There is a long and proud tradition in science fiction of terrifying tales where there is essentially no bad guy, but where systems engineered for a particular purpose will do it irrespective of any inconvenient…
Red Dwarf is probably the ultimate example of the brave little British sit-com that could – beginning in a low-budget, under-the-radar way, transforming itself several times along its lifespan, sometimes with better results than others,…
First thing’s first – yes, Empire of Death is the novelisation of both parts of the Series 14 (or Season 1 if you absolutely must) finale, including The Legend of Ruby Sunday as well as…
The no-longer-Celestial-because-wow-the-racism Toymaker recently made a triumphant return to the TV version of Doctor Who, in the body of Neil Patrick Harris in The Giggle. Understandably, that has sparked interest in the first time the…
Snakedance was the second story in Peter Davison’s Fifth Doctor’s tenure to feature a monster known as the Mara. Christopher Bailey wrote both, and in a sense, they offered something that has become fundamental to…
The Nestenes and their avatars, the Autons are a villain (once a monster) with which it is increasingly hard to find Good Things To Do. The Octopoid Nestene, with its gift of malevolently animating absolutely…
Doctor Who versus the Sasquatch? Yes, Babes! On a primal level, the title of this new BBC audio for the Fifteenth Doctor and Ruby Sunday sounds like one of the “factual” books of the late…
Before we go any further, this review comes with two confessions. Confession #1: Destiny of the Daleks was the first Doctor Who story I watched with the mindset of a fan. It was so amazing…
Early in the Fifth Doctor’s time on screen, one of the big questions faced by actor Peter Davison was how to differentiate his incarnation from the massive, infectious, striding performance of his predecessor, the longest-running…
Rogue on TV was a peculiar episode of Doctor Who, with three general categories of reaction. On the one hand, there were the disappointing people who took umbrage at the kiss between bounty hunter Rogue…
73 Yards was a deeply peculiar Doctor Who story on-screen. In its main storyline, it was an excellent riff on Russell T Davies’ epic Years and Years with an effective folk horror twist. But in…
Space Babies has been regarded by the Doctor Who fandom as everything from an oddish start for a Doctor’s first proper season to an experiment in tech-syncing of voice to mouth movement that doesn’t quite ever pull off its big trick, to a bit of an exercise in sloganeering space silliness – depending on which rabbit holes of internet fandom you fall down.
