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Classic Season 21 Doctor Who

Planet of Fire

Doctor WhoThe TARDIS has been set for a new course by Kamelion, who is attempting to go to the source of a distress signal which is overriding his every function. The Doctor manages to wrest control of the ship from Kamelion and lands the TARDIS on Earth to investigate. While the Doctor finds little of importance, other than a freshly uncovered batch of artifacts from an archaeological expedition, Turlough discovers the signal’s source and immobilizes the TARDIS to avoid going there. Turlough also spots a drowning swimmer on the TARDIS scanner. He rescues the girl, discovering that she has stolen the oddest of the artifacts that the Doctor saw earlier. When the Doctor returns, the TARDIS again takes off without his control, and apparently with a new passenger on board. The mystery of the new passengers unravels quickly, as does the mystery of who has been controlling Kamelion. But why is Turlough so keen to avoid a colony from his own planet – a colony of outcasts of which he may be a member?

Order the DVDwritten by Peter Grimwade
directed by Fiona Cumming
music by Peter Howell

Cast: Peter Davison (The Doctor), Janet Fielding (Tegan), Mark Strickson (Turlough), Anthony Ainley (The Master), Peter Wyngarde (Timanov), Barbara Shelley (Sorasta), Gerald Flood (voice of Kamelion), James Bate (Amyand), Dallas Adams (Professor Foster), Edward Highmore (Malkon), Jonathan Caplan (Roskal), John Alkin (Lomand), Michael Bangerter (Curt), Simon Sutton (Lookout), Max Arthur (Zuko), Ray Knight (Trion)

Broadcast from February 23 through March 2, 1984

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
Classic Season 21 Doctor Who

The Caves of Androzani

Doctor WhoThe Doctor and Peri find themselves on Androzani Major, a world embroiled in a bloody war over the drug spectrox, which prolongs the human life span. While exploring some seemingly uninhabited caves, the Doctor and Peri fall into a foreign substance which has the immediate effect of causing an unpleasant rash, and are then captured by a platoon of soldiers who accuse them of smuggling weapons. While awaiting summary execution for this crime, the Doctor and Peri are then rescued – or perhaps kidnapped – by Sharaz Jek, a disfigured madman who hoards the planet’s supply of spectrox and oversees the real weapons smugglers. The soldiers, Jek, the gun-runners and a treacherous corporate mogul with an eye on the presidency are all battling for control of the spectrox supply, and none of them will let anything stand in their way – especially not two innocent bystanders who are dying anyway.

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by Robert Holmes
directed by Graeme Harper
music by Roger Limb

Cast: Peter Davison (The Doctor), Janet Fielding (Tegan), Mark Strickson (Turlough), Christopher Gable (Sharaz Jek), John Normington (Morgus), Robert Glenister (Salateen), Maurice Roeves (Stotz), Roy Holder (Krelper), Martin Cochrane (Chellak), Barbara Kinghorn (Timmin), David Neal (President), Ian Staples (Soldier), Colin Taylor (Magma creature), Keith Harvey, Andrew Smith, Stephen Smith (Androids), Anthony Ainley (The Master), Matthew Waterhouse (Adric), Sarah Sutton (Nyssa), Janet Fielding (Tegan), Mark Strickson (Turlough), Gerald Flood (voice of Kamelion)

Broadcast from March 8 through 16, 1984

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
Classic Season 21 Doctor Who

The Twin Dilemma

Doctor WhoThe seemingly harmless Professor Edgeworth abducts Romulus and Remus Sylvest, twin boys whose immense mathematical prowess is closely guarded for fear that it could become a powerful weapon in the wrong hands. Edgeworth’s paymaster is Mestor, the giant gastropod, who plans to have the boys calculate a way to plunge the Jacondan solar system into chaos – all for the sake of hatching thousands of giant larvae containing a future swarm of gastropods. Edgeworth is the alias of Azmael, an outcast Time Lord who is reluctantly working for Mestor, but unknown to him, a fellow Time Lord is about to come crashing into Mestor’s plan for universal domination – a Time Lord who is suffering from a severely traumatic regeneration, and whose actions and moods cannot be predicted.

