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...

And they're off...

The Sun starts the running on who's going to be the next Who Girl... whilst also making some noise about the 'mystery' axing of Amy from the series. Personally, I don't think their's anything mysterious - her character has had a fair bit of focus in the series, to say the least, and really, what more can they do to develop the character? If she didn't make the decision herself, then Moff would have made it for her sooner or later.

Anyway, enough of that and on to the interesting stuff! The trusted Sun report talks up the rather unlikely scenario of Matt Smith's ex (or is it back on again?), Daisy Lowe, taking on the role:

Matt, 29, who plays the 11th Doctor, said he was "very disappointed" to see Karen go. Matt split from Daisy, 22, last month after 18 months together.

But yesterday they were snapped hugging outside her North London home before going inside, sparking rumours of a reunion. An onlooker said: "They looked really cosy and happy to see each other."

Downton Abbey star Jessica Brown-Findlay is 4/1 favourite to replace Karen with model Lily Cole at 6/1. Strictly star Chelsee Healey is 12/1.

Ladbrokes' Jessica Bridge said: "Ratings would surely rocket if Lowe and Smith were thrown together."

Amy and Rory to leave during next series

Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill - who play Doctor Who companions Amy Pond and Rory - are to leave the show during the next series. Hopefully their swan song will be free of twisted time-lines, stolen babies and regenerating daughters.

"The final days of the Ponds are coming," Moffat said. "I'm not telling you when or how, but that story is going to come to a heartbreaking end." [Sounds ominous...]

He said the Doctor, played by Matt Smith, was going to meet "a new friend". It is believed that role has not yet been cast.

On the departure of Gillan and Darvill, Matt Smith said: "We had the most incredible journey. We took over the show and we've really had to hold hands and help each other through it.

So... the most interesting thing to happen in Who for a couple of years... we get to speculate on who the next companion is going to be. Best be a nice young chick or else I might stop watching...

48 years ago today...

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


Next week...

TWO missing Who episodes found!

Many folk thought we would never find any more of the missing Who episodes from its early history, but yesterday it was announced that TWO episodes from the original series had been 'rediscovered', an episode each for the first and second Doctors, William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton. Galaxy Four, part three (titled 'Airlock'), was first broadcast in 1965 while The Underwater Menace part two, was aired in 1967.

The official Doctor Who Twitter account tweeted a cryptic clue last night: "Christmas has come early for Doctor Who fans. Expect us to tweet some very – no REALLY exciting news in just a couple of hours' time ..."

Later, the account revealed: "Two previously missing episodes of 1960s Doctor Who returned to BBC. Galaxy Four pt 3 & The Underwater Menace pt 2. Details soon."


The episodes were purchased by film collector Terry Burnett at a village fete near Southampton in the early 1980s. He had been unaware that the canisters contained material missing from the BBC archives. Research has shown that the returned episodes originated from the ABC (the Australian Broadcasting Corporation) channel in Australia. It’s likely these prints were returned long ago to the BBC from ABC, and subsequently disposed of, but perhaps "pulled out of a skip" by an enthusiast.

Paul Vanezis, a BBC producer involved in their recovery, pointed out the problems. "Like any old film, Airlock has a bit of muck and dirt on it, which we can clean."

Somewhat trickier is "a ‘tramline’ scratch, a vertical line caused in the past by someone who didn’t maintain their projector. On a big close-up [of villainess Maaga] it can be quite distracting, but we’ll try to get rid of it."

Even more of a challenge is a film break right at the cliffhanger, where companion Steven (Peter Purves) is suffocating in the eponymous air lock. "We’re missing 27 seconds of action completely, as well as the closing credits," says Paul. "It’s a few shots and one line of dialogue from Maaga. But luckily we have the soundtrack and by using other visual material within the episode, we can re-create it."


The Underwater Menace suffers from 20 seconds of cuts made by ABC censors - a scene where a surgeon is trying to inject companion Polly with a syringe. Amazingly, those snippets surfaced separately in 1996.

The film "wobbles up and down all the way through because of worn sprockets", plus there’s a tear in the spool halfway through a crowded cave scene. It means one line is missing where companion Jamie says, "How about me, sir?".

