Christian Cawley's Blog, page 103

057 – The Claws of Axos

Ewan Moore is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

I must admit, I had actually only watched The Claws of Axos once before. I was around seven years old, so my memory of this particular serial was hazy at best, but I remember thinking the golden faced, angelic Axons were pretty cool, and… well that’s pretty much all I could recall. As such, I was excited to go back and revisit a classic Pertwee romp over Easter. I was aware that this particular tale comes under a fair bit of criticism (another writer on our team cunningly referred to it as Snores of Axos when we were deciding who would take which story) but I was ready to channel my inner seven year old, giddy on a mix of chocolate and a love for Doctor Who.

Well, you know what? It has some real flaws, certainly… but if you can put those to one side, you’ll find a nonsensical and completely daft, yet ultimately fun tale of mistrust, deception, and shiny aliens with silly eyes.

Events begin in an intriguing enough manner: The Axons land on Earth, claiming to be in desperate need of fuel, despite being in possession of Macguffinite (sorry, Axonite), a “thinking molecule” which can reproduce any substance. They then offer this wondrous rock to the humans as a sign of friendship. Naturally, the humans accept, though they remain slightly wary of their shiny new chums. Personally, I feel it may have worked better if the viewers were also kept in the dark regarding the Axons’ true nature at this stage… but it wouldn’t be a Pertwee story if the aliens didn’t establish their credentials early on by killing a West Country bumpkin (RIP, Pigbin Josh).

A nonsensical and completely daft, yet ultimately fun tale of mistrust, deception, and shiny aliens with silly eyes…

Soon enough, everyone is wise to the Axons and their slippery ways, and we’re treated to an action packed (if a little confusing) battle royale between good and evil.

The “angelic” Axons are actually a pretty good creation, very unsettling and eerie. There’s a reason they were the only thing from this serial that I could remember, and it’s another example of the ingenuity of the Doctor Who team, that they can make gold paint and spotty leotards into a convincing race of psychic aliens. The Axons’ “true form” creates an interesting parallel to their golden, bug eyed disguises. They are hulking monstrosities, lashing out with their tendrils to disintegrate UNIT soldiers who you can only hope have prepared some kind of life insurance package for the wife and kids. If anything, the “real” Axons are more of a design triumph than the disguised Axons. Hey, you could even spray paint them green and use them again in a few years… that’s how great they are.

The Master also joins the fray for good measure, and in an uncharacteristic move, he’s making shady deals with aliens to kill the Doctor. Yes, this is very much a Pertwee by Numbers kind of story, but when you think about it, that really isn’t a bad thing at all.

If I’m being kind, I’ll call the editing… experimental. Obviously, there were lots of new toys out at the time for the crew to play with, and this is evident in Claws of Axos. There are a number of bizarre sequences in which the Axons do some weird psychic stuff to people which involves lots of flashing lights and headache inducing effects. Yes, it’s weird and unsettling, but since this is an alien race I would argue that it’s supposed to be uncomfortable to watch. The Doctor and Jo clearly aren’t having a good time during these scenes, so it shouldn’t be a picnic for us to watch either.

We have a Proto-Farage civil servant whose thinly veiled xenophobia extends to wanting the Doctor gone, and an American secret agent whose been sent in to arrest the Master and keeps glancing at Jo’s boobs.

It’s common knowledge to a lot of Doctor Who fans that this story suffered from the over ambition of Bob Baker and Dave Martin (their first script for the show). One of the first incarnations of the script involved a giant skull landing in Hyde Park, but you can’t blame them for thinking they could go a little crazy with their imaginations. It is Doctor Who after all. At any rate, the script forced the production team to think outside the box, and in places it’s certainly one of the most visually unique Doctor Who stories of the classic era.

The performances from the series regulars are reliably great. Katy Manning makes a few odd choices here and there, but she’s since said herself that both she and Pertwee were having a hard time with reacting to things that wouldn’t be there until post production. Jo has always been a favourite companion of mine, so it’s a shame that she doesn’t really get to bring anything to this story, particularly since the last serial I reviewed (Seeds of Death) had some fantastic female characters going for it. Similarly, the Brig doesn’t make much of a mark on proceedings, but it’s always nice to have him around, even if it’s just to raise the occasional eyebrow.