Order the DVDwritten by Anthony Steven
directed by Peter Moffatt
music by Malcolm Clarke

Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), Nicola Bryant (Peri), Maurice Denham (Edgeworth/Azmael), Kevin McNally (Hugo Lang), Edwin Richfield (Mestor), Barry Stanton (Noma), Oliver Smith (Drak), Seymour Green (Chamberlain), Paul Conrad (Romulus), Andrew Conrad (Remus), Dennis Chinnery (Sylvest), Helen Blatch (Fabian), Dione Inman (Elena), Roger Nott (Prisoner), John Wilson (Guard)

Broadcast from March 22 through 30, 1984

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
Classic Season 22 Doctor Who

Attack Of The Cybermen

Doctor WhoThe Doctor wanders right into a Cyberman scheme to alter their own history. When he first encountered them, the Doctor engineered the destruction of the Cybermen’s home planet in order to save Earth. Now, the Cybermen – operating from their base on Telos – plan to divert the course of Halley’s Comet circa 1985, so Earth won’t be there to interfere in Cyber-history. Left behind after the attempted Dalek invasion, Lytton is up to no good on Earth, but his attempt to curry favor with the Cybermen in exchange for a ticket off of Earth turns into a deal with the devil that he can’t survive. And on Telos itself, a pair of renegade slave laborers tries to steal a Cyberman timeship, and the original inhabitants of Telos, who cannot survive in anything but sub-zero temperatures, enlist help in their own fight against the Cybermen.

Order the DVDwritten by Paula Moore
directed by Matthew Robinson
music by Malcolm Clarke

Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), Nicola Bryant (Peri), Maurice Colbourne (Lytton), Brian Glover (Griffiths), Terry Molloy (Russell), James Beckett (Payne), Jonathan David (Stratton), Michael Attwell (Bates), Sarah Berger (Rost), Esther Freud (Threst), Faith Brown (Flast), Sarah Greene (Varne), Stephen Churchett (Bill), Stephen Wale (David), Michael Kilgarriff (CyberController), David Banks (CyberLeader), Brian Orrell (Cyber Lieutenant), John Ainley, Roger Pope, Thomas Lucy, Ian Marshall-Fisher, Pat Gorman (Cybermen)

Broadcast from January 5 through 12, 1985

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
Classic Season 22 Doctor Who

Vengeance On Varos

Doctor WhoThe TARDIS stalls in deep space, drained of one of its power sources. The Doctor is able to nudge the TARDIS toward the planet Varos, the galaxy’s only known natural deposit of zeiton-7 ore. But the rightful governor of Varos is under the thumb of Sil, a sinister profitmongering alien who plans to take over Varos and strip-mine it dry with no regard for the natives of the planet. Life on Varos is so bleak that executions and elections are both broadcast publicly, and they’re not exactly two different things – anytime one of the governor’s referendums fails to meet with the approval of the public, the governor himself suffers at the mercy of a disintegration beam, and naturally it’s on the air. The Doctor and Peri arrive right in the middle of just such an execution, setting a condemned prisoner free and setting in motion a chain of events that could free Varos from Sil’s murderous business dealings.

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by Philip Martin
directed by Ron Jones
music by Malcolm Clarke

Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), Nicola Bryant (Peri), Martin Jarvis (Governor), Nabil Shaban (Sil), Jason Connery (Jondar), Forbes Collins (Chief Officer), Stephen Yardley (Arak), Sheila Reid (Etta), Geraldine Alexander (Areta), Owen Teale (Maldak), Graham Cull (Bax), Nicholas Chagrin (Quillam), Hugh Martin (Priest), Keith Skinner (Rondel), Bob Tarff (Executioner), Jack McGuire, Alan Troy (Madmen)

Broadcast from January 19 through 26, 1985

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
Classic Season 22 Doctor Who

The Mark Of The Rani

Doctor WhoThe TARDIS is diverted to England at the dawn of the industrial revolution, a particularly sensitive point in human history that could be derailed by one careless time traveler – but in this case, there are no fewer than three careless time travelers. The Master is hatching a plot – yet again – to do away with the Doctor and destroy the Earth, while the Rani, a female Time Lord with a talent for sinister biochemical experiments, uses humans as her guinea pigs. This puts the Doctor and Peri in double jeopardy as the Master and the Rani interfere with each other’s plans, and both of the evil Time Lords couldn’t be less concerned about their effects on Earth’s development.