"It’s only two seconds, but because it’s one shot with no cutaways, it’s awkward to fix. But it’ll look quite presentable when it’s finished," promises Paul.


The Beeb Who site states that details of a commercial release will be announced by 2 entertain in 2012. Paul Vanezis says, "We’ll probably do a second volume of Lost in Time" - a DVD compiling archival odds and ends.

So, despite the various high profile campaigns by the Beeb over the years to raise awareness of missing episodes (not just Who, but many other classic TV serials), a film collector in our very own country had these in his possession for what, 20 years without realising their importance.

Sadly, Terry Burnett doesn’t have any other spools secreted away, "but I’ll always keep an eagle eye open in case any do turn up..." He’s only too happy to have returned this pair. "A lot of effort went into making those programmes and it was very short-sighted of the BBC to throw them out. It’s our television heritage."

"All Doctor Who fans have dreamed of finding a missing episode and you never know how it’s going to happen," says Ralph. So does he believe any more film prints are out there? "Well, one or two other leads are being pursued at the moment. More than that I’m not saying!" (quoted from here)

The hope must be that there are more out there. I for one hoped that more episodes would surface, but believed that they would be scattered far and wide over the world (personally I get the shivers when I think of lost Who episodes potentially crumbling to dust in archives of countries such as Zimbabwe, which as Rhodesia apparently screened early Who, and who probably don't rate looking for them as very important).

We perviously had only tantelising clips from Hartnell's story, Galaxy Four, so to have a whole episode discovered is quite special.

As a big Troughton fan the only shame is that his episode comes from one of his (and perhaps the whole orginal series's) weakest stories. The episode is now the earliest surviving episode of Troughton's reign (episode 3 of this 4-parter has been around for a while).

Troughton, in only his third appearance as The Doctor, was apparently unimpressed with the production.

In a recent biography, his son Michael says he argued with the director Julia Smith - who went on to become the original producer of EastEnders - complaining bitterly about the "ridiculous costumes and make-up of the fish people".

Smith recalled: "There were awful arguments about how Patrick Troughton should play the part; how quixotic the character should be, whether he should play his flute or not."

Innes Lloyd, who produced The Underwater Menace later admitted, "it did look like something from a '50s American 'B' movie".

Even as an audio soundtrack the story struggles. Anyway, all part of the rich tapestry of Who's history. If only is was an episode from Power or Evil of the Daleks, or any of Troughton's Cybermen stories.

The find makes only a modest dent in the number of missing episodes, with 106 instalments broadcast between 1964 and 1969 still being sought.

You can watch a clip from the Troughton episode here, and read a bit about the background to their discovery here. And there's a gallery of screen clips here.

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.]

Shada cover released

The cover from the forthcoming BBC Books official Who publication of the lost 4th Doctor story, Shada, written by Gareth Roberts, has been released. Suitably 'Douglas Adamsy'.


On sale March 15th 2012.

Source - Combom - for all your Who news.

Xmas Who Radio Times cover

The xmas tradition of Who covers continues, now three weeks before xmas. Features a short preview of the xmas episode...


Combom's got scans of the pages here...

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...

Happy Birthday to Who

Nearly forgot! Who, 48 years old today. Here's a great 'title sequences through the years' compilation, just for fun, with great bits of info provided via subtitles.



With thanks to the creator...

[Looking back I see i did forget last year! I was, however, living in part of the world without easy internet access, so I think it's a good enough excuse. Anyway, I did remember the year before, back when I'd just started these random postings, and did a little summary of early Who stuff here, so if you're in the mood for re-living that eventful day way back when (can you call it that even if you weren't alive yet first time round?|), then check it out.]

Is It All Falling Apart?

SEASON 6 REVIEW/DISCUSSION (pre season finalae!)

Time Lords. You sort of wish they were still around really. Yes, they were a bit boring, but they sort of did some useful things - you know, keeping an eye on the laws of time, and, most importantly (from our perspective) keeping Time Lord time-streams in line with each other.

