Days Like Crazy Paving - A Doctor Who Fan Blog

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 Dav...

 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...

 5. School Reunion A friend is a friend for life. Just don't leave them stranded in Aberdeen...  "My Sarah Jane!"  This is my favourite new series episode. After this the top four are classic series stories. After the success of the first series of the modern era, Russell T Davies announced the return of the legendary Sarah Jane Smith. Of all the companions to bring back, she seemed the obvious choice as she was the one everyone remembered and her time in the series coincided with what is regarded as the golden era in the show's history. Her chemistry with Tom Baker in particular was fondly remembered and not just by me.  For the second series, it seemed that RTD was spreading the series' wings in terms of acknowledging the series' past. In Series One, you got the TARDIS, the Daleks, the Autons and a brief reference to UNIT and that was it. That first run was deliberately designed as a starting point for a whole new generation and those with a passing acquaint...

6. The Web of Fear Necessity is the mother of invention if you can't go down the Tube... This is one serial that was built its legendary mythical status due to being 5/6 missing. Unlike the Tomb of the Cybermen, for this story we had episode one - and what a cracker it is! (Imagine if it had been episode one of Enemy of the World that was not lost rather than episode three!)  Web starts as a full blown horror with the Yeti coming back to life and mercilessly bashing the life out of the poor museum owner. We're in the capable hands of director Douglas Camfield, who has turned up frequently in this list and this story plays to his strengths with its strong military theme and action sequences. No wonder they got Patrick Troughton to record that special trailer warning children that if their parents got scared they were to hold their hand!  At this time, stories set on contemporary earth were still rare, following the War Machines, The Faceless Ones and the first episode and a hal...

 7. The Power of the Doctor  You're never to old to cry at goodbyes... From the very first Doctor Who story I saw to what is the latest, at least until Saturday 25th November 2023. The Power of the Doctor was made to celebrate the BBC's Centenary, and was an unashamedly enjoyable and poignant celebration of the series in all its forms. And it was a goodbye to a Doctor I adored but didn't think I'd like! Sunday 16th July 2017 - the Durrington Vehicle Show. It's hot and I'm carrying my eight month old son round a load of old cars when my wife shows me her phone. The BBC website says "Jodie Whittaker has been announced as Doctor Who's 13th Time Lord - the first woman to get the role." And I'm afraid I rolled my eyes - they'd actually gone and done it! They'd cast a female Doctor...  Now before you accuse me of being a knuckle-dragging NMD, I had not seen Broadchurch, the drama Jodie was perhaps most famous for, nor had I seen the video rev...

 8. Genesis of the Daleks When crossing a wasteland, don't clam up!  Here we go. Iconic, most-repeated classic story, greatest of all time, best villain, tea time brutality for tots, do I have the right, thank you that's what I wanted to know, you don't worry about your jumper if you've got a Dalek up your arse! We've got the novelisation, the LP, the cassette, the CD, the VHS, the DVD, the blu-ray, the Genesis Character Options set, the commemorative coasters...  What can I say about Genesis of the Daleks that hasn't been said already. OK, here goes. I'll tell you the tale of how I met the Thal Politician. Be prepared for a Tale of Youth (copyright Si Hart!) One of my presents for Christmas 1979 was the LP of Genesis, released after the Daleks spectacular return in Destiny of the Daleks. The album was treasured but as a child I was too scared to listen to Side 2 because of the noise of the Dalek guns, an echo of watching the story (my very first memory of t...

     9. The Eleventh Hour Don't leave everything to the Eleventh Hour...  Was lightning going to strike twice? Doctor Who was about to get its third leading actor since it's return in 2005 as well as a brand new showrunner in the guise of Steven Moffat, the genius behind "Are you my Mummy?", Madame de Pompadour, the Weeping Angels and Silence in the Library. It would be a soft reboot, with a completely new cast. The last transition between Doctors had been softened by the presence of Rose, as well as Jackie, Mickey and even Harriet Jones (Prime Minister) but here there's no familiar faces, no returning characters, everything brand new!  However, the question on everyone's lips was "Who is this youngster they've cast as the Doctor?" Honestly, had these people not watched the Sally Lockhart Mysteries? Because that's where I had seen him, in a supporting role, but I'd been impressed by his earnestness and energy in the role. He looked handso...

10. Turn Left Don't trust Sat Navs or Fortune Tellers "A cosmos without the Doctor scarcely bears thinking about " as the Master once said. This episode shows he was right.  We're in the top ten now and to be honest, they could be in any order and it would probably change next week. There are four modern series episodes and six classic serials, some of which you'll agree with and some will baulk at the idea of one being so high up. Frankly all these are top tier Who to me and any of them should be number one.  This one would be high on anyone's list. It's a well worn idea, "the what if..." used in everything from Sliding Doors to the Buffy episode "The Wish" but so brilliantly done. World shattering events caused simply by one person turning right instead of left. Even a lighthearted adventure with the Adipose has dire consequences. At least when Gwyneth Paltrow missed that train, London didn't get nuked by a spaceship crashing on ...

