Not a Dead Communist

Following The Daleks' Master Plan , we’re back with another historical, and this time it’s perhaps the most obscure period of history th...

The second half of The Dalek’s Master Plan covers even more settings than the first, including, as it does, a whistle-stop journey through ...

The Daleks’ Master Plan is the longest Doctor Who serial that everyone can agree is a Doctor Who serial. Unfortunately, nine of its twelv...

To the surprise and apparent confusion of some audiences at the time, Mission to the Unknown is followed, not by a continuation of its Dale...

Mission to the Unknown is an unusual episode. It’s a single 25-minute tale, and thus the shortest regularly broadcast Doctor Who story. Mo...

The opening serial of season three marks the beginning of a run of serials that are wholly or partly missing in their original form. In its ...

The Chase  was originally intended as the second season finale, and that’s apparent from watching it. This, however, means that  The Time Me...

The Chase is structured in three two-episode segments. First, there is the section on Aridius, then a couple of largely comedic episodes ba...

Although, at six parts, The Chase is not exceptionally long for its era, it does visit more than the usual number of settings. The third of...

With the next story, we are off to an alien planet again, albeit one inhabited by a race virtually indistinguishable from humans – if, indee...

Next, we reach another pure historical episode, and it’s one in the style of the first-season historicals rather than the more light-hearted...

The second-season serial The Web Planet is famous – or perhaps, infamous – for featuring no humanoid characters at all beyond the regular c...

We are overdue for a historical by this point, so it’s no surprise that the fourth story of the second season fits that description. Unlike ...

The Rescue is a brief story that functions primarily as the introduction to a new companion and arguably doesn’t do much more when taken in...

The Dalek Invasion of Earth has a significant place in the ongoing development of the series. It’s the first returning “monster”, the first...

The second season kicks off with a story that takes a different turn than the usual for the show; a science-fiction concept to be sure, but ...

With the stories still alternating in theme, we turn to another pure historical for what became (but was not originally planned to be) the f...

Continuing with the alternating themes of the first season, we are back to an alien planet with The Sensorites , in the first story to show ...

The first season of Doctor Who alternated between science fiction stories on alien worlds and ‘pure’ historicals in Earth’s past, with the ...

It’s not until the fifth serial of the original series that we have the second story to feature aliens other than the Doctor and Susan. It’s...