As we approach the 60th Anniversary of Doctor Who, revisit the story of Doctor Who, the occasional series written for the 50th Anniversary, explaining the origins of the programme.

Episode 11 - An Unearthly Series - The Origins of a TV Legend: First published 20 May 2013

Doctor Who Target Collection 2023Bookmark and Share

Thursday, 19 January 2023 - Reported by Marcus
BBC Books

BBC Books are to publish new Doctor Who Target books in July 2023

BBC Books has announced that it will be expanding the Doctor Who Target range with five new titles in Summer 2023, all publishing on 13th July, each with newly commissioned cover artwork by Anthony Dry.

The new titles celebrate Target publishing Doctor Who books for half a century. The 2023 collection celebrates the dramatic return of David Tennant and showrunner Russell T Davies to the programme.

Both The Waters of Mars by Phil Ford and The Planet of Ood by KeithTemple are  Doctor Who episodes from the Tenth Doctor era.

Fans will also be able to add a Twelfth Doctor adventure, as played by Peter Capaldi, to their collection with The Zygon Invasion by Peter Harness and a Thirteenth Doctor novelisation with Kerblam! by Peter McTighe.

Stephen Gallagher’s Warriors’ Gate and Other Stories will feature the Fourth Doctor.

Launched in 1973, Target Books published novelisations of almost every Doctor Who serial aired between 1963 and 1989, with only a few notable exceptions.

BBC Books began reissuing these classic paperbacks in 2012, and in 2018 expanded the Target range to include all-new novelisations of modern-era Doctor Who episodes.

This year, the expansion continues with:

Kerblam!: Graham (Bradley Walsh), Yaz (Mandip Gill), Ryan (Tosin Cole), The Doctor (Jodie Whittaker) (Credit: BBC Studios (Ben Blackall))Kerblam! by Peter McTighe

Kerblam! is the biggest online retailer in the galaxy – but how did it become so big? When the Doctor’s Kerblam! package includes a mysterious request for help, she heads straight to the company’s warehouse moon to investigate...
 

Pete McTighe is a British screenwriter, producer, and lifetime Doctor Who fan. As well as writing episodes of Doctor Who, he has written two series of hit BBC drama The Pact, alongside writer and showrunner duties on A Discovery Of Witches, The Rising, and Wentworth for which he received five Australian Writers Guild nominations. He also writes and directs acclaimed short films to promote Doctor Who - The Collection Blu-ray releases.

Planet of the Ood (Credit: BBC)The Planet of Ood by Keith Temple

The Doctor and Donna learn that the planet of the Ood holds cruel and awesome secrets. As they battle for justice and survival, the fate of the entire Ood race hangs in the balance. Will the outcome be salvation – or extinction?

Keith Temple is a British screenwriter whose credits include Doctor Who, Doc Martin and the original BBC comedy drama, Angel Cake starring Sarah Lancashire. He has also written extensively for Continuing Drama including EastEnders, Emmerdale, River City and Casualty. Most recently, he wrote the screenplay for the horror feature film, Wyvern Hill. He has also written for the stage and lectures widely on screenwriting and filmmaking.

The Waters of Mars (Credit: BBC)The Waters of Mars by Phil Ford

The first human colony on Mars is destined for destruction in a nuclear explosion. This tragedy is a fixed point in history. The laws of time dictate that it cannot –must never – be changed. But as the Doctor’s darkest hour comes calling, he resolves to break the rules as he never has before...

 

Phil Ford has written scripts for Doctor Who, Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures for BBCTelevision. He also wrote animated Doctor Who adventure Dreamland, and four Doctor Who Adventure Games. His extensive screenwriting credits include episodes of Taggart, Bad Girls, New Captain Scarlet and Coronation Street. He co-created Wizards vs Aliens with Russell T Davies.

The Zygon Invasion (Credit: BBC)The Zygon Invasion by Peter Harness

It took three Doctors to broker a fragile peace between Zygons and Humans. Now the Twelfth Doctor must face the fallout alone. With his alliescompromised and his companion believed dead, can he stop the world from plunging into war?
 

