Invasions of Earth

The new issue of The Essential Doctor Who is out now, devoted to Invasions of Earth - Alien Threats from Beyond the Stars. It includes some of my typing.

"I think Anat was one of the first women in uniform to be seen leading a gang on television," Anna Barry told me about her part in Day of the Daleks (1972). She also explained how a nearly fatal car crash helped her to be cast.

"The Doctor knows what he's talking about, at least for 1974..." says paleontologist Dr Dave Hone who I made watch Invasion of the Dinosaurs with its famously realistic-looking model effects. Ahem. Dave is the author of the brilliant The Tyrannosaur Chronicles and I'm still haunted by the talk I saw him give in 2013 on the "Planet of the Dinosaurs", with its vivid imagery of chicken-sized, feathered dinsoaurs running through magnolia blossom and between rhododendons.

Pamela Salem, David Richardson and John Dorney told me about making spin-off series Counter-Measures as "audio in black and white".

And Toby Whithouse explained how he spent his childhood "hoping and praying" that his school would be invaded by monsters.

Flower power

Issue 505 of Doctor Who Magazine is out today, and includes my preview of the forthcoming animation of otherwise-missing 1966 story The Power of the Daleks.

I was lucky enough to speak to Anneke Wills, who played Dr. Who's companion Polly in the story, and Charles Norton, who produced and directed the new version. Next issue, there'll be a longer feature talking to more of the team. But the animation is all very exciting, and I can't wait to see the episodes at the BFI event in a couple of weeks.


The new issue of DWM also includes a review of Whographica, my book of Doctor Who inforgraphics,  co-written with Steve O'Brien and illustrated by Ben Morris. The three of us will be signing copies at ComicCon in London on Friday 27 October.

And I get a mention in Alan Barnes' typically incisive exploration of the 1966 story The Savages. I found that feature a bit distracting, but can't imagine why.

Flower (Kay Patrick)
in 1966 Doctor Who story
The Savages.

Economics of the Daleks

In the 1964 Doctor Who episode World's End, the TARDIS materialises on the banks of the Thames – but something is very wrong. A sign warns that, under emergency regulations, it is forbidden to dump bodies into the river.

The Doctor's companions also point out what to them is the odd sight of Battersea Power Station without two of its chimneys (as, er, it is today). All the bustle and business of London, that great centre of trade, has been silenced.

As the Doctor and his friend Ian explore, they discover a clue to what's happening in a desk in a warehouse:

DOCTOR: Ah, here, look. At least we know the century, dear boy. Look. 

IAN: 2164. 

Now, this calendar is a simple method of telling the audience that we're some 200 years in the future. But I think it also suggests something about the mechanics of the world we've arrived in, as I'll explain in a moment.

Soon the Doctor and his friends discover that Earth has been conquered by Daleks - this is the first episode of a story better known as The Dalek Invasion of Earth. In the next episode we learn from a man called Craddock how this conquest came about, his speech full of vivid, horrific detail too expensive to realise onscreen:

CRADDOCK: Meteorites came first. The Earth was bombarded with them about 10 years ago. A cosmic storm, the scientists called it. The meteorites stopped, everything settled down - and then people began to die of this new kind of plague ... The Daleks were up in the sky just waiting for Earth to get weaker. Whole continents of people were wiped out. Asia, Africa, South America. They used to say the Earth had a smell of death about it. 

Another man, David Campbell, continues the story:

DAVID: The plague had split the world into tiny little communities, too far apart to combine and fight, and too small individually to stand any chance against invasion ... About six months after the meteorite fall, that's when the saucers landed. Cities were razed to the ground, others were simply occupied. Anyone who resisted was destroyed. Some people were captured and were turned into Robomen, the slaves of the Daleks. They caught other human beings and many of them were shipped to the vast mining areas. No one escapes. The Robomen see to that. 

The Earth and all its surviving people have become resources for some merciless Dalek project. So what about that calendar? Does it seem likely that after the plague, the invasion and the enslavement of the human race, people continued to print and publish calendars? Or does it seem credible that the Daleks produce them for their human slaves, using our Arabic numerals rather than the Dalek lettering seen elsewhere in the story?

If not, then it seems probable that the calendar was produced before the coming of the meteorites in 2163 (to serve the following year). The TARDIS has landed, according to Craddock, "about 10 years" later so The Dalek Invasion of Earth is set c. 2173 (23 years after the movie-version, Daleks: Invasion Earth 2150 AD.)

Except that in the 1965 episode Day of Armageddon, (part of the story known as The Daleks' Master Plan) the Daleks again threaten Earth, this time in the year 4000. The Doctor refers back to the earlier invasion:

DOCTOR: If the Daleks were going to attack Earth, as you seem to fear, then you must tell Earth to look back in the history of the year 2157 ... History will show how to deal with them. 

It's a passing reference. We don't know if 2157 is the date of the meteorites, the plague or the arrival of the Daleks on Earth - or of all three. And perhaps the Doctor has muddled his dates. But if we take him at his word, the invasion of Earth began six years before the production of that calendar.

Now, we could see that as a small continuity error, and conclude that writer Terry Nation or someone on the production team misremembered details of the earlier story. But I prefer to find ways to rationalise such apparent discrepancies - partly )but not only) because I spend a lot of time writing new stories to fit around old episodes of Doctor Who.

(Masters of Earth, the very good new story apparently set a year before the events of The Dalek Invasion of Earth seems to ignore the date given in Day of Armageddon, using the calendar to conclude that the TV story takes place in 2164, and, following Craddock's "about 10 years ago", that the invasion began in 2153.)

As well as establishing a date, I think we can use the calendar to better understand how the Daleks run their occupation of Earth. Despite enslaving Earth and turning various humans into Robomen, the calendar being produced during the conquest suggests that other humans have at least been granted a level of autonomy to carry out specific tasks set by their Dalek masters. My reasoning is that to complete those tasks successfully requires a certain level of administrative infrastructure, and continuing to print and distribute calendars helps the enslaved humans deliver their tasks on schedule.

The only alternative I can think of is that the calendar has been produced by the human resistance - the allies of Craddock and David Campbell. Perhaps it's useful when planning anti-Dalek activities. But then there's the Doctor's response when he first walks into the warehouse:

DOCTOR: A musty smell. This place hasn't been used in years.

That suggests the warehouse is not in active use by either the Daleks or the human resistance - which is why it's a convenient place to hide a murdered Roboman. But that also suggests the calendar found in the drawer there is a few years' old - so the TARDIS has arrived sometime after 2164. If the Doctor is right in Day of Armageddon about the invasion beginning in 2157, then Craddock's "about 10 years ago" suggests this is c. 2167, and the warehouse has been abandoned for about three years. But it was still being used six years into the invasion.

