Sadly, I genuinely believe there are no more stories to be discovered and that this is a ploy designed to increase someone's internet traffic. There have been (over the last few years) a couple of private companies trawling round TV companies in all corners of the world, trying to find these (imagine the marketing potential for Evil of the Daleks or Dalek Masterplan) and nothing has turned up. Ian Levine (someone who is well aware of the marketing/financial potential for such projects) has said that he is out of ideas and cannot see any more being recovered.

We may get the odd episode appearing out of an attic (like Galaxy Four/Underwater Menace did a while back) but a mass recovery of episodes or even the finding of a completed story... I'll believe it only when I hold the DVD of Power of the Daleks in my hand.

Greatest Show in the Galaxy

Both stories involve the Doctor being knocked off his feet by an explosion

It is now only 99 days to the 50th Anniversary episode

There are some things that are amazing. Chocolate is amazing. There are also things that are wonderful. Chips are wonderful. But chocolate and chips together just don't work. That is what this episode was like. Something amazing (Gaiman) and something wonderful (Cybermen) should go together well. They just don't (or at least they didn't on this occasion).

The attempt to 'collectivise' the cybermen was a reasonable one, except it has been done by Star Trek (much better). Matt Smith's performance was strangely off-key and unsuited to the story. Poor Tamsin Outhwaite must have turned up expecting a reasonable part and was ridiculously killed off. A huge dramatic moment totally wasted. Why is Warwick Davis hiding - and did he really kill off half of his platoon just because he didn't want to be Emperor? Why is the controller of a species famous for eradicating emotions portrayed as taunting the Doctor (Ok, that can be explained as his possession of the Doctor, but still seems a poor choice). Finally (not my point but one that occurred to me immediately) was why do we get a planet explode when the whole point of the bomb was that it was an implosion device?

These are instances, which - in isolation - might have been overlooked. But, in truth, the whole story was a bit of a mess. The characters were indeterminate, the plot was sketchy and the direction was a bit weird. I was amazed that in the space of one season we have the resolutely pacifist Doctor ("there should have been another way", "I don't like guns", "But thats Murder etc") executing a salvage dealer and actively complicit in the detonating of an implosion device to destroy a planet. Also, yet another incident of Dr. SexPest (was the tight dress comment really necessary?)

Neil Gaiman occupies a God-like place in my heart. He is arguably the best fantasy writer on the planet. Yet this story was so messy and had so many plot issues that I really couldn't do better then 2/5. But that's ok because it looks like everyone in the production team thought this was "good enough". Maybe it was. But is "Good enough" really good enough? Especially given the standards we have been used to.

As promised, we have a titanic figure in Doctor Who history for the next writer. A man who is responsible for me being here and loving the show as much as I do.

Apologies for the use of '1' to replace the letter 'i' but the internet censors TD's name otherwise 






Born 10th May 1935, Terrance D1cks benefited from a classical education at Downing College Cambridge and started life as a copywriter, who would write radio scripts for the BBC in his spare time. His big break in television came through his great friend and mentor, Malcolm Hulke who he worked with on the Avengers.

Joining the Doctor Who team in 1968, during the making of The Invasion, he became full script editor in 1969 following a considerable re-write on the Brian Hayles penned “Seeds of Death”. He wrote the epic Troughton Finale, The War Games with Hulke and providing the first realisation of the Time Lords in the final episode. As script editor throughout the Pertwee era, D1cks, together with Barry Letts, led the UNIT based Doctor through a series of memorable adventures, with D1cks often heavily re-writing them.

Upon leaving the position of script editor, D1cks penned his first solo Who story, the Tom Baker debut Robot. He went on to provide another 3 stories (including Brain of Morbius and the best pen name in the history of Who ‘Robin Bland’ coined when D1cks disagreed with numerous re-writes by Robert Holmes). He was the writer that producer John Nathan-Turner turned to rescue the 20th Anniversary when Robert Holmes pulled out and The Five Doctors was his final contribution to the show.

In addition to this, he has written more the 60 classic novelizations of TV stories for the Target range, shaping and augmenting the stories to give them a clearer narrative structure. Away from Who, he co-created Moonbase 3 with Barry Letts and also wrote for Space 1999. In the 1980s he resumed his partnership with Letts on the BBC’s Sunday Classic Series. He remains an active author writing children and young adult fantasy work and still contributing to new Doctor Who novelizations.

