‘The Beginning’ is a handy box set which contains the first thirteen episodes of ‘Doctor Who’ plus two separate versions of the series unbroadcast (indeed judged ‘unboradcastable’) pilot episode and assorted extras.

Yes, we should have reviewed this earlier but frankly who has their best critical faculties working on Christmas Day?

The first in a series of reports on how the various British TV networks have fared this year, based on one man’s capricious channel-surfing…

If 2004 was, as we said at the time, the year of late arrivals and revivals, 2005 was a year of completing, and contrasting, circles.

‘The Seeds of Death’ hails from the second half of the 60s, from when ‘Doctor Who’ was genuinely the favourite TV show of the children of the British nation.

1977’s ‘The Talons of Weng-Chiang’ is one of the most memorable of all ‘Doctor Who’ serials. The six-episode screenplay, by the series most frequent and beloved writer, Robert Holmes, is an accomplished and darkly witty Sherlock Holmes pastiche.

This is neither the best Doctor Who TV story, nor the best Doctor Who DVD package of recent months, but there’s much to enjoy here all the same.

“In sixteen hundred and sixty six London burned like rotten sticks…”

‘The Green Death’ is one of those ‘Doctor Who’ serials that all pub bores and stand up comedians of a certain age will recall at a moment’s notice. It is, in ‘Friends’ parlance, ‘The One With The Giant Maggots’.

‘Revelation of the Daleks’ is, to quote a famous description of ‘The Was The Week That Was’ a ‘low, sexy thing’.

To call ‘City of Death’ the most overrated ‘Doctor Who’ story would be churlish and mean-spirited. It would also have a sizeable dollop of truth to it.

The six episodes of ‘Doctor Who’ that are normally grouped under the title of ‘The Web Planet’ achieved viewing figures that remain among the series’ highest.

Once lauded as one of the greatest achievements of 1960s ‘Doctor Who’, ‘The Web Planet’ is now better known for being precisely the story Russell T Davies says he doesn’t want to do…

In today’s crowded media market, you have to get your ideas across quickly and clearly and there’s no better way of doing that than reworking an idea people know already…

It’s all been a bit of a triumph, hasn’t it?

It shouldn’t actually be surprising to see Russell T Davies confound expectation again with his finale to this season of ‘Doctor Who’…

Although Russell T Davies quite rightly has his mind focussed on the wider reception of this series, it’s hard to believe that he wasn’t chuckling with glee when he imagined the reaction of some fans to this episode…

This episode is very much the calm before the storm, even though there is a whacking great storm in it…

The first two-part story in this series of Doctor Who was called ‘World War Three’, but for the second one we go back to World War Two, for a tale of terrifying children, dashing space captains and the intolerances of wartime society.

This new series of ‘Doctor Who’ is both perfect kids’ entertainment and more grown-up than ‘Doctor Who’ has ever previously been…

This episode falls a little short visually. I imagine that the year 20,000 will be almost unrecognisable from now, so I expect 200,000 to seem as mad as tin pie…

Until now I liked the new ‘Doctor Who’: I liked it very much. But I didn’t really love it. These forty-five minutes have changed all that…

For most of its life ‘Doctor Who’ was an odd fusion of ordinary television and itself. That’s something that we’ve lost sight of in the years it’s been away (even the TV movie was like ‘The X-Files’ ) …

It’s funny – I knew that this new series of ‘Doctor Who’ was going to be aimed squarely at new viewers. Yet I didn’t fully appreciate what this meant in dramatic terms…

‘Rose’, the first episode of the BBC’s much-hyped ‘Doctor Who’ relaunch had to not only bring ‘Doctor Who’ up to date for a 2005 audience, but also re-introduce a genre British TV hasn’t seen for a while…

So, in no particular order, here are twenty great things about ‘The End of the World’.

Probably the biggest problem with this episode is that a large portion of the audience is liable to insist that ‘Doctor Who’ be like this every week…

So, time for the backlash? No, because backlashes are only initiated by the childish and bored. It just happens that ‘Aliens of London’ is the weakest New Who episode thus far…

The Slitheen invasion gets serious – sort of.

Meet 3/4 of the Shiny Shelf team at Charing Cross Road branch of Borders in London at 6:30pm on Thursday 14 April 2005…

Well, there’s some good news and some bad news….

I don’t have a problem with people citing Tom Baker as their favourite Doctor: what is problematic is the way he is thought of as the ‘definitive’ Doctor Who…

This MP3CD of William Russell reading David Whitaker’s novelisation of the first Dalek serial is one of the smartest ideas for ‘Doctor Who’ merchandise anyone at the BBC has had for some considerable time…

These movies have their flaws, and plenty of them, but you can watch both of them in only a little longer than the time it takes to sit though ‘Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone’.

Since the Doctor Who DVD releases are aimed largely at the 1970s nostalgia brigade, I probably shouldn’t be surprised that it’s taken BBC Worldwide two years to get around to putting out one of William Hartnell’s stories. It’s still a disgrace though.

Could there be anything more 60s than pop culture horrors the Daleks rolling through Swinging London?

‘Earthshock’ is a rare example of ‘Doctor Who’ as action rollercoaster…

With a revival of ‘Doctor Who’ as a fully-fledged TV series on the cards, BBC Worldwide have conveniently released this story from the show’s last season.

We take a look at the first ever animated version of ‘Doctor Who’, which is soon to be made available for streaming on the BBC website…

I’m not going to pretend that viewing old William Hartnell ‘Doctor Who’ stories is going to place you in good stead for the new series…

1960s ‘Doctor Who’ is the bomb. ‘Lost in Time’ is therefore to be welcomed with open arms, a pleasant smile, and a round of drinks…