For the sake of argument, let's say the calendar was produced by the Daleks and the warehouse, before it was abandoned, was used by the Daleks, too (I'll come back with some corroborrating evidence for that in a bit). The warehouse doesn't seem directly connected to the Daleks' mining project in Bedford - a key part of the plot of the story - so it seems there were other Dalek initiatives going on, which needed warehouses and schedules. There are plenty of other things the Daleks might find useful to exploit from Earth: minerals, or information, or perhaps human slaves they could ship out to work on other Dalek worlds.

That speculation about this particular story is backed up by what happens in 1972 story Day of the Daleks, when the Daleks have again conquered Earth in the 21st century. Note, it's not the same invasion as last time, for all it might take place in the same period of future history. In episode 4, the Daleks' human Controller explains to the Doctor and his friend Jo what happened:

CONTROLLER: Towards the end of the 20th century, a series of wars broke out. There was a hundred years of nothing but killing, destruction. Seven-eighths of the world's population was wiped out. The rest were living in holes in the ground, starving, reduced to the level of animals. 

JO: So the Daleks saw their opportunity and took over. 

CONTROLLER: There was no power on Earth to stop them. 

DOCTOR: So they've turned the Earth into a giant factory, with all the wealth and minerals looted and taken to [Dalek planet] Skaro. 

CONTROLLER: Exactly. Men who were strong enough, of course, were sent down the mines, the rest work in factories. 

JO: Why? Why are they doing all this? 

CONTROLLER: They need a constant flow of raw materials. Their empire is expanding. 

For all the parallels with the earlier story, we don't see any Robomen in this Dalek-conquered Earth. Instead, the human Controller and his staff of technicians and guards collaborate with the Dalek regime - the Doctor calls the Controller a "Quisling". In fact, we seen this sort of collaboration in The Dalek Invasion of Earth when the Doctor's friend Barbara meets a woman and girl who appear to be free:

WOMAN: We make clothes for the slave workers. We're more use to them [the Daleks] doing that than we would be in the mine.

The woman and girl soon betray Barbara to the Daleks in exchange for a small amount of food. To survive, these humans conspire in their own oppression.

There's another clue to the way the Daleks run the planets they conquer in Death to the Daleks (1974). Here, we learn of a disease wreaking havoc across various worlds. But this is a not a Dalek plot, a prelude to yet more invasion. As the Doctor explains in episode 2:

DOCTOR: Several of the planets the Daleks have colonised are suffering from the same disease. They're dying in millions. Now they need that chemical just as badly as you [humans] do. 

His choice of words is interesting - he refers to planets the Daleks have "colonised" not conquered, which (for all Doctor Who of the period critiques colonies in space) almost sounds like he thinks they're there legitimately. More pertinently, the Daleks have been prompted to act because people are "dying in their millions". Why would the merciless Daleks care about that? I think the only reason can be that the Daleks need these people to make their empire work. They may talk about wanting to exterminate all other life forms, but in the short-term they must be more pragmatic. They need us.

(ETA: Jonathan Morris points out that later in the story the Daleks say that, having gathered up all the supplies of this special chemical, they "can force the space powers to accede to our demands. If they do not, millions of people on the outer planets will perish." But if the Daleks have, as the Doctor says, colonised worlds with millions of people, that potential for blackmail is in addition to that need to cure their own workers.)

(ETA 2: Paul Smith points out that we're given no indication that these "colonised" worlds of the Daleks were populated by anyone other than Daleks, so that it is Daleks "dying in the millions". That's not how I'd interpreted it, but watching again I think Paul is right. Even so, we know from other examples how the Daleks treat native populations as their exploit a planet's resources: see their invasions of Earth (above), Spiridon (in Planet of the Daleks (1973) and Exxilon (in Death to the Daleks (1974).)

The expanding Dalek empire is not only reaching out into space for ever more resources. Day of the Daleks also suggests something new, as the Doctor is told in episode 4:

DALEK: The Daleks have discovered the secret of time travel. We have invaded Earth again. We have changed the pattern of history. 

The Daleks had the ability to travel in time in three of their four previous onscreen adventures, The Chase (1965), The Daleks' Master Plan (1965-6) and The Evil of the Daleks (1967). But note that the Dalek says "again". They're using time travel to rewrite the events of The Dalek Invasion of Earth, coming back to conquer the Earth at the same point in future history, but this time doing it better to more efficiently exploit Earth's resources.

The Doctor defeats this attempt to change future history, and the suggestion at the end of Day of the Daleks is that he has thwarted the Dalek invasion. Yet in part 1 of Remembrance of the Daleks (1988), we're told this:

ACE: And now [the Daleks] want to conquer the Earth [in 1963]. 

DOCTOR: Nothing so mundane. They conquer the Earth in the 22nd century. 

So the Doctor prevented the invasion in Day of the Daleks from ever happening, but not the one from The Dalek Invasion of Earth - which now takes place as before. There's a clue as to why that might be in part 3 of Remembrance of the Daleks, when the Doctor warns Ace about changing history:

DOCTOR: Ace, the Daleks have a mothership up there capable of eradicating this planet from space, but even they, ruthless though they are, would think twice before making such a radical alteration to the time line. 

Note that it's not that they wouldn't do it, just that they'd think twice. Why?


As we've seen, the Dalek empire depends on expansion to gain ever more resources, and the gathering of those resources depends on the work of enslaved people. The most efficient use of these people is not merely to enslave them, robotised or otherwise, but to offer some of them autonomy to run particular tasks themselves, with an infrastructure to support them which includes printing calendars. But all of this takes ever more resources, so the Dalek empire must constantly expand. And that brings them up against a people just as powerful as they are.

TIME LORD: We foresee a time when they will have destroyed all other lifeforms and become the dominant creature in the universe.

In Genesis of the Daleks (1975), the Time Lords send the Doctor back in time to the point where the Daleks were created. He is meant to either destroy the Daleks entirely, or affect their creation so that they will develop to be less aggressive. It's effectively what the Daleks do in Day of the Daleks - using time travel to pre-emptively weaken a rival.


It's been argued that Genesis of the Daleks sees the Time Lords strike the first blow in what will become the devastating Time War between them and the Daleks, which has haunted all of Doctor Who since 2005.

But we don't hear of the Time Lords battling the Daleks again until the events of the Time War. Indeed, Davros - creator and later emperor of the Daleks - tells the Doctor in Resurrection of the Daleks (1984):

DAVROS: You are soft, like all Time Lords. You prefer to stand and watch. Action requires courage, something you lack.

The suggestion is that, despite provocation, the Time Lords are not acting against the Daleks - yet Davros is still plotting to wage war on them. Then, in Remebrance of the Daleks, the Daleks battle for control of a remote stellar manipulator that will give them the same power over time as the Time Lords.

