Howeswho

Reviews: The Time Team Unearthed: The Art of Adrian Salmon

2026-05-05T17:18:00.005+01:00

Adrian Salmon is one of the superb artists whose work has graced the pages of Doctor Who Magazine for decades now. His style tends to be very distinctive: blocky angular shapes and vibrant colours combining in strange and interesting angles and viewpoints for the art. Never moreso than in a long-running feature for DWM, the 'Time Team'. In this feature a group of fans discussed and dissected a particular Doctor Who story as they watched it ... working their way through the series, and each entry was illustrated by a piece of art from Salmon.

Now Roundel Books have collected all these pieces togther, and along with some new offerings to 'fill the gaps' so to speak, have presented it all in a lovely new artbook celebrating Salmon's work.

Printed landscape format so as to give the best coverage and size for the art (which were mostly landscape pieces), the book puts them all in context with a detailed commentary from Salmon, and supplemented by comments from others involved with Doctor Who Magazine and the feature itself. One thing which is a little strange is placing the commentaries in a long 33 page essay at the start, rather than having them alongside the art itself. This then makes you flip back and forth through the book as you read the commentary, wanting to see the finished items.

And there's a lot more than just the finished items here. The publishers have included early sketches and ideas too, so you can see the development from sketch to black and white to coloured final piece for many of the stories.

The book is completed with a section of other artwork from Salmon, 'Classic Art from the Archives' which presents a selection of other work by the artist. A favourite here is the second Doctor clambering out of one of the CyberTombs, but it's shaped like the helmet decal seen in 'The Tomb of the Cybermen' and with some Cybermats scattered on the floor for good measure.

As a record of a much-loved aspect of Doctor Who Magazine's history, this is second to none, and it comes highly recommended. Art, and Doctor Who art in particular, doesn't come much more imaginative and impressive as this!

The book was funded via Kickstarter, and there are now copies to buy, while stocks last, from the Publisher's website. There's a smashing hardback edition (£59.99. Which comes with a free DVD, featuring an excellent and in depth interview with Salmon, audio of Salmon on a Podcast, and a video called Unnatural Born Writer: Kroton about Salmon's writing and illustrating of a Doctor Who comic strip - these are very high quality interviews in line with the quality of the book itself), and also a paperback edition (£39.99).

https://www.cutawaycomics.co.uk/publications/the-time-team-unearthed

Reviews: Doctor Who: Aliens of London, The Satan Pit, The Time of Angels, Stormcage

2026-04-10T10:04:00.001+01:00

The Target range of Doctor Who novelisations expands again with three new adventures committed to the page.

First up is Joseph Lidster with an adaptation of Russell T Davies' two-part adventure 'Aliens of London'/'World War Three'. This is a freewheeling version of the story, and, like the show itself at the time of transmission, is fun and breezy with lots to enjoy. It follows the plot of the story closely, but there are a few additions.

The family Slitheen are well described, and there's a lot of great characterisation throughout. Another interesting element is that Doctor Sato at the hospital is reconfirmed as being the same person as Toshiko Sato from Torchwood. This was established in Torchwood itself: she has a conversation with Owen about how she had to pretend to be a doctor when he was hung over to cover for him and ended up meeting a space pig. Russell T Davies also confirmed at the time that they were the same person. There's also some appearances from Jack Harkness in the book, watching the Doctor and having timey-wimey shenanigans.

I enjoyed the read and the ride and it's a great adaptation of a fast moving story.

Moving on to Matt Jones' adaptation of his own scripts for the two part story 'The Impossible Planet'/'The Satan Pit' and this is another very well written piece of prose. Jones sets the scenes as the three survivors (Ida/Zack/Danny) of the events on the planet Krop Tor are being put on trial for the deaths of their friends, and for the financial loss of the Sanctuary Base they were using. Each tells their own parts of the story, and so we get a version of the adventure which is slightly different from what was seen on television in that elements are explained, if you like, in the wrong order. It's a clever way of telling the story and I liked it a lot.

We have a couple of interjections from the people hearing their tales, and we conclude in the court room, during which there is a section as told by the Doctor himself which is most interesting. One of the defining characteristics of most prose Doctor Who is that the Doctor himself is unknowable, and we don't hear his thoughts or know what he's up to. This element in the book completely ignores that of course and we find out exactly what he's thinking and doing when he confronts the giant demonic god/monster/creature at the bottom of the pit.

There's also a coda where the Doctor, as part of his 'world tour' just before he regenerates in 'The End of Time', visits Ida and has a chat with her in a cemetery. It's a nice sequence and seems in line with how the Doctor was behaving at that time. There's also some expansion of the Ood here, with their 'song' coming into the narrative, and also their celebration/song of the Doctor which started in 2146 in 'Planet of the Ood'. This actually forms a key part of the narrative here and is well explained and worked into the overall plot.

There was a lot of speculation at the time as to the amount of change that Jones' ideas and scripts underwent, with the addition of the Ood (which were created by Russell T Davies for the story) being a major element. Davies has explained that an early draft of the script included Raxacoricofallapatorians - beings from the same planet as the Slitheen family - rather than the Ood. The idea was that the aliens had been enslaved and they wanted to awaken the Beast as they thought it could free them. This novelisation, however, follows the televised story and includes the Ood.

Overall this is a great addition to the Target range, and the book makes the most of an excellent script and a very exciting and eventful story. I think it's my favourite of the three this time around.

The third novelisation in this batch is by Jenny T Colgan and is of the Steven Moffat story 'The Time of Angels'/'Flesh and Stone'.

Something that all three of these books have in common is that they try to replicate their eras. So the Eccleston is fast and furious and fun; the Tennant is more heavy on the weight of being the Doctor; and the Smith one is fast and loose with an emphasis more on the events and the spectacle rather than on the story.

Thus Colgan manages to add a little into the proceedings, but not much in the way of explanation as to what is going on. The plot seems to change depending on where you are in it. There's River Song dashing around and dropping 'Spoilers' and 'Sweetie' everywhere, the Doctor muddling on through and Amy Pond overshadowed by both of them. In the mix too are a bunch of soldier Clerics, and, initially one, but then hundreds of weeping Angel creatures which are in this crashed ship and whose motivation seems somewhat obtuse. I'm just not sure what they wanted. Power? The ability to time travel?

The story of course follows the televised episodes, but the telling is far more linear than the other books. There's an introductory piece about a man repeatedly sent further and further back in time by the Angels, and I think he wrote the book that Father Octavian is looking at. There's also a little foreshadowing of the clever sequence in the forest where Amy is talking to the Doctor (but it's the Doctor from a future adventure, 'The Big Bang', rather than the one from this story - I loved that touch on transmission).

I think if you enjoyed the television episodes, then you'll probably get on fine with the book, but don't expect any great revelations or additional information here.

The three books have excellent covers from Dan Liles, and are £10.99 each in paperback. They have also changed the internal paper stock and it's now very much thinner than before.

The final book for review is another featuring River Song. And it's a hardback 'game' book of all things. The ones where you read a page or so, and then it poses the reader a question: If River goes back to her cell, turn to entry 102; if she heads to the engine room, turn to entry 45 ... that sort of thing.

Allegedly written by Alex Kingston (the busy actress who played River Song), but probably written by BBC Books regulars Jacqueline Rayner and Steve Cole, the book follows you/River in an adventure which starts in the Stormcage containment facility. As you go, you choose your path, and there are many endings.

I managed to die within about 5 minutes of reading! But the book helpfully has little tick boxes so you can mark your choices as you go. This means you can backtrack (or start again) and choose different selections to see how you get on. There are Daleks and Cybermen lurking inside, as well as the TARDIS, the Doctor and a regeneration, plus Varga plants, taranium and the Time Destructor ... and lots more depending on the choices you make!

It's an enjoyable escapade, and dipping through the entries at random reveals all manner of twists and turns and characters ... I don't envy the putting of it all together, or the editors having to read and check every entry to follow all the variant story threads that it has.

River Song last appeared on television 11 years ago (2015), so this publication is a little like a book featuring the Meddling Monk coming out while 'The Talons of Weng-Chiang' was being transmitted. Isn't fandom and the existence of DVD and episode streaming wonderful!

New Doctor Who: The Daleks' Master Plan ...

2026-04-06T11:50:00.005+01:00

I say 'new' Doctor Who, but of course we're talking about some new 'old' Doctor Who.

This crazy show has something of a history around its past, which is ironic for a programme which is all about time travel. Just in case you're not up to speed ... while there have been 65 years or so of Doctor Who episodes transmitted by the BBC, not all of them still exist to enjoy today. This is largely as a result of the cost of videotape back in the sixties and early seventies, and the BBC's need to reuse it where they could, but also because the BBC saw themselves very much as a television producer and transmitter, and not as an archive. So they got rid of a large number of programmes by wiping the tapes for reuse, or throwing filmed copies away to make space for other things ... never stopping to think that someone in the future might be interested in seeing them again.

And thus it was that just 97 episodes of Doctor Who remained missing from the BBC's archives, consigned to the dustbin of history. The irony is that while they threw away the completed programmes, they kept all the production paperwork and photographs that had been taken. And enterprising fans had kept audio recordings of the episodes that they made at the time of transmission ... so we could listen to the episodes and look at the photographs, appreciating the details of which BBC studios they were made in and how much the costumes cost ... but we couldn't watch them.

After a long period in which there were no Doctor Who recoveries - missing episodes rediscovered in collections or at overseas television stations - hope was fading that anything more would be found. But then ...

In 2025, an organisation called Film is Fabulous managed to get access to the film collection of an elderly collector. It seems he didn't even know what he had ... but what he had included two episodes of sixties Doctor Who which were missing from the BBC's archives!

They were recovered, repaired and cleaned up, returned to the BBC, and on Good Friday, 3 April 2026, they went live on the BBC iPlayer for everyone to enjoy once more!

And what a treat. The two episodes both came from a 12 part story called 'The Daleks' Master Plan', a 1965/66 epic which saw the Doctor (William Hartnell), along with companion Steven (Peter Purves), and a handmaiden from ancient Troy called Katarina (Adrienne Hill), team up with Bret Vyon (Nicholas Courtney in his first ever appearance in Doctor Who) and his sister, Space Special Security Service operative Sara Kingdom (Jean Marsh) to try and foil an invasion of the Solar System by the Daleks, aided by the Guardian of the Solar System himself Mavic Chen (Kevin Stoney). The story encompassed many worlds, escapes, chases, intrigue and excitement as the Daleks try to obtain the emm of the mineral taranium that they need to power the awesome Time Destructor weapon.

Bret Vyon (Nicholas Courtney), the Doctor
(William Hartnell), Katarina (Adrienne Hill)
and Steven (Peter Purves) consider the
taranium core.

Some of the story existed (episodes 2, 5 and 10) but most was missing, and this episode recovery comprised episodes 1 and 3 of the adventure. So we could finally see how it all started, and, indeed, enjoy the first three episodes uninterrupted.

This was a fascinating time for Doctor Who. Under John Wiles' producership, the show was abandoning some of it's previous companion characters and tropes and trying to move into a more groundbreaking approach to the stories and adventures. Indeed, the whole of 'The Daleks' Master Plan' was foreshadowed with a one episode adventure called 'Mission to the Unknown' which didn't feature the regular cast at all. This laid the groundwork for the Daleks' presence on the planet Kembel, and the alliance of aliens from the outer Galaxies who were coming together with the Daleks to attack the Earth. After this episode, there was then a four part story called 'The Myth Makers' which had the Doctor, Vicki and Steven adventuring in ancient Troy, and then, at the end of this, Vicki leaves, Katarina enters the TARDIS, Steven is injured, and they're off to the start of 'The Daleks' Master Plan'.

I enjoyed the first episode a lot. 'The Nightmare Begins' sets the scene with Mavic Chen heading off on a holiday (in reality to conspire with the Daleks) while the Doctor and friends arrive on Kembel so the Doctor can try and find something to help Steven. Bret Vyon is also there and he stumbles across the TARDIS and thus the scene is set ...

The direction from Douglas Camfield is as good as we have come to expect from him. Great visuals, tracking shots and interest in every scene. The performances are also good, and we come away somewhat in awe.

I found it interesting that in episode 2 the characters talk about something that we don't see! In episode 1, Bret Vyon is trapped in a magnetic chair in the TARDIS while the Doctor heads outside to see what he can find, leaving Katarina caring for Steven. Vyon persuades Katarina to give Steven some pills he has in his belt pouch which will help cure him. Then in episode 2, Katarina and Steven are suddenly outside the TARDIS, Steven has a jacket and shirt on (he was topless in episode 1), and Bret Vyon has escaped. It seems that he persuaded Katarina to release him from the chair and they all left the TARDIS as they thought it might be dangerous to stay there as the Daleks were outside ... in fact it was the safest place to be. But we never see any of this happen. They just talk about it!

The second recovered episode is part 3, 'Devil's Planet', and this for me is the more enjoyable of the two. We're now in Mavic Chen's stolen Spar spaceship heading for the prison planet Desperus, and the Daleks take control of the ship remotely and bring it down on the planet. What makes all this so interesting is that there are very few photographs of the events on Desperus available, so we see sets and characters we have never seen before (except for on the original transmission). This is just sublime for a died-in-the-wool fan, and I loved the beardy men (and women) and their initial struggle over a knife. This reminded me of the show's first story, '100,000 BC' and the struggle to control fire: who controlled fire, controlled the tribe. And here we have the same thing with the knife being the symbol of power.

The giant feet of a 'screamer' bat
threatens Kirksen

There's also some giant 'screamer' bats on the planet to contend with, and to my surprise we don't actually see them, just a shadow. Which is very intriguing as there is a photo of one of the criminals, Kirksen (Douglas Sheldon), being attacked by a giant pair of legs and feet ... so they built it but never used it on screen (except to throw said shadow perhaps). Fascinating. Maybe Camfield felt it didn't work as a visual so decided to just go with suggestion.

The episode ends with a cliff hanger that the Daleks arrive on Desperus, but the Doctor and friends escape, taking off again in the Spar, but with an unwelcome passenger: one of the criminals, Kirksen; who grabs Katarina and holds her prisoner in the airlock of the ship. Exciting stuff!

While we had 3 episodes already, with a story like this which features a variety of characters and locations for which there is little or no visual record, this is a real treat. It makes me wish so hard that more of the story did exist and that we could enjoy it all again. But sadly this is not the case.

