Sci-Fi Worlds

DOOMWATCH Fanzine issues one, two and three

2011-11-18T22:13:00.000Z

All three issues of The DOOMWATCH Fanzine published by Scott Burditt of DOOMWATCH.org.

Open publication - Free publishing - More bbc

Open publication - Free publishing - More doomwatch

FANWNAK issues one, two and three

2011-11-18T20:32:00.000Z

The first three issues of the new Doctor Who fanzine I'm writing for published by Scott Burditt of DOOMWATCH.org. Visit FANWNAK.co.uk for more information.

Open publication - Free publishing - More doctor who

Open publication - Free publishing - More fanwnak

The Kneale Tapes

2011-10-30T19:31:00.001Z

The BBC's excellent Time Shift documentary about writer Nigel Kneale's film and television work.

Read a column I wrote about Nigel Kneale HERE.

New Doctor Who fanzine FANWNAK out now!

2011-07-09T14:10:00.000+01:00

Scott Burditt of DOOMWATCH.org is publishing a new Doctor Who fanzine called "FANWNAK." Go to FANWNAK.co.uk for more information. Below you can read an article I did for issue one of the fanzine, a revised and updated version of my "Four Years of New Who" article I did for issue 4 of Alien Worlds magazine back in 2008.

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Six Years of New Doctor Who

By Richard Thomas

After 26 seasons, the original series was axed in 1989, leaving a whole generation of children without their own Doctor and only video releases and UK Gold repeats to fill the void. Then in 2003 (the 40th anniversary year of the classic series) came the exciting news that the BBC were going to revive Doctor Who. So, six seasons on, how has the new series done?

When fans first heard that Doctor Who was coming back, many were worried that the series would either make the silly mistake of changing too much and alienating the fandom or, more dangerously, changing too little and confusing new viewers. It is often argued that the reason the old series was cancelled in the first place was because it became a fan show bogged down in its own continuity, instead of a family show for everyone. Fortunately, it looks like the new series has somehow managed to walk this tightrope incredibly well, resurrecting old favourites, inventing new ones and adding to the epic mythology of the program instead of becoming trapped by it.

Over the last four years, we've witnessed the return of legendary monsters like the Autons, Daleks and Cybermen; as well as the Doctor's nemesis the Master; and old allies UNIT, Sarah Jane Smith and robot dog K-9. But each time the new series has revived popular elements like these from the Doctor's past, it has done so in a way that both changes them enough to make them relevant to today, while at the same time staying true to the original concept. The program has successfully recycled old Cold War creations for a post 9/11 world and much more technological age.

Perhaps the most obvious example of how the new series has done this has been the reintroduction of the Doctor's greatest foes, the Daleks, to the series. The new metallic bronze design of the Dalek machines stayed true to what a Dalek is and built upon it, when the temptation must have been to totally redesign them. More significantly though, who and what the Daleks are meant to represent seems to have been updated in a similar way.

In the original series, Dalek creator Terry Nation made it clear what his steel creations represented. When the Daleks first appeared in 1963, WWII had only been over for 18 years and the memory of the Nazis and their crimes was still very much fresh in people's minds. The links between the Daleks and Hitler's Third Reich were made particularly obvious in the 1964 story The Dalek Invasion of Earth, where the Daleks occupy mid-22nd century Earth. In the story, the Daleks organise (like the Nazis had) slave labour camps, use Nazi terminology like "extermination" and are even seen giving their own version of the Hitler salute. Also, later in the 1975 story Genesis of the Daleks Nation introduced a very Fuhrer-like Davros as their leader.

When they returned in the new series, it was made equally clear what the Daleks were now meant to represent. In a move that both updated the Daleks for modern audiences but also echoed what were probably Nation's original intentions, the Daleks were changed from Nazis to symbols for the new evil fresh in peoples minds: radical religious fundamentalism and terrorism.

This change is probably most prevalent in season one of the new series. For instance, in Dalek we encounter a lone Dalek soldier, who after being tortured by its American captors (in an attempt to quite literally make it talk) escapes and exterminates most of them. And, if the parallels here with the War on Terror and Guantanamo Bay weren't already strong enough, the story ends with the escaped Dalek "terrorist", in effect, committing suicide by blowing itself up.

Further, in The Parting of the Ways, the Daleks are even openly shown as religious fanatics, not only talking of "blasphemy" for the first time but also showing religious devotion to their Dalek Emperor, going as far as worshiping the mutant monstrosity as the "God of all Daleks."

Much like the Daleks, the Doctor's second most popular enemies, the Cybermen, were similarly updated when they returned in season two of the new series. Originally created in 1966 by the writing team of Dr Kit Pedler and Gerry Davis, the Cybermen made their first appearance in William Hartnell's last story as the Doctor, The Tenth Planet. They went on to make numerous returns in the series, with a decapitated Cyber head even appearing on display in Dalek.

Interestingly though, the Cybermen we meet in the new series come from a parallel Earth and have nothing to do with the old series' Cybermen: who originally came from Earth's long lost twin planet Mondas. Despite this change, the new series' Cybermen probably reflect the original premise of their creators better than the old ones ever did. Making it graphically clear who and what they are meant to be ... humans who had had their humanity surgically removed and replaced with cold technology.

In the age of the Internet, mobile phones and iPods, where we're all becoming increasingly dependant on technology, this fact is probably more relevant now than ever. It could even be argued that because of our growing obsession with technology, that we're all, in a way, becoming Cybermen ourselves. A point not missed by the new series in Rise of the Cybermen and The Age of Steel, where we see how a parallel Earth's obsession with the latest upgrade eventually leads to the mass conversion of the population into Cybermen.

It would be a big mistake to think the new series writers are afraid to add to the Cyber mythos though. In the 2008 Christmas special, The Next Doctor, they not only continued to stay loyal to the original vision (for instance, having the Cybermen invade London again) but also introduce two new variants of Cybermen: the wraith like Cybershades and the powerful Cyber-King, a Cyberman Dreadnought style battleship with the capability to convert millions into Cybermen as the steel giant strides through the streets of London.

Another good example, of course, is the Master, who was brought back in season three of the new series. Out of all the Doctor's old enemies to return in the new series, probably none have changed more than the Master. Which is perfectly acceptable, because, like the Doctor, every incarnation of the Master (a fellow Time Lord with 12 regenerations) should be unique. All the key characteristics of the Master are still there, he is still an evil genius and psychopath with dreams of universal dominion, only now instead of simply being a renegade Time Lord ... he's the British Prime Minister and dictator of Earth. Perhaps we should ask if the Master has regenerated into Tony Blair?