Peter Harness is an English playwright, screenwriter and actor. He has contributed to programs such as McMafia, City of Vice, and Case Histories and wrote a new miniseries adaptation of The War of the Worlds for BBC One

Credit: BBCWarriors’ Gate and Other Stories by Stephen Gallagher

A new-to-print, expanded novelisation of the classic 1981 adventure. With the TARDIS caught in the collapsing void between two different universes, the Fourth Doctor is drawn into a dangerous alliance with a race of enslaved, time-sensitive aliens.

The consequences are explored in two further short stories, one exclusive to this volume!

Stephen Gallagher is an English screenwriter and novelist from Manchester. He wrote two serials for Doctor Who, as well as writing for Rosemary & Thyme and Bugs. He also created and wrote Eleventh Hour, a science-based series for ITV.

Each of the authors for the 2023 Target books are the original screenwriters of the TV episodes.





FILTER: - Target - Fourth Doctor - Tenth Doctor - Twelfth Doctor - Thirteenth Doctor

Demon Quest on VinylBookmark and Share

Saturday, 1 October 2022 - Reported by Marcus

Tom Baker (Credit: DMG)

Demon Records is to release Demon Questthe second in a series of Fourth Doctor audio adventures, on vinyl. 

The limited edition stars Tom Baker as the Doctor and is the sequel to Hornets Nest which saw the return of Tom Baker to the role of the Doctor after many years. 

Demon Quest was originally released on five CDs by BBC Audiobooks between September and December 2010. Written by Paul Magrs, it stared Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor and Richard Franklin as Captain Mike Yates.

Every copy of the vinyl edition includes an exclusive, frameable portrait of the Fourth Doctor, hand signed by Tom Baker himself.

An intricately die-cut, removable outer sleeve reveals a Demonic lidded box, inside which are 10 individual illustrated LP sleeves featuring full cast and credits for each of the five stories.  

The Time Lord’s encounters with the mysterious Demon are detailed in The Doctor’s Journal, a large 16-page full-colour booklet featuring notes and illustrations from this epic pursuit through Time.  

Presented across 10 x 140g alternating Red and Black vinyl discs, this full-cast audio adventure also stars Susan Jameson as Mrs. Wibbsey. 

The supporting cast includes Nigel Anthony, Samuel West, Jan Francis, Trevor White, Lorelei King and Finty Williams,  and original sound design accompanies the familiar Doctor Who theme from the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. 

When key components from the TARDIS are stolen in exchange for a bag of strange curios, the Doctor and his housekeeper Mrs Wibbsey are reunited in adventure. Each object leads the unlikely friends, along with the trusty  Mike Yates, to a place and time where danger awaits them. As their pursuer’s net closes around the Doctor, he realises that the mysterious Demon is in thrall to a much higher power… 
The discs will be released on 2nd December 2022
 
Demon Quest (Credit: DMG)Demon Quest (Credit: DMG)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 




FILTER: - Audio - Fourth Doctor

The Pirate Planet to be released on vinylBookmark and Share

Thursday, 17 February 2022 - Reported by Chuck Foster
Demon Records - The Pirate Planet (vinyl)

Demon Records are to release the latest in their Vinyl Who collection of Doctor Who TV soundtracks on 18th March 2022, Season 16 adventure The Pirate Planet:

"The life force is dead! We’re all murderers!"

Demon Records presents the debut Doctor Who adventure by Douglas Adams - creator of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - starring Tom Baker as the Doctor.

On the hunt for the Key to Time, the Doctor, Romana and K9 materialise on the planet Calufrax –or do they? Entangled in local events, they are caught between the bombastic Captain – half-man,half-machine – and the sinister Mentiads. Someone is ransacking whole planets for their wealth,and just as the Doctor discovers who’s behind it another one comes under threat: Earth!

Presented across 2 x 140g Sky Demon Splatter vinyl discs, this 1978 TV soundtrack is narrated by John Leeson, the original Voice of K9. The supporting cast includes Mary Tamm as Romana with Bruce Purchase, Andrew Robertson, David Warwick and Rosalind Lloyd. Incidental music is composed by Dudley Simpson, and the familiar strains of the Doctor Who theme are courtesy ofthe BBC Radiophonic Workshop.

The coloured vinyl LPs are presented in a fully illustrated gatefold sleeve showing cast and credits, and inner bags featuring complete episode billings.

