'Remembrance of the Daleks' Preview

‘Remembrance of the Daleks’ is a turning point in Doctor Who. The first serial of the programme's twenty-fifth season, it introduces several elements that script editor Andrew Cartmel hoped would reintroduce a mysterious element about the Doctor.

The seventh Doctor and Ace land in 1963, near the location of the first serial, ‘An Unearthly Child’ due to unfinished business regarding a Gallifreyan super weapon, The Hand of Omega. The story deals with the inevitable amount of old Doctor Who references much better than the heavy handed continuity of ‘Attack of the Cybermen’. Here they encounter a group of Daleks, as well as a group of soldiers lead by Group Captain Gilmore. 

As if one set of Daleks wasn't bad enough, a civil war breaks out between the Renegade Daleks under the control of the Black Dalek Supreme and the Imperial Daleks under the control of the Emperor. Lots of explosions ensue, to the point where the fire services were called in during the production of the story, mistakenly believing that the exploding Dalek casings were an IRA bomb. As well as this, a full sized Dalek spaceship lands next to a school, one of the best executed special effects of the 1980’s from which a new 'special weapons' Dalek emerges.

But the story is not all explosions. A scene where the Doctor sits in a café and talks to the owner about the implications of choices is one of the best scenes during McCoy’s tenure in my opinion.

Several of the characters from this story would reprise their roles in a Big Finish box set of audio plays released earlier this year.

In summary, this story has everything; Daleks, creepy children, and great performances from the entire cast. We will be watching ‘Remembrance of the Daleks’ on Wednesday. The Bar now opens at 10.30pm and we press play at 10.45pm GMT.

Hope to see you there. 

New Weekend Schedule Update

Hi everyone, just to let everyone know that the DWBar is changing the timings of it's sessions again.  The Saturday session is moving to a later slot, we open at 9.45pm GMT and press play at 10pm.

So for all of you who fancy having a night time drink whilst watching Doctor Who, then the new Saturday DWBar session is for you.  Our first story is the Tom Baker classic The Seeds of Doom.

The Sunday Matinee sessions were less successful and this session is now closed but if some of you would like to do a lock-in in the afternoon then perhaps the 3pm/3.30pm slot may be opened again.  Get in touch by tweeting or messaging @Via_the_Void on Twitter.

Hope to see you all in the Bar.

It's back!

The Doctor Who Bar account is back where it belongs.

Can I also stop any malicious rumours by stating categorically that I never believed that #TARDIStweets had anything to do with it.  So please no unfounded pointing of fingers.

The @TheDoctorWhoBar account is back where it belongs and that's all that matters.

Hope some of you can join in our sessions.

David (Via_The_Void)

It's Gone..

Thank you to the people who have contacted me about the @TheDoctorWhoBar account no longer existing.

Yes, unfortunately the hackers have deleted the account. Of course if we regain access in the next 30 days it can be saved!

Until then follow: @DoctorWhoBar2 which now hosts any of the Bars sessions. Until further notice.

Thanks for your co-operation

Benjamin and David

Help The Doctor Who Bar

We need you!

If anyone has ideas on how to regain access to our main account please let us know.

We are back

Guys we have started a new twitter account. @DoctorWhoBar2 so please follow this for updates and thank you again for working with us in this tough time.


Benjamin and David
#DWBar and #DWBarOZ
@DoctorWhoBar2

Twitter Account has been hacked

Hello all,

The main twitter account has been hacked. We have no control at all over it. We are trying to regin it, but all people have been unfollowed and some blocked. We are very sorry any queries direct to @PreachrsPodcast and @Via_The_Void .


Please bare with us, for now stay tunned and Wednesday's session may be suspended. Watch this space for news or updates.


Thanks and sorry

Benjamin & David
on behalf of #DWBar and #DWBarOZ
 

Weekend Schedule Update: Frontier In Space & Planet of the Daleks

Frontier In Space will kick off tonight from 8.45pm GMT and we'll press play at 9pm GMT.

However there has been a change to the Planet of the Daleks session on Sunday, instead of opening at 3pm GMT and pressing play at 3.30pm GMT the session will kick off at 7.45pm GMT and we'll press play at 8pm GMT.

Hope to see all of you in the Bar for some Pertwee action.  Don't forget the #DWBar hashtag when tweeting in the session.  Please Join Us.

'Day of the Daleks' Preview

'Day of the Daleks' was the first Doctor Who story that I saw after being lent it on VHS by my uncle. It was also the first serial of Doctor Who’s ninth season, broadcast in January 1972. The story stars Jon Pertwee as the Doctor and Katy Manning as Jo Grant. It was written by Louis Marks.

