'Radio Times' TV Review of 2021

That venerable publishing colossus, Christmas perennial, and loyal Doctor Who supporter, the Radio Times, has revealed the results of their annual multi-channel survey. Their top fifty shows of the year have been elected by the magazine's TV critics, and Jodie Whittaker's long-awaited third season has been placed at a respectable number forty-four. RT  writer Huw Fullerton comments:

Whittaker’s final full Doctor Who series also proved to be her best, providing the Thirteenth Doctor with a pacy, action-packed adventure full of great cliffhangers, big twists and an all-time great episode in Chris Chibnall and Maxine Alderton’s Village of the Angels.

As the Doctor tracked down the Division, battled Swarm and Azure and tried to hold back the Flux over the course of six interlinked episodes, fans were on the edge of their seats and trying to solve every mystery.

Who were the Mouri? What were Vinder and Bel’s backstories? How did UNIT change, and what did any of it have to do with the absent Time Lords? There was so much going on, it was a surprise they managed to wrap everything up as neatly as they did in the finale.

It wasn’t a perfect series – there were a lot of underdeveloped characters, bizarre plot moves and some strange storytelling decisions – but in the face of COVID disaster, the Who team pulled

off a miracle by creating the pandemic-proof Doctor Who: Flux. Frankly, it’s a rescue the Doctor would’ve been proud of herself.

Doctor Who Vs. Bert & Dickie

This BBC1 film originally aired amid
 the buzz of the London Olympics in
 the summer of 2012, and told the
true story of two Britsh rowers,
thrown together just five weeks
before London's 'Austerity' games
of 1948.

Matt Smith and Sam Hoare port-

rayed the eventual double sculls

gold medallists, Bert Bushell (1921-
2010), and Richard Burnell (1917-

1995). The BBC News site released

a short interview with Smith on his

new role: "Billy's [William Ivory]

writing intersted me. There is

something heroic and victorious
about that story. I'd never got in

a boat before, so that was a

daunting but exciting challenge.

You learn that your body is just

a mechanism, and rowing isn't about pulling, it's about force [and]

pushing. I keep fit [on] Dr. Who but there are many levels of fit. If you watch any rowing final, you see the physical agony they're in after-

wards, it's like they've been hit over the head. Every ounce of your

body, every muscle is used, it's incredible." The drama was repeated

on Drama today - it featured fifteen other Doctor Who cast and crew

connections:

• Hoare [born Simon Patrick Douro] (pictured left) voiced Lucius for AudioGo's Serpent Crest: Tsar Wars (2011), then depicted Douglas Camfield in An Adventure in Space and Time
• Clive [Robert] Merrison (Clement Attlee) was Jim Callum in The Tomb of the Cybermen, and the Deputy Chief Caretaker in Paradise Towers, then voiced Sir Frederick Maltravers for BBV's The Barnacled Baby (2001), and George Augustus for Big Finish's The Contingency Club (2017)
• Adrian Lukis (Burleigh) voiced Officer Bragg for Cobwebs (2010), Byzan for The Children of Seth (2011), Professor Jeffrey Broderick for Counter Measures 1 (2012), Harvey Marsh for The Justice of Jalxar, and Sigmund Freud for Return of the Repressed (both 2013)
• Douglas [William] Hodge (John Bushnell) voiced Edge for Urban Myths, and Radu for Son of the Dragon (both 2007)
• Geoffrey [Dyson] Palmer (Don Burnell) was Masters in The Silurians, the Administrator in The Mutants, and Captain Hardaker in Voyage of the Damned
• Matt Barber (Wood) voiced Ivo Fraser Cannon for It Takes a Thief, and Tom Elliot for Red Planets (both 2018)
• Alexandra Moen (Rosalind) was last seen as Lucy Saxon in The End of Time
• Ron Cook (Albert) was Mr. Magpie in The Idiot's Lantern
• Graham Padden (Hawkins) was Pa in Gridlock
• Kevin Hudson (Wheelwright) had uncredited roles in twenty-nine stories (from The Long Game to The Timeless Children)
• Brian Shelley (Official) voiced Renval and Erys for The Brood of Erys, Roboman for The Traitor, and Tommy Dooley, Harrison and Viyran for The White Room (all 2014)
• Rory Herbert was also script supervisor on A Town Called Mercy, The Power of Three, The Rings of Akhaten, Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS and The Name of the Doctor
• costume designer Suzanne Cave and boom operator Sarah How both worked in those capacities on An Adventure in Space and Time too
• Nick Roberts was also ADR recordist on The Time of Angels, Flesh and Stone, The Vampires of Venice, Cold Blood and The Lodger

