‘Last of the Gaderene’ represents the Third Doctor adventure in BBC Books’ Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Collection. Written by Mark Gatiss in 2000, before his career as a screenwriter for the new series, it remains his most recent Who story in prose.
So dark is The Fall that – at the show’s halfway point – we’re now fairly certain that its creator Allan Cubitt wrote it in a mixture of kitten blood and the tears of toddlers who’d dropped their ice cream.
The Wolfpack go on one last wild ride in the final part in the Hangover trilogy; a solid buddy-comedy with plenty of action sandwiched in the middle.
Hailing from the middle of Jon Pertwee’s tenure, ‘The Curse of Peladon’ was the first of his Doctor’s two visits to the feudal planet. In a plot running entirely contrary to Star Trek’s prime directive, alien delegates are visiting amounts to little more than an Iron Age society, assessing its suitability for membership to the Galactic Federation.
The Fall seems dead set on setting itself apart from other crime shows. Not because we know who the murderer is – Columbo hung its raincoat on that particular chair 44 years ago – but because it’s so desperately grim that it makes its Danish contemporaries look as light-hearted as Murder, She Wrote. It’s a show so darned dark that it forces you to adjust the brightness settings in your own mind, as well as your telly.
For those perhaps not in the know, back in the Sixties two Dalek movies were produced featuring all-new Daleks (in all-new colour!) and an all-new Doctor, Peter Cushing (also in colour). In these outings, Cushing was an Earth-based scientist called, wait for it, “Dr. Who”. Don’t worry though, the TARDIS is still bigger on the inside (just) and the Daleks are as mean as ever.
The fifth tale in this anniversary sequence of stories, ‘Smoke and Mirrors’, is quite definitely grounded in Peter Davison’s first series with the Doctor again failing arrive at Heathrow Airport in favour of answering the summons of an old friend. In fact, there are enough in-story continuity references to site the tale firmly between ‘Kinda’ and ‘Earthshock’.
The Cloister Bell will chime once more; The Doctor’s off to Trenzalore… Often, being a fan of Doctor Who, you have to park your fanboy gene somewhere the other side of Kasterborous. True, there’s no point loving the bones of a show if you’re not prepared to dissect it to death sometimes. But the critical … >
What with the lingering prospect of an extended winter in place of the British summer and ever-more media coverage of UKIP gremlin Nigel Farage’s awful visage, things are getting decidedly dark. Still, in this wretched modern world, we can be thankful for the simple things in life.
As we’re starting to learn, these are invariably provided by Arrow DVD, who this month continue their glorious project of restoring and re-releasing the back catalogue of Italian hero Mario Bava.
It’s almost cruelly emblematic really. That the most closely-guarded Doctor Who finale ever, one which concerns a great secret being discovered, should have its own secrets compromised. And by the ‘Great Intelligence’ that is the collective mind of the Internet no less, rather than the breathy malevolence of Richard E. Grant.