The supporting cast are certainly interesting. We have a Proto-Farage civil servant whose thinly veiled xenophobia extends to wanting the Doctor gone, and an American secret agent whose been sent in to arrest the Master and keeps glancing at Jo’s boobs. Much like they probably would during a real alien incursion, this civil servant just walks about eating sandwiches while most of the action is going on. He doesn’t add much to the story, apart from being the Axons’ liaison to the government, but with all the action going on it was a wise choice not to cram in any more civil servant excitement than was already needed.

In terms of the overall plot, the Master might not have been necessary, but he ends up being one of the best things about Claws of Axos.

The American agent is an exciting concept, certainly. A proto Captain Jack, perhaps? Well… no. But still, it’s a great deal of fun to see this American swagger in, claiming he’s going to bring in the Master. Of course everyone at home knows that’s not about to happen any time soon, and the smallest sliver of support for the Master will well up inside you, all in the name of patriotism.

Speaking of, Delgado’s Master is once again brilliant and charming in his own evil, slimy way. Despite his lack of clear motivation throughout the story, he gets to do a lot of great stuff throughout. We get to see him jumping onto a moving van so he can hypnotise the guards, which is surely the coolest thing any incarnation of the Master has ever done. When he’s not being a badass, he’s tutting over the state of the Doctor’s TARDIS (which we see in colour for the first time ever here), and generally bitching at the Doctor for being useless. In terms of the overall plot, the Master might not have been necessary, but he ends up being one of the best things about Claws of Axos.

 

Then we have the Doctor himself, who gets to be righteous with the civil servant, cunning with the Axons, and exasperated with the Master. He also gets a great moment towards the story’s climax, when it seems like he’s abandoning UNIT and Jo to leave Earth with the Master. It’s obviously a trick, but given the Doctor’s clear disdain for having been exiled to Earth, there’s a moment where you absolutely believe he might be capable of that (it reminded me a lot of the most recent series, when the Doctor apparently abandons Clara to the clockwork droids). Personally, I love it when the Doctor is unpredictably nasty and selfish, because let’s be honest… there’s probably a part of him that really means it.

Claws of Axos is an over ambitious story, certainly. It’s also quite a confusing story in terms of editing, but if you can close your mind to the plot holes and problems, there’s some genuine fun to be had here. There are some great ideas, and the Axons have real potential as an interesting and scary alien threat… There’s a great Axon/Capaldi/UNIT showdown just waiting to be told, surely? I like to think that Pertwee era Doctor Who is very much like your favourite meal… even when it’s not done terribly well, it’s still comforting, and familiar, and most of all, enjoyable.

But then again, I love Time and the Rani, so what the hell do I know?

The post 057 – The Claws of Axos appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Paleo-Contact: A History of Pre-History in Doctor Who

Nick May is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

Last week, it was reported that scientists had unearthed the bones of a new species of ancient human in the Afar region of Ethiopia. One report asserted that the find means ‘our family tree is more complicated than was thought’. Forty-something years ago, this kind of thing was bread and butter to Who writers. Is it a topic that could influence them today?

In 1968, the author Erich von Daniken wrote Chariot of the Gods, the first of several books in the 1960s and 7’0s in which he posited that ‘ancient astronauts’ visited Earth, and in so doing influenced the development of ancient cultures. The pyramids, Stonehenge, and the Easter Island statues are apparently all examples of this influence.

A throwaway line in Death to the Daleks illustrates the idea perfectly: the Doctor examines the symbols on the outside of the Exxilon city and says he’s seen them before, in a temple in Peru. This theory was known as paleo-contact, a name coined by von Daniken’s contemporary (and rival) Carl Sagan. Paleo-contact would become a staple of many popular Doctor Who stories of the early-to-mid-Seventies. First up is The Dæmons, in which the Master makes contact with Azal, the last of a race who have appeared intermittently throughout history to guide humanity along the path to civilisation. Even Azal’s name has found its way into religion (‘the fallen angel’), inferring that the Dæmons’ influence is global – and not good. The Doctor namechecks the key points of Azal’s achievements, which include the Renaissance and the Industrial Revolution. In the ‘back-to-the-land’ Seventies, the interpretation is that the Dæmons’ influence is clearly malign, having created the industry so antipathetic to the Age of Aquarius (which was over by 1971) and that their science was the backbone of the black magic opposed by Miss Hawthorne.

