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This is the third disc in the Beneath the Surface boxed -set which I have been watching throughout the week. It sees The Doctor (Peter Davison) Turlough & Tegan (Janet Fielding) visiting Earth in the near future, and finding themselves under attack & forced to make an emergency landing deep in the ocean at Seabase Four.

Things then go from bad to worse when Seabase Four comes under attack from both The Sea Devils and The Silurians, who are both understandably upset by what happened the last time they tried to broker a peace between themselves & Mankind, and are out for revenge…

I thought this story lacked the emotional depth of the other two stories, and There was was little attempt made at creating atmosphere, drama or suspense consequently it is not quite the classic that the other two are. Mind you the special effects were better (apart from the Myrka lol) and I still really enjoyed it.

I was also interested to learn that after 2009 David Tennant would no longer be playing the Doctor, various forums are abuzz with rumours about who may be taking over the roll. I reckon Richard E. Grant would be great

“I demand to have some b…”
“EX-TER-MI-NATE!”
“Scrubbers!”
“EX-TER-MI-NATE!”

This is another Classic DR Who story I’ve watched. Broadcast in 1972 it starts when The Doctor (Jon Pertwee) and Jo Grant (Katy Manning) visit The Master (Roger Delgado) who has been imprisoned on an island prison run by Govonor Trenchard (Clive Morton) and appears to be a reformed character.

Then The Doctor learns that the Royal Navy has had a number of strange sinkings centred round a nearby abandoned fort, so he and Jo go to investigate. and learn of a colony of intelligent Prehistoric Reptillian creatures living under the sea…

This story has echoes of The Silurian story, being as it deals with a race of Ancient Reptilian Creatures living on Earth, and Roger Delgado makes a suitably charismatic villian as the Master.

I am in the process of watching a Dr WHo DVD boxed set called Beneath

the Surface. It contains three classic episodes - The Silurians, The Sea Devils & Warriors of the Deep. So far I have ony seen The Silurians.

This story takes place at Wenley Moor Research Establishment - an underground Atomic Research Centre built into a cave system. It is run by Dr Lawrence & contains a Proton Accelerator. They are trying to discover a way to produce cheap safe atomic energy for all, and are developing a new type of reactor which will convert nuclear energy directly intoelectrical power.

There have been an alarming number of accidents, power failures & deaths at the establishment and The Doctor (Jon Pertwee) and his assistant Liz Smith are called to investigate. They discover a colony of intelligent prehistoric reptillian humanoid creatures known as Silurians living in the caves, who are trying to wipe out the human race…

I have recently watched The War Machines & I think that There are elements of both The Matrix & Terminator in this classic Dr Who episode from 1966.

In this story The Doctor (William Hartnell) arrives on Earth & gets an uneasy feeling when he learns that a chap named Professor Brett has built a new supercomputer named WOTAN (Will Operating Thought ANalogue) in the Post Office Tower in London.

His fears turn out to be well founded when WOTAN takes over the minds of all the humans it is in contact with & orders an army of killer robots, be constructed in secret, in order to wipe out the human race….

I am a big fan of old Dr Who stories & I have recently watched this classic Dr Who story, from the Peter Hinchcliffe era of the mid 70’s, which continued Dr Who’s reputation as something you watch from behind the sofa, lol. It is based on all sorts of old Universal Horror Movies & it is certainly very spooky & full of atmosphere.

In this story The Doctor & Sarah Jane arrive on the ravaged planet of Karn and discover a once brilliant scientist named Solon (Philip Madoc) in a castle trying to resurrect an evil Time-Lord named Morbius, who once led the High Council of Time-Lords, but was executed on Karn when he turned out to be a ruthless dictator who rebelled against them .

Solon is keeping Morbius’ brain alive in a tank of hydrocolloid preserving liquid, and has also began work on a new body, since the last one was completely destroyed when he was executed . All he needs is a head and he decides that The Doctors’ will do nicely.

