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In the Beginning

I'm an old fashioned kind of guy. I'm only just beginning to pick up the odd Classic Who stories on DVD - I collected them all on video (well, nearly all, at some cost!), before I realised that video really was dead. Rather than buy all the DVDs new, I've decided to give a home to orphaned copies from charity and other second hand shops. All good fun as you never know what you will find and when. Well I was in good old WHSmith the other day, and found The Beginning box set for a tenner. Well I couldn't resist. I've had my eye on this for a while (always a sucker for a box set) and the main reason being the Marco Polo recon. So I'm happily watching all these old episodes and extras, which I probably haven't seen for about ten years, before my video machine broke.

And aren't DVD's great. All the extras and bits and bobs, love 'em. But what am I going to do with the huge box of bloody VHS tapes I have! They are worthless in value these days, and I have contemplated throwing them away and just keeping the paper cover slips, in order to save a bit of space, but just can't bear to part with them all. I mean, what if everyone threw away their videos? Then the ones that are left will be worth more! So come on guys, time to throw out those old videos!

But back to the box set, as this is really just an excuse to post the graphic artwork of the boxset cover, and whilst we are at it, we may was well show you the individual covers as well! I know it's old (released in 2006) but it's new to me. That's the beauty of time travel!

And I'm enjoying the Marco Polo recon. Love that story, I just get so sad that we've lost these old Who episodes! Although I think they've cut too much out of this recon and lost a lot of the magic... shame they couldn't have made it two 30 min, or even 45 min episodes.

Damn, I'm gonna have to go and buy Keys of Marinus now...

48 years ago today...

From the Radio Times, 15 April 1964, for the launch of the new story, Marco Polo...

48 years ago today...

From the Radio Times, 8 Feb, 1964...

48 years ago today...

From the Radio Times, 1 Feb, 1964... is this this first published photo of a Dalek?

48 years ago today...

From the Radio Times, 21 December, 1963, here's the story introduction for The Dead Planet (now known as The Daleks)...


I stopped saving the show listings from here, and just saved the clippings if they had photos, so this series gets a little eratic from here...

48 years ago today...

From the Radio Times, 14 December, 1963. Episode four, The Firemaker...


Next week...

48 years ago today....

From the Radio Times, 7 December 1963. Episode Three, The Forest of Fear. No pic this week!


[Clippings originally harvested from the Cluttings Archive, a now sadly defunct archive of Who in the popular news.]

48 years ago today...

Last weeks anniversary of the first Who episode, 48 years ago, reminded me of a little series I intended to run on this blog way back when I first set it up. On the 2009 anniversary I posted some clips from the Radio Times from that first Who episode, An Unerathly Child. Here, from the Radio Times 48 years ago today, is episode two, The Cave of Skulls.



Can you imagine watching an episode of Who these days and all you knew in advance was this! A far cry from the information overload we have in advance of episodes these days. Tune in next week for episode three...

[Clippings originally harvested from the Cluttings Archive, a now sadly defunct archive of Who in the popular news.]

Just for old times sake

And why not. Here's another YouTube clip, this time an official BBCWorldwide clip of the TARDIS taking off at the end of that first ever episode...

Reign of Terror DVD Animated Preview

Nearly missed this - there's an advanced preview of the forthcoming Reign of Terror DVD release, with animated sequences replacing the lost episodes (as with The Invaision). Looks pretty damn cool...

It's a dodgy vid of the clip - hopefully we'll get a proper version soon.

Watch it here...

Reign of Terror illustration

Soure: Combom

The Reign of Terror DVD to be animated

2|Entertain have confirmed via their @classicdw Twitter feed, that the missing episodes for the upcoming The Reign of Terror DVD release, scheduled for sometime next year, will be animated.


I'm a fan of any attempt to re-present stories with missing episodes, so will follow developments on this, and especially happy as 2|Entertain had previously stated no more animated Who missing epidodes would be made...