This is a joke of course, but in The Sound of Drums and Last of the Time Lords there is definitely something very reminiscent of Blair's run as PM about the Master's reign. From the music the Master plays during the Toclafane invasion, to the fact that everyone voted for the Master in the first place because what he had to say sounded good at the time and no one can tell you why. Not to mention, both come to power on a wave of unparalleled popularity and both become universally unpopular after an unjust invasion and occupation. Blair invading Iraq and the Master using the Toclafane to conquer Earth.

Perhaps the most interesting change to the Master though has been the character's new sense of humour. Mirroring Tennant's Doctor the new Master jokes and makes light of tense situations, turning one of the Doctor's greatest strengths against him as well as making the parallels between the two more clear. Not only making the Master more accessible to new audiences but also tying in well with the old series, where the Master was often shown to be the Doctor's parallel and where it was even sometimes hinted that the two are somehow mutually dependent on each other. In the old series the Doctor even went as far as saying: "He's a Time Lord. In many ways, we have the same mind". Interestingly, the Daleks also seem to go back to their roots in this story. Behaving more like Nazis again instead of terrorists: conquering planets, experimenting on prisoners and even going as far as speaking German for the first time.

In the last episode of the Russell T. Davies era, The End of Time, the Time Lords make their return, lead by a resurrected Rassilon who was last seen in 20th anniversary special The Five Doctors.

In season five and six the new head writer Steven Moffat would continue to use this formula, brining back not only the Earth reptiles or Silurians but other favourites the Autons, Sontarans, Daleks and Cybermen … as well as his own creations the Weeping Angels. And for the first time ever, all these enemies (with the exception of the Weeping Angels) finally put their differences aside and unite against their common enemy: the Doctor.

So six seasons on, the new series has managed to walk the difficult line between pleasing new audiences and fandom incredibly well. Resurrecting and reinventing old series favourites for modern times, making them more relevant to today but in a respectful way that echoes the intentions of their original creators.

Richard Freeman interview: yetis, dragons, Doctor Who and more!

2011-05-29T22:50:00.000+01:00

Over at Cryptomundo I’ve posted an interview I did with Richard Freeman of the CFZ back in 2009, focusing on how the TV series Doctor Who inspired him to become a cryptozoologists. Read it HERE.

New ebook 'PARA-EWS - UFOs, Conspiracy Theories, Cryptozoology and much much more' out now!

2011-05-22T14:02:00.000+01:00

My first ever book, well ebook "Para-News" is out now. I’ve been told the book has been uploaded to Kindle, Barnes and Noble and other ebook platforms and should be available to buy by 30 May, if not before. UFOMystic blogger Nick Redfern even did a short foreword for me, which you can read below:

When Richard Thomas asked me if I would be willing to write the foreword for his very first book, saying “Yes!” was not a problem at all. Over the last few years, I have followed Richard’s work at Binnall of America, and in the pages of Stuart Miller’s unfortunately short-lived Alien Worlds magazine. And not only have I followed his writing: I have also seen it grow and develop in scope, depth, subject-matter, and style.

Plus, as is very clear from his written output, Richard has a great passion and enthusiasm for those puzzles, people, and places of the outer-edge variety that he pursues. All of these are (or certainly should be!) essential character traits when it comes to investigating weird phenomena, and/or interviewing Fortean experts in their respective fields.

There’s nothing worse than tired, old has-beens, utterly jaded and worn by their time spent chasing the ufological, the cryptozoological, the paranormal, and the supernatural. Thankfully, Richard is none of these! What he is, is someone who is constantly striving to learn more, share his data with others, and to do the latter in an informative, entertaining and thought-provoking fashion.

So, if your interests include (A) strange and ominous beasts of a type that science says cannot, and do not exist, but that cryptozoologists say otherwise; (B) weird and enigmatic outer-space conspiracies; (C) the intricacies of time-travel; (D) spooks and spectres from the other side; (E) the way in which science-fiction and science-fact often cross paths to truly astonishing degrees; and (F) and the ominous Orwellian road that our society seems to be evermore traveling down, then this is most certainly the book for you!

You can read a free ebook sample of “PARA-NEWS The Very Best of Richard Thomas” by Richard Thomas.

"Like" the "Para-News" Facebook page.

Buy it now at ...

Smashwords

Barnes & Noble

Amazon US

Amazon UK

Here is the product description from Amazon:

A gripping account of the very latest developments in the esoteric worlds of conspiracy theories, Ufology, paranormal investigations and the bizarre.

Most people will have heard of UFOs, ghosts and yetis, but what about the wilder shores of the paranormal, the conspiracy theorists and down right bizarre? In this book, one of the world’s leading and most prolific paranormal bloggers takes readers on a voyage of discovery like no other ever written.

The key players are interviewed, explaining their views on the JFK assassination, the shadowy and sinister Illuminati, the influential Bilderberg Group, allegations of an incipient New World Order, cover ups and how hidden messages can be found in Hollywood movies such as Blade Runner and TV shows including the X-Files. Dean Haglund, Richard Dolan, Steve Watson, Richard Holland, Nick Pope, Timucin Leflef, Bryce Zabel, Christopher Knowles and Nick Redfern are all here.

The book takes a critical look at timeslips, ghosts, UFOs, cryptids, mind control, aliens, disinformation, black-ops, the Bermuda Triangle and a host of other paranormal phenomena.

Endorsement
“If your interests include (A) strange and ominous beasts of a type that science says cannot, and do not exist, but that cryptozoologists say otherwise; (B) weird and enigmatic outer-space conspiracies; (C) the intricacies of time-travel; (D) spooks and spectres from the other side; (E) the way in which science-fiction and science-fact often cross paths to truly astonishing degrees; and (F) and the ominous Orwellian road that our society seems to be evermore traveling down, then this is most certainly the book for you!”
– Nick Redfern, author of The Real Men in Black and Space Girl Dead on Spaghetti Junction.

About the Author
RICHARD THOMAS is a freelance feature writer specialising in Fortean subjects. Richard has written for high street magazines, including Alien Worlds Magazine, Paranormal Magazine and UFO Matrix Magazine. He is also a blogger for UFOMystic and Binnall of America. In addition to writing about the paranormal and unexplained, Richard also writes a column entitled “Big Day Out” for the South Wales Evening Post, Wales’ largest circulation newspaper. His website is at www.richardthomas.eu.