It concerns freedom fighters coming back in time to assassinate Sir Reginald Styles – a diplomat who they believe will create a timeline leading to the Dalek takeover of Earth by triggering an explosion that will wipe out other world diplomats at a Peace Conference, which will become the catalyst for a third world war.

The adventure begins with the Doctor and Jo being captured by the freedom fighters who are mistaken in believing that he is Sir Reginald Styles. Trips between the twenty second century and whenever the UNIT stories are set (nobody seems quite sure) ensue, with the Doctor and Jo ruthlessly pursued by the Daleks and their latest sidekick the Ogrons.

The serial concludes with a pitch battle between Daleks and UNIT troops. As the Daleks enter the house where the conference was to be held, a freedom fighter, Shura, detonates a bomb, destroying the Daleks and providing the explosion remembered by “history”. However in this case the delegates have not been killed, meaning that the Dalek invasion timeline ceases to exist. This "timey-wimey" plotting is something that appears to have become the norm during recent seasons, but here it is in fact an early example of the plot device. 

The serial was released on DVD in 2011 with the correct title 'Day of the Daleks' as the VHS releases of it contained an error in the form of a previous working title 'The Day of the Daleks'.  This release featured a special edition release of the story, with new sequences filmed and updated Dalek voices provided by Nicholas Briggs.

We will be watching the “original transmitted version” of “Day of the Daleks” (as in the one which isn't the special edition) on Wednesday together by tweeting along using the hashtag #DWBar. The Bar opens at 7.30pm and we press play at 8.00pm. Hope to see you there.

Weekend Schedule: Frontier In Space & Planet of the Daleks

There will again be no poll for this weekend.  Instead we'll be watching the Jon Pertwee story arc of the Dalek War, which comprises the two stories Frontier In Space and Planet of the Daleks.

On Saturday 20th October the Bar will open at 8.45pm and we'll press play at 9pm, we'll be watching Frontier In Space, which features the last Doctor Who appearance of Roger Delgado who played the Doctor's arch enemy The Master.   Then on Sunday 21st October the story arc will be completed when we watch Planet of the Daleks, we'll open 3pm and then press play at 3.30pm.

Hope you can join in with our latest sessions.

"The War Games" Preview

To call “The War Games” less than epic is a bit of an under statement. The ten part finale to Patrick Troughton’s time as the Doctor flips between time periods and reveals things we never knew about the main character. It was also the last Doctor Who story to be filmed in black and white and the last to feature companions Jamie Mcrimmon and Zoe Herriot.

The serial begins with the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe (Frazer Hines and Wendy Padbury) finding themselves in the First World War. Picked up by friendly ambulance driver Lady Jennifer and they are captured, escape, and then get captured again, all the while being accused of spying for the enemy. The first episode ends with the Doctor under execution by firing squad, a scene echoed in 1984’s “The Caves of Androzani”.

It soon becomes apparent that they are not in World War One after all – that time zone is just an area in a much larger war game, featuring Roman legions and soldiers from the American Civil War. The majority of the remaining story is spent travelling through these different zones in search for a control centre and you guessed it, getting captured and escaping only to be captured again several times.

The Doctor is forced to call on his own people, the Time Lords in order to sort everything out at the end of the serial. Despite attempts to escape into various bits of archive footage from “Fury from the Deep” and “The Web of Fear”, the Tardis is eventually forced to return to its original planet, Gallifrey, where the Doctor stands trial for interference in the course of history. Even though the Doctor claims he has helped the universe (with the assistance of more archive footage) the Time Lords decree that he should be exiled to Earth and given a new appearance. Jamie and Zoe are forced to return to their original points in history, their memories wiped. It’s a sad ending for all of the Tardis crew, and breaks new ground in Doctor Who.

Join us to watch “The War Games” over two days. We will be watching episodes one to five (the first DVD disk) on Saturday. For that session the Bar will open at 8.45pm and we will press play at 9pm. The second disk of the DVD (episodes six to ten) will be watched as part of the Sunday Matinee session, opening at 3pm. We will press play for the second disk at 3.30pm. Hope to see you there.

The Autons

If the Autons were real, they could take over the world as easy as anything. Next time you are in a shopping centre, look around and imagine just what would happen if all those immobile plastic figures suddenly came alive. It’s an unsettling image used to great effect in both 1970’s “Spearhead from Space” and 2005’s “Rose”. It’s a testament to these villains that they were used to kick-start two different eras of the series, the transition to colour and the eventual return of the series under Russell T.  Davies.

The Autons also raised questions in the House of Lords over whether Doctor Who had become unsuitable for children, mainly due to several scenes in the second Auton story “Terror of the Autons”. A scene where a policeman was revealed to be a masked Auton and another in which a doll kills its owner were put under criticism, the latter apparently preventing children from taking their toys to bed with them. 

