“Imagination is a marvellous thing and I’m addicted to it, but real life and practicality can ruin the most vivid of illusions. While the director went away with his expectations in tact I was left with the business of turning his expectations into practicality.”

Television in Britain was still in its infancy when twenty-something Bernard Wilkie first took an interest in guiding his prospects towards a career within it, and what would slowly but surely lead to his recognising a gap within the production set-up that was, as yet, unrecognised by producers and executives, but would become in time a vital and important accessory to realising the sort of extraordinary scenes and moments that a very young television service would come to depend upon as it began its life competing directly with the spectacle and resources of cinema. It was 1954; W12 – the landmark Television Centre – did not yet exist; it was nothing more than a lot that was used as a rubbish dump; the BBC was an organisation that was instead spread across a wide area, in various locations and in various make-do buildings, and apart from the radio service, servicing just the one television channel. And arriving in the city in the hopes of furthering a career in the corporation, Wilkie makes his way to the offices of executive Richard Levin, and optimistic expectations…

A Peculiar Effect on the BBC is the posthumous memoir of Bernard Wilkie, one-half of the originators and primary managers of the BBC’s long-running Visual Effects department. What began as a specialist annex to the Scenic Design department had a difficult genesis, and beginning in a distinctly small and insufficient office space, Wilkie, in good spirits, gently takes us back to the days of ‘make-do’ and post-war economies; along with partner Jack Kine, the two take instruction from Richard Levin and have to establish a workshop without a budget, stocked purely from whatever scant rudimentary tools the two can find spare at home and the use of a fair amount of ingenuity to conjure non-existent furnishings and materials from the aether to make it a reality. The tale of their first efforts in fashioning a usable tabletop bench and coating its top with a paint that never dries sets the tone for much of what follows…

This book isn’t any treaty on what makes professional effects, nor is it any comprehensive breakdown and run-through of the many, many jobs and feats the pair worked on in their nearly thirty years at the BBC: there are other books that do that. What this is, as Wilkie himself puts it, is largely a series of personal anecdotes. Of memories that stand out from his time at the corporation, of how he and Jack Kine developed a lifelong friendship, and of the slow but steady emergence of a specialist department within the BBC that could only exist within the era it existed in — the era in which the BBC made its own programming in-house, and therefore required the necessary resources and design departments to support and furnish that ever developing programming. That era is gone now. The fact that the BBC once produced, first-hand, all of its own programming is a fast receding memory, another world of which few today would be capable of grasping the reality of, or appreciating.

And Wilkie’s story as it unfolds tells one person’s views and experiences of what it was like to be there from the start of it — from a youth spent experimenting with conjuring tricks and fireworks, his venture into German theatre at the end of the war, his time spent on the very outskirts of the BBC, when BBC Television Centre was a gleam in the architect’s eye only, of wild and free experimentation when there was no such thing as ‘Health and Safety’ dictating one’s every thought and action, and the reality of two men with limited training and experience having to find the sparks of ingenuity and creativity to conjure impossible things from virtually nothing. And it covers the harsh realities and frustrations of the BBC system that would eventually crush the spirit of Jack Kine and force his early retirement…

This is no glum sad tale, however. Not at all. Wilkie’s enthusiasm for his craft and his time with the corporation is never far from the page, and all told in a very self-effacing manner, with a fair bit of wit to go with it. His memories of the early days are especially vivid; with the pivotal trip to Shepherd’s Bush and a key interview with Richard Levin, in particular, these are events that are clear and impressively sharp in his memory. Of how he bluffed his way throughout the interview and ultimately managed to convince Levin of his supposed expertise in the new field of fibre-glass, and the first disorientating days as he arrives at his new position and finds a sharp learning curve lies ahead of him. Then comes his first meetings with Jack Kine, the two unexpectedly brought together by the progressive Richard Levin to develop his, and their, ideas of a specialist service within Scenic Design that would cater for the unusual requests that were beginning to be made on the department which required an unusual degree of both imagination and technical thinking to make a reality. And with the beginnings of an office tucked away within scenic services, their early mis-adventures within the world of television begin…

“Although in our first year, Jack and I had begun to adapt to each other and to our new life. Everything was exciting. Time away from the office was spent thinking about work. We arrived in the office early in the morning and often left long after the official leaving time and, if there was an opportunity to work at weekends, we grabbed it. In 1954, we worked during every public holiday, including part of Christmas. Perhaps subconsciously, we felt it was too good to be true and that, like the perfect dream, it would vanish and we would be told that our section was to be reorganised or amalgamated or something equally hideous. The principle of letting two men run a section, making their own decisions and handling every programme without supervision seemed so far removed from the BBC policy that we both felt it couldn’t last…”

Initially, the fortunes of this odd new niche hidden away in the workshops of the scenic block were not at all encouraging. Long spans of weeks and months might go by between commissions, too much time on the hands for anyone to bear, but gradually, the challenges did come down. The first major jobs the two were approached to contribute to were the landmark serials that were Quatermass and 1984 – and both still stand tall even today whenever the history of television in Britain is talked about. But as with all of their early contributions, these two shows were anything but plain sailing for Wilkie and Kine. To be able to summon forth images of alien infestations and electronic contraptions tested the abilities of the duo just as much as a relatively straight-forward rocket take-off did. Experimentation, dramatic misfires, and two “fools” who didn’t know what they were doing.

Wilke’s text is never less than open about his and Kine’s struggles and occasional carelessness as the two had to learn on the fly and literally invent new ways of doing the things no one had done before. But there is never any suggestion that either man didn’t love what they were doing. Even as the book reaches its final chapters and a long retired Wilkie is invited to the final day of Lime Grove Studios in the early 1990s, a building that played such a large role in his early career at the BBC, with its labyrinth of corridors and dungeon-like subterranean bowels, Wilkie’s love of his work and what he contributed to television is still something he stands proud over. The closure of Lime Grove marks the passing of an era for him, and relating this sad moment, one feels that sadness as Bernard describes his determination to be the last man out of the building that final night; before the bulldozers arrive tomorrow, he determines that he will be the last one out and therefore turn out the metaphorical lights… But life does, and did, go on. That the department he founded with Jack Kine would close for good not long after his death in 2002 is a sad post-script. What his thoughts were on the development of television, and the radical changes within the BBC through the 1990s, by this late stage of his life, go undocumented. Wilkie’s text only goes so far as that 1991/2 closing function at Lime Grove. An incomplete work then, and it falls to son Martin to add a fitting and entirely appropriate epilogue to his father’s memoirs.

In a career than spans almost 30 years at the BBC alone, Wilkie, as he himself makes clear in his opening, condenses his story out of necessity. Focusing on the earliest years, his vivid memories are a gift for anyone with an interest in those early years of television, his first-hand account of watching Television Centre’s construction is invaluable and fascinating; the development of BBC television mirrors the slow but sure growth of his and Kine’s department from small unassuming office to proper workshop, and from there, a series of moves over the years as a two man team evolves into a forty-plus crew and a vast work-floor to keep pace with the demands of the production teams and programming now made possible by Television Centre and its several studios working almost round the clock.