Lex Gigeroff interviewed about Lexx

2011-03-27T13:06:00.000+01:00

With its characteristically dark sets and black humour, and operating from the perspective "humans are a flawed species," Lexx was a revolutionary series. Its characters weren't on any spiritual quest to "better themselves" or "save the day," rather, they were motivated by the mundane things that motivate 99.9% of the human race: boredom, lust and hunger. Throw in "The Lexx," a Manhattan sized bioengineered insect craft and "the most powerful destructive force in the two universes" and you had something just as fun as the original Star Trek but just about as different as you can get too. I guess that's why Lexxicons lovingly still call it "Star Trek's evil twin."

Read my interview with one of the big three head writers on the series, Lex Gigeroff, the man that "The Lexx" was named after, HERE.

Transhumanism in Doomwatch

2011-03-22T23:47:00.000Z

The below article was first published in issue one of The Doomwatch Fanzine. Please visit DOOMWATCH.org.

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Transhumanism in Doomwatch

By Richard Thomas

Trans or Post-humanism is a global movement that advocates advancing human evolution via artificial means such as genetic engineering, cloning and other newly emerging technologies. Made up of academics and enthusiasts alike Transhumanists see certain aspects of the human condition such as old age, sickness and mortality as unnecessary and therefore undesirable. The central premise of the movement being that by merging with technology humans will be able to evolve into a new race of Transhumans free of all forms of human suffering.

Back in 1966 Doctor Who was facing a major crisis. After three years as leading man William Hartnell was leaving the series due to ill health and to make matters worse Terry Nation wanted to take his Dalek creations to America to star in their own spin-off series without the Doctor. Thus leaving Doctor Who without its two biggest icons.

It was decided then that Hartnell would be succeeded by Patrick Troughton as the Doctor and that this transition would be helped via the introduction of new star monsters to series: but who or what exactly could possibly even come close to replacing the Daleks? That was the difficult conundrum then script editor Gerry Davis approached the unofficial scientific advisor to the series Kit Pedler with as Doctor Who approached its fourth season.

Reflecting on his own fears as a medical Doctor of "dehumanising medicine" Pedler delivered in spades. Pedler imagined a race of human beings who had been forced by circumstances beyond their control to slowly replace most - if not all - of their vital organs and limbs with steel and plastic replacements. Ultimately even replacing large parts of their brains with computers and neurochemically programming out their emotions altogether. In effect, surgically erasing all traces of their humanity and transplanting it with cold technology and relentless, uncompromising logic. Pedler and Davis called these new nightmarish life forms Cybermen.

In the 1974 Target Book adaptation of the first Cyber-story The Tenth Planet (which introduced Troughton's Doctor) Gerry Davis described the fictional origins of the Cybermen:

"Centuries ago by our Earth time, a race of men on the far distant planet Telos sought immortality. They perfected the art of cybernetics, the reproduction of machine functions in human beings. As bodies became old and diseased, they were replaced limb by limb, with plastic and steel. Finally, even the human circulation and nervous system were recreated, and brains replaced by computers. The first Cybermen were born."

Somewhat ironically, though, despite this apparent great evolutionary leap forward Pedler reasoned that such beings would be driven solely by the most primitive of biological instincts … the will to survive whatever the cost no matter what. A frightening contradiction that made itself felt much more prevalently later on when Pedler and Davis decided to revisit the initial concept behind the Cybermen for Doomwatch in the 1970s, oddly enough in an episode starring Patrick Troughton. Far from battling the Cybermen, though, on this occasion Troughton does everything he can to become one of them! In Troughton’s own words: "I keep trying to tell them machines can’t catch diseases!"

In the season two episode In The Dark a terminally ill man Alan McArthur (played by Troughton) desperately tries to prolong his life artificially by replacing his dieing body piece by piece with experimental life support systems. Although the experiment is successful it has a terrible price. McArthur begins to think of himself as well as other human beings (if you can still call him human at this point?) as nothing more than bio-chemical machines: ultimately planning on cheating death completely by becoming nothing more than a living brain attached to a dead machine. A procedure that would leave him utterly alone and unable to communicate with the outside world forever, with only his thoughts to keep him company in the endless darkness. Fortunately, though, Professor Quist and his daughter manage to persuade McArthur that this would be a fate worse than death and he decides instead to finally switch off the machinery and die a human being.

Such a scenario might sound fantastic but even back in the 1960s and 70s there would have been signs that such a hypothetical hybridisation between man and machine might become a reality sooner rather than later. In 1960, Belding Scribner invented the Scribner shunt a breakthrough kidney dialysis machine that later saved the lives of countless people with end-stage kidney disease around the globe. More substantially, though, in December 1967 (only a matter of months after The Tenth Planet was broadcast) the first successful human heart transplant took place at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa.

It is difficult to appreciate this today but the spare-part surgery envisioned in Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein and by Pedler was becoming a part of everyday life. In Doomwatch Professor Quist essentially offered his friend McArthur a simple choice: live forever as a machine or die a human being? It might sound absurd now but to people living in the 60s and 70s new developments in medicine such as heart transplants would have signalled that many of us might face this kind of difficult decision ourselves someday. Something which might have been premature back then but maybe not so much so today.

Runaway spare-part surgery, however, was only one of Pedler's concerns when he invented the Cybermen. Replacing the human body is one thing but trying to replace or subvert the human mind (and by extension the human soul) is something far more serious. As discussed the Cybermen had altered their brain chemistry, in effect, deleting the last vestige of their biological past: human emotions. And this concept of suppressing or controlling the mind chemically also made itself felt more strongly later on in Doomwatch.

In the season one episode The Devil's Sweets, for instance, chocolates laced with a new drug are used to increase cigarette sales. It is in the season three episode Hair Trigger where the idea is explored best though. In it a violent psychopath and convicted murderer of his family (Michael Beavis) undergoes a revolutionary form of therapy aimed at totally rehabilitating violent offenders and returning them to normal society. Unfortunately, although having a 100% success rate, this "therapy" is nothing short of turning people into remote controlled men and women. As Professor Hetherington explains in the episode: "Electrodes are planted in the patient’s pleasure centre, in the cepstral region of the brain, by stimulating this pleasure centre we can counter act severe states of anxiety and depression." And as if turning people into de facto robots wasn’t enough this "treatment" is also dangerously addictive. In the words of one of the patients (or victims) "better than sex."

Pacifying people at the push of a button and suppressing human emotions chemically might sound like the stuff of pure science fiction but the latter had already become a serious problem by the 1970s. Directly mirroring the "treatment" seen in Doomwatch so-called 60s "wonder drugs" such as Valium had been prescribed prodigiously. Thus leaving a sizeable number of otherwise normal people as zombified drug addicts. The solution, of course, more drugs! A problem Kit Pedler as a medical doctor would have been acutely aware of and exactly the kind of "dehumanising medicine" that inspired the original concept behind the Cybermen.

