‘It was plain the Martians appreciated the strategic significance of the British Isles. The people of Britain met the invaders magnificently, but it was unavailing.’ There’s something cinematic about Terry Nation’s Doctor Who scripts. Perhaps he just had a complete disregard for the limitations of Lime Grove, or, after The Daleks, an utter faith that the BBC could execute whatever he threw their way. But there’s a reason why Dr. Who and the Daleks and The Keys of Marinus were considered suitable for feature film treatments and, say, The Sensorites and Planet of Giants weren’t.

‘He knew there’s only one way to fight a war. Any war. With your gloves off.’ Looking for Peter is a fascinating extra on the DVD of The Sensorites, in which Toby Hadoke’s mild curiosity about the writer Peter R Newman becomes a touching voyage of discovery leading to Newman’s elderly sister, and the story of his tragic early death. Along the way, Hadoke chats to DWM’s Marcus Hearn about Newman’s other writing credits – beyond Doctor Who, the only notable one being Yesterday’s Enemy.

‘Blood. Blood. There shall be more blood.’ The Discontinuity Guide states The Royal Hunt of the Sun, Peter Shaffer’s 1964 play of the fatal encounter between Spanish conquistadors and the Inca, as a key influence on The Aztecs. About Time is less confident, suggesting the dates of the first performance don’t quite stack up with when we know John Lucarotti proposed an Aztec story. Other than the Mexican setting and possibly the theme of Atahualpa’s baptism, which has some slight parallels to Autloc’s own spiritual awakening, I don’t perceive significant influences, and am more inclined to the About Time view. Instead, I speculated in the Marco Polo / Farewell, Great Macedon entry, that perhaps Lucarotti was working from the same prompt as Moris Farhi – the notion of the TARDIS crew interfering in history, for philanthropic purposes but against the customs and consent of the locals – weaving this (David Whitaker?) idea into his Aztec setting.

‘The weird. The unknown. The terrifying. The mysterious…’ It’s said that Milton Subotsky considered The Keys of Marinus as the basis for a third Dr. Who movie in 1966. If this is accurate, it’s not difficult to see why: Subotsky’s greatest success to date had been the movie he made directly before Dr. Who and the Daleks: Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors. It’s a portmanteau film – made up of five distinct “episodes” wrapped in a sixth, over-arching story – inspired by Subotsky’s love of the 1945 horror Dead of Night. Perhaps, when he was mulling over a third Dr. Who film following the disappointing box office of Daleks’ Invasion Earth 2150 A.D., Subotsky saw an opportunity to combine the Dr. Who brand with his own particular obsession for anthologies, and naturally landed on Doctor Who’s first and (depending on your view of The Chase) last portmanteau horror.