Fan Scene CT82 #4

With a different photo cover based on the Radio Times cover that promoted `The Three Doctors` the September issue reveals plans for an anniversary story next year. Jon Pertwee will definitely be in it and Gary hopes Pat and Tom will be too. He does suggest an anniversary special publication is unlikely though. The issue also has the first mention for a planned BBC anniversary event next year. Other news includes the return to the series of the Brigadier as well as actor David Collings. Rumours of the Daleks returning as well though appear to be false. Nyssa is departing and her last story will appropriately be called `Terminus`. 

There have been more thefts reported, this time from the Central Westminster Reference Library with Radio Times cuttings from `The Time Warrior` to `Brain of Morbius` swiped. There’s a clipping of a local newspaper report about Panopticon though it’s been written by a DWAS member David Guest (no, not that one) who turns in an intelligently penned and sometimes amusing account. If only all professional press about fandom were like this. “It never was ascertained how members got home but the sound of unnatural mechanical grindings and the disappearance of all the police boxes in Birmingham give a clue,” he concludes.

 

Fan Scene CT82 #3

With salmon coloured front pages the June issue announces more details of next season including the title of the opening story- `Arc of Infinity`. Sounds great doesn’t it?  Also the worst kept secret of the time was that Janet Fielding hadn’t really left at the end of `Time Flight` and here we learn she will indeed be back next season. Under the heading `Crisis` the issue reveals that someone called Sarah who dealt with fan mail in the programme’s production office has left; possibly the second fact being a reaction to the first!. Additionally because of the World Cup there probably won’t be any repeats this summer. So is this what constituted a Crisis back in 1982? If only that was all we had to concern us now!! The front page also reports the death of Harold Goldblatt who was in `Frontier In Space` and that the marriage between Tom Baker and Lalla Ward has ended after sixteen months. 

 

Pyramids of Mars @45

There is an experience Doctor Who fans will never have again that anyone watching the series in the Seventies did have and that is watching your first episode in colour. After years of various shades of grey there would finally be an episode when the series exploded into bright COLOUR! For some it had started with `Spearhead from Space` when the series itself was first broadcast in colour. Some of us had to wait a while longer. For me it was episode 2 of `Pyramids of Mars` first broadcast on 1 November 1975. Having avidly watched the programme till in monochrome nothing could prepare me for the experience of seeing the series as it should look. It’s difficult to describe in a world now where black and white material is either ancient or used as a novelty. Somehow watching in monochrome you did have some idea of things being different shades yet whenever a photo turned up it was still a surprise. I think the reason why I loved the Target books covers was because of the vibrant colour of the artwork. Yet Doctor Who was still a black and white series for me. Then in 1975 we got a colour television and suddenly everything was different.