's enough to swallow on the vital first viewing. Wisely, the usual part of a time loop story, where the characters slowly become aware of the loop, is almost completely skipped over. The characters all understand what's happening to them very quickly, which makes the episode far pacier than it might otherwise have been. While it's slightly harder to accept that they wouldn't be a bit more traumatised by being painfully killed by Daleks over and over, it's just about believable that Sarah and Nick would accept the nature of their predicament given the evidence of their own senses.

It's also gratifying to see the Doctor having to face up to her actions in Flux. While there's still a lot of explaining to be done, not least about the state of the wider universe, her actions against the Daleks, Cybermen and Sontarans clearly still happened, and the few remaining Daleks are now out for blood. Not that they've ever needed an excuse to hunt the Doctor down before, but their anger against her is palpable and, frankly, understandable. Try as she might to blame it on the Sontarans, she wiped out three races without a second thought, and there's no other way to see it. As ever, Nick Briggs makes the Daleks sound powerfully intimidating, even as they bitch and complain (and having the Dalek state “I am not Nick!” is funny on several levels – we were shouting “Yes you are!”) The tweaked design of the executioner Daleks is rather nice as well. A direct blast from a Dalek ray is one of the few things that can kill a Time Lord outright, and the rapid-fire machine gun style looks like a good way to ensure it, where it not for a damaged TARDIS taking matters into its own hands by recycling time. We've already seen the TARDIS reset during the events of Flux – a consequence of rewrites not lining up? - but it's a strong enough reason to put the characters in this situation. It's a bit of a pity this wasn't used as an opportunity to redesign the TARDIS interior altogether though, rather than a minor rejig.

Altogether, a solid, very enjoyable bit of fun for the season. Let's give the Daleks a little rest now, eh? Until the next Doctor is well-established at least. We've got the Sea Devils to look forward to next, and they've not been on the screen since 1984. Far more deserving (and don't they look lovely?)

WHO REVIEW CATCH-UP: Emperor of the Daleks

The Seventh Doctor comics aren't the greatest era of Doctor Who Magazine's strips, but they definitely improved during the New Adventures period, when Benny Summerfield joined the TARDIS crew in the strips as well as the novel line. The strips collected in this volume appeared in issues 193 from late 1992 to 211 in early '94, plus one special and one strip cribbed from issue 227.

It must have been a bit of a surprise for readers when Benny suddenly popped up in the strip without introduction, but then, the DWM strips always reflected developments in the TV series even when it made little to no sense within the confines of the comic itself. The strip was often at its strongest when there was no series to line up with and it was able to go in its own direction, but the decision to stick with the template of the NAs meant there was a clear direction for Doctor Who at the time (compare to the Eighth Doctor era, when there were three competing media with their own continuities, causing no end of debate but also resulting in easily the best run of strips in the magazine's history). 

The first story in the collection is "Pureblood," by the now prolific Dan Abnett, who's written prose and comics for everything from Star Trek to Warhammer. Although completely at odds with The First Sontarans (proposed earlier but produced much later), "Pureblood" proposes a fascinating origin for the Sontarans, showing that their early warrior culture developed into the Sontarans we see today through a reductive process of genetic engineering. Abnett puts this across in an action-packed interstellar war serial, ably realised by Colin Andrew. Abnett''s script makes the Sontarans far more three-dimensional than they'd see in mainstream Doctor Who for decades. I also agree with Abentt's commentary - the Pureblood Sontarans do look like they're related to the Ogrons...

Next up is the one-shot from the 1992 Winter Special, from the normally reliable Scott Gray. It's not great, but to be fair, it was speed-written to fill a gap in the scheduling. A flimsy story that sees the Seventh Doctor and Ace run a holo-program of the First Doctor's time on Gallifrey - back when he was going by "Thete," as per Drax's stylings - there's not much to it. The main talking point is wondering whether the mustachio'd Magnus is really the Master, or the War Chief, or both, but really, it's such a throwaway story it seems hard to care.

Next up is the big title story, "Emperor of the Daleks!" itself. It's a co-op between the magazine's editor John Freeman and much lauded writer Paul Cornell. Cornell is one of the best writers in the franchise, and at this point had made his name as basically the bet writer on the New Adventures. Plus he created Benny, so you'd expect he'd give us something special with this strip. However, the story is hamstrung by trying to do way to much at once. It's a follow-up and retcon of the previous Dalek strip, "Nemesis of the Daleks," plus a linking story between the last two Dalek TV serials, Revelation and Remembrance of the Daleks. It also provides an unexpected sequel to Planet of the Daleks and introduces Cornell's pet project of setting up a weird semi-antagonistic relationship between the Sixth and Seventh Doctors. As such, it opens with a Sixth Doctor strip that sees him rescue Davros from the Daleks at the end of Revelation, and ends with a follow-up, the rather good "Up Above the Gods!" which sees them conversing in the TARDIS (this one from #227, almost two years later).

The rest of the six-part story is a rollicking adventure yarn with more Daleks than you can shake a stick at, but the insistence of doing yet another Abslom Daak story is really a problem. Frankly I don't think Daak become a usable character until Titan Comics brought him back in 2015, when they were able to appropriately take the piss out of him. For all that he's a pastiche, he's still taken far too seriously in "Emperor" and the dickish machismo of the character drags everyone else down, resulting in some of the worst character dialogue Cornell ever put to paper. It's still better than half of what was in the strips in this period but it's a pity to see Cornell put out something so shallow.

Warwick (later Scott) Gray gives us "Final Genesis," a solid four-parter that sees the Doctor take Benny and "New" Ace to a parallel Earth where the events of Doctor Who and the Silurians turned out rather differently. As Gray points out in his commentary, this clashed with the NA Blood Heat, but since they both involve parallel universes they could both be valid. As such Gray posits the events of The Silurians are a nexus point branching into many realities. This one is the one where the Doctor actually won the day and ushered in a new era of peace between humanity and the reptile people, but it's now in jeopardy. Anyone expecting a two Doctors team-up will be disappointed, as both the alt-Doctor and alt-Brigadier have recently been killed.

It's a decent story, let down by some scruffy artwork by Colin Andrew that doesn't suit the tone at all. The monsters of the story, hybrids of human and Silurian, don't look remotely like either and look pretty rubbish. The writing's solid though, raising interesting questions about the Doctor's motivation in visiting a parallel world.

"Time & Time Again" is a silly but fun one-off. Like the third part of "Emperor," which landed in the 200th issue, this one is in colour to celebrate the series' 30th anniversary, and like the earlier one, it's looks like it's by someone who's not used to working in colour. It's a daft story which sees the Doctor and co. assigned by the White Guardian to undo the Black's interference in time, which has left the universe in peril due to the Doctor staying on Gallifrey and becoming president. Now that everyone in the universe has invaded Earth, they've got to put reality right by collecting the six segments of the Key to Time again. The first time round this required a 26-episode season, but this time they manage it in ten pages. It's really just an excuse for a whistle-stop tour of classic stories with cameos by all the previous Doctors. Cornell manages to include a tense Sixth-Seventh Doctor scene, which is the highlight of the strip.