Doctor Who Vs. Quatermass IV

Mills (1908-2005)
succeeded Reginald
Tate, Brian Donlevy,
John Robinson, André
Morell and Andrew
Keir in the seminal
role

After an absence of twenty years, Professor
Bernard Quatermass (now portrayed by Sir
John Mills) returned to British television in
late 1979. Plans for a fourth Quatermass
thriller were first proposed when BBC2
launched the Out of the Unknown sci-fi
anthology strand in 1965. Then, following
 the success of Hammer's film version of
Quatermass and the Pit in 1967, the studio
announced it was in talks with series creator
Nigel Kneale. A new BBC serial was finally
 commissioned in 1972, but was abandoned
due to mounting production costs. Four years
later, Euston Films acquired the unmade
scripts, and the new drama was eventually
shown episodically on ITV, then as a TV movie
(entitled The Quatermass Conclusion) outside
the UK.
Another repeat run of Thames TV's four-part
sequel (produced by Verity Lambert) con-
cluded on the Talking Pictures TV channel

last night - it featured Simon MacCorkindale,

Barbara Kellerman, and seventeen Doctor

Who cast connections:

• Ralph Arliss [born James] (Kickalong) was Tuar in Planet of the Spiders
• Tony [Dominic] Sibbald (Marshall) was Huckle in Terror of the Zygons
• [William Reginald] Bruce Purchase (Roach) was the Captain in The Pirate Planet
• Neil [Edwin] Stacy (Gough) voiced Major Haggard for Big Finish's Tje Emerald Tiger (2012)
• David [Nicholas] Yip (Chen) was Veldan in Destiny of the Daleks, then voiced Curly and Inspector Yew for The Girl Who Never Was (2007), and Hector for Evolution (2013)
• Donald [Yarrow] Eccles (Chisholm) was Krasis in The Time Monster
• [Thomas] Kevin [Harvest] Stoney (PM) was Mavic Chen in The Daleks' Master Plan, Tobias Vaughn in The Invasion, and Tyrum in Revenge of the Cybermen
• David Ashford (Hatherley) was Dad in The Greatest Show in the Galaxy
• Brian [Henry] Croucher (Officer) was Borg in The Robots of Death, and Kurt in Shakedown: Return of the Sontarans
• Stewart Harwood (Driver) made his TV debut as an [uncredited] Daffodil Man in (episode 3 of) Terror of the Autons
• [Thomas] Declan Mulholland (Guard) was Clark in The Sea Devils, and Till in The Androids of Tara
• Trevor Lawrence (Catskin) was Lodge in Invasion of the Dinosaurs (1)
• Walter Henry [born Israel W Nagelkop] (Soldier) was an Extra in The Myth Makers (2) and The Siluruans (6), Primord in Inferno, and Brother in The Masque of Mandragora
• Christopher [Denis] Driscoll (Mugger) was the Security Guard in The Idiot's Lantern
• John [Kenneth] Tatham (Soldier) was Villager/Coven member in The Daemons
• [Frederick] Alan Meacham (Driver) and Fred Wood (Passenger) were Extras on Daleks: Invasion Earth 2150 AD

Doctor Who Vs. The Odessa File

Based on the 1972 novel by espionage writer 

Frederick Forsyth, this thriller told the story of 

journalist Peter Miller's (played by Jon Voight) 

investigation into Holocaust survivor, Solomon
Tauber and the subsequent search for the top
secret Odessa file.
Towards the end of the Second World War,

the Nazi secret society ODESSA was formed

 by members of the SS, among them Eduard 

Roschmann (portrayed here by Maximillian 

Schell), the butcher of Riga concentration 

camp. In 1963, President Nasser of Egypt 

sought to perfect a missile strike to destroy
Israel. His key scientists were mainly 

recruited from Hitler's former rocket

program and Odessa members still intent

on wiping out the Jews.