Anti-anxiety drugs and spare-part surgery are one thing but lets fast forward to today. While the Cybermen might have made interesting food for thought back in the 60s and 70s, today the human race really is close to possessing the kind of technology necessary for reinventing ourselves. Not just limb by limb as Pedler envisioned but gene by gene. Like heart transplants and dialyses machines such technology will no doubt save the lives of countless people but we must be cautious that in saving lives we do not rob people of their humanity. As Professor Quist points out in In The Dark human beings are separated from animals by two factors: knowledge of our own mortality and human emotion. To become a race of emotionless immortals isn't a step forward it is a step back. Maybe then Prehumanism might be a better name for the so-called Transhumanist movement.

Please visit DOOMWATCH.org for more information about The Doomwatch Fanzine.

The eleven faces of the Doctor

2011-02-17T19:50:00.000Z

The below article was first published in issue 392/3 of The Doctor Who Appreciation Society’s official magazine - The Celestial Toyroom. Please visit DWAS Online.

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The Eleven Faces of The Doctor

By Richard Thomas

"So what, he’s a Time Lord I know that," Ace protests in the 25th anniversary story Silver Nemesis. But what else do we know about this wanderer through time and space? There are other connections, of course, the TARDIS, the jelly babies, the sonic screwdriver, but perhaps the single most important link tying together all eras of Doctor Who is the mystery surrounding the lead character’s true identity. When we first meet the Doctor tinkering at the back of a junk yard with his time and space machine in An Unearthly Child we’re told next to nothing about him, except for that he and his granddaughter Susan are "wanderers in the fourth dimension," cut off from their own people. But who exactly is this exiled explorer on the run from his own people? Lets take a look back at each of the eleven Doctors and see if we can find an answer to the question at the heart of our favourite sci-fi series: Doctor who?

It is the First Doctor (or, at least, the first Doctor we encounter on our television screens if a scene featuring pre-Hartnell Doctors in The Brain of Morbius is to be believed) that sets the tone for all future incarnations of our Time Lord adventurer. Despite being chronologically the youngest of the Doctor’s eleven incarnations, the First Doctor is paradoxically also the oldest and most frail. In addition to occasionally getting tongue tied ("anti-radiation gloves… drugs") and not being able to pilot his own ship, the Hartnell Doctor even going as far as telling companion Polly in the first Cyber-story The Tenth Planet that, "this old body of mine is wearing a bit thin," shortly before being ‘renewed’ in the form of Second Doctor Patrick Troughton. In spite of these obvious weaknesses, though, the gray haired Edwardian possesses other strengths, most notably, a formidable intellect and tremendous knowledge of scientific matters. And if The Five Doctors is anything to go by it is strongly implied that the First Doctor’s mental powers are superior to that of his successors. It is the First Doctor after all who figures out the meaning of Rassilon’s riddle and saves his other selves from the curse of eternal life. It is even hinted at in An Unearthly Child that far from just stealing the TARDIS this Doctor actually invented the time and space machine himself, Susan telling Ian and Barbra that, "I made up the name TARDIS from the initials, Time and Relative Dimension in Space."

Can we really believe anything this Doctor says or hints at, though? While the First Doctor later evolves into the ultimate defender of humanity and champion of good, something best shown by his resistance to the Daleks in The Dalek Invasion of Earth, "Conquered the Earth? You poor pathetic creatures. Don't you realise, before you attempt to conquer the Earth, you will have to destroy all living matter!," this Doctor starts out much darker. Remember, he does actually kidnap Ian and Barbra in the first episode. And later in the same story (An Unearthly Child) even attempts to murder one of their cavemen pursuers. In time as he spends more time with humans this darkness would gradually transform into something lighter, however, it would never totally vanish and along with the First’s great intelligence is a trait all Doctors would share. And no more so than Patrick Troughton’s Second Doctor.

While it was the First Doctor that laid down the foundations for what we now think of as the defining attributes of the Doctor’s character, the intelligence, the mystery, the darkness, etc, it was the Second Doctor that would cement these traits and the Doctor’s role as mankind’s ultimate defender against the forces of evil in the Universe. In The Moonbase the Second Doctor telling us, "There are some corners of the Universe which have bred the most terrible things. Things that act against everything we believe in. They must be fought."

Casual viewers will remember the Second Doctor as the "cosmic hobo" or as Patrick Troughton would describe the character, "Charley Chaplin in outer space." But as the Master tells us in Destiny of the Doctors, he’s "not quite the clown he looks this one." This is best demonstrated in Evil of the Daleks. Intent on wiping out the whole Dalek race once and for all, the Doctor not only manipulates and lies to the Daleks but also to his own companion and best friend Jamie too. Risking the lives of not only the Scottish highlander but soon to be new companion Victoria Waterfield too. After he finds out how he’s been lied to Jamie tells the Doctor, "Anyone would think that it's a little game, and it's not. People have died. The Daleks are all over, fit to murder the lot of us, and all you can say is that you've had a good night's work. Well, I'm telling you this, we're finished. You're just too callous for me. Anything goes by the board, anything at all. You don't give that much for a living soul except yourself. Just whose side are you on?" After the Daleks are seemingly wiped out, though, at Evil of the Dalek’s conclusion Jamie is quick to forgive his friend. Perhaps he shouldn’t be so forgiving, however, as the Doctor plays a similar game in the very next adventure, The Tomb of the Cybermen. This time allowing and even helping the power mad Brotherhood of Logicians to reawaken the Cybermen after five centuries of being frozen in their "tombs." It’s worth remembering, though, that the Second Doctor only takes these risks for the highest of stakes (like wiping out the Daleks or insuring the Cybermen are defeated) and when the time travelling trickster is finally confronted with a problem not even he can solve alone in The War Games, he does risk loosing his freedom to travel through time and space by contacting his own people the Time Lords for help.

It is in The War Games that some of the mystery surrounding the Doctor’s past is finally peeled away. Up to the end of the black and white era of the programme there was nothing to suggest that the Doctor might just be a human being (though probably not an Earthling) from the far distant future. But in The War Games we’re told that the Doctor is in fact a member of the almost god-like Time Lord race and that the Doctor decided to steal a TARDIS and "run away" because he got bored with the Time Lord way of life. The Time Lords’ greatest law being the non-interference in the affairs of "lesser civilizations," which pretty much includes the whole universe. Before we’re told too much more, though, the Time Lords accept the Doctor’s defence that there is evil in the Universe that must be fought and exile the renegade to Earth in the form of Jon Pertwee to continue his fight.

