Despite Bluesky being extremely nice, and/but, despite the fact that I am struggling to find ways to engage, I must inform you of drastically important news! You could be watching the first three minutes of my latest DSisDW Season 2.5 video. www.patreon.com/posts/139310...

It was 50 years ago today that the last episode of Terror of the Zygons was broadcast and today, lots of Doctor Who fans will be going to the BFI to watch the newly restored version. Hope everyone has a good time watching a great story. Come and say hello!

Sixty-two years ago this morning, the very first live-action shots for Doctor Who were filmed at Ealing Film Studios.

A long shot this one... 21 years ago, well-known Doctor Who collector, Mick Hall, sold a 16mm film print of Episode 6 of The Chase on eBay. It was won by a collector with the buyer name of "sad-bidder". Does anyone know where the film print ended up or who "sad-bidder" was?

August 1964: Good to see the Boy Scouts in Sidcup giving the Sensorites some love!

We’re pleased to announce that we will be publishing the first full-length biography of prolific Doctor Who writer and script editor Terrance Dicks, written by Simon Guerrier with the cooperation of Terrance’s family. Written by Terrance Dicks is provisionally scheduled for publication in 2026.

With the announcement of the Season 13 Blu-ray Collection box set, here's what's going to be included in the PDF Archive this time round - a total of 4027 pages of scripts, production documents, studio floor plans, Radio Times cuttings, ephemera etc.

The pacy trailer for the November 1999 repeat of Spearhead from Space (which couldn't be included on the S07 Collection for various reasons) featured an odd non-DW cut-in shot of a colourful giant eye. I recall someone once identifying where it came from. Can anyone remember the source?

The missus and I finished watching Bodies last night. Barring a few tiny points, we found it great fun and a lovely portion of time-travelling drama.

The Seeds of Doom is by far and away my all-time favourite of the classic Doctor Who run, so it's very sad to hear that Michael McStay (who once sent me a fabulous letter about his time on the programme) died on Sunday, aged 92.

Fifty years ago today, this was the sad news... youtu.be/bq4zkS34nlI

Back from another week-long stint at the BBC Written Archives for a further Doctor Who and Blake's 7 (plus a little bit of Quatermass) scanning mission. 6391 images procured. Nice to see Ncuti and Millie adorning the latest BBC Group Annual Report & Accounts publication.

Forty-four years ago today, I filmed about 3½ minutes worth of the last episode of Logopolis on my Halina cine camera. Didn't know when the regeneration was going to happen, so I ran out of film before it was shown! Managed to get it on 2 June when it was repeated on Ask Aspel!

It always makes me chuckle when they have to specify in the scripts that space scenes are "Night"! 🤣

7️⃣NEW EPISODE!7️⃣ It's the second part of our blu-ray preview, as we speak to @nothinglane.bsky.social , @chrischapman81.bsky.social and @tobyhadoke.bsky.social about their work on the latest #DoctorWho release. on.soundcloud.com/b7pNunBBiS8B...

An interesting snippet about The Web of Fear in the newly released material from the Evening News in London. This tiny article published on the day of broadcast of Ep 1 shows that it was the specially shot trailer that triggered London Transport's query about the sets, not the episodes themselves.

Please can everyone listen to Geek Gods: Sir Ian Livingstone at 4pm and midnight please? Tell everyone about it too. Radio 4 Extra : BBC Sounds thereafter.

Does anyone here who follows me work for Sky Television at all? That's the production company side, not the TV/broadband installation end!

Stuart worked his arse off on this documentary and his experience shows in every brilliant visual flourish and thoughtful segue. Not a stone is left unturned and this film has a unique flavour all its own. And it’s about the same length as the story!!

I've made a little something for this. Well, 100 minutes of something.

Working on the Season 7 Collection, I still find myself baffled by the scene where the Doctor looks at the Silurian screen. The script says we're supposed to see the Silurian city, but for some reason they decided to show a scrappy drawing of not much. I wonder if it was some unused design sketch?