"Cuckoo" is of a highlight of the collection. Another one by Abnett, this three-parter sees the Doctor and his two no-nonsense female companions go back to the 19th century and face that sexist society head-on. Subtle as a brick but really not bad at all, it also features some lovely palaeontology at the hands of a transparent Mary Anning-pastiche. Quite why Abnett bottled it at the last minute and decided not to use real figures and instead use fictionalised versions I'm not sure. When James Quick and I wrote a similar story we used Anning herself and focused on details of her remarkable life. Big Finish are now going to feature her in a story as well. Given how much Abnett is clearly into this in his commentary, I wonder why he didn't just go all the way with it. (He talks about the Mantell's finding the first Iguanodon fossil - that was in my town of birth, Cuckfield, but unlike his native Maidstone, they don't have one on their coat of arms. I have suggested it.)

"Cuckoo" features an excellently realised monster by Jo Ridgway, and a clever contrast between the Doctor's priorities in this story and those of Benny and Ace. It's easily the best story in the collection for me. Finally there's Gray's one-shot, "Uninvited Guest," which sees the Doctor crash a party of Eternals and mete out his own brand of inhuman justice. It's here that I feel we see the real Doctor of the New Adventures, the one who worked to his own morality and was echoed in the television adaptation of perhaps the greatest NA, Cornell's Human Nature. We're reminded that this silly little man is someone you never want to be on the wrong side of. And with that, just when they seemed to get the hang of him, DWM dropped the Seventh Doctor and the NA links and went with a rotating series of past Doctor adventures.

Placement: The strips begin shortly after Love and War and continue up to around the time of Legacy. The Sixth Doctor strips take place at some point not long after Revelation of the Daleks.

WHO REVIEW: All Flesh is Grass (Time Lord Victorious)

Well, this is the big one. It's the epicentre of the Time Lord Victorious storyline, the return to full length prose by the Eighth Doctor, the unprecedented team-up of the Eighth, Ninth and Tenth Doctors and a right royal monster mash to boot.

In the the cliffhanging final scene of The Knight, the Fool and the Dead, the Tenth Doctor, beginning his crusade against the Kotturuh and death itself, is confronted by the Eighth Doctor on a Dalek warship, and the Ninth Doctor on a vampire coffin-ship. This ties in with the DWM comic strip and with the Big Finish audios, the latter of which I haven't got round to yet, but it's all easily pieced together with the brief exposition from the Eighth Doctor and Brian the Ood. You could enjoy this plenty as a prose-only event, but grabbing the other formats builds a bigger picture. I'm less clear from the story here how the Tenth Doctor comics and the Dalek cartoon fit in, but I think they're knock-on effects of the Tenth Doctor's disastrous alteration of history here, which has brought his earlier selves back to fight him.

Una McCormack is one of the most prolific modern Who writers. With this novel, she's written for eight incarnations of the Doctor, I think (plus a ton of Star Trek novels and some Blake's 7 material). She gets the Doctor down to a tee, notably the differences and similarities between his incarnations. It's fun having Eight, Nine and Ten together since, while being successive (well, almost) they have wildly different ways of approaching things. The Eighth Doctor here is still fundamentally optimistic but sarcastic as hell, the Ninth Doctor is tending his war wounds and the Tenth is so fundamentally full of himself he knows he's his own worst enemy. I mean, he's literally his own worst enemy in this one, but you know what I'm saying. Yet they also work so brilliantly together. It isn't long before Ten stands down and the three Doctors try to work out a way to get out of this mess without making things worse (and just possibly making things better), and they work tremendously well as a team.

There's a lot of colour in this novel. The Ninth Doctor gets a short-term companion in the form of Ikalla, a vampiress who develops considerably throughout the novel (or perhaps the Doctor just learns to see her differently). Eight doesn't have a companion really, but is accompanied for a good portion by Brian, and also Hector, a spider plant (so that's where he came from! Monstrus Beauty now makes perfect sense). He has some great interplay with the Daleks, particularly the Prime Strategist who's become such a persistent character in Time Lord Victorious. Ten saddles himself with some galactic mercenaries but can't help feeling sorry for them and overpaying. It's like he's trying to prove he's the big bad God of Time but can't help feeling a bit bad about it all the time.

It's a rattling good read, anyway. I mean, it's got a vampire Dalek in it. How can you not love that? 

Placement:

For the Eighth Doctor, uncertain. It's straight after the BF Time Lord Victorious audios, but while they and this show him in his Time War costume, he reads as much younger and more positive here. He's perturbed by the idea of a universe without Gallifrey, but not distraught, so this is surely before the first destruction of Gallifrey in The Ancestor Cell (most new series books would ignore this but given the cross-pollination of ranges going on here I can't believe McCormack didn't at least consider this). I could happily see this placed during the earlier EDAs, especially as he mentions Romana and K9, tying back to the Shada webcast, which is very early on. 

For the Ninth Doctor, in between the penultimate and closing scenes of the DWM comic strip Monstrous Beauty, while Rose is recovering. Some time between "The Long Game" and "The Empty Child," most likely (could be either side of "Father's Day").

For the Tenth Doctor, immediately after The Knight, the Fool and the Dead, itself immediately after "The Waters of Mars."

Television Heaven Magazine Issue 3 now available

 

The third issue of TVH magazine, TVH Goes to the Movies, is now available to download for free in PDF format. This issue Laurence Marcus and his team of telly addicts look back at TV series that spun off to film and vice versa. With articles on Callan, Casablanca, Morecambe and Wise, Dragnet, the David Croft sitcom films and more, there's a wealth of classic material covered. Also on offer are articles by myself on the two Doctor Who Dalek movies starring Peter Cushing, and a bit more recently, the wonderful animated series The Real Ghostbusters which followed the 1984 movie. 

You can download and read the issue here.

WHO REVIEW: 12-11 - "Revolution of the Daleks"

 

After a very peculiar year, Doctor Who gives us a special which perfectly fits the times. Which is pretty remarkable, since this was all recorded before lockdown was even on the horizon (aside from a couple of picked up scenes, according to reports, but I couldn't tell you which these were). Aside from the sheer amount of hugging going on – not allowed these days – there's a distinct lockdown feel to the entire story, beginning as it does with the Doctor suffering enforced isolation, and continuing with a reunion with friends she hasn't seen for months. It's serendipity, but it adds something to the episode.

It's an interesting but effective choice to make a special so directly linked to previous episodes. "The Timeless Children" was ten months ago (the same time the Doctor's companions have been waiting for her, which is a nice touch), but the more direct precursor is the last special, Resolution, which was exactly two years ago. Thankfully, the concepts being followed up on are pretty straightforward and easy to grasp if you have missed or forgotten about the earlier adventures. Even the Timeless Child revelations boil down to "the Doctor learned something about herself that she doesn't understand" and this is enough for the special. She's reeling, the details aren't important right now.