Perhaps owing more to Andrew Keir’s portrayal of Professor Quatermass in the Hammer film adaptation of Quatermass and the Pit (or even Sean Connery’s Agent 007 in the James Bond films) than the Hartnell or Troughton incarnations. The Third Doctor was as Doctor number six Colin Baker would describe him in the 40th anniversary documentary The Story of Doctor Who, "arguably the most serious of the Doctors." And while refusing to carry an ID card and constantly at odds with his "military idiot" superiors - it is ironic that after being exiled to Earth for running away from his home planet the Third Doctor spends much of his tenure attempting to escape from Earth and the Brigadier - the Third Doctor was essentially as UNIT’s Scientific Advisor a member of the British establishment. In The Claws of Axos this Doctor even bragging about some of his civil servant friends at his local gentlemen’s club.

Despite being in effect a civil servant, though, the Third Doctor on occasion could still be rebellious, his support for environmentalism and principled anti-war stance probably being the best examples of this. The Fourth Doctor, however, would take the character back to his rebellious roots - severing his ties with Earth and his establishment image almost immediately after dealing with the giant robot K1 in his debut story Robot. This change probably being best highlighted in Episode One of the very next story, The Ark in Space, when the Doctor gives his famous "Homo sapiens" speech:

"Homo sapiens. What an inventive, invincible species. It's only a few million years since they crawled up out of the mud and learned to walk. Puny, defenceless bipeds. They've survived flood, famine and plague. They've survived cosmic wars and holocausts. And now, here they are, out among the stars, waiting to begin a new life. Ready to outsit eternity. They're indomitable."

In addition to reasserting the Doctor’s independence from Earth and making the character more "alien" Tom Baker would also reintroduce some of the humour Patrick Troughton had first experimented with. Baker even adopting the famous jelly babies which Troughton had originally pioneered in the 10th anniversary story The Three Doctors and making the sweets one of the Fourth Doctor’s trademarks.

It is in the Fourth Doctor adventure The Deadly Assassin that we finally get some more answers about the Doctor’s origins, for the first time since Episode Ten of The War Games the Time Lord returning to his home planet of Gallifrey. Surprisingly, there’s no mention of the Doctor’s granddaughter Susan or any of his family, but we are told that the Doctor is or was a member of the Prydonian Chapter, the prestigious Gallifreyan Chapter House that has produced more Time Lord Presidents than any other and whose members we’re told are "notoriously… devious." Whoever the Doctor is then, it’s clearly that not only is he a Time Lord but that at one time at least he was a very important one. Something previously hinted at by the First Doctor who bragged about being something of a "pioneer" among his own people in The Daleks, and again by the Third Doctor in Carnival of Monsters when he tells Joe that he was one responsible for banning the use of Time Scoop technology for entertainment. Later, in the Seventh Doctor story Remembrance of the Daleks the Doctor himself would tell Davros that "I’m far more than just another Time Lord." Not long after in Silver Nemesis Lady Peinforte confirms this by suggesting that the Doctor was present during "the Dark Time," perhaps linking back to the Third Doctor’s earlier comments, an era in Time Lord ancient history when the Gallifreyans abused their mastery of time travel by using Time Scoop technology to capture and force other conscious beings to fight to the death in gladiatorial style games.

If Tom Baker’s Doctor was largely defined by the actor’s characteristic humour and alieness, Peter Davison’s youth was his Doctor’s trademark. Davison being the youngest actor to be cast as the Doctor at the age of 31 until the casting of Matt Smith in 2008. Whereas the Fourth Doctor had been "alien" the Fifth Doctor was innocent and naïve. The fact that one of his companions, Turlough, spends three stories trying to murder him and the Fifth Doctor is none the wiser probably being the best example of this. Though there are shades of the Fourth Doctor’s otherness at times. Outraged at discussion of murdering the Silurians in Warriors of the Deep, saying "They have skills and talents you pathetic humans can only dream about!"

Of all the Doctor’s incarnations Colin Baker’s Sixth Doctor would be the most violent and troubled, owing to the difficult fifth regeneration. The Sixth Doctor in Attack of the Cybermen even trying to strangle his companion Perry.

In many ways a reaction to the violence in Season 21 and the complaints made about it to the BBC was Sylvester McCoy’s Seventh Doctor, which in many ways was the continuation of Troughton’s "cosmic hobo." While the Seventh Doctor starts out playing the spoons and mixing up his words almost as bad as the First Doctor, with lines like "Absence makes the nose grow longer." By McCoy’s second season we begin to see the Doctor’s dark side rise to surface again. After failing to exterminate the Daleks in Evil of the Daleks trying again in Remembrance of the Daleks. In true Troughton style luring his enemies into a false sense of security before checkmating them. The Seventh Doctor tricking Davros, this time housed inside the casing of the Emperor Dalek, into using the Hand of Omega (an ancient Time Lord device used for modifying stars into black holes) and accidentally triggering a supernova apparently destroying the Dalek’s home planet Skaro. In Silver Nemesis the Seventh Doctor would use a similar ploy, this time tricking the Cyber Leader into using the Nemesis, a statue made of a living metal, validium, (another ancient Time Lord artefact originating from the "Dark Time") to wipe out the Cyber Fleet. Before we discover how exactly the Doctor was involved with the events of ancient Gallifrey, though, the original series ends. Ironically with perhaps more questions than answers about the alien traveller than when we first met him in the back of a junkyard at 76 Totter's Lane back in An Unearthly Child.

We do get some answers in the 1996 TV movie starring Paul McGann, however, the Eighth Doctor claiming to be half human on his mother’s side. Many fans and even the writers of the new series have rejected this idea, however, it might just be possible that only the Eighth Doctor is half human, a side effect of the Seventh Doctor dieing whilst undergoing surgery by human medics perhaps. Something the Doctor himself alludes to when he tells Grace Holloway that he can change species when he regenerates. This Time Lord ability to change species is even demonstrated by the Master after he is exterminated by the Daleks and morphs into some kind of shape shifting mutant at the beginning of the story.

Although rare the TV movie isn’t the first occasion when the Doctor hints at his family. In The Curse of Fenric the Seventh Doctor briefly mentioned them when he was asked whether he had any family or not, saying "I don’t know," and the Doctor first mentions them way back in The Tomb of the Cybermen, in a heart to heart with new companion Victoria shortly after being made an orphan herself in the previous story The Evil of the Daleks:

Victoria: "You probably can't remember your family."