The Autons have also spawned some of the most iconic scenes in Doctor Who history – the shop window dummies coming alive and gunning down pedestrians (although it is debatable what’s more terrifying – the marauding aliens or the dreadful clothes they have on), the man being eaten by the (rather unconvincing) plastic chair, not to mention the Auton that breaks into an old woman’s house and wrecks the place in a particularly unnerving scene from “Spearhead from Space”.

The Autons are monsters that make everyday objects menacing. They remain a popular adversary to this day, continuing to appear in Doctor Who and ranges of other media, including a spin off straight to video film trilogy.

Join the Doctor Who Bar on Wednesday for the Jon Pertwee classic "Spearhead from Space". Bar opens at  7.30pm and we press play at 8.00pm. Hope to see you there. 

The War Games for Saturday & Sunday, Spearhead From Space on Wednesday

There will be no poll for next week.  Instead we'll be watching the Patrick Troughton swansong adventure, The War Games.

On Saturday 13th October the Bar will open at 8.45pm and we'll press play at 9pm, we'll be watching all five episodes on disc one.  Then on Sunday 14th October the final five episodes on the second disc will commence as normal for the Sunday Matinee, we'll open 3pm and then press play at 3.30pm.

The War Games saw the end of an era for Doctor Who, not just for the Pat Troughton era but also because this was the last story to be made in black and white.  The first colour story of the new Jon Pertwee era was Spearhead From Space, which is what we're watching in the Bar for this Wednesday's session (10th October) , we open 7.30pm and press play at 8pm.

Hope you can join in with our latest sessions.

The Angels Take Manhattan Review

“The Angels Take Manhattan” promised a lot and delivered some of it. A story that claimed to “make people cry” has never really appealed to me, but I decided to sit down and watch it anyway because it’s Doctor Who, so you can’t really complain.

The Weeping Angels themselves were on top form (despite some inconsistencies about how they work that sent fans running to the closest forum). I felt that the Statue of Liberty angel seemed like a good idea on paper but was not so effective in real life. However the new cherub angels more than made up for this, and the original angels were used to great effect – the “time farm” idea being a particularly creepy one.

The main substance of the story of course revolved around the departure of Amy and Rory. While I personally feel that because they kept getting dropped off back on Earth at the end of most adventures and Rory had died so many times I had just stopped caring, although the final scenes managed to remain emotional.

Steven Moffat’s Radio Times interview explains “why Amy had to die!” which in my opinion is a massive piece of overreaction. She died in the same way that many companions did, after a long life rather than on screen. Does that really count as a death as opposed to Barbara’s departure or Jamie’s? Logically those characters would also pass away after they stopped travelling with the Doctor – that hardly warrants a “companion death” status. 

I personally enjoyed the majority of the story, despite its flaws. Join us for the BBC3 repeat on Friday 5^th to give us your own views. Bar opens at 6.45pm and the repeat is broadcast at 7.15pm. Hope to see you there. 

The Dalek Invasion of Earth Preview

As I write this article, Doctor Who fans are (allegedly) in tears over the departure of the Ponds last weekend. However, in this week’s Doctor Who Bar Wednesday session, we will be going back to the very first departure of a companion, in Terry Nation’s “The Dalek Invasion of Earth”.

After the success of the original Dalek story, the Producers of Doctor Who were keen for the enemies to return. Nation wrote a six part story in which the Daleks invaded the Earth, planning to extract the core of the planet and pilot it anywhere around the universe.

“The Dalek Invasion of Earth” makes great use of its setting. The London landmarks sprayed with Dalek graffiti reminds us that this story is indeed happening where we live, and that increases the tension. The Daleks trundling over Westminster Bridge is an iconic image that is still recognised today.

This serial was also adapted into the film “Daleks Invasion Earth 2150 AD” starring Peter Cushing. It was the second and last of the Peter Cushing films due to the fact that it wasn't as popular as the first film - "Dr. Who & the Daleks." The movie is noted however for featuring the first Doctor Who appearance of Bernard Cribbins.

The story ends with the Doctor double-locking Susan out of the Tardis, knowing that if he doesn't she’ll sacrifice her own happiness (Susan has fallen in love with a character in this story, the freedom fighter David Campbell) to look after her grandfather. It is painful for the Doctor to leave Susan behind, but it's because that he knows that she would never leave him which is why he leaves her. It's a lovely poignant scene, watch out for it! This marks the very first time we see a companion depart, and you can bet if they had had Twitter back then, attention seeking fangirls would be all over this scene. Susan would return in the Twentieth Anniversary special "The Five Doctors", as well as in a number of Big Finish audio productions.

So join us on Wednesday Night and tweet along. Bar opens at 7:30pm and we press play at 8.00pm. Hope to see you there.