The Daleks are the big draw of the episode, of course, but there's plenty of time spent on the Doctor and her many companions. The prison scenes are fun – lovely cameos from some old monsters – but the toll it's taken on the Doctor is clear. She's essentially in solitary confinement for most of her time there, it appears, which we learn has been decades. It's not even clear that she's tried to escape. I mean, it's the Doctor, so you'd expect her to, but she's still dealing with the revelations about herself and it seems she's spent a lot of her confinement just stewing over that. The other big deal of the episode is Jack, making his first proper return to the series after his cameo in "Fugitive of the Judoon." John Barrowman steps back into his role like he's never been away, and he shares a great, easygoing chemistry with Whittaker. Having the immortal Jack wait a full nineteen years in prison so he can get close to the Doctor is wonderful, and shows that he's learnt some considerable patience during his centuries of life (he did spend two thousand years in a grave once after all). On the other hand, having Jack swagger in and rescue the Doctor does make her seem like a damsel in distress, which is not where the Doctor should be at all.

In fact, Jack takes on a lot of the Doctor's role as the fun adventurer for the episode, as the Doctor herself doesn't quite slide back into her usual happy-go-lucky mode, and quite right too. It's wise having both the companions and the Doctor feel each other's absence for some time, although I wonder if the Doctor will ever tell them just how long it was for her. We know the TARDIS has a tendency to take the Doctor to where she's needed rather than where she wants to go, so I feel that arriving ten months late was a deliberate move on the Ship's part. Time for the fam to grow as well. I love how Yaz, Ryan and Graham are still investigating, but aren't immediately up to spin-off series standard. They still need a little time traveller help. Jack has some great chemistry with the team, but particularly with Yaz, who's slotting into the trainee Doctor role that Rose, Clara and indeed Jack all had as their character arcs. As with them, Yaz is clearly in love with the Doctor, but cannily, Chibnall is keeping any feelings the Doctor has for her ambiguous. She's certainly very happy that Yaz isn't leaving...

It's Tosin Cole as Ryan who comes across strongest though, which I admit, was a bit of a surprise. As I said when reviewing Resolution, Cole is strongest with the real life emotional scenes rather than the sci-fi gubbins. It's quite right that it's Ryan who actually sits down with the Doctor and persuades her to talk, and that he's the one who makes the decision to stay on Earth. He's developed just as much as Yaz, but in a different direction, and being the more down-to-earth of the two her naturally elects to stay on solid ground. Cole's magnetic in these quiet, dialogue-based scenes. The only companion who gets short shrift is Graham, a shame considering he's also leaving. Still, his final moments on the TARDIS are lovely. He clearly wants to continue travelling with the Doctor, but stays behind out of loyalty to Grace and Ryan. It's a quiet but powerfully effective moment from Bradley Walsh.

Following up on the Dalek scout from Resolution is a good decision. Everything in the episode is a consequence of previous events, rather than yet another unlikely situation coming out of the blue. The scout design was controversial (because no one's ever happy) but I liked it, but given that it was designed as a kitbash Dalek built on the run it didn't seem like it could be followed up. Having a bunch of humans acquire the remains and use it as the basis of their own Daleks is a clever way of reusing and reviving this new design. The new Earth Daleks work brilliantly, with the scout design built upon to become something sinister and imposing. Sadly, they're rather wasted. We know from the beginning that somehow an actual Dalek will find its way into the drones, but there's virtually no time to see the drones in action before this, or the effect this has on the British populace. Equally, once the drones have been co-opted by the Daleks, we have scarcely any time with them before the bronze Daleks wipe them out.

Still, there's some excellent Dalek action on display. I enjoy how in both episodes there's a focus on how the Dalek is a life form, not just a war machine (even if the Doctor refers to the mutant as "the creature that lives inside a Dalek," but I guess that's just simplification for Robertson). The Daleks are almost as dangerous outside their casings as they are inside, and honestly more frightening. The episode does rerun the previous special a bit, with the Dalek possessing Leo, but this doesn't last long and is more of a way to get from one part of the story to another. Having Leo clone the previous story's Dalek (cannily revealed to have a genetic memory as well, so it can pick up where it left off) is a great way of kicking off the plot, but I feel they missed a trick. Nathan Stewart-Jarrett is excellent as the young scientist, but having him as just a patsy and then killed off wastes him. He could have been a Davros figure, working with the Dalek.

Instead we get Chris Noth back as Jack Robertson from "Arachnids in the UK" nearly three years ago. I doubt anyone was desperate to see him again, but to be fair, he's much more entertaining this time round. Noth hams it up marvellously, and he's written as more deliberately villainous, so he's far more effective as a baddie. However, it's infuriating that once again, he gets off scot free. Surely they're building up a third appearance where he finally gets his comeuppance? Dame Harriet Walter, playing the power hungry politician Jo Patterson, is completely wasted. She's a great actor and makes for a great villain while she has time, but is also killed off far too quickly. I think it's inarguable that there are pacing issues in the episode, with some parts run virtually on fast forward. It brings to mind the seventh series during Matt Smith's tenure, when episodes were run at an absolutely breathless pace. It's certainly a fun, exciting episode, but the plot needs room to breathe as well as the characters' relationships. Still, for sheer spectacle, this is great stuff.

The Doctor's been through a rough time, of course, but she's particularly ruthless here, which, personally, I love. None of that nonsense about claiming to be pacifist or complaining that the other Doctor picked up a gun. The Doctor here tricks one lot of Daleks into coming to Earth to wipe out another lot, in the full knowledge that she'll have to destroy them too. It's a pretty mental plan, but it works, and the ruse of trapping the entire Dalek force in a collapsing TARDIS is brilliant. Again, incredibly ruthless though; that TARDIS is a living being as well. Can't imagine the Doctor's TARDIS was pleased about that.

Finally, we look to the future. We can look forward to an eight episode season this year, a sensible compromise in the face of COVID-19 restrictions. I'm glad we don't have another year without a series, and I'd much rather a shorter one than none at all. I would be very surprised if we don't see Graham and Ryan again, or Jack, and the dialogue around the latter checking in on Gwen certainly sounds like a hint we might see a Torchwood revival of some kind. (Chibnall, of course, was showrunner on the first two seasons of that.)

The sudden reveal post-credits that John Bishop is to join the cast was a surprise, but a welcome one. I enjoy his stand-up, and we've had enough comedians cast in the past that turned out well for the series (going right back to Pertwee, really). We'll see what he's like, but I'm optimistic. Interesting that we're getting another older man in the TARDIS as well. It's been confirmed that he's a new companion, however the BBC made such a big deal before about there being an entirely female TARDIS team for the first time that surely we'll get an episode or two with just the Doctor and Yaz? In any case, Bishop's character is called Dan, which is good news. About time we had a Dan in the TARDIS.

Monster, Monster, Monster

The prison asteroid (a whopping 79 billion light years from Earth, which is absurd) has amongst its inmates a Sycorax, a Weeping Angel, a Pting, a member of the Silence, an Ood, and hiding i the shadows, a Thijarian and a Skithra.

Ryan and Graham are keeping tabs on international paranormal events. They're off to look for trolls in Finland – that has to be the Sontarans we've seen filming, right? - and gravel creatures in Korea.

The Doctor starts a (mercifully short) Dalek civil war here. This is at least the third time she's done that.

