The Daleks' Master Plan

Now streaming the recovered and restored first and third episodes along with the second.

Two lost episodes found!

The first and third episodes of The Daleka’ Master Plan have been found and will be watchable on iPlayer at Easter.

And so the number of lost episodes goes down again.

(Shame about the Mavic Chen of it.)

Whosday

The 62nd anniversary may not be the most significant, but it is the one happening today.

Telefantasy Time Jump 1963

Paul Cornell and Lizbeth Myles talk about the biggest new show on UK genre TV every year and guess what they talk about for 1963!

Lux

15.2.2 Lux

I had this pegged as a Pantheon episode right away.

A Scottish actor recorded in New York as the voice of a Hollywood cartoon playing in Miami which is actually Wales.

Belinda continuing to be reasonably annoyed but running with it partially because she has to and partially because she’s a good person.

A light touch for the issues of the time.

A quick sketch of fans rather than a full portrait like Love And Monsters, but still showing them love. And a lovely little grace note - look at the credits.

(Does this mean the Doctor and Belinda just made our universe real? Er...)

Next week, Planet Of The Vampires?

Rose

Doctor Who celebrating its twentieth anniversary a year and a half after its sixtieth anniversary. Well, yes.

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.

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!)

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.

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.

Nine plots from David Bowie's The Buddha Of Suburbia

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

After album titles, ★, The Next Day, Reality, Heathen, Hours, Earthling and Outside...

If I do these annually I will retire before I get to the end. So since The Buddha Of Suburbia is under ten titles, expect another soon...

And as the soundtrack to the TV version of Hanif Kureishi’s novel it’s already been a BBC drama, so dodging that plot. (And Naveen Andrews would make a great Doctor.)

Buddha of Suburbia

The travellers return to find a philosopher as mayor of their home town and people coming from far and wide to learn from him. Oh, and it’s one of the travellers, about five years older than he is currently.

Sex and the Church

The travellers have to help Abelard and Heloise escape some very disapproving church authorities backed by the Censors seeking to stifle inappropriate artistic expression throughout human history.

South Horizon

The sun rises in the south. This is concerning.

The Mysteries

A production of a new murder mystery play is interrupted by an actual murder. By laser beam.

Bleed Like a Craze, Dad

1981, and the most famous band in the world is Theda Bara, led by a self-proclaimed immortal vampire queen.

Strangers When We Meet

The Stranger meets an incarnation of herself that she doesn’t recognise.

Dead Against It

A new bypass goes too close to a stone circle and workers start dying horribly. Dangerously zealous protesters or disturbed ghosts?

Untitled No. 1

The travellers have to team up with the Dadaists to stop the Censors wiping out the 1920s.

Ian Fish, U.K. Heir

The travellers return to the present and the person on all the money looks totally unfamiliar. Who altered the line of succession and why? Also, if we have a King Ian, is this the Ianian era?

The Church On Ruby Road

The Church On Ruby Road is the first Christmas special in six years and the first as the first full adventure for a new Doctor since 2005, introducing a new companion as well.

A big goofy singing goblin adventure too. (With a deeply sad bit.)

Ruby being established as having heroic tendencies right away.

And Davina McCall as well!

Lovely little bit with the policeman’s reaction to the Doctor’s assurance, happily ignoring the police box disappearing.

Which I thought was going with Mrs. Flood’s equally casual reaction to establish that the Doctor isn’t unknown in this version of the present, but apparently not... Hmm...

The reveal of the King reminded me of Wizards Vs. Aliens, which also had a massive power-eating king behind a spaceship door in that case.

And a Buffy shoutout when mentioning the musical number in Unleashed!

As well as Long Lost Family being a visitor from ITV.

I knew Ncuti Gatwa lived in Edinburgh in his youth but I didn’t know he was round the corner in Oxgangs!

Non-Unleashed behind the scenes bit

See you lot in May!

Imagine Russell T Davies

Alan Yentob talked to Russell T Davies on BBC One arts series Imagine, even with a moment on Dark Season. And a new to me bit about what the 60s episode next year is going to be about.