 

 

Demon Records - The Pirate Planet (vinyl) Demon Records - The Pirate Planet (vinyl)

 





FILTER: - Merchandise - Soundtracks - Fourth Doctor - Vinyl

Doctor Who – The Collection: Season 17Bookmark and Share

Thursday, 7 October 2021 - Reported by Marcus

Season 17 (Credit: BBC)

Season 17, the penultimate season starring Tom Baker as the Doctor, will be the next to be released as part of the Doctor Who Collection series.  

Doctor Who – The Collection: Season 17 was originally shown between September 1979 and January 1980 consists of the following stories
 

  • DESTINY OF THE DALEKS
  • CITY OF DEATH
  • THE CREATURE FROM THE PIT
  • NIGHTMARE OF EDEN
  • THE HORNS OF NIMON
  • SHADA

In 1979, Tom Baker’s Doctor was in full flight. With Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy) as script editor, the series leaned into Baker’s penchant for humour and paired his Doctor with a regenerated Romana (Lalla Ward) as his travelling companion. Together, they would form one of the most popular Doctor/companion duos of all time.

Although Season 17 was halted behind-the-scenes by strike action (resulting in the season finale being abandoned part-way through production), it remains a beloved slice of Doctor Who history, featuring the return of Davros and the Daleks, and one of the all-time classic stories, Douglas Adams’ own City Of Death.

With all episodes newly remastered from the best available sources, this Blu-ray box set also includes extensive and exclusive Special Features including:

 

  • BRAND NEW DOCUMENTARIES
  • Including a Making-Of documentary for Destiny Of The Daleks, and new featurette for The Creature From The Pit.
  • TOM TALKS
  • A candid interview with Tom Baker as he gives us his unique take on life, the universe and everything.
  • DOUGLAS ADAMS TRIBUTE
  • Friends and colleagues remember the Doctor Who writer/script editor and creator of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy.
  • IN CONVERSATION
  • Matthew Sweet chats to Bob Baker, writer of Nightmare Of Eden, co-creator of K9 and one of the creative forces behind Wallace & Gromit.
  •  BEHIND THE SOFA
  • New episodes with actors Colin Baker, Katy Manning, Matthew Waterhouse, Nicola Bryant, June Hudson, Graeme Harper & Mat Irvine
  •  LALLA WARD INTERVIEW
  • An extensive interview discussing her first year on the programme.
  • UPDATED SPECIAL EFFECTS
  • View Nightmare Of Eden with optional new effects
  • SHADA
  • An updated version of the ‘lost’ story, completed with enhanced animation and presented in six episodes for the very first time, alongside the original 1992 VHS and 2017 versions
  • EXCLUSIVE NEW AUDIO COMMENTARIES
  • With Tom Baker on episodes of Destiny Of The Daleks and City Of Death, and Lalla Ward & Catherine Schell on City Of Death
  • EXTENDED EPISODE
  • An early cut of The Creature From The Pit Part Three
  • BLU-RAY TRAILER
  • A familiar face returns in a brand new mini-episode of classic Doctor Who
  • IMMERSIVE 5.1 SURROUND SOUND
  • On Destiny Of The Daleks and Shada
  • RARE GEMS FROM THE ARCHIVES
  • BBC archive material covering the promotion of this season
  • CONVENTION FOOTAGE
  • A triumphant 1997 appearance from Tom Baker
  • HD PHOTO GALLERIES
  • Including many previously unseen images
  •  PRODUCTION SUBTITLES
  • Behind-the-scenes information and trivia on every episode
  •  SCRIPTS, COSTUME DESIGNS, RARE BBC PRODUCTION FILES AND OTHER RARITIES FROM OUR PDF ARCHIVE

 

 

The Collection will be released on 13th December 2021 and is available to pre-order on Amazon





FILTER: - Blu-ray/DVD - Fourth Doctor - Season 17

Doctor Who: Chronicles – 1975Bookmark and Share

Friday, 18 June 2021 - Reported by Marcus
Doctor Who: Chronicles 1975 (Credit: Panini)

The second issue in a new series of bookazines, Doctor Who: Chronicles, has been released by the makers of Doctor Who Magazine.