As with much of sixties Doctor Who, there are episodes missing which we would love to revisit but cannot, relying on the memories of those who saw them on transmission to confirm that they were indeed some of the very best that Doctor Who had to offer at the time. When we get a discovery like this, it just cements that stories like 'The Daleks' Master Plan' was indeed a 'masterful' set of episodes, and truly deserves its reputation as one of the great lost classics of television of the time.

For the moment, point your browser or television to the BBC iPlayer (in the UK) or to the BBC's YouTube channel (in the USA) to enjoy again the start of the greatest adventure that the Doctor has ever undertaken.

POSTSCRIPT

For my first viewing I wanted to get into the mood, so there are a couple of other things to seek out to watch in order to get an effective build up to the newly recovered episodes.

I suggest:

'Mission to the Unknown' - the episode no longer exists, but the University of Lancashire remade it in 2019 using the same cameras and style as were originally used in the sixties. Moreover an enterprising fan matched the remade episode to the original soundtrack, and the result is probably as close as you can get to watching the original. The soundtrack matched version can be found here: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7nz2pu

After this, there is a rather lovely interlude/teaser which uses AI to recreate key visuals from 'The Myth Makers' and thus provide the introduction of Katarina and the injuring of Steven so that you go into 'The Daleks' Master Plan' reminded of the immediately preceding story. This is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmZ3yquMEqA

Then we have episodes 1-3 of 'The Daleks' Master Plan' to watch on iPlayer, but you then need to skip episode 4 and head to episode 5 ... or you can watch a photo reconstruction of episode 4 on Dailymotion: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7gw2s9

However you decide to watch these returned episodes, I hope they bring you as much joy and happiness as they have to me ... a little slice of classic Who has come home to rest. And may there be many more.

*****************************

While I'm here ... If you're a fan of film, then have a look at a Film Festival that I run with my wife, Sam. THE SYKEHOUSE FILM AND WRITERS' FESTIVAL combines writing with filmmaking, and we have an amazing weekend coming up on the 16/17 May showing some of the films entered in this year's festival, plus guests and panels and talks and pitching sessions with agents and film producers ... all sorts of great things. Here's a rundown of what to expect:

For more information and tickets, please visit www.slhfilmfest.com

Review: Doctor Who: The Adventures After

2026-02-07T16:52:00.000+00:00

This is another in the current BBC Children's books series of anthologies and follows on from The Adventures Before. This time we're looking at mini-adventures that happened after certain Doctor Who stories, and it's a mixed bag. Some of the stories are not really sequels and yet the contents pages and subtitle to the book suggest they are.

There are two stories written (or co-written) by stars from the show: Carole Ann Ford (with Rob Craine and Beth Axford) who played Susan in the show has 'The Verge of Death' which follows 'Marco Polo' and picks up on the prior events of 'Inside the Spaceship' where the TARDIS was trying to warn the travellers of danger. The idea is that a psychic creature has got into the ship and is attacking them ...

And Katy Manning who played Jo has a story which follows 'The Green Death' about the Master attempting to get hold of the Metebelis crystal given to Jo by the Doctor.

Other stories are 'The Face of Fear' by David N Smith which is aligned to 'The Web of Fear' but which is more of a sequel to 'The Faceless Ones' as the Chameleons are back. Paul Magrs provides a proper sequel to 'The Daemons' as the Master (or Missy) is back and the 13th Doctor has to work with an aged Olive Hawthorne to stop Missy from summoning Azal again. Mark Griffiths brings us 'Harry Sullivan and the Chalice of Vengeance' which follows 'The Christmas Invasion' (one of the Sycorax survives and saves his mind which then encounters the 4th Doctor, Sarah and Harry in the future.) ... Janelle McCurdy has 'The Ashes of Pompeii', a sequel to 'The Fires of Pompeii' (the Doctor and Donna have a second encounter with a Pyrovile)... Alfie Shaw has 'Aftercare', which follows the events of 'The Angels Take Manhattan' (a sad tale of Brian Williams trying to come to terms with Rory's death) ... and finally Beth Axford has 'Save the Earth', aligned to 'Kill the Moon', with clothes that eat people and the Doctor's coat having dimensionally transcendental pockets.

As I've said before about these books, they are aimed at 8-12 year old kids, and as time moves forward, so those kids fast outgrow whatever is being written for them. So an 8 year old in 2025 would have not been born when 'Kill the Moon' was shown, and would have been 6 when 'The Giggle' was transmitted (Ncuti Gatwa's debut) ... and only 1 year old when 'The Woman Who Fell to Earth' was transmitted (Jodie Whittaker's debut) ... my point is that it's hard to see how these kids, who have grown up in a world where Doctor Who is less 'event' and more 'cult' would react to the stories and want to buy them (or have them bought for them).

I feel that around the age of 6 or 7 is when we start to get our 'core memories' (as Inside Out might put it) and kids watching the show for the first time at around that age are more likely to then want to go and find out more ... especially if the watching is a shared experience with friends at school. But for something to be able to tap into that 'shared experience' it needs to be 'shared' ... Look at how well the whole Stranger Things phenomenon has grown ... off the back of Netflix planning and coordinating 'drops' of the episodes so everyone can watch at roughly the same time, and then discuss and want to see what happens next with their friends. Doctor Who just doesn't have the same degree of mass-market take-up these days, and when there is an opportunity to be taken, it tends not to be.

I really hope that this book and others like it find a market, but I'm really not sure what that market is.

Review: Spirited

2026-01-07T14:43:00.005+00:00

We discovered Spirited hiding on Prime. It's an Australian genre series from 2010/11 and is a little 'inspired' (if that's a thing) by shows like Ghosts or The Ghost and Mrs Muir and so on.

The basic idea is that a dentist, Suzy Darling (Claudia Karvan), finds that she can see the ghost of a 1980s punk rock star called Henry Mallett (Matt King). The series is all about Henry trying to figure out how he died and why he's haunting the apartment block in which Suzy has her work and living place. Just giving a basic synopsis like this does somewhat demean the whole as it's a well written and very engaging series, with some black comedy mixed in, and some great characters who grow and change as the series progresses. There's Steve, Suzy's ex, who starts out being a right bar steward, sleeping with basically anyone who will have him - and a surprising number of women seem to want him! But by the end he has his own moment of revelation and seems to change his ways.

Henry is a smashing character and Matt King plays him with aplomb ... all eighties punk sensibility and rage packed into a tall lanky man who can't work out where it all went wrong. Claudia Karvan is a superb foil for him and, as the only human who can see and hear him, starts to grow fond of her spectral friend.

There's lots of good ideas on show, some great performances, and a very well realised romance blossoming between the two leads - even though they can't actually touch each other.

Recommended viewing.

Review: The Art of Time Travel by Peter Mckinstry

2026-01-06T16:54:00.002+00:00

This is more like it! After a seemingly endless succession of 'in universe' factual photo books from BBC Books about Doctor Who, finally we get a proper behind the scenes look at the work of art department designer Peter Mckinstry.

Peter worked on Seasons 2, 3, 4 and 5 of the revived Doctor Who series as a concept artist and designer, and his work spans pretty much everything that you see on screen. There are a great many superb illustrations here depicting everything from Sonic Screwdrivers to watches through guns and gadgets, to giant spacecraft and aliens. There's (of course) redesigned Daleks and Cybermen and Sontarans and all manner of other things which Peter was commissioned to create for various other books and magazines, and accompanying them all is a commentary explaining the key points and thought processes that went into realising the ideas.

Alongside these there are Peter's emails and comments to Russell T Davies and Steven Moffat and their responses which give a great insight into how the ideas develop into reality for the screen.

I loved the book. It's big and chunky and full of colour, information and interest. The true behind the scenes elements have always been of more interest to me than 'in universe' continuity-type information and so this book is ideal! It's a fascinating insight into how a 'world' or 'alien' can be developed in Doctor Who and how every element is considered and thought through to give consistency to their race and culture, whether that be the jewellery they wear, the weaponry they carry, or even how they decorate their spacecraft or buildings.

The copy I was sent was a second printing, so maybe this has done really well to have been reprinted so fast ... or maybe they underestimated the print run it would need! Either way it bodes well for more like this in the future.

Review: First Light - The Science Fiction Art of Alex Storer

2025-12-05T12:23:00.005+00:00

I'm a sucker for art books, I love the collected works of people far more talented than I am at painting and drawing and illustration ... and so this new collection from Alex Storer is right up my street.

First Light collects together many of Storer's pieces of fantastic art and is presented thematically: Cities, Stars, Worlds, Environments and finishing with a selection of book covers that he has created.

'Cities' presents some marvellously gothic creations. 'Daybreak' is a smashing vista of a man looking out at a purple and violet hued cityscape at sunrise, across a river, while a cat watches the man ... marvellously forlorn and evocative, the image has a hint of peace about it ...

'Thalassa' meanwhile is a drowned cityscape. The tops of skyscrapers poke through the waters, while taller structures are visible through the watery air. Another very evocative piece.

The images range from the neon drenched 'Night Shift' to lovers running across a green meadow ... Cities of all types are represented.

'Stars' presents spacescapes and rocket ships and spacestations ... all hanging in the inky star studded void. These are fascinating and serene.

'Worlds' goes to the planets and we have twin moons, space suited explorers, underwater creatures and incredible vistas.

'Environments' is similar, but focussing on specific conditions: ice and snow, caverns and tunnels dominate.

And finally the book covers for authors like Alice Sabo, Terry Grimwood and Andrew Hook. All great evocative cover imagery which makes you want to pick the books concerned up: the prime function of a cover!

All in all this 80 page book is a tremendous celebration of the imagination of Alex Storer and of a love of art and colour and shade and of incredible sights hitherto unseen. It's well worth a look!

Copies are available from Amazon at: https://amzn.eu/d/8GIDLHD

Review: The Moon Cruise by Esmie Jikiemi-Pearson

2025-12-04T11:32:00.003+00:00

The Moon Cruise is the latest Doctor Who novel from Esmie Jikiemi-Pearson, and is her first original novel for the BBC's range. Previously she wrote the novelisation of 'The Church on Ruby Road'.

In line with the other recent novels, The Moon Cruise is a short book clocking in at 189 pages. The story sees the 15th Doctor and Belinda part way through his second season (the novel places the action after the story 'The Well' when the Doctor is still taking vindicator readings from various places in his attempt to get Belinda back to Earth).

Here they arrive on what the Doctor thinks is a deserted asteroid, but which is reality one of the service corridors for a fantastic space cruise experience named The Moon Cruise. The ship is owned and run by Marilyn Moon, a character inexplicably modelled on singer and actress Marilyn Monroe, and as the Doctor and Belinda soon discover, the ship and its crew and its modus operandi are not at all what they seem.

The workers are prisoners, serving out a sentence which rises with every minor infraction, and Belinda ends up taking the place of one of them. The Doctor has to rescue her and so joins forces with the worker she replaced, a green-haired girl named Jax, to infiltrate the upper levels of the ship and to find out the truth behind the whole setup. But there are robotic guards everywhere, and giant centipedes roaming the lower levels ...

The novel has quite a few welcome influences from Doctor Who. We have, of course, the other space cruise liner story, 'Voyage of the Damned' with its robotic angelic Hosts and an owner, Max Capricorn, who isn't exactly human himself. Then there's elements from 'The Greatest Show in the Galaxy' with the robot clowns, and also 'The Long Game' where the humans down below are controlled by a mysterious entity on the upper floors, reached by a single lift. It feels like a Doctor Who story, which is great.

Jikiemi-Pearson blends all these ideas together well, and her writing flows nicely, bringing the reader quickly through the story. The idea that the robotic guards have human parts inside also brings to mind 'Frontios' where the Tractators used human body parts to power their mining machines, or, indeed 'The Girl in the Fireplace' where the Regency Clockwork Men used human parts to fix up the spaceship they were travelling in. One thing I wasn't quite sure about was why there were giant centipedes and ember-emitting fungus in the lower floors - there's some words about how they just grew and multiplied there, but this is just Belinda's assumption - but it all adds to the suspense and provides for some great action sequences.

Overall the story doesn't really feel like a 15th Doctor adventure though, and in some respects I could 'see' the same story being told in the same way with any of the incarnations of the Doctor being involved. It's an enjoyable and action packed book, and once it gets going, it just keeps on going ...

It's a diverting and enjoyable read and I had a lot of fun with it. A good way to pass an afternoon.

Review: Evolution by Andrew Skilleter

2025-12-03T11:21:00.002+00:00

I'm a sucker for lovely art books, and this is partly why Telos has been dipping into publishing them over recent years. Andrew Skilleter is an artist whose name is almost synonymous with Doctor Who. He has done so much over the years, creating cover art, posters, books, bookmarks and many other visual expressions related to the show.

He has published several artbooks himself, collecting much of his Doctor Who output, and you'd perhaps think that there wasn't much left for him to publish. However. Andrew is still working and has been creating new art for this book he calls Evolution. Partly because it showcases an evolution in his style to a more fluid form, and encompassing photography as well: basically making full use of the tools currently available to artists to create new and interesting work.

And that's what this book is: new and interesting. From the impressive gold embossed cover with a part fabric spine overlap, the book screams quality. It's been produced in limited numbers, all signed by the artist, and here we find the opening pages presenting new imagery of the Doctors.

Each spread is accompanied by a quote from the show, which Andrew explains, acts as a jumping off point to new adventures and ideas. So here we have companion Peri Brown reimagined as a 'space adventurer' in a red skirt and cape, wearing white gloves and holding a Star Trek-like phaser pistol. There's River Song in a very Jim Burns spaceship, an exploding Cyberman, a painting of Nyssa of Traken as some flying fey being, the Rani: all aloof and with another flowing red cape ... the imagery is impressive and it works.

Following a central gallery of commissioned work and pencils showing a different side to Andrew's art, and presented as being 'The Under Gallery' presided over by the Curator, we have more fantastic imagery: Leela swimming underwater; Arizona Amy striding through the desert; Romana mk1 wearing a shiny blue catsuit and beside another Burnsian space car; while Romana Mk2 is flying through the air in a black catsuit and boots.

There's a section on the Daemons, with new imagery of the Master and Azal, followed by other daemonic forces like the Malus and the Fendahl, the Haemovores and the Destroyer.

