Days Like Crazy Paving - A Doctor Who Fan Blog

A wise person once said, "The best thing to happen to Doctor Who was Tom Baker and the best thing to happen to Tom Baker was Doctor Who. It's the great man's 90th birthday and like many fans of my generation, I have happy memories of watching Tom on a Saturday night in the late 1970s and early 80s. Here's some of my favourite moments but possibly not the one's that immediately spring to mind  1. "There's no point in growing up if you can't be childish sometimes"  Terrance Dicks makes the fourth Doctor quite manic in his first story, certainly in comparison to his straight laced predecessor. But there's a wisdom behind the manicness and this line has gone on to be a quite I've often referred to.  2. "Homo sapiens, what an inventive invincible species..."  As much as I like actors like Faulton Mackay, Bernard Cribbins and Graham Crowden, I just can't imagine them giving this speech as much justice as Tom does. It's the Olym...

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 qu...

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...