The concept was picked up again in 1979 in City of Death and taken a step further: not only does Scaroth influence humanity throughout its development, but the explosion caused when he attempts to take off actually gave rise to life on Earth. Unlike Azal, who ultimately wants to pass on executive power to a worthy successor, Scaroth’s motives are purely selfish – he wants to drive the development of the human race to a point where the technology exists to enable him to go back in time and prevent the accident that gave life to the world in the first place.

Even at the time, the idea of paleo-contact was nothing new. Just as von Daniken was accused of plagiarising the ideas of writers like Sagan and Richard Story, so the ‘ancient astronauts’ Who stories owe a debt in part to Nigel Kneale’s Quatermass and the Pit, where the discovery of an alien spacecraft on a bomb site in London leads to the uncovering of a species who may have enslaved our prehistoric ancestors and used them in their experiments, the results of which apparently account for the aggressive side of human nature. This idea is expanded on in Image of the Fendahl, where the Doctor suggests that the Fendahl has actually infiltrated the RNA of certain human beings, most obviously – and perhaps clumsily – Dr Fendelman, ‘man of the Fendahl’, accounting for the ‘dark side of man’s nature’. It’s a theme that writer Chris Boucher had visited before in The Face of Evil, albeit with a slightly different take, where the super-computer Xoanon has spent centuries engaging in eugenics, creating the instinct-driven Sevateem and setting them in conflict with the totally cerebral Tesh. The major change is that the story is set on another planet and the influencing alien is the Doctor, who re-programmed Xoanon, proving that not all his interventions turn out to be for the better.

Could the concept work in today’s Who? Are audiences now too incredulous to accept the premise? If reaction to last series’ Kill the Moon is anything to go by, it might be an idea to leave it for a while. Granted, the story owed its ‘science’ to Marvin Gaye’s The Onion Song, which posits that our planet is in point of fact an enormous allium, than any actual established theory, but there’s no reason that it couldn’t. The modern show’s penchant for epic series codas is crying out for a showdown with something older than recorded history. Failing that, let’s have a great big onion.

Ultimately, paleo-contact’s greatest nemesis was von Daniken himself. His books failed to reference their sources, leading to a number of lawsuits from rivals; several of those sources were discredited and, in one particular own goal, von Daniken allowed the making of items he would try to pass off as ‘ancient stones’ to be filmed for a documentary. Later, he would publicly disown several of his own key theories.

What’s undeniable is that, far-fetched or not, the ideas of Eric von Daniken, Carl Sagan and Richard Story helped provide the food for thought that gave the classic series some of its best-remembered moments.

The post Paleo-Contact: A History of Pre-History in Doctor Who appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Reviewed: Death Match

Alex Fitch is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

April’s Fourth Doctor adventure from Big Finish is quite an interesting proposition: rather than being the second half of a four parter, it’s more of a thematic sequel to the previous release, as Death Match brings back together the Doctor, Leela, K9, The Master and another returning character from Requiem for the Rocket Men.

Big Finish have sort of done this kind of thing before, with the first season’s Trail of the White Worm/The Oseidon Adventure. But that was more in the style of the last 2 episodes of The Invasion of Time being connected to, but still noticeably different to, their predecessors which Death Match recalls/predicts (as this is set before that story) in a different way, as a story element here again deals with Leela falling in love. In turn, having the Master reoccur in a different tale immediately after another story brings a touch of the Pertwee UNIT years to proceedings, with a hint of “What’s he up to this week?”

All these aspects of familiarity and format both aid and hinder the release. All of the Fourth Doctor adventures featuring her character have been furthering Leela’s intellectual and emotional journey with her mentor – far more than her tenure on the TV show – however, as is the case with any Big Finish release that has to ‘fit in the gap’, listeners know that ultimately the status quo will be preserved (unlike for example, some Companion Chronicles where we learn of the fate of companions much later in their lives), so there’s no real expectations of surprise or change. As we know that this story must end with the Doctor, Leela, and K9 leaving in the TARDIS, the goalposts are fixed; however Big Finish had the opportunity to perhaps make Leela more like a Bernice Summerfield character for a little while, off on her own adventures with her own companion, who could reunite with the Doctor later on, so it’s a shame they didn’t have courage to extend the subplot introduced in Requiem for the Rocket Men a bit longer, to the next release, or the one after that.