Order the DVDwritten by Pip Baker & Jane Baker
directed by Sarah Hellings
music by Jonathan Gibbs

Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), Nicola Bryant (Peri), Anthony Ainley (The Master), Kate O’Mara (The Rani), Terence Alexander (Lord Ravensworth), Gawn Grainger (George Stephenson), Peter Childs (Jack Ward), Gary Cady (Luke Ward), Richard Steele (Guard), William Ilkley (Tim Bass), Hus Levant (Edwin Green), Kevin White (Sam Rudge), Martyn Whitby (Drayman), Cordelia Ditton (Older Woman), Sarah James (Young Woman), Nigel Johnson (Josh), Alan Talbot (Tom)

Broadcast from February 2 through 9, 1985

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
Classic Season 22 Doctor Who

The Two Doctors

Doctor WhoThe second Doctor and Jamie are sent on a mission by the Time Lords to ask a team of scientists, as diplomatically as possible, to bring their time travel experiments to an end. The Doctor is unable to convince the head scientist, Dastari, to heed the Time Lords’ warnings; Dastari is far too busy admiring his own work, including his genetic “improvement” of Chessene, a savage Androgum. But Chessene’s augmentations have simply given her the ability to apply her violent primitive impulses on a grander scale – such as a collusion with the Sontarans to use the new time travel device as a weapon of conquest. The Doctor is captured by the Sontarans and taken to their secret base of operations on Earth – and his sixth incarnation will have to find him to avoid the corruption of his entire timeline.

Order the DVDwritten by Robert Holmes
directed by Peter Moffatt
music by Peter Howell

Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), Nicola Bryant (Peri), Patrick Troughton (The Second Doctor), Frazer Hines (Jamie McCrimmon), John Stratton (Shockeye), Jacqueline Pearce (Chessene), Laurence Payne (Dastari), James Saxon (Oscar), Carmen Gomez (Anita), Clinton Greyn (Stike), Tim Raynham (Varl), Aimee Delamain (Dona Arana), Nicholas Farcett (Technician), Laurence Payne (Computer voice), Fernando Monast (Scientist)

Broadcast from February 16 through March 2, 1985

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
Classic Season 22 Doctor Who

Timelash

Doctor WhoRebellion is in the air on Karfel, a planet whose native population is enslaved by the Borad – a being which used to be one of them, but has now become a horrible genetic mutant. Tyranny is not the Borad’s only gift to Karfel – he has also brought the Timelash, a device that allows political prisoners to be “executed” by dumping them into a time corridor. The Borad has also brought Karfel to the brink of war with the Bandrils, a race of peaceful hand puppets. In the midst of this bleak landscape, the Doctor and Peri arrive, and find themselves racing against time to save the Karfelons from their own esteemed leader.

Order the DVDwritten by Glen McCoy
directed by Pennant Roberts
music by Elizabeth Parker

Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), Nicola Bryant (Peri), JeanAnne Crowley (Vena), Eric Deacon (Mykros), Robert Ashby (The Borad), Paul Darrow (Tekker), David Chandler (Herbert), Denis Carey (Old Man), David Ashton (Kendron), Peter Robert Scott (Brunner), Dicken Ashworth (Sezom), Tracy Louise Ward (Katz), Christine Kavanaugh (Aram), Steven Mackintosh (Gazak), Dean Hollingsworth (Android), James Richardson (Guardolier), Martin Gower (Tyheer/Bandril Ambassador)

Broadcast from March 9 through 16, 1985

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
Classic Season 22 Doctor Who

Revelation of the Daleks

Doctor WhoThe Doctor arrives on the planet Necros, whose chief industry is funeral services, to pay his final respects to an old friend. But Necros isn’t what it used to be. It’s now run by The Great Healer – in reality, Davros, creator of the malevolent Daleks – who is using Necros as cover for his experiments to convert human beings into mindless Dalek operators. The head of the funeral industry, Kara, has hired an assassin to dispose of Davros, but her hired gun quickly realizes that he’s being paid to act as cannon fodder. The Doctor discovers that his arrival has been anticipated, but he doesn’t suspect that the Daleks are involved until he falls into their clutches.

Order the DVDwritten by Eric Saward
directed by Graeme Harper
music by Roger Limb

Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), Nicola Bryant (Peri), Terry Molloy (Davros), Eleanor Bron (Kara), Clive Swift (Jobel), Alexei Sayle (DJ), Jenny Tomasin (Tasambeker), William Gaunt (Orcini), John Ogwen (Bostock), Stephen Flynn (Grigory), Bridget Lynch-Blosse (Natasha), Trevor Cooper (Takis), Colin Spaull (Lilt), Hugh Walters (Vogel), Alec Linstead (head of Stengos), Ken Barker (Mutant), Royce Mills, Roy Skelton (Dalek voices), Penelope Lee (Computer voice), John Scott Martin, Cy Town, Tony Starr, Toby Byrne (Daleks)

Broadcast from March 23 through 30, 1985

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
6th Doctor

Slipback

Doctor Who: SlipbackFollowing a trail of time spillage, indicating carelessly-conducted time experiments, the TARDIS brings the Doctor to the starship Vipod Mor, whose dysfunctional crew includes an undercover cop, a schizophrenic ship’s computer, and a captain intent on creating and unleashing the most virulent disease in the universe. But the Time Lord isn’t in any shape to take on these potential dangers – he’s nearly incapacitated, trying to decipher a cryptic message deliver to him by a disembodied female voice. Soon, he and Peri are caught in the middle of numerous deadly plots, but the Doctor discovers that he can’t interfere with any of them…without derailing the entire history of the universe.