Released by Columbia in 1974, this Anglo-German film was shown

on TCM tonight - it featured Yorkshire-born actress Mary Tamm

(1950-2012), Derek Jacobi, and two other Doctor Who cast

connections:

• Peter Jeffrey (Porath) and Cyril Shaps (Voice of Tauber) both starred opposite Tamm in The Androids of Tara, as Count Grendel and the Archimandrite - Jeffrey was also the Pilot in The Macra Terror, whilst Shaps was also John Viner in The Tomb of the Cybermen, Dr. Lennox in The Ambassadors of Death, and Professor Herbert Clegg in Planet of the Spiders

Doctor Who Vs. Code of a Killer

This two-part drama from World Productions

centred on the true story of Professor Alex 

Jeffrey's discovery of DNA fingerprinting and 

its first application by Chief Superintendent

 David Baker in catching a double murderer.

Jeffreys (portrayed here by John Simm), a 

pioneering geneticist based at the University 

of Leicester, and DCS Baker (David Threlfall) 

achieved the single biggest leap in criminal investigative history by using the world's

 first mass DNA screening programme, which

 led to the conviction of Colin Pitchfork in 1988.

First screened in April 2015, Code of a Killer

was repeated on ITV last night - it featured

Anna Madeley, and seventeen Doctor Who

cast and crew connections:

• James Strong was also the director of The Impossible Planet, The Satan Pit, Daleks in Manhattan, Evolution of the Daleks, Voyage of the Damned, Partners in Crime and Planet of the Dead
• Big Finish actor Siobhan Redmond (Joy) voiced Talin for Revenge of the Swarm, then the titular renegade for The Rani Elite (both 2014), and Planet of the Rani (2015)
• Paul [Mackriell] Copley (Jeffreys) was Clem McDonald in Torchwood: Children of Earth, and voiced Dad for Spare Parts (2007), and Jimmy Deel for Missing Persons (2013)
• Shirley Dixon (Joan) provided the voice of Skagra's ship for Shada
• Robert Glenister (DCC Chapman) was Salateen in The Caves of Androzani, then played Thomas Edison in Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror
• Andrew Tiernan (DS Taylor) was Mr. Purcell in Night Terrors
• Rakie Ayola (Helena) was the Hostess in Midnight, then voiced Pollia and Countdown for The Lords of Terror (2018), Andrea Davenport for Another Man's Shoes, Andrea for One Mile Down (both 2019), Emma for Red Base (2020), Violet Hardaker for The Blazing Hour (2021), and Dakota Bly for Charlotte Pollard: The Further Adventures (2022)
• Neil Edmond (Ashworth) voiced Boatman, Guard and Blank for Vampire of the Mind, Sarlon, Gorlan and Time Lord for The Two Masters, and Professor Aryan Wyke and Mine Worker for Absolute Power (all 2016)
• Mike Jones was also film editor on twelve episodes (from Rose to Face the Raven)
• Ray Holman was also costume designer on fifty-nine stories (from Blink to Series 13), and Torchwood
• Ian Adrian (2nd Unit DoP) and Sebastian Marczewski (2nd asst. cameraman) both worked on An Adventure in Space and Time, as camera operator and camera trainee respectively
• Ian Fowler was also costume assistant on fourteen episodes (from Into the Dalek to The Husbands of River Song)
• Andrew Mear was costume assistant on The End of the World too
• Simon Marks was also costume supervisor on the whole of Series 9
• Chris Pollard was a stuntman on Robot of Sherwood too
• Tony Lucken was also a stuntman on Dalek, Bad Wolf, The Parting of the Ways and The End of Time

Doctor Who Vs. Vigil, Series 1

World Productions' acclaimed

Scottish crime drama, created

 and written by Tom Edge, was

set on a Royal Navy nuclear

submarine.

Suranne Jones portrayed DCI

Silva, the detective assigned

to a murder investigation on-

board HMS Vigil.

The six-part thriller concluded

on BBC1 last night - it featured

Anjli Mohindra, Rose Leslie,

Shaun Evans, Martin Compston,

and twelve Doctor Who cast and

crew connections:

• Jones played the titular subject in The Sarah Jane Adventures: Mona Lisa's Revenge, then Idris in The Doctor's Wife
• James Strong was also director of The Impossible Planet, The Satan Pit, Daleks in Manhattan, Evolution of the Daleks, Voyage of the Damned, Partners in Crime and Planet of the Dead
• Paterson [Davis] Joseph (Newsome) was Rodrick in Bad Wolf and The Parting of the Ways, then voiced Victor Espinosa for Earth Aid (2011), and Matthew for Torchwood One: Machines (2018)
• Adam James (Prentice) was DI Macmillan in Planet of the Dead
• Dan Li (Hennessy) was Alexei in The Bells of Saint John, then voiced Grillo Clavik for The Genesis Chamber, Dokan for UNIT: Shutdown (both 2016), and Okada Shumei for The Barbarians and the Samurai (2018)
• Lois Chimimba (Tara) was Mabli in The Tsuranga Conundrum, and voiced Abby McPhail for Redacted, Euphemia for The Undying Truth (2020), and Bartholom for Solitary Confinement (2023)
• Oliver Lansley (Hill) was Jorj in World Enough and Time, and voiced Jack Ridpath for Chapel of Night (2017)
• Bhav Joshi (Deerborne) was Canterbury James Olliphant in Boom
• Andrew Burford was also stuntman on The Eaters of Light, The Doctor Falls, Twice Upon a Time, Kerblam!, The Witchfinders, The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos and Spyfall (2)
• Xavier Lake (Trawlerman) was stuntman on The Woman Who Fell to Earth, Revolution of the Daleks and Class
• Alex Balmer was also digital compositor on twenty-nine stories (from Deep Breath to Oxygen) and Class
• Emma Dorward (draughtsperson) was art department trainee on Robot of Sherwood, Time Heist, Flatline, Dark Water and Class

Doctor Who Vs. The Pale Horse

The Queen of Crime's fifty-second
crime novel (serialised then pub-
lished in 1961) featured novelist
Ariadne Oliver. She also appeared
in seven other books (from 1936
to 1972), but was omitted from
both of ITV's adaptations of The 
Pale Horse (shown in 1997 and
2010), and Mammoth Screen's

version.
The mystery was also dramatised
twice for BBC Radio, in 1993 and
2014. BBC1's most recent Agatha

Christie thriller (another screen-

play from Sarah Phelps) was first

shown in February 2020. The full,

two-part version was repeated on

BBC4 last night - it featured Rufus Sewell, Kaya Scodelario, and twenty-

one Doctor Who cast and crew connections:

• Bertie [born Robert] Carvel (Osborne here; Max Mallowan in Agatha Christie: A Life in Pictures) was the Mysterious Man in The Lazarus Experiment
• Sean [Carl] Pertwee (DI Lejeune here; Oglander in The King of Clubs; Dr. Griffith in The Moving Finger, 2006; Stubbs in Dead Man's Folly, 2013) made a cameo appearance in The Five(ish) Doctors
• Claire Skinner (Yvonne here; Amy in A Murder is Announced, 2005; Miss Rich in Cat Among the Pigeons;) was Madge Arwell in The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe
• Sarah Woodward (Clemency here; Jane in Death in the Clouds) voiced Theodora for Secret History (2015), Vesh Taralesh for Stolen Goods (2018), and Anla Jessik for The Quest of the Engineer (2020)
• James [Edward] Fleet (Venables here; Carter in The Secret Adversary; Scudamore & Sherston for Absent in the Spring) voiced O'Reilley for Max Warp (2008), Geoff Cooper for The Entropy Composition, and Martin Ashcroft and Sir Jack Merrivale for Special Features (both 2010)
• Nicky Goldie (Mrs. Coppins here; cast in Witness for the Prosecution, 2024) voiced the Spillager Empress for Winter for the Adept, Valeria Hedone for The Fires of Vulcan (both 2000), Inquisitor Danby for Excelis Rising (2002), and Polk for The Moonrakers (2020)
• stunt co-ordinators Dani Biernat and Crispin Layfield both worked on the revived run
• Matt Hermiston was stuntman on The Woman Who Fell to Earth too
• Charlotte Mitchell (costume designer here; assistant on Poirot) was costume assistant on Love & Monsters, then supervisor on Blink and Turn Left
• David Key was also camera assistant on six adventures (from Last Christmas to Twice Upon a Time)
• Joanne Pearce (art director) was prop buyer on The Return of Doctor Mysterio, The Pilot, Smile and The Doctor Falls
• James Moss was also camera operator on The Sontaran Stratagem, The Poison Sky and Torchwood
• Matt Sanders (art director was draughtsman on ten episodes (from the 2016 Christmas special to Twice Upon a Time) and artist on Class
• Gareth Webb (3rd Crowd AD) was floor runner on Hide, Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS, Nightmare in Silver and The Name of the Doctor
• Shirley Schumacher was also focus puller on The Beast Below and Victory of the Daleks
• Dewi Jones (sound first assistant) was boom operator on The Five (ish) Doctors Reboot
• Mark Turner was SFX supervisor on The Long Game too
• Ben Blackall was also stills photographer on twenty stories (from The Woman Who Fell to Earth to The Timeless Children)
• Luke Jefferson was first assistant camera on Death in Heaven too
• Monty Till (location manager) was unit manager on eight episodes (from The Snowmen to The Time of the Doctor)

Doctor Who Vs. Ordeal By Innocence

Published in late 1958, the Queen

of Crime's fifty-seventh mystery

novel was one of the author's favourite works and is now

considered a classic of the genre. 