Meanwhile The Sacred Sisterhood of Karn, are guarding the Sacred Flame from which the Elixir of Life is obtained. They have a long standing dislike of Morbius because he revealed the secrets of The Elixir of Life, and have not trusted The Time Lords since, and once they find out that the Doctor is a Time-Lord they plan to execute him too, unless he can persuade them that Solon is the real baddie…

I’ve recently watched this six-part Dr Who story starring Tom Baker as the Doctor & Louise Jameson as his (rather hot) companion Leela. It starts when The Doctor arrives on his home planet of Gallifrey behaving rather oddly. He then announces that he is the President of the Supreme Council of Time Lords and his first act as President is to banish Leela to the wastelands (for her own protection as it turns out).

Meanwhile an alien race called The Vardans are planning a full scale invasion of Gallifrey and the Doctor seems to be helping them by sabotaging the defenses. However it soon transpires that the Vardan aren’t the only aliens interested in invading Gallifrey and pretty soon the warmongering Sontarens turn up intent on destroying the Time-Lords…

I quite enjoyed the Invasion of Time, it wasn’t always clear what was going on and Tom Baker seemed to over-act a bit at times, but on the whole I thought it was a pretty good story

I am a big fan of classic Dr Who stories, and with the latest series finishing recently, I decided to revisit some of the old episodes, that I have in my collection. Here are the episodes I am hoping to watch….

The Invasion

Exciting six-part story in which The Doctor (Patrick Troughton) and his companion Zoe (Wendy Padbury) are asked to investigate the strange disappearance of an eminent scientist. During their enquiries they meet a sinister chap named Tobias Vaughan (Kevin Stoney), who is the head of a company called International Electromatics, a global supplier of electronic equipment.

The Doctor then discovers to his horror that Vaughan, is intending to team up with the Cybermen in order to take over the world. So the Doctor teams up with the newly formed United Nations Intelligence Task Force (UNIT) under the command of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart (Nicholas Courtney) in order to stop Vaughan’s villianous schemes of world domination once and for all. I enjoyed this story, it was quite exciting & I thought the use of animation to recreate the two missing episodes was really cool.

The Three Doctors

This is one of my favourite episodes ever, and as the title suggests it features the combined talents of William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee. It’s really exciting and starts when UNIT comes under attack from an unknown alien force and The Doctor is forced to call upon the Time-Lords for help. So the first two Doctors are lifted out of their own time line(Breaking the first law of time in the process) in order to help the third.

They then find themselves in the world of Anti-Matter where they discover a very angry renegade Time-Lord named Omega, who was conducting experiments into Time-Travel for the Time-Lords, when he found himself trapped in the world of Anti-Matter, he is understandably very upset by the fact that the Time-Lords didn’t even try to rescue him and wants revenge…

The Green Death

This is another story I enjoyed. It is a Doctor Who story with an environmental theme. In it The Doctor (Jon Pertwee) and Jo Grant (Katy Manning) are called to investigate a series of mysterious deaths at a disused coal mine in South Wales. The Doctor suspects that the nearby “Global Chemicals” factory may have something to do with it.

The Doctor then learns that the company has been dumping toxic waste down the mine-shaft So he goes down to have a look and makes an alarming discovery - An abandoned mine infested by Deadly giant maggots! Eeeek!

The Time Warrior

A Number of top scientsts mysteriously vanish from a top security institute and The Doctor (Jon Pertwee) is asked to investigate. Meanwhile he is unaware that a certain investigative journalist named Sarah Jane Smith (Elizabeth Sladen) has also stowed aboard the Tardis.

His investigations lead him back in time to the Middle Ages, where he discovers a villianous Sontaren named Linx, who has crash landed and is helping a greedy Baron named “Irongron” defeat his enemies with high-tech weapons, in exchange for help to get his space-ship repaired, so he can leave, and it is up to The Doctor to stop Linx & Irongron from changing the course of history with their villianous scheme. This was the first story featuring Sarah Jane Smith, and I thought that Linx was a suitably treacherous bad guy.

Robot

This is another one of my favourite episodes. In it the Doctor (Tom Baker) has just regenerated after being mortally wounded by the Spider Queen on Metebeles Three and is feeling a bit fragile, but his recovery is cut short when he is requested by UNIT to investigate a series of robberies involving components for a top secret Disintegrator Gun.