Andrew's classic 'poster prints' are reimagined as Radio Times covers next and they work very well indeed in this form, and then we're onto Jamie against a Highland background; Ace as a battle-suited marine, and Sarah Jane as a 'Spacegirl' dressed in another shiny spacesuit; Cybermen; Zoe; Missy; Captain Jack; and finally of course, a Dalek.

The whole book is a joy!

It's available from Andrew's store at https://andrewskilleter.com/store-gallery/doctor-who/drwho-books/evolution-doctor-who-arta-new-dimension/

Doctor Who Book Reviews: The Chimes of Midnight / Doctor Who Annual / Where's the Doctor

2025-11-26T16:33:00.001+00:00

A few more recent Doctor Who titles to put through the review machine, and first out is The Chimes of Midnight by Robert Shearman. This was released in hardback along with another title called Jubilee and both are novelisations of audio adventures that Shearman wrote several years back. They have remained as popular audio releases and this is presumably why BBC Books has chosen them for release as novelisations. Jubilee formed the basis for the Doctor Who TV script that Shearman wrote in 2005, the story 'Dalek'.

The Chimes of Midnight is an eighth Doctor adventure, and the companion is Charley Pollard, a creation for the Big Finish audio adventures of that Doctor. As a novelisation, it works really well, and Shearman manages to create bags of atmosphere in a story which is redolent of past tales like 'The Celestial Toymaker' and 'The Space Museum', with tones of more recent fare like 'Ghost Light' and 'The Giggle' in there as well.

The Doctor and Charley find themselves at Christmas in an old house, where they seem to be at odds with reality in that they cannot interact with anything. As the clock chimes, so they find themselves faced with a murder, and the Doctor starts to investigate. But nothing is as it seems, and reality bends and twists around them, with the staff of the house behaving strangely, time speeding up, and the TARDIS blocked from them. It's a strange tale which maintains the mystery far beyond the half way point (when one might expect some answers to start to appear).

I enjoyed the read, the text is eloquent and the characters all leap from the page.

As an experiment to see if novelisations of the Big Finish audios might work, then it's a worthy start. After all there are rather a lot of those audios out there now to draw on in the future should BBC Books deem it worthwhile.

Also available is the traditional Doctor Who Annual, again written by Paul Lang, and this time with a story from Pete McTighe (a prequel to 'Lucky Day'). As with previous Annuals, we're following a tested format, and here there's an introduction from actress Varada Sethu who played Belinda Chandra, followed by pages looking at the various characters and stories from the last season (and the Christmas special which preceded it), the pantheon of powerful creatures (including the new-look Sutekh), some games and puzzles, a feature on Mrs Flood. a cartoon strip based on the animated sequence from 'Lux', a piece on Susan, the Doctor's granddaughter, and a spread from the colourised version of 'The Daleks'.

As mentioned in previous reviews, there's a lot that goes into the Annual to try and make it interesting and diverse for the younger reader, and the team have again done a sterling job. I do wonder what the 2027 annual might bring next year as there's no new Who on television for it to use as a backbone. Maybe a more general look back over the show's past?

Another 'new' title is Doctor Who: Where's The Doctor? which is a Where's Wally-type book with 14 spreads of detailed illustration in which you have to find the Doctor, plus various other elements (detailed at the back) which you can also look out for.

The illustrations by Pablo Gallego and Jorge Santillan are charming, and the book claims to draw on work previously published in When's the Doctor? (2012) and Find the Doctor (2013). The strange thing here is that Find the Doctor was actually a complete reprint of material from When's the Doctor? and Where's the Doctor? (2013) the latter of which featured illustrations from Jamie Smart, whose work is not included in this book. ('Shackleton's Expedition', 'Metebelis III', 'Ancient Egypt', 'Ancient Greek Olympics', 'The End of the World', 'TARDIS Graveyard' and 'Victorian London' are all taken from When's the Doctor and thus by Jorge Santillan. There are therefore eight new pieces by Pablo Gallego (presumably) in this book.)

There's also an updated version of the Greatest Monsters book from a few years back available. Obviously reprinting, repackaging and updating of older material is the order of the day!

Doctor Who LPs from Demon

2025-11-21T15:25:00.000+00:00

Demon Music Group started out as Demon Records, a British record label, founded in 1980 by former United Artists A&R executive Andrew Lauder and Jake Riviera (aka Andrew Jakeman), and also, possibly, Elvis Costello! In 1998, Demon was acquired by Crimson Productions and the record label was merged with its Westside Records operation. The date that BBC Studios acquired Demon Records/Crimson Records and their subsidiaries and labels is not recorded.

As well as Doctor Who they also release many other items and specialise in the reissues of catalogue titles, with a focus on the various Record Store Days each year where many rare items are re-issued on vinyl specifically for sale at participating stores.

The Demon Records/BBC Doctor Who initiative came from Ben Stanley, Product Manager at Demon Records; their first Doctor Who release came in 2016 when they produced a new vinyl edition of the 'Genesis of the Daleks' adaptation (first issued in October 1979) for the April Record Store Day that year. They also put out 'The Tomb of the Cybermen' and 'City of Death' before Oink Creative and Michael Stevens came on board in 2019 to create a revamped look for 'The Daleks’ Master Plan' soundtrack release.

As the years have gone by, the Doctor Who releases have become more elaborate and complex. From initial reissues of some of the single- and double-LP historic Doctor Who recordings, they moved into releasing LPs of the Doctor Who soundtracks in 2018 ... and have since augmented the range with some reissues of Big Finish's Doctor Who audios on LP as exclusives to certain retail stores.

The disks themselves are very nicely produced and packaged, and as the range has expanded, so various variants have been introduced. The soundtrack LP covers have been created by various artists at Oink Creative, including (but not limited to) Tom Fournier, Sam Goddard, John Conlon and Louise Barden. The packaging design is by Oink, based on art direction by Michael Stevens; Michael gives the team a detailed brief on each release and supplies photo assets, story detail, sleeve text and suggestions for key elements to illustrate. Michael and Oink decide the vinyl colours and effects between them and he then gives each one a story-appropriate name.

The pressing plant they use for the LPs is a dab hand at creating all manner of different effects on the disks, which Michael names with suitably 'Who-ish' descriptions for the releases: 'Skaro swirl', 'Tibetan blizzard' and 'Animus splatter' among them ... and these are usually special releases exclusive to the online retailer Amazon.

Most of the Doctor Who soundtrack releases are re-issues of audio previously released on CD, with an overlaid narration from one of the actors from the show, but the release of 'The Web Planet' had not been previously made available and featured an all new narration from Maureen O'Brien. A CD release was subsequently made available the following year.

Looking at the most recent releases, and we have two soundtracks. One is a boxed set of three LPs covering 'The Sensorites', and the other is a two LP release covering 'The Celestial Toymaker'. Each 25 minute episode of the original show takes one LP side, so the number of LPs is dictated by the number of episodes. And the packaging too, to some extent, though the releases have settled into something of a 'format'. There is a box or gatefold case with stunning new artwork on the front, and then each LP has it's own slipcase with a standard design on one side (colour themed to whatever the colour palette of the release is), and the other containing the cast and credits details for that episode. The outer sleeves within the box sets also have imagery on each side which, when placed together, makes up a larger picture.

'The Sensorites' also comes with an embossed, frameable art print of the cover artwork and the Sense-Sphere blue marble vinyl LPs are presented in individual pockets which, when placed in order, reveal a double-sided composite illustration, again of the cover artwork. An accompanying booklet supplies cast and credits, and inner bags feature complete episode billings. It's an impressive package!

'The Celestial Toymaker' comes on red (king) and blue (queen) coloured LPs and is in a more simple gatefold packaging with inner bags.

If it's sheer luxury you want though, then the two LP boxed set releases of two of Paul Magrs' audio series for AudioGo really push the boat out.

Hornet's Nest and Demon Quest were two 2009 and 2010 five-part audio releases featuring Tom Baker as the Doctor, but strangely having adventures in England while living in a cottage with his housekeeper, Mrs Wibbsey. There is a third series of adventures called Serpent Crest, coming on 23 May 2023! The stories were typically Doctor Who, and Baker effortlessly fell back into his classic portrayal ... but here even more eccentric if that's possible!

For these special LP releases Demon Records have really gone the extra mile!

For Hornet's Nest, the set comes with an exclusive, frameable portrait of the Fourth Doctor - every copy of which has been individually signed by Tom Baker himself. There's an impressive, die-cut removable outer sleeve housing a hornet-adorned lidded box, inside which are ten individual, alternating yellow and black vinyl LPs, within exquisitely illustrated LP sleeves featuring full cast and credits for each story. Also included is The Doctor’s Journal, a large 16-page full colour booklet detailing the Time Lord’s notes and illustrations from his battles against the hornets.

Demon Quest also has ten LP records, alternating red and black, each one containing one episode of the series. Every copy of the vinyl edition includes an exclusive, frameable portrait of the Fourth Doctor, again hand signed by Tom Baker himself. There's an intricately die-cut, removable outer sleeve revealing a demonic lidded box, inside which are ten individual illustrated LP sleeves featuring full cast and credits for each of the five stories. The Time Lord’s encounters with the mysterious demon are detailed in The Doctor’s Journal, a large 16-page full-colour booklet featuring notes and illustrations from this epic pursuit through time.

Each are superbly produced and are in themselves true works of art. Sadly the cost reflects this - they're not cheap, each retailing for around £190 each! But some outlets have them discounted ... so shop around! As a very special present for the Doctor Who fan in your life, they're probably hard to beat!

Released for Record Store Day 2023 (22 April) wasanother Demon release, this time of stories in part from The Amazing Worlds of Doctor Who hardback book, published in 1976 through a special promotion with TyPhoo teabags. The promotion included 12 collectible photo-cards given away with the boxes of tea, and a poster onto which they could be mounted.

This 2023 audio edition included 'The Sinister Sponge' (also in The Doctor Who Annual 1976, previously released on CD on The Sinister Sponge and Other Stories (2019)), 'The Vampires Of Crellium' (original to The Amazing World of Doctor Who), 'On The Slippery Trail' (original to The Amazing World of Doctor Who) and 'The Mission' (also in The Doctor Who Annual 1976). There are two stories not contained in the book The Amazing World of Doctor Who: 'A New Life' (from The Doctor Who Annual 1978) and 'Avast There' (from The Doctor Who Annual 1976). The release also contains audio adaptations of two comic stories: 'The Psychic Jungle' and 'Neuronic Nightmare' (both also in The Doctor Who Annual 1976).

Dan Starkey (Strax), Louise Jameson (Leela) and Geoffrey Beevers (The Master) read these weird and wacky stories. Published in Doctor Who's 60th anniversary year, the 140g clear vinyl LPs are presented in a gatefold sleeve with illustrated inner bags. Chris Achilleos' iconic artwork for the original book provides a stunning front and back cover to the LP release.

Tom Baker signs copies of the Demon Quest print

The May 2023 Serpent Crest release follows the pattern of the two earlier box sets. This time the colour theme is green and black, and there's the usual quality booklet, art print personally signed by Tom Baker, ten LP records (alternating black and green) and artwork adorning the whole package. This time the slipcase has 'serpent scale' cutouts in the outer box and the whole package just screams 'luxury'.

Author Paul Magrs with his copy of the Serpent Crest LPs

15 September 2023 saw the release of a 4 LP set of stories featuring Tom Baker as the Doctor. Genesis of the Daleks, Doctor Who and the Pescatons, Exploration Earth: The Time Machine and The State of Decay. Limited to 600 copies, the set comes with a personally signed picture of Baker.

The Tom Baker Record Collection

Also an LP release in the DOOM'S DAY spin off series: Four For Doom's Day.

For the twin story release Pest Control/The Forever Trap, the set of LPs had an illustrated lift off lid, and features 6 x 140g vinyl LPs three in transparent red and three in transparent yellow each housed in a unique inner sleeve. A four page booklet features sleeve notes by authors Peter Anghelides and Dan Abnett, who reflect on the process of writing for the Tenth Doctor and Donna, and how they regard the stories 17 years later.

'The Edge of Destruction' features an impressive picture LP with the ormolu clock on one side and a TARDIS zoetrope on the other. The soundtrack, it's first audio release in any format, has narration from Carole Ann Ford, and also features an interview with Ford.

'The Highlanders' was an exclusive vinyl for HMV, and released on 14th June 2024. Narration is by Frazer Hines. It boasts translucent red and blue disks, and the usual information on the slip sleeves.

The Jon Pertwee Collection brings together two of the audio novelisations readings that Pertwee did originally for cassette tape, along with several archival pieces. The box set comes with a print of Jon Pertwee.

LP 1 Side A Doctor Who and the Curse of PeladonPart One / Goodwood Races mini-drama

LP 1 Side B Doctor Who and the Curse of PeladonPart Two / Profile interview

LP 2 Side C Doctor Who and the Curse of PeladonPart Three / Newsbeat interview

LP 2 Side D Doctor Who and the Curse of PeladonPart Four / Simon Bates interview

LP 3 Side E Doctor Who and the Planet of the Daleks Part One / The Skivers comedy sketch

LP 3 Side F Doctor Who and the Planet of the Daleks Part Two / Local radio interview

LP 4 Side G Doctor Who and the Planet of the Daleks Part Three / Radio Lives tributes

LP 4 Side H Doctor Who and the Planet of the Daleks Part Four / Who Is The Doctor?

Here's the covers for further releases from Demon.

Here's a checklist of all the Doctor Who LPs that Demon Records have released so far ...