Cannon Films' adaptation of Ordeal

By Innocence was released in 1985,

followed by ITV Studio's treatment 
for Marple in 2007. 
This version was scripted by Sarah

Phelps, writer of And Then There

Were None and Witness for the Prosecution.

When allegations of sexual assault 
were levelled at actor Ed Westwick 
his role was recast and makers 
Mammoth Screen returned to 
Scotland to reshoot the drama. The whole, three-part thriller (event-

ually shown in April 2018 after a four-month postponemnet) was

repeated for BBC4's Agatha Christie season last night - it featured

Anna Chancellor, Anthony Boyle, Luke Treadaway, Alice Eve,

Matthew Goode, and eleven Doctor Who cast and crew alumni:

• Bill [Francis] Nighy (Leo Argyll here; Marsh in Thirteen at Dinner) played Dr. Black in Vincent and the Doctor
• Morven Christie (Kirsten here; Elsie in The Labours of Hercules) was Alice O'Donnell in Under the Lake and Before the Flood
• Christian [Louis] Cooke (replaced Westwick as Mickey) was Private Ross Jenkins in The Sontaran Stratagem and The Poison Sky
• Eleanor Tomlinson (Mary) was Eve in The Sarah Jane Adventures: The Mad Woman in the Attic
• Brian McCardie (Gould) voiced Alan Weir for Big Finish's Masters of Earth (2014)
• Gary Hoptrough was also stuntman on The Runaway Bride and Let's Kill Hitler
• stunt co-ordinator Tony Lucken was stuntman on Dalek, Bad Wolf, The Parting of the Ways and The End of Time
• Adam Recht was film editor on A Christmas Carol too
• Gerry Glynn and David Kneath were also SFX technicians on four- teen episodes (from Kill the Moon to Twice Upon a Time) and six- teen others (from Into the Dalek to The Husbands of River Song)
• conductor Dave Foster was a musician on over a hundred stories (from Voyage of the Damned to

Doctor Who Vs. Tower Block

This low-budget British thriller (a co-
production from Creativity Media and
Tea Shop) was written by James
Moran, and premiered at the 2012
FrightFest Film Festival - a theatrical

release followed a month later.

Shown again on the Horror channel

last night, Tower Block featured

Sheridan Smith, Jack O'Connell,

Ralph Brown, and nine Doctor Who

cast and crew connections:

• Russell [George] Tovey (Paul) played Midshipman Alonso Frame in Voyage of the Dead - a role he reprised for The End of Time, Part 2 and Big Finish's One Enchanted Evening (2017)
• Julie Graham (Carol) was Ruby White in The Sarah Jane Adventures: Goodbye, Sarah Jane Smith, then Ravio in Ascension of the Cybermen and The Timeless Children - she also voiced Prime Minister 470 for Planet X (2016), Carolyn for The Blood Furnace (2017), and Miss Beecham and Sovari for The Year of Martha Jones (2021)
• Nabil Elouahabi (Gary) voiced Esteban for The Flames of Cadiz (2013)
• Steven Cree (DC Devlin) voiced Neil Redmond for Uncanny Valley (2016)
• James Weber Brown (Brian) was the Minister in In The Forest of the Night
• Louise Brown was foley artist on The Woman Who Fell to Earth too
• Stuart Conran was also the prosthetics artist on New Earth and The Idiot's Lantern
• Scott MacIntyre was supervising armourer on Twice Upon a Time too
• Mark Corden (runner) was second assistant director on Can You Hear Me?

