'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