Doctor Who: Genesis of the Daleks 16/04/2016 DEMREC160

Doctor Who and the Pescatons (Victor Pemberton) / Doctor Who Sound Effects No 19 22/04/2017 DEMREC202

Doctor Who: City of Death 21/04/2018 green vinyl DEMREC254

Doctor Who: The Tomb of the Cybermen 21/04/2018 silver vinyl DEMREC253

Doctor Who: Cold Vengeance (Matt Fitton) 19/10/2018 DEMREC327

Doctor Who: Galaxy 4 13/04/2019 2x180g splatter vinyl DEMWHOLP001

Doctor Who: Destiny of the Daleks 13/04/2019 2x180g splatter vinyl DEMWHOLP002

Doctor Who: The Daleks' Master Plan 15/02/2019 6x180g translucent blue vinyl. DEMWHOBOX001

Doctor Who: The Daleks' Master Plan (Amazon) 15/02/2019 6x180g translucent 'splatter' vinyl. DEMWHOBOX001X

Doctor Who: The Creeping Death (Roy Gill) 24/05/2019 DEMREC433

Doctor Who: Wave of Destruction (Justin Richards) 02/08/2019 'ocean swirl' vinyl. DEMREC453

Doctor Who: The Evil of the Daleks 19/07/2019 translucent red vinyl. DEMWHOBOX002

Doctor Who: The Evil of the Daleks (Amazon) 19/07/2019 'Skaro swirl' vinyl. DEMWHOBOX002X

Doctor Who: Death and the Queen (James Goss) 06/09/2019 DEMREC370

Doctor Who: The Abominable Snowmen 27/09/2019 3x180g white vinyl DEMWHOBOX003

Doctor Who: The Abominable Snowmen (Amazon) 27/09/2019 3x180g 'Tibetan blizzard' vinyl DEMWHOBOX003X

Doctor Who: Max Warp (Jonathan Morris) 15/11/2019 DEMREC554

Doctor Who: The Web Planet 13/12/2019 180g pink vinyl. DEMWHOBOX004

Doctor Who: The Web Planet (Amazon) 13/12/2019 180g 'Animus splatter' vinyl. DEMWHOBOX004X

Doctor Who: The Paradise of Death & The Ghosts of N-Space (Barry Letts) 28/02/2020 3x180g blue vinyl & 3x180g yellow vinyl DEMWHOBOX005

Doctor Who: The Paradise of Death & The Ghosts of N-Space (Barry Letts) (Amazon) 28/02/2020 3x180g space world splatter vinyl and 3x180g spectral splatter vinyl DEMWHOBOX005X

Doctor Who: The Underwater Menace 06/07/2020 180g 'volcanic eruption' vinyl. DEMWHOLP004X

Doctor Who: The Massacre 29/08/2020 'Parisian blaze' vinyl DEMWHOLP003

Doctor Who: Marco Polo 11/09/2020 sandstorm vinyl DEMWHOBOX006X

Doctor Who: Time Lord Victorious: The Minds of Magnox (Darren Jones) 04/12/2020 DEMWHOLP005

Doctor Who: The Edge of Time (Richard Wilkinson) 22/01/2021 140g red and purple vinyl DEMREC713

Doctor Who: Horror of Fang Rock 19/02/2021 140g Rutan blob green vinyl DEMWHOLP006

Doctor Who: The Ice Warriors 04/06/2021 molten ice vinyl DEMWHOBOX007

Dalek Terror 12/06/2021 2x140g 'extermination splatter' vinyl DEMWHOLP007

Doctor Who: The Myth Makers 27/08/2021 'Trojan sunset' vinyl DEMWHOLP008

Doctor Who: The Pirate Planet 18/03/2022 'sky demon' splatter vinyl DEMWHOLP009

Doctor Who: Dead Air (James Goss) 23/04/2022 2x140g soundwave green vinyl. DEMWHOLP010

Doctor Who: Hornet's Nest: The Complete Series 06/05/2022 10x140g alternating yellow and black vinyl DEMWHOBOX009

Doctor Who: The Sensorites 22/07/2022 3x140g Sense-Sphere blue marble vinyl. DEMWHOBOX008

Doctor Who: The Celestial Toymaker 30/09/2022 2x140g king and queen (red and blue) vinyl DEMWHOLP011

Doctor Who: Demon Quest: The Complete Series 02/12/2022 10x140g alternating red and black vinyl DEMWHOBOX010

The Amazing World of Doctor Who 22/04/2023 2x140g red and orange vinyl REF: DEMWHOLP012

Doctor Who: Serpent Crest: The Complete Series 26/05/2023 10x140g alternating green and black vinyl DEMWHOBOX011

Doctor Who: The Tom Baker Record Collection 15/09/2023 4x140g orange, green, red and blue vinyl DEMWHOBOX012 (the label on the front has DEMRECBOX012)

Doom's Day: Four For Doom's Day 15/09/2023 2x140g translucent purple and blue vinyl DEMWHOLP013

Doctor Who: Pest Control / The Forever Trap 24/05/2024 6x140g translucent red and yellow vinyl DEMWHOBOX013

Doctor Who: The Edge of Destruction 24/04/2024 1x140g zoetrope picture disc vinyl DEMWHOREC1190

Doctor Who: The Highlanders 14/06/2024 2x140g translucent red and blue vinyl. DEMWHOLP014

Doctor Who: The Crusade 04/10/2024 2x140g translucent green and yellow vinyl. DEMWHOLP015

Doctor Who: The Tenth Planet 12/04/2025 2x140g white and silver vinyl. DEMWHOLP016

Doctor Who: The Jon Pertwee Collection 01/08/2025 4x140g Green and Blue vinyl. DEMWHOBOX014

Doctor Who: The Moonbase 19/09/2025 2x140g translucent 'blue moon' vinyl. DEMWHOLP017

Doctor Who: The Last Voyage 28/11/2025 2x translucent yellow vinyl. DEMWHOLP018

Doctor Who: The Wheel in Space 13/02/2026 3x translucent 'bernalium' blue vinyl. DEMWHOLP019

Review: Doctor Who: 1001 Nights In Time & Space

2025-10-04T11:50:00.002+01:00

This is a strange one. It's simultaneously a novel and a short story collection, but it's actually far more the latter. From the title, one might expect that it's a riff on the old collection of Arabian folk tales 1001 Nights where Scheherazade tells unending stories to the King each night to stave off her execution ... but it's not really that.

Steve Cole and Paul Magrs have crafted a tale of a travelling storyteller who wanders the wastelands with his talking horse (Chuzzlewit - from the novel by Charles Dickens) and talking raven (Evermore - presumably from the bird in Edgar Allan Poe's 1845 poem, 'The Raven', which croaks 'Nevermore'). The storyteller tells stories and when he comes across another traveller (the 15th Doctor) sitting by a campfire, then he starts to tell tales about creatures this traveller has experienced.

Overall these stories are retellings of various Doctor Who adventures from the points of view of the aliens and creatures within them. So we get 'Robot' retold from the Robot's point of view, 'The Happiness Patrol' from Helen A's viewpoint, 'The Web Planet' from Nemini's perspective ... and so on through the Wirrn, one of the villagers of Devil's End, the Meep, Ohika, Condo ... and many more.

The problem really is that we know these stories - you just have to watch them on DVD or iPlayer - and the alternate viewpoint doesn't really add anything much. The best one for me is one which unexpectedly diverges from this format and has a tale of a Toymaker who's daughter is fascinated by his work. And when a life size Tin Soldier appears in the workshop, she is fascinated. The Soldier comes alive and they converse. This is actually a lone Cyberman left over from the battles in 'The Invasion' and it's a great little tale, probably because it doesn't just retell the story that we already know. I would have liked more like this.

The whole book is set during the period that Sutekh destroyed all life (during the 15th Doctor's first season), and there are interludes where the Storyteller and the Doctor ponder on the events. The conclusion is nice and life affirming with perhaps more than a hint that the old Storyteller is in fact the Doctor as well.

There are some of Paul Magrs' charming illustrations throughout the book, and as with all the BBC's Doctor Who related output at the moment, it's aimed young, so it's simple words and ideas and easily told.

Designed as a 'Christmas Book', I can see youngsters enjoying these retellings of some of the Doctor's adventures, and perhaps being intrigued enough to look up some of the more obscure ones (Visians anyone?), and as such it's a nice addition to the range.

Anti Spam Wordpress Plugin

2025-10-03T16:35:00.008+01:00

Some folk might remember that Telos was struggling earlier in the year with various attacks by spam orders - basically some scrotes using the Telos site to verify card/PayPal information by firing orders at our payments hub to do the verification. A total pain and I tried everything I could to try and block the orders but to no avail. Nothing seemed to work, no plugin stopped them!

It went away for a bit but then the other week came back with a vengeance! I was searching the WordPress Plugins for anything that might work and came across Anti-Spam by CleanTalk, a spam prevention and firewall plugin, and it offered a free 7 day trial ... so I reasoned nothing to lose.

And it worked! Superbly it started to block all those spam orders ... as well as a multitude of bot activity and rogue comments and goodness knows what else!

After running it for a few days I could see that it was really doing the job! So we subscribed ... and it was not expensive at all! For a small publisher it's a real godsend ...

Here's a few screenshots showing the dashboard, how it displays what it's doing, and a sample shot of some of the spam it has prevented from getting to us ... Simply brilliant and I cannot recommend it highly enough. Available from https://cleantalk.org/

DASHBOARD

SUMMARY DISPLAY

DETAIL DISPLAY OF SPAM IT HAS BLOCKED

Review: New Doctor Who Activity books

2025-09-11T14:47:00.001+01:00

A trio of new activity books from the Doctor Who stable, and as usual with the officially published titles, they're aimed at the young and the very young.

First off is The Official Doctor Who Quiz Book by Beth Axford. Now Axford already published an Unofficial Doctor Who Quiz Book a few years back (from John Blake books) but now it seems she has gone legit and has a BBC one available.

From the outset you can see the level at which this has been aimed, with a 'letter from the Doctor' opening proceedings in a flippant and very written down style and explaining that he has lost the TARDIS and his friend Belinda, and that the TARDIS databanks kept getting everything wrong - the information was being messed around with and rewritten ... So the reader has to accept the mission to answer questions and to find him!

Immediately we get off to a worrying start with the first question asking which Earth Junkyard Susan and the Doctor lived in during the early sixties. The three options are: Totter's Yard, Totting's Junkyard, or Tottie's Yard. The problem is that none of these are actually the answer. The yard didn't have a name! The doors had the name: 'I M Foreman', the words 'Scrap Merchant', and the address: '76, Totter's Lane', written on. 'totter's yard' is just a description of what the place was. In 'Logopolis' the Doctor corrects Adric and says 'a totter's yard' and in 'The Devil's Chord', the Doctor explains: 'In the past, right now, I live in a place called Totter's Lane. 1963, I park the Tardis in a junkyard and live there with my granddaughter, Susan.' 'Totter's Yard' is intended to be the correct answer, even though it isn't. The closest might be 'I M Foreman's Scrap Yard', or 76 Totter's Lane.

Question 4 then brings up the sticky issue of the number of incarnations by asking who the first adversaries he came up against when he regenerated into his second incarnation. So, obviously they are taking the number as the order seen on television, so the answer would be the Daleks ... but of course Hartnell has has been established on screen as NOT being the first incarnation of the Doctor - The Renegade Doctor seems to pre-date him ... and depending on whether you believe the Timeless Child element, or the Morbius Doctors, there may have been many incarnations before Hartnell.

Question 82 states that Polly Wright was one of the Doctor's companions, but her second name was never revealed on screen.

The book as a whole tells a story of what has happened to the Doctor and the TARDIS and takes in a dizzying number of times and places with questions coming related to each. As such it's a fun and breezy book which Doctor Who obsessed kids should find fun to work through. I can't assert to the accuracy of the whole thing, and it's a shame that the very first question seems inaccurate, but overall it's not a bad attempt and much better than a dry as dust book of questions which many previous attempts have been.

Next up we have The Official Colouring Book and this does what it says on the cover. It's a collection of lovely black and white pages from the pen of Mike Collins, and covers all manner of imagery from classic to new, from Daleks to Haemovores, from bi-generation to the P'ting, from K9 to Davros and the Cybermen. Sensibly the pages are only printed on one side, so any colour bleedthrough from using felt pens won't spoil the pages.

It's an attractive book, and with the addition of a set of felt tip pens or coloured pencils, should keep the little ones occupied for a fair time.

The final title is one of the strangest I've seen for some time, perhaps since the Doctor Who Pattern Book (a knitting book by Joy Gammon) from 1984. This is AmiguWHOmi, an odd word that plays on the word 'amigurumi', a term for the Japanese art of knitting or crocheting small, stuffed, yarn creatures and dolls. This is a Doctor Who crochet book, with instructions as to how to make little crotchet dolls and figures of many characters from Doctor Who.

It kicks off with a sort of 'how to do crochet' chapter which shows with pictures and text how to start crocheting and how to do the stitches needed. This is all Greek to me, sadly, and the remainder of the book includes pictures and detailed instructions as to how to make items like coasters, a fez and bow tie, a Time Vortex blanket, as well as figures of the Doctors, K9, a TARDIS book sleeve and much more besides. I feel you need a certain dedication and skill to be able to make any of these things ... attributes which I don't possess, but then I'm certainly not the target audience here.

The issue is perhaps that it assumes there is an eager market for people who want to make their own crochet figures and so on using the techniques: and perhaps I am wrong and there is! I have seen sellers at various conventions selling things like this, and, indeed I have a bridal pair of crocheted Daleks somewhere, but it seems so specialist and niche that I wonder if the book will find a market. Especially as it is £20 for a full colour 192 page paperback.

And who is Liz Ward? There's no biography of her in the book ... she seems to be a York based UK crochet designer who has been creating original crochet patterns since 2011, and specialising in the amigurumi style. She also has a crochet-based podcast and seems to be something of an expert in the field. So the book has a good pedigree!

The book is nicely designed and illustrated, but for me is more of a curio as to the many ways that Doctor Who can be marketed and promoted. I can't see myself taking up crochet any time soon!

Review: Doctor Who Icons: Shirley Jackson and Fela Kuti

2025-09-11T14:36:00.004+01:00

The latest two short novellas in the BBC's Doctor Who Icons series cover possibly two of the most obscure people they could have picked. My earlier complaints about this series remain: there is nothing in the books to explain what they are doing, or the themes they are playing with. I assume that in the days of the internet and Google, they expect readers to do their own research!

Shirley Jackson and the Chaos Box is up first, and Kalynn Bayron has delivered the slightest of tales which involves the fifteenth Doctor unexpectedly turning out to be a massive fan of the writer Shirley Jackson (who I have heard of!), and so taking Ruby to first see her house, and then back in time to meet the lady herself.

It all revolves around Jackson's story The Lottery, which is explained at some length in the text, and, co-incidentally, there is a strange box in her past which may be the inspiration for the story. The text, however is slight, and, frankly, any horror writer could have been substituted and it would have made no difference. The sci-fi trappings involve a race of aliens who are nice to everyone, and a couple of them who decide that it would be better if everyone was angry and chaotic.