The Doctor’s investigations lead him to Professor Kettlewell, who has built a highly sophisticated robot named K1 to help him with his research. However a sinister organisation known as The Scientific Reform Society have also got their eyes on the Robot and hope to use it to blackmail World Governments into reform, threatening to use the destructor codes, (which they stole with the robots help) to launch the worlds Nuclear Weapons and cause armageddon…

The Sontaren Experiment

The Doctor (Tom Baker) Sarah Jane (Elizabeth Sladen) and Harry Sullivan beam down to Earth from Nerva Beacon in the far future, having just defeated the Wirrn (See Ark in Space). The discover the ship-wrecked crew of a space ship, who are being hunted down by a sinister alien named Skyre who is conducting tests on them as part of an invasion plan by the villianous Sontarens. It is up to the Doctor, Sarah Jane & Harry to rescue the survivors & defeat the evil Styre before the Sontarens invade Earth….

As a plan by the BBC to save money, this story only ran two episodes and there is evidence of cost-cutting all over the place. Nevertheless I have enjoyed all the Sontaren stories I’ve seen The Sontaren Experiment, The Time Warrior & The Invasion of Time,

Genesis of the Daleks

Fantastic six-part story, which is another of my favourite Dr Who stories. In it The Time Lords realise that the Daleks are a real menace and will clobber every other life form in the universe given half a chance. So they break their own laws of Time and send The unwilling Doctor (Tom Baker) back in time to the Daleks home planet of Skaro in order to prevent The Daleks from ever being created.

However during his mission The Doctor has a crisis of conscience and questions whether he actually has the right to completely wipe-out another life form and the rest, as they say, is history….

Pyramids of Mars

I vaguely remember watching this when I was younger, and it scared the hell out of me lol, and It’s been a favourite of mine ever since. It features Tom Baker & Elizabeth Sladen as the Doctor & Sarah Jane, who find themselves being thrown off course & landing in England at the turn of the 20th Century.

They discover a sinister chap named Scarman (Michael Sheard) trying to free an ancient evil being named Sutekh from his prison on Mars, where he was placed after laying waste to a number of planets, killing billions of people in the process. If Sutekh gets free it could mean the end of life on Earth as we know it and it is up to the Doctor & Sarah Jane to stop the evil Scarman before it’s too late…

The Hand of Fear

The Doctor & Sarah Jane arrive on Earth in the middle of a quarry & after narrowly avoiding being blown to smithereens (well, what did they expect, fancy landing in the middle of a quarry, I ask you) , the Doctor discovers an unconcious Sarah Jane holding a mysterious stone hand. The hand it seems has taken control of Sarah Jane’s mind and has compelled her to go to the nearest Nuclear Power Station.

Thanks to the Nuclear energy the hand then starts to regenerate into an alien named Eldrad (Judith Paris) who explains that she is lost & needs transport back to her home world, but the Doctor makes an alarming discovery and finds out that Eldrad is in fact a war-mongering despot…

The Robots of Death

This is yet another favourite episode of mine, in which The Doctor and Leela arrive aboard a sandminer craft, trundling across a distant barren planet through fierce dust storms, in search of rare & valuable metals. Aboard the Sandminer is a small skeleton crew, who alternate between indulgent relaxation and skilled mining work. There is also a large crew of service Robots who take care of the day-to-day tasks aboard the sandminer.

When one one of the crew members is found murdered suspicion immediately falls on the two new arrivals, this is swiftly followed by more deaths, The Doctor begins to suspect that someone is tampering with the robots and altering the programming so that they go round clobbering people - with a title like “Robots of Death” he could be on to something lol

Destiny of the Daleks

The Doctor (Tom Baker) & recently regenerated Romana (Lalla Ward) arrive on a mysterious radioactive planet, but the Doctor has the strangest feeling he has been before and while exploring the ruins of an ancient city, the doctor makes an alarming discovery and finds out that he is in fact on Skaro, home planet of the Daleks…Yikes!

It Turns out that the Daleks are seeking something vitally important deep beneath the city to help them gain victory over The Movellans, with whom they have been at war with for a long time. Could it be that the dreaded Davros, creator of the evil Daleks has survived and is alive and well on Skaro…?