For example, in the ‘classic series’, the Doctor could never cross time lines with another Time Lord – they would always meet in a linear time stream – no bumping into the Master in his earlier regenerations for example, not like this River Song stuff. Say, for example, the Doctor did bump into a younger Master, and killed him, then what would happen to the older Master? I suppose it would explain his obsession to try and kill the Doctor. But surely he would disappear ‘and none of it would have happened’. A classic time-travelling story-telling loop-hole which we know can’t happen – more than a paradox, it’s a flippin’ “I woke up and it was all a dream” joke at our expense.

In the ‘new series’, our latest megalomaniac (hey, I am one – I know one when I see one!) producer, the Moff, has been flying dangerously close to this ‘don’t even go there’ scenario. In fact he’s probably pinned a tail on it and called it name. Yep, it’s more than wibbly-wobbly!

With just a day or so left until the final episode of this season, I’m having a good old think about what we’ve seen so far in an attempt to prepare myself for what is undoubtedly going to make me, and all of you out there, go… ‘What the f…? b.. bu. but he can’t do that!’. Without doubt I'm confused already.

And whilst I’m gonna keep most of my musings to myself, I can’t help but wonder about our lovely Amy and her plastic-fantastic lover. At the beginning of the Impossible Astronaut, we find Amy and Rory in a nice new house, the Doctor having disappeared to play silly buggers all over the place (shouldn’t he be trying to find baby Melody or something?). Invitations arrive and off they go to catch up with the Doctor in the good old’ US of A. But this Doctor is an older Doctor (despite the fact he decided to put one of his ‘younger’ jacket on – perhaps he thought someone might be watching), and he promptly gets himself killed. Then up pops ‘our’ Doctor, or, more to the point, ‘their’ Doctor, and off they go on a new series of adventures.

Now the other week, ‘our/their’ Doctor drops them off at a lovely new home, which they'd never seen before, presumably with the mortgage paid for (lucky buggers), and leaves them to it. Last week he pops into see his old mate what’s-his-name (I’ve tried to block it out of my Whoniverse, as I found it softer for than a gang of adipose), and pinches some envelopes – which he then uses to invite everyone to the little jolly at the beginning of the season.

So… what can we conclude from this? Well, at some point, obviously, ‘our’ doctor becomes the later Doctor, and a couple of hundred Time Lord years have gone by. Great. No problem there. And the Doctor we’re watching now is the ‘older’ one who we saw getting himself blasted at the beginning of the season… which again, I fine. [Although I’m still a bit confused as to how he’s converted the date of his death (in ‘Earth’ terms) with his timeline/age, if you know what I mean, so as to be able to know that its coming up soon… that would require some sort of Time Lord like relative time, which now they’ve all gone and been flushed down the toilet of the universe is a bit tricky…]

But… doesn’t this leave Amy and Rory in a bit of a time-loop, starting off in their lovely new home, catching up with the older, and then younger Doctor, who then, after the usual fun and games, drops them off at their lovely new house which they’ve never seen before…

Something’s wrong somewhere (probably in my head, but I know that), and I doubt the Moff is silly enough to try and pull the wool over our eyes – or perhaps he’s even confused himself? Not only have we been watching fake plastic Rory’s, fake flesh Amy’s, and divergent Doctors, but he’s been weaving a web of time-lines so complicated that it really does make one wish that those oh so boring Time Lords were still here. At least we new what was going on then!

Personally, I think we’re going to be presented with something so convoluted that it won’t answer any of these questions and will just leave an even bigger continuity hole for the Moff to try and dig himself out of next season. And we thought old RTD was making it up as he went along…

Wibbly Wobbly, timey wimey indeed...

It's RT cover day...

Eye-patches. No doubt they're cool...

As ever, Combom has all the scanned pages here.

Target Artwork Origins

I was really interested to find this, the blog of Paul Scoones, whose currently putting the final touches to his Who book, 'The Comic Strip Companion 1964-1979' (tip of the hat to Combom once again!). Now I love the early comics, and have a nice collection of scans of many thanks to the online Who scanners and uploaders. And I also dig the artwork, another one of my interets.

So I was pleased to find this cool graphic, illustrating Target artist Chris Achilleos rather direct influences for his first cover, The Daleks.


