Doctor Who - The Nightmare Fair

 

In this unpublished article from a couple of years back I examined the script to see what the unmade Toymaker story `The Nightmare Fair` might have been like.

 Five years after leaving Doctor Who, Graham Williams was due to return to the programme with the story `The Nightmare Fair`. Scheduled for the pre-hiatus version of season 23 it was ultimately never made though there have since been a couple of audio adaptations and Williams himself novelised the story. As producer he’d been subject to certain restrictions including budgetary cuts and a directive to tone down what had been seen by some as gratuitous violence. Ironically his return came at a time when Doctor Who was again under scrutiny over its more extreme content. As far as is known the story never reached the casting stage but studio dates were booked to start in May 1985 and arrangements made to shoot some location footage in Blackpool itself. 

Daleks Reloaded!

 

The Daleks in colour and Destination Skaro

The question of how modern Doctor Who should relate to its long history arose twice in the last week or so with these programmes. `Destination Skaro`, though ostensibly a sketch for Children in Need, reconfigured one of the show’s most iconic characters. `The Daleks` meanwhile was premiered tonight as an edited down colourised version of the second story. Both broke unspoken rules suggesting that whatever the new `Whoniverse` will be like, it will not be quite as expected.

 

Mysterious Island (1961)

 

Mysterious Island was one of a variety of pictures produced by Charles Schneer that specialised in action adventure coupled with stop motion monsters courtesy of Ray Harryhausen. Yet it lacks the flair and invention of others and comes across, despite the presence of big monsters, as rather uneventful. It is an attempt at less outlandish rather than mythical creatures; all of the dangers on the island are simply overgrown species we recognise and unfortunately this robs the story of a lot of excitement. Well, would you rather see a cyclops come to life or a giant chicken trying to be menacing? Though set largely on an island closer to New Zealand than anywhere else the movie’s location was Spain and it is populated by mostly English actors despite the characters being American.

 

War and Peace (1972) Radio Times Special

 Over on the main blog, I've been reviewing the classic 1972 BBC adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace with some scans from the Radio Times Special magazine that was published to coincide with the programme. On this post are all the pages from the magazine. If there's anyone who wants a copy of the PDF from which these were taken please message me using the form at the foot of the right hand column of either blog and I can send it to you.

Some thoughts on Doctor Who Season 20

 

I recently bought the twentieth anniversary season Collection so thought that as well as watching the extras, I'd give the actual stories a gander as well. Some of them I'd not seen in ages.  For an anniversary event, season 20 can seem odd with its best stories leaning on the more abstract and its less good ones the more traditional. Not exactly a great advert for the show’s history but a suggestion of a new direction? Forty years distance does allow the more nuanced feel of the season to shine rather more than had it been rammed full of big action stories. There may seem to be long sequences were not a lot happens but the better parts of the season are still rich in content if not pace. So now its recently been released in a great big blu ray collection it’s a good reason to re-watch. Here’s some thoughts on each of them from a 2023 perspective…

Arc of Infinity

Notwithstanding the Ergon, I enjoyed this more than I thought I would. Fan lore suggests a third-tier tale and while it’s definitely not in any danger of being an under rated classic it does open the season with some verve considering the more thoughtful pace of the rest of the stories. It’s a traditional offering with the added luxury of location filming supported by a decent attempt from writer Johnny Byrne to justify the location. Byrne’s behind the scenes interview hints at aspects that perhaps were shunted to one side by the shopping list of contents – Omega, Tegan coming back (having never really left), Amsterdam – that sit awkwardly together. Coincidence is essential in fiction but the levels it rises to here are somewhat implausible. The story does manage to froth up into a decent thriller though would surely have been better had the antagonist been a new character.