I noted before the Doctor's comments in this story that the Daleks would be wary of making big changes to history. We've seen them change (future) history before, so perhaps the wariness is because they know they lack the same powers over time as the as the Time Lords, who would thwart such interference (just as the Doctor, a Time Lord, does in Day of the Daleks).

So my thesis is that the Daleks cannot expand their empire through history while the Time Lords have superior power over time. But the Daleks must expand their empire through history because of the way that empire operates, guzzling up ever more resources.

And we can trace how it operates - and thus the economic root of the Time War - from that calendar found in World's End.

(I'm thinking through this kind of stuff as I work on my book about The Evil of the Daleks (1967), to be published by the Black Archive next May. So expect more. Sorry.)

Doctor Who: Adventures in History

The Essential Doctor Who: Adventures in History is out now, a "lavish 116-page issue about the Doctor's journeys into Earth's past".

It features my interviews with director Saul Metzstein about Dinosaurs on a Spaceship and writer Jamie Mathieson about The Girl Who Died.

(I should really get around to posting some of my old Doctor Who Magazine interviews here. But you can read my interview with Master actor Gordon Tipple, my interview with Leela actress Louise Jameson and my very first feature for DWM, about movie Doctor Who.)

Also announced is BBC Audio's Eleventh Doctor Tales, a collection of 14 original audio adventures that includes The Empty House, written by me and expertly read by Raquel Cassidy. The set is out in October but available to pre-order.

I'm currently writing a book on 1967 Doctor Who story The Evil of the Daleks to be published in time for its fiftieth anniversary next May. It's part of The Black Archive series from Obverse Books.

Davros and other villains

NYDER:
I've heard Davros say there is no intelligent life on other planets, so either he is wrong or you are lying.

DOCTOR:
We are not lying.

NYDER:
And Davros is never wrong about anything.

DOCTOR:
Then he must be exceptional. Even I am occasionally wrong about some things. Who is this Davros?

Genesis of the Daleks by Terry Nation (1975)

The latest essential edition of Doctor Who Magazine celebrates Davros, creator of the Daleks, and other deadly masterminds and megalomaniacs. I got to have pizza with Davros's best (and, um, only) friend Nyder, who told me about his penchant for villainy and singing with Dusty Springfield (see below). I also spoke to the team being the stage show which reunited Nyder and his bezzie, The Trial of Davros.

Prosthetics: from script to screen

Out in shops now, Doctor Who Magazine #292 features the second part of my interview with Kate Walshe, SFX producer at Millennium FX. This time, we go into detail on the creative process on the first four episodes of the current series (The Magician's Apprentice, The Witch's Familiar, Under the Lake and Before the Flood), explaining how what's written in the stage directions of scripts gets transformed into icky and effective monsters.

Series 9 costumes and monsters

Doctor Who Magazine #491
Image by Gavin Rymill 

The super new issue of Doctor Who Magazine is out in shops now. As well as exclusive previews of the first four episodes of series 9, I interviewed costume designer Ray Holman about Peter Capaldi's fetching red coat and designing the look of Matt Smith's Doctor, and there's the first of a two-part interview with Kate Walshe, SFX producer at Millennium FX, about making disgusting monsters.

Plus there's a feature on Big Finish recasting Doctors and companions, which includes me and Elliot Chapman on the new Ben Jackson. All this and posters, jokes and an insightful review of The Macra Terror. Cripes.

At Conway Hall

I had a lovely time at Conway Hall on Wednesday night, where m'colleague Dr Marek Kukula and I were grilled by Samira Ahmed on the ethics and science of Doctor Who.

You can listen to the talk - minus the five clips I chose to illustrate stuff - as a Conway Hall podcast: London Thinks - The Science and Ethics of Doctor Who.

More events related to the book still to come. I'll be at Aston Manor Road Transport Museum on 23 August.

The smell of the Daleks

M'colleague Dr Marek Kukula and I have written a couple of blog posts to spread the word about The Scientific Secrets of Doctor Who. Here's two of them:

• "What do Daleks smell like?" for Sci-fi Now Magazine
• "Where is planet Vulcan?" for the Royal Observatory Greenwich blog

Remember, there are a bunch of events next week to launch the book, and here's me talking to the Starburst Bookworm podcast (series 3, episode 19 if you are catching up from the future) and to Croydon Radio.

ETA here's another blog post:

• "The science of crashed spaceships" for the Royal Observatory Greenwich blog

Doctor Who fights ALL the monsters in Croydon

Some foolishness I wrote - Face of Boe Book, in which lots of Doctor Who monsters invade Croydon. Design by my clever friend Lee Midwinter.

Doctor Who: 2008

Episode 750: The Stolen Earth
First broadcast 7.10 pm on Saturday 28 June 2008
<< back to 2007

"I'm regenerating..."
Doctor Who: The Stolen Earth (2008)

These days, most episodes of Doctor Who tell a new story, in a new setting and with new supporting characters. But until 1989, stories took weeks to unfold - a season was made up of a handful of stories, each one made up of episodes.

Some stories went on for many months: The Daleks' Master Plan (1965-6) was a single story that ran for 12 weeks; The War Games (1969) ran for 10 and The Trial of a Time Lord (1986) for 14 - longer than any run of episodes since the series came back in 2005.

Of course, most stories were a lot shorter. The number of episodes varied but for the first 11 years of the series, six episodes was the most common, and then four-episode stories predominated. I think that's important: even back then, stories were getting shorter.

That's partly down to developments in production and some clever organisation: in the 1980s, producer John Nathan-Turner would split a six-episode production block into two stories - a four and a two, or two threes. But why would he want to?

First, ratings tended to dip in the midst of a story. Viewers were more likely to tune in to the first or final episodes. But also, I think we've got more literate as an audience. We're quicker to absorb and process information from the screen.

Watching old TV now, it's surprising how slow and careful it can seem. Even action-packed dramas hold our hand through the plot, spelling out all the details. There are fewer scenes and more exposition. That's not just true of old Doctor Who: other dramas, soaps and even documentaries from the past are all much more sedate.

As a result, modern telly can pack much more into a shorter time. I don't think there's any less plot in a modern, 42-minute episode of Doctor Who than there was in 6x 25-minute episodes in the past. In fact, five of those episodes would have to remind the viewer of the plot and supporting characters. There's a lot of repetition.

But one big element of old Doctor Who that's been lost is the cliffhanger. In a story that unfolded over several weeks, each episode would end on our heroes in deadly peril or some incredible, shocking reveal. The idea of a cliffhanger was to ensure we'd tune in again the following week but, as I argued in my 2002 piece, it also made us active participants in the story. We'd guess what would happen next.