Also, the plot of this story featuring Leela, and belatedly the rest of our heroes, being involved in alien gladiatorial games, is a plot that has been done to death in franchised Science-Fiction and Fantasy, particularly ones set in labyrinthine tunnels. But Matt Fritton still keeps the story enjoyable and surprisingly fresh, even when the main antagonist in the games has been depicted on the cover looking not unlike the Melkur with a burgundy paint job (luckily this doesn’t turn out to be the case). Fritton drops in some amusing Fourth Wall juddering gags, along the lines of “Who directed this? The corridors could have done with better lighting…” and so on, reflecting the nature of a low budget SF spectacle made for mass entertainment, and Geoffrey Beevers’ Master continues to be a pleasure in every release he appears in.

One of the best elements of this release and last month’s is Leela’s relationship with another character, perhaps making her sudden decision to elope with Andred in her not too distant future something tempered by her still being on the rebound. Unfortunately when Big Finish bring in extra proto-companions to the TARDIS team, they seem damned if they do, damned if they don’t. I imagine a lot of listeners will enjoy the extra dynamic a new reoccurring character brings to these releases (much like the inclusion of Hannah Bartholemew in the Fifth Doctor’s trilogy a year ago) and wish some of these ‘mayfly’ companions would stay a bit longer, but then when Big Finish allow new cast members to stay on, they sometimes outstay their welcome, as many fans felt with characters such as Thomas Brewster a few years ago.

Ultimately we have to consider what this story is, rather than what it might have been. Death Match is a solid, entertaining release, but let down by the familiarity of the plot and no real surprises regarding the format. A similar problem affects Big Finish’s ‘main range’ release this month as well – The Defectors – and it’s a shame that two new releases that should further the Fourth and Seventh Doctor’s sagas seem curtailed by being stuck in the past, while ironically Big Finish’s other respective audio adventures this month (their adaptations of novels The Well-Mannered War and Damaged Goods) were originally written 20 years ago, but feel fresher, surprising and more forward looking than their other genuinely new stories.

Death Match is on sale now for £10.99 as a CD or £8.99 as a download from Big Finish.

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Tony Lee’s Doctor Who/Star Trek Crossover That Never Was

Andrew Reynolds is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

Following on from Atop The Fourth Wall’s look back at the Doctor Who/Star Trek event, writer Tony Lee has open the vaults and let Doctor Who fans have a rummage through his unrealised pitch for a Doctor Who/Star Trek: DS9 crossover.

Blogging the entire eight-issue pitch – which was originally intended to follow on from IDW’S successful Assimilation2 run – Lee, who worked on four issues of that run, was one of several writers invited to pitch ideas for another Doctor Who/Star Trek property crossover in March 2013 with Deep Space Nine the favourite between him and Denton Tipton, editor of the Doctor Who books.

Unfortunately for those eager to see more of the Doctor and Starfleet, in July 2013, IDW and the BBC went their separate ways, with Titan now handling the licence.

Amounting to a tantalising ‘what if?’ and probably some of the best fan fiction you’re likely to read, the pitch, titled Domination, sees the Doctor and a time – augmented Sontaran Battle Fleet thrown through a wormhole into the Alpha Quadrant; there they find themselves facing the might of Deep Space Nine and the Federation.

But when the Sontarans join with the Jem’Hadar, the Doctor must help Deep Space Nine stop this, taking the fight into the Gamma Quadrant and into the past where they meet the crew of the original Enterprise, while Clara finds herself in the midst of an invasion, forced to team with Quark to save the station while avoiding zealot Bajoran cults and Federation’s Section 31…

You can read the entire breakdown on Tony Lee’s site or alternatively you can hear the man himself – along with artists Kelly Yates and Robert Hack – talk about this, his tenure at IDW, and other lost IDW Doctor Who stories, thanks to Doctor Who: Panel to Panel’s recording (play’s automatically) of the Long Island Who Conventions IDW Comics Retrospective.

(With thanks to Matt)

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John Levene Shoots Things in the Appalachian Mountains

Christian Cawley is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

Ahh, John Levene, the gentle giant of Doctor Who. It’s been 40 years since he last played Sgt Benton, but we love to hear his stories whether they’re on DVD extras, in magazines interviews (like this one), or at conventions.

A video was recently uploaded which stars the former UNIT dogsbody using a gun for the first time – and not just one gun, either.

