Mr. Benn

BBC sort-of-animated classic Mr. Benn, as mentioned in Joy To The World, continues to sneak into reality.

Pulled up at a traffic light in some small Swiss town and...

..wait... what?

 

Richard Littler on Bluesky

For those wondering, it was about a man visiting a costume shop with two doors in the changing room, the second leading to the world the costume was for...

World Book Day

Read a book!

1970s BBC Poe

Via horror writer and media critic Kim Newman, something I had never heard of:

In the mid-1970s, BBC2 tried to get a tradition going in parallel with BBC1's MR James-heavy Ghost Story for Christmas by doing Edgar Allan Poe stories as special editions of their Centre Play slot. Only two were made, both directed by James Ormerod.

Here's Andrew Davies' adaptation of 'The Imp of the Perverse', with Michael Kitchen, Philip Stone, Lalla Ward and Milton Johns. 

And here's Hugh Whitemore's 'William Wilson' with Norman Eshley, Stephen Murray, C-3PO and Robert Tayman.

15.2 trailer

Here!

Good to note the reluctant companion warming to the adventures upfront, showing that won’t be a drag for long.

Amusing to finally be doing a Eurovision episode after the long run of connecting jokes.

Ruby being sinister? Oh noes.

Alan Cumming cartoon on the loose is presumably a spooky god thing?

April 12th

(Which means, like 20 years ago, starting on the Saturday of Conpulsion.)

Okay Big Finish you have my attention

Nine and Rose.

Telefantasy Time Jump

Telefantasy Time Jump begins with Paul Cornell and Lizbeth Myles discussing British genre telly (and other genre telly for subscribers) starting with The Quatermass Experiment.

(With a historical note about series before that, beginning with Algernon Blackwood reading a ghost story at the end of the first BBC TV broadcast!)

Thirteen plots from David Bowie's Black Tie White Noise

For David Bowie’s birthday, adventure hooks based on his studio albums’ song titles.

After album titles, ★, The Next Day, Reality, Heathen, Hours, Earthling, Outside, The Buddha Of Suburbia...

Black Tie White Noise has enough for a regular BBC season...

The Wedding

The Stranger is asked to officiate at a wedding that will unite two galactic civilisations. Or to be the groom. Or the bride. Or something. The invitation’s rather vague.

You’ve Been Around

The travellers arrive on a new world to find people waving and saying “good morning” and addressing them by name and chatting amiably like they’re neighbours. Have they been here before?

(Or: The travellers arrive to find the TARDIS surrounded by police and news crews within minutes of arriving. It seems they saved the planet last week.)

I Feel Free

The travellers are sent to a 77th Century prison planet for a crime they absolutely did commit but which was legal when they did it four thousand years earlier. How do they escape, who was responsible for this miscarriage of justice, and how many of their old enemies are here too?

Black Tie White Noise

The travellers attend a jazz show in Weimar Berlin and have to save the trumpeter from an alien art thief trying to collect him which would rewrite 20th Century Western music.

Jump They Say

Something sinister living under the streets, best not to walk across the road too slowly.

Nite Flights

A plane sets off with two hundred and thirty-three people on board and lands with two hundred and thirty-four. And then another like it, and another. Always on night flights taking off and landing after dark.

Pallas Athena

An ancient city’s patron god reappears, over a thousand years and a move to a new religion after she was last seen.

Miracle Goodnight

A children’s hospital sees a dramatic rise in recoveries from serious conditions. What could be behind this, and why?

Don’t Let Me Down & Down

The travellers have to spelunk into an ancient cave complex to look for a missing group of explorers. Comments from a modern companion about dungeons and/or dragons will become slightly awkward once they spot something watching from the dark...

Looking For Lester

One day, everyone with a certain fairly-common name in London disappears for forty minutes.

I Know It’s Gonna Happen Someday

One of the travellers meets the love of their life. Who really shouldn’t be on this planet or in this century.

The Wedding Song

The travellers are invited to one of River Song’s weddings, and not one of the ones the Stranger remembers happening.

Special: Lucy Can’t Dance

The travellers find themselves backstage at Strictly Come Dancing, and have to make sure one of the contestants makes it through to round two.

2025

Happy new year!

Fifty years of the Fourth Doctor

The Fourth Doctor debuted fifty years ago, becoming the defining style of Doctor Who in world popular culture for a long time since as well as the first I remember, as much thanks to Doctor Who Weekly and the toys as the show itself.

Joy To The World

Joy To The World

Joy was right to follow the rules even though it hurt and might not have mattered, and just as right to rage at the people who made and broke them.

Some odd pacing, especially the “oh the villainous plan didn’t work it’s fine” bit. But wouldn’t have wanted to lose the lovely little section with Anita to get more there.

Mr. Benn’s Any Era Clothes!

Joy To The RT YouTube

Russell T Davies and Steven Moffat discuss the Christmas special, and Christmas specials in general, on video as well as in the Radio Times.

Survival

“There are worlds out there where the sky is burning. Where the seas sleep, and the rivers dream. People made of smoke and cities made of song. Somewhere there’s danger, somewhere there’s injustice, and somewhere else the tea’s getting cold. Come on, Ace, we’ve got work to do.”

Survival part 3, thirty-five years tonight.

Telefantasy Time Jump

Hammer House Of Podcast has now completed its run of Hammer horror films - until we get another one! And now Paul Cornell and Lizbeth Myles are gearing up for a new series starting in January looking at UK genre TV in Telefantasy Time Jump.

Doctor Who Day

The cay is upon us.