This issue takes us back to 1975

Tom Baker’s debut came as a shock to some critics and even regular viewers, but his charismatic portrayal of the Doctor soon propelled the series to new heights of popularity. In 1975 Doctor Who attracted both critical acclaim and controversy in stories that many regard as the benchmark for everything that would follow.

This 116-page bookazine includes newly discovered images and all-new features, including:

  • A summary of the year’s most significant events in the Doctor Who universe (both on and off screen)
  • Highlights of the memorabilia released in 1975
  • Tom Baker’s column for Reveille!
  • Dr Where and other spoofs
  • The story behind the ‘lost’ radio interview with Tom Baker, Elisabeth Sladen and Ian Marter
  • Doctor Who in the popular press
  • Archive rarities, including director Christopher Barry’s notebooks, the BBC’s Audience Research Reports, concept artwork from The Sontaran Experiment and unused props created for Pyramids of Mars
  • The Doctor Who and Dalek annuals
  • The Doctor Who Monster Book and other Target publications
  • Special effects and production techniques
  • Overviews of Robot, The Ark in Space, The Sontaran Experiment, Genesis of the Daleks, Revenge of the Cybermen, Terror of the Zygons, Planet of Evil, Pyramids of Mars and The Android Invasion

And much more!

Doctor Who: Chronicles – 1975 is on sale now, RRP just £9.99 from panini.co.uk and selected branches of WH Smith while stocks last. It’s also available digitally from pocketmags.com priced £8.99.

 





FILTER: - DWM - Fourth Doctor

Doctor Who: The Fourth Doctor Adventures Series 10Bookmark and Share

Wednesday, 6 January 2021 - Reported by Marcus
Fourth Doctor - Series 10: Volume 2 (Credit: Big Finish)

The next Fourth Doctor audio release has been announced by Big Finish.

Tom Baker and Louise Jameson are plunging back into the Time Vortex for volume 2 of Doctor Who: The Fourth Doctor Adventures due for release in February 2021.

These two brand-new full-cast audio dramas follow the Fourth Doctor and Leela into an uproarious tour through time and a prehistoric encounter with an esteemed palaeontologist.

Doctor Who: The Fourth Doctor Adventures Series 10 Volume 2 is now available to pre-order as a collector's edition box set (on CD at £24.99) and as a digital download (at £19.99), exclusively from www.bigfinish.com.

The volume consists of two rip-roaring rides, as follows:
 

Tribulations of Thadeus Nook by Andrew Smith

It’s time for the trip of a lifetime! Come along on one of Thadeus Nook’s Time Tours. See history as it really was. Get to witness wars and assassinations! See barbarian warlords right up close!

The Doctor and Leela encounter a most enterprising young gentleman – using time travel for his own financial gain. The Doctor is horrified at the irresponsibility – but it’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Because Thadeus Nook is about to learn that history is often best left in the past.

 

The Primeval Design by Helen Goldwyn

Dorset, 1830. The Doctor has taken Leela to meet Mary Anning, the noted palaeontologist, but the duo immediately stumble into trouble.

A body has been found in unusual circumstances. Attacked by an animal... but one of a size unknown in the area.

It turns out some things might be better off staying buried.

 

Taking on the role of the Doctor for his tenth year with Big Finish, Tom Baker said:

I so love doing all this, I never ever get tired. It’s as if each one is the very first one – and the more improbable it is the more I love it because I, of course, am totally improbable myself!

Series 10 Volume 2 is now available to pre-order as a collector's edition box set (on CD at £24.99) and as a digital download (at £19.99), exclusively at the Big Finish website.

Louise Jameson / Tom Baker / Lucy Briggs-Owen / Charlotte Bate (Credit: Big Finish)




FILTER: - Big Finish - Audio - Fourth Doctor

Doctor Who Magazine: Issue 555Bookmark and Share

Wednesday, 19 August 2020 - Reported by Marcus

Doctor Who Magazine - Issue 555 (Credit: Panini)

The latest issue of Doctor Who Magazine goes back to the 1970's to investigate a TARDIS journey we never saw. 