The video description reads “In January of 2011, while vacationing in the Appalachian Mountains in the U.S.A., John “Sgt. Benton” Levene, got the opportunity to enjoy a special target practicing session.” And you can certainly see the man who has never held a loaded gun before getting into the spirit of things!

This is a nice way to pass a few minutes and compare the real life Levene with the reliable Benton, and consider what a good job this one-time extra and monster actor did.

Meanwhile, if you’re heading to Stockton-on-Tees today for the Kapow event, you’ll see Levene with Sylvester McCoy and Terry Molloy (and me, if you’re eagle-eyed).

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The Thick of It’s Rebecca Front Cast in Doctor Who Series 9

Christian Cawley is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

Character actress Rebecca Front – probably best known for co-starring with Peter Capaldi in The Thick of It – has been confirmed for Doctor Who Series 9, specifically in the episodes featuring the return of the Zygons.

Here’s how it was announced:

Hurrah! The fabulous @RebeccaFront to guest star in the new series of #DoctorWho More at: http://t.co/Twf79kbTC8 pic.twitter.com/b5KawOByWa

— Doctor Who Official (@bbcdoctorwho) June 5, 2015

Front isn’t new to the world of Doctor Who, having previously expressed an interest in appearing in the show on TV (“play a Doctor Who monster or something. That’d be brilliant”) following roles as Major Takol in The Mind’s Eye and Patricia Walton in The Jupiter Conjunction from Big Finish.

Given the Zygon’s ability to impersonate people, might we see Front as a victim of the suction cup monsters, last seen in The Day of the Doctor after a 37 year wait? Or will she be a political mid-hitter promoted beyond her abilities? The parallels with Armando Ianucci’s The Thick of It are obvious, although it can be considered unfortunate that Chris Addison’s Sebastian was dispatched by Missy in the final episode of Series 8, denying us a full Malcolm Tucker-flavoured reunion.

Another interesting connection between Front and Capaldi: both have played troubled reverends in Midsomer Murders, although neither was the murderer…

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Capaldi Wants Susan To Return: Do You?

Jonathan Appleton is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

Who fancies seeing reunion between the Doctor and his granddaughter? Peter Capaldi evidently does, as he confided to Carole Ann Ford when she enjoyed a visit to the Doctor Who set.

Ford’s visit came during filming of last year’s Christmas episode when Capaldi treated her to a tour of the TARDIS.

Speaking to Doctor Who Magazine, Ford recalled: “…they invited us to the studios in Cardiff [during the filming of ‘Last Christmas’]. It was great. It was lovely to meet Peter [Capaldi]. A lovely man.

“…I had seen some of the performances he’d done as Doctor Who and I didn’t like the way they wrote him at the beginning. I thought, ‘What’s going on here? Give him a chance!’ They portrayed him as someone who was so prickly. “…he started saying, ‘Oh, you should come back!’ I said, ‘Yeah, I’d love to come back!’ He was running around the TARDIS saying, ‘She’s got to come back! She’s got to come back!’”

Asked if she’d be interested in returning, she confirmed: “Yeah, of course! Are you kidding?”

Capaldi was clearly being his usual friendly, charming self here of course, but could his enthusiasm for the Doctor and Susan meeting up again be realised on-screen?

Production teams of the revived series haven’t been averse to bringing back characters from the Doctor’s past when the storyline warrants it. Sarah-Jane Smith (along with K9) returned way back in Series 2 in School Reunion, a story that sought to highlight the lesson that everyone who travels with the Doctor must learn – that eventually the fun has to stop and they’ll have to leave the Doctor behind.

And this is surely the main factor in determining whether Susan, or any other companion for that matter, should make a reappearance – is there a story that would justify it? Former show-runner Russell T Davies spoke of how he didn’t want the new series to become a retirement home for former companions, that there had to be a valid reason, beyond a warm glow of nostalgia, for characters from the Doctor’s past coming back.

Susan Foreman will always have a special place in Doctor Who history as the first ever companion, but arguably wouldn’t carry the same kind of name recognition among the viewing public as characters such as Sarah-Jane or the Brigadier, who enjoyed one last adventure in the world of Doctor Who in The Sarah-Jane Adventures. However there would surely be an intriguing story to tell if she were to meet up with the Doctor in his current incarnation, one who after all shares a number of traits with her grumpy grandfather. Big Finish reintroduced Susan successfully alongside Paul McGann’s Doctor in a series of stories where listeners got to find out what had become of her after departing from the Doctor in a ruined London, newly freed from the Daleks.