More than that, because a cliffhanger was meant to be thrilling and strange, leaving us with an indelible image for the next seven days as a hook to return for the next installment, some of Doctor Who's most effective and memorable moments are cliffhangers. A helpful fellow on YouTube has even selected his favourites:


Note that, as the video shows, there are cliffhangers in modern Doctor Who - and very good ones. It's just there are fewer of them now.

The new show does offer some compensations for the loss of cliffhangers. Each episode starts with a pre-titles sequences, usually something strange and scary to get us hooked. There are also ongoing 'arc' plots and mysteries to keep us watching the series and get us involved in guessing what might happen next.

But I miss cliffhangers. And the moment I've chosen from 2008 is one of the finest ever done. It's not just down to the emotional rollercoaster set up in the episode, the Doctor finally reunited with Rose only to be shot by a Dalek. It's not just all the things the story itself is doing to enthrall us. It's also how perfectly the secret was kept by the production team.

I had friends working on the series who'd previously dropped hints or accidentally spoilt things. All was silent from them. There was no one on Twitter or Facebook crowing about what they knew. And I spent the week being phoned or emailed by people I'd not spoken to in years - people I'd never even known were into Doctor Who - all desperate to know if I knew anything.

Surely, they all asked, there couldn't be a regeneration we didn't already know about.

(A few weeks before the episode was broadcast, there'd been sneaky pictures from the filming of the Doctor Who Christmas special, showing David Tennant and David Morrissey. Morrissey was dressed in Doctorish clothes. I wondered if in fact the production team had tricked us - and here was Tennant visiting or playing a ghost in his successor's next episode.)

Something similar happened in the last few weeks with The Day of the Doctor, but without there being a cliffhanger. Again, the secrets were kept and the story was much more effective. Paul McGann (in the mini-episode), Tom Baker and Peter Capaldi, and that line-up of the Doctors at the end... Each worked because we didn't expect it. And I love the idea of the episode being shown at the same time in 94 countries, too: a shared experience, where we reach the surprises together.

So it's not the pre-title sequences and arc plots that most compensate for the lost cliffhanger of old. Rather, in a world where filming is followed closely by fan paparazzi and the papers delight in ruining what's to come, there's a delicious thrill in not knowing what's coming next.

"No press previews or Bafta screenings!"
A manifesto from Gary Gillatt, 24 Nov 13

Next episode: 2009

Doctor Who: 2002

After episode 696 (Doctor Who): "Screen Test"
First published in Doctor Who Magazine #315 (3 April 2002)
<< back to 2001

Daryl Joyce's artwork for my
Doctor Who Magazine feature

In 2002, I had my first work of Doctor Who fiction published - a short story, "The Switching" in which the Master escapes from prison by swapping bodies with the Doctor. I also had my first article published in Doctor Who Magazine - and it made the cover, no less.

Thanks to current editor Tom Spilsbury for permission to post it in full. Thanks to then editor Clayton Hickman for heroic patience in dealing with this very green hack. And thanks to Daryl Joyce for the amazing artwork.

Screen Test

A new Doctor Who movie! Cor, that'd be good, wouldn't it? In the first of a two-part feature, Simon Guerrier examines the show's previous big screen dabbling. And frets, frankly...

One

Too broad and too deep for the small screen? Hardly! For years, the official statement from the BBC has been the same: Doctor Who is not being made on television because it's 'being developed as a film'. Anthony Hopkins is hotly tipped to be the new Doctor Who! Pamela Anderson will join him in the TARDIS! The script could well be written by Russell T Davies! And the special effects will rival Hollywood!

So, why the fuss? What does a film do, and why would you want to inflict it on a sweet little television programme like Doctor Who?

For one thing, a film is more of an 'event' than a standard television programme. Television channels fill the schedules on public holidays with films as a special treat for viewers, something 'better' than everyday programming. Films are right up there there with new episodes of Only Fools and Horses and extra-length, especially angsty editions of EastEnders as far as Christmas highlights are concerned. Films are something to get excited about. They're more glamorous. They tell a big story and, more often than not, they need a big budget to tell it. Films are, let's face it, still perceived as something rather exciting.

So, if the BBC want to reintroduce Doctor Who in a high-profile way, reminding the general public of what they've been missing all these years, it's only natural that they'd rather bring it back as a film than a television show, right? Even if that film is a 'television movie', it's still more 'exciting', more of a 'special event' than a single installment of a serial. In fact, many television dramas begin with a feature-length pilot to draw in an audience and get them to commit to the continuing series. Making a film version of a television show means money: more money for location filming than a budget for television drama can offer, more money for effects, more money for casting, more money for everything.

DWM #315 (2002)

You'd think, then, that a film would automatically be better and more successful. The TV series write large. But is Doctor Who really suited to the big screen? The show has been there before, of course: there were two films released in the cinema by Aaru in the mid 1960s. There have also been two feature-length special television films: a 90-minute anniversary special, The Five Doctors, in 1983 and a television movie in 1996 starring Paul McGann. The Five Doctors is a special case, though - made by the same production team as produced the television series, in a gap between seasons, and following a season that had been four episodes short. Many fans lump it in with Season Twenty anyway, rather than seeing it as a stand-alone project. They view it as a four-parter that's had its cliffhangers removed.

And that's just four films out of no end of could-have-beens. There had been hopes for a third Dalek movie in the late 1960s; Tom Baker was involved in trying to make Doctor Who Meets Scratchman during the 1970s; and the late 1980s and 1990s seemed rife with aborted projects. So many, in fact, that Jean-Marc Lofficier even wrote a programme guide about them!

But for a show that ran for so many years on TV, four(ish) films isn't that fantastic a track record. And it's a shame, because the television series proved massively successful. It may have been taken off the air in 1989 for low ratings and perceived lack of public interest, yet today it continues to be held in fond regard by the general public. It is featured in the top tens of no end of nostalgia shows and makes front page news whenever a new candidate for the role of the Doctor is proposed. And anyway, you're reading the official magazine, so of course you know the show's super.

But not the films, it's seems. "A lot of people forget that there's been two movies," said Roberta Tovey, the film incarnation of Susan, in a 1993 interview. And "Paul McGann doesn't count" was the decree of Vince, the Doctor Who fan in hit Channel 4 drama Queer as Folk. Published critiques of Doctor Who, both professional and semi-professional, pretty much ignore the films altogether. According to the 2001 Radio Times Guide to Science Fiction, the first Dalek movie lacks the "bite and inventiveness that set the landmark series apart." Why? Why couldn't the Dalek films achieve the same lasting success as the television series? Yes, the films have their fans, but not fans with the same kind of lifetime commitment that the television version managed. Surely there are some lessons that can be learned?