As the story of he and Kine’s arrival and embedding at the BBC is told, Wilkie’s focus gradually shifts to discuss some key shows that he and his partner directly worked on. By necessity, this is a very select list indeed, and yet it is clear that these are selected for as much their personal affection for Wilkie as their technical difficulties and challenges. Comedian Dave Allen in particular looms large in Wilkie’s affections, but time spent with Monty Python’s Eric Idle is also a fond memory as the two make their way the long way round to a shooting location and a series of unfortunate events means they don’t arrive there entirely sober…!

Then there is life with Frank Spencer, he of the legendary sitcom and still a byword for hopeless ineptitude. Patrick Moore and The Sky at Night. Crackerjack. The founding of Blue Peter. And Doctor Who…

Doctor Who. From The Ice Warriors through to giant spiders, to musings over the lack of available design reference to recreate the sonic screwdriver, the truly interesting parts of Wilkie’s text arrive as he unexpectedly broaches the subject of Tom Baker. It’s a curious moment within the narrative as having willingly disassociated himself from the show with Jon Pertwee’s final series, Wilkie has no need at all to discuss Baker. Yet discuss him he does. And despite having no real first-hand experience with the man, his thoughts are rather fascinating, describing a discreet visit to one of Baker’s first studio recordings and his opinions of a “pompous and arrogant” man; Wilkie subsequently amends those impressions to be more sympathetic. Whether it was subsequent experience in his contribution to the various Doctor Who exhibitions, or, as he says, reading Tom Baker’s biography, is a little unclear, yet it does make for a surprising set of impressions when read in the context.

A Peculiar Effect on the BBC was originally published around 10 years ago, by the now defunct Miwk Publishing, now picked up by Ten Acre Books for a modern printing. Bernard Wilkie’s memoirs, as seen here, had sat unpublished for many years before Miwk learned of their existence, and while some extra polish would have been preferable, the publisher graciously noted at the time that their decision was to respect the material as presented and leave it largely as Wilkie himself intended before his passing.

Yes, there are other books on the subject of the BBC Visual Effects unit, very in-depth and technical works — indeed, Wilkie himself wrote one or two of them — but this book is rather different as it is Bernard Wilkie’s story, a memoir of his professional life and an affectionate tribute to an era of television now long gone…

Told with great warmth, a surprising degree of honesty, and while occasionally feeling incomplete, it is a story told with an endearing sense of self-deprecation, a nostalgia for times past, and all done with not a small amount of sharp wit. A very worthy tome to add to your shelf and return to in years to come.

This is one I can very strongly recommend. I adore it.

A Peculiar Effect on the BBC is out now from Ten Acre.

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175 episodes, comprising every story, including specials, between 2005 and 2022, are available to stream in the USA from today (Thursday 11th June 2026).

The episodes star Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant, Matt Smith, Peter Capaldi, and Jodie Whittaker as the Doctor, alongside a plethora of companions including Billie Piper as Rose Tyler, Freema Agyeman as Martha Jones, Karen Gillan as Amy Pond, Alex Kingston as River Song, Pearl Mackie as Bill Potts, and Mandip Gill as Yasmin Khan.

Basically, that’s everything from Rose to The Power of the Doctor, cutting off before the Disney+ era (with Tennant as the Fourteenth Doctor then Ncuti Gatwa as the Fifteenth Doctor).

Courtney Thomasma, Executive Vice President of AMC Global Media’s linear and streaming products, said:

“Doctor Who strengthens AMC+’s position as a destination for premium genre storytelling – curated franchises defined by iconic worlds, passionate fan bases and enduring cultural impact. We’re thrilled to welcome the Whoniverse into our home of fandoms, giving longtime fans a reason to return while inviting new audiences to discover one of television’s most beloved franchises.”

The series have previously been available on HBO Max. Launched in 2020, AMC+ is owned by AMC Global Media and includes other programmes co-produced by BBC America.

All available episodes of Doctor Who are also available to stream on BBC iPlayer in the UK.

Brace yourselves, folks…

As part of securing the next phase of the show for future generations, and in line with the BBC’s Charter and Agreement requirements, the BBC will put Doctor Who out to competitive tender this year. Doctor Who remains an important part of the BBC and this tender underpins the BBC’s continued commitment to Doctor Who ensuring audiences will enjoy the show for years to come.

After careful consideration, the BBC, Russell T Davies and Bad Wolf have collectively decided not to go ahead with the previously announced Doctor Who Christmas episode. This decision was not taken lightly, and we know it will be disappointing for fans, but in order to set the show up for future series, it was decided that rather than bridge the gap with a one off special, we are choosing to push forward to invest in the long-term future of the show which ensures that when the TARDIS lands once more, it does so in all its glory.

The previously announced new Doctor Who animation series for CBeebies is currently in production.

Details of the tender will be announced in due course.

The BBC retains all IP in Doctor Who. BBC Studios will continue to lead the global distribution of Doctor Who as well as licensing, consumer products, digital and immersive experiences on behalf of the BBC.

So Davies’ era ends with a divisive cliffhanger that just might never be picked up again…

And here’s what Russell T Davies had to say on Instagram:

“And so GOODBYE from me to Doctor Who but HELLO to a big new future for the show, as the BBC announces it’s putting the show out to tender. As a result, there won’t be a Christmas Special — we only cooked that up to guarantee a future when no one knew what would happen, but now we do know, there’s no need for it…

“You’ll have to wait a bit longer for new Doctor Who… but you’ll be waiting for MORE Doctor Who than a one-off. So it’s worth it!

“For the record: there was no script, I never wrote it, and no actor was ever approached to play the next Doctor. You may disagree; fine, sit in that chair and wait to be proved right. You’ll wait a lonnng time 🪑 Now I’m as excited as anyone to see what comes next! Will they keep the theme tune? Will they lose the blue box? Will they bring back the Drahvin?! It’s all up for grabs, which is so Doctor Who, exciting and unpredictable and new! Here comes the future, vworp vworp.”

So, for the record: he was lying a lot before, about, for instance, the BBC being “wowed” by the script.

So: has Doctor Who actually been cancelled? The answer is actually no. And that’s a good thing. But the answer was also “no” in 1989.

Back then, the show was on hiatus and a series was promised at some point in the near future. That didn’t come until 2005; in the interim, we had The TV Movie in 1996, but a full season didn’t materialise.

That isn’t to say that there won’t be a new series of Doctor Who. It’s possible that there won’t be, however; it’s massively unlikely we won’t see the show on TV ever again. The franchise is too big to die like that. Its future is very uncertain, though.

Right now, it’s up for “tender”, meaning another production company would likely pitch to take on the show on behalf of the BBC. This has happened to other programmes in the past, and very recently actually, but quite often, BBC Studios wins the bid anyway and everything is kept under the BBC umbrella. Will that happen this time? No idea.

There will be an animated version on Cbeebies, so the idea of Doctor Who will survive too.