 

Highlights of the new issue include:

  • The story behind a bizarre and long-lost adventure starring Tom Baker as the Doctor.
  • Derek Jacobi answers questions from the TARDIS Tin.
  • An exclusive preview of the new animated version of Fury from the Deep.
  • How Doctor Who was nearly cancelled in 1970… and how the show was saved.
  • How Doctor Who joined the satellite revolution on Super Channel and UK Gold.
  • The inside story of BSB’s Doctor Who Weekend – 30 years on.
  • The Controversial Continuity of Doctor Who companions, the Silurians, UNIT dating and time travel.
  • The Fact of Fiction explores the 2014 story Mummy on the Orient Express.
  • Apocrypha revisits Continuity Errors, Steven Moffat’s first professional Doctor Who story.
  • A review of The Power of the Daleks Special Edition.

 

Doctor Who Magazine Issue 555 is on sale from Thursday 20 August £5.99 (UK)





FILTER: - DWM - Tom Baker - Fourth Doctor

Doctor Who: Shadow of the Sun - Release Date MayBookmark and Share

Wednesday, 29 April 2020 - Reported by Marcus
Doctor Who: Shadow of the Sun - Tom Baker (Credit: Big Finish)The first full-cast, full-length Doctor Who audio drama to have been recorded entirely during lockdown will be released on 12 May.

Tom Baker, Louise Jameson and John Leeson star in Doctor Who: Shadow of the Sun, a Fourth Doctor mystery adventure written by Rob Valentine.

This is the first full-cast Doctor Who audio drama to have been produced using Big Finish’s remote recording techniques, and it boasts among its guest cast Fenella Woolgar (Inside Number 9, Call the Midwife) as a terminally bored socialite, Lady Malina Rigel-Smythe. She is one of many passengers onboard a luxury liner with a difference.

Doctor Who: Shadow of the Sun is now available to pre-order exclusively at the Big Finish website, from just £8.99.

After an accident, the TARDIS lands on a luxury star-liner. Leaving their ship to repair itself, the Doctor, Leela and K9 find themselves facing a great terror: mingling at a cocktail party.

Something seems awry behind the pleasantries however. Guests are going missing, and equipment is breaking down. When the Doctor investigates further he discovers that the star-liner is literally on course for disaster.

But no-one seems surprised by this information, still less troubled. What’s going on? And can the Doctor and his friends save everyone... when nobody wants to be saved?
Doctor Who: Shadow of the Sun  (Credit: Big Finish)Director Nicholas Briggs said
In Shadow of the Sun, we have a great, well-made script by Rob Valentine. A lovely slice of science fantasy. It has a great central idea and a cast of superb characters. At its core, there’s a fanatical belief in something that is patent nonsense, but the Doctor, Leela and K9 find themselves to be the only people who know the truth. That’s a great set-up!

And it also has a flavour of the often talked about ‘base under siege’ setting, which adds appealing claustrophobia to the storytelling. It makes the situation more extreme and therefore more of an exciting ride for the audience.
Writer Robert Valentine added
This is a story inspired by the modern trend of giving the same value to opinion as fact – including everything from climate change denial to the anti-vaccination movement – but specifically the recent (and ultimately fatal) rocket launch experiments intended to prove that the Earth is flat. The Doctor is about to find himself in a situation where the true enemy is pseudo-scientific hubris, and for once it might be an enemy he hasn't the tools to overcome.
Doctor Who: Shadow of the Sun is now available to pre-order exclusively at the Big Finish website, as a collector’s edition CD (priced at £10.99) or digital download (price at £8.99).

Please note that Big Finish is currently operating a digital-first release schedule. The mailout of collector’s edition CDs will be delayed, but all purchases of this release unlock a digital copy that can be immediately downloaded or played on the Big Finish app from the release date.




FILTER: - Big Finish - Fourth Doctor - Tom Baker

From the Doctors... to all doctorsBookmark and Share

Thursday, 23 April 2020 - Reported by Marcus
From the Doctors... to all doctors. A thank you to the NHS and all frontline workers.

As seen on the BBC One programme The Big Night In

The Doctors Say Thank You | #TheBigNightIn




FILTER: - Eighth Doctor - Eleventh Doctor - Fifth Doctor - Fourth Doctor - Seventh Doctor - Sixth Doctor - Tenth Doctor - Thirteenth Doctor - Twelfth Doctor

The Lost Stories: Return of the CybermenBookmark and Share

Friday, 17 April 2020 - Reported by Chuck Foster
Return Of The Cybermen, with Sadie-Miller, Tom_Baker and Christopher Naylor (Credit: Big Finish)Big Finish have announced details about their forthcoming Lost Stories release, Return of the Cybermen, due to be released in January 2021.

