Ten stories in, and I'm still not entirely sure where I'm going with this project. The overall tone seems undecided at times, and I'm beginning to suspect that I should have created a companion piece, where I ooh and ahh over brilliant photos from each story that I've never seen before.
But there's plenty of time to make amends and have a bash at that later, I suppose.
Anyway, back to the present, and a look at what I've been wallowing in, now that I'm out of Project mode and am a free viewing agent again.
As the dog returneth to its vomit, so I return to "The Web Planet". (Not literally, you understand. That adventure would have to be in text format in a Monoid One Security Kitchen - as seen on BBC TV - annual).
Default Menoptera (sic) portrait, as seen in many an issue of Doctor Who Monthly.
This was one of those TARDIS interior shots from the Hartnell years that I was never quite sure which story they were from. Needless to say, the dilemma was solved by the VHS release, but for many years they were very real concerns...
Speaking of VHS viewings, I recall that the first time I ever watched Serial N was while house-sitting for a lecturer while I was at university. Nothing can quite prepare you for your first time, but I found that copious amounts of cheap cider did help in a very convivial way.
That's another one that puzzled me a lot in the poor definition reproduction of DWM days. In fact, I used to think that the control necklace on the floor there was some type of insect grub. Look, you can see the eyes on stalks...
Ah, the Atmospheric Density Jackets. A fuller frame shot exists, but I like this cropped version, as it is the version used in the DWM "The Phoenix Rises" April Fool article. The premise was that extant footage from (cough) lost story "The Hidden Planet" (aka "Beyond the Sun") was being spliced in with (then) newly-shot material to form a Hartnell/Davison team-up extravaganza. (All lies of course, but it did superimpose a grinning Peter Davison in between Russell and Hartnell in a most amusing fashion).
Another weird one that had me thinking for years that "The Web Planet" was as pleasantly bizarre as it in fact turned out to be...
One of Doctor Who's greatest fears, that.
Another popular Zarbi shot. (Interestingly, Bill Strutton's novelisation was one of the few that I never really got to grips with as a child. The other was "The Curse of Peladon", but I have trouble enough with that on the screen, to be honest).
Perhaps having many splendid visuals for "The Web Planet" helped prepare me when I finally did get to see it in all its strange glory. Rumours are that Serial N will be the next release in the BBC Radio Collection, and perhaps this non-visual take might help some people out of the quaint (and very wrong) notion that the story is somewhat laughable and not much good.
They didn't hype up "The Web Planet" to be the next big thing for nothing, you know. (Now, where's my Give-A-Show projector gone..?)
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