It’s likely that we’re in for a long wait. Prepare yourselves accordingly. The DWC will still be here; hopefully, that helps. But everything is likely to change with the show — a new production team would need a new showrunner, Doctor, companion(s), wider cast and crew including other writers and directors (and so, so much more, but we don’t have time to get into all the individual roles), and TARDIS, probably. It would need to be decided between the BBC and the production company where it films, how often, how long a series might be, if Christmas specials will exist, how to promote it, and… well, a great deal more. It’s a bit like starting up a new show entirely… with a whole load of expectation and pressure on your head.

We reckon it could take a while to get all this sorted. So we won’t see Doctor Who on TV again for a bit. We doubt an incoming team will want to deal with the mess left by The Reality War, so that cliffhanger would linger and perhaps never be resolved. We don’t know.

At least the conditions have been met for Christopher Eccleston to return! (Kidding…)

So: Doctor Who hasn’t been cancelled. It’s just that the Christmas special has been axed. But let’s be honest here: things aren’t looking too good right now.

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The title is written by Alan Stevens — and it’s been quite the enterprise! Alan explains:

“This project has been a monumental archival undertaking, involving access to hundreds of documents, including internal memos, personal letters, and private interviews, to piece together the most comprehensive account of this epic production to date.”

The Daleks’ Master Plan: The Making of a Television Serial examines events both on-screen and behind the camera, reviewing draft, rehearsal, and camera scripts to provide new insights and information. It even details some of the shocks regarding the heavy toll the production took on those involved, including on William Hartnell.

Altogether, the monograph provides in-depth coverage of 21 Doctor Who episodes, encompassing the one-off trailer episode Mission to the Unknown, the 12-part epic The Daleks’ Master Plan, and a comparative chapter on the classic Patrick Troughton Cyberman adventure, The Invasion.

Beyond the production history, the book features an extensive comparative analysis of the Daleks’ varied origins across television, comic strips, and short stories, tracing the evolution of the species as a symbol of universal malevolence.

Alan continues:

“As I move into the final stages of writing, I wanted to share this cover to mark the home stretch. With the recent discovery of missing episodes from this story, there has never been a better time to revisit the Master Plan.”

Furthermore, The Daleks’ Master Plan: The Making of a Television Serial includes an extensive look at The Destroyers, the pilot for Terry Nation’s proposed Dalek spin-off series, revealing the grander ambitions for the pepper-pot terrors beyond the main show.

The journey is brought to life with both black-and-white and colour illustrations throughout by Tim Keable.

And you can help make this happen because the Special Hardback Edition (signed and numbered, limited to just 200 copies) will only be printed if the pre-order target is reached by 30th June 2026.

Head over to Magic Bullet to pre-order your copy now!

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I jest of course. I should probably try a bit harder and expand. Steven Moffat, even at his worst, can still deliver great Doctor Who scripts, but he’s not immortal, and there should be someone else in that vein out there. It’s not a slam dunk, but there are viable candidates.

But first, we can eliminate the two other showrunners of the new and Disney eras, and most of the writers under them. Not all, because some did show promise, even under the thumbs of Chris Chibnall and Russell T Davies. Of course, the following list of candidates, all of this, only happens if Russell T Davies is totally unconnected to anything going on after the Christmas 2026 special. He just can’t help himself anymore. Also, if it needs saying, no Chibnall. Let’s begin.

Yes, Moffat heads the list, but not as a showrunner. No, he himself has said that he enjoys coming in as just a writer, instead of a showrunner. All the fun, without the extra hassles. He has said that he’s about done writing Who, but I’ll believe that when I see it.

So we’ve got Moffat, check.

Vinay Patel wrote or co-wrote Demons of the Punjab and Fugitive of the Judoon. Him being one of the very few bright spots of the Chibnall era, so I’m willing to give him another shot, since there’d be no Chibnall.

Patel, check.

Pete McTighe is, I believe, the only writer to survive Chibnall and work under Davies. He wrote Kerblam! and so-write Praxeus with Chibnall (so factor that in). And although it’s sometimes difficult to separate one person’s work from the showrunner’s interference, there are clues as to who did what.

For instance, Russell’s take on UNIT was unique to say the least. Under RTD, Kate Stewart was a pushover, and there was a penchant for hiring children with weaponised scooters. A very Disney-staffed organization. Whereas in Lucky Day, McTighe gives us a no-nonsense Kate, and a formidable military force backing her up. For the first time since the ‘70’s, UNIT was a force to be reckoned with. The upcoming miniseries will give us more from Pete to consider, but as of now… I’m leaning positive. And pickings are slim.

McTighe, check.

Jamie Mathieson, responsible for writing Mummy on the Orient Express, Flatline, and Oxygen, while co-writing The Girl Who Died with Moffat. I really can’t think of anyone on the list that even comes close to this resume, except Moffat himself, who I, at one point, thought was writing under the pen name of Mathieson — that’s how much I enjoyed his stories. Have him write for the show as much as he wants. Please. Have him be the new showrunner! Come on!

Mathieson, check! In fact, the quality, pedigree, and experience are so good there, I’m giving him a Double Check! This is exciting.

Maxine Alderton wrote The Haunting of Villa Diodati and co-wrote Village of the Angels with Chibnall. The former was received very well. I’m not totally sold, but I’m open to see more from her.

Alderton, check.

Then you get some bigger names where you might think they’d do a great job on Who simply because they’ve worked on another hit show. But really, just because someone writes another hit show, it doesn’t mean anything one way or another when it comes to them being qualified to write Who. You just never know. For instance: Neil Gaiman… um… pass.

Mark Gatiss. He’s contributed many scripts to Doctor Who, at least up until and through Series 10, and by and large, has done a decent job. I wouldn’t be against him coming back as a writer. And after losing out on the position of showrunner to RTD back in 2005, he’s since declared the position to be a “poisoned chalice”, so no go there, but I think he’ll come back and write.

Gatiss, check.

Toby Whithouse has written numerous scripts for Who throughout the new era. Not only would he be welcomed back as a writer, but I’d have to think he’d be a candidate for showrunner — if he wanted it.

Whithouse, check.

Some various and notable past Who writers:

• Tom MacRae, author of The Girl Who Waited.

• Richard Curtis, Vincent & the Doctor.

• Simon Nye, Amy’s Choice.

• Phil Ford, The Waters of Mars, Into the Dalek, and The Sarah Jane Adventures.

• Robert Shearman, Dalek.

• Paul Cornell, Father’s Day and Human Nature/ The Family of Blood.

I’d welcome back any of these writers. But there must also be new blood in the mix.

As for American writers, well, tough luck. The Beeb doesn’t like ‘em! So not an option. Same for showrunner.

But I’m not plugged into the who’s who of current British writers, except maybe Phoebe Waller-Bridge, who I wouldn’t mind seeing as the showrunner, a guest writer, or the Doctor herself, for that matter.

But hey, I’m certainly open to suggestions, if you build a good case.

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These are unconfirmed rumours right now, but such speculation has gained traction.

An unnamed insider told The Sun:

“Despite reassurances that the show would be back on our screens with a new series, there’s been no confirmation from execs about when that will be. And they proudly announced that the Doctor would be making a comeback in this year’s Christmas Special. Now, with less than seven months to go, that looks like it’s hanging in the balance too.