WHO REVIEW: The Daleks series (Time Lord Victorious)

Terry Nation tried to take the Daleks to the United States and develop their own series right back in 1966. It's taken over fifty years but the malicious pepperpots finally have their own TV vehicle - of a sort. As part of the Time Lord Victorious crossover, the BBC YouTube channel has released a five-part animated series for streaming. Apart from the fact that it's the only completely free item of Doctor Who released as part of the initiative (even the TV series technically costs the license fee if you wanted to catch up on that), it's a fun little diversion that's easy to enjoy without reams of foreknowledge.

Still, it does tie into the overall story, albeit peripherally. As yet I've not made too much headway into TLV, but this, as best I can make out from the online guides, leads into the Defender of the Daleks comic story from Titan. The storyline sees the Dalek Emperor and the Dalek Strategist from that series leading a campaign against a deadly, seemingly unstoppable threat from another dimension, named simply "the Entity." We don't see much of this being, or beings, mostly just green light emanating from a dimensional rift, but its forces absolutely wipe the floor with the Daleks. 

Each episode, only about thirteen minutes long, sees the Daleks take on another race in their attempts at universal domination/survival. "The Archive of Islos" sees the Emperor try to take over a galactic database tended by a race of robots, only to get double-crossed by them when they hand the Daleks over to the Entity. "The Sentinel of the Fifth Galaxy" sees the Strategist travel to an abandoned colony (possibly Spiridon, but probably another planet in the same campaign) to contact the Sentinel, a surprisingly cutesie robot called R-41, to reactivate an army of Daleks for the upcoming war. "Planet of the Mechanoids" sees the Emperor and Strategist desperately turn to their old enemies the Mechanoids, now evolved into something more sophisticated, in an alliance against the Entity. This continues with the two forces double-crossing each other in "The Deadly Ally" and "Day of Reckoning," while trying to battle the Entity as well.

It's simple, straightforward space adventure stuff, with lots of blasting lasers, swarms of robots and nice big explosions. Profound it isn't. But why would it be? This is a kids' cartoon series intended to distract for quarter of an hour a week, and on that level, it works perfectly. Some fans are complaining about the standard of animation, but frankly, for a webcast cartoon about killer robots this is absolutely fine. It's bold, colourful and easy to follow. The voice work is great; Nick Briggs is as good as ever as the Daleks, with his Emperor being particularly impressive. Anjli Mohindra voices the Mechanoid Queen, with Ayesha Antoine as other Mechanoids and the Chief Archivian. Thankfully, the Mechanoid voices are far better than the irritating ones from The Chase - far more human but still recognisably Mechanical. R-41 is voiced by Joe Sugg, who makes the robot likeable but untrustworthy. 

While this is intended for young fans on the surface, underneath it's a clear love letter to classic Doctor Who and Dalek stories. Longtime fans will get a buzz from seeing old favourites from the Dalek Chronicles comics such as the Golden Emperor and the Mechanoids realised on screen for the first time in decades, or ever. The links to the rest of TLV is flimsy - the story just seems to be the Daleks getting beaten up by various aliens before turning the tide moments before utter defeat - but in this case I think this is a strength. This is a bit of fun that stands on its own nicely.

WHO REVIEW CATCH-UP: Out of Time

Out of Time is the first in a trilogy of audios from Big Finish, which are each going to be released a year apart - pretty restrained for the company, who normally chuck out a major box set every couple of months when there's something significant to shout about. Each one features the Tenth Doctor teaming up with a classic series incarnation, and a fan favourite monster. Next year we'll have The Gates of Hell with David Tennant and his father-in-law against the Cybermen, followed by Wink in 2022 with Colin Baker and the Weeping Angels. 

First though is Out of Time itself, which sees Tennant team up with Fourth Doctor Tom Baker. This is, of course, a big thing, with the two most popular Doctors by any reasonable measure joining together for an adventure. This doesn't, however, automatically mean it's going to be any good, although you'd at least expect it to be pretty entertaining. Which, in all fairness, it is. It's a slight story, more of a runaround than anything, but then again, does a release like this need to be anything else?

The Tenth Doctor pops in for a visit at the Cathedral of Contemplation, a huge, mysterious structure outside of time where anyone from any era can attend for solace. He's in a mood because he's avoiding his impending regeneration, and has gone there on his big holiday before facing The End of Time. However, the Fourth Doctor is already there, having picked up a temporary travelling companion in the form of Private Jora (Kathryn Drysdale), a young deserter from the 26th century.

There's some enjoyable farce as the Tenth Doctor avoids (poorly) letting on who he is to his earlier self, while secretly hoping he'll work it out. It doesn't take Four too long to get the measure of him, and he pretty quickly squashes Ten's sulk about the future. Four's meeting himself in a new form, and for him, it's confirmation that he'll survive, whereas for Ten regeneration is death. 

However, Jora's space commander dad turns up looking for her, followed by a phalanx of Daleks, leading to the two Doctors working together to run rings around them as they plan to use the temporal powers of the Cathedral to invade the Earth and win the war. The Doctors' eventual victory is pretty cunning. 

While there's nothing really unusual or outstanding here, it's a pretty fun little adventure, livened up by some wonderful chemistry between two beloved Doctors who, for the most part, keep on the right side of self-parody while doing a bit of a best-of performance. And after all, isn't that why we're here anyway?

Best Lines:

 "More like apres-deva-vu: knowing what's going to happen but only after it does. Maybe it's always like this when I run into them... well, I wouldn't remember."

"Old school? I prefer to think of myself as classic!"

Placement:

For the Fourth Doctor, in the period between The Deadly Assassin and The Face of Evil. For the Tenth Doctor, during the gap between The Waters of Mars and The End of Time, but presumably after the Time Lord Victorious period. For the Daleks, the 26th century, in the Second Dalek War that followed Frontier in Space - except that they're Time War Daleks, so presumably travelling back along their own timeline, which ties into the events of the novel Prisoner of the Daleks.

Who Novelisation Quest 6: "Revelation of the Daleks"" by Eric Saward

Revelation of the Daleks is the last of the original Doctor Who serials to be novelised. It only took fifty-five years. There seems to have been some ongoing disagreement between Eric Saward, the Nation estate, and various publishers, but eventually it was worked out, and Saward returned to novelise his two 1980s Dalek stories. Resurrection of the Daleks remains one of my least favourite Doctor Who serials, and by all accounts the novelisation is terrible, but Revelation is something else. I've long thought it one of the strangest, most unique and disturbing Doctor Who serials, with Saward dumping his usual action-adventure approach for something deeply seedy and weird.

It's no secret that Revelation of the Daleks was based heavily on Evelyn Waugh's 1948 novel The Loved One, his satirical work based in a funeral parlour. He called it his "humiliating success in the USA," annoyed that it was popular with the sorts of people he was mocking. god only knows what he'd made of it being twisted into a Doctor Who story.

It was always an oddity of Doctor Who. Saward seems to have little interest in writing for the Doctor, instead spending time on the various grotesques who populate Tranquil Repose on the planet Necros. This actually works very well for the story, with the Doctor and Peri only slowly making their way into the main plot, where they are present for the final climax. The Doctor has little to do with Davros's eventual defeat, but the story doesn't suffer for it. Not every Doctor Who story could work like this, but as an oddity it's rather special.