The Doctor: "Oh yes, I can when I want to. And that's the point, really. I have to really want to, to bring them back in front of my eyes. The rest of the time they sleep in my mind and I forget. And so will you. Oh yes, you will. You'll find there's so much else to think about. To remember. Our lives are different to anybody else's. That's the exciting thing, that nobody in the universe can do what we're doing."

Whatever the Doctor’s ancestry, half human or not, the Eighth Doctor certainly acted more human than any of his predecessors. The Eighth Doctor being the first of the Doctor’s eight incarnations to show any romantic interest in one of his companions, the TV movie featuring the first Doctor/companion kiss. Something which has now become a tradition in the new series.

When the Doctor returns in the new series in the form of the Ninth Doctor played by Christopher Eccleston he has become a man scarred by war and in morning for the Time Lords, who we learn he was responsible for destroying along with Gallifrey and the Daleks (again). This sense of loneliness and regret would largely define the Ninth Doctor and would follow Doctors Ten and Eleven. One thing that would mark the Ninth Doctor out from his previous and future selves, however, was the last of the Time Lords readiness to carry a gun and even kill in Dalek, a Time Lord ruthlessness we haven’t really seen since the very first story An Unearthly Child when the First Doctor tried to finish off one of their cavemen pursuers by knocking him over the head with a rock, and in marked contrast to the Fourth Doctor’s moralising in Genesis of the Daleks over whether or not it’s right to "wipe out a whole intelligent life form" even if it is the Daleks. By the time the Gallifreyan regenerates into David Tennant’s Tenth Doctor, though, Rose has helped the Doctor recover from the traumas of the last Great Time War.

If the Ninth Doctor echoed Tom Baker’s alieness then the Ninth Doctor echoed Peter Davison’s more human and innocent portrayal. In the 2007 Children in Need spacial, Time Crash, the Davison and Tennant Doctors would even meet, the Tenth Doctor telling the Fifth "you were my Doctor." Which takes us to Matt Smith’s eleventh incarnation of the Time Lord, which thus far has been a kind of amalgamation of previous Doctors, even wearing a bow tie, a nod to Patrick Troughton’s Second Doctor. Whether or not the Eleventh Doctor will be the same master chess player the Second and Seventh Doctors were, though, is still too early to tell.

So, who is Doctor who? Have we found any answers? Well, he’s a Time Lord, and at one time a very important one. We know he has some kind of connection with ancient Gallifrey, and we know that he was responsible for his planet’s destruction in the last Great Time War. But ultimately we have more questions than answers. Is the Doctor the Universes greatest defender or its greatest threat? The Doctor certainly has his dark side, and the alliance in The Pandorica Opens certainly believed he was a threat. And, there is one "face" of the Doctor which we haven’t looked at which is definitely a nod at this. The Valeyard in The Trial of Time Lord we’re told was the manifestation of the Doctor’s dark side, somewhere between his twelfth and final incarnations. Will the Doctor’s inner darkness come to the surface as we approach his final regeneration as was hinted at in Amy's Choice? Only time will tell.

A history of the Cybermen

2010-10-27T05:08:00.000+01:00

The below article was first published in issue 390 of The Doctor Who Appreciation Society's official magazine - The Celestial Toyroom. Please visit DWAS Online.

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A History of the Cybermen
By Richard Thomas

There have been many attempts over the years by fan writers to write a complete chronology and history of Doctor Who’s insidious silver faction. While the efforts of David Banks (Cyberman), Lance Parking (A History: An Unauthorised History of the Doctor Who Universe) and Tat Wood & Lawrence Miles (About Time 2: The Unauthorised Guide to Doctor Who) are all to be commended, to date none of these chronologies have tried to reconcile what we know about the classic Mondas/Telos Cybermen with the new series Cybus faction.

What follows is my own somewhat detailed interpretation of cyber history where I’ll be exploring the possibility that the old and new series cyborg races might be one and the same … or at the very least connected in some way. I tried to stick to the facts as best I could but also used a little creative licence, writing it as if I was a historian from some unspecified time in the distant future. We’ll begin with the birth of the Cybermen not on Earth’s long lost twin planet, Mondas, as we’ve always assumed but on parallel Earth in the laboratories of the insane but brilliant scientist: John Lumic.

Born in the People’s Republic of Great Britain and confined to a wheelchair by an incurable digestive disease the genius and billionaire founder of Cybus Industries, John Lumic, made it his life’s work to raise the standard of living for all mankind through new advances in cybernetics and other emerging technologies. Unfortunately for the people of alternate Earth, however, it wasn’t long before Lumic’s utopian dream transformed into a nightmare.

For thousands of years religious and spiritual leaders had observed that the human race was seemingly trapped in a cycle of suffering caused by disease and death. And obsessed with finally breaking this cycle Lumic sought a truly revolutionary solution, not through Buddhism or spirituality but cold and calculating science. Lumic decided that the only way to end such human suffering once and for all was by becoming more than human, or, in the words of Cybus Industries, “human 2.0 … the ultimate upgrade.”

Inspired by alien hardware and biology Cybus Industries had obtained via its acquisition of International Electromatics in the 1980s, Lumic developed a means of removing the humanoid brain and housing it in an invulnerable “skin of metal.” Free of all emotions except arguably the most primitive of all – the will to survive no matter what – Lumic called this 21st century merger of man and machine, biology and science: Cybermen. Any sense of achievement – or perhaps even guilt – Lumic might have felt, however, was soon “deleted” when the silver giants took it upon themselves to “upgrade” Lumic from terminally ill genius to Cyber Controller.

If not for the interference of a mysterious figure known only as “the Doctor” these cyborg conquerors would have quickly converted both their homeworld and our Earth just as they converted their creator. Instead, though, they were imprisoned within “the void,” a nowhere place between realities … or so it was believed.

Using time-space travel technology the steel giants had captured from a rival race of cyborgs, the Daleks, the Cybermen escaped the void and began a desperate campaign to avoid extinction. One group was transported to Victorian London but it would have been logical to send other missions to other periods and planets of importance.

Although physically identical to Earthmen the human inhabitants of Mondas had built a scientifically advanced civilization way in advance of their cave dwelling counterparts on Earth. Despite this technological gap, though, it was the Mondasians who found themselves in a life and death struggle to survive as their planet drifted further and further away from the Sun.