“The problem is that they have found it difficult to find anyone who’ll take on the part of the sixteenth Time Lord, partly because it now feels like a role that comes with all the baggage of the most recent series.

“There are fears that even if they do manage to pull something together, it is going to be a poor cousin to previous Christmas specials which have always been adored by fans.”

The quote is a bit of a dog’s dinner, really; it sounds like someone with an axe to grind; for instance, “the sixteenth Time Lord”? It should be “the sixteenth incarnation of the Time Lord” as the Doctor certainly isn’t the sixteenth Time Lord we’ve met. That’s a small thing, I grant you, but actually, clarity is a sign of solid journalism. That does give question over the veracity of this news.

What’s more, there is someone apparently playing the next incarnation of the Doctor. Like it or now, Ncuti Gatwa’s Fifteenth Doctor regenerated into someone played by Billie Piper. That surely has to be cleared up in the Christmas special, if it happens. There’s also talk that filming has been delayed due to Piper’s availability. Some have suggested that David Tennant come back again to fill the gap.

Nonetheless, this does shine a spotlight on the show’s future because it feels like everything is very much up in the air right now. The chief reason that the next series might be delayed or cancelled altogether could very well be that there’s no new showrunner in place (if Russell T Davies does leave, which seems likely).

So might Doctor Who have been axed entirely or been put into a longer hiatus than planned?

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At a conference on Tuesday 19th May 2026, Google unveiled its AI-powered “intelligent search box”, which will change how users who frequent Google will interact with websites — namely, it appears, that they largely won’t.

Instead of giving you a list of links, Google Search will begin to show users “AI-powered interactive experiences”, including “‘information agents’ to gather information on a user’s behalf, along with tools that let users build personalized mini apps tailored to their needs” (via TechCrunch).

This effectively moves the online experience to be largely interacting with an AI summary of information, cultivated from many established sites, instead of with humans and writers themselves.

So you won’t click on links; what you want to know will be presented to you in a query box. These AI summations will be the result of information real humans will have written, either now or in the past, but you won’t have to visit websites themselves.

Frankly, it stinks. And it’s happening fast: it’ll be in place from early next week.

Why is it so bad? Putting aside a general disgust at using artificial intelligence, it will likely result in readerships plummeting. That results in people not getting employed. That results in a more limited range of opinion and information available online.

It goes to show what happens when one company dominates the market, with such a monopoly on web traffic. “Combined, these changes will likely further decimate Google referrals to publishers, which have already been suffering from declining referrals due to AI Overviews,” TechCrunch says. “This has put some ad-dependent media operations out of business, and now things will likely get worse.” The domino effect here is huge.

What can you do? How can you help support the DWC?

Firstly, we’re not getting rid of anyone here at the DWC. We don’t run at a profit anyway; we keep the website going because of you — because of all the fans reading this. Thank you for visiting. Nonetheless, there’s little point in continuing if we get 14 readers. At the end of the day, writers want their work to be read!

But you can help. You can keep visiting us at our usual URL and here on Substack, and other websites you love, bypassing Google.

And, of course, you can bypass Google itself! Use another search engine! DuckDuckGo, for instance, is Chrome-based, so will look similar, but gives you the option to turn off AI and further respects your privacy. There are loads of browsers and most have their own search engines.

Use whatever you like — just please don’t stop exploring the internet safely.

Aside from trying to save the DWC and other websites, it’s worth remembering what the internet was supposed to be for: freedom of information; this huge database of knowledge. We’ve risked losing that for years now.

The thing is, as much as I hate it, AI is being used. TechCrunch reports that AI Overviews are now used by more than 2.5 billion monthly users. That’s a crazy amount of folk. It also means we’re battling against the odds here. But it’s a battle worth fighting. At least, we think so. We hope you do too.

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The Games Master was commissioned for the event, which takes place at the Barry Memo Arts Centre on Saturday 16th and Sunday 17th May 2026. Known to fans as B3C, the Barry-based comic con promises an exciting weekend celebrating television, film, science fiction, comics, cosplay, collectables, and pop culture.

There’s a whole host of special Doctor Who guests, like Paul McGann (Eighth Doctor), Colin Baker (Sixth Doctor), Nicola Bryant (Peri Brown), Sian Phillips (73 Yards), and, announced today (Friday 8th May 2026), Louise Jameson (Leela).

They’ll be joined by various stars of Red Dwarf like Chris Barrie, Hattie Hayridge, and Norman Lovett, as well as other actors like Mat Horne (Gavin & Stacy) and artists like Mike Collins (Doctor Who Magazine; Marvel) in the Artist & Author Alley.

Candy Jar will also have a stall at the convention, and I’ll be there trying to sell my wares (or maybe just some books, we’ll see) on Saturday.

Here’s the blurb for The Games Master:

It’s the only thing anyone’s been talking about – even Lucy and Hobo, and they see real aliens and monsters all the time! But the Games Master has been plotting. The next level of the game is afoot… and he knows that every great detective needs a trusted companion.

For Sherlock Holmes, it’s Watson.

For Lucy Wilson, it’s Hobo.

With everyone at the Comic Con in danger, can our favourite duo solve the mystery before things get out of hand?

Lucy Wilson is the granddaughter of Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart; she and her loyal best friend Hobo have become hugely popular with readers through a range now spanning more than thirty books. Together they have battled monsters, aliens, and mysterious threats from their base in Ogmore-by-Sea – and now they are heading to Comic Con!

Tickets are available now:

• Day Entry Tickets – £20.00

• Weekend Entry Tickets – £30.00

The book will be made available after the event on the Candy Jar website.

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The new book catches up with the Doctor’s former companion, Chris Cwej, continuing his novel series after he left the TARDIS in Lungbarrow. Cwej returns to the house of Lungbarrow in a sequel novel by Tomoko M. Banks; Lungbarrow by Loomlight sees Chris come full circle, and discover dark secrets at the heart of his Superiors’ history.

Banks says:

“Marc Platt’s seminal novel Lungbarrow has captured the imaginations of countless readers, enchanting them for nearly three decades with its vivid setting and tragic players. It has been my greatest honour to help resurrect that manifold tapestry. But Time’s Roses are scented with memory; over the last twenty nine years they’ve blossomed into a vast wilderness. That indescribable magic is returning to the world, and we’ll soon find ourselves lost once more in the midst of a childless time.”

Marc Platt, author of Lungbarrow, gave his full approval for Arcbeatle Press to explore the concepts he created, and even gave Lungbarrow by Loomlight its title.

Cwej editor, Hunter O’Connell, said:

“This has truly been a dream come true. This story has gone through many drafts to make sure it’s the best possible version of the book it can be, and I think we landed on it. An epic adventure awaits Chris Cwej as he goes through times long past, and we get a firsthand glimpse at what his Superiors are really hiding from him. The Totality, dear readers, will never be the same again...”

Publisher, James Wylder, added:

“We’ve treated this project with the utmost care. Lungbarrow is a legend, and like all the best legends, there’s more to the story.”.

Lungbarrow by Loomlight is available now in paperback and ebook formats from Arcbeatle, with two variant covers.