Saward takes the opportunity, as most writers would, to expand the background and settings of the characters and story.Most of the characters get full names and some background, and Saward is clearly having fun inventing a storied future full of peculiar lives. Takis and Lilt, the two heavies who patrol Tranquil Repose's dank corridors, met in battle in the Peninsular Wars on Planet JJ33, where they entertained the troops impersonating Laurel and Hardy. The DJ is really called Derek Johnson, and was dumped on a isolated planet when the space pirates who kidnapped him got sick of his music. The Doctor and Peri get more exploration, too - apparently Peri's accent marks her out as a New Yorker, which is at odds with her usual background as a Marylander and whatever Nicola Bryant was aiming for with that accent - but Saward is clearly interested most in his own characters.

The prose version of the story is, somehow, even more violent and gruesome than the TV serial, and it was already one of the most outlandishly unpleasant stories in the whole of Doctor Who. It's a unique Doctor Who story that benefits from Saward's rather purple prose. Along with Resurrection of the Daleks, it will be reprinted as part of the revived Target Books line this year.

Data: 
First published by BBC Books in 2019
Based on Revelation of the Daleks, first broadcast in 1985
Audiobook read by Terry Molloy, with Dalek voices by Nicholas Briggs

FANS WHO: Mission to the Unknown

This has to be the great triumph of the Doctor Who fan film world. I guess Devious made a big name for itself, getting Jon Pertwee involved and all and making it as a DVD extra, but this is something special. A university drama project impressing the BBC enough to air on their official YouTube channel, with heavy coverage in DWM. In effect, this is now the official BBC version of Mission to the Unknown, given that the original is long gone and only exists as a soundtrack. The University of Central Lancaster has usurped the original episode, 54 years to the day.

Mission to the Unknown is a canny choice by . There are a lot of Doctor Who episodes missing from the archives, but this is one of the few that looks honest-to-goodness gone for ever. There's not a scrap of footage left, there's no indication that any copies sold abroad were retained by their buyers, and there was just less interest for many years since it doesn't feature the Doctor or his companions. This one is not turning up in someone's lock-up.

However, the very fact that this is such an oddity amongst Doctor Who episodes works in its favour as a fan project. There's no need to recast the Doctor or his companions, and barely anyone watching today has seen the episode's star Edward de Souza in the role as space hero Marc Cory. The fan production can really stand on its own.

The UCLan version of Mission really stands up. We can't see the original but, judging from what's left of the follow-up The Dalek Master Plan, the student version looks easily as good as the original. The starship set and the jungle of the planet Kemble look spot-on; yes, they're a bit minimalist and claustrophobic, but that was exactly what the sets were like in the 1965 Doctor Who. Black and white hides a lot of sins, and while this would look pretty cheap in colour, it looks classy in monochrome.

The video quality is a lot better now, of course, so the limitations of the monsters, faithfully reproduced, are going to show up a lot more. The Planetarians look cheap here, but that rather adds to the charm. They were cheap in 1965. This is a recreation of the original Dalek Cutaway, right down to Paul Stenton's hissing barrow boy performance as Malpha. Seriously, if anything, the original was more ridiculous.

Of course, the UClan crew have achieved a real coup getting Nick Briggs in to voice the Daleks. When combined with some excellent Dalek props, having the official Dalek voice artist makes these pepperpots the real deal. Briggs, to his credit, strikes a balance between recreating the idiosyncratic voices of the time and his tried-and-tested modern Dalek staccato. It's not the first time Briggs has recreated the Dalek voices for a fan production, of course, even since he became the Beeb's main monster modulator, but it still lends an air of authenticity to the production.

Then it's down to the human cast. Marco Simioni takes over from de Souza as Marc Cory, with Dan Gilligan as the long-suffering Lowery. Yes, they're a bit hammy, yes, there's some slightly wooden RP, but again, this calls back to the original episode. Listen to the soundtrack - it's hammy. You can't fault this for calling back to 1960s Doctor Who.

To think these students made this in just five days. Great work guys.

And those Varga plants are just the cutest.

Watch the episode here.

WHO REVIEW: 11-11) "Resolution"

Without getting too far into the implications or thought processes behind ditching a highly sought after Christmas Day slot, it was strange not to have an episode of Doctor Who to look forward to on the big day, for the first time in thirteen years. However, it was great to have a new episode to look forward to on New Year's Day, when we had been slobbing around for the entire day, waiting for the takeaways to reopen because we missed lunchtime and filling time by watching Disney cartoons. Looking at the overnights, it looks like "Resolution" did very poorly, dropping below episode ten's fairly low initial ratings, but it was still fourth most watched for the day. It looks like New Year's Day is a terrible day to be scheduling event television these days, which might also suggest moving away from Christmas was a foolish idea.

All that aside, "Resolution" (a title that works on several levels, although "Resolution of the Daleks" would have better warmed my fan heart) was a very entertaining episode, providing the big stakes, high spectacle finale that series eleven really needed. Keeping the Daleks - or rather, Dalek - back for the special was a sensible move, although I'm in two minds about whether it was a good idea to keep mum about its inclusion for so long. I'm put in mind of John Nathan-Turner's turning down of a Radio Times cover for Earthshock in 1982, so as to better keep the surprise of the Cybermen returning. Top marks for maintaining the surprise, but less successful in generating viewer interest.

Suz managed to avoid the spoilers and still guessed it was a Dalek as soon as it was described as "like a squid," and most fans guessed it was a Dalek once the trailer hit with the line about it being the deadliest creature in the universe. Was there really any benefit in staying quiet on the matter?

Nonetheless, the episode worked. There are plenty of viewers who think the Daleks are becoming tired and overused, and it's hard to argue with that. We've had an appearance by them almost every year since the series returned in 2005, whether it was a two-part Dalek extravaganza or an extended cameo. They've very nearly been done to death, and so the initial announcement that series eleven wouldn't feature any old monsters (still technically true) didn't bother me. On the other hand, if there's one monster that every Doctor really has to face, it's the Daleks. There's a sense that a Doctor doesn't really count until he/she faces them. Of the eleven previous main Doctors (ie starring in an ongoing series on TV), eight had a Dalek story in their first season. McCoy only had to wait till his second, Pertwee and Davison hung on till their third. The various eighth Doctor media wasted little time in pitting him against the pepperpots, and the War Doctor was defined by his enmity with them. The Doctor exists in opposition to the Daleks, even if there have been long stretches when they haven't appeared.

So they had to come back at some point, and bringing them back for the special/finale was a good move. It was also a very good decision to feature a single, lone Dalek, to once again show the that they could be a genuine, frightening threat. This is the exact tactic used by Eccleston's 2005 episode "Dalek," the episode to which "Resolution" is most clearly indebted (and to significantly less effect by Capaldi 2014 episode "Into the Dalek"). Daleks, like most villainous hordes, suffer from the Law of Conservation of Ninjutsu - there's only a finite amount of badassery allowed onscreen, so that one Dalek can kill a planet but a thousand of them can be mown down by human resistance or Cybermen.

