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Doctor Who Season 19: A Kinda* Review

Paul Ferry

(*and other stories.) When I wrote a piece about the blu-ray release of Doctor Who’s twelfth season, I called it ‘This is Not a Review’, because my attachment to Tom Baker’s debut episodes was so strong that I did not feel I could be in any way objective. I didn’t consider that I might have to write similar articles about other seasons on blu-ray. So when Season 19 came along – a season that I like a lot but have less of a personal attachment to – I thought my comments would be more review-y than the previous release, so I … Continue reading Doctor Who Season 19: A Kinda* Review

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Matt Berry – Television Themes

Paul Ferry

Matt Berry is best known as a comedian in the UK, his bullish persona and booming voice familiar to a whole nation of TV viewers from shows like The I.T, Crowd, House of Fools and Toast of London; but he has another life as a successful musician, producing prog and jazz albums. Television Themes is his sixth album and most likely to grab public attention, for it features a whole host of nostalgic theme tunes familiar to anyone who grew up in the UK during the seventies and eighties. In these days when writing a TV theme seems to mostly … Continue reading Matt Berry – Television Themes

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Kill Your Heroes: A History of Toxic Fandom by Bob Sheppard

Paul Ferry

Originally published in Strange Skins Digital #5 It’s easy to look at the endless stream of vitriol that spews onto the internet from certain areas of sci-fi fandom and to imagine that this is a new thing; a product of our broken, greedy, uncaring society. It’s not. Don’t take that as meaning that I am for one moment suggesting that our society is not broken, greedy and uncaring. It most certainly is; we live in a world where the President of the United States can be openly racist and misogynistic and people applaud him for it. What I’m saying is that … Continue reading Kill Your Heroes: A History of Toxic Fandom by Bob Sheppard

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‘Borrowed Time’ by Naomi A. Alderman

Paul Ferry

Borrowed time is the second new release from BBC Books and, like The Triple Knife, it has been previously published in some form previously. Written by prize-winning author Naomi A. Alderman, it was previously released in hardback during the tenure of the Eleventh Doctor, but this attractive re-branded paperback is well worth a second look. Doctor Who doesn’t have a terrific track record when it comes to stories in which time itself is a pivotal element – The Time Monster, Timelash, the TV Movie – none of them are the series’ brightest moments, but where Borrowed Time scores over all of those is in its … Continue reading ‘Borrowed Time’ by Naomi A. Alderman

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‘The Triple Knife and Other Doctor Who Stories’ by Jenny T. Colgan

Paul Ferry

The Triple Knife is one of two Doctor Who paperbacks released under the new brand. They’re not featuring the forthcoming new Doctor, of course – that would be giving too much away ahead of the new series – but they are both by prominent female writers in promotion of Doctor Who’s Year of the Woman. Written by Jenny T. Colgan, The Triple Knife is a collection of short stories either starring or told from the perspective of a significant female character from the recent years of Doctor Who. There are five stories of varying lengths in this collection: the story after which the book is named The Triple … Continue reading ‘The Triple Knife and Other Doctor Who Stories’ by Jenny T. Colgan

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100% Cotton*: The Target Novelisations of Donald Cotton

Paul Ferry

Donald Cotton, an acclaimed TV and radio writer and co-creator of Adam Adamant Lives, only ever wrote two stories for Doctor Who… and neither of them is particularly acclaimed. His first, The Myth Makers, is often overlooked because it is one of those sad cases where 100% of the footage is missing from the BBC archive. Not even so much as a tiny clip exists! His second (and, as it turned out, final) script, The Gunfighters, exists in its entirety, but for a long time was unfairly (and rather inaccurately) derided as the worst and lowest-rated serial in the early years of Doctor Who. This … Continue reading 100% Cotton*: The Target Novelisations of Donald Cotton

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‘Forever and a Day’ by Anthony Horowitz

Paul Ferry

I’ve never read Anthony Horowitz’s previous James Bond novel, Trigger Mortis – or indeed any 007 novel not written by Ian Fleming – so I wasn’t sure quite what to expect. However, I’m pleased to report that I was pleasantly surprised. Forever and a Day is set before Casino Royale (the first James Bond novel, if you’re not up to scratch) and it takes as its starting point a treatment called Russian Roulette that Ian Fleming wrote for a proposed American TV series in the 1960s. An American James Bond? Sounds awful – thank goodness it was never made. Whether it’s because of the Ian Fleming source material or whether … Continue reading ‘Forever and a Day’ by Anthony Horowitz

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‘Lady Audley’s Secret’ by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

Paul Ferry

It’s widely acknowledged these days that the larger proportion of the readership for crime thrillers is female, but it’s often overlooked that this has long been the case. The Victorian equivalent of the crime thrillers was the Sensation Novel; brooding pot-boilers full of crime, blackmail, murder and bigamy that were frequently targeted specifically at women. Though she is largely forgotten today, the queen of the Sensation Novel (and a best-selling author of her time) was Mary Elizabeth Braddon, and Lady Audley’s Secret was her magnum opus. Robert Audley, the rakish young nephew of Sir Michael Audley, goes to visit his uncle at the … Continue reading ‘Lady Audley’s Secret’ by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

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Adult Situations: Is New Who More Grown-Up than the Classic Series?

Paul Ferry

It’s often stated that one of the areas in which the modern version of Doctor Who succeeds over the classic series is that it is more grown up. But is it really? Could it be that two eras of Doctor Who simply wear their maturity in different ways and approach the issue of what it means to be an adult from completely different angles, informed by the society in which they were shaped? The aspects of the modern series that people label as more sophisticated are mostly emotional. The classic series rarely dwelt on open displays of emotion – unless, of course, that … Continue reading Adult Situations: Is New Who More Grown-Up than the Classic Series?

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The Doctor: He’s Always Been My Hero and She Always Will Be!

Paul Ferry

I’ve always wanted to be the Doctor, ever since I was a small child and Tom Baker’s fascinating Fourth Doctor dominated my Saturday teatimes. I mean, who wouldn’t? The Doctor is the ultimate hero – brave, caring, resourceful and although there are sometimes difficult decisions to be made, the end result is always to make the universe a better place to live. When I was 11 years old, I dressed as the Doctor for a school costume party in a Fourth Doctor outfit that my mother made for me. She made the coat from scratch and knitted the scarf. Sure, … Continue reading The Doctor: He’s Always Been My Hero and She Always Will Be!