The unmade story was written by Gerry Davis for the Fourth Doctor's first season, but after heavy rewriting by script editor Robert Holmes it eventually transformed into the broadcast story Revenge of the Cybermen. Now realised in its original form, the story will star Tom Baker reprise his role as the Fourth Doctor, with his faithful companions Sarah and Harry.

With both actors sadly no longer with us, the characters needed to be recast. The role of Sarah will be played by Elisabeth Sladen's own daughter Sadie Miller, who observed:
When Big Finish asked me to play Sarah Jane for this story, I was very nervous. I didn’t want to create a performance from someone else’s.

So I tried to approach it as I would with any other role. I’ve tried to find my own piece of Sarah - the part of my mum that’s in me. But I have had a quick look on YouTube for Sarah Jane Smith screams, because I wasn’t quite sure how she would want me to do those. Other than that I just tried to keep it as separate in my mind as possible from the original.

The fans of Doctor Who have always been so kind and generous to me and to my family. It was always a part of my life growing up, I was never not aware of it. People have always been very kind in letting us come along for the ride really, through conventions and now things like Big Finish and, after mum passed away, the outpouring of love for her has been lovely.
Senior Producer, David Richardson added:
How do you recast Sarah Jane Smith? Would you even want to? Those were the questions that bothered us - we love the character. We loved Lis Sladen. We worried it might be too soon and too difficult to go there. But then we realised that part of Lis lives on in Sadie, and Sadie has beautifully brought that to the role of Sarah - we all approached this carefully, and respectfully, and with love and I couldn’t be happier with Sadie’s performance. She’s done her mum proud.

The third of the trio, Harry, is played by Christopher Naylor; David continued:
Tom has actually worked many times before with Christopher Naylor, who’s played guest roles throughout different series of the Fourth Doctor Adventures. Chris is a very versatile actor, so we can cast him in so many things. But, we realised, he’s also the perfect Harry. Again, it’s very hard to follow Ian Marter, but Chris has managed to do that and Tom was full of praise for what both Sadie and Chris have done. I wonder where they could pop up next?”

Return of the Cybermen (Credit: Big Finish)Speaking on how the production came about David said:
I’d known of Return of the Cybermen for many years, but it was only relatively recently that I was able to source Gerry Davis’s script thanks to some great detective work by archivist Richard Bignell! John Dorney’s adaptation stays true to the original script and the era, though there have been some very minor changes to bring it in line with the kind of amends we believe Robert Holmes would have asked for. Little things that make it sit comfortably in season 12.

It’s rather different in tone to Revenge of the Cybermen - darker, scarier and more reminiscent of claustrophobic 1960s Cybermen tales like The Moonbase and The Invasion.

Director Nicholas Briggs added:
It was interesting working with Tom on this, because he noticed the difference in style immediately. This is Doctor Who as Gerry Davis imagined it in 1974, and it’s very much like he wrote Doctor Who in the mid-1960s. So the script didn’t quite have the same levels of emotional sophistication and wit that was present either in what Robert Holmes eventually crafted into Revenge of the Cybermen, or certainly the more recent Fourth Doctor Adventures we’ve made on audio.

I imagined what it would have been like, back in the day, if Tom had been presented with this script to rehearse and record. If you look at the script book of the first Tom Baker season, you can see masses of line changes that were added by the cast or director during rehearsals and shooting in all those stories. Some of them are the best, most memorable moments, so I reasoned that it would be a faithful process to take on board Tom’s suggestions for this production of Return of the Cybermen.

We had loads of fun, as usual, with Tom finding it particularly amusing when I was directing him with a Cyberman voice effect. At one point, he asked, 'Is he talking to me?' which made us all laugh out loud!




Doctor Who: Return of the Cybermen is now available for pre-order as a collector’s edition 2-disc box set or download from the Big Finish website. Big Finish listeners can also save money by pre-ordering a bundle of forthcoming adventures from The Lost Stories range, including both Return of the Cybermen and The Doomsday Contract.






FILTER: - Audio - Big Finish - Fourth Doctor - Tom Baker