I'd known about this before, and even mentioned it on this blog way back towards the end of 2009 (here), where I posted:

"The now classic cover illustration was by Chris Achilleos, who has acknowledged the influence of Ron Turner's artwork for The Dalek Chronicles comic published in TV Century 21 (more about that soon!), in particular the two Daleks were modelled from Issue 60 (The Rogue Planet, part 2) and the title graphic from Issue 76 (Legacy of Yesteryear) onwards."

So a bit surprised to find that Paul didn't know about this, or indeed many folk at all. Now unfortuantely I can't even remember where I got this information, but when I find out, I'll update and link on this post. I obviously had more info, as I promised a follow up post on it!). I guess it must have been an old interview with Chris, probably in DW Monthly or some other mag of the period. (Anyway, I'm looking!).

I see nothing wrong in Achilleous being inspired so directly from the comic artwork of Ron Turner, or his strong influences from Frank Bellamy. I think it continues a proud and original style of artwork which became a huge attraction in itself, and a huge part of the early magic of Who for many.

Here's the Day of the Daleks cover, again with Daleks inspired by Ron Turner's artowork.


Thanks Paul for the images, and can't wait for the book...

Spoilers? No thanks

Spoilers. They spoil it a bit don't they? I've gone through phases of both following seasons in production (and obviously finding out all about it) and not knowing a thing (as I'm often in remote parts of the world for long periods without internet!).

This second half of season 6 has been my first 'live' who watching since I don't know when, and I really thought I would have followed its every move online after I'd caught up with the first half. But for some reason I found myself avoiding those blogs that so well document every snippit of information which leaks from the beeb. And I can honestly say it's better without the spoilers. And it's also my excuse for a lack of activity on this blog!

In fact I've watched all of season 6 without access to any prior knowledge, and it's been it's saviour for me. With 99% of the cat out of the bag, and only the season finale to go, I've just done a huge wade through one of my favourite blogs, Combom, to try and catch up with everything, and I really think if I'd known all the spoilers this whole season would have been rather flat and unsatisfactory. As it is there's been some dodgy episodes, as always, and I've got some serious issues with some of these storylines and archs, but I'm gonna sit it out till the end before I comment. Mind you, even reviewing episodes once they've been shown can be spoilery for folk who haven't seen them yet, but then, you shouldn't be reading reviews!

But as ever, I’ve still got loads of catching up to do on what’s been happening in the world of Who that tickles my fancy, so watch out for a few back posts as I slot things into their correct time-streams – Radio Times covers on their date of publication and boring stuff like that.

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...

Invasion of the Dinosaurs DVD update

Here's another story which needs doctoring... after the Day of the Daleks 'Special Edition', with new fancy-dancy CGI scenes, some fans have wondered if we would get an updated version of this story... sadly not. Or perhaps not so sadly.


The missing colour version of Episode 1 has been recreated, but not with great success, and the release will include the black and white print as well. But no CGI dinosaurs. Can't say I blame them realy... lot of work for a naff story. I'm hoping the guys are saving the money for more animated recons of missing episodes from classic stories rather than fiddling around with something which, let's be honest, is always going to look a bit poor. If only we could go back in time and swap these tapes for a story worth saving...

Due for release early 2012...

[Thanks Combom]

Day of the Daleks 'Special Edition' DVD release

It's here - 'with new special effects and sounds',the re-jigged SE version of Pertwee's first encounter with the Daleks... (original version is also an option on the DVD, as is standard practice, so you really can throw away your VHS collection...)

Does it do the job? Only you can tell...

Combom's got a great review of whats new here.

Karen, not falling around drunk or anything

Few days ago we posted a nice little quote from the lovely Karen Gillan...

"You’ve got to have your own life and do what you want to do, but it is something I take into consideration and I wouldn’t want to fall around drunk or anything."

Good excuse for this little collection of gems I think...






Now don't get me wrong - I have no problem with Karen, or anyone, go out and getting a bit sloshed. Or walking around hotels semi-naked... but just as long as she scrubs up well for filming the next day, that's all... and generally speaking she does!

A while back we read that Karen called Matt a 'drunken giraffe'... I've been wracking my brain for a similar analogy for the lovely Karen, but have yet to find the right one... any ideas?

Time for another RT cover...

Combom has the page scans, here