Days Like Crazy Paving - A Doctor Who Fan Blog

This blog was set up to review stories in a random order, so here's my thoughts about one of Big Finish's most celebrated stories   Somewhere in an alternate universe, the August Bank Holiday weekend of 2009 saw an extra special with David Tennant, leading into the Waters of Mars. The audience would have whooped with joy at the familiar sight of certain scarf and tall figure, waxing lyrical about Michaelangelo pilfering his ideas as he paints his fresco, talking to a character played by Katherine Drysdale, who played Bliss in Love & Monsters. It also had the Daleks back in their gun metal grey livery as seen in the 1970s along with the red and gold Dalek (Chicken!) Supreme...  OK, in reality, Out of Time is possibly the only benefit I can think of, that was a result of the 2020 pandemic lockdown (apart from an extended period of paternity leave after the birth of our third son!)  Suddenly available thanks to tv and film productions grinding to a halt, David Tennant quickly

NB: When I finished my 60 favourite Doctor Who stories strand back on the 23rd November, the plan was to continue with reviews and other stuff. Life however with Christmas, work courses and various bereavements took priority.  So here's my review of the 2023 Christmas special.  Christmas hasn't been the same without the Doctor. As much as I enjoyed the frankly wonderful New Year specials written by Chris Chibnall, it felt the series has slipped somewhat from being a high point of the Christmas Day offerings to propping up the New Year’s Day schedule because there was nothing else. So the restoration of the show's position on Christmas Day is seen as a positive by many fans. But given the uneven nature of the festive specials in the past, how does The Church on Ruby Road fare?  On a scale of Voyage of the Damned down to the Doctor, Widow and the Wardrobe, how does this hold up? In my opinion, it's upper mid table.  As a showcase for the new Doctor and companion, it's

1. City of Death How to recognise a beautiful woman, probably... So, finally here we are at number one. OK, it's not the most original choice, everyone seems to love City of Death unless you're Gary Russell, whose review in DWM, back in the day, really took me by surprise. And fair play to him, he's entitled to his opinion and I doubt this waffly blog will persuade him otherwise. As much as I love City of Death, I'm struggling to find something original to say about it. I don't have a tale of youth to share with you on this story, although I do remember watching Part Two at my Grandparents house in Scotland. I once met Julian Glover at a convention in Swansea but at his interview he spoke more on playing Czech president Alexander Dubček than he did about playing Count Scarlioni. And anyway, we all know he was disappointed about not going to Paris... This is top of the list simply because I think it's exquisite, absolutely exquisite! (Told you I couldn't thi

 2. The Five Doctors To lose is to win and he who wins shall lose!  How could I not have the twentieth anniversary special in this list? It was the biggest thing on TV at the time, certainly the biggest Doctor Who story ever with five doctors (or three doctors, clips of the fourth and a man in a wig!) several companions, monsters, the Master, Bessie, K9 and a new monster called the Raston Robot. The trailers looked exciting. ("Goodness me there are five of me now!") and we even had a magnificent Radio Times front cover. It was certainly an anniversary the BBC seemed happy to celebrate!  A special bonus was the special 20th anniversary magazine which I'd poured over in the newsagents down the road, until the newsagent told me to buy it if I was going to look at it that much! (Perhaps he was the belligerent newsagent DWM once mentioned in that advert?) there was the obligatory episode guide including a snide comment about the Gunfighters and its poorly drawn characters. Ah,

 3. Remembrance of the Daleks Every great decision creates ripples...  1987 was not a great time to be a Doctor Who fan. Even the fans were against the show! The lighthearted antics of Season 24 had been derided by a small but very vocal minority of fandom but I really liked it. Unfortunately it made me a target for bullies at school, but so had been rubbish at football! The following year was the 25th anniversary year, Michael Grade had popped off to Channel 4, so it felt like the series was reasonably safe. And news soon reached the public announcing that the first story of the season would be called Remembrance of the Daleks, which sounded like a traditional title and more how fans would expect or want the show to be like.  Remembrance has become a big favourite in our house with my three sons, especially the special weapons Dalek. I do wish for my middle son's sake, Character Options would rerelease their version as it's his favourite. After four stories living in Davros

 4. Pyramids of Mars You can't always trust a man in a fez and that isn't my Mummy... Pyramids of Mars was the first Doctor Who story I saw on video rather than on TV and so has a special place in my heart. The sheer joy of seeing a classic Doctor Who story with the first Doctor I remembered was palpable. I grew up in Abingdon in Oxfordshire and there was a music shop in the High Street called Haken and Bell, which in the mid 1980s started a video library. Among the small selection was Pyramids of Mars and I begged my parents to hire it out for the weekend.  I was thirteen and thought it was absolutely brilliant! I remember it was during the Trial of a Time Lord season and while I don't remember thinking that Pyramids was much better than Trial, I did watch the video a couple of times over that weekend to enjoy it as much as possible before having to take it back to the shop.  It was amazing. Tom Baker was amazing, I was spellbound by the way he would go from silly "I