The modern series of Doctor Who has to cater for a mass television audience and would most likely steer clear of anything that smacks of a fan-pleasing continuity fest, but it would be easy enough to fill viewers in as to who Susan is and what she means to the Doctor. The key question is what would prompt a reunion? A key landmark in the Doctor or Susan’s life? Some kind of medical emergency? A hostage situation? Once you start thinking about it there’s a long list of possibilities…

So what do you think? Should Susan, or any other old companion whilst we’re at it, return to meet the Doctor? Do you like seeing old characters come back? Or are the best left as part of the show’s past? Let us know what you think!

Take Our Poll

Source: DWM

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The London Underground Is… Regenerating?!

Philip Bates is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

It’s clear that the people working on the London Underground: 1. have a sense of humour; and 2. are, like much of the world, Doctor Who fans. More specifically, the people at the Tufnell Park station. They’ve been up to some chucklesome antics before, and now, they’re back.

Tufnell Park is shut until March 2016 for some engineering works, so a talented ‘underground’ fan has scrawled a Classic Who-inspired sign on their whiteboard: one that combines new-age regeneration, with two much-loved Doctors.

If you go down to T.Park today… pic.twitter.com/z2WktvjCJt

— Witty Leaks (@WittyLeaks) June 2, 2015

Yes, that’s the Second Doctor regenerating (we never actually saw how that happened in The War Games, so it could’ve been exactly like that!), with the addition of that famous line from Tom Baker’s swansong story, Logopolis. A few might squirm at this mixture, but I think it’s a rather wonderful celebration. Certainly this type of thing should be encouraged – especially as it gets the London Underground more positive coverage. Plus, it’s clear to see Doctor Who is such a well-recognised brand!

Previous whiteboard messages have celebrated the 50th anniversary, the start of Series 8… and Doctor Who poetry!

#Doctorwho poetry and #artwork at Tufnell Park tube station this morning. pic.twitter.com/vhg2duL2gT

— Roxane Grant (@RoxaneGrantArt) January 4, 2014

TFL gone mad / amazing! #doctorwho pic.twitter.com/81rbj99bjV

— Talia (@trixie) August 7, 2014

Needless to say, we’re fans of this anonymous London Underground worker who keeps us informed and entertained!

(Thanks to the Radio Times.)

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Doctor Who Multimedia Spinoffs Discussed PLUS Catherine Tate Q&A

Christian Cawley is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

There have been many Doctor Who multimedia spin-offs over the past ten years, and Kasterborous reviewer Alex Fitch will be discussing these and more on Resonance FM in London this evening.

In an hour long show looking at new Doctor Who novels, comics and animated serials since the programme returned to television in 2005, Alex Fitch talks to novelist Alastair Reynolds about his book The Harvest of Time and to writers/editors Jay Eales and Selina Locke about Faction Paradox, Iris Wildtyme,Senor 105 and other Gallifreyan themed titles published by Obverse and Manleigh Books, and also listen out for artists David Roach and Mike Collins discuss drawing Doctor Who comics.

Unable to tune in? Don’t worry, the show will be podcast as three seperate episodes over the next week (one each on books, comics & cartoons) on podcasts.resonancefm.com.

Meanwhile, Alex will also be conducting a Q&A with Catherine Tate on Sunday, concering her appearance in a new comedic British superhero film – Super Bob – which is screening at the Ritzy Cinema in South London.

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NuWho 10th Anniversary: What Is Your Most Underrated Series 4 Story?

Philip Bates is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

This year, Doctor Who has been back on our screen ten whole years. It feels like yesterday that the TARDIS materialised once more; suitably, it also feels like forever.

So join us as we celebrate a decade with the Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh, and Twelfth Doctors. Let’s find out which serials are our favourites, and shine a light on the underrated ones too. Watch us run.

And then vote on your favourites. At the end of the year, we’ll find out which serials showcase our beloved show at the height of its game.

Donna became the most important woman in the universe – and then it was all snatched away from her, and from us. But at least we can relive her adventures whenever we want. You know our favourites of Series 4, but what’s the most underrated serial…?