Whatever caused the planet to begin its slow journey to “the edge of space” is one of the great mysteries of universe, however, what is known is that in a desperate bid to survive the calamity the Mondasians began to experiment with spare part surgery. The Mondasian humans began to slowly replace their limbs and vital organs with steel and plastic replicants until they could almost totally be replaced. They then began to program out the last vestige of their previous existence – emotions – and began the long voyage back to the inner solar system.

What exactly happened after that is unknown but when Mondas finally returned to its old orbit in December, 1986, the entire population had been converted into Cybermen. Without access to the Time Lord records on Gallifrey or the records on Skaro it is impossible to know, however, given the technology stolen from the Daleks it isn’t unreasonable to suggest that the Cybus faction might have played some kind of role in the creation of the Mondasian Cybermen, even if they do appear to be somewhat more primitive than the Cybus faction.

Whatever the truth, though, Mondas and its Cyber inhabitants were all destroyed after the planet attempted to drain too much of the Earth’s energy too quickly, the Cyber planet exploding in a mini supernova. That should have been the end of the Cybermen … but unknowingly to the people of Earth elsewhere in the universe the Mondasian faction had established a number of off-world colonies.

The first of these new Cyber colony worlds was Planet 14, in reality a small proto planet located at the extreme edges of the solar system. Aligning themselves with Tobias Vaughn – head of this Earth’s International Electromatics – this faction spearheaded an invasion attempt of Earth in 1979 but was fended off by the newly established Unit Nations Intelligence Taskforce.

With Mondas and the Planet 14 fleet destroyed, a few surviving Cybermen began to search for a new Cyber homeworld. One half stayed in the Solar System launching various attacks on Earth and its ever increasing space presence. These gorilla style raids included an attack on space station W3 in 2063 and the Weather Control Bureau’s Moonbase in 2070. Although in hindsight these 21st century Cyber incursions must have played a significant part in the creation of Earth’s first true space army: the Space Corps, at the time Earth’s leaders saw space as a major opportunity to solve the planet’s deepening energy and population problems and they didn’t want rumours of hostile alien cyborgs to feed the flames of the “Back to Earth” movement that had so dominated the political arena earlier in the century. Consequently these Cyber skirmishes remained a matter of Earth security well into the 25th century.

By the mid 22nd century mankind had fought off several other alien incursions, including a decade long Dalek occupation of Earth and her colony worlds. Lettered with extraterrestrial technology from 200 years worth of alien invasion attempts Earth becomes known as the "graveyard of empires.” And using this abandoned technology mankind began to construct its own vast space empire.

In the year 2486 - 500 years after the destruction of Mondas - an expedition sponsored by the Brotherhood of Logicians left Earth for Telos. Five centuries earlier the Cybermen who had left the solar system had established a permanent presence on the planet. Seemingly wiping out the native inhabitants - the Cryons - for their vast underground refrigerated cities, these Cybermen attempted to overcome their deepening energy crisis by going into cryogenic suspended animation. Solving a number of complex logic puzzles, exactly as the Telosian Cybermen had intended, the expedition from Earth awoke the hibernating steel giants. And although seemingly quickly defeated and entombed again, this branch of Cybermen would soon return to wage the Great Orion Cyber-Wars on an expanding Earth Empire.

By 2526, for the first time since the 20th century the Cybermen were once again establishing themselves as a major space power. The situation was so great that in that year Earth held a special peace conference with several colonial and alien governments in an effort to build an anti-Cyber alliance. The Cyber fleet conquered and converted world after world, building a vast Cyber Empire with Telos at its centre. Ultimately, however, mankind discovered the Cyber weakness to gold: the rare metal being non-corrodible, plating their breathing apparatus and suffocating them. With this knowledge Earth brought Voga, the Planet of Gold, into the alliance and with the development and mass production of the Glitter Gun quickly once again reduced the Cybermen to planetless nomads.

Despite this setback, the Cybermen once again attempted to use time travel to cheat extinction. One squadron was sent to put a stop to the 2526 peace treaty that united mankind and several alien powers against the Cyber menace. In a far more bold and dangerous move a second squadron was sent back to 1985 Earth in an attempt to stop the destruction of Mondas the following year. Both attempts failed but a few survivors from the 1980s mission survived. They were all eliminated, though, in a last ditch effort to alter the time line by attempting to secure an ancient Time Lord device known as Nemesis.

Finally in the late 29th century hoping to exploit the weakness of the declining Earth Empire the last surviving Cybermen in the Galaxy attempted to destroy Voga and launch a new Cyber War Earth would be unable to win without the resources of the Planet of Gold. The last Cyber warship was destroyed and with it the dark dreams of Cyberman creator John Lumic forever.

The best of the eleven Doctors

2010-10-06T01:28:00.000+01:00

A list of my favourite Doctor Who stories for each of the eleven TV incarnations of the Doctor.

Doctor #1, William Hartnell (1963-1966)

The Dalek Invasion of Earth written by Terry Nation

Doctor #2, Patrick Troughton (1966-69)

The Tomb of the Cybermen written by Kit Pedler and Gerry Davis

Doctor #3, Jon Pertwee (1970-74)

Inferno written by Don Houghton

Doctor #4, Tom Baker (1974-81)

Genesis of the Daleks written by Terry Nation

Doctor #5, Peter Davison (1981-84)

The Caves of Androzani written by Robert Holmes

Doctor #6, Colin Baker (1984-86)

Revelation of the Daleks written by Eric Saward

Doctor #7, Sylvester McCoy (1987-96)

The Curse of Fenric written by Ian Briggs

Doctor #8, Paul McGann (1996)

Doctor Who: The Movie written by Matthew Jacobs

Doctor #9, Christopher Eccleston (2005)

Dalek written by Robert Shearman

Doctor #10, David Tennant (2005-2010)

Rise of the Cybermen / The Age of Steel written by Tom MacRae

Doctor #11, Mathew Smith (2010-present)

The Hungry Earth / Cold Blood written by Chris Chibnall

Read a Sci Fi Worlds column I wrote about the new series of Doctor Who HERE.

Lance Parkin interviewed about his Doctor Who novels and audios

2010-08-22T17:41:00.000+01:00

Richard's Sci Fi Worlds: A Sci-Fi Worlds Interview with Lance Parkin

Hartnell historicals

2010-07-29T18:09:00.000+01:00

The below article was first published inissue 387/8 of The Doctor Who Appreciation Society's official magazine - The Celestial Toyroom. Please visit DWAS Online.

