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, Siobhan Redmond, and eighteen

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
• 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)
• Esther Coles (Mrs. Pascoe) voiced Scott for Lethal Progress (2026)
• Alicia Woodhouse (Sister) voiced Novice Susan for The Council of Susan (2026)
• 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 these thirteen 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), Okada Shumei for The Barbarians and the Samurai (2018), Mike Chaoxiang/Raptor for Master! 3 (2024), and Lee Hoi Sang/Stall holder/KC Chen for The First Question (2026)
• 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)
• Lorne [Alasdair] MacFadyen (Doward) voiced Sergeant Jack McManis for Dark Side of the Moon (2022), Kaiju (2025) and Shining Armour (2026), Frank Jewell for His Close Companions, Auctioneer for The Foxglove Cylinders, and Alan Stubbs for The Sitter (all 2024)
• 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. 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

impact 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. A Very British Coup

Published in 1981, this novel by Chris

Mullin (Labour MP for Sunderland South

from 1987 to 2010) explored the term

of beleaguered left-wing Prime Minister,

Harry Perkins. The story was first adapted

by Alan Plater for Channel 4 in 1988.

Here, against all the odds, working-class

MP for Sheffield Central and leader of the

Labour party Perkins (portrayed by Ray

McAnally) becomes Prime Minister.

Elected on a mandate of open government,
Perkins vows to dismantle Britain's nuclear
deterrent and media monopolies, but is soon
faced with an Establishment coup planned
by MI5, the CIA and right-wing press barons.

The book was written at a time when Tony
Benn (1925-2014), a fierce opponent of the Conservative regime, looked likely to become Labour's deputy leader.

The storyline was also informed by rumours (only confirmed in 1986)

 that the security services had plotted to depose Harold Wilson in the

mid-seventies.

This landmark political drama was reworked as Secret State in 2012,

and Mullins is working on a sequel. The original three-part series won

four BAFTA awards and an International Emmy (was finally released

on DVD in 2011), and featured Caroline John, Geoffrey Beevers,

Keith Allen, and seventeen other Doctor Who cast connections:

• Bernard [Frederic Bemrose] Kay (Page) was Carl Tyler in The Dalek Invasion of Earth, Saladin in The Crusade, DI Crossland in The Faceless Ones, and Caldwell in Colony in Space, then voiced Major Dickens for Big Finish's Night Thoughts (2006)
• Hugh Martin (Sampson) was Munro in Terror of the Zygons, and the Priest in Vengeance on Varos
• Tim McInnerny (Fiennes) was Halpen in Planet of the Ood, and voiced Admiral Dolne for The Well-Mannered War (2015)
• Christine [Mary] Kavanagh (Liz) was Aram in Timelash, and voiced Patience for Cold Fusion (2016), Dora Muse for Muse of Fire (2018), and Magog and Juno for The Iron Legion (2019)
• David McKail (Robertson) was Sergeant Kyle in The Talons of Weng-Chiang
• Shane Rimmer (US Secretary of State) was Seth Harper in The Gunfighters
• Clive [Robert] Merrison (Interviewer) was Jim Callum in The Tomb of the Cybermen, and the Deputy Chief Caretaker in Paradise Towers, and voiced George Augustus for The Contingency Club (2017)
• Philip [Arvon] Madoc (Fison) was Eelek in The Krotons, the War Lord in The War Games, Dr. Mehendri Solon in The Brain of Morbius, Fenner in The Power of Kroll, Brockley in Daleks: Invasion Earth 2150 AD, then voiced Victor Schaeffer for Master (2003), and Rag Cobden for Return of the Krotons (2009)
• Jeremy Young (Alford) was Kal in 100,000 BC, and Gordon Lowery in Mission to the Unknown
• Stephanie Fayerman (Editor) was McLuhan in Dragonfire
• Jim [Edward] Carter (Newsome) voiced Brother Bernard for The Book of Kells (2011)
• [David] Roger Brierley (Andrews) was Trevor in (episode 8 of) The Daleks' Master Plan, and voiced Drathro in The Mysterious Planet
• Preston [Rginald Herbert] Lockwood (Fain) was Dojjen in Snakedance
• Barbara Ward (Reporter) was Ruth Baxter in Terror of the Vervoids
• Jessica [born Judith] Carney (Maureen) is the grand-daughter of William Hartnell and the author of his 1996 biography Who's There? (she was depicted in An Adventure in Space and Time by Cara Jenkins)
• Julian Fox (Porter) was Peter Hamilton in Death to the Daleks
• Zulema [Noel] Dene [born Walliker] (Vision Mixer) voiced Danna for Soldier Obscura (2018)
• Ernest Vincze was also the cinematographer on thirty-eight adventures (from Rose to The Waters of Mars)