Order this CDwritten by Eric Saward
directed by Paul Spencer
music by Jonathan Gibbs

Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), Nicola Bryant (Peri), Jane Carr (Computer), John Glover (Shellingborne Grant), Nick Revell (Bates / Snatch), Alan Thompson (Mutant / Steward), Valentine Dyall (Captain Slarn), Ron Pember (Seedle)

Timeline: after Revelation Of The Daleks and before Trial Of A Time Lord

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
Classic Season 23 Doctor Who

The Mysterious Planet (Trial Of A Time Lord, Parts 1-4)

Doctor WhoA huge space station drags the TARDIS out of time and space, depositing the Doctor in a Gallifreyan courtroom where a Time Lord tribunal accuses him of meddling in the history of the galaxy. The ruthless prosecutor, the Valeyard, presents events from the Doctor’s past as evidence of his transgression of the Time Lords’ non-interference laws. In the adventure shown, the Doctor and Peri – who is curiously absent from the courtroom – discover that the planet Ravolox is actually Earth, two million years hence, and somehow moved into another solar system. Two rogues from another galaxy are hunting down copies of a huge databank which have found their way into the possession of a robot which lords over the last remaining humans on Earth. The source of these copies also turn the Time Lords themselves into suspects in the crime of the eon – the disappearance of Earth.

Order the DVDwritten by Robert Holmes
directed by Nicholas Mallett
music by Dominic Glynn

Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), Nicola Bryant (Peri), Bonnie Langford (Melanie), Michael Jayston (The Valeyard), Lynda Bellingham (Inquisitor), Tony Selby (Glitz), Joan Sims (Katryca), Glen Murphy (Dibber), Tom Chadbon (Merdeen), Roger Brierly (Drathro), David Rodigan (Broken Tooth), Adam Blackwood (Balazar), Timothy Walker (Grell), Billy McColl (Humker), Sion Tudor Owen (Tandrell)

Broadcast from September 6 through 27, 1986

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
Classic Season 23 Doctor Who

Mindwarp (Trial Of A Time Lord, Parts 5-8)

Doctor WhoThe Valeyard presents another adventure as evidence of the Doctor’s meddlesome nature. During this escapade, the Doctor and Peri arrive on Thoros Beta, the home planet of their old enemy Sil. Kiv, the leader of Sil’s people, faces a painful death unless a way can be found to transplant Kiv’s mind into a physically larger brain. When the Doctor and Peri are captured by the guards, the Doctor is subjected to an experiment wiith the mind transplantation equipment and becomes mentally unstable. Peri escapes with the help of King Yrcanos, a warrior from neighboring Thoros Alpha, whose people are enslaved by Sil. But the Valeyard’s evidence seems to show the Doctor betraying Peri to save his own skin, despite the Doctor’s insistence that these events never occurred. But even the Doctor is stunned into silence when he finally learns why Peri is not present to defend him at his trial.

Order the DVDwritten by Philip Martin
directed by Ron Jones
music by Richard Hartley

Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), Nicola Bryant (Peri), Bonnie Langford (Melanie), Michael Jayston (The Valeyard), Lynda Bellingham (Inquisitor), Brian Blessed (King Yrcanos), Nabil Shaban (Sil), Christopher Ryan (Kiv), Patrick Reycart (Crozier), Alibe Parsons (Matrona Kani), Richard Henry (Mentor), Trevor Laird (Frax), Gordon Warnecke (Tuza), Thomas Branch (The Lukoser)

Broadcast from October 4 through 25, 1986

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
Classic Series Specials Doctor Who

Dimensions In Time

Doctor WhoThe Doctor and Ace find themselves in London’s East End (instead of their intended destination, the Great Wall of China). Soon they find themselves switching identities, as the Doctor flits from one incarnation to another and his companions constantly change. Behind it all is The Rani, who hopes to trap the Doctor so he can never interfere in her plans again…

written by John Nathan-Turner & David Roden
directed by Stuart McDonald
music by Keff McCulloch

