Tag Archives: Ace

Doctor Who: The Power of the Doctor

Posted on October 25, 2022 by Roger Pocock

This surely wins the prize of the Doctor Who episode that has the most to do. It’s a celebration of 100 years of the BBC, and therefore has to function in some way as a celebration of the 59 years … Continue reading →

Posted in Doctor Who, Reviews, Science Fiction, Television, Thirteenth Doctor | Tagged , , , , , | 8 Comments

Ace the Delinquent

Posted on May 15, 2019 by Roger Pocock

Companion Tropes 19 I got suspended after I blew up the art room. When I was a child during the 1980s we were at the tail end of the Enid Blyton-esque representation of childhood.  Children still tended to be terribly … Continue reading →

Posted in Companion Tropes, Doctor Who, Entertainment, Science Fiction, Television | Tagged | 2 Comments

Cliffhangers: Seventh Doctor

Posted on November 14, 2018 by Roger Pocock

It has been a fascinating exercise looking at the Doctor Who cliffhangers from the Classic Series, Doctor by Doctor.  The 1960s were inventive and brilliant, and since then it has been a tale of steady decline in terms of new … Continue reading →

Posted in Cliffhangers, Doctor Who, Entertainment, Science Fiction, Seventh Doctor, Television | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Silver Nemesis

Posted on August 24, 2018 by Roger Pocock

Silver Nemesis is not a popular story, and I can understand why.  The problems are obvious, with three different sets of enemies who all fall short in some way, and are largely kept separate from the Doctor and Ace, who … Continue reading →

Posted in Doctor Who, Entertainment, Reviews, Science Fiction, Seventh Doctor, Television | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Survival

Posted on July 13, 2018 by Roger Pocock

Survival is the final story of the Classic series of Doctor Who.  Remarkably it manages to bookend the series thematically and foreshadow the revival to come, and it does both of these things by accident.  We are back in contemporary … Continue reading →

Posted in Doctor Who, Entertainment, Reviews, Science Fiction, Seventh Doctor, Television | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

The Greatest Show in the Galaxy

Posted on July 12, 2018 by Roger Pocock

Once upon a time there was a Doctor Who story called The Gunfighters, which had a framing device of somebody singing the plot in the form of a ballad.  Fast forward a couple of decades, and we get The Greatest … Continue reading →

Posted in Doctor Who, Entertainment, Reviews, Science Fiction, Seventh Doctor, Television | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Themes in Ghost Light

Posted on April 21, 2018 by Roger Pocock

Yesterday we looked at the Sylvester McCoy story Ghost Light and in particular the degree of complexity on display, so let’s take a look today at the story itself, and some of the themes it tackles.  We are obviously going … Continue reading →

Posted in Doctor Who, Entertainment, Random Chatter, Reviews, Science Fiction, Seventh Doctor, Television | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Ghost Light

Posted on April 20, 2018 by Roger Pocock

Ghost Light demands some effort of the viewer.  It’s not a story to just watch once.  The reason this happened is that it was originally an overly long, complex set of scripts that then got edited down by one episode, … Continue reading →

Posted in Doctor Who, Entertainment, Reviews, Science Fiction, Seventh Doctor, Television | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

Audience Identification: Seventh Doctor

Posted on February 24, 2018 by Roger Pocock

We really don’t know how good we had it.  You know when you’re young, grandparents talk about the “good old days”?  They seem to think the old days were the best.  Even those who “climbed mountains barefoot through glass to … Continue reading →

Posted in Doctor Who, Entertainment, Random Chatter, Science Fiction, Television | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Battlefield

Posted on February 16, 2018 by Roger Pocock

In a parallel universe Doctor Who is a fantasy series and the Doctor is a powerful wizard.  Except we don’t need a parallel universe for this to be true.  He might not have his magic wand at this point, but … Continue reading →

Posted in Doctor Who, Entertainment, History, Reviews, Science Fiction, Seventh Doctor, Television | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

Dragonfire

Posted on December 5, 2017 by Roger Pocock

Yesterday we looked at The Abominable Snowmen, which was Doctor Who’s first combination of crytobiology and robotics.  Here we have another example, with a robot dragon.  There is also the linking theme of a cold location, which we are using … Continue reading →

Posted in Christmas, Doctor Who, Entertainment, Reviews, Science Fiction, Seventh Doctor, Television | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

The Curse of Fenric

Posted on October 25, 2017 by Roger Pocock

This is the second of three attempts to do a Doctor Who vampire story.  It is also the second of three stories to date that are resolved by the companion having to lose her faith in the Doctor.  Combining these … Continue reading →

Posted in Doctor Who, Entertainment, Reviews, Science Fiction, Seventh Doctor, Television | Tagged , , | 5 Comments

The Happiness Patrol

Posted on August 24, 2017 by Roger Pocock

As far as I know, this is the only story to have ever made it into an address by the Archbishop of Canterbury.  Here is what Dr Rowan Williams, the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury, had to say about the story … Continue reading →

Posted in Doctor Who, Entertainment, Reviews, Science Fiction, Seventh Doctor, Television | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

Remembrance of the Daleks

Posted on August 22, 2017 by Roger Pocock

Classic Series Doctor Who is over.  New Who starts here.  That might seem an odd comment, but there are so many similarities between the Russell T Davies version of Doctor Who and the final two seasons of McCoy that in … Continue reading →

Posted in Doctor Who, Entertainment, Reviews, Science Fiction, Seventh Doctor, Television | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments