Dr Who

Peter Capaldi's first season getting a re-run already on BBC3 : the first episode has just started.

"Into the Dalek" finishes on BBC3 and now it's over to "Horror" and first episode is underway of "Death to the Daleks" with John Pertwee and Lis Sladen.

Ah - classic series Dalek stories : "Dalek" in the title and no appearance of Daleks until the cliffhanger at the very end of episode one. You knew where you were in those days.

Actually a good episode imo. Story gets a bit weaker towards the end in latter episodes though as I remember.

Was one of my favourite stories in the 80s just from reading the book, too young to remember it actually on TV first time round. Didn't see it until years later on VHS.

Terry Nation gets a bit of flak for formulaic writing and recycling plots, but a lot of action happens in 25 minutes, when sometimes Classic Who can feel very padded these days compared to the pace of standalone 45 minute episodes.

Classic Nation episode one formula - strand the TARDIS on a hostile planet, separate the companion and Doctor early on. Very sparse dialogue as well for some sequences, quite a lot of location filming for 1970s Who, or it seems like it.

   

Lego - Doctor - Who

Was listening to an audio book of "The Sea Devils" the other day and had to pause it because I was laughing so much when the Doctor, looking for a means to send an SOS signal from the oil rig under attack by Sea Devils, says with perfect seriousness :
"You don't happen to have a tranny by any chance?"

(transistor radio)

By a supernatural coincidence, one of the few quasi-horror stories the show did, The Stones of Blood, is the story FV viewers will see when the show appears on Horror on FV 70 today

^ Quite a good story at the start, but it kind of falls apart once they get onto the "hyperspace spaceship" and gets very silly.
(As it was prone to do in Tom Baker's latter days, post-Hinchcliffe & Holmes they were told to avoid horror because of the Whitehouse brigade).

Drama channel 7pm-9pm tonight 'An Adventure in Space and Time'

Described as a dramatisation of how Doc Who was brought to the screen. Apparently includes a mini-documentary right at the end on William Hartnell's portrayal of the Doctor.

^ It was first shown around the 50th anniversary, written by Mark Gatiss. They filmed some scenes in the old BBC TV centre building just before it closed and was sold off.
It's quite well done : the actor playing Hartnell is good.
There's a few nod-nod wink-wink post-modern Dr Who nerdy in-jokes but generally enjoyable.

I thought it was crap

Horror showed an omnibus of "The Ark in Space" today - much better