It must be said, adapting any format to film is contentious. And 'adapting' is the important word here. You couldn't just take a successful TV story - Pertwee favourite The Daemons, say - re-film the original script and stick it on at your local multiplex. There would be a million-and-one cuts to make, actors to cast and factors to 're-imagine' (to begrudgingly use modern parlance). Oh, and you'd have to bung the Daleks in it, of course.

Recently, two different series of best-selling novels made the leap to the big screen. There is some argument about whether The Fellowship of the Ring and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone are as dynamic, rich and epic an experience as the books that inspired them. What can't be argued is how successful the films have proven. Adaptation of a story from one format to another is always going to mean things get changed. Sometimes for practical reasons (The Fellowship of the Ring would have been an even longer film if they'd included the character of Tom Bombadil from the book), and sometimes just as a matter of personal judgement (Tom Bombadil's a rubbish character anyway!).

The first two Doctor Who movies, Dr Who and the Daleks (1965) and Daleks - Invasion Earth 2150 AD (1966), are adaptations of two of the most influential serials from the early days of the television show. The Daleks secured the longevity of Doctor Who, and they massively influenced the direction the show would take. It soon put away its educational aspirations, and concentrated on the Doctor helping gangs of rebels to fight off invading monsters. The films were released at a time of 'Dalekmania', and were just part of a massive marketing exploitation of the robot monsters' popularity. They remain such an integral part of the show that any Doctor Who film simply has to include them: Terrance Dicks insisted they got a cameo in The Five Doctors, and Philip Segal had them (out-of-shot, admittedly) at the start of the TV Movie. Doctor Who Meets Scratchman was set to be a gripping tale about Vincent Price and an army of killer scarecrows terrorising the English countryside [see DWM 296], but the production team still sought a deal with Terry Nation to get the Daleks in the picture. Perhaps they'd have been running the pub?

Two

The 1960s Dalek films were part of a tradition in British cinema at the time. The British film industry had been losing audiences because of competition from television, and the adaptations of the Dalek stories followed the success of Hammer's The Quatermass X-periment. This, too, was an adaptation of a BBC television serial, and had proved that exploiting the narratives television had to offer was one way to draw the punters back to the big screen. And what the films do is very simple: they take a story that has been very successful on the small screen, and retell it in a way that could never be envisioned on anything but a big screen. From the trailer for Dr Who and the Daleks, you can clearly see how, in the UK at least, the films pushed the idea of better, bigger, more exciting Daleks. "Now you can see them in colour on the big screen - closer than ever before," it proclaims. Indeed, the film's design is far more sumptuous than anything the BBC could have afforded. Skaro is bigger, bolder and brighter, - nothing is left to the viewers' imaginations.

That doesn't necessarily mean that what we see makes sense. For instance, why do the Daleks decorate their city with colourful drapes and lava lamps? They aren't consistent with what we know of their characters. It's that 'bigger is better' attitude again, making everything on screen look as sumptuous as possible. On the flipside, there's no realism - no attempt to lend credibility to what's going on. It's got to be said that big budget effects sequences often get in the way of the sense. Why do the events of the TV Movie happen? Why does the Master do what he does? Chiefly, it's to ensure there's a motorbike chase, plus a lot of time spent in the lavishly redecorated TARDIS. In The Five Doctors, the Cybermen are supposedly banned  from the Death Zone because they 'play too well'. But is there one single shred of evidence of that on screen? No, they're there just as Raston robot-fodder. Not that one could argue that the television series always made sense itself ...

Aaru's license from the Beeb meant the TARDIS could look like a police box and that they could use Ray Cusick's smashing designs for the Daleks; but the license didn't include the use of Peter Brachacki's TARDIS interior. As a result, the controls that Dr Who (that's the name of the character Peter Cushing plays) gets to push are wild and whizzy, but they're just not the same. The console is at the heart of Brachacki's design, the thinking being that one man could operate the controls if they were grouped around a central point. One man could arguably operate Dr Who's movie TARDIS, but he'd likely fall over a three-bar fire, get covered in mercury and throttle himself with wires if he had to do anything complicated! The console is such a recognisable constituent of the TARDIS, that both The Five Doctors and the 1996 TV Movie follow their opening credits by lingering over a newly-refurbished and extra-specially spangley version. And as it happens, from the outset, both these later films also assume we know that the great big console room fits inside the little police box.

The Dalek films, you see, start the story again from scratch, explain everything as if it's entirely new. Doctor Who was less than two years old on television when the first of them was released, so the series had nothing like the established history it does now. The Five Doctors and the TV Movie both feature past television Doctors to underline that they're a continuation of the old show, and Lofficier's The Nth Doctor guide includes notes on how most of the 1990s film proposals attempted to fit into - and expand upon - what had gone before. The Dalek films didn't rely on pre-knowledge of the television series to tell the story, even if they used it to market the films in the UK. The origins of the characters are retold, the adventure begun again. It's been made especially accessible to those who might have missed or never even heard of the programme. And it isn't the television programme. Very consciously, it does things differently.

For a kick-off, the two Dalek films eschew Ron Grainer's legendary theme tune. Both films use orchestral music, which is a much more recognisable and earthly sound than that which introduced the television show. The first film's slow, jazzy rhythm suggests mystery and anticipation, while Daleks - Invasion Earth 2150 AD has a much more upbeat, exciting tempo, suggesting action and adventure. The second film also has a 'comic' but exciting pre-title sequence, which precipitates our involvement in the engaging score. Neither theme tune, however, has the alien and frightening quality of the television version. Interestingly, the TV Movie used Ron Grainer's original, but arranged it using orchestral, recognisable, 'earthly' instruments.

Three

Right from the beginning, the Dalek films positively glory in doing things beyond the TV series' means. Colour television at the time was almost unheard of, but colour here is just one factor in the great sense of the spectacular which the films have. In Dr Who and the Daleks, there are breathtaking establishing shots of the strange landscape of Skaro; special effects allowing us to see alien mountains and alien moons. The second film prominently features a terrific Dalek ship - convincing model effects that outstrip the 'paper plate on a string' offered by the BBC.

But while the films may laud it over television's weaknesses, the authors of the seminal academic work Doctor Who: The Unfolding Text argue that the television medium itself is essential to the early progress of Doctor Who. For one thing, in dialogue from the very first episode, television is used to explain the TARDIS' interior being bigger than its exterior. As the Doctor says, an enormous building fits into a sitting room when that building is shown on television. The Unfolding Text argues that "television's own discourse of the world made intimate and instantaneous" is used to avoid the need for a "plausible scientific explanation."

The films don't use the television model, and bluff a "plausible scientific explanation" instead: "In electro-kinetic theory, space expands to accommodate the time necessary to encompass its dimensions." There is an equally silly explanation for the TARDIS in the second film. None of the explanations - including the television one - are really 'scientific' at all. But while the television series offers a simple parallel to explain away the conceit, the Dalek films legitimise their fantastic prop with technobabble. They use big words they think will wow the audience, just as they use big images and effects. Similarly, the TV Movie refers to the TARDIS 'cloaking device' - a technobabble quotation lifted directly from Star Trek.

