BBCtv Archives | Visual Mutterings

The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Fit the Third

H E Cooper — Thu, 01 May 2025 17:35:04 +0000

Peter Jones as the Book feels like a wonderful, reassuring presence by now. His calm matter-of-factness and careful explanations are helping to keep me up to speed on everything. This is another episode where we don’t jump straight into our heroes’ action, but instead we get more world-building about the universe that Arthur has started …

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Doctor Who – Invasion of the Dinosaurs

H E Cooper — Tue, 04 Mar 2025 08:11:50 +0000

Invasion of the Dinosaurs is the last Third Doctor story I hadn’t seen before. I’d owned it for a long time, but the impression I’d gained was of a highly naff production, even accounting for Doctor Who’s usual low budget standards. INVASION I love that Episode One is simply titled ‘Invasion’ and I’m sure that …

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Doctor Who – The Time Warrior

H E Cooper — Tue, 04 Feb 2025 18:01:49 +0000

Ooh new titles… When I originally watched The Time Warrior, I hadn’t seen any of Sarah Jane Smith’s 1970s’ stories. I’d first seen her in The Five Doctors, and I came away without much impression of her really. There are so many faces there that few of the companions get to shine much besides filling …

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Doctor Who – The Green Death

H E Cooper — Thu, 02 Jan 2025 08:00:53 +0000

I first saw The Green Death on BBC Four in April 2006. BBC Four has never regularly repeated Doctor Who and I can’t recall seeing any other stories there around that time – I’d definitely have checked the TV guide after stumbling across this one. I’d later assumed that this broadcast was part of some …

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Doctor Who – Planet of the Daleks

H E Cooper — Sun, 01 Dec 2024 09:00:47 +0000

Frontier in Space may not have had the cliffhanger I thought I remembered, but it did have a cliffhanger. I’d waited 15 years to find out how Planet of the Daleks continued the story, after UK Gold had been unable to screen it. The VHS was deleted by then and eBay copies were too expensive …

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Doctor Who – Frontier in Space

H E Cooper — Mon, 04 Nov 2024 08:00:45 +0000

When I watched Frontier in Space the first time around, I was absolutely livid that UK Gold did not then show Planet of the Daleks afterwards. And for years that was my main memory of it – being angry and feeling cheated of the story’s conclusion. I never managed to get around to seeing Planet …

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Doctor Who – The Carnival of Monsters

H E Cooper — Mon, 07 Oct 2024 07:00:49 +0000

I’ve been doing my Very Slow Doctor Who Marathon for well over a decade – the pilgrimage, the quest, whatever fans want to call it. One thing that pushed me back towards it was the release of The Collection blu-ray sets. I’ve written about some stories in recent years, starting in the Pertwee era. Having …

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Survivors – Corn Dolly

H E Cooper — Tue, 30 May 2023 20:49:47 +0000

When I saw this episode’s title appear onscreen, it seemed vaguely familiar but I couldn’t remember what a corn dolly was. I was hoping it wasn’t going to end up as a metaphor for something horrific here because I didn’t fancy an evening that climaxed with The Wicker Man-type terrors. After all the opening grimness, …

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The Sarah Jane Adventures – Revenge of the Slitheen

H E Cooper — Wed, 26 Apr 2023 10:46:14 +0000

I’ve mixed feelings about The Sarah Jane Adventures kicking off its series with returning villains from Doctor Who. A part of me thinks it should have been attempting to be distinct from the start. However, there had been a large gap since Invasion of the Bane – over nine months – and viewers needed to …

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Survivors – Gone Away

H E Cooper — Wed, 05 Apr 2023 09:34:40 +0000

Abby has started to establish her own little group but we soon see that, even with hardly any other people around, some of the Survivors are still truly terrible human beings. Whatever this plague was, it’s looking highly doubtful that it was divine intervention. Why couldn’t only the nice ones survive? Looting At some point, …

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