In most respects, the Dalek scout - a new variation created to have extra-awesome abilities for this one episode - is successful in making the Daleks a threat again. At first, crawling around outside its shell and then hitching a lift on the unsuspecting Lin, commanding her in a sneering baritone (spectacular work once again by Nick Briggs), the Dalek is scarier than ever. It's made clear this thing is a deadly threat even without the armour and weaponry we normally associate with it (even though it's hard to see how it didn't get squashed when Lin was driving it around). It rebuilds itself in increments, first recovering its (miraculously intact) gun stick and using it for prolonged execution of human obstacles, before rebuilding its shell from bits and pieces lying around. The finished junkyard Dalek is a design triumph, still recognisably a Dalek but just different enough to be effective, and clearly a cobbled together version rather than some old prop that's been dirtied up.

On the other hand, the fact that the Dalek was defeated back in the ninth century by a bunch of primitives with swords and flaming torches reduces its threat significantly. I'm fine with the Doctor using Chekov's oven to blast it with microwaves sine that's the sort of improbable techno-wizardry we expect from her, just like the Dalek being able to fight off tanks when it's wearing a few old bits of Dalekanium and some farming equipment. A bit of steel and fire though should not have stood a chance. The opening is frankly strange in any case. Aside from the question of what the hell a Polynesian, a Russian and a Briton are doing interacting in the ninth century, it serves only to provide a cool and epic opening monologue. The Dalek is hacked into three bits and buried in opposite sides of the globe, only to beam itself back together as soon as one chunk is revived. Narratively, it's almost entirely pointless.

However, for the most part it works, because not only does the Dalek get to be a threat, but it gets to have a character, and, crucially, it has achieves no redemption. In both "Dalek" and "Into the Dalek," the eponymous creature is tainted with humanity and becomes, to some extent, redeemed by the episode's end, forcing the Doctor to end hostilities. It would have been very easy, and entirely wrong, to allow Whittaker's Doctor to come to a similar conclusion. The thirteenth Doctor has been unequivocally pacifist during this last season, at least in word if not always in deed. Talking a villain down or giving them a serious telling off is not something that can be allowed to work with a Dalek except in very, very unusual circumstances. To have the Doctor offer the Dalek one final chance to flee before giving it a microwave suntan without pity is exactly right. We desperately needed the Doctor to be pushed to the point where she'd actually fight, and if the Daleks can't do that, nothing can.

Whittaker's a joy to watch as usual, and gets to finally own an episode, but her companions aren;t given the same opportunity. The best served is Tosin Cole as Ryan, who finally gets to sit down and confront his absent father (Daniel Adegboyega), and while he's hardly the best actor in the ensemble, he shines with personal, family material like this. Whether he should have forgiven his father is a matter for debate, but Doctor Who should be a hopeful show, so I think it's the right conclusion. Bradely Walsh gets less to do as Graham, being deliberately left out of the main action for a while so that he can talk to his stepson Aaron, but his performance remains one of the best elements of the series. It's Mandip Gill's often overshadowed Yaz who is seriously overlooked her, with very little to do, even though there was a perfect opportunity to have her deal with her police connections. Chibnall desperately needs to find her some material that she deserves.

Even though the series continues to struggle to give three companions enough material, here we get three more pseudocompanions. Nikesh Patel as Mitch is essentially companion number four for this episode, and he's charming enough to convince as a potential returnee, but it's Charlotte Ritchie, who is magnetic as Lin and unnerving as the Dalek puppet, who steals all her scenes. It has to be said that Lin and Mitch display more chemistry in their initial scene than Team TARDIS do all episode. Adegboyega does well as Aaron, both sympathetic and rather pitiful, although shoehorning him into the TARDIS as well is a bit of a contrived way to give his story some, (sorry), resolution.

Still, with the usual Chibnall caveats that the writing is at best competent and at worst baffling, this was a fun and exciting special that gave series eleven the finale it needed. It's going to be a long wait till 2020 (another bizarre decision), but at least 2019's sole episode was a hit.


Wardrobe Department: Yes, the Doctor's new scarf really is very snazzy, but Graham's got some good scarf game this episode too.

The Shallow Bit: Yeah, big crush on Charlotte Ritchie.

The History of the Daleks: The arrival of the Dalek scout on Earth in the ninth century pushes Dalek activity back a lot further than previously thought (assuming that the Dalek isn't a time traveller, of course, which is never stated but is by no means impossible). Parkin and Pearson's AHistory suggests an eighth century date for Genesis of the Daleks, which is not too hard to fit with Dalek scouts travelling in space in the ninth but would suggest that they weren't entombed beneath the Dalek ciity for very long at all. The Dalek scout is far more advanced than an immediately post-Genesis specimen ought to be, though, even if it is a souped-up special version.

On their more recent history, I guess we just have to assume that neither the earlier Dalek appearances in the 21st century just never happened anymore. Moffat realised that it was basically impossible to allow "Journey's End" to exist and maintain any kind of sense of reality for contemporary scenes, so stuffed it down a crack, and "Dalek" was hard to reconcile with "Doomsday" from the get-go. Maybe with UNIT in suspense due to funding cuts and Torchwood seemingly defunct there won't be anymore retcon in the water and people will start remembering the periodic alien invasions again.

Dialogue Triumphs: 
Dalek: "Who are you? Identify!"
Doctor: "Oh, mate. I'm the Doctor. Ring any bells?"

Dialogue Disasters: Jesus, did no one think to cut the line referring to the Dalek as a refugee? That is tone deaf in the extreme.

Who Novelisation Quest 11: "The Day of the Doctor" by Steven Moffat

Perhaps the most anticipated of the new Target releases, The Day of the Doctor is the first novel by Steven Moffat, surprisingly for a writer who has become so prolific. Although initially asked to novelise Twice Upon a Time, Moffat instead decided that this was the one he absolutely had to write, especially considering the dreadful time he had writing the actual episode. I get the impression that this revisitation was a much more enjoyable experience for him.

If you don't care for Moffat's approach to storytelling, then you won't much like The Day of the Doctor. This is timey-wimey throughout, one of the more complex tellings in the Doctor Who line, certainly the most complex of the novelisations, jumping back and forth in time and between different characters' viewpoints. Well, that's at first glance, but the vast majority of the book is told from the Doctor's perspective, in one of his many incarnations, each chapter being delivered as a separate document by an omniscient narrator with a unique perspective on the overall story. Three guesses as to who that is. There's a chapter that's told from a human perspective, until you realise actually, it's a Zygon, but otherwise this is the Doctor's story through and through. And rightly so, because no other story in the TV series' history has ever been as much about the Doctor's own experiences and his views on his very long, eventful life.

The episode leapt about quite a lot, but the book is even more jumpy, and is presented in an order that never quite makes a logical progression clear. It opens with Chapter Eight, which adapts "The Night of the Doctor," the eighth Doctor's last minutes of life, before continuing with Chapter Eleven, the opening to the actual anniversary episode with Clara and the eleventh Doctor. Focusing on the numbering will lead you astray, though, and it's nothing as simple as chapter = Doctor, although the fact that Chapter Nine is redacted in a pretty funny decision, surely a snub to Christopher Eccleston for declining to appear in the episode. In fact, he's in this even less than the actual broadcast, since one of the very few elements not expanded upon is the War Doctor's regeneration, which is sadly relegated to occurring off-screen.

