Sideways in Time: The Reign of Terror / The Avengers – Girl on the Trapeze

‘I hope we get this settled quickly, I’m beginning to think it’s turning into flu.’ The Reign of Terror is a milestone story not only because it closes Doctor Who’s first season and features its fi…

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Sideways in Time: The Sensorites / Yesterday’s Enemy

‘He knew there’s only one way to fight a war. Any war. With your gloves off.’ Looking for Peter is a fascinating extra on the DVD of The Sensorites, in which Toby Hadoke’s mild curiosity abou…

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Sideways in Time: The Aztecs / The Feathered Serpent

‘Blood. Blood. There shall be more blood.’ The Discontinuity Guide states The Royal Hunt of the Sun, Peter Shaffer’s 1964 play of the fatal encounter between Spanish conquistadors and the Inca, as …

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Sideways in Time: The Keys of Marinus / Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors

‘The weird. The unknown. The terrifying. The mysterious…’ It’s said that Milton Subotsky considered The Keys of Marinus as the basis for a third Dr. Who movie in 1966. If this is accurate, it’s not…

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Sideways in Time: Marco Polo / Alexander the Great

‘What is destined always happens. You can no more change the past than you can the future.’ If The Edge of Destruction came closest to realising Sydney Newman’s conception of a science fiction seri…

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Sideways in Time: The Edge of Destruction / Out of the Unknown

‘The Machine stops.’ I’m not a huge fan of The Edge of Destruction, which, during the Pilgrimage, I sniffily opined, “feels like hard work for little reward.” I largely stand by that, but a couple …

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Sideways in Time: The Daleks / The Time Machine

‘That box has three dimensions: length, breadth and height… But what is the fourth dimension?’ Clearly H.G. Well’s 1895 novel is an obvious cornerstone for subsequent time-travel science fiction: S…

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Sideways in Time: Daleks’ Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. (19/8/1972)

‘There’s always an answer to be found if you only dig deep enough.’ In every respect this is a superior movie to Dr. Who and the Daleks, dropping most of the laboured comedy and making the most of …

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60 years ago today, on Saturday 27 July 1963, the BBC broadcast the first of a now mostly forgotten 13 part sci-fi TV serial, #DoctorWho.
Producer Rex Tucker thought that the show had suffered from starting in the Summer, when children were still playing outside. “Maybe we’d have done better going out in November.”
Here’s an extract from Glenn Nastafaev’s book Tomorrow Never Came: British TV SF in the 1950s and 60s.
#DrWho #SidewaysInTime
Sideways in Time: X – The Unknown (21/9/1956)

‘Let’s not conjure up visions of nameless horrors creeping around in the night.’ Hammer Films originally hoped to use Professor Quatermass in this follow-up to their 1955 hit adaptation The Quaterm…

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