Doctor Who Vs. Scandal

This British drama is a fictionalised
account of the Profumo affair that
rocked the British government in
1963, and premiered at the Cannes
Film Festival.
The theme song Nothing Has Been
Proved was penned and produced
by Pet Shop Boys and performed

by Dusty Springfield.
Dr. Stephen Ward (depicted here
by John Hurt) courted the rich
and famous at his London practice,
and even moved in royal circles.
He lived on the Astor's family estate
of Cliveden, and in 1961 at a party
there, Ward introduced married Tory
minister John Profumo (portrayed by
Ian McKellen) to showgirl Christine Keeler (Joanne Whalley).

They embarked on an affair, but Keeler was also sleeping with a

known Soviet spy, Captain Eugene Ivanov (Jeroen Krabbe), and

Ward observed there was the potential to start 'World War Three'.
Profumo (1915-2006) was forced to resign after lying in Parliament,

but Ward became the scapegoat for the scandal. Having supplied the

 social elite with prostitutes, he was charged with living off immoral

earnings.
The most famous moment of the osteopath's Old Bailey trial came

when his former mistress, Mandy Rice Davis (Bridget Fonda) gave

evidence. When told that Lord Astor (Leslie Phillips) had denied

paying her for sex, she replied "Well, he would wouldn't he?" When

Ward was found guilty, the accused lay in a coma following a suicide

attempt and he died days later.

The first television retelling of the story, The Trial of Christine Keeler,
was shown on BBC1 in December 2019. Originally developed for TV

 in the mid 1980s, Scandal was rejected by the BBC then Channel 4,

but was eventually released by Palace Pictures  in early 1989 - it 

featured eleven other Doctor Who cast alumni:

• McKellen provided the voice of the Great Intelligence for The Snowmen, and had a cameo in The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot
• Paul Brooke (DS John) voiced Toby for Big Finish's Year of the Pig (2006)
• Carry On actor Phillips voiced Robert Knox for Medicinal Purposes (2004), and Assassin in the Limelight (2008) - he worked with Hurt again in King Ralph
• Ronald [Gordon] Fraser (Justice Marshall) was Joseph C in The Happiness Patrol
• Iain Cuthbertson (Lord Hailsham) was Garron in The Ribos Operation
• Sarah Prince (Secretary) was Karuna in Kinda
• Raad Rawi (Aziz) voiced Prince Haasan Al-Nadyr for Who Killed Toby Kinsella? (2016), Bishop Nicholas for Ravenous 2 (2018), and Tubal, Maygo and King Hiarbas of Tunis for The Phoenicians (2019)
• Malcolm Terris (Gent) was Etnin in (episode 1 of) The Dominators, and the Co-Pilot in The Horns of Nimon
• Tariq Yunus (Khan) was Cass in The Robots of Death
• Tina Simmons (Critic) made her TV debut as an Inferno Customer in The War Machines (1)
• camera operator Simon Archer was the cinematographer on The Lodger

Doctor Who Vs. Quatermass II

My first exposure to the work of Nigel Kneale

was viewing the rerun of the third episode of

this classic thriller. The Food was repeated as

part of BBC2's The Lime Grove Story in August

1991.

The second Quatermass serial is the earliest to
survive in its entirety in the BBC archives, and
was commissioned to directly challenge the

new ITV network - launched in September 

1955.

Here, Professor Bernard Quatermass (now
portrayed by John Robinson) investigates a

secret plant in Northern England - he uncovers

the alien infiltration of the highest levels of the

British government.

Kneale (1922-2006) was influenced by the

damaging effects of industrialisation and

government corruption by big business, foreshadowing globalisation.

The writer again collaborated with director Rudolph Cartier (1904-1994), and since The Quatermass Experiment in 1953, they had

adapted Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four and Kneale's own The

Creature (both starred Peter Cushing).

This location filming was the most ambitious ever undertaken for a

British TV drama, and the new production was transmitted live from

Studio G at Lime Grove. The six-part sci-fi epic was again shown on

Saturday nights in October and November 1955 - it featured Roger Delgado, and sixteen other Doctor Who cast and crew connections:

• Cyril [Leonard] Shaps (Assistant) was John Viner in The Tomb of the Cybermen, Lennox in The Ambassadors of Death, Professor Herbert Clegg in (part 1 of) Planet of the Spiders, and the Archimandrite in The Androids of Tara
• [John] Brian Moorehead (Guard/Paratrooper) was Guard in State of Decay (3), Gundan in Warriors' Gate (3), and Guest in Snakedance
• [Robert] Michael Bilton and [George] Reginald Jessup (Technicians) both appeared in The Massacre, as Charles de Teligny and Servant respectively - Bilton was also Collins in Pyramids of Mars, and Time Lord in The Deadly Assassin, whilst Jessup was Lord Savar in The Invasion of Time
• Patrick Carter (Ambulance Man) was the Bosun in The Chase (3)
• Harry Brooks (Guard/Sergeant) was both Cybermen Krang and Talon in The Tenth Planet
• Melvyn Hayes [born Hyams] (Frankie) voiced Wilkin for Shada (2003), and the titular aliens for Big Finish's The Scorchies (2013)
• Michael [Brabazon] Rathbone (Worker) was a Taxi Driver in The War Machines (2)
• Denis [Joseph] McCarthy (Doctor) provided the voice of Controller Rinberg in The Moonbase (2)
• John Herrington (Riot Extra here, Stall Owner in Quatermass and the Pit) was Rhynmal in The Daleks' Master Plan (5), and Holden in Colony in Space (2)
• George [William] Tovey (Worker) was Ernie Clements in Pyramids of Mars
• for Malcolm Watson, Jack Kine, Bernard Wilkie and Michael Leeston Smith see The Quatermass Experiment
• design assistant Darrol Blake was director of The Stones of Blood

Doctor Who Vs. The Second Coming

This acclaimed Northern morality tale was

written by executive producer Russell T

Davies, who cast Salford-born Christopher

Eccleston in the lead role of Stephen Baxter.

Long-serving Doctor Who composer Murray Gold provided the music here too. Both he

and Davies were nominated for Royal

Television Society awards, whilst Eccleston
earned a BAFTA Best Actor nomination.

Originally commissioned by Channel 4 in
1999, and later turned down by the BBC,
The Second Coming was eventually made

by Red Productions for ITV over the summer
of 2002. 

Following a drunken night-out in Manchester,
Baxter disappears for forty days and nights.
He is found wandering Saddleworth Moor,

and claims to be the 'second coming' of

Jesus, the Son of God. After performing a

modern-day miracle at Manchester City's

Maine Road stadium (turning night into day), he proclaims to the

world's media that he has just five days to find the human race's

 Third Testament, and avert the Apocalypse.

Granada's Liverpool-based drama Springhill, also penned by Davies,

ended it's run in 1997 with a recital of The Second Coming by WB

Yeats, and was essentially a story of good-versus-evil too.
Screened over two consecutive nights in February 2003, this drama

also featured Tim Woodward, Peter Wight, and thirteen other Doctor

Who cast and crew connections:

• Lesley Sharp [born Karen Makinson] (Judith) played Sky Silvestry in Midnight  - she also worked with Eccleston on Clocking Off and The Shadow Line, and with Davies on Bob & Rose)
• Mark Benton (Tyler) was Clive Finch in Rose and Big Finish's The Dimension Cannon (2020), and voiced Ellis for Invaders from Mars (2002), and Jack Coulson for Energy of the Daleks (2012)
• Rory [Michael] Kinnear (Dillane) voiced Samuel Belfrage for Industrial Evolution (2011)
• Ace [Ahsen Rafiq] Bhatti (Gupta) was Haresh Chandra in The Sarah Jane Adventures
• Jennifer Hennessy [born Hayes] (Reporter) was Valerie in Gridlock, and Moira in The Pilot and Extremis
• Angel Coulby (PC Fraser) was Katherine in The Girl in the Fireplace
• Ray Emmet Brown (Nurse) voiced No. 16 for House of Blue Fire (2011)
• Denise Black [born Dixon] (Rachel) voiced Eva Jericho for Damaged Goods, Control for Rise and Shine (both 2015), and Mrs. Mountford for The Haunting of Malkin Place (2017)
• stunt co-ordinator Gareth Milne was George Cranleigh in Black Orchid, an Attendant in Vengeance on Varos, and doubled for Peter Davison in Warriors of the Deep
• Rick English was a stuntman on Tooth and Claw too
• Davy Jones was also make-up designer on fifteen adventures (from Rose to Cold Blood)
• associate producer Des Hughes was line producer on eight stories (from The Snowmen to The Time of the Doctor), and had a cameo in The Five(ish) Doctors
• SFX supervisor Graham Brown was a SFX assistant on Resurrection of the Daleks and Attack of the Cybermen, uncredited VFX assist- ant on (part 4 of) Full Circle, The Five Doctors, The Caves of Androzani (4) and Revelation of the Daleks (2), then VFX designer on The Curse of Fenric