Sad to hear that would-be Eighth Doctor, Tony Slattery, died yesterday. youtu.be/QGzc8meTpvs?...

Just rewatched 12 Angry Men on Sky Arts. Still one of the finest films ever made.

Silurians 5. The off-air recording starts out poor but watchable, but by the end is unusable so Colour Recovery proved vital on this episode

Several people have asked to see more screengrabs from the new restorations on the Dr Who season 7 Bluray collection, so I’ll post some from an episode each day. Here is Silurians ep 1. Colour Recovery did not work so colour is smudgy from the NTSC Betamax off-air tape from 1977.

A gorgeous and nerdy deep dive into Doctor Who’s incidental Music. Well worth 73 minutes of your time. 😀

Episode 5 of The Frankie Howard Show, shown on 22 Mar 1966 (between Eps 3 & 4 of The Ark) featured Howard having to pay host to Peter Butterworth's large and disruptive family in his flat. Returning, he's outraged that the young son had drawn an inaccurate Dalek on his painting.

Illustrator Rod Jordan, who for many years produced the caption roller for the That’s Life! credits, also produced a Dalek illustration for the 3 Dec 1967 edition of Late Night Line Up to illustrate an item on Elwyn Jones writing a libretto for a sci-fi based (non-Dalek!) opera.

At 2.30pm on this day 58 years ago, William Hartnell first took to the stage at the Gaumont Cinema in Ipswich as Buskin the Fairy Cobbler in the touring pantomime, Puss in Boots – a production described in during its second week at Southend as being “appalling”.

Here’s one of the studio sessions for #DoctorWho The Deadly Assassin, recreated in CG! Panopticon, cloister, museum, and the Chancellery. The secondary TARDIS control room was constructed right in the middle, and struck overnight… #CGsets

With the announcement of the Doctor Who Season 7 Blu-ray Collection, here's what is coming up in the PDF Archive for the new set. This will bring the running total of the PDF Archive across the 17 releases to 66,743 pages!

We've just launched the Stretch Goals for The Time Team Unearthed, featuring exclusive packaging and even more brand new illustrations - with more to be announced as these goals are unlocked. You'll find more details over on Kickstarter - tinyurl.com/TimeTeamUnearthed

An ultra-rare, bagged and unopened set of Randall & Wood Dalek skittles from 1966, of which no other examples are known to survive appeared on eBay last week. They sold last night for an amazing £5350! I wonder if the seller is going to let the buyer off the £4.99 postage? 🙂

Absent Friends - my annual round up of the heroes of UK science-fiction who left us this year - will be on Radio 4 Extra at 4.45pm on Dec 29th (repeated 12.45am and on BBC Sounds thereafter). It’s heartening that they continue to allow me to perform this sad duty. #bbcradio4extra

Bit of a long shot, but does anyone have any hard copies of The Knowledge production directory from early 1992 onwards?

Sophie Aldred in her new In Conversation had a cracker of a mistake. Sophie described being set up for a stunt and how "we were all togged up". That's not what the subtitler heard...

Continuity announcements can fall foul of the subtitlers, such as this one on The Happiness Patrol. Wogan's guest was actually the Scottish musician that fronted Slik, Ultravox and co-wrote 'Do They Know it's Christmas?'. The subtitler turned him into something rather more exotic!

Of course, as always, the Season 25 Collection had its own set of subtitling boo-boos that needed to be corrected. One of them comes in Silver Nemesis. Why does de Flores want Karl to drive the Nazi's to the hotel?

One of the things in Silver Nemesis that always made me giggle was the fact that the Nazi's transit van was an ex-commercial vehicle that had the sticky lettering removed. Amusingly, it was previously used by a company called Arrow!

For the second series of Paul Temple in 1970, they decided to give the series a new set of titles. The running man is none other than John Levene, but they chose to speed up the footage and the whole thing looks unintentionally hilarious!