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Look Back in Ginger: Fandom’s Harsh Judgement of Amy Pond

Paul Ferry

In this classic article from Strange Skins 2013, controversial columnist Bob Sheppard takes a look at fandom’s initially judgemental reaction to the now well-loved Eleventh Doctor companion. The popular shared opinion of fandom is like one of those shoals of shining silver fish that you see on natural history documentaries from time to time. It glides along nicely for a while in one particular direction, and then it suddenly shoots off skittishly at a tangent for no immediately definable reason. This pattern can be seen time after time throughout Doctor Who’s long history; whether it be the sudden change of JN-T … Continue reading Look Back in Ginger: Fandom’s Harsh Judgement of Amy Pond

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Not a Review: Doctor Who Season 12

Paul Ferry

This is not a review of Doctor Who: The Collection Season 12. I set out to write a review, only to find that I was too close to the material to be truly impartial. You see, Tom Baker’s debut season was my introduction to Doctor Who. Looking back, I had probably seen some of Jon Pertwee’s last season; I have vague memories of the giant spiders and was aware of the Daleks prior to Genesis of the Daleks, but my memories of Tom Baker’s first season are vivid. Although I was only 5 at the time, I know I watched the whole thing … Continue reading Not a Review: Doctor Who Season 12

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‘Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen’ by James Goss and Douglas Adams

Paul Ferry

There’s a certain familiarity that accompanies Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen, adapted by James Goss from script material written by the late, great Douglas Adams. Ah, you say; that’ll be the opening sequence which Adams recycled for his third Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy book Life, the Universe and Everything that he’s talking about. Well yes, there’s that, but the familiarity doesn’t end there. The similarity to Life, the Universe and Everything is certainly a problem; the essential premise of a quest to find the constituent elements of the Wicket Gate, a key to unlock the prison in which the deadly Krikket robots are incarcerated is exactly the same … Continue reading ‘Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen’ by James Goss and Douglas Adams

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Most Exciting: Doctor Who & the Daleks on the Big Screen… IN COLOUR!

Paul Ferry

When I first got into Doctor Who fandom in a big way in the late 1980s, the received wisdom amongst fans was that the two Peter Cushing films from the 60s, Dr Who and the Daleks and Daleks’ Invasion Earth: 2150ad, were worthless rubbish. Which is strange, because almost everyone that I spoke to would say ‘Actually, I rather like them’ with a sort of guilty pleasure look on their face. Everyone had an incredible fondness for them from watching endless reruns during on a Saturday morning or during the school holidays in the 70s, wedged between episodes of Champion the Wonder Horse, Boss Cat (as the BBC … Continue reading Most Exciting: Doctor Who & the Daleks on the Big Screen… IN COLOUR!

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Film-Making for Pyromaniacs: The Making of Blake’s 3½

Paul Ferry

Whilst rummaging through a bunch of old files, I came across this article written in 2002 about a fan video made over a decade before that. The video was called Blake’s 3½ and it was made by FMtv, one of the North East film-making groups that eventually merged to form Timebase. I thought it might give an interesting insight into our early days as film-makers and the fun we had back in our youthful days!   Paul Ferry (2018) Attack of the Autons* had left everyone at FMtv feeling a little low. We had worked for years on the project, and the finished … Continue reading Film-Making for Pyromaniacs: The Making of Blake’s 3½

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Paul Ferry’s 10 Favourite Doctor Who Fan Films

Paul Ferry

Listed below are the 10 Doctor Who fan videos that I have found most entertaining, inspiring and impressive over the many years that I’ve been interested in such things. I use the words ‘fan video’ in the traditional sense, meaning dramatic or comic presentations, rather than clips edited to music (which we called ‘scratch videos’ in my day). They’re listed in chronological order, rather than order of merit, because they’re all equally special to me. If you’re lucky, you might find some of them online. DAY OF THE DUSTBINS / ALISTAIR ANORAK INVESTIGATES The West Midlands Whonatics (1987) I’m cheating … Continue reading Paul Ferry’s 10 Favourite Doctor Who Fan Films

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‘Doctor Who – Rose’ by Russell T. Davies

Paul Ferry

For anyone who grew up in Britain in the 1970s, the Target novelisations were as much a part of Doctor Who as the television series itself. Along with Doctor Who Weekly in the latter part of the decade, they provided a vital link with the series when it wasn’t on the air. I remember walking home from the local library with a huge pile of the colourful hardbacks; I didn’t necessarily read them all at once, but I was attracted to the exciting, vibrant colours and – when I did eventually read them – by the exciting, vibrant prose. Now BBC Books, under the … Continue reading ‘Doctor Who – Rose’ by Russell T. Davies

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‘The Gradual’ by Christopher Priest

Paul Ferry

For his most recent novel, Christopher Priest returns to the Dream Archipelago, a sequence of exotic pseudo-Mediterranean islands that have formed the backdrop for many of his novels. That said, the Dream Archipelago stories could hardly be said to be a series, as the nature, the geography, the politics and even the physics of the islands changes from book to book. In a sense, they represent not so much of a location for the stories as the central character’s interpretation of that location, seen through the prism of whichever idea Priest is exploring in that story. In The Gradual, Priest takes … Continue reading ‘The Gradual’ by Christopher Priest

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‘Red File for Callan’ by James Mitchell

Paul Ferry

Originally (and subsequently) published under the title A Magnum for Schneider, this book is Callan creator James Mitchell’s first adaptation of the popular late-60s / early-70s TV series. It is an adaptation of his script for the TV play A Magnum for Schneider, which acted as an unofficial pilot for Callan and was also later adapted for the movie version of the show. Released at the height of Callan’s popularity on TV, this Corgi edition is one of several versions released under the title Red File for Callan. For those of you not familiar with Callan, it was a long-running spy series that eschewed the glamour of James Bond … Continue reading ‘Red File for Callan’ by James Mitchell

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‘A Stainless Steel Rat is Born’ by Harry Harrison

Paul Ferry

If you’ve got a child that you’d like to introduce to classic science fiction, you couldn’t pick a much better starting point than Harry Harrison’s series of Stainless Steel Rat books. Fast-paced, clever and incredibly funny, I was a massive Rat fan as a teenager; the first five books had already been written when I became hooked, but this one, A Stainless Steel Rat is Born, was the first that I picked up fresh off the printing press. A few years ago I decided to take a leisurely revisit to these books and this sixth instalment is the first that I have re-read … Continue reading ‘A Stainless Steel Rat is Born’ by Harry Harrison