List of Episodes:

The War Games (co-written with Malcolm Hulke)
Robot
Brain of Morbius (as Robin Bland)
Horror of Fang Rock
State of Decay
The Five Doctors

He's on the list because...

In the pantheon of Doctor Who scribes, the name Terrance D1cks looms large on the horizon. Writer, Script Editor and de-facto joint head of Doctor Who production with Barry Letts through the Jon Pertwee era is impressive enough. D1cks took joint responsibility for the creative direction of the show, together with Letts, for the Pertwee era. It was this partnership that is largely responsible for a huge hike in the shows popularity, rescuing the show at a time when the threat of cancelation loomed for the first time.

The UNIT team and Earth-based nature of the show proved to be no handicap as D1cks brought his keen eye for plot and narrative to bear as script editor. His tenure saw some of the most memorable stories in the history of the show with Autons, a Parallel Earth and Peladon providing some iconic stories. In addition, together with Letts, he decided that the Doctor needed a Moriarty-like adversary and created the Master. It was also D1cks and Letts together who decided upon the casting of Sarah Jane Smith, Harry Sullivan and Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor!

If, however, you are around 35-50 years old, and a classic Who fan, the name of Terrance D1cks will be synonymous with the Target novelizations that fired our imaginations and fostered our love for the series, when the VHS and DVD era meant watching the shows again seemed a distant dream. His ability to craft a strong plot and narrative may seem old-fashioned to some in this era of character arcs and ‘feels’. There are, however, generations of Who fans whose first real memories of the show are not of wobbly sets or poor productions, but of fabulous alien worlds brought to life by a writer whose skill and craft made for some memorable written adventure. His novelisations frequently tidied up egregious or obvious plot holes. Indeed Paul Cornell, Gareth Roberts and any number of modern science fiction writers cite D1cks's novelisations as a huge influence and an enduring legacy.

For his understanding of what type of show Doctor Who ‘should’ be and for the books without which I certainly wouldn’t have fostered such a deep love for the show, Terrance D1cks is a worthy addition to our top 10 and someone who I value deeply as a member of the Doctor Who family.

I'd rather like to see the return of the Meddling Monk - a chance for the Doctor to meet another Time Lord

The Horror of Fang Rock

I think a lot of the problem is that us more hardened Who fans are used to the concept of regeneration. A lot of the comments about Capaldi's age have come from people for whom Matt Smith is their first Doctor. I remember the fury I had when I was told Tom Baker was leaving and Peter Davison was joining. He was a bloody vet!!!

It takes time for people to get used to the idea of a new Doctor. Even experienced Who watchers like myself struggled with the idea of Matt Smith - a 26 year old as the Doctor. Yet what a triumph he has been. "Capaldi is too old" is just a reaction in the same way that "Matt Smith is too young." Give him a couple of brilliant, iconic moments and all will be well

Oh Mark, you produced an almost perfect Doctor Who episode. This was brilliant - the Paternoster St. Gang, the Mother/Daughter dynamic of Dame Diana Rigg and Rachel Stirling (who, may I say, stole the show) and the million horror homages throughout. This was Mark Gatiss' magnum opus on Who. This was the story he was always destined to write and it rippled with affection to both Doctor Who and the lost horror films that I am assuming we both shared in our childhood. Without doubt this was my highlight of series 7b - I loved almost every second of it...

...Apart from one. Why did the Doctor force a kiss on Jenny? This might be seen as a funny moment but it is totally outside of anything I've seen of the Doctor. He's funny, romantic, eccentric, dark, child-like, genius, quirky, lonely etc. But one thing you could never call him was a sex-pest. Until now. It works when kisses are forced on the Doctor (i.e. River) consensual (Clara/Martha) or life-saving (Rose). But the Doctor grabbing someone like that just didn't feel right to me.

So I knocked a mark off. What should have been a gold-plated 5, ended up with a 4/5. A shame.

Utopia for me - one of the best stories in an outstanding series

Hmmm, this had all the potential to be a cracker but didn't quite do it for me.

First, the positives: The TARDIS is the second most important character in the show - and writers too often neglect that, treating her as a fancy spaceship rather than an actual personality. Steven Thompson did a reasonable job of capturing that. I thought the idea was an interesting one and Jenna was wonderful in the role of companion.