Sadly there's really not much more to say here. It's nicely written and takes place between 'The Devil's Chord' and 'Boom' on television ... and as such I didn't spot the appearance of a Susan Triad clone unless it's very well hidden!

The other title is One Night Only (A Fela Kuti Story) by Tade Thompson, and I had never heard of Fela Kuti and so needed to Google (he was a Nigerian musician and political activist). The story this time features the fourth Doctor, Sarah Jane Smith, Harry Sullivan and the Brigadier faced with an invasion of brain-tapping flying aliens. It's quite a fun little tale, but complex, and Fela Kuti ends up helping the team to solve the problem that is facing them. However as with the Jackson book, it could probably have been any musician.

The two books together I found somewhat unsatisfying. They are both very short (Jackson is 85 pages while Kuti is 94 pages) and the action whizzes past in a flash. Compared with the other Doctor Who series that BBC Children's Books has been running, where the books play homage to other works of literature (Dracula, Frankenstein, Alice in Wonderland and so on), these seem to be written for a much younger age group.

Doctor Who's original remit was to entertain and educate, and these two titles certainly do that. Hopefully they are finding readers among the younger set who are then inspired to go and find out more.

Review: Doctor Who Target Books: Empire of Death / The Robot Rebellion / Lux / The Well

2025-08-04T16:19:00.001+01:00

Another batch of four novelisations of recent Doctor Who adventures in the revived Target range, and these seem to be doing well for the BBC as there are more in the pipeline. I do wonder if doing them in batches is the best marketing approach though? I suppose it reduces the need to try and promote a book every month doing it this way, and it also means they're not working to such a schedule on them. But I sort of miss the book-a-month schedule of the olden days - or a book every two months perhaps.

The odd thing about these recent adventures is that they're not (as yet) releasing ALL the stories, even though they are a linked narrative in each case. This means that the reader just gets part of the picture each time, and then the author has to fill in what detail is needed. For these titles these running themes are around the multiple appearances of Susan Triad in Empire of Death and the appearances of Mrs Flood in the others.

So to the individual books, and these have very individual styles.

Empire of Death is a novelisation by script editor Scott Handcock of the final two episodes of Ncuti Gatwa's first season as the Doctor, and as such it it is longer than the others. It follows the transmitted episodes fairly faithfully, but Handcock also adds in some material which was cut from the scripts for various reasons (which includes a rather nice, but probably very expensive to realise, sequence on the planet Vortis where we again see the giant ant-like Zarbi (first seen in the 1965 story 'The Web Planet' and never again!)).

There's more explanation of what is going on here, especially around why Susan Triad has been cropping up everywhere, but the book still doesn't quite explain how Sutekh has changed from being a powerful alien with delusions of grandeur into being an actual God of Death. The writing style is quite basic and thus the novelisation proceeds at a pace similar to the TV episodes, with the big climax and reveal of Sutekh coming around mid-way through. There's not much to explain the Doctor's sojourn in the dead and dying universe to find a spoon (a remaining piece of reality), or the - complete lack of - significance of Ruby's family and her being left by the church on Ruby Road and all the pointing and old VHS and Time Window mystery in the first half.

I quite liked that Sutekh's harbingers, and the Beast himself, had their dialogue in a different font. It brought to mind Terry Pratchett's Death who of course spoke in OMINOUS CAPITALS.

Overall I enjoyed the read and I feel that it acquitted itself nicely given that the story wraps up the whole season of stories which led to this.

Next up is The Robot Rebellion and I really enjoyed this one. It's possibly my favourite of the four. What author Una McCormack has done is filleted and deconstructed the events on screen and presented them in a slightly revised order and with additional material to fill in the elements missing from what we saw. Thus the inhabitants of Missbelindachandra One are more rounded and believable, and we understand more the timeline from their perspective, as well as from the perspective of Belinda herself. The Doctor too seems to be running around, in and out of scenes, just missing Belinda but being always on the periphery.

It's an enjoyable and rollicking read and makes the most of the novelisation format to expand and explain more what happened on screen and to provide a rounded and enthralling read. I could see young readers loving this tale of robots and space queens and gunfights and battles and AI monsters and wanting to see the TV story after reading it.

Belinda is introduced well and I was interested to see that the revelations at the END of this season were not included in the novelisation, so what we are told and shown here is the same as in the televised version. Which is probably as it should be - leave it to the novelisations of 'Wish World' and 'The Reality War' to deal with those!

The third book is Lux by James Goss, and I assume they gave him this one as he made such a great job of The Giggle a few years back. Goss tries to repeat the magic here, but sadly for me it fell flat. There's not the same level of cleverness that can be brought here as offered by The Giggle. We do get a couple of pages told in animation (which are possibly screen grabs off the televised story - I'm not certain) and there's some imagery to support the sequence where the Doctor and Belinda have to literally pull themselves out of the frames of film, Looney Tunes style, in order to escape. The designer is also having fun playing with fonts too ... adding a sort of cartoonish element to the read.

The meta sequences with the Doctor Who fans are nicely done (and they get a prologue to themselves as well) but overall I found this book somewhat lacklustre. As though it was trying too hard and not quite hitting the target (excuse the pun).

It covers all the bases and includes the Mrs Flood cameo at the end (but does not explain or add to it) and overall was an okay read with not much added to the teleplay.

Finally we have The Well by Gareth L Powell, a name new to the Target novelisations, but Gareth has been writing Science Fiction for many years now and is very accomplished at it. This shows in the book as his writing is elegant and flows well, introducing us to our leads, and then the hapless space marines who have been assigned to find out what has happened on this strange planet.

The book, like the TV story, has more than a few allusions to the film Aliens and has a similar tense set-up and revelation. I found it exciting and well paced, with lots of backstory added to help readers identify with the marines. The situation they find themselves in seems hopeless but on this occasion the Doctor doesn't quite manage to win through!

One interesting element is that because the story to which this is a sequel has not (yet) been novelised, Powell has to fill in here what happened on that previous meeting, and this does open up a big question - as on television - as to why the creature's motivations and modus operandi has changed between then and now. There's sadly no answers in the book, so just go with it and enjoy the ride! This was my second favourite read of the four, managing to bring in a novelisation which worked as a book in itself rather than just a straight retelling of the TV script.

I'm not quite sure why the chapters are interspersed with Personnel File entries for the marines, except perhaps to add more backstory to them. My feeling was that this information, if relevant, would have been better served by being included in the narrative, rather than being placed in these segments. However these don't detract from the overall read which is fast and intriguing and more than a little scary.

It's nice and nostalgic to see that the books each identify who the Doctor is on the cover (for Lux this is amended to explain it's a cartoon version of the Doctor), but for the cover of The Well, there's actually six characters pictured, and the main one isn't the Doctor at all ... which could be somewhat confusing!

The next three novelisations in 2026 are for 'The Impossible Planet'/'The Satan Pit' (Matt Jones), 'The Time of Angels'/'Flesh and Stone' (Jenny Colgan) and 'Aliens of London'/'World War Three' (Joseph Lidster).

Review: Doctor Who: The Reality War

2025-06-18T14:11:00.009+01:00

Sorry it's taken me a bit of time to get to reviewing the climax to the latest season of Doctor Who. Blame too much else happening in my life!

But here we are at last, and despite a couple of weeks wondering how to approach the review I'm still no closer, so I'm just going to start typing and see where it all takes me.

Fundamentally, the episode had too much to do. Russell T Davies had decided to try and bring together all the threads from Ncuti Gatwa's second season, but also to introduce aspects of his first season, and to try and bring together the concept of the 'Gods' which started in the 14th Doctor specials before that. And on top of all this, there was an apparent change of direction somewhere in there which meant that Gatwa was leaving and so the whole thing needed to end on the usual (traditional?) cliffhanger of a new Doctor coming in. That is a fair amount to try and juggle in about 66 minutes!

Sad to say that I don't think the final episode was wholly successful in its aims. There's just too much to try and sort out. There's too many hanging threads which were not addressed, and this is important as in this day and age of TV series apparently needing to have a 'season arc', if you're going to do that, then it's important that you actually complete the arc and have the whole thing making sense at the end. If you don't then you're going to alienate your audience who then may not come back for more the following season. These endings are important!

Thus not addressing who 'the Boss' is as referred to by the Meep way back, not addressing why the Doctor saw his granddaughter Susan in the episodes leading to the climax, not addressing how this Vindicator device, supposedly invented and built by the Doctor to triangulate routes back to the Earth, ends up being the perfect fit for a giant clock face that the Rani has built (and even has a hand which points the time), but then is also some sort of ultimate weapon thing which can fire power beams to force Omega back to his Underverse place. This was just so convenient that it beggared belief.

And what about all the 'clues' that the Doctor was not in the real world anymore? An entire episode about fiction and imagination 'The Story and the Machine' in which Mrs Flood and Poppy seemed to be stories. Mrs Flood breaking the fourth wall all the time and speaking to the audience ... nothing came of it all.

The Rani's plan, as discussed in my review of the previous episode, 'Wish World', also made no sense whatsoever. She wanted to create a world based on the wishes of Conrad (who we discover here learned from the Doctor's little lecture, and created the world were people were nice to each other) so that the Doctor could doubt it, and that doubt would crack reality and release Omega. And why did she want to release Omega? So that his DNA could be used to repopulate the Time Lord race as they are all infertile from the Genetic explosion during the Time War. Twice the Doctor refers to Omega as a Time Lord, but he was never this - he was a Stellar Engineer who detonated the black hole which then gave the Gallifreyans the power they needed to become Time Lords. Omega himself was thrown through the black hole into a universe of anti-matter where he stewed and plotted and lost who he was, becoming an entity of matter created by his own mind. He was not a Time Lord.

As someone in the episode commented, why not use the DNA you have: the Rani's and the Doctor's? But that wasn't going to work for some reason as they are sterile. But the Rani is a genetic scientist and genius (even if she seems to have inherited some of the Master's craziness here) and so couldn't she create Time Lord babies in test tubes if she had the DNA?

In and around all this jiggery pokery we have the mystery of Poppy - supposedly the child of the Doctor and Belinda while in Wish World (except that neither could actually remember having her or bringing her up - we just have to accept that this is the case) but then, because reality shatters, Poppy isn't the Doctor's child at all, and even though he gets Susan Triad to create a handy (and impossible) Zero Room at UNIT HQ and puts Belinda and Poppy in there so they don't get affected when the Wish is cancelled, Poppy still vanishes shortly after.

What I really didn't understand about this sequence was that everyone else remembered everything that had been the case, but that was now not the case (like the actor Ernest Borgnine not being dead), but could not remember Poppy being there, or anything related to her. And this included the Doctor (who usually can remember stuff from alternate timelines and so on as he's a Time Lord). Only Ruby could remember, but there's nothing to explain why this would be. It just is. So Ruby has to convince the Doctor that Poppy being missing is one of those 'glitches' and he decides to use his regeneration energy to force the universe to slip a gear and to set things back right again.

Of course once he does this, Poppy does now exist, but she's still not his child. She's Belinda's. And we further discover that she is the reason that Belinda wanted to come home on 24 May - as Poppy and Belinda's mum were waiting for her. This all seems a very weak and 'normal' reason. And it's backed up by lots of clips of Belinda explaining to the Doctor all about Poppy - clips that we didn't see in their respective stories. I wondered whether the clips were recorded at the same time as those stories which would mean that Davies had this ending in mind all along, or whether they were reset with the same costumes and CGI backgrounds and so on while the final episode was being recorded. I guess it doesn't really matter, but it was a nice way of showing how reality had shifted and that things were now not the same as before.

On this subject though, how many beings lost their lives or just ceased to exist because the Doctor jogged reality over a cog. Maybe more actors are now dead who were not before. Maybe more were alive who had been dead? The Doctor doesn't seem concerned about any of this.

His and Belinda's reactions too when Poppy is being erased and Ruby is trying to let them know seemed callous and harsh. Not like the Doctor at all. He and Belinda are just self-obsessed with where to travel to next, even ignoring Ruby and the obvious pain this was all causing her.

There's just so many elements in the episode which don't make sense when you think about them. Kate uses a chip embedded in all the UNIT personnel to 'wake them up' and to bring them to UNIT HQ. But they are all in the Wish World. UNIT is only reverting back to the real reality because Anita is keeping the Time Hotel door open. So in the Wish World, why would these people have a UNIT chip? And why would it work? Shirley 'didn't exist' in the Wish World but she was obviously there and functioning, if not realising that she had been a UNIT officer. And Mel? Well she did exist in the Wish World ... and Rose (Donna's daughter), well she just appeared from nowhere as Conrad had literally made her vanish as she was trans. And how did Mel ride her scooter through London and up into UNIT HQ, up in the lifts (or did she take the stairs) and then drive straight into the main control room without anyone questioning it? Was it just the control room which reverted to real reality or the whole building? Didn't it have any security at the front entrance? How did she get it through the revolving doors and turnstiles? Too much is just handwaved away and shortcut in the narrative for it to really make sense. You just have to smile and move on - it's not meant to make sense, it's just nice and dramatic.

So opposite the giant clock in the Rani's bone palace we have a giant Gallifrey logo. Not sure why. And then it changes to the symbol that Omega had on his costume in 'Arc of Infinity'. And then it's a doorway to the Underverse. And then Omega is there, but rather than being a powerful and vengeful creature of thought, he's a giant CGI monster (as Sutekh was) and he's so big he can't even get through this doorway! They didn't think that through did they. So he scoops up and eats the Rani with no apparent ill or beneficial effects. The other Mrs Flood/Rani grabs the Time Ring (she never had a TARDIS, apparently the Doctor has the only one) and vanishes off somewhere else. I guess she lives to fight another day.

But why was she swanning around dressing as all the Doctor's previous companions? Was this solely because in 'Time and the Rani' she pretended to be Mel to try and trick the newly regenerated Doctor who was confused at the time? There was a reason for it in that earlier story. I got that she was monitoring the Doctor and making sure the Vindicator thing was doing what it was supposed to, but why dress as his companions?

And if you've got a Time Ring that can apparently take you anywhere and anytime, then why do you need a TARDIS anyway? If you really want one then you could just use the Time Ring and go in time and space to somewhere where you knew there were operational TARDISes (the Master's? The Monk's? The War Lord's SIDRATs? The Doctor's? The Daleks'?) and just steal one? When you're talking about a Time Machine, how can there only be one left? Have all others been erased from all of time? If that happened then the whole of the Doctor's past history would be rewritten if there was no Master and no Dalek time machine etc etc ... so it doesn't seem likely.

