Doctor Who (1963) 25-09: Silver Nemesis, Part Two

Episode:

676

|

Serial:

150

|

Writer:

Kevin Clarke

|

Director:

Chris Clough

|

Air Date:

30-Nov-1988

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Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, I've got more Silver Nemesis for you, whether you want it or not. However you can CLICK HERE if you'd rather go back to to part one.

Silver Nemesis was writer Kevin Clarke's first serial for Doctor Who and, coincidentally, also his last. Though to be fair, at this point every serial was someone's last, as there were only five more stories left before the classic series got cancelled. Doctor Who did eventually come back, but the writers didn't (except for Rona Munro, who returned to write one of Peter Capaldi's final episodes).

There will be SPOILERS here for this episode and earlier stories. You don't have to worry about me spoiling anything that happens later though.

Doctor Who (1963) 25-08: Silver Nemesis, Part One

Episode:

675

|

Serial:

150

|

Writer:

Kevin Clarke

|

Director:

Chris Clough

|

Air Date:

23-Nov-1988

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Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm watching Silver Nemesis, Part One, the first episode of Doctor Who's silver anniversary story. In fact, it's not just the show's 25th anniversary celebration, but it's also its 150th serial. The latest Doctor Who story to air, The Power of the Doctor, was the 300th story, so this is exactly halfway through!

Plus it's the 675th episode, which isn't actually significant, except for being a bloody huge number. To put that into some perspective, the 675th episode of Star Trek was the 3rd season Enterprise episode Impulse. (And the 150th Trek story was the second season TNG episode Manhunt.)

It's a bit weird though that this is the anniversary story and not Remembrance of the Daleks, which... has certain connections to a past serial. Also, this is the first anniversary story to not list the number of Doctors it contains in the title. We're up to seven now, so it's probably for the best that they don't all show up.

There will be SPOILERS here for the episode and presumably earlier stories too if it really is an anniversary special like it claims. I won't give away anything that comes later though.

Doctor Who (1963): The Five Doctors - Part 4

Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing about the final chapter of The Five Doctors. If you want to go back and read an earlier part, click PART ONE, PART TWO or PART THREE.

This special features a ton of returning Doctor Who characters, but far from all of them. Counting only the absolutely unambiguous and indisputable companions, it's missing 13 people, and this goes up to 19 if you count the more debatable ones. I won't start listing them all, however, so you'll just have to imagine who I'm counting as ambiguous (*cough* Kamelion *cough*).

Funny thing is, if you were to look at this from a more non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint and count the number of companions from the series' future that are missing, that number would also be 19. Well, depending on who you decide to include.

You probably know this already, seeing as this is the fourth part of this review, but there will be SPOILERS beyond this point. Not for anything new though, and by 'new' I mean 'it aired during the last 40 years'.

Doctor Who (1963): The Five Doctors - Part 3

Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm still writing about The Five Doctors, the epic crossover event that pulls together heroes from 1 TV series. If you want to return to an earlier part click PART ONE or PART TWO.

This special didn't quite manage to bring the full five Doctors together, but I'm struggling to think of another sci-fi TV series that managed to pack so many main protagonists into one story. I can't remember any Star Trek story that brings more than two lead captains together, and Stargate and Babylon 5 didn't do any better. One of the Star Wars shows must have done it by now though...or maybe not? Oh duh, the Arrowverse did Crisis on Infinite Earths. Still, this was the Avengers of 1983.

This review will be full of SPOILERS, but I'll not give away anything that happens later in the series.

Doctor Who (1963): The Five Doctors - Part 2

Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm continuing with Doctor Who's 20th anniversary special, The Five Doctors! This is going to drag on for four parts, and if you want to jump back to part 1, CLICK HERE.

The Five Doctors was the final story by the legendary Terrance Dicks, who'd been writing Doctor Who episodes since the Second Doctor's era. His contributions to the series spanned 14 years, which is a long time... though not quite as long as Russell T Davies' incredible 18 years on the show (with a 12 year break in the middle).

It was hoped that they could get Waris Hussein to direct, as he'd directed the very first serial, An Unearthly Child, 20 years earlier. Unfortunately, he was in America, so the job ultimately went to Peter Moffatt, who'd already directed Peter Davison in a few episodes of All Creatures Great and Small.

Past this point you'll be flooded with SPOILERS for the episode and maybe a few earlier stories as well. I'll not spoil anything that comes later however.

Doctor Who (1963): The Five Doctors - Part 1

Episode:

602

|

Serial:

129

|

Writer:

Terrance Dicks

|

Director:

Peter Moffatt

|

Air Date:

25-Nov-1983

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Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm watching Doctor Who's 20th anniversary special, The Five Doctors!

The 10th anniversary story, The Three Doctors, was the first serial of a season that aired months before the actual anniversary date, but this time around they wanted to get it right. In fact, efforts were made to get the whole of season 20 rescheduled to air later in the year to make it line up properly. They failed, but they did win a consolation prize: Doctor Who was getting its first-ever feature-length special! There have been plenty of Christmas specials and New Year's specials since then, but The Five Doctors is still the longest episode to this day.

Though in 1995 it got George Lucasified into an even longer and even more special Special Edition, padded out with extra scenes that the director had originally cut for a good reason. Plus there's the 2023 Blu-ray edition as well, along with the version that was split into four separate episodes. I bet that has some interesting cliffhangers.

You know what, I'm going to split this article up to match the four-part edit and find out what all those cliffhangers are. I'm not sure what version I'll be getting on iPlayer, but I do know that it's going to be long, so it'll be more practical for me to tackle it in pieces.

SPOILER WARNING: I might spoil things that came before it, I won't spoil things that came after, and the episode itself is getting extremely spoiled. I'm going scene by scene to maximise spoiler coverage.

Doctor Who (1963) 10-04: The Three Doctors, Episode Four

Episode:

333

|

Serial:

65

|

Writers:

Bob Baker and Dave Martin

|

Director:

Lennie Mayne

|

Air Date:

20-Jan-1973

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, it's episode 333 of Doctor Who. That means the series was averaging 37 episodes a year up to this point, which isn't actually that ridiculous I guess, seeing as they were all 25 minutes long. Star Trek: The Original Series produced an average of 26 stories a year, each 50 minutes long, so when it came to minutes per week it was actually ahead.

Anyway, just have to write a few more words under screencaps and I'm finally done with The Three Doctors! This is part four of four, the conclusion to this anniversary event, and I'm hoping they didn't already blow through their pyrotechnics budget already with the first three parts, as my expectations have been raised. Also, I'm hoping the story's good etc. Click one of these links to jump back to an earlier episode: PART ONE, PART TWO, PART THREE.

You won't be shocked to hear that the heavily promoted season premiere which brought back Patrick Troughton and William Hartnell got the highest viewing figures for the Third Doctor's whole run, averaging 10.3 million on BBC. It had almost twice as many eyes on it as the least watched serial, Inferno. Wait, why didn't anyone watch Inferno? That one was great!

I'll be going through this whole episode scene by scene, so there will be SPOILERS below. I may find reason to mention things that happened in earlier episodes as well, but I won't spoil anything that happens later.