But more importantly, reckons The Unfolding Text, when the series began, the television Doctor represented a new age of television drama. He's not a standard hero, whose values and codes are obvious from the start: he's a strange and dangerous man of mystery. In the television episodes, there was time for dialogue, for characters to disagree and argue their course of action. The films do not have that luxury. In the television serials, the Daleks are opposed by a diverse range of characters: the Doctor and his companions, aided by assorted Thal, mutant and human representatives - despite the arguments and differences amongst these allies. In the films, In the films,the few who disagree with Dr Who are usually persuaded or conveniently die. The values he fights for are not discussed or debated on screen. He's not dangerous or mysterious and, as the Sunday Telegraph of the time put it, is "a pale shadow of the TV grouch."

No, he's much more straightforward a hero, like the The Eagle's comic strip pilot of the future, Dan Dare. According to The Unfolding Text, the TV Doctor is "an alien, an outsider". Dare, meanwhile, was "always an insider, with the code of honour and refusal to lie that was the mark of the English ruling 'Public School' culture."

Whereas being an 'outsider' is what often drives the early TV episodes, 'respectability' is crucial to the ethos of the Dalek films. In the second film, Dr Who dutifully aids the policeman, Tom, by taking him back in time to avert a bank robbery we have already witnessed. It's all very amusing and heart-warming, I'm sure, but the television series never used the notion of time travel so glibly. The morality of changing history was always dealt with much more problematically - not least because if the Doctor can later travel back in time and change the way events occurred, there's never going to be any genuine sense of conflict in his adventures. Dr Who ignores such complex issues to assist the police and do his duty as a 'responsible citizen.'

The first film is also about maintaining a 'stiff upper lip'. The Thals must overcome fear of war and of the Daleks. Iam must overcome his cowardice. As Alan Barnes said back in DWM's Spring Special, "it is [Ian's] only act of true bravery which causes the ultimate destruction of the Daleks."

Actor Barrie Ingham, who played Alydon in Dr Who and the Daleks, recalls that The Daily Worker called the first film, "a rather Blimpish and militaristic sort of thing, in which pacifists were actually persuaded to become warlike." The dictionary definition of 'Blimpish' is "stupidly complacent and reactionary." The two films show the same rather naive and simplified attack on the un-British as can be seen in early British World War Two films. In his 1974 book, Films and the Second World War, Roger Manvell identifies films with the "unrealistic tendency to regard Hitler as an absurdity" until the full horrors of war lead to pictures with "a far grimmer sense of actuality." As he goes on, "[The British] were determined, initially at least, to remain cultured and gentlemanly in the face of an enemy whom they despised as uncouth - not in fact a gentleman at all."

Certainly, the Daleks are demonised for their unBritishness. They lack the gentlemanly credentials of Dr Who and his companions: they do not speak 'properly' (with the enunciated accents of the rest of the cast), and lack politeness. Ian's joke, "Excuse me, Mr Dalek, would you care to move on to this cape?" parodies their lack of manners. The Daleks are also voyeurs, watching their human captives and manipulating what they overhear. It's all terribly improper!

Four

If the films change the Doctor's values and character, they also affect the reasons he stands against the Daleks; the oppositions being more clear cut. The Daleks are diametrically opposed to whatever values Dr Who (and his followers) represent: they are intolerant not tolerant, inhuman not human, scientific not natural (or agricultural), hierarchic not communitive, hard not soft, the 'new' not the 'old', unwelcoming not polite, collective not individual, hating not compassionate, paranoid not trusting.

It's worth making the point that one of the main reasons for the success and longevity of the Daleks is their simplicity. Without us getting too clever for ourselves, the academic Jonathan Bignell, in his book Media Studies - An Introduction, argues that "situation comedies exaggerate characters' social codes of behaviour so that they become excessive, inappropriate and therefore comic." The excitement that the Daleks conjure is something similar, except that their exaggerated behaviour make the Daleks frightening, not funny; the identification of these traits connotes horror and fear. And yet, because the exaggerated traits are still recognisable traits, and ones that the audience can identify with, the Daleks' terror is memorable and effective. They may be simplistic, but we know why they do what they do.

On big screen and small, the Daleks are ciphers rather than characters - but in the two Dalek films, so are all the other characters. The television show quickly learned that Daleks are boring conversationalists, so gave other characters interesting lines. Humans working for the Daleks, or with the Daleks, or who created the Daleks in the first place, have the vocal range to argue the ethics of their position. But in the films, everyone's a cipher. None of the characters are interesting, they're all bland stereotypes. We are offered very little as to what Dalek culture and life are actually like, but that's no different from what we can glean about the Thals, or human society in 2150 AD.

There are very simple and basic parameters to the cultures we are shown in the films, and the landscapes are very small. There is occasional reference to other places, but really we see very little of these future worlds, this despite the number of special effects 'glass shots' and other wizardry to show off the alien landscapes. In the first film, we see only Dr Who's contemporary house, and then the area within and surrounding the Dalek City. In the second, we have a contemporary London street, and then London and Bedford of the 22nd Century. It's a very small, unrepresentative area. There is no interest in making the future worlds complex or layered in any way. Rather, the emphasis is on having exciting-looking locations for Dr Who and his friends to have their adventures in.

The only thing the Dalek films do want to tell us something about is Dr Who himself. The first film opens with Dr Who and his family sitting at home, reading quietly. He has a house, a very definite location. This is completely at odds with the perpetually wandering Doctor of the television series. In fact, it goes against the conscious effort to make the 'different' - unfixed and dislocated. This was set up in the very first episode, when Susan's school teachers decide to investigate her home life. Not only does Dr Who have a fixed home in London (well, I'm assuming his house doesn't roll along on wheels), but he is also human. And, just to make him even less 'different' and more familiar, he has a larger family than he did on television: a second granddaughter and a niece. Dr Who is always very kind to his companions, whereas the television Doctor could be difficult and rude. In the TV series, even the Doctor's companions are quick to question his actions. In the films, though, Barbara and Ian no longer serve the purpose of "educating the Doctor to maturity and responsibility" as they do on television. If anything, the film Dr Who is the teacher, encouraging his granddaughter's scientific curiosity, and enabling Ian to overcome his fears. He is, unlike his television predecessor, 'respectable'. He is not difficult and unreadable, but charming and predictable. Alan Barnes summed him perfectly in the aforementioned DWM Special: "He never behaves in a manner befitting anything less than a gentleman."