And while we're back on the whole Rani plan thing, why, at the end of 'The Robot Revolution' did we see fragments of the Earth floating in space, suggesting that the Earth has been destroyed on the 24 May? The plot at the end suggested that the 24 May never came as the world 'reset' at the end of the 23 May and the only day they all ever lived in Wish World was the 23 May. Was this a suggestion that if Omega had emerged and run riot then the Earth would have been destroyed on the 24th? And the Doctor's actions stopped that happening and thus when the Wish ended, it all carried on (mostly) as it had been before, but then the Doctor jumped reality a little more ...

And then we get to the ending. There's lots of speculation online as to what happened, what the 'original' ending should have been - that it involved Susan and a party or something - that there were hasty remounts and material recorded late in the day ... all sorts of stuff. But of course we can only really judge on what we actually saw.

For reasons I can't recall, the 13th Doctor appears in the TARDIS and gives the 15th a bit of a talking to, advising him on how to make the regen energy into the TARDIS thing work, and then she vanishes off again. Then the Doctor fires his regeneration energy into the TARDIS which causes reality to skip. But then the Doctor is about to actually regenerate, so he puts it off so he can be sure that Poppy and Belinda are safe ... and then he's off in the TARDIS. He wants to have a witness to his regeneration and so turns to Joy - the lady from 'Joy to the World', the Christmas Special, who became a literal star - and he blasts his regeneration out into the universe of space (where does all this energy go I wonder. I thought the point was to turn it inward to make him regenerate, not to allow it all to escape ... but anyway) and he regenerates.

Next thing we have Billie Piper saying Hello! But the end credits don't credit her as the Doctor, just 'introducing'. What a strange way to end the episode. Especially when, if you can believe half of what is talked about on the interwebs, there is no interest from Disney in more Doctor Who, and the BBC is trying to find another partner to continue it.

Why do that? Why introduce an apparent new Doctor which a new production partner might not even want? It seems very strange. Unless of course the new Piper Doctor has a role in the forthcoming The War Between Land and Sea series? Or all this internet gossip is just that and there is a new season or Christmas Special in the offing and something will resolve there.

However on this occasion I doubt it. There are too many loose ends and elements introduced which are then skipped over for me to be wholly convinced that there is any game plan at work here. As I said at the start, for a series arc to work, it has to be an arc, it has to make sense in the end, and the season needs to come to a conclusion which is worked for and which doesn't feel like 'stuff happens because'. Sadly for the Gatwa years, this seems to be the main takeaway.

Looking back over the individual episodes though, for the most part I have enjoyed them all. There's lots to like, some great performances, good and interesting ideas, and some absolute standout drama. Possibly my least favourite was 'Rogue' as I just can't get on with the Doctor falling in love with someone he just met. Yes he can care about others, he can try and make things better for them. He obviously loves and cares for the people who travel with him as he develops a bond with them as a result - it would be hard not to care for someone you have so much shared experience with. But the Doctor going all googly eyed over someone he (or she) just met just didn't sit with me. I felt the same about 'The Girl in the Fireplace' where the Doctor falls for Madame de Pompadour.

I loved Gatwa as the Doctor. Bags of charisma and energy, and he seemed to put his all into playing the role with gusto. I enjoyed Ruby and Belinda, again great performances and the actresses were believable in their respective roles. Even if Ruby's story last season was a little too 'normal' as well. She found her mother ... nothing unusual ... the whole season-long mystery of who she was and why she was abandoned as a baby wasn't a mystery at all. It had nothing to do with anything.

And so we come to the end of another era in Doctor Who's long history. Another Doctor has come and gone ... maybe to come back as a surprise guest in a future story ... maybe not. I have no crystal ball to tell me what the next few years will bring. Maybe Doctor Who will be back with another streaming company (I've seen Amazon mentioned) with a new Doctor (maybe Billie Piper, maybe not). Maybe there will be another 'hiatus' and we won't have any more Doctor Who on television for the next few years (except maybe a made-for-preschoolers cartoon version, and I have no idea what the BBC is thinking on that score. I fear it will be dreadful with only the name and perhaps some characters in common with the show I love. It certainly won't get pre-schoolers wanting to watch the live action version, and if they do then they will be in for a shock!)

There will continue to be the fans of course, endlessly creating new audio dramas and books (for as long as the BBC wants to license them for). And even if the official licenses drop away, there will be fan produced adventures and books and audios and dramas. Technology is such that it's much easier to do all these things now than the last time the show went off air.

So it's probably going to be an interesting and exciting time ahead. I hope I manage to stay around to enjoy it!

***

And if you enjoy my ramblings, please check out a new book I have coming from Bedford Square Publishing on October 9. Called WHO ME! it's my Doctor Who Memoirs ... my life in Doctor Who!

Signed copies are available from me direct: https://samantha-lee-howe-ltd.sumupstore.com/product/who-me-david-j-howe-signed-hardback

And it's also on Amazon UK :)

Review: New Doctor Who Books

2025-06-09T12:27:00.001+01:00

There's four new Doctor Who titles on the pile to review, so here goes!

First up are two new novels in the BBC's hardbacked fiction range. At this time these focus on whoever the current Doctor is, and so these two have Ncuti Gatwa's 15th Doctor as the lead, and while Spectral Scream features Belinda Chandra as the companion, the other, Fear Death By Water has no companion.

Spectral Scream first and I really enjoyed this tale by Hannah Fergesen set mid-way through Gatwa's second season, and sort of slotted in as another adventure following 'Lux'.

The Doctor and Belinda arrive on a planet, Sooz, where an eternal dance party is taking place. The Doctor gets his Vindicator reading, and Belinda notes someone looking remarkably like Mrs Flood, her next door neighbour, watching him. However things start to go awry when a psychic 'scream' echoes around, sending the time travellers off to investigate.

They arrive on planet Stenlar One Zero Six Five lower-case f, which is supposed to be uninhabited but which hosts a multitude of vegetation and fungi ... and some humanoids who have become symbiotic with the fungus. It's all very imaginative, and the plot continues to twist and turn as to what is going on, what the 'scream' is, and how the Doctor needs to untangle it all.

I could believe in the Doctor and Belinda, and the other characters are also well drawn. The plot has a lot of event crammed in, and I liked the movement of the characters throughout the story. A good, engaging read!

Onto Fear Death By Water by Emily Cook, and sadly it's not a patch on Spectral Scream. It reads more like one of the other series of books that Penguin are publishing, Icons, where the Doctor meets various 'famous' characters from history. Here it's Grace Darling, whose work rescuing ships and sailors initiated the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. The Doctor is inexplicably visiting a museum devoted to the RNLI in 2000 and meets a young Emily. He then realises that a barometer belonging to Grace Darling is emitting Artron energy and so goes back in time to explore.

It transpires that some creature is inhabiting the seas and that it has an affinity with Grace, and so the Doctor is able to help some aliens as well as the creature and Grace, and all ends happily ever after. Except that Grace still dies in 1842 from TB aged only 26. It's a tale of ships and windswept seas, and I'm not sure what relevance the title has as no-one seems to actually fear death by water, although Grace alludes to it on one occasion.

I found it all rather simplistic, with a straightforward plot, and a 'the Doctor meets ...' premise which rather weighs down the Icons series as well. Lovely cover though!

Both of these books are also available on Audio. Spectral Scream is read by Michelle Asante while Susan Twist tackles Fear Death By Water.

The third fiction title is Doctor Who: Frankenstein and the Patchwork Man by Jack Heath, and this is in a third series of titles that Puffin are publishing, and these riff on older, well known works of literature, and include the Doctor in the action somewhere along the way. They are not copies of the source material, but new stories which take characters and leads from them, but go off in their own direction.

The source here is Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus, and I think everyone probably knows the basic plot if not from the book, but from the myriad adaptations and expansions that there have been over the years.

Here we have the ninth Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) and Rose (Billie Piper) in an adventure on Earth involving a strange stitched together creation powered by something called Voltigrades. There's Vincent Frankenstein who is trying to bring life back to deceased matter, and a plot that just whisks you along at a madcap pace.

I think of the three fiction titles reviewed here, this was my favourite. Heath manages to cram a lot into the book, and it's scary and horrifying as well as surprising and action packed. Everyone gets something to do, and the solutions don't come easily. In many ways the novel, despite being published by Puffin (a children's imprint), is more grown up than the novels published under the BBC imprint.

A good tale which recreates well the exhausting helter-skelter of the ninth Doctor's TV season.

The final book is another tome of puzzles, The Official Doctor Who Puzzle Book by Dr Simon Fox. It's basically a book of code-type puzzles, but there are several different types. Finding the connection between four words; putting names and phrases back together again; putting clues together to find the final entry; mathematical calculations using clues to the numbers ... a lot of mind-bending fun basically.

Review: Doctor Who: Wish World

2025-05-30T17:32:00.000+01:00

As I start this review of the Doctor Who episode 'Wish World' I note that this is the 500th post on this blog! So yay to me!!! I hope you, constant reader, have been enjoying the ride!

Anyway, back to the plot, and we're here to look at the 'Wish World' episode of Doctor Who ahead of the finale to the season (which is available tomorrow, 31 May 2025!).

I have learned over the years to be very wary of these two parters, as inevitably the ball is dropped and the second part never/rarely fulfils the promise of the first. I think the writers tend to set themselves too high a bar, working towards an amazing cliffhanger which then doesn't pay off. And in a way this is what we have here. The previous episode ending with the Doctor and Belinda in the TARDIS and the TARDIS doors explode inwards ... and this episode, in classic Steven Moffat style, starts with something totally different, ignoring all that has gone before.

I'm not going to relay the 'plot' as the whole episode is just a concept and trailer for the Rani's plan, which she reveals in some detail towards the end. And it's a plan worthy of the Cybermen in it's complete complexity for something which you would think should be quite simple.

So.

The Rani apparently survived the Time Wars and the destruction of Gallifrey and all the Time Lords along with it. As did the Doctor, of course. Oh, and the Master too. Oh, and probably some other Time Lords somewhere also ... it's the thing you see with time travel, you can never be quite sure of what 'reality' actually is. And this is what this episode is all about.

The Rani is a Time Lord, and presumably she has a working TARDIS and this is how she, in her Mrs Flood guise, popped up all over the place in each of the episodes this season. So if she has a working TARDIS, and she wanted to go find the progenitor of the Time Lords, Omega, isn't the obvious course of action to go back to a time when Omega was alive and stop him from detonating the star which created the Time Lords' power and banished Omega to an anti-matter universe in the first place ... or let him do all that or she would never have been in the first place, but then rescue him at some point before he was banished?

Instead, the Rani has this crazed plan to kidnap a baby, who happens to be the God of Wishes (and who creepily chuckles the 'Giggle' cadence) and who can literally make anything happen. All you do is kiss the baby and your wishes come true, whatever they are. She grabs the child back in 1865 and so could have changed the world then if she so wanted.

Enter Conrad from the earlier episode. Now he is a conspiracy theorist, believing all the irrational theories and ideas which populate the internet. 'Reality' is not good enough for him, there must be some higher reason for everything to happen - coincidence and 'just because' is not a reason, there is always someone pulling strings, some fiendish plot to remove all the currency, to create a pandemic, to want people to be vaccinated, to kill Kings and Presidents and popular actresses, and to start wars. The simple answers are not enough, and you're obviously not 'doing the research' to find out the truth if you're happy to accept what millions of scientists have researched for decades over what some chap in his basement on YouTube says.

With this as our character, I have a problem believing that his 'wish world' would be a perfect one where everyone works 9-5, is happy, lives in cookie cutter houses, is married with a child (well, not everyone as obviously Mel, Ibrahim and Kate are not married) and who listens to Conrad on the TV telling 24x7 'fairy stories' about 'Doctor Who'. In this world there are no conspiracies, everything is as you see it, and you're not permitted to doubt anything - actually the opposite of how Conrad was set up in the first place. He was nothing but doubt - he even refused to believe when a Shreek was about to kill him. I have a problem rationalising his character here, and also the world he created.

But doubt is the key to the Rani's plan. She has got Conrad to create this world precisely so that the Doctor will doubt it, as the doubt of a Time Lord has more power than the billions of humans. Even so she has some very cool looking beings called Seekers who seem to be monitoring and measuring the levels of doubt in the world. With the Doctor's doubt, she can crack through Conrad's 'reality' and open the gates to somewhere called the Underverse, which is where Omega is trapped.

But if this is the case, and the Rani wants there to be doubt - as much doubt as can be generated - to ensure that the Underverse is accessed, then why have everyone shutting doubt down at every turn. People report their friends and family for having doubt, and the police come and take them away. Having doubt is forbidden. You are not allowed to question. Again, completely the opposite of Conrad's whole worldview, and completely against what the Rani's plan is.

Anyway.

The Rani gets the Doctor back to her bone palace towering above London and, as in Conrad's world he cannot remember anything, she has to explain everything to him. And so he starts to remember.

But there's another trap. As the Doctor remembers (and is remembering who you are and that all this is fake actual 'doubt'? Not really. If you KNOW the truth, you do not doubt at all. So again this getting the Doctor to remember is actually working against the Rani's plan.) she gets him onto an outside balcony which she has rigged to explode off the main building, and so the episode ends with him shouting that Poppy, his daughter, is real as he plummets to the ground, which is itself collapsing and disintegrating as the Underverse is breached.

So ... killing the Doctor. That would 100% stop him doubting I would think. And thus the Rani's power source would be abruptly cut off. Not really something she wants if she wants to rescue Omega.

And 'Poppy is real'. Is the Doctor saying that Poppy is a real baby as he met her on the spaceship in 'Space Babies', or that she is his real daughter? So Susan's mother? And a Time Lord herself? At this point I've no idea what this meant. Maybe we'll find out next week.

It's always hard to review the first part of a two part story as you don't know what is significant and what is not. You don't know where the story is going or, of course, how it's going to play out, so all you can do is discuss and ruminate on what you have seen.