 11. Terror of the Zygons If you think that Stag on the wall is watching you, it probably is...  Another vote for nostalgia and another of those stories that were early video releases that were compilations rather than as nature intended. This was my Christmas present for 1989, the year after I got Talons and this was watched as avidly as that one over the Christmas holidays.  Until the vhs broke with the tape inside.  The tape suddenly stopped, just as the Caber was getting the steps ready for Sarah so she could climb up to the Duke of Forgill's secret stash of naughty magazines hidden behind books about the Loch Ness Monster. Nothing worked and the video recorder was sent off to be repaired.. I was 16 and trying to be brave but fortunately the tape was safely retrieved and the video recorder repaired and all was well. Funny the things you remember isn't it?  Terror of the Zygons is from the same writer, director partnership of the Seeds of Doom, so you might b...

12. Earthshock Being good at maths isn't everything!. Poor Adric, always the unpopular one, always the butt of the jokes, both on screen and off! But here's a confession I like Adric. I liked him when I was a child, watching this story at the age of eight and being absolutely astounded by the ending. I can't say I cried. In a way I'd been prepared for a companion dying ever since Doctor Who Monthly did an article on the companions and I read about Katarina and Sara Kingdom. Certainly it was the talk of the playground the day after and my friend Darren and I talked of nothing else. You see he and I played Dr Who in the playground (this was in the days before it was obligatory to type out the word Doctor in full!) and I was Adric to his Dr, him being two years older than me. So who on earth was I going to be now? I like Adric as a character now, and when I spoke about Logopolis I mentioned that I think he's better with the fourth than the fifth and I stick by that but...

 13. The Seeds of Doom Never Trust a character played by John Challis Occasionally, a villain comes along in Doctor Who, classic or modern, who is a fully rounded individual that goes through a certain degree of character development. The Seeds of Doom features Scorby, a mercenary-type character employed by the main villain of the story, Harrison Chase.   Now, it may be because Scorby is played by John Challis - aka Boycie from Only Fools and Horses - but towards the end I do feel some sympathy for him. When he turns up in part one, he’s the typical heavy – also he doesn’t speak in RP, he’s got a bit of a London accent, which in classic Who means he’s a wrong ‘un! Challis' career saw him cast as a heavy from the man who stole Ena Sharples' handbag in Coronation Street to shows like the Sweeney. His early appearances as Boycie also show him to be a bit of a shady character before he became the character we know and love.  He quickly proves he's a wrong 'u and by the e...

14. Bad Wolf / The Parting of the Ways She was the Bad Wolf all the time Let's talk about Billie Piper! (Why? Because we want to...) She's a respected and revered actress on stage and screen, with so many awards her house must have a mantelpiece in every room. But back in 2005, fans had jitters about this ex-pop star becoming the Doctor's new companion. Including this one! Oh how we worried, oh how we scoffed.  Oh how wrong we were...  By the time we got to that last scene in Rose, I was totally bowled over by her. I was absolutely convinced Billie was Rose, from that wonderful smile as she runs into the TARDIS, to her brave words about getting the bronze in the Jericho Street Junior School under 7s gymnastic team gymnastics. As an aside, I love the fact it's the bronze! Not the gold, or the silver, but the bronze, RTD showing that third place is something to celebrate and this isn't Star Trek where anything less than 100% is abject failure...  Anyway, I quickly bec...

 15. Vincent and the Doctor Take all your chances while you can Richard Curtis is not the first person you'd think of when thinking of new writers for Doctor Who. This is a guy who writes blockbuster romantic comedies, who created Blackadder, surely he wouldn't write for our little show? And also he's a comedy writer! Yes, and so were the likes of Terry Nation, Dennis Spooner, Chris Boucher... After initial scepticism from fans about Curtis writing for the show, it turned out we had nothing to worry about as this beautiful piece of drama is not only lauded by fans as one of the best episodes of the series, but by the general public as well!  There was also scepticism from Steven Moffat over the subject matter, which he was concerned would be inappropriate for a family audience. When he took over as showrunner for Series 5, Moffat oversaw a bold reboot of the show. It had more than a little fairy-tale vibe about it, with a completely new set of regulars in Matt Smith and K...

 16. The War Games Uncle Terrance wasn't always right! "In the past I was always a bit apologetic about The War Games, at conventions. I’d say: "The opening episode’s good – they’re in the First World War and a Roman chariot comes out of the mist, that’s a great moment. And the end, with the trial of the Doctor when he’s condemned to turn into Jon Pertwee, is good. But in between there’s a lot of running up and down corridors, escapes and captures." The above quote is from the co-writer of the War Games, the legendary Terrance Dicks. Goodness me, how can someone who was so integral to the success of Doctor Who can be so wrong? And anyway doesn't that last sentence pretty much sum up a large percentage of Classic Who? Fortunately Terrance relented and said after a review in DWM of the DVD release which stated he was talking nonsense, that he was highly delighted to be proved wrong.  The tide had also turned with regards to the received fan wisdom that it has a gre...