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William Hartnell

Back in Time

By Richard Thomas

In the season four episode of the new series, The Fires of Pompeii, the tenth Doctor and his companion Donna Noble travel back to the ancient city of Pompeii, 24 hours before the infamous eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. However, this wasn’t the first time the TARDIS had landed the Time Lord and his companions smack in the middle of ancient Roman history. Something the Doctor himself alludes to in the episode when Donna asks the explorer if he's visited Rome before, "Mmh, ages ago. Before you ask, that fire had nothing to do with me. Well, a little bit." A reference to the events of the 1964 story, The Romans, which concluded with the outbreak of another famous Roman catastrophe, the outbreak of the Great Fire of Rome in 64 AD.

Written by Dennis Spooner, The Romans, was essentially a four part history lesson about life inside the Roman Empire, with comedy largely taking the place of the usual pantheon of alien adversaries and other science fiction-esque elements most modern audiences now associate with the program. Doctor Who without Daleks, Cybermen or other extraterrestrial threats to mankind might sound unlikely, even impossible, to most new fans of the series. However, when the BBC’s Head of Drama, Sydney Newman, first conceived of the program back in 1962, it was originally envisioned that Doctor Who would be a kind of quasi-educational series aimed at school children. Hence the reason why the Time Lord's first two human travelling companions, Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright, are actually school teachers by profession when we first meet them in the original episode: An Unearthly Child.

The idea was, of course, that kids would learn about history via the Doctor's adventures back and forth through time. As well as the time traveller’s many encounters with notable individuals from human history, chief among them Marco Polo (Marco Polo), Richard the Lionheart (The Crusade), Napoleon Bonaparte (The Reign of Terror) and Nero Caesar (The Romans) to name just a few. By the time of the first regeneration, though, the historicals began to be gradually phased out by the more popular futuristic/monster adventures. And after the second Doctor’s second story, The Highlanders, whenever the TARDIS took the Time Lord and his crew back in history there would always be a Yeti or other alien nasty waiting for them.

For many years the conventional view among fans was that the historicals were basically boring, and that the ‘monster seasons’ that followed were the golden age of Doctor Who. However, with the release of the stories on VHS and DVD this view has been challenged in recent years. Many fans now regarding the historicals as being superior in terms of production and performance compared to the more sci-fi orientated serials that featured the Daleks and Cybermen. Wherever you stand there’s no question that the historicals had a huge impact on the mythology of the series, starting from the very beginning with An Unearthly Child. The short trip back to 100,000 BC introducing us to the basic premise of time travel, the TARDIS and, of course, the travel machine’s chameleon circuit. And later historicals would continue this trend of building on the laws and rules of the TARDIS and time travel. Marco Polo, for instance, introduced us to the concept that outside climatic conditions can effect the TARDIS interior, something which was recently recycled in the new series episode Amy's Choice. It was the following historical, The Aztecs, that made the next big contribution to the cannon of time travel, though.

In the four-parter the original TARDIS crew led by William Hartnell’s Doctor arrive in 15th century Mexico, the centre of the Aztec Empire, just prior to the arrival of Hernán Cortés and his Spanish conquistadors. On this occasion, though, Barbra - who we learn specialises in Aztec history - isn’t content to just sit back and observe the destruction of Aztec civilisation take place, deciding instead that she'll attempt to save the Aztecs by putting an end to the human sacrifice that ultimately led to the Spanish destroying them. The story is the first to explore the thorny issue of time travel in any real detail and tackle the question most viewers must have been left wondering about until then, "can history be changed or is it something fixed and unmalleable?" When Barbra tells the Doctor of her scheme, which she plans on achieving by impersonating an Aztec goddess fittingly enough, the Doctor is appalled and insists that even if he agreed with what his companion was trying to do that it is impossible anyway … history on this occasion cannot be changed. Despite Barbra’s best efforts the Time Lord, of course, is proven right in the end and we know with tragic certainty that the Aztecs are doomed.

It would appear then that we have our answer: in Doctor Who time is fixed or locked and cannot be changed, "not even one line" as the Doctor later puts it. And this "law of time" seems to hold for two subsequent Hartnell adventures back in time, The Reign of Terror and The Massacre, where we learn a little more about the nature of time travel in the Doctor Who.

In The Reign of Terror, for instance, while trying to escape revolutionary France Susan explains to Ian what would happen if he simply tried to shoot Napoleon. According to the Doctor's granddaughter - whom we can comfortably assume is probably a Gallifreyan too - the gun would simply jam or worse explode in Ian's hand, or, else something else would happen to save the future French dictator. Similarly, in The Massacre the Doctor is forced to explain to his new companion, Steven Taylor, that it is impossible to save anyone from the famous Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve. Something which almost leads to the space explorer leaving the TARDIS for good. However, unlike in The Aztecs, it appears that the Doctor was wrong on this occasion. The massacre of the French Huguenots still takes place, but it appears that the Doctor and Steven's presence did at least change history to some small extent, apparently saving the life of one young Protestant girl … an ancestor of Dodo’s who promptly joins the TARDIS crew at the story's conclusion.

The impression, of course, is that certain big events are fixed points that cannot be changed no matter what, while other smaller things that wouldn't radically damage the established web of time can be. There's only one problem … that's not what we’re told in a previous story: The Time Meddler. Where a renegade member of the Doctor’s own race - the Time Lords - complete with his own TARDIS attempts to radically change the course of Earth history by stopping the Norman conquest of England in 1066. The fact that this "meddling Monk" thinks he can change such an important event as the Battle of Hastings suggests it is possible to change major events. Perhaps only Time Lords have this power, though, are forgiven to interfere, but that still doesn’t quite jibe exactly with what we’re told in the other stories.

But that wasn’t the only thing The Time Meddler changed. The meddling Monk failed to change the course of human history but he did manage to change the face of Doctor Who forever, The Time Meddler, being the first pseudo-historical story. There would be one or two more adventures back in time without any other sci-fi elements or alien monsters, but they were a dieing breed and The Time Meddler would become the prototype for all the adventures back in time that would come after The Highlanders … with the possible exception of Black Orchid, which unsuccessfully tried to revive the purely historical format.

All in all the historicals were underrated for far too long. However it wasn’t only the superior set designs and performances which made them classics, as we’ve seen they also raised profound questions about the nature of time and used these questions to create genuine suspense and even tension - sometimes even conflict - between the Doctor and his companions. Something which was a lot rarer in the more sci-fi orientated serials, though, more recently in The Waters of Mars the same kind of questions about how much of history can be changed or not, were used to create another emotionally charged episode. It is doubtful we'll ever see another purely historical adventure in Doctor Who but no-one can doubt the legacy of these black and white gems lives on.