Tag Archives: Tegan

Tegan the Sarcastic Devotee

Posted on July 10, 2019 by Roger Pocock

Companion Tropes 27 MONITOR: Now, perhaps you would like to see more of Logopolis. TEGAN: I’d prefer to see a lot less of it. A few weeks ago we looked at Turlough, the anti-hero of the Fifth Doctor era, but … Continue reading →

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Doctor Who Annual (1984)

Posted on February 15, 2019 by Roger Pocock

“Get back, Doctor!” One step closer and I trigger the bomb!” That’s not a bad opening line for the first story in a Doctor Who annual, is it, but before we get to all that it’s worth mentioning that this … Continue reading →

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Doctor Who Annual (1983)

Posted on February 8, 2019 by Roger Pocock

The 1983 Doctor Who Annual might have the blurriest photographic cover ever, but there seems to be a genuine attempt to make it more appealing to fans of Doctor Who than previous annuals.  The big change is the effort that … Continue reading →

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Cliffhangers: Fifth Doctor

Posted on October 21, 2018 by Roger Pocock

When I wrote about the Fourth Doctor cliffhanger endings, I mentioned how the variety and inventiveness of the cliffhangers had been a diminishing process since the 1960s.  That doesn’t just continue for the Fifth Doctor era, it falls off a … Continue reading →

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The Five Doctors

Posted on September 11, 2018 by Roger Pocock

Ext. The Death Zone.  IAN and BARBARA CHESTERTON are walking across a barren, rocky landscape.  BARBARA looks frightened. BARBARA: Ian, what was that strange pyramid? IAN: Presumably some kind of travel device.  We seem to have been transported somewhere. BARBARA: … Continue reading →

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Resurrection of the Daleks

Posted on July 27, 2018 by Roger Pocock

Here’s a house.  Here’s a door.  Windows: one, two, three, four.  Ready to knock?  Turn the lock.  It’s Play School!  What window are we going to go through today?  Oh look, it’s the brutal violence and death window. Sometimes less … Continue reading →

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Frontios

Posted on July 26, 2018 by Roger Pocock

Once upon a time there was a writer called Christopher H Bidmead, who thought Doctor Who should be grounded in real science.  When he became script editor he tried to squeeze Doctor Who into that pigeonhole, and even when he … Continue reading →

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Arc of Infinity

Posted on July 25, 2018 by Roger Pocock

Arc of Infinity was the beginning of the 20th season of Doctor Who, and it was decided that every story should include some element of the past of the series to make up a celebratory year.  Earthshock had gone down … Continue reading →

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Earthshock

Posted on July 24, 2018 by Roger Pocock

During the 1980s, Doctor Who started to do a couple of things over and over again, which almost certainly contributed to the eventual cancellation of the show: very violent stories, and stories which feed off the past of the show.  … Continue reading →

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Four to Doomsday

Posted on July 23, 2018 by Roger Pocock

In 1981 the Doomsday Clock was at four minutes to midnight, so Doctor Who gave us a story called Four to Doomsday, featuring a TARDIS crew of four people encountering Monarch’s spaceship four light-days from Earth, with four ethnic groups … Continue reading →

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A Fix With Sontarans

Posted on June 30, 2018 by Roger Pocock

All this week we have been looking at the Sontaran stories, but there was a little gap there, a hole in our Sontaran Week, and we need to Fix It.  I thought long and hard about whether to just ignore … Continue reading →

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

Castrovalva

Posted on May 31, 2018 by Roger Pocock

There are lots of Doctor Who stories that are inspired by fiction or by films, but these are not the only sources of inspiration available.  I have not exactly showered the work of Christopher H. Bidmead with praise so far, … Continue reading →

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Logopolis

Posted on May 30, 2018 by Roger Pocock

Anyone who has read my other Season 18 articles will have worked out by now that I am not a big fan of Christopher H. Bidmead’s approach to Doctor Who, which basically amounts to rooting it in science.  Up to … Continue reading →

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Warriors of the Deep

Posted on May 4, 2018 by Roger Pocock

Season 21: the worst series of Doctor Who ever made starts here.  It will have its moment of brilliance very soon, but it will be fleeting and then it’s downhill all the way, and the problems have little to do … Continue reading →

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Enlightenment

Posted on April 19, 2018 by Roger Pocock

Long after the viewer has forgotten the details of a television story, the very best will leave a powerful image in the mind.  It is always something unique and special, something that a child will recall as an adult.  Many … Continue reading →

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Terminus

Posted on April 18, 2018 by Roger Pocock

When I first watched Terminus I hated it.  Subsequently I have re-watched it a few times, with a kind of nagging feeling that there is a good story in there somewhere and I must be missing something, but I still … Continue reading →

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Mawdryn Undead

Posted on April 17, 2018 by Roger Pocock

Sometimes things just don’t go according to plan.  There are some Doctor Who stories that are so overshadowed by what might have been that it becomes difficult not to watch them without a sense of disappointment.  In the 20th anniversary … Continue reading →

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The Awakening

Posted on February 15, 2018 by Roger Pocock

Evil lurking in a church.  A may queen for sacrifice.  According to Eric Pringle, this was entirely coincidental and he had never actually seen The Daemons.  This makes sense, as the ideas flow together naturally and were hardly original to … Continue reading →

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The King’s Demons

Posted on February 14, 2018 by Roger Pocock

There was a rumour that persisted for many years that this story was supposed to feature the Monk.  No evidence has ever been found to support the idea, so it is almost certainly incorrect, but you can see why people … Continue reading →

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The Visitation

Posted on February 13, 2018 by Roger Pocock

Eric Saward’s first Doctor Who script is a return to a format that Doctor Who had explored surprisingly rarely up until this point: the pseudo-historical.  The first time history was combined with an alien element was The Time Meddler, and … Continue reading →

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