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We start with a low ranking UNIT member named Barclay. He’s a bit of a dope, maybe he takes out the garbage. But he’s stationed at some UNIT sea base, when aquatic warriors attack. They’re making a statement, and they want Barclay to give humanity a message. “It’s our world, stay outta the water. We’re sick of you polluting the joint.” Barclay can’t help but notice the female representative is very attractive. Reminds him of Martha Jones’ sister. Her name is Salt. Must be either a nickname, or he gives it to her because he’s dopey.

We see the team at UNIT going about their business, rejoicing that they finally got rid of all the kids, and trying to figure out how Belinda suddenly has a child. Barclay barges in, everyone rolls their eyes ‘cause he’s a dope, but they listen to what he has to say. Kate gets a migraine and wishes the Doctor were there for hugs — but thankfully, he’s not there, lest she start blabbing about how they’re all his children. (I just threw up a little bit in my mouth.) The Sea Devils prove they mean business as they utilise their technologically advanced resources to start wrecking stuff — famous landmarks? Ker-blooey!

Also seems like there’s a blue filter on everything we see!

Kate tries to set up a negotiation with the “Aquatica” (eh? Eh?) and the British government is just being dumb, talking tough, and basically making things harder for everyone. But the Aquamen step up the destruction, and different countries bring in their military leaders. America brings in the Torchwood: Children of Earth General because obviously, he gets all the terrible jobs. Ironically, his grandson will end up working on a sea base until he gets killed decades from now and becomes a not-ghost.

Shirley’s trying to figure a way to fit a nuke inside her wheelchair, and Kate has some alone time with Ibrahim. OooooOOOOOooooo. Meanwhile, Salt is down in Atlantea talking with their leaders — political, scientific, and military. You can guess which way each of them wants to go, regarding dealing with surface dwellers. We also see several different kinds or branches of Aqua-folk. Salt’s kind of got the hots for Barclay and tells the humans he’s dreamy and wants him to handle the negotiating for humanity. GULP! Barclay’s ears stick out farther.

What follows is a lot of debate, negotiation, and argument, while Barclay and Salt make eyes at each other. At one point, there’s a very tense stand-off between the sides, where one itchy trigger finger could doom everyone!

A militant group of Aquas plan to sabotage everything, which would result in humanity getting destroyed. Salt and a friendly Aqua-contingent try and stop them, but a nasty fight breaks out. Salt is about to get killed when a human sacrifices himself to save her. This sets even the most hardcore Aqua-militant back on their heels. For a human to sacrifice themselves for an Aqua… unheard of! This changes everything! Now codes of honour and tradition seep into the piece, and possibly engender peace.

Negotiations open back up and deals are made. Hey, it’s gonna be okay after all. Thankfully, no one mentioned the Brig’s bombing of their cousins 50 years ago. OR DO THEY?

They eventually even work together to dispose of the giant island of plastic garbage out in the middle of the ocean, because A) it’s unsightly and B) if the Nestene Consciousness comes back, it’ll definitely use the junk pile to create an Auton kaiju. At least, they will if I write it.

Oh, and turns out, Barclay’s part Aqua. The End.

Who sacrifices themself? Could be Ibrahim, but they’d have to give us a lot more screen time to get us invested in him. A shame if it’s Kate, especially as she’s only now finally come into her own, thanks to Pete McTighe’s writing. It’d also be nice to get some surprises along the way.

Okay, dear reader, how did I do? Well, I’ll find out… Some day…

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Set after The Android Invasion, the first volume of 4DA Series 15 involves the Doctor and Sarah back on Earth assisting UNIT on two separate missions, as a result of the Brigadier summoning them with the Space-Time Telegraph.

We open with The Ministry of Death (which shares the same title as the boxset), a four-parter by Robert Valentine, where the team investigate bizarre deaths that pinpoint to Diana Stravius (Carolyn Seymour), a mad scientist with an agenda to revive her husband Walter (Richard James, who also voices Deverell). Wayne Forester voices Prendergast and the monstrous Postman, while Carla Mendonça voices Mildred Harbin and Miss Price.

The script brings the gothic horror vibes of Season 13, brilliantly maintaining faithfulness to Philip Hinchcliffe’s vision; Very much along the lines of Classic serials like Pyramids of Mars, The Brain of Morbius, and also The Seeds of Doom. I couldn’t be more impressed with how terrifying and tragic it turned out.

The Inhuman Empire, a two-parter by Phil Mulryne, picks up from where The Ministry of Death left off, as Sarah tags along with her old friend Alison Carmichael (Jayne Ashbourne) to investigate some mysterious alien activities at the National Museum; all surrounding curator Carson Baylis (John Heffernan) and director Sir William Kenyon (Nick Ellsworth). With the Doctor also joining them, they discover that the aliens involved are none other than… the Autons.

I figured that a familiar monster would appear in the story, but I didn’t expect it to be the Nestenes at all, despite the National Museum being the same location that appeared in The Big Bang (which exhibited the Pandorica and a certain Stone Dalek). Their unexpected return had me gasping in shock, as I immediately recognised the sound effects. The script works marvellously well as a spiritual successor to both Spearhead from Space and Terror of the Autons, fresh from rehashing old storylines. On that note, I was somehow reminded of Lewis Greifer’s original script for Pyramids of Mars (later rewritten by Robert Holmes), which involved a similar plot at the British Museum but with the Brigadier possibly being killed off.

Furthermore, I remember emailing Vortex Mail (see issue 149, from 2021) to ask if there were any plans to do a 3DA audio with the Third Doctor (Tim Treloar), Sarah, and UNIT battling the Autons, and Nicholas Briggs simply responded: “These are certainly some exciting suggestions…” Considering that The Ministry of Death and The Inhuman Empire were both recorded in 2020, it’s safe to say my wish partially came true, albeit with the Fourth Doctor and Sarah having their first chronological encounter with the living plastic creatures.

The entire anthology is outstanding — a perfect starting point for Doctor Who fans and casual listeners alike. It’s also an excellent way to introduce the Season 13 era for the 4DA range, after being overlooked by Big Finish for many years, with Invasion of the Body Stealers (from Classic Doctors New Monsters 4: Broken Memories) being the first full-cast audio story to feature the Fourth Doctor travelling with just Sarah. Not to mention that The Curse of Time is also the first original Season 12 audio story, as it celebrates 50 years of Tom Baker’s debut. Well, some of the early 4DA audios were originally planned to feature Elisabeth Sladen before her passing in 2011, which Tom specifically mentioned in his heartbreaking tribute:

“Sarah Jane dead? No, impossible! Impossible. Only last week I agreed to do six new audio adventures with her for Big Finish Productions. She can’t be dead. But she is: she died yesterday morning.”

Nonetheless, I’ll forever be grateful to Big Finish for casting Sadie, whose vocal impression remains marvellously uncanny in her mother’s honour. Since Lis would’ve turned 80 this year, it should also be noted that it was almost 20 years ago when she returned to Doctor Who in School Reunion, before getting her full spin-off series, The Sarah Jane Adventures. (Please do check out the two chapters I wrote for the book Just Sarah!) And talking of spin-offs, it’s also worth checking out Big Finish’s Smith & Sullivan, which very much acts as a sequel to K9 & Company: so wonderful to have Harry meeting K9 Mark III (voiced by John Leeson) on audio!