There are some cracking visuals here. I love the idea of incorporeal giant bone dinosaur things roaming London, although quite why Conrad wants them there I have no idea. Surely they don't fit in his vision of a perfect world? The bone palace is neat and as mentioned I loved the design and look of the 'seeker' creatures. Very much shades of the 1980 Flash Gordon film I felt. All the 'perfect world' stuff sadly left me a little cold and just wanting it to get on with things, but I understand why it's all there: to establish what's going on before we get all the backstory explanations.

One element which did work was the idea that anyone who didn't fit Conrad's idea of being 'right' is basically invisible, and thus unaffected by his worldview. So all the disabled and the dispossessed are living around those with jobs and happy families, but they are ignored and invisible to them. It's the sort of thing Conrad would probably like to see happen.

I felt the brief appearance from Rogue (from 'Rogue') was silly. Sending a message from a Hell Dimension ... how did he do that? And how did the Doctor receive it if he's in a world of Conrad's creation? Was it a fake from the Rani to get the Doctor to doubt more? In which case how did she know about Rogue in the first place? Susan is also seen on the screen, with the same questions.

A final comment harking back to my last review. Are there any non-ardent fan viewers who would have a clue who Omega was? He first appeared in the 1973 story 'The Three Doctors', and then again in 1983's 'Arc of Infinity'. Some great powerful Time Lord is perhaps the essence/assumption of what we were told ... I hope they're not forgetting that Omega was NOT a Time Lord, and was NEVER a Time Lord. Before he detonated the star, Time Lords did not exist ... and this became the basis for his anger and seething rage at the Time Lords. That he missed out and his brothers abandoned him. He actually has no power himself, just the power of his mind to create worlds and imaginary servants ... Sounds familiar.

The two faces of Omega ...

Anyway. We'll all find out tomorrow! I'm off to watch some yellow mugs fall through the table. Great fun!

Review: Doctor Who: The Interstellar Song Contest

2025-05-25T17:08:00.000+01:00

I suppose it was only a matter of time before Doctor Who did a riff on the Eurovision Song Contest ... but at least they didn't go the whole hog and have the Doctor actually appearing in it! Juno Dawson's tale takes a different tack as the TARDIS arrives on a Space Station, the Harmony Arena, where the 803rd Song Contest is taking place. He gets his final reading on the vindicator and Belinda and he settle down in a VIP booth to watch the show. It's puzzlingly hosted by real life presenter Rylan Clark, revived from cryogenic sleep each year it seems to present the show, but would anyone in the year 2925 actually know who he is? Same with erstwhile actor and chat show host Graham Norton, who has been preserved as a hologram to inform visitors to the Song Contest museum on the station. Why not use good old Terry Wogan, who hosted the UK presentation of the contest for many years before Norton took over. And also remember that this is an International contest, so each country has their own presenters and commentators, and as the UK rarely wins, why should the UK's presenters be those in favour or remembered in 2925?

Equally of course this is now the Interstellar song contest, so I guess each planet has its own presenters and commentators? No idea. Nice to see that one of Doctor Who's old monsters from the sixties, named Malpha (and also from that planet according to 'The Daleks' Master Plan') is kin to Liz Lizardo from Lizoko (or some such) ... Or not at all. What do you think?

Malpha?

Liz Lizardo?

Anyway, this is all just the backdrop to a story of the rape and pillage of the planet Hellion by the evil Corporation, who wanted the poppy seeds to allow them to make Poppy Honey (and who sponsor the Song Contest). Once they had the seeds, they destroyed the planet so no-one else could get them as well. Thus survivors from the planet, the Hellions, are out for revenge and one such, Kid, decides to kill everyone on the Harmony Station (100,000 life forms) and everyone watching across the universe (many trillions of life forms) using something called a delta wave to sonically blast them and kill them.

Thus the Doctor has to stop him. And that's basically the episode. There are some nice cameos from Mike and Gary, a gay couple, who just happen to have all the skills the Doctor needs. There's also Cora, one of the singers, and a closet Hellion. And some Corporation service Droids with golden heads, looking a little like the Slabs from 'Smith and Jones'. There's a touch of 'Four to Doomsday' as the Doctor uses a confetti cannon to blast himself back towards Harmony, and in a moment of extreme coincidence, straight into an airlock that Mike and Gary open for him. How did he know where that precise airlock would be? Or that there would be people there to open it for him? No idea.

While all this is going on, and it's a good plot ... exciting and rolling along nicely ... the Doctor suddenly, while floating, freezing in space, gets a vision of an older lady in the current TARDIS control room. She tells him to 'Go Back!' But who is she? It's not explained in the episode. The Doctor's mother perhaps? A memory? And go back where? To the TARDIS? To Gallifrey? To the Space Station?

Of course we fans will recognise the lady as the current incarnation of Carole Ann Ford, and that she is presumably playing a much older version of Susan, the Doctor's granddaughter, a part she played way back in 1963/4. But would a general audience know this or even have a clue? I doubt it. We were told about Susan last season of course, so they would perhaps know the name ... but it's not used in the show, only in the end credits.

Anyway, the revived and rescued Doctor gets back on Harmony, and manages to get into the control room and destroy the delta wave device. He also starts beating up Kid ... his hearts full of ice from Kid's callous disregard for life, no matter what triggered it. Susan reappears in his mind and tries to get the Doctor to stop, but it's only his reunion with Belinda which makes him stop. Kid is then dragged off somewhere for his crimes.

The Doctor then arranges for all 100,000 life forms to be brought back to the Station and, one by one at first, revived by the very handy Gary and Mike. Then he somehow converts the VIP pods into revival rooms and they can do more lives at once. All this is somewhat hand-wavy and 'it just happens' but in actuality, would be impossible to do. To pick on just one element: all the life forms were propelled out of Harmony by the gravity (sorry, mavity, they're still doing that!) bubble bursting, but the laws of outer space mean that they would all just keep on going, farther and farther away, at the same speed. So by the time they come to try and retrieve them, they would be miles and miles away and spreading out!

It then goes all Eurovision: The Legend of Fire Saga, a simply superb Will Farrell film which riffs on the whole Eurovision thing. Cora takes to the stage and sings a song of her people (which is strangely not translated by the TARDIS). At the end there is silence, but then Mike and Gary start clapping and soon the whole audience is cheering and applauding. This echoes the end of the film where a similar thing happens when Amy Adams sings her Icelandic song.

As we draw to a close, the Doctor tries again to get to Earth on, or I suppose before, May 24, but this time the TARDIS' internal lights go red and the Cloister Bell rings, warning of disaster. And then the TARDIS doors explode inwards!

The titles start, but then stop again as we've not quite finished. By another extreme coincidence, in 100,000 life forms saved, the very last one is Mrs Flood. But she has a trick up her sleeve and bi-generates into another, younger woman. They are both the Rani, the new one being the definite article so to speak, words which echo the Doctor after regenerating into the form of the fourth Doctor in 1974. But, again, who is the Rani? She last appeared on the show in the debut outing for the Seventh Doctor in 1987 ... and never mentioned thereafter, so why should the audience have a clue who she is? She was played by Kate O'Mara back in the eighties, but Archie Panjabi does a good job as the younger Rani, but at this point, all we really know is that she's another Time Lord (so the Doctor is not the last of the Time Lords as he keeps saying ... even though that's not true anyway as isn't the Master still out there somewhere? Last seen trapped in the Toymaker's gold tooth, which was retrieved by a mystery person at the end of 'The Giggle'.)

It's all a little puzzling to be honest. So Mrs Flood was the Rani all along, a Time Lord. Presumably therefore she has her own TARDIS and can travel in time and space - hence her cropping up in the past ('Lux') and the future ('The Well') and on alien planets and so on, ending up in 2925 on Harmony Station. All to ensure the Doctor has powered up the vindicator. But what is her plan?

We shall find out ...

Review: Doctor Who: The Story and the Engine

2025-05-11T10:18:00.000+01:00

So we start to edge closer perhaps to what has been underpinning the most recent years of Doctor Who. Many people had pointed out that there seemed to me some 'meta' element to the stories, with characters breaking the fourth wall and generally events taking a more fantastical approach.

With 'The Story and the Engine' we have, more or less, a remake of the sixties story 'The Mind Robber', wherein a writer had been trapped in a Land of Fiction, and this self-styled Master of the Land of Fiction wanted the Doctor to take over his role and position there so he could escape, on the basis that the Doctor had a lot of stories to tell. The twist being that the Doctor had to be careful not to 'write' himself into any of the Master's own stories or he would become fictionalised and could then never escape.

Well, I was totally expecting the Barber to want the Doctor to replace him here, but that didn't happen. Instead we get a rather nice little story within stories, where the Barber is an ancient of some sort, the power behind the gods we have heard of as he refined their stories so that they could be retold and thus keep the gods alive (very much shades of Neil Gaiman's American Gods), and he uses the barber shop as a method of capturing people with good stories so they can tell them while he cuts their hair (which instantly regrows allowing it to then be cut again). Why he is doing this is to feed 'the Story Engine', a metaphysical creation of a heart within a brain in the back of the barber shop which is itself being carried on the back of a giant spider. It also somehow powers the spider.

There was so much story thrown at us here that I couldn't jot it all down or get it all, so I'm not sure where the spider was trying to get to, but the Barber's endgame is to destroy the Story Engine and thus the gods with it! But this would cause much disruption and so the Doctor needs to find a solution.

The whole thing though is completely tied up with the Doctor's own adventures. There's a woman there, Abby, the daughter of Anansi (the spider god) who the Doctor once won in a bet and then rejected (this was when he was the Renegade Doctor, and we see a nice cameo from Jo Martin as that Doctor). Also, the Barber has tales of rocket ships ('The Robot Rebellion') and a cinema ('Lux') which suggests that these were stories rather than 'real' adventures. Mrs Flood cleverly appears in a story the Doctor tells about Belinda ... so is she something in this fictional realm also? Belinda meets Poppy from 'Space Babies' in the market outside, further suggesting that the Doctor has been walking in 'fiction' for some time now.

Rather than the stories and characters doing battle as in 'The Mind Robber', here the Doctor is for some reason linked to the Story Engine (as the Doctor was linked to the Master Brain in 'The Mind Robber'), and we see clips from many of his past adventures, past Doctors and so on ... and the sheer number of them causes the Engine to overload and explode ... meanwhile the Barber sees sense and opens the door so his captives can escape, similar again to 'The Mind Robber' where the destruction of the Master Brain causes all the 'captured' fictional characters to go their own way.

I found this episode well made and interesting, far more cerebral than perhaps the previous episodes in the season. It has a lot to say about the nature of story, and the nature of gods and how to survive they need the people to sing their songs and tell their stories ... and should we be drawing a parallel with the Doctor here that he needs the fans to sing his stories and his adventures for him to survive? I don't know. The performances were all first rate, but I struggled to capture who anyone actually was - what their character names were. I probably need another watch through to see if I can get them a second time.

The plot too was muddled and hard to follow. I'm not sure why the TARDIS convulsed every time the barber shop door opened and closed and the Story Engine's power supply dwindled. I'm not sure why Abby had to intricately create the map for the labyrinth behind the barber shop into the Doctor's hair (another call back to 'The Mind Robber' where the Doctor has to navigate a labyrinth). It was a nice touch though. Also, while the Doctor claimed to have visited the barber shop before to see his friend Omo, I assume it wasn't at that time a collection point for stories for the Engine? So when did it become that? When did the Barber take over ... and what was the Barber using as a collection point up to then, given that this spider machine thing, the gods and the stories had to have been around for centuries!

Despite this, the episode is visually rich, and fascinating in its blending of stories and whatever 'reality' is at this point. Elements may or may not become more important or return later in the season, so it's hard to try and figure out what the endgame might be for all this ... but there's certainly elements of messing with the Doctor's timeline and his 'story'. The ongoing mysteries of Mrs Flood and Belinda. Hints of greater powers being at work. And of course perhaps more of the pantheon of Gods. It's all building quite nicely.

Review: Doctor Who: Lucky Day

2025-05-04T15:11:00.004+01:00

'Lucky Day' is another Doctor-lite episode, and, like last year's '73 Yards' this focusses on Ruby Sunday, with brief appearances from the Doctor at the start and the end.

It's New Year's Eve 2007 (it's not clear if this is 2006 into 2007, or 2007 into 2008) and the Doctor and Belinda arrive in London as the New Year fireworks are going off). The Doctor takes a reading with his device, and they meet a lad called Conrad who sees the TARDIS appear. Conrad is eight years old at this point, but this event triggers a life of trying to find out more about the TARDIS (in a similar way to Clive in 'Rose', except that Clive was essentially harmless).

Flash forward 17 years - which is 'last' year - so in 2024 (taking the 2007 year as mentioned) and Conrad again sees the TARDIS and witnesses the Doctor and Ruby battling a creature called a Shreek. He gets green gunk on him and learns from overhearing the Doctor that this is how the Shreek marks it's prey for the following year (it only hunts on one day a year). Ruby (who seems to be having an adventure with the Doctor set between 'The Devil's Chord' and 'Boom') who was also marked, is given some antidote by the Doctor.

Thereafter Conrad spends a year searching for Ruby, eventually finding her and wooing her, making her think he's falling for her ... only for her to discover, after a terrifying night where it seems a whole pack of Shreek are hunting for Conrad (as he failed to take the antidote that she gave him), that these Shreek are fake, being played by Conrad's friends, and that Conrad is in fact denying that any of this ever happened and using his podcast to spread misinformation about the various alien incursions, with UNIT being at the forefront of his attack.

His lies gain traction and spiral outwards, gaining him news time and protests taking place around the world. People would prefer to believe the lies than the truth of the situation.

He infiltrates UNIT HQ and live-streams Kate Lethbridge-Stewart and others holding guns on him. He refuses to believe any of their talk is true, and demands that she reveal what UNIT is really up to, so Kate, in a last ditch attempt, releases the original Shreek which they had kept in storage, and it attacks Conrad. But he still refuses to believe!

We end with Conrad locked in a cell, when the Doctor visits and materialises the TARDIS around him. Sadly even the Doctor's little 'talk' cannot sway his mind that it's all tricks and the Doctor puts him back where he found him.

But the governor of the jail appears - it's Mrs Flood! - and she lets him out! I wonder how this then plays into the forthcoming events?

If you wanted a Doctor Who with a 'message' then this is it! But what staggers me is that this episode was written one or two years ago! And yet the whole theme: of there being 'bad actors' out on the internet who believe and spread conspiracy theories and lies with little or no actual evidence, and then refuse to believe the truth even when it is presented to them in black and white is more relevant now than ever before.