Happy anniversary!

Doctor Who premiered on this day sixty years ago.

An incidentally, a happy Thanksgiving to all of you at home in the USA!

Dressing Up Docs

How often do TARDIS crews dress for the occasion?

Between the shot in the specials trailer, two behind-the-scenes looks at variations of the main costume, and the Swinging 60s and Regency outfits we’ve had official photos for, I’ve already seen Fifteen in as many different looks as Thirteen in her entire run.

Of course Thirteen avoided historical clothing because a lot of it is heavily gendered and the show kept her in trousers the whole time. (Yaz had a few historical feminine looks, but not often either - Ruby is already approaching her number before we actually see her in an episode.)

Where do you and your Doctor Who characters land on this?

Aladdin Sane at 50

Aladdin Sane isn’t the best known of David Bowie’s regeneration names, but it’s the one with the lightning bolt makeup.

Nineteen plots from David Bowie's Outside

For David Bowie’s birthday, his 1995 album Outside has enough tracks for a long TV season if you include the Segue tracks. And a plot. Which I’ll use a bit of.

After album titles, ★, The Next Day, Reality, Heathen, Hours and Earthling, adventures based on the album’s song titles...

Leon Takes Us Outside

A group of friends meet a mysterious man, each of them sure that someone else in the group knows him, and go with him to a party...

Outside

... on the moon.

The Hearts Filthy Lesson

A Time Lord gives up one of her hearts for a transplant into a human ally. But now he can feel the turn of time.

A Small Plot Of Land

The travellers meet a group of amateur metal detectorists, about to unearth a long buried Sontaran cloning barrack ship.

Segue – Baby Grace (A Horrid Cassette)

A modern Earthling companion visits his sister and her new baby, and sees something on the baby monitor that shouldn’t be there.

Hallo Spaceboy

If Donna Noble can’t remember her time in the TARDIS, who wrote this tell-all book about it?

The Motel

A dingy backroads motel in 1950s America, where all attempts to drive away lead back to it.

I Have Not Been To Oxford Town

A medieval pilgrimage, well organised as a package holiday, taking in all the sacred sites of southeast England... and one that shouldn’t be there.

No Control

The TARDIS answers a call from an unknown outside source. Something important, and dangerous, is going to happen here and now. But what, and who could summon the travellers to it?

Segue – Algeria Touchshriek

The travellers accidentally become a support act for a 1980s shock rock superstar.

The Voyeur Of Utter Destruction (As Beauty)

An intergalactic tourist cruise to see black holes, supernovas, and the ultimate fireworks show of the end of a solar system. But this solar system isn’t supposed to end for another million years. And there are people in it.

Segue – Ramona A. Stone / I Am With Name

A “found footage” episode charting someone attempting to find an explanation for the disappearance of a friend - one of the companions.

Wishful Beginnings

Make a wish and throw a coin into this particular fountain and it might just come true.

We Prick You

Can the travellers escape a witch hunt?

Segue – Nathan Adler

A detective in a small Oxford town tries to solve a murder. But one of the travellers knows this story, it's just a TV show. Isn’t it?

I’m Deranged

The Stranger’s previous incarnations come back to haunt her when an alien spy hits her with a mental regression beam.

Thru’ These Architects Eyes

(With apologies to Douglas Adams and Alan Moore)

A planned community spells something out in an alien language.

Segue – Nathan Adler

The travellers meet the creator of the Nathan Adler mysteries, who turns out to be - that would be telling.

Strangers When We Meet

The Stranger meets a future incarnation. Or does she?

The BBC at 100

The British Broadcasting Corporation was founded (as the preceding British Broadcasting Company) on October 18th 1922.

Ten plots from Ziggy Stardust

David Bowie released The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars fifty years ago today.

So naturally after creating adventure hooks riffing on his album titles and songs from ★, The Next Day, Reality, Heathen, Hours and Earthling...

Some are informed by the song concepts, but not directly.