On November 1963 – coincidentally, just a day after the assassination of President Kennedy – British viewers sat down to watch a new science fiction programme designed to fill the grandstand at Juke Box Jury. Minutes later, a mysterious figure with a flowing white cloak and a Victorian frock emerged from the fog – andContinue reading “A complete history of the history of Doctor Who”
Category Archives: Randomness
Strange Attraction: What Stranger Things gets right (and the other big fantasy franchises are getting wrong)
The past decade has not been kind to the great sci-fi and fantasy properties. Star Wars, Star Trek, DC and Marvel have all tarnished their legacies by prioritising quantity over quality, and even Doctor Who is currently lost in the time vortex. Meanwhile, a young pretender has stepped in and seized the throne with a simple, old-fashioned formulaContinue reading “Strange Attraction: What Stranger Things gets right (and the other big fantasy franchises are getting wrong)”
Lost in space and time: the story of Doctor Who’s missing episodes
“I am being diminished. Whittled away, piece by piece… Great chunks of my past, detaching themselves like melting icebergs” – The Doctor, The Five Doctors People have been underestimating Doctor Who for a very long time. In 1963, cautious BBC execs were reluctant to commit to more than 13 episodes of their new teatime adventure serial,Continue reading “Lost in space and time: the story of Doctor Who’s missing episodes”
Philosophy in the age of the BBC Micro: the strange beauty of Season 18
This is an expanded version of the Season 18 Blu-ray review that first appeared in Doctor Who Magazine issue 536, April 2019 Of all the series in Doctor Who’s long and unexpected history, Season 18 stands as perhaps the most singular and distinctive. Fated to be the end of one thing and the start ofContinue reading “Philosophy in the age of the BBC Micro: the strange beauty of Season 18”
Inside the factory with John Levene
Why is UNIT’s Sergeant Benton celebrating 50 years of active service with a tour round a workshop in Nottingham? DWM tagged along to find out. In 1973, John Levene was filming Doctor Who in a Welsh coal mine when he spotted a young boy watching nervously from the sidelines. “I went over to him andContinue reading “Inside the factory with John Levene”
Goodbye to all that
I’m not normally one for New Year’s resolutions. But, for the sake of my sanity, I’ve decided that 2025 is the year in which I’m going to take a lot less notice of… stuff. And by stuff, I mean all the sound and fury of a world that is growing increasingly noisy, chaotic and, notContinue reading “Goodbye to all that”
A Portrait of Terror
The ghost stories of M R James have been a spooky festive favourite for more than a century. Dating back to the days when the Cambridge scholar would read aloud to friends and students in his rooms at King’s College on Christmas Eve, James’ spine-chilling tales would later become a regular fixture of the BBC’sContinue reading “A Portrait of Terror”
Notes from a Small Screen: extracts
Here are some sample extracts from my book, Notes from a Small Screen: Watching British Television, 2015-23. 29.1.15 Midsomer Murders (ITV) Forget Russian roulette: in the famously hazardous county of Midsomer, even standard roulette is deadly. That much was obvious from the opening moments of this typically deranged start to a new run of theContinue reading “Notes from a Small Screen: extracts”
Notes from a Small Screen: Watching British Television, 2015-2023
Despite what you might have read elsewhere, television in the early 21st century wasn’t all about Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones and Succession. So what were the people of Great Britain actually watching in the last days of the second Elizabethan age? And who will bear witness to it? This book will. Drawn from eightContinue reading “Notes from a Small Screen: Watching British Television, 2015-2023”
How five people ruined the entire 21st century (in one day)
You know who I blame for all this? Those stupid hanging chads. “Blame them for what, Paul?” For everything. For the entire dumpster fire that is the 21st century. For they are the nexus point on which the whole of modern history turns. They were the beating butterfly’s wings that triggered storms from Baghdad to AleppoContinue reading “How five people ruined the entire 21st century (in one day)”
Interesting Media 