New Beginnings

This three disc set comprises of , The Keeper of Traken Logopolis & Castrovalva

The Keeper of Traken

The Doctor (Tom Baker) and Adric (Matthew Waterhouse) are summoned by The Keeper to the planet of Traken - a haven of peace & tranquillity free from the forces of evil & corruption

Howevever once they arrive they discover that all is not well, the keeper is dying and an evil presence is threatening the future of the planet. Helped by an inhabitant named Nyssa (Sarah Sutton) they eventually discover that the Doctor’s old adversary The Master (Anthony Ainley) may be behind it all, and they set about trying to stop hie evil plans before it’s too late.

Logopolis

Unaware of what happened to the Master on Traken The Doctor & Adric head towards Earth to fix The Tardis’s Chameleon Circuit, so that it will once again be able to blend into the background. Meanwhile a fiesty young Air hostess named Tegan Jovanka (Janet Fielding) whose car has broken down, has wondered into the Tardis thinking it is an Emergency telephone box.

The Doctor then seeks the help of the people of Logopolis to help him with the Tardis unaware that he has picked up another passenger, and encounters sinister goings on and discovers to his horror that The Master may not be as dead as he thought he was…..

Castrovalva

The Doctor manages to defeat the Master’s evil Scheme, but is forced to regenerate (Into Peter Davison) when he falls from the Pharos Project Radio Telescope. The Time travellers manage to escape The Masters Evil clutches, but the Doctor is very fragile after his regeneration.

So Nyssa (Sarah Sutton) & Tegan (Janet Fielding) pilot the Tardis towards the city of Castrovalva, a place famed for its healing powers, in order to help The Doctor recover. However all is not as it seems….

Time Flight

The Doctor (Peter Davison) Nyssa (Sarah Sutton) & Tegan (Janet Fielding) are still deeply upset by the death of Adric, (who died trying to defeat the Cybermen in “Earthshock”). They land at Heathrow airport and discover that recently a Concorde aircraft mysteriously vanished into thin air, so they investigate and find themselves back in Prehistoric times.

It turns out that the planes are being diverted down a “time-corridor” by an enigmatic magician named Kalid, for unknown purposes. Unfortunately Kalid turns out to be The Master in disguise (Anthony Ainley) who has also enslaved an ancient and extremely powerful race named The Xeraphim, in order to use their powers for his own evil purposes and it is up to The Doctor and his comapanions defeat the Master, rescue the Xeraphim & return the Concorde passengers back to their own time.

Arc of Infinity

Whilst travelling through space an extremely powerful anti-matter entity tries to bond with the Doctor. The Doctor is then recalled to his home planet of Gallifrey, where he learns that Omega (see The Three Doctors) survived & is up to his old tricks again. and it was he who tried to bond with the Doctor in order to exist in the Matter Universe.

It turns out that Omega is being assisted by an unkown traitor on Gallifrey who is trying to ressurect him and it is decided that the Doctor would make an ideal host, and in order to stop him The Doctor is imprisoned & must be executed…crumbs!

Meanwhile in Amsterdam Tegan is investigating the mysterious disappearance of her cousin Colin Frazer, unfortunately she is captured and imprisoned by Omega.

It is up to the Doctor to escape from Gallifrey, rescue Tegan & defeat Omega.

Incidentally “The Arc of Infinity”, refers to a naturally occuring gateway to the dimensions, which is a source of magnetic radiation and is known to shield Anti-Matter. It can also be controlled by using a tremendous amount of power.

Timelash

The Doctor (Colin Baker) & Peri (Nicola Bryant) arrive on the planet Karfel which is on the brink of war with it’s former ally Bandrill. Karfel is ruled by The Borad, a seemingly kind old man who only appears on screens, however the Doctor eventually discovers that the real Borad is a evil misshapen mutated scientist named Magellan, who accidentally fused with a reptillian Morlox when an experiment went badly wrong.

He then discovers that the Borad is intent on provoking war with Bandrill so that all other life on Karfel will be wiped out and also intends to kidnap Peri and create a consort for himself by fusing her with a Morlox, and it’s up to the Doctor to stop the Borad before it is too late…