Episode One: At the Temple of the Fourth (3/7/2001)
‘Shoot me, get on with it, I don’t mind. I’ve been dead before.’ The first BBCi webcast episode heads in a direction the revived TV series avoided (at least initially), taking its cues from 1990s sci-fi blockbusters (the space blockade, planetary invasions, defiant senators and mystic alien teachers are all very Star Wars), rather than Yetis on the loo. After an airy fairy voiceover, it opens noisily, in the middle of a battle between two alien fleets: the baddies led by the smug and evil general Tannis (a smarmy John Sessions) and the goodies commanded by Admiral Mettna (Jacqueline Pearce). It’s noisy and fairly butch, culminating in a trooper telling the conquered senate, ‘No help is coming’ just as the TARDIS materialises and the Doctor pops out.

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‘Somehow, I don’t think the second coming happens here.’ 25 years on, when it’s no longer a false dawn, it’s much easier to appreciate the TV Movie as a prologue to the 2005 revival instead of the epilogue to the 1963 series. It’s much more like one of the New Testament’s festive specials, especially The Runaway Bride (another sassy redhead in a gown who thinks the Doctor’s nuts and turns down the chance to join him), than anything in the Old Testament.

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The Paradise of Death

Episode One (27/9/1993)
‘Since when have I ever painted my toe-nails pink?’ The BBC’s first attempt at Doctor Who for the radio since Slipback, and, again, it’s meant to plug the gap left on TV. The difference is that the show is no longer a going concern so it makes sense to do a nostalgia piece for the 30th anniversary, bringing back the senior living Doctor and reuniting him with the most popular companion.

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‘Who was that terrible woman?’ The Rani’s plan is perfectly consistent with her previous attempts to control the course of evolution, although it takes a hastily over-dubbed ‘it’ll overload’ to clarify why having ‘two time brains’ is a Bad Thing. This does mean the Doctor’s plan relies on making the best of a lucky break, but what do you expect in an episode that runs for five minutes?

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‘I can hear the heartbeat of a killer.’ Possibly the keystone episode of the series: it deconstructs 30 years of backstory, positing the Doctor and companion as eternal strangers, never in one place and time for more than a heartbeat, intersecting with real time and then gone in a flash. The constant changes of actor, the roving camera, the melange of elements suggest the inherent mutability of the show, brilliantly conveyed in Pertwee’s profoundly insightful, even moving interjection, ‘Change. You, me, everything.’

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‘Absolutely brilliant at some things, excruciatingly bad at others and, well, just inexplicable at the rest.’ Broadcast as part of The Lime Grove Story commemorating the closure of those studios, this is the original version of An Unearthly Child – the one that prompted Sydney Newman to order a remount. It’s understandable why – although later first Doctor episodes included worse fluffs (here, Jacqueline Hill stumbles over ’15 year old girl’ and Hartnell sounds like he’s making up his speech about ancient Romans and gunpowder) they aren’t the kind of things you want in your showcase first night.

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‘I felt like I could run forever, like I could smell the wind and feel the grass under my feet and just run forever.’ Rona Munro shows her workings a little bit too clearly as Midge is transformed into a Yuppie, and I’ve never quite understood why – of all things – the Master gets a gang that looks like the Jets from the Soho Men’s Choir production of West Side Story and decides a game of chicken on motorbikes is the best way to get rid of the Doctor. However, this largely lands the ending. It helps that Munro has written a three-part story with three episodes’ worth of material (rather than four or five), and so even if the details of the Master’s plan are wonky we can follow the progress to that point.

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‘Do you know any nice people? You know, ordinary people, not power-crazed nutters trying to take over the galaxy?’ Ainley’s performance, controlled, almost subdued, like the Master is battling to suppress the animal instincts that threaten to rule him, disproves the idea he was just an old ham. This wouldn’t have worked in something like The Mark of the Rani – he would have been lost against Colin Baker and Kate O’Mara, but here it’s exactly what the script requires, and it adds impact to the moments when he surrenders to the power of the cat to howl at the moon.

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‘So what’s so terrible about Perivale?’ The opening sets the tone: on a suburban street a man (living with his mum, we can all infer the rest) runs from something terrifying. The Curse of Fenric included a similar, typically Doctor Who moment – but normally it’s on a haunted beach or a space station corridor, not West London in broad daylight in the present day. This is the most domestic Doctor Who story, juxtaposing the local youth club, a playground, a corner shop, with alien cat people from a pink-skied planet.

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‘They’re trying to control the world with chemical weapons. Let’s join forces. Fight the real enemy.’ “So, the secret of defeating Fenric is an illegal chess move and a quick chat with the Ancient One. Simples. Now that’s all sorted let’s dry clean our clothes and go for a swim and try not to worry about your grandma turning up on the doorstep of a complete stranger in Streatham.” I bet Kathleen nursed a grudge against that Ace for years for sending her on a wild goose chase.

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