Into the Vortex

There is currently a new Doctor Who Magazine special out, fresh onto the shelves, and I'm pleased to say that I was asked to contribute to it. It's a particularly nice one to be a part of, as it's a bit of a mammoth effort - the first complete episode guide to the show which DWM has done for a very long time. The idea is that with almost the entire show now available on the BBC iPlayer for anyone to watch pretty much any of, this will help highlight connections and themes between stories.

Given its nature, it's an all-hands-on-deck sort of effort, and I was pleased to be asked to be one of those hands. I ended up writing the entries for the Ninth Doctor's first three episodes, and the Tenth Doctor's first four, something I enjoyed very much as they're all episodes I know very well and like a great deal. This includes episodes such as Rose, the opening episode of the show's revival in 2005 which means a very great deal to me, as I suspect it does to many other Doctor Who fans, and that year's Christmas special The Christmas Invasion, which is one of my very favourite episodes.

But with a few of them it was quite some time since I'd last gone back and re-watched them, so it was fun to do that. There were one or two things I spotted which I don't think I'd noticed before, so it was nice to be able to include some of those observations. I also enjoyed looking back through some of the contemporary reviews of and pieces about the episodes for the 'What They Said' sections of the pieces - nice to get a snippet of Bonnie Greer's Newsnight Review verdict in there! Which I'm sure many will remember from the time.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy it if you do have a read, as there's lots of great work by many of the great and the good of Doctor Who writing. And me! Into the Vortex is available now from all the usual places, including the magazine's website.