After the Loch Ness Monster incident in Terror of the Zygons, with The Android Invasion lacking proper closure, it’s so refreshing for the Doctor and Sarah to return to familiar ground and reunite with Harry and the Brigadier. I love how both stories revisit the character traits of this bohemian incarnation wanting to travel the universe instead of working for UNIT, which began in his debut serial Robot. The same goes for the funny moments where the Doctor gets annoyed with the Brigadier about his old job, and also craves for a Knickerbocker glory; I couldn’t stop laughing my head off. Feels like watching an actual episode produced in the 1970s with Tom Baker, Elisabeth Sladen, Ian Marter, and Nicholas Courtney.

As the next volume, Lethal Progress, involves the Doctor and Sarah travelling into the future, I’m very curious about what the third and final one will focus on. Maybe it’ll explore their adventures as Orion Hood and Sarah Joan Watson in Baker Street, or the Brigadier will use the Space-Time Telegraph again for another mission. Who knows?

The Ministry of Death is available now from Big Finish.

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A. None; they just sit there and hope it’ll come back on.

Cast your mind back. It’s the turn of the millennium, or thereabouts, and you find this hidden amidst a collection of emailed gags – one of those things that do the rounds on a Friday when the office is anxious to avoid doing any actual work. And until 2003, it was funny. Doctor Who was one of those series forever consigned to the archives: a show that had had its day, one that had ended not with a bang but with a whimper, sputtering out in declining ratings and corporate disinterest (at a period when, ironically, it had just started to recover its creative momentum). Seven years after the fact, there was a brief glimmer of hope in the form of a TV movie, a supposed resurrection which turned out to be a death spasm. The Eighth Doctor would go on to be quietly huge, at least off-screen – but the show’s televisual future was, it seemed, dead and buried.

You can’t make that joke anymore. It’s like the one about the newspapers (“What’s black and white and red all over?”) – it no longer works, although you can still, as we go to press, actually get printed newspapers, even if these days they’re all in colour. It’s a fixed point in time, forced eternally into a particular context. So I rewrote it:

Q. How many Doctor Who fans does it take to change a light bulb?

A. Ninety – one to change the bulb, twenty-four to rant about how much they preferred the other one, and sixty-five to produce identical animated GIFs of the bulb being changed to post on Tumblr.

Cue image of David Tennant standing in the rain, accompanied by the words “NEVER BEEN THE SAME SINCE THIS MAN LEFT”. Actually, you can only stretch the light bulb joke so far – because in the absence of any official TV content, it was the user base who stepped up to the plate with all manner of spin-offs, further adventures and other Whovian delights (and not a few disasters). Even some of the audio dramas were written by fans. Nature abhors a vacuum: so, it seems, do science fiction buffs.

And now it’s been back for years, and many of us are a little jaded, and – let’s be honest – some of us are probably a little sick of Nu Who. You’ve seen us on the forums, and your response is usually “Well, why do you still watch it?”, which is something I don’t have time to unpack. But here’s a mindset précis: we rejoiced in the news that Chris Chibnall was stepping down, before learning who was replacing him. We get annoyed with the catchphrases and the navel-gazing. We liked Gatwa, but don’t think he really had the chance to shine. Some of us (whisper it) wouldn’t mind if the show was rested for a few years; it’s not like we don’t have enough unread books and unheard Big Finish releases to fill the gap.

But think about something. Think back, if you can, to that night in 2005. Remember how it felt to have the announcer say, “Coming next, a brand new episode of Doctor Who”. Two decades later, that sort of thing ties my stomach in knots for entirely the wrong reasons. Twenty-odd years ago, it was just about the most exciting thing to happen since the moment in Attack of the Clones when Yoda ignites his lightsaber. It was Doctor Who. It had a former pop star who had yet to prove herself as an actress, and the cliffhangers were all but gone, but it was Doctor Who, and you finally knew it was Doctor Who when you felt that thrilled sense of anticipation, the moment you saw the TV spots with the Doctor and Rose in the TARDIS. Hell, it seemed, had finally frozen over.

Superficially, Rose is a remake of Spearhead in Space, right down to the Autons breaking the shop windows. It even concludes with a battle with a tentacled monstrosity, although there is noticeably less gurning from Eccleston. Crucially, it’s the companion who saves the day, even if Liz and Rose cut their bread from very different loaves. Such a scene is vital: there is no other good reason for the Doctor to take Rose with him, and if the ending established something of a formula for the Ninth Doctor’s general incompetence, perhaps it was a necessary evil. (More unfortunate is that Rose set something of a precedent for the current trend of making the companion the centre of the universe. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.)

But for many of those watching in 2005, it would be the 1996 film that sat freshest in their memories, and I wonder how much that might have skewed our perspective. If 2005 pulled out all the stops to create something that was accessible – irrespective of how much it had to steamroll in order to do it – then 1996 couldn’t have been more different. The problem with The TV Movie is that it’s neither one thing or the other. The opening voiceover from McGann is where things begin to go wrong, and it’s basically downhill from there. Having introduced us to one villain who was about to be exterminated by another who is not seen again, on a planet that is never mentioned again, and having been given a fudged explanation of Time Lord physiology by a man who then doesn’t actually appear for twenty minutes, we’re expected to invest in his immediate predecessor, who says nothing coherent or useful before he dies in theatre, and not in the same way that Carrie: The Musical did.

All of this would be acceptable (just) had The TV Movie not been trying to appeal to a potentially new audience – something Davies understood, having realised that it was not enough to expect children to watch Doctor Who simply because their parents always did. Its muddled beginning might pay homage to the established fan base, but unless you’re a part of that fan base (as many viewers, particularly on the other side of the pond, were not), then you’re going to be wildly confused. That’s bad enough, but having spent the first twenty minutes hearkening back to the past, Matthew Jacobs spends the rest of the film messing around with the canon. He places the Eye of Harmony in the TARDIS. He has a half-human Doctor (not a throwaway line, but a vital plot point) snog Daphne Ashbrook under a tree. And he turns the Master into a snake. The film takes a bouquet to the grave of the deceased TV show, and then urinates all over the tombstone. I suspect Ian Levine simultaneously loved and hated it.

It’s easy to be scornful in hindsight. Its legacy, however, is unmistakable. It gave us the Eighth Doctor, who has gone on to hold his own. And crucially, when it came to the 2005 re-launch, it gave Russell T Davies a laundry list of Things To Avoid.

Davies may have been a little too fond of the kitchen sink stuff, but he knew what he was doing. The first thing he does is regenerate the Doctor off-camera. It is implied in the scene in Rose’s flat that this has happened recently, although to the uninitiated, it needn’t have happened at all. Perhaps the Doctor has recently had a haircut and simply hasn’t had the chance to look in a mirror yet (this is baffling, seeing as he’s just spent the preceding few minutes in a department store, but if we start looking at plot holes, we’ll be here all day). It seems absurd to even mention it, until you get under the skin of the character. A recent regeneration explains a little of the fire and edginess that haunts the Ninth Doctor throughout his first and only series – Dalek being the closest he gets to outright violence, before stabilising. Or perhaps Eccleston just wanted to play him that way. The likely truth is a combination of both.