The broadcast episode was primarily the eleventh Doctor's story, given that Matt Smith was the incumbent star at the time, but Moffat has said that he views this version more as the War Doctor's story. In practice, however, so much more prominence is given to the Elizabeth/Zygon storyline that in effect it becomes the tenth Doctor's story for much of its telling. Things are particularly complicated (but ingeniously told) when all three Doctors are locked away together, with the tenth Doctor sandwiched between his suppressed past and his unwelcome future. Cleverly, Moffat doesn't resort to referring to the Doctors by number, but drops in little descriptors instead, which can be entertaining, albeit a little confusing, when the viewpoint is switching between incarnations. Given that this is original author reworking his own material, the dialogue is surprisingly altered, but what author can resist tinkering with their own work even after it's ostensibly finished?

As with Davies and Rose, Moffat takes the opportunity to expand the story in various ways. Satisfyingly, we find out just why and how the tenth Doctor made his way into Elizabeth's affections, cementing the feeling that the other Doctors barged their way in part way through another adventure. There are a number of extra elements inserted; River Song turns up, perhaps not surprisingly, in a bit of backstory; the twelfth Doctor is made more important to the heavily revised climax; and the thirteenth Doctor makes an appearance. The grand "all thirteen!" finale is very different, but perhaps even more satisfying, with Moffat realising that what works as a surprise and a visual treat onscreen won't work the same way in prose five years later.

The Day of the Doctor is one of the most enjoyable Doctor Who novels I've read, and believe me, I've read a lot. It stands up as one of the very best of the novelisations and makes me hope that someday Moffat will turn his hand to novel writing again.

Some fun observations from the novel:

The Doctor's first two incarnations were apparently colourblind, something the Doctor didn't realise until the Time Lords corrected this with his second regeneration. So, all that time we were watching the episodes as the Doctor would have seen them.

A. M. Thompson's amazing fan cover

Moffat reinstates something he was dying to include in the broadcast episode, but couldn't due to rights issues: the Doctor Who movies starring Peter Cushing exist in-universe as depictions of the "real" Doctor's life. He isn't the first author to suggest this, but he runs with it farther than others, even having the tenth and eleventh Doctors take time out from the proceedings to watch both films and then go back in time to fetch Cushing so he can make another one. It's a pretty hilarious way to explain how he can turn up in a new Star Wars film years after his death...

The potion given to the eighth Doctor by Ohila was just "lemonade and dry ice." So it's true the Doctor was just using this transformation as a way to excuse his behaviour during the War. (I'm still convinced he was cured of his half-human DNA during this regeneration though.) He also mentions Fitz during his companion rundown, fittingly given this is now a prose story.

The War Doctor half recognises Clara from her voice, referencing the later episode "Listen" which had her speak to his childhood self.

Coal Hill headmaster Mr. Armitage is completely in on the Doctor's existence, having been tipped off by governor Ian Chesterton.

Data: 
First published by BBC Books (Target imprint) in 2018
Based on "The Day of the Doctor," first broadcast in 2013
Audiobook read by Nicholas Briggs

WHO REVIEW: Titan Eleventh Doctor comics - Year Two

A belated review of the most recent complete run of Doctor Who comics to feature the eleventh Doctor (I may cover Ten and Twelve later, we'll see). Titan Publishing's "Eleventh Doctor, Year Two" ran from late 2015 to the end of 2016, but I've been catching up via the UK reprints in Tales from the Tardis, which appear on stands about six or seven months later. The storyline has also been published in a series of trade paperbacks: The Then and the Now, The One, and The Malignant Truth, so there's no shortage of ways to read the story.

And a truly excellent story it is. The full "year" comprises a fifteen issue storyline, from "The Then and the Now, Part One" through to "Physician, Heal Thyself," charting an epic adventure that crosses the Doctor's timeline from the depths of the Time War to the high times of the eleventh Doctor. Written by Rob Williams and Si Spurrier, the series features a number of artists, although for me, Simon Fraser's idiosyncratic style suits the story best. Regardless, there's a consistency to the story's art in spite of the mix of artists, a rare feat for an ongoing strip with different artistic contributors. It's a story that deserves a strong visual style, as it demands that the story sticks in the mind.

If you're not a fan of the Time War mythos that has become so important in modern Doctor Who, you won't enjoy this series. Although the Time War was an essential part of the backstory of the ninth and tenth Doctors, the series moved on from it during the time of the eleventh, only for it to become the driving force of the fiftieth anniversary special. The comic series revives this focus, bringing the eleventh Doctor and his comic strip companion Alice Obiefune into contact with the his war crimes. The Doctor doesn't even remember the apparent genocide at his own hands, and it is most certainly impossible for elements to be spilling out from time-locked events into his relative present. Nonetheless, the Doctor and Alice are pursued through time and space by the eponymous Then and the Now, a warping ripple in humanoid shape that is both a bounty hunter and a walking temporal paradox.

It isn't only Alice that joins the Doctor. On the course of his travels he is joined by various other adventurers, not least of whom is Abslom Daak, Dalek Killer! Anyone who's read my reviews of the seventh Doctor comics will know that I'm not a fan of Daak. He's a one-note joke on the sort of macho 90s antihero that is unbearable unless written with considerable finesse. Thankfully, then, here he is written with finesse, becoming a far better foil for the eleventh Doctor than he ever was for the seventh. It actually works very well, since the eleventh Doctor can be just as manipulative as the seventh, and has no qualms in using Daak as a blunt instrument.


Another blunt instrument the Doctor is fond of is River Song, whom he breaks out of prison to ehlp him on his mission to track down the truth of his own past. Then there's the Squire, a frankly wonderful new creation. The Squire is an elderly space knight who supposedly acted as companion to the Doctor during the War. The Doctor, however, has no memory of her, and the truth behind his faithful companion's past is just one of the mysteries he has to explore.

Events conspire to drag the Doctor and his team throughout the continuum, from a Sontaran battlefield to the prison asteroid Shada. The current crisis is entwined with the Doctor's past, and two whole issues go by without the eleventh Doctor's appaearing at all. Alice is drawn back, in an apparently impossible manoeuvre, to the depths of the Time War, to come face-to-face with the War Doctor, who then leads the storyline until future and past catch up. The War incarnation is not alone, however. Needs must as the devil drives, and he has allied himself with the Master, here presented in a previously unseen incarnation that appears as dark-haired young boy, which is even more sinister than it sounds.

Where we find the Time War, we find Daleks, and this story presents the worst, most monstrous Daleks ever. The Volatix Cabal are an elite group of Dalek mutants created to fight the Time Lords, not unlike the Cult of Skaro, except that these Daleks have taken creativity and individuality to its extremes. Twisting their bodies and minds into horrific shapes, they have driven themselves insane, and seek to spread pain and fear throughout time, screaming "ExterminHATE!" wherever they go. They are an absolutely absolutely terrifying creation, and their distorted forms are the enduring image of this story. However, Abslom Daak was born to kill Daleks.

