Blog Series Introduction: JFK and Time Travel

Dallas, Texas the 11th of November 1963 a presidential motorcade approaches Elm Street, the small numbers lining the streets include fans and critics of the 35th president of the united states, and a higher than usual congregation of time travelers and science fiction characters. On the 6th floor of The Texas School Book Depository bewildered scientist Sam […]

Everything Changes But Who

The Timeless Children – Commentary & Thoughts  Previously on Doctor Who… The Doctor (Jodie Whittaker) has tracked the Cyberfleet to a planet sheltering the last survivors of mankind (and some electricity pylons). Separated from the ‘fam’, the Doctor steals a Cyber-cruiser and heads off to meet Ko Sharmus (Ian McElhinney), the semi-mythical leader of the […]

Carry On Up The Cyber

Ascension of the Cybermen – Review & Thoughts “Love, pride, hate, fear… have you no emotions, sir?” enquired the First Doctor (William Hartnell) to the Cybermen, way back in his 1966 swan song, The Tenth Planet. In last week’s episode, The Haunting of Aston Villa (I still can’t remember its actual title), we met the lone […]

Monster Mash

The Haunting of Villa Diodati – Review and Thoughts Before we begin, let’s get something clear right from the outset. Doctor Who isn’t science fiction – it’s horror, albeit horror dressed in the clothes of science fiction, in much the same way as Alien is a haunted house in space. For all its neutron flow […]

Badfinger

Can You Hear Me? – Review & Thoughts “If you’ve been affected by Graham’s story…”, said the sombre voiceover at the end of this week’s instalment of Doctor Who, the seventh episode of the current run – Can You Hear Me? It’s fair to say that this episode did affect me, ironically filling me with a […]

Angry Birds

Praxeus – Review & Thoughts In popular fiction, birds have always taken on a spiritual, even supernatural aspect. From the raven in Edgar Allen Poe’s poem of the same name to the Albatross in Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, our winged friends have often been portrayed as harbingers of doom, bringing death and destruction […]

Numberwang

Fugitive of the Judoon – Review & Thoughts On the planet Logopolis, setting for Tom Baker’s 1980 swansong, there lived a race of beings who cared so much for numbers that they could convert them into solid matter. Mathematics so pure that objects, even living creatures capable of independent thought, could be summoned into being. The […]

Star Trek: Picard, a Lesson in Survival (Picard S01E02)

Survival is, surprisingly, a hot topic in philosophy, and no before you ask this doesn’t involve a coffee scented Bear Grylls in a polo neck jumper and beret. Essentially, the philosophical concept of ordinary survival is that as we age we survive our self of the previous day. We may grow, age and change our […]

Bright Sparks

Nikola Tesla’s Night of Terror – Review From its earliest beginnings, Doctor Who has always featured historical celebrity figures. From Wyatt Earp (in 1966’s The Gunfighters) to Charles Dickens (in 2005’s The Unquiet Dead), the Doctor likes to name drop, or drop in on names, from time to time. Nikola Tesla’s Night of Terror (a story […]

Spa Wars: The Farce Awakens

Orphan 55 – Review In the early days of Broadcasting House the three-word mantra of “Inform, Educate and Entertain” constituted the mission statement for all BBC programming. Ringing the school bell for this syllabus was the founder Director General, Lord Reith, whose autocratic approach to programming demanded that all content had to satisfy these criteria. […]