Doctor Who: The Name of the Doctor
by Steven Moffat; dir. Saul Metzstein (BBC, 2013)
This season finale exhibits some very cool ideas, stitched together with plenty of good humour. Matt Smith carries the pathos well, yet there’s a bit too much plot crammed in and the episode is scored to within an inch of its life.
Doctor Who: Legend of the Sea Devils
by Ella Road & Chris Chibnall; dir. Haolu Wang (BBC, 2022)
At once laborious and rushed, committing neither to swashbuckling adventure nor to Yas and the Doctor (nor indeed to presaging the upcoming finale). The Sea Devils could have done with more of a revamp, as per the Ice Warriors in Series Seven.
Who and Me
by Barry Letts [New, Expanded Edition] (Fantom, 2021)
The first half of Barry Letts’s unfinished Doctor Who memoir. There’s not much here that Letts didn’t offer up during assorted DVD commentaries, but his conversational style nonetheless makes this slim volume a pleasant read. The ‘new’ material is largely just repetition.
K-9 and Company: A Girl’s Best Friend
by Terence Dudley; dir. John Black (BBC, 1981)
A bizarrely misjudged attempt at a Doctor Who spin-off. Elisabeth Sladen and Ian Sears do well but the opening credits scream allegiance to Metal Mickey and this synth-schlock carries over into the incidental music, flambéing all menace from the Devil’s End plot.
Doctor Who: Galaxy Four
by William Emms; dir. Derek Martinus (BBC, 1965/2021)
The animation is more rudimentary than that of the Troughton releases. Vicki (Maureen O’Brien) is done a particular disservice outside of the surviving footage. Nonetheless, the story is watchable and the colour version in particular features splendid landscapes and memorable character designs.
Doctor Who: Nightmare Country
by Stephen Gallagher (Big Finish, 2019)
An unproduced story from Season 21. Nightmare Country was the third of Gallagher’s Doctor Who scripts (after Warriors’ Gate and Terminus) and had the potential to be the best. Backed by strong performances, this audio version is suggestive of a lost classic.
Doctor Who: Last Man Running
by Chris Boucher (BBC, 1998)
While Boucher’s characterisation of Leela is superb, the non-regulars need actors to give them substance and the Doctor is diminished through having his inner thoughts revealed. The world-building outstrips the story’s needs, leaving the underlying idea more conceptually effective than narratively satisfying.
Doctor Who: The Doomsday Contract
by John Lloyd; adapted by Nev Fountain (Big Finish, 2021)
Originally commissioned during Douglas Adams’ tenure as script editor, The Doomsday Contract exhibits a Hitchhiker’s tonality but without quite the same zest. Tom Baker gives it some welly but the denunciation of bureaucracy via reductio ad absurdum seems a bit old hat.
Doctor Who: Eve of the Daleks
by Chris Chibnall; dir. Annetta Laufer (BBC, 2022)
Third try lucky for Chris Chibnall and Dalek specials. The time loop is a winner (explainy bits aside), while the enclosed environment and localised stakes allow the pepper pots to rise above their usual pointlessness. The guest characters have personality beyond function.
Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol
by Steven Moffat; dir. Toby Haynes (BBC, 2010)
A successful transplanting of Dickens’s novella into the Doctor Who universe, using science fiction to clever effect and adding a twist to the tale. Moffat captures both the Doctor’s exuberant childlike aspect and the seriousness beneath. Matt Smith is in top form.