Christian Cawley: Partners in Crime

Back in 2008, I was less than charitable to Partners in Crime, which is honestly far and away from being the worst of Doctor Who; on the contrary, it features some of the funniest moments of the show’s 51 years. It’s easy to see why: the big reveal at the end of a dimension hopping Rose Tyler essentially steals the light heartedness of the previous 40-odd minutes, rendering them – in this viewer’s eyes, at least – largely pointless. Here was the real story: the Doctor’s long lost love, believed stranded on a parallel Earth and with a desperate need to find the Time Lord, was back.

Throwing this key plot point for the series arc in at this stage was of course necessary, and Billie Piper’s return came as a complete shock to the viewing public (and fans). But it kind of distracted from the core of the story, which was Donna’s own (successful) search for the Doctor, and the realisation that she’d been leading a terribly superficial life.

She’d had her eyes opened following their previous meeting, and was now ready to see beyond the veneer of the Hello magazine obsession and go travelling to experience life properly, and as we see in Partners in Crime, this was the beginning of a journey for her whole family, her mum and her granddad (Jacqueline King and the incomparable Bernard Cribbins) that would eventually see Donna’s new life meet a tragic reset.

Sure, there’s some nonsense with (literally) fat aliens bursting out of people and Sarah Lancashire being arch as Miss Foster, but Partners in Crime is a superb season opener that not only brings back Rose Tyler but also a likeable version of Donna Noble. That’s a lot to manage in one story, and Russell T Davies pulls it off with apparent (albeit deceptive) ease.

Tony Jones: Midnight

Generally well received at the time, Midnight is one of those episodes people forget until reminded of it. Series 4 is very much the Catherine Tate series and has many episodes of note, yet it is Midnight that stands out, different from the rest and not just because it lacks the presence (for the bulk of the story) of the companion.

What it does do is to place David Tennant’s Doctor in a very claustrophobic situation where he is not in control. The balance of power shifts between the Doctor and Lesley Sharp’s Sky Silvestry. As the alien presence inside Sky gains power, the two have a battle fought not with weapons but with words – the actual performance carries an otherwise odd sequence into something special as Sky ends up convincing other passengers the Doctor is the enemy, and all through the simple device of repeating speech.

This is uncomfortable viewing in places – the threat is very real and hard to combat. A vessel full of ordinary people condemns the Doctor as alien and dangerous and could quickly become a mob. The Doctor fights easily identifiable monsters, not ordinary people. The Doctor doesn’t do ordinary. Much as the Seventh Doctor is shot in passing to trigger his regeneration in events completely out with his normal practice, the Tenth Doctor is in as much danger here is he ever is, and from something almost banal. He is genuinely terrified.

More than this, the resolution has the much used modern device of a member of the group sacrificing themselves because the Doctor needs to live (the early Voyage of the Damned is an extreme example of this), in this case the hostess of the tourist vessel. Her name? Nobody knows.

This is a tight, intelligent and undervalued piece of writing. Of course what follows (Turn Left) is a better example of modern Who but Midnight is better on many levels.

Becky Crockett: The Unicorn and the Wasp

I just really like the idea of the Doc being a fan of and meeting Agatha Christie and working with her to solve a mystery. It’s a fun episode that isn’t weighed down with heavy moments – the only real one comes at the end, talking about the fate of the real life Christie. While the characters and the story are a bit over the top, they and the story itself are reminiscent of the lady’s own work.

It’s like Cluedo on steroids.

Plus it has one of the more hilarious comic moments of the show between Tennant and Tate.

Joe Siegler: The Stolen Earth/ Journey’s End

I can simplify my story in a single sentence. It was FUN. Given you probably want more than that…

I don’t care that it mistreated the Daleks by making them spin in a circle (although not any worse than Tom Baker taunting them about climbing stairs, really), and I don’t care that we had a forced naked Tennant appearance. I don’t care about all the companions jammed in there to stand around. IT WAS FUN. So any rational, story based reason you can come up with to say why it’s not good doesn’t matter worth a darn.

We got a great moment where Davros remembered Sarah Jane from Genesis, we got some great dialogue between Davros and the Doctor, all the companions meeting up, the German speaking Daleks… It was just FUN.

Of course I loved the throwbacks to Dalek Invasion of Earth, The Pirate Planet, and Voyage of the Damned in here. Throwbacks all over the place, I love those. The emotion at the end with Donna was just way over the top awesome.