In a story that twists and turns into paradox after anomaly, the Doctor faces consequences of his hardest choices. I often felt during the early 21st century series that there was scope for more exploration of the fallout of the Time War and the Doctor's actions within in, and these comics are a perfect example of the stories this approach can generate. Showing the Doctor in his worst but most interesting light, Titan's "Eleventh Doctor, Year Two " is a superior Doctor Who comic.

WHO REVIEW: 10-1 - The Pilot

It takes a certain cheek to call an episode “The Pilot” at the beginning of a programme's tenth, or even thirty-sixth, season. It's a statement of intent: Steven Moffat has called the episode a reboot, and while this is overstating it, there's a clear design to make this a new starting point for the series. To an extent, this works. We've got a new companion, who acts as the viewpoint figure the series has been missing for some time, through whose eyes we discover the elements of the programme. The kids who started watching Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant are grown-up now, and a new generation of children are starting to tune in. Doctor Who has a sort of soft-reboot built into its concept, with a continually changing roster of companions and Doctors, and the occasional slate-clean is good for its continuation.

On the other hand, this is the last season for both Capaldi and Moffat. The decision to make this a new starting point seems willfully perverse with Chris Chibnall taking over as showrunner, and a new Doctor joining at the same time. While there are callbacks a-plenty in this episode, it works reasonably well as something standalone. On the other hand, during the upcoming series, we have Ice Warriors, retro-Cybermen and two versions of the Master to look forward to. All wonderful fun, but hardly a fresh start.

There were several attempts to bring back Doctor Who in the long gap between the TV movie and “Rose,” and more than one of them had the Doctor grounded, living and working as a professor in some dusty old college. (Usually, they were proposed with an eye to having an older Tom Baker return to the role, and Moffat's already done that.) It's a perfect set-up for an introduction to the character, putting him in a position of authority but also making him interesting, a little distant, and with plenty of opportunities to impress. It's a nice touch making Bill, not a student who's impressed him with her intellect, but another outsider who's impressed him with her enthusiasm (and also recognising that not everyone can afford to go to university).

I wasn't keen on Bill based on her brief appearances in trailers and so on. She just came across as gobby and a bit dense. It goes to show how poorly done those trailers were. Pearl Mackie is extremely likeable as Bill, and by the episode's end I was thoroughly sold on her. Bill is, admittedly, a bit of a re-run of Rose (with a touch of eighties Ace thrown in), but she's different enough to make an impression herself. It's gratifiying to have a character who's genre savvy, not only pointing out the obvious sci-fi-ness of everything that's going on around her, but immediately rationalising everything as a clever effect. After all, a clever knock-through is a much more logical explanation than a dimensionally transcendental timeship. Also, although everyone has made way too big a deal of it, it's great to have a companion who's happily, uncomplicatedly gay. Plus having an actor of colour, playing someone in foster care... there are lots of different ways to live a life in Britain today. I didn't care much for Bill's jokes about models and fat women; those were low shots.

I'm also now completely sold on Nardole. He works perfectly as an assistant and valet to the Doctor. He exists as a sort-of cushion between the Doctor and the outside world, easing his interactions. It's looks like they've been good for one another, with the Doctor's hardened exterior softening and Nardole becoming more Doctorish (his explanation of the TARDIS' nature is cribbed almost exactly from the fourth Doctor's explanation in The Robots of Death).

The alien threat for the episode is a clever one, albeit highly derivative (we've seen living water in “The Waters of Mars,” a mimic in “Midnight” and a ship in need of someone with wanderlust to become its pilot in “The Lodger”). It's an arresting visual and a witty but easy-to-grasp concept, and leads to a clever, non-violent resolution. It drives me mad that both Bill and the Doctor take an age to realise what's wrong with the reflection. I understand that the script can only move as fast as the slowest member in the audience, but Bill's meant to be intelligent and the Doctor's a genius. It's infuriating.

The problem with being sic-fi savvy, of course, is expecting storylines to go a certain way. I was convinced that Heather (a lovely performance from Stephanie Hyam) was going to be an alien of some kind, just as Bill was convinced that the star in her eye was evidence of an alien possession. In the event, she was an ordinary girl, until she fell victim to the sinister puddle (and why would you want to get a “defect” like that fixed? It looks amazing!) We were also forewarned that the Daleks were going to appear in this episode, so naturally I spent much of the episode wondering how they were involved with the whole thing. I assumed that the spacecraft that left the oil and scorch marks was of Dalek origin (the last time we saw a landing pattern like that was in Remembrance of the Daleks). As it happens, the Daleks were nothing but a brief sideshow, presumably only included so as to incorporate the little scene from over a year ago that introduced Bill. Quite why the Doctor thinks it's a good idea to hide out in the midst of a Dalek assault isn't clear, but it's a fun aside and drops that last essential element of the series into the episode.

“The Pilot” is the best opening episode for quite some time, probably since “The Eleventh Hour” way back in 2010, which remains one of the best episodes in the revived series. As much as I enjoyed much of the last season, the series needs a shot in the arm, and maybe a new companion was just what it's been waiting for. I am optimistic for the remainder of Capaldi and Moffat's last run. We shall see what is kept within the Vault, and why it's important enough to keep the Doctor grounded for fifty years, although I hope it doesn't override the individual episodes' stories.

Title Tattle: “The Pilot,” although clever, is the most generic possible title for an episode. There must be a thousand American series that have begun with an episode called “Pilot,” even when they're not actually pilot episodes. It is, however, a better name than the working title “A Star in her Eye.”

Links: The Daleks are seen battling the Movellans, a race of androids we saw in 1979's Destiny of the Daleks. By this stage, the two armies had become locked in stalemate due to their logical natures (it was suggested that the Daleks were, at this point in their history, entirely mechanical). It's a cute little aside for fans, and in no way intrusive for normal people. They just look like fun disco aliens. The Doctor states that they've gone into the past here, although that probably means from the perspective of their previous stop-off, 23 million years in the future.

Among the many little callbacks in the Doctor's study are photographs of two of the most important women in his life: his late wife River, and his (presumably late) granddaughter Susan. Capaldi has made no secret of his desire to see Susan return to the series, so perhaps this is foreshadowing of her eventual arrival later in the season.

The Doctor's moonlighting as a lecturer calls back to his old friend Professor Chronotis, a Time Lord from the previous generation who retired to live as a don at Cambridge. This was in Douglas Adams's notoriously unfinished serial Shada, many elements of which he reworked for his Dirk Gently books. He also pitched a story which would have seen the Doctor retire from adventuring and settle down on Earth, possibly as a tutor. (Adams also wrote Destiny of the Daleks. Any Hitchhikers references I didn't spot?)

The Doctor again tries to wipe his friend's memory, and again gets shouted down. It's good to see that Moffat clearly thinks that this is pretty unconscionable behaviour on his part. It calls back to the end of the previous season, where he intended to erase Clara's memory of him, only to get the tables turned. This was almost two years ago now and the missus had completely forgotten about it. This is the difference between people who watch things normally and people like me.

Best line: “No one's from space. I'm from a planet, like everyone else.”

I've been shouting this at sci-fi shows for years.