This is the current nature of the world in 2025. People believe their own versions of 'the truth' and violently and stringently refuse to acknowledge that there might be an alternate view, or that they might be wrong. Those doing the deliberate misleading hide behind their computers and pump this toxic rubbish out into the world ... maybe they're political opponents, maybe they're foreign disruptors, maybe they are contrarian bots ... maybe all of these and more ... I have no idea. But there are also those with no particular agenda who have been taken in and fooled by others ... believing everything they are told or read in the dingy corners of the internet, and dismissing facts and evidence from scientists, doctors and many others who have no reason to lie, and every reason to keep the facts in the public eye.

And it's dangerous. People do increasingly become misled by corrupt advisors or those with other self-aggrandising agendas at work. And they share and believe wholly the lies and the misinformation. And they spread. And they cause harm.

It's a brilliant, brilliant episode to hook into the narrative and to give voice to the concerns and the problems that this can cause. Absolute kudos to Pete McTighe for writing it, and to Russell T Davies for getting it on air. It truly is an episode for our time. It picks up themes from 'The Giggle' and runs with them! I guess there will be people out there who believe that Conrad is the hero here, and everyone else is wrong for trying to stop him ... but that's the whole point of the story!

Jonah Hauer-King as Conrad is superb. He plays the part to elicit our sympathy at first, and then when his motive is revealed, he is a thoroughly nasty piece of work. Not just misguided, but a true ignorant and dangerous monster of the first order. My sympathies were with the Shreek, an excellently realised creature, terrifying, but really just following its own urges.

In fact all the cast are exceptional here, with no weak links at all. Even the Doctor manages not to cry - not that he's in it much - but his speech at the end to Conrad is very pertinent.

'Cowards weaponise lies!'

Indeed.

I think we all know people who have gone off down the rabbit holes and usually we just delete and block them (well, I do!) ... but there are sadly those around with greater power and ability to influence others. So being able to sift through their lies and false assumptions becomes paramount in a world which is increasingly subject to the general public just believing what they see and read without checking.

I also like the idea that UNIT has a containment facility where they keep all the nasties they capture. I wonder just what they've got in there ... and what might happen if they escaped one day ...

Overall this is another very strong episode in a season which has already presented three excellent adventures in a row. I wonder if they can keep this level up to the end.

Review: Doctor Who: The Well

2025-04-27T16:30:00.003+01:00

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS SO PLEASE STOP READING IF YOU DON'T WANT TO BE SPOILED!

READY?

OK THEN ... YOU WERE WARNED ...

Doctor Who has enjoyed several 'sequel' stories over the years, most often of course featuring (and because of) the popularity of the monster that featured in the first one. Thus we have 'sequels' featuring Daleks and Cybermen and Sontarans to name but three. There are others of course: The Meddling Monk returned for a second outing in the season following 'The Time Meddler', the Yeti were back for another outing in the season following 'The Abominable Snowmen'. Sil was back the season following 'Vengeance on Varos' ... you're sensing a theme here ...

In 'New-Who' there have been some returns with quite a distance between the new and the original appearance. The Autons and the Nestene Intelligence returned in 'Rose', 34 years after 'Terror of the Autons'. The Macra were back in 'Gridlock', a mere 40 years between that and their first appearance in 'The Macra Terror'. With 'The Well' we are treated to the return of an enemy from 2008, just 17 years ago. To put this in context, it's a little like the Sensorites turning up in 'State of Decay'!

Let's get to the story though, and it's a cracker. The Doctor and Belinda are still trying to get back to Earth using this 'vindicator' device, and so the TARDIS lands on a space ship, but not before the pair get changed out of their gear from the previous story and into some rather natty spacesuits which just happen to completely be the same as those worn by a bunch of marine-like soldiers who are about to descend to the surface of the planet below. That TARDIS wardrobe is darn clever like that!

No sooner have they left the safety of the TARDIS than the Doctor and Belinda are completing their suiting up and jumping out of the ship to arrive safely on the planet surface. The Doctor does his vindicator thing, and then they're off exploring with the soldiers.

We're totally in Aliens territory here. There's a mining operation which they have lost contact with, a missing crew, and a blasted planet. So they explore and find a lone individual, Aliss, who is deaf, but who seems to be the only surviving person there. All the rest of the crew apparently went mad and killed each other. Except Aliss.

All the mirrors are broken as well, and, it seems, no-one has heard of the Earth. They are far in the future, and whatever happened to the Earth on 24 May 2025, it wiped the planet from existence.

So they try and work out what happened. Belinda starts seeing glimpses of something behind Aliss, and the Doctor discovers that this was a diamond mine before the star was destroyed. He further discovers that Planet 6767 used to be called Midnight ... and he has been here before (in the story called 'Midnight').

So they now have a dilemma. They want to save Aliss, but the mystery creature has latched onto her and is always behind her. Anyone who ventures behind her is violently killed. And also, the creature wants to get off the planet ... so they can't take Aliss with them.

A solution presents itself when the Doctor, using the fact that for some reason the mine runs on mercury, blows some holes in the pipes behind Aliss to create a huge mercury mirror. This allows them all to run ... but the creature is also fast and latches onto one of them again - this time it's Belinda! The Doctor tries to get it to switch to him, but no dice. Thus the marine commander Shaya, shoots a hole through Belinda, just missing her heart (we have been told several times that she is a crack shot), and the creature switches to Shaya, who then runs to the mining shaft and falls down it, apparently taking the creature with her.

But then, as the remaining marines return to their ship, one of them seems to have something behind her ... the creature has escaped the planet!

As a story 'The Well' is excellently put together and is quite claustrophobic and scary. As I say, it's very much influenced by the film Aliens and I also caught a sense of 'The Waters of Mars' episode of Doctor Who which has a similar bleakness to it, and a noble suicide at the end.

Where it fell down for me was in the realisation of the threat. In 'Midnight' the plot revolved around this unseen, unknown entity which could take over a person, making them speak the same thing as someone else the creature wanted to possess - the Doctor fell into that trap! Whereas here it's completely different. The creature lurks always right behind someone on their back, and anyone who goes behind them is killed. Maybe the thing got fed up with there not being anyone to take over by the speaking thing and changed the way it attacked?

But also, given that we are many hundreds and thousands of years after the events of 'Midnight', how long does this thing live? And why didn't it attack the mining works when they were first set up? Why wait until now? Maybe they found it deep in the planet's surface and brought it to the surface while looking for diamonds?

The mercury thing was a nice idea, but very convenient when they needed a mirror to try and break the thing's influence on Aliss. I'm also not sure why Aliss being deaf was significant. There was something to do with people it attached itself to being able to hear the thing whispering, but what was it saying? And why was that important? Not sure.

For an entity which wants to get off the planet, killing everyone violently would not seem to be the best approach to be honest. Why not lay low and wait for a ship to arrive and then get on it? Much easier.

And the Mrs Flood moment? This comes at the end when the Senior Officer of the marines bizarrely turns out to be Mrs Flood (remember this is in the far, far future) who is interested that the Doctor was using a vindicator. Why, we have no idea! So is Mrs Flood a series of splinters like the last of the Jagaroth (from 'City of Death') ended up as - that story also had a time fracture which is what happened to Belinda in 'The Robot Revolution'? Is she a time traveller who is stalking the Doctor? At this point ... I've no idea.

Overall, another superb episode of the show, with a great setting and some stellar performances from all concerned.

News: New DOCTOR WHO book!!!!

2025-04-23T14:12:00.000+01:00

It's been twenty-seven years! Twenty-seven years since I was last commissioned by an external publisher for a new Doctor Who book. In that time I set up Telos Publishing, and of course we published some of my books, like The Target Book and The Who Adventures. I also self published two volumes of my Doctor Who reviews, called Then and Now (available from https://samantha-lee-howe-ltd.sumupstore.com/search?search=David+J+Howe)... but this is news of a totally new book, from a new-ish publisher in town!

BEDFORD SQUARE PUBLISHERS ACQUIRE TITLES FROM HUSBAND AND WIFE

Editor-at-Large Maxim Jakubowski is thrilled to announce the acquisition of two strikingly different books by a married couple. USA Today bestselling author Samantha Lee Howe introduces a smart and seductive new cosy crime series, Mel Greenway Investigates, while David J Howe – renowned Doctor Who authority – shares a heartwarming and delightfully geeky memoir, Who Me!

Maxim says 'It's not every day you get the pleasure of acquiring two very different books from authors who happen to be husband and wife! I've long been a fan of Sam's fast-paced and cinematic USA Today bestselling writing, her new series introduces a gutsy British heroine and sleuth of the first order. While^.David's memoir of how the iconic TV programme changed his life is a monument to geeky charm and Terry Pratchett-like in tone, and will become indispensable to its millions of fans.

Samantha Lee Howe says:

'I've always been fascinated with post-War thrillers and I love quirky independent investigators, so combining the two fed straight into my passions. In addition, I have christened this novel "co-sexy" as its cosy crime, but mixed with simmering and sexy undertones, all filleted with the twists and turns and unpredictability that I know readers enjoy in my novels. I hope readers will love Mel as much as I do!'

In contrast, David J Howe's memoir is a nostalgic, emotional, and often humorous journey through a lifetime spent immersed in the world of Doctor Who.

'It seems like I've lived my whole life to be able to write this book,' says David J Howe. 'I often say, if you cut me you will find Doctor Who written through my flesh like the words in a stick of rock! I feel that many readers will find echoes of their own lives in the pages, and it's superb that a shared appreciation of a television programme can bring so much love and hope into the world.'

For both titles, Maxim Jakubowski acquired World English Language rights from Camilla Shestopal at Shesto Literary.

Bedford Square can be found at: https://bedfordsquarepublishers.co.uk/

David J Howe is at: www.howeswho.co.uk

Samantha Lee Howe is at: www.samanthaleehowe.co.uk

The plan is to publish Who Me! in October 2025, so watch out for it!

Review: Doctor Who: Lux

2025-04-21T16:12:00.003+01:00

Way back in the late sixties, Doctor Who presented a story set in the Land of Fiction. 'The Mind Robber' included the Medusa, a Unicorn, Clockwork Soldiers, the Minotaur and a strange man named Gulliver ... Doctor Who is no stranger to episodes which push the boundaries and play fast and loose with 'reality' as we know it. And so 'Lux' is the latest entry to go down this route and to present a story which is very inspired by the TV series Sapphire and Steel as well as allowing the characters to have a little fun with the nature of film and television.

Unlike 'The Robot Revolution', 'Lux' is fairly simple. At a cinema, the Palazzo, in 1952 in Miami, Florida, a stray beam of moonlight reflects off a spoon and joins with the light from the projector and brings a cartoon character called Mr Ring-a-Ding to life. The character then traps the patrons of the cinema in a strip of film where they live on forever.

Unable to get to 24 May 2025, the Doctor decides to try and use a circuitous route, and so arrives in 1952 to find the cinema locked and chained, and segregation in place (the cinema and the coffee shop across the road are 'whites only'. The Doctor being the Doctor ignores this, and gets some information from a lady in the coffee shop, before he and Belinda break into the Palazzo to confront Mr Ring-a-Ding.

Turns out that he is one of the Pantheon of Gods mentioned by the Toymaker, the God of Light, and introduces himself with the laugh from 'The Giggle'. He turns the Doctor and Belinda into animated versions of themselves, and they have to try and work out how to escape.

I liked the idea of giving them 'depth' by adding emotion and backstory to their 'characters' which brings them back to themselves, but they're still trapped in the 'film'. In true Loony Tunes/Screwy Squirrel style, they break through the screen at the front and are confronted by three fans of Doctor Who ... it's all gone proper meta with them arguing that the best story was 'Blink' and that they love the show. But the Doctor and Belinda have to return to the screen to continue the fight, so they do this and end up back in the cinema, where they call on the projectionist Reg to burn the acetates and destroy the cinema. He is encouraged to do so by his dead wife who he had a reel of film of, and the explosion blows out the back of the cinema and allows sunlight in.

Mr Ring-a-Ding bathes in the light and grows larger and larger until he grows so large he eclipses the Earth and floats off into space! It's a little strange as it left me wondering what Mr Ring-a-Ding's plan was ... he could never, by his own admission, leave the cinema because the sunlight would do this, so what was he hoping to gain?

So the Cinema is saved, and the people trapped in the film strip are returned to life and leave to find their families and friends. All is good.

Except that Mrs Flood is there again, telling people the show ends on 24 May ...

This date is quite clever at this point, as it's when the penultimate episode of this season is expected to air ... so how did they know that when they made the show a year or whatever ago. I suspect plans for this season have been in progress for some time, and this included the air dates ... and maybe, just maybe, all the fan 'noise' at the moment predicting doom and gloom and the show's cancellation and whatever (Doctor Who must be the only show on television where a proportion of the fanbase actively campaigns for it to be taken off air. Very bizarre!) is smoke in the wind, and there is a plan ... the BBC, Bad Wolf, Disney and BBC Studios just aren't prepared to reveal it as yet ... all part of the fun and games of the season.

We shall see!

So here I loved this story, It's simple to follow, a neat idea, and riffs on another of my favourite shows. Mr Ring-a-Ding is marvellously created, and I liked how he became 3-D as he drew in the Doctor's energies (but how much energy does a bi-regenerated Time Lord have? Quite a bit it seems!!) and Alan Cumming's vocal talents for the character were superb.

The subsidiary character of Reg was nicely played, and the whole segregation thing was more throwaway - it didn't probably need to be there at all - but overall the effect was very pleasing. Even the fourth wall breaking and the meta-playing was OK for me. The three Doctor Who fans were a little stereotypical (recalling the character of Whizz Kid in 'The Greatest Show in the Galaxy') but one had exceptional taste in wearing a 'Telos' T Shirt. Thanks Russell! Overall again it worked ... achieving something that probably only Doctor Who could achieve in this day and age.

I'm reminded of the episode of UFO where they end up running around the real TV Studios where the show was made ... but is there an episode of any science fiction TV show where the characters actually meet the actors who play them ... in a very meta way? Some alternate dimension type thing? I'm sure people will let me know if there are.

A great second episode for this season. Clever and self-aware in a way rarely seen in Doctor Who before.