For all the preaching about good and evil we can identify in television Doctor Who, it is far more obvious in the films. Dr Who shares many of Dan Dare's polemic and assuring qualities. He is a traditional, conservative, human character, who takes us away on entertaining flights of fancy where the un-British are dealt with righteously and decisively. It is telling that our first sight of the film Dr Who has him happily reading The Eagle.

Five

The television viewer is expected and encouraged to be 'active' in watching the Doctor's adventures: problematic and unpredictable characterisation means that he or she is often wrong-footed. The values and characters in the films are simplistic, meanwhile, are simplistic, uncomplicated, black-and-white. We are, therefore, less involved. The television episodes also encourage 'active' viewing in that their cliff-hanger endings affect our anticipation of where the story will go next and how it will be resolved.

A little while ago, this magazine looked closely at the structure of the classic four-part Doctor Who story [see The Adventure Game, DWMs 296 to 302]. A feature film is at least 90 minutes long, so maybe the same structuring applies? Actually, no. Editing four episodes into a 90-minute whole by lopping off the titles (and maybe a scene or two) interferes with the pacing. Watching the omnibus EastEnders on a Sunday, you ride over the week's cliffhangers, but you know full well where they are; every 25 minutes there's a sudden, awkward break in tension and involvement. By the same token, The Five Doctors doesn't break seamlessly into quarters, whatever the repeats schedulers might think. There isn't enough tension and involvement after each 25-minute segment for a suitably dramatic 'break'. The narrative just stops. The stories aren't made for that format. The picaresque nature of the television series, where the Doctor and his companions move from one dilemma to the next, suits the television medium.

For the television series, audiences need to be enthralled for 25 minutes at a time, so a number of sensational moments are required in each episode. This is far too disorderly a structure for the films, where the 'plot' is not seen in segments but as a whole. As a result, in the Dalek movies of the 1960s, many of the digressions from the 'essential' story are absent. The Daleks don't get to destroy London in the films, and there's no rough and tumble round the campfire between Susan and David. The internal duration of the films' adventures as experienced by Peter Cushing's Dr Who is thus both briefer and more orderly; he spends less time in 2150 AD, and fewer things happen to him. Even if part of a longer movie 'series' (as is Harry Potter), films are a single episode long, and losing the television episodes' cliffhanger endings changes Doctor Who hugely. The episodes end at moments of crisis, of narrative peak, so as to secure the audience's return for the next installment of the story. The best examples, as Sophie Aldred once said, leave us begging: "How on earth is the assistant gonna get out of this one?"

You don't just watch Doctor Who on the television like it's eye-candy, you have to get involved. You are encouraged to anticipate resolutions. It's not just the final freeze-frames that stay with you for a week; if you're wondering how the Doctor¹s granddaughter will escape this time, you'll relive the story so far in your mind, looking back for clues in the episode as a whole. She's all alone in a spooky dead forest on an alien world! And something is after her! Will the TARDIS crew escape from the Dalek city to save her? What is she going to do? Whether or not you come up with your own neat solution, you'll still want to find out what happens next and so will tune in to see the solution that gets played out. (The monster in the forest is actually a nice blond man who just wants to ask after Susan¹s health. Ahh!) Although film will have exciting narrative peaks, the resolution must come in the same sitting. In the first Dalek film, we find out that Alydon's both a nice guy and snappy dresser five minutes after Susan ventures into the forest - not a whole week later - which is a lot less enthralling.

As we've seen, the translation from episodic installments to a single-episode film greatly changes the structure of the story being told. The first television Dalek story consisted of seven 25-minute episodes. The Dalek Invasion of Earth ran to six episodes. The introductions of the Doctor and his companions had been taken care of in a previous story, so the central characters and their relationships were already defined. The Dalek films are of 83 and 84 minutes duration respectively. Material from the television screenplays obviously had to be cut. On top of that, while these are ostensibly the same stories, the adaptations aren't slavishly adhering to the style and form of the original. The Dalek films 're-imagine' (sorry, that horrible George Lucas-y word again) the premise of the television series, making significant changes not only to the stories and characters, but also, perhaps as a result of these changes, to the ideologies, the kinds of values, expressed within them.

The films' representation of women is just one way we can reveal inherent ideologies. Only Dr Who's own grandchildren, Susan and Barbara, are active women. No Thal women take part in the offensive on the Daleks, beyond waving mirrors at them from the relative safety of the forest. In the second film, there is no Jenny, an important female character in the television version. The only substantial female characters in Daleks - Invasion Earth 2150 AD are the avaricious old spinsters who betray Susan and Wyler. For future worlds, they are very chauvinistic.

But then Doctor Who has always had problems with its not-entirely-feminist agenda. Just look at how quickly the TV Movie's Grace Holloway moves from strong, independent surgeon to shrieking, wailing mess. In The Five Doctors, what do the girls do? Susan trips over and hurts her ankle. Tegan makes the tea. Sarah falls down a bit of a slope. Somehow it seems doubtful that Twiggy's character in Scratchman would have broken the mould substantially.

Six

The Dalek films have their meanings arranged neatly and their audiences are passive, consuming the narratives without being encouraged to think too deeply about the images, themes and ideologies presented. The films are assuring, nostalgic and easily-digestible escapist entertainment. The plots and monsters may be what was on television (or near enough), and the writers involved may be the same people who brought the Daleks to life for the BBC, but what's been lost in the transition to the big screen is the ongoing drama. The Dalek films are bright and fun and entertaining, but they don't make us want to come back for more. They've crammed the exciting television serial into a one-off adventure, where all the problems are solved within one hour-and-a-half sitting, and where even the enigma of the title character has been answered in the opening scenes of the first film. No wonder the name 'Dr Who' doesn't get a mention in the title of the second film - while in the television show 'Who?' is a question, in the film it's simply the lead character's surname!

And that's why the Dalek films haven't enjoyed ongoing interest like the television series has - they don't actually encourage it. They're stand-alone stories, and all the questions they raise are answered in a single sitting. Moreover, Daleks - Invasion Earth 2150 AD, with a different title sequence, theme music and character line-up to the first film, isn't even sold as a continuation of the 'serial' featured in Dr Who and the Daleks. This is odd, because Doctor Who works best as a series - which is why the format has transcended television to work successfully in a series of comic-strips, books, CDs and webcasts. It's about travel; moving from place to place, and story to story. It's the very antithesis of the 'precinct' show, where the same characters stand around on the same sets each week. Everything about the Doctor Who format - it's lead character, its episodic structure, the TARDIS, time travel - are about not being constrained in any given space. The Dalek films' mistake is to assume they can retell Doctor Who in a single installment.

So how do you make a film that's part of the ongoing adventure, but also a stand-alone episode? That's big and exciting and special, and yet recognisably part of the old? That shares the themes and values and iconography of what's gone before, but dares to do something new?

With great difficulty, as we shall see ...

