Across more than six decades of Doctor Who, the Time Lord has stared down Daleks, outwitted the Master and rewired reality with a sonic screwdriver. Yet some of the most gripping moments in the show have nothing to do with raw power and everything to do with chance. The Doctor, for all that godlike knowledge, … >
There was a time when watching a beloved drama meant planting yourself in front of a single television set at a fixed hour, possibly with a video recorder primed and praying nobody knocked the cassette out mid-cliffhanger. The ritual was rigid. Miss the broadcast of a Doctor Who finale and you waited months, maybe years, … >
Somewhere in the 24th century, Commander William Riker is leaning over a craps table, blowing on a pair of dice while the rest of the away team watches in disbelief. This isn’t a fever dream. It’s The Royale, one of the strangest and most quietly beloved episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, in which … >
Picture a typical weeknight in Britain a decade or so ago. The telly came on at a fixed time, the family gathered around for whatever the schedulers had decided, and missing an episode meant waiting weeks for a repeat. Now? An evening might start with three episodes of Slow Horses, drift into a phone game … >
Few science-fiction worlds have stretched as far or as wide as the one Gene Roddenberry first sketched out in the 1960s. The buzz around Star Trek: Year One — the much-discussed return to the franchise’s earliest days, exploring the foundational era of Starfleet — has reminded fans just how many directions their favourite universe can … >
Russell T Davies, one of the UK’s foremost writers of television drama such as Doctor Who, Queer As Folk, Years And Years, Casanova, Cucumber, and It’s a Sin, has written a memoir to be released this autumn. Titled The Queerest of Folk: A Life in Television, the television writer and showrunner will take readers through … >
British science fiction has rarely been about budget. While the big American imports leaned on spectacle, our home-grown series built their reputations on ideas, dread and a stubborn willingness to be properly strange on a shoestring. That instinct gave us Doctor Who, Blake’s 7 and Quatermass, but it also left a long shadow of brilliant … >
The casino has always been catnip for filmmakers. The clatter of chips, the unreadable faces, the single turn of a card that can rebuild a life or end one: it is drama with the stakes baked in. While the great gambling pictures still belong to the cinema vaults, Netflix has quietly assembled a small but … >
BBC iPlayer has been absolutely stacked lately. Between returning favourites and brand-new dramas, the platform has turned into a proper treasure trove. You could lose half an evening to the scroll before you land on anything worth your time. If you want a break from all that, I’ve pulled together five genuinely brilliant series … >
On Friday, May 15, Doctor Who Showrunner Russell T Davies sat down for a conversation with Sherman Theatre’s Artistic Director Francesca Goodridge in a evening to raise funds for the Cardiff venue. The event was billed as a chat with screenwriter and producer Russell T Davies about his life, his early career, his work creating … >