I have a friend for whom this is the absolute nadir of Doctor Who …

The Romans is tremendous fun! Well, perhaps not for Ian, who has to endure being a galley slave and a gladiator. Or indeed for Barbara …

Like David Whitaker’s previous two-parter The Edge of Destruction, this story has a particular dramatic function …

You have to give Terry Nation his due – he could certainly write an atmospheric first episode! Suicide, murder, decay, the suggestion of plague, a flying saucer, a sprained ankle …

I’ve always been a fan of Gulliver’s Travels, so the idea of miniature travellers interacting with oversized creatures and props was always going to appeal to me on some level …

One of the simple joys to be had watching these early episodes of Doctor Who comes from hearing characters speak without their resorting to glib one-liners …

The Sensorites is a rather odd – or should that be rather Ood – story to judge, sometimes being quite spooky, sometimes dragging out the action much too long, often feeling a bit silly, but at other times being quite poetic …

The Aztecs is a story I remember rather better than its predecessor, having seen it several times, although admittedly not since its original DVD release over ten years ago …

Before watching it again, I could remember absolutely nothing about The Keys of Marinus. I couldn’t remember how many times I’d seen it or even when I’d last watched it …

Nary a clip exists from any of the seven episodes of Marco Polo and whilst there are fan-made reconstructions out there I could watch, I’ve chosen to stick with listening to the off-air soundtrack …

OK, so I said a few weeks back that Doctor Who was rarely if ever as dark as An Unearthly Child. Well, this two-parter just about proves that wrong …

One of the things I love about old Doctor Who is the slower pacing: where a story is given the room to breathe …

An Unearthly Child is simply one of the greatest episodes of television ever made …