The past, then, is an undiscovered country. Those of us who know our Doctor know where we sit (eight years before Moffat would yank away the rug), but it’s no accident that every image in Clive’s collection contains the Ninth Doctor, and only the Ninth – all the in-jokes with library cards and UNIT IDs would come much later, and only the Target novelisation would add in subsequent Doctors, some of whom we’ve not met yet (and let’s face it, we’re unlikely to). It goes further than this: Rose is a clean break with the old school. There are hints of the revisionism that would set up camp in later episodes. The Doctor refuses to name his species or planet (the Nestene Consciousness, as it turns out, is not so coy), but there is a blustery sense of irritation in his demeanour – he can’t be seen to be saving Earth unless he’s complaining about it (and already, the ‘stupid ape’ rot is setting in). The much-quoted (and frequently memed) ‘turn of the earth’ speech is perhaps the biggest hint that there is a darkness within him, and it’s a shame it has to be hidden beneath such theatrical absurdity.

But perhaps the real secret to Rose’s success is its companion-centred focus. It’s not enough that we only meet the Doctor when Rose does; we only see him when she does. At the risk of stating the obvious, it’s no accident that the action unfolds through her eyes, and it’s to Piper’s credit that she carries the burden of responsibility so well. Rose appears in every scene in the story, save the Autons’ attack on the shopping centre and Mickey’s stage dive into the dustbin. (We also need, at some point, to deal with the fact that ‘Christopher Eccleston’ is an anagram of ‘Eccentric Rose plot – shh’. You can’t look me in the eye and tell me that’s not a coincidence.)

Compare and contrast. The Doctor is aloof and preoccupied, the sort of mystery that only a conspiracy theorist can uncover, and indeed Rose’s conversation with Clive is a metaphor for every noob who ever asked the wrong question in rec.arts.drwho (which proves, once and for all, that no, he’s not just called ‘the Doctor’). Rose is the new or casual fan, diving into a strange, dangerous but somehow accessible world, where the established fans have to learn to adapt or find themselves at the end of an Auton laser. (Somewhere out there, someone’s presumably written fan-fiction that establishes Clive as a former LINDA member, who left to save his marriage, or who was kicked out because his poetry was rotten.)

There are other things. Companions have families, and the families are no longer simple plot devices but people of substance. The psychic paper (not seen this week) becomes a convenient get-out-of-jail-free card; essential for any writer who needs to cram exposition, narrative, and character development into forty minutes. For better or worse, the show has a pace and energy that would have given Jon Pertwee a coronary. This is television for the digital age, overclocked and edited down to the wire. And Murray Gold’s reworked theme seems very… busy.

But there’s a constant throughout all this; there’s a reassurance. There’s – look, David Lynch talks about something called the Eye of the Duck. It’s the single scene in any film or TV show that encapsulates it in one breath, the ‘eye’ that turns a vague duck-like shape into an actual duck. It’s there in the best Who episodes, and even in some of the worst. It’s in Blink and Turn Left and The Day of the Doctor. It’s even in Love & Monsters. And it’s there, in Rose, right at the beginning. It’s when Billie Piper is in the basement, surrounded by living plastic, unnerved and out of her depth and really not sure what’s about to happen next. Because that’s when the Doctor extends his hand, and shouts “Run!”

And that’s exactly what Rose does. And instinctively we follow, just as we always will.

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A cardboard box contained two episodes of a missing Doctor Who story.

Yes, The Nightmare Begins and Devil’s Planet have been recovered!

These are, respectively, the first and third episodes of 1965 epic, The Daleks’ Master Plan.

These respectively aired on 13th November 1965 and 27th November 1965 originally, and will be available to UK viewers on BBC iPlayer over the next few days.

Here’s the full list of episodes in The Daleks’ Master Plan:

• The Nightmare Begins

• Day of Armageddon

• Devil’s Planet

• The Traitors

• Counter Plot

• Coronas of the Sun

• The Feast of Steven

• Volcano

• Golden Death

• Escape Switch

• The Abandoned Planet

• Destruction of Time

There was also a one-part prologue, Mission to the Unknown, which aired before The Myth Makers; while that doesn’t exist, it was recreated by students, graduates, and staff of the University of Central Lancashire back in 2019, using 1960s production values.

Remarkably, five of the twelve episodes do exist: The Nightmare Begins, Day of Armageddon, Devil’s Planet, Counter Plot, and Escape Switch, so that’s episodes one, two, three, five, and ten.

BBC Enterprises offered eleven of the twelve episodes for overseas sales, leaving out The Feast of Steven, given its festive (and somewhat standalone) nature, but no markets bought them. ABC in Australia was interested, considering censoring the parts it deemed “too violent” to air, but eventually pulled out entirely. Nonetheless, the reels for The Nightmare Begins and Devil’s Planet were cutting copies, used for reviewing the story for sales in foreign markets. Somehow, they ended up in the hands of a private collector, who left their collection to Film is Fabulous! after their passing.

The BBC’s 405-line videotape of The Nightmare Begins was ordered to be wiped on 17th August 1967, while Devil’s Planet followed in January 1969. Extracts from that third episode were aired on Blue Peter in 1971, while the fourth episode was lent to Blue Peter in its entirety... but was never returned, so remains missing.

A similar curiosity is the discovery of Counter Plot and Escape Switch, both of which were found in the basement of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Wandsworth in July 1983; no one seems to know how they got there. These two were released by BBC Video as part of the VHS, Daleks: The Early Years, in 1992.

Former BBC engineer Francis Watson then returned Day of Armageddon to the BBC in January 2004, and it was included in the Lost in Time DVD in 2004, then further released as a promotional DVD, given away with copies of The Sun, in 2006.

So yes, it’s been 22 years since an episode of The Daleks’ Master Plan was discovered!

The Nightmare Begins and Devil’s Planet will be available on BBC iPlayer this Easter.

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We’ve been lucky enough to have a wonderful, dedicated audience since the DWC – as it’s colloquially known – popped online in March 2016, our numbers buoyed by the readers and writers of a previous Doctor Who site, Kasterborous. That site was sold on and so I was left in a quandary. Andrew Reynolds, a fellow Kasterborous contributor, and I knew that we’d have to leave the site we had joined long ago, and we were over the moon to hear fellow contributors were willing to go on that journey with us. We still needed a name for this new site, however.

Okay, we needed a lot more than that, but a name was front and centre. It was, like ‘the Doctor’, a statement of intent. It also needed to be grabbing enough, to tick those SEO boxes.

Except in the back of my mind, I had a name. It was a present from when I first became a fan of Doctor Who.