[I'll post the second part of the feature another time.]

Next episode: 2003

Doctor Who: 1969

Episode 236: The Seeds of Death, episode 5
First broadcast: 5.15 pm, Saturday, 22 February 1969
<< back to 1968

"Patrick Troughton was very good at looking scared"
The Seeds of Death, episode 5

I love The Seeds of Death, and tried to match the tone and feel of it when I wrote my Second Doctor audio story Shadow of Death.

I also got to make a short documentary that went on the Seeds of Death DVD, "Monsters Who Came Back For More!", where wise Nicholas Briggs said:

"One thing that used to scare me as a kid was seeing how scared the other characters were on television. Which is why [I remember] the Second Doctor stories ... with such fondness because Patrick Troughton was very good at looking scared. And that's what kids respond to. They respond to cues. You say to them "this is scary" by doing that and they believe it."

That nicely follows on from what I said last time about Doctor Who's scariness being a big part of its appeal. We'll come back to the importance of cues to the audience another time...

Sadly, we'd didn't get commissioned for what may be my favourite thing we ever pitched:

"Attack of the Bubble Machine
CBBC’s Ed Petrie and Oucho recreate the cliffhanger of The Seeds of Death episode 5, showing us how it was done. First they build a giant bubble machine. But it’s not just the physics of how the machine operates, they also need the all-important sound effects (added later). Ed and Oucho create their own sound effects (perhaps with the help of Dick Mills). Then, the most important thing: the actor selling the effect with studied realism i.e. Ed trying to replicate Troughton larking about and corpsing in the bubbles. If budget allows, we have Ed being saved by Wendy Padbury, who explains she couldn't stop laughing last time."

But something a little like that worked really well when Dick and Dom discovered the genius of Delia Derbyshire (bother: it's just been removed from iPlayer).

Next episode: 1970

Doctor Who: 1966

Episode 136: The Power of the Daleks, episode two
First broadcast: 5.50 pm on Saturday, 12 November 1966
<< back to 1965

The Daleks recognise the new Doctor
The Power of the Daleks, episode two (1966)
image from BBC website

We take the Doctor being played by different actors so much for granted now that it’s worth spelling out: Patrick Troughton didn’t play the Second Doctor merely as a younger version of William Hartnell. He was a different man.

Other, more timid shows would have played it safer. In the first story to feature a new actor in the lead role, another character might have commented that the Doctor seemed slightly different, perhaps with a wink to the camera, and then we’d rush on just the same. But The Power of the Daleks embraces the weirdness of the change full-on. In the first episode, companions Ben and Polly voice what viewers must have thought – that this strange little man can't possibly be the Doctor they knew.

His identity is not confirmed for another week, and then - in the last scene of episode two - by the least likely source: a Dalek. It’s a bold move, and one that works perfectly. In recent years, it’s even become a tradition: the iconic moment when we see a new Doctor through a Dalek eyestalk establishes that yes, it’s really him.

The new Doctor recognises the Dalek
Victory of the Daleks (2010)

Next episode: 1967

Doctor Who: 1965

Episode 97: The Feast of Steven
First broadcast: 6.35 pm on Saturday, 25 December 1965
<< back to 1964

Screen shot by Robert Jewell, taken from
The Destruction of Time website

The very first Christmas episode of Doctor Who is an odd one: a light-hearted trip to what's effectively another popular TV show of the time, then a chase through a silent comedy - all told in intertitles - before the Doctor hands his companions some Champagne. Just to underline that we're not meant to take it very seriously, he turns to the viewer at home to wish us a merry Christmas.

Not that I've seen the episode. The Feast of Steven is one of the 106* episodes of Doctor Who missing from the BBC archive.

[*Since I first wrote this, more episodes have been found.]

I am haunted by the Doctor Who that isn't there. More than one-eighth of all of Doctor Who's 791 episodes (up to and including Saturday's The Bells of St John) is missing. More episodes are lost than have been broadcast since the series returned eight years ago.

(Okay, the missing episodes are shorter than the ones broadcast today, so how about this: the missing minutes and seconds of Doctor Who last for longer than the minutes and seconds of all of David Tennant's time as the Doctor. Bothering, isn't it?)

We can at least listen to the 106 missing episodes as soundtracks exist for all of them. There are various clips, too, and "tele-snaps" - photos taken by John Cura of his TV screen as the episodes were broadcast. There are also novelisations of all the missing stories. But these things only serve to make the missing episodes more tantalising.

Of all the missing episodes, The Feast of Steven is likely to be the oddest. It's technically part seven of a bleak and brilliant 12-part story about the Daleks trying to fit together an ultimate weapon. Two companions die in it (yes, I count them both as bona fide companions). That wasn't exactly festive, so this episode is a fun, silly interlude, away from the main adventure. The Daleks don't appear in it at all and when the story was sold abroad, this episode wasn't included - foreign stations just skipped from episode 6 to episode 8. That means it's the episode least likely to be returned to the archive from overseas. It was made to be disregarded.

It's also the hardest to judge from what little remains. As clever Jonathan Morris says in his introduction to Doctor Who Magazine's special The Missing Episodes - The First Doctor (out in all good magazine shops now), the "virtually incomprehensible soundtrack" gives little sense of the tone. How slapstick and silly was it? How broad did everyone play it? How far did they push what they could do?

The DWM special, which publishes all John Cura's tele-snaps of missing First Doctor stories, doesn't include the above picture of the Doctor toasting his audience. I was curious why, and so - in preparation for this post - last week I asked Jonny if he could explain. He said the picture isn't technically a tele-snap as it wasn't taken by John Cura but by Robert Jewell, an actor who appeared in the story. Jonny directed me to the extraordinary The Destruction of Time website where I could see the other 19 images from the episode.

There are times when ZOMG!!1! does not adequately cover it. I'd only seen two images from The Feast of Steven episode before. And there, concisely annotated, with context and background, are 18 all-new glimpses of this most unlikely of episodes. Truly, we live in an age of wonders. Though of course I only want to see the missing episode all the more.

Incidentally, there are those who are quite bothered about the Doctor turning to camera and ruining the otherwise perfectly maintained realism of our beloved TV nonsense. I don't mind this one-off gag at all, and it's easy enough to explain within the fiction of the series. We know from an earlier story (The Chase) that the Doctor can watch any moment in history on his TV-like space-time visualiser. So why wouldn't the Doctor assume that he himself is being watched?

But perhaps it's even more pointed than that. He's started to take a more active role in the times and places he visits - toppling tyrants and muddling up the machinations of monsters - so he even knows who will be watching. The Time Lords take a dim view of interference, as we'll see much later in the series. And that's why this traveller who we know isn't from Earth says, "A merry Christmas to all of you at home..."

Next episode: 1966.