But bottom line it was just a fun story. In fact, had I remembered to write my favorite story of the season for this series, I would have used it there, but I used it here because so many people tend to trash this story for not being good. I don’t see that.

And no, he DIDN’T bloody say he loved her. Fortunately. That was something good there at the end.

Philip Bates: The Sontaran Stratagem/ The Poison Sky

Yeah, I love the Sontarans. Always have, always will. That they were finally returning after decades off-screen was an absolute joy, and writer, Helen Raynor didn’t let me down.

Doctor Who likes to make the mundane creepy, and satnavs were at the height of their popularity. “You have reached your final destination,” indeed. And frankly, I’ve never quite trusted cars. We’re all so used to these hulking bulks of metal that kill with ease. It’s pretty odd, really. It makes sense the Sontarans would take advantage of these death-traps.

It’s great to have the Sontarans really showing their military force as they, for the first time on TV, take on UNIT. It’s the first appearance of Dan Starkey – naturally, he’s great – but Christopher Ryan as Staal (the Not-Quite-So-Undefeated-Anymore-But-Never-Mind) was a revelation. I’m really hoping he returns in another full-blooded two-parter.

Let’s not forget the great team of Donna Noble and Martha Jones. Martha doesn’t get enough credit, and Donna? Well, we all know how amazing Donna is. I was a sceptic about her return. I’m proud to say I was wrong. Catherine Tate was just so, so good. I just loved her adventures with David Tennant’s Tenth Doctor, even if the end of Series 4 went rapidly downhill.

Oh, and a word about Douglas Mackinnon here, because everyone was blown away with what he did on Listen. But take a look at his other serials: Cold War in particular but also The Sontaran Stratagem/ The Poison Sky. It’s just so beautifully done. I especially like that last cliffhanger shot with the Doctor looking despairingly down a chocking street as gas rises and swirls into our environment. Properly stunning and compellingly hopeless.

Looking back, it’s also cool spotting the ATMOS logo in the taxi that comes to pick up Stacey in Partners in Crime. I like that intricate world-building the show does so expertly.

James Lomond: The Fires of Pompeii

Pompeii has been crying out for the Who treatment since the first production team made the bizarre choice to send the TARDIS back to cavemen times. And this historical runaround really delivers everything we want from the show. The trappings are all there: famed historical surroundings; aliens under the radar; an ethical dilemma that makes sense and doesn’t stretch even the plausibility of a fantasy universe (looking at you, Kill the Moon!). And this really is what makes the episode – Tate’s performance as Donna and the Doctor resolve to sacrifice themselves and 20,000 people to save the world is pitch-perfect. In light of the events in the Time War and The Day of the Doctor, re-watching the scene with the Tenth Doctor taking ending thousands of lives as a lesser evil is even more poignant.

The Pyroviles are brilliantly realised, particularly in their transitionary form, we’re given a cult of scary nuns to rival the Sisterhood of Karn and one of the best prophsise-til-you-drop performances in all of NuWho. The daughter referring to the Doctor as a “Lord of Time” gave me chills when this first aired and still stands up as a fantastic scene. And then there’s the playground compatible water pistol. Textbook!

And on top of ALL this awesome, we’ve then got meta-awesome with Amy Pond running around in a mad-woman frock and the Twelfth Doctor posing as a marble merchant – what could possibly be going on?!

Drew Boynton: Partners in Crime

While definitely not one of my favorite episodes, Partners in Crime contains some of the greatest moments of NuWho. The episode kicks off David Tennant’s last full series as the Doctor by re-introducing Catherine Tate’s Donna Noble… and actually making her likable! It also re-introduces Bernard Cribbins as Wilf… and somehow makes him even more likable than he already was! Then there’s the Donna-Doctor across-the-room-window-chat, which is one of the funniest and smartest scenes of the last 10 years.

And the jaw-dropping final scene of the episode, with a cameo by Billie Piper, stands as one of the greatest un-spoilered twists in an era of Internet spoilers. It’s too bad the Adipose storyline just doesn’t work – the Adipose themselves are fun little creations, but the creepy body fat plot is kind of gross. Putting the Adipose in a lighter Trouble with Tribbles-like episode might have worked much better, and keeps an episode full of great things from gelling together.

That’s what we think. Now it’s your turn! Vote below for the most underrated serial of Series 4, and we’ll find out the overall winner later this year…

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