Cast: Jon Pertwee (The Doctor), Tom Baker (The Doctor), Peter Davison (The Doctor), Colin Baker (The Doctor), Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor), Kate O’Mara (The Rani), Sophie Aldred (Ace), Nicola Bryant (Peri), Nicholas Courtney (The Brigadier), Carole Ann Ford (Susan), Richard Franklin (Captain Yates), Louise Jameson (Leela), Caroline John (Liz Shaw), Ross Kemp (Grant Mitchell), Bonnie Langford (Mel), John Leeson (K-9), Steve McFadden (Phil Mitchell), Philip Newman (Kiv), Mike Reid (Frank), Wendy Richard (Pauline Fowler), Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), Pam St. Clement (Pat Butcher), Nicola Stapleton (Mandy), Sarah Sutton (Nyssa), Gillian Taylforth (Kathy Beale), Deepak Verma (Sanjay), Lalla Ward (Romana II), Deborah Watling (Victoria Waterfield), Adam Woodyatt (Ian Beale)

Broadcast November 26 & 27, 1993

LogBook entry & review by Philip R. Frey

Categories
6th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

Whispers Of Terror

Doctor Who: Whispers Of TerrorIn the Museum of Aural Antiquities, preparations are underway for a broadcast in tribute to the late actor Visteen Krane, who died mysteriously on the eve of announcing his candidacy for the Presidency. But things begin to go wrong almost immediately. A man is found murdered in the Museum, and the only suspects without an alibi are two intruders who identify themselves as The Doctor and Peri. The Doctor is immediately suspicious of Beth Pernell, Krane’s theatrical agent and potential running mate, who is planning to supplant her late boss as a presidential candidate and use the tribute in his honor for her own publicity. But when another death occurs, the Doctor suspects an even greater danger – a bloodthirsty life form composed of sound waves, which can replicate and transmit itself through any sound-conducting channel…such as, for example, a tribute broadcast which will be heard by millions.

Order this CDwritten by Justin Richards
directed by Gary Russell
music by Nicholas Briggs

Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), Nicola Bryant (Peri), Rebecca Jenkins (Amber Dent/Car Computer), Hylton Collins (Goff Fotherill/Computer Voice), Matthew Brehner (Visteen Krane), Peter Miles (Curator Gantman), Mark Trotman (Miles Napton), Nick Scovell (Detective Berkeley), Lisa Bowerman (Beth Pernell), Steffan Boje (Hans Stengard)

Timeline: after Revelation Of The Daleks and before …ish

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
5th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

Red Dawn

Doctor Who: Red DawnThe TARDIS takes the Doctor and Peri to a cathedralesque structure on the surface of Mars early in the 21st century at a particularly historic moment – the day of the first American manned landing on the red planet. But NASA’s crew is a motley assortment. Two American astronauts are accompanied by a pair of British civilians, Tanya and Paul Webster, whose only claim to their seats on the mission is their relation to a rich uncle whose financial backing kept the Mars shot from being scrapped. But the Websters’ presence is more than just a favor to the mission’s benefactor. The Doctor, Peri, and the astronauts discover that the elaborate building is an Ice Warrior tomb, guarded by a contingent of Warriors in suspended animation. Paul Webster suddenly shows his true colors: as an ambitious and unscrupulous agent for his equally corrupt uncle, he is on the Mars mission to bring back as much alien technology as he can find. The honor-bound Ice Warriors have a hard time coming to any conclusion other than vengeance – which could kill both the innocent members of the expedition and the time travelers as well. The Doctor feels personally responsible for the entire incident, which might not have happened if not for his presence on Mars.

Order this CDwritten by Justin Richards
directed by Gary Russell
music by Russell Stone

Cast: Peter Davison (The Doctor), Nicola Bryant (Peri), Matthew Brenher (Lord Zzaal), Robert Jezek (Commander Lee Forbes), Maureen Oakley (Pilot Susan Roberts), Stephen Fewell (Paul Webster), Georgia Moffatt (Tanya Webster), Hylton Collins (Subcommander Sstast), Alistair Lock (Zizmar), Jason Haigh-Ellery (Sskann), Gary Russell (Razzburr)

Notes: Georgia Moffatt is Peter Davison’s daughter, but she’s not the first offspring of the leading actor to appear in the series. Sylvester McCoy’s two sons played Haemovores in 1989’s The Curse Of Fenric, and the late Patrick Troughton’s son David made three appearances, a bit part in 1969’s The War Games and much more prominent roles in 1972’s The Curse Of Peladon and 2008’s Midnight. Moffatt would later appear in a 2008 episode of the revived Doctor Who TV series, ironically titled The Doctor’s Daughter, and married the tenth Doctor, David Tennant, in 2011.

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green