Doctor Who: Exploring Tales of the TARDIS
Mark Harrison | On 23, Jun 2024
As new Doctor Who travels worldwide on Disney+, UK viewers can explore the entire Whoniverse on BBC iPlayer. Whether it’s the original run from 1963, the revival since 2005, or any of the fun extras in between, consider this your primer on a back-catalogue that’s bigger on the inside…
Note: This feature contains spoilers for the finale of Doctor Who Season 14.
“It’s a special place where old friends come together to share stories, to remember and to confront difficult truths.”
Among the various Doctor Who treats that were included in BBC iPlayer’s Whoniverse section for last November’s 60th-anniversary celebrations, Tales of the TARDIS was the most last-minute addition. Starring classic Doctors Peter Davison, Colin Baker, and Sylvester McCoy and various companions, it’s a novel approach to a good old-fashioned clip-show.
Conceived in summer 2023, the format revolves around the “Memory TARDIS” seen in the 2024 finale Empire Of Death, as a place where pairs of characters come together at the ages their actors are now, to reminisce (and sometimes vent) about a classic adventure. The serial in question plays out as an omnibus edition, usually running about 90 minutes, with the new material as bookends.
The first six episodes are directed by Joshua MG Thomas with new material largely written by New Who regulars Pete McTighe and Phil Ford. Showrunner Russell T Davies wrote the first episode and the recent seventh episode, which sees Ncuti Gatwa and Millie Gibson reflecting on the events of Pyramids of Mars, which are given a new edit and a visual-effects polish to herald Sutekh’s return in the show proper.
It’s a fun way to present archive telly to new and old audiences alike – a selection box that’s not meant to be binged but picked up when you’re in the mood to discover or revisit a specific story. We’ll cover these in episode order, but the beauty is, they’re there whenever you want them.
Earthshock
Originally broadcast: 8th – 16th March 1984
Written by: Eric Saward | Russell T Davies
Remembering: The Fifth Doctor (Peter Davison) and Tegan Jovanka (Janet Fielding)
“What kind of gimcrack TARDIS is this?!”
First off, the Fifth Doctor and Tegan gather around a campfire-size model of Jodie Whittaker’s TARDIS console room to commemorate their companion, Adric. As seen in the way he’s been mentioned recent Doctor Who specials and in the intro to this omnibus, Earthshock’s reputation precedes it, but the bulk of the story is about trying to stop the Cybermen hijacking a deep-space freighter in the 26th century.
The Mind Robber
Originally broadcast: 14th September – 12th October 1968
Written by: Peter Ling | Pete McTighe
Remembering: Jamie McCrimmon (Frazer Hines) and Zoe Heriot (Wendy Padbury)
“One last gift from the Doctor.”
The Second Doctor, Jamie and Zoe are among the all-time best TARDIS teams the show is had, and it’s lovely to see Hines and Heriot as older versions of their characters. Without the Doctor to explain why they’re here, they reflect on another story with TARDIS trouble, The Mind Robber. Set in a Land of Fiction, this is the most psychedelic Doctor Who story of its time, packed with the most arresting imagery of the black-and-white era.
Vengeance on Varos
Originally broadcast: 19th – 26th January 1984
Written by: Philip Martin | Phil Ford
Remembering: The Sixth Doctor (Colin Baker) and Peri Brown (Nicola Bryant)
“Good can come from even the darkest of places.”
Itching to be watched every time a UK election comes around, Vengeance on Varos is a political thriller set in a society governed by interactive television votes. While the Sixth Doctor and Peri reflect on their first brush with the repulsive Sil and the Mentors, the Memory TARDIS gives Colin Baker a space to finally wear a different costume on screen and Nicola Bryant more dialogue with the Doctor about his poor treatment of Peri in that first season. It’s a satisfying return for a duo who have been historically underserved on telly.
The Three Doctors
Originally broadcast: 30th December 1972 – 20th January 1973
Written by: Bob Baker and Dave Martin | Phil Ford
Remembering: Jo Grant (Katy Manning) and Clyde Langer (Daniel Anthony)
“How many Doctors did you know?”
Inevitably, there are availability problems with some actors in TV stories broadcast 50 years ago. Katy Manning is one of the only surviving cast members of The Three Doctors, so Sarah Jane Adventures writer Phil Ford pairs her with a more modern companion she can tell the story to – Daniel Anthony as Clyde Langer. This one’s more like a catch-up with Clyde, who hasn’t appeared since SJA’s premature end in 2011, and it cements the idea of telling a younger audience these stories – in this case, the 10th-anniversary serial in which Jon Pertwee, Patrick Troughton, and William Hartnell battle a founding Time Lord, Omega.
The Time Meddler
Originally broadcast: 3rd – 24th July 1965
Written by: Dennis Spooner | Phil Ford
Remembering: Vicki (Maureen O’Brien) and Steven Taylor (Peter Purves)
“I mean, can you imagine the Doctor wearing something like this?”
Like Jamie and Zoe in the Mind Robber episode, Vicki and Steven both immediately think the altered TARDIS is related to a past adventure. Before the Master came along, The Time Meddler gave us another renegade Time Lord, the Meddling Monk (Peter Butterworth), who wants to change European history by hobnobbing with Saxons in 1066. This one builds to a very sweet ending as one of Doctor Who’s earliest duos reflect on their travels and their lives.
The Curse of Fenric
Originally broadcast: 25th October – 15th November 1989
Written by: Ian Briggs | Pete McTighe
Remembering: The Seventh Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) and Ace (Sophie Aldred)
“Do you want to know a secret? The best is yet to come.”
Most recently seen on screen again in Jodie Whittaker’s final story The Power of the Doctor, McCoy and Aldred have more serious dialogue about the Seventh Doctor’s relationship with Ace in this Curse of Fenric omnibus. There are umpteen stories you could choose where he makes her face her fear, but this, the penultimate serial of the entire classic run, is a belter. It’s got water vampires, Viking curses, Nazi codes, ancient evil, Communism, sexual awakening, your mother as a baby, chess… a Doctor Who story with everything on it.
Pyramids of Mars
Originally broadcast: 25th October – 15th November 1975
Written by: “Stephen Harris” | Russell T Davies
Remembering: The Fifteenth Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) and Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson)
“I fought Sutekh, a long time ago…”
Co-written by Lewis Greifer and script editor Robert Holmes, Pyramids of Mars gives us an all-timer of a villain in Sutekh, an immeasurably powerful alien who is bent on killing everyone and everything. We’ve just seen him again in Season 14’s The Legend of Ruby Sunday and Empire of Death, and unlike the other Tales, this is apparently set in media res with the finale, during the Fifteenth Doctor and Ruby’s travels in the Memory TARDIS.
Additionally, this omnibus version is a new edit by Benjamin Cook (last year’s The Daleks in Colour) to streamline the original four-part serial for a 75-minute runtime. It’s a serviceable alternative version to contextualise the 2024 sequel for the 2024 audience, but the beauty of the Whoniverse on iPlayer is that you can always watch the original.
The future?
As yet, there are no more Tales of the TARDIS episodes on the way, but it’s a flexible format that’s produced entirely by the BBC, outside of the main show’s co-production deal with Disney. Heck, they could take it beyond 1989 and do the TV Movie with Paul McGann and Daphne Ashbrook. Or bring Peter Capaldi and Michelle Gomez back to chat about a two-parter. We might get more contemporary sequels in Doctor Who Season Two (Season 15), but here’s hoping we see more returning classic actors now and again.