Nearly Who (Part 1)

Here's a look at the actors who where nearly Who.


Hugh David was the first actor lined up for the role of Doctor Who. But when Verity Lambert was appointed producer of the series, she felt that he was too young to play the old man she envisaged. He still made his mark on the series as director of two Patrick Troughton stories, 'The Highlanders' and 'Fury from the Deep'.


'Doctor Who' producer Verity Lambert eventually selected William Hartnell to star in the series, but one name she had on her shortlist was respected theatre actor Cyril Cusack, pictured here as Becket in the 1964 production of TS Eliot's 'Murder in the Cathedral'.


Verity Lambert also considered Leslie French to play the Doctor. Though he didn't get the part, he appeared in the 'Doctor Who' 25th anniversary adventure 'Silver Nemesis' as an ill-fated astrologer. He's pictured here as Mr Woodhouse in a 1960 adaptation of Jane Austen's 'Emma'.

Pictures and text from the Beeb's Changing Face of Doctor Who, here.

And here's Billy, the man who got the job, from shillpages, here.

Sara Kindom

Of more worthy attention from the Dalektricity blog are some scans of articles from early Doctor Who Weekly pages, and some Monthly scans, such as this interview with Jean Marsh who played Sara Kingdom in The Daleks Masterplan. Find it here. There's also the text and some images from The Outlaw Planet, a Sara Kingdom story from the 1960s The Dalek Outer-Space Book - here, as well as notes on Terry Nations 'Lost Dalek series' The Destroyers, which was to again feature Sara Kingdom, here. [It is the pilot for this which is due to be released on audio by Big Finish as part of the Second Doctor Lost Stories (see here)]


And there's a Terry Nation Article from Doctor Who Magazine #252 (1997), here, and an interesting piece on Mission to the Unknown here.

Mission to the Unknown comic recon

Here's an interesting idea - a comic reconstruction of the missing Who episode Mission to the Unknown. It's really well done - just a shame the Dalek speech isn't done in the traditional 60's font. Find it here.

Masters of Luxor

And here's the cover for the other lost first Doctor story, The Masters of Luxor, by Anthony Coburn, the writer of the first-ever Doctor Who story An Unearthly Child. It was published in September 1992 by Titan Books


Read more about it here on the Who wiki.

Other titles released in the series were:

The Tribe of Gum
The Tomb of the Cybermen
The Talons of Weng-Chiang
The Daleks
The Daemons
The Power of the Daleks
Ghost Light
Galaxy 4
The Crusade

Of particular note in this series are The Crusade, Galaxy 4 and Power of the Daleks, which are 'missing episode' stories lost from the BBC's archive (love the way we politely say 'lost' when in fact the Beeb wiped them in full knowledge of what they were doing).

Farewell Great Macedon

And here's what led me to DeviantArt in the first place, the cover artwork for the lost Hartnell script of 'Farewell Great Macedon', by Jason Fletcher. See his gallery here.


The scripbook was published in August 2009 by 'Nothing at the End of the Lane', see their website here.

The story is due for release as a Big Finish audio drama in The First Doctor Boxset, with another story, The Fragile Yellow Arc of Fragrance. Due November 2010.

Read more about it on the who wiki.

Flame-thrower Daleks in colour!

This is definitely worth looking at - colourised clips on YouTube! Here's some bits from The Dalek's Masterplan by Babelcolour (and he's done a whole lot more as well...)

Colourised Who

And here it is, the site where I grabbed the pics of Zoe in my last post. I really like these images, so here's a few more to make doubly sure you click the link and visit their site!

The images are all colourised by Michael Blumenthal.

The Daleks, from their first story.


An amazingly coloured image from Marco Polo


A funky cyberman from Moonbase.


From one of my favourite stories, the Ice Warriors.


And here's a couple of Ice Warriors creeping up on the Doctor (from Seeds of Death)...


And a couple of cybermen creeping up on Zoe from the Wheel in Space...


And look... there's me!