Unfortunately, there were a couple of things that stopped me loving this story as much as I should have done. First (and as with Hide) the ending was unsatisfactory. A big reset switch, even when it is telegraphed, is still a bit unsatisfactory. I didn't like the three salvage dealers (just a personal thing - they didn't sit well in the story for me). Also, this was a perfect chance to have an homage to classic Who - where were the white roundels? or the other control rooms?

It was a reasonable premise, the execution was patchy but still enough in there for me to enjoy. I went with 3/5

I promise that writer #5 is soon to be announced. The writer is very special to me so I wanted to do a proper job on the bio

Sound of Drums/Last of the Timelords

There are a number of rumours kicking around about the BBC wanting to cut the number of episodes of Doctor Who made. Partly to do with budget and accounting (13 series doesn't fit neatly into the BBC accounting/sales model) and partly to make the mid-series break more logical (6/6 split).

I am actually more worried about the mid-series break than a drop of one story. I think the mid-series break kills the momentum (series 7) and also means that any subtle story arcs need hammering in rather than subtly weaving in and out of the stories (series 6). Would much sooner see a return to the series 1-5 model of a straight run of stories.

Not at all One of the things I love about this forum is the way we respect each others (often totally opposite) views - and I genuinely took it as a huge compliment that I come across as upbeat

My theory on why the series wasn't up to scratch is this: I really don't think the mid-series break did the show any favours at all. With a run of 13 stories the narrative and tone of the series gets established. The Ponds leaving in 'Angels take Manhattan' seemed like the end of a series and 'Bells' had to restart from scratch (with new titles, new music and new TARDIS interior). Therefore with the series going from 13 stories to 8 stories, the margin of error for bad stories is much less. I'm not sure I'd have hated this quite so much if it had been in the longer season. I also think that I view this in the context of the rest of the 8 stories where, frankly, there were only 3 that were of acceptable quality. That relatively low success rate is just not acceptable, especially given the amazing talent of Matt Smith and Steven Moffat

The Doctor Dances for me. For exactly the same reason as Nyki, this was the final, rubber stamp that the show had returned and was absolutely awesome. It is so rare that you get a good pay-off in a two parter, but this was a cracker.

That said, a lot of episode 10s are worthy of mentions - there are some corkers on the list. I even liked Love & Monsters

This episode is a source of immense frustration for me. The first 39 minutes are really very good (very reminiscent in style and content to 'Nigel Kneale's "The Stone Tapes"). I think the casting was lovely - Dougray Scott and Jessica Raine were wonderful counterparts for the Doctor and Clara. When Doctor Who sets its mind to it, it can be genuinely scary and this has all the hallmarks of a classic ghost story.

And then they go and totally ruin it with the ending, removing all sense of peril and risk from the Tardis first journey into the pocket Universe. But, for 39 minutes of reasonably well-crafted writing, I gave it 3/5

Empty Child for me - but some good, strong stories throughout

4/5 for me and Gatiss's best episode since The Unquiet Dead. I couldn't help but view this episode in the context of what had gone before. I felt series 7b had not had a defining moment and we were up to episode 3 so I was worried what this might be like. I needn't have worried. Yes, it was a little safe, using a very well established 'base under siege' motif. But it kept my attention, it had a wonderfully claustrophobic feel and I am a sucker for anything Cold War related. The supporting cast was very good (I did think they lost the opportunity for some tension by killing off Stepashin too early) with Liam Cunningham and David Warner doing a superb job. I liked the realisation of the Ice Warriors and the way they ultimately confounded our expectations by being merciful. To me, this was much closer to Classic Who than we had seen for some time and was all the better for it.

First, I take that as a huge compliment And honestly, you have no idea how much it really pains me to do it. But sadly, this was one of the rare occasions where I felt I was being short changed by the production team. I didn't feel there was any drive to produce the best Doctor Who possible. I got the feeling of "that will do". The story just didn't work on any level for me and normally I am a-buzz with ideas and theories after watching the show. After this one, I put on Logopolis and hoped it would dull the pain.

I must stress, I am very much speaking for myself here, I don't seek to denigrate those who enjoyed it and I am glad that other people got something out of it. But the thing that really depresses me, more than anything, is that it wasn't the only time I felt like this during series 7b.