The Doctor Who Companion began when I was in school. I didn’t have a clue about how to create a website, and I didn’t much care either. What I needed was a printer, ink, and loving parents who would let me go on my mad endeavours. Fortunately, I had all three. This was before I knew much about fanzines. I just knew that I wanted to be a writer, and that it would be really cool if, one day, I could balance writing duties with being an editor of a magazine. Something nice and small like National Geographic, Radio Times, or Doctor Who Magazine. Might as well get some practise as soon as I could…

So, shortly before Doctor Who Series 2 aired, The Doctor Who Companion was born.

As far as I recall, it was a double-sided sheet of A4 paper. I made it look vaguely professional, designing my own header: I was on a Design and Technology course, yet still felt using a transparent 2005 Doctor Who logo with the words, “THE” and “COMPANION” either side of it was an artistic peak.

I can’t recall the main news on the front page – presumably it was something to do with Series 2 – but I distinctly remember writing a supporting piece about The Sontaran Experiment having been announced as an upcoming DVD release. I knew nothing about that two-part serial back then; I was just improvising using whatever facts I could gleam.

On the second page was the character history of Lady Cassandra, revealed to be returning in the season opener, New Earth, plus a review of Quick Reads: I Am A Dalek, in which I assured readers that David Tennant’s Tenth Doctor has, at least, met the Daleks in book form, something which he might not do on television as Rose Tyler rid the universe of them all at the conclusion of The Parting of the Ways. Ah, sweet naivety.

I stood by the school gates and shouted about a brand-new publication, handing them out to interested individuals and delivering bundles to local newsagents. Okay, that didn’t happen.

Its readership was incredibly limited. Naturally, my family were its first recipients, followed by a few friends at school and my History teacher who was very supportive and inspiring. The reception I received from everyone was really positive, and I began work on more issues of what I called ‘the DWC’ then and there. I didn’t stick to just news either: the fanzine’s page count doubling to include more eclectic stories and, yes, fiction. I even had a sort of arc planned. It gave me a public outlet that helped me gain a bit of confidence in my writing, egged on by ever-supportive family.

I was happy with it. That’s what was important. But GCSEs happened and school finished and the DWC was no more.

Until 2016.

Andy and I were struggling for a name, so I pitched The Doctor Who Companion to him. He didn’t immediately scream or call the police, so I figured it went down well. But seriously, he gave me a big thumbs-up and I was ecstatic.

I like to think there’s a parallel world where the DWC is still a physical fanzine, but for me, that ended a long time ago… then began anew again.

The site celebrates ten whole years online today, on 26th March 2026, and I couldn’t be prouder. A lot has changed since then – Andy has, sadly, left the DWC, but we’ve fortunately kept a huge roster of writers, publishing new content every single day, including giving away Annuals as downloadable PDFs every Christmas, completely free, something I don’t believe any other Doctor Who website does. It’s also opened a lot of doors, notably resulting in my writing and editing numerous books like Companions: More Than Sixty Years of Doctor Who Assistants, The Black Archive: The Pandorica Opens/ The Big Bang, and 100 Objects of Doctor Who. DWC contributors have even got together to make a book – Just Sarah: More Than Fifty Years of a Doctor Who Companion!

Somehow, amazingly, the DWC grew into something that seems to, mercifully, matter to a lot of people.

Nonetheless, I’m just happy that a small piece in the history of the DWC is a single A4 fanzine I started when I was kid, and that same dedication continues this very day.

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I announced the site back on 20^th February 2016, then, on 20^th March 2016, the DWC’s co-founder, Andrew Reynolds, posted a launch date, with this article:

“Hold tight and pretend it’s a plan!”

We’re pleased to announce that The Doctor Who Companion will launch March 26^th 2016! Firstly, thank you for your patience. We understand that it’s been a long wait since we first welcomed you to DWC and your kind words of encouragement and eager anticipation have been greatly received.

Seriously, thank you so much.

We never intended to leave you bereft of Doctor Who related goodness for too long and now, on the day when the show returned to our screens 11 years ago with Rose, we’re going to make our own humble return to doing what we love.

So who exactly are we? Well, basically, we’re just fans, and we love writing about Doctor Who. In fact, we’ve been writing daily news, thought-provoking features and opinion pieces, and considered reviews over at Kasterborous for several years before striking out and launching this, our very own site.

And, oh you sexy thing, look at it! It’s gorgeous! It’s so white! Look at all that white! So much unencumbered space! How novel…

Anyway, with the anniversary coming up, it got us thinking about some of Doctor Who’s greatest moments of change and renewal; the moments in history where everything and seemingly nothing altered all at once – basically, the bittersweet endings and brand new beginnings. So tasking our esteemed writers, most of whom have joined us from the various ages of Kasterborous, we’ve dedicated our launch week to exploring ‘beginnings’ – that’s a full weekend of feature articles devoted to making the best of the first times.

Carrying on over weekend and into the week, we’ll have the biggest news stories each day, a few exclusive interviews, and reviews dedicated to Big Finish releases, Titan Comics, and the latest book releases too.

However, it doesn’t end there.

Each new week brings with it another theme and another chance for us to share our love with you, dear reader, on subjects as diverse as Big Finish, the Classic DVD range and a host of others that we can’t reveal just yet because we’re mean like that… Spoilers!

While we can’t always promise the same level of material in the coming weeks as the launch weekend (what can we say, we’re showing off), what we can promise is that you’ll always find something interesting and exciting to engage with, whatever your entry point into Doctor Who may be.

So please, won’t you join us on March 26^th when we launch The Doctor Who Companion with our very first theme week, ‘Beginnings’…

A lot has changed. But a lot of things are similar too.

The DWC no longer does themed weeks, largely because they took a huuuuuuge amount of planning, and quite often, those plans would be disrupted by news. Even with so many of us, we can only do so much. Nonetheless, we still celebrate the entirety of Doctor Who, so that’s all eras and all mediums. We like to do things that other sites don’t, cover things over outlets don’t bother with, to hopefully do things slightly but notably differently.

We give away free downloads, for instance, like our yearly annuals, PDFs that are free to download, available every Christmastime (and we’ve an archive of freebies, so do check that out on the DWC). We’re not afraid of voicing opinions. Our reviews are independent. We have an “All of Time and Space” section, where we throw open the floodgates and talk about things other than Doctor Who – these things might be related to it, but it might just be a way of stretching our journalistic fingers and indulging in other passions. We’ve a huge number of contributors, some of whom write regularly for us and others who flit in and out – all very much appreciated.

Because they all build up a community. Most importantly, we have the comments sections, where that community thrives.

If you like this Substack and don’t regularly visit the DWC, please check us out: thedoctorwhocompanion.com

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To celebrate a decade of daily content1, this Substack aims to bring new articles and revived content to your Inbox (although you can also find us at our own Substack URL if you don’t fancy subscribing right now – but please do consider it!). The Substack isn’t replacing the website: this is an add-on, to support the main DWC.

News. Reviews. Features. Opinions. Fiction. Free stuff.

That’s us.

And there’s rather a lot of us, so you will get a huge array of independent thought. Everybody at the DWC likes things slightly differently, and that’s to be celebrated. The one thing we do all like is Doctor Who. If you’ve found us, you’re in good company!

Now, let’s get on with it…

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