DWM Review

#271 (18 Nov 1998) Reconstructing The Ice Warriors & making The Missing Years, Pamela Salem and Karen Gledhill, Derrick Goodwin, Antony Root, Mission to the Unknown and The Invisible Enemy Archives, Wormwood 6
#272 (16 Dec 1998) The Eighth Doctor in print, Terrance Dicks, Lalla Ward, Waris Hussein, Terry Molloy, The Daleks' Master Plan Archive, Happy Deathday
#273 (13 Jan 1999) The Pertwee Era Part 1, Robert Banks Stewart, Terrance Dicks, The Enemy of the World 1 telesnaps, Nightmare of Eden Archive, The Fallen 1

It is pleasing to see that DWM is going further a field with its interview subjects. I get tired of the same old interviews with companions - unless they have something new to say. In the latest batch of issues, we have two directors, two script writers, one script editor and several guest actors. (I can think of at least a dozen writers who have never been interrogated for the magazine.)

#272 is a bumper 35th Anniversary Issue, the highlights being the mammoth 15-page archive on one of the greatest Dalek stories ever told (a luxury only permitted by having an additional 16 pages allocated at the 11th hour for the special), and the comic strip written and drawn by two ex-pat Kiwis (Warwick ‘Scott’ Gray and Roger Langridge). Izzy's wink in the final panel says it all; it's good to see the magazine poking fun at the show every now and then! It's also good to see other aspects of the wider Doctor Who canon being addressed in the form of an article looking at the adventures of the ‘in-print’ Eighth Doctor. Back in TSV 51 Gary Russell said that the first panel of the next Radio Times Eighth Doctor strip had been drawn before the plug was pulled. This never before seen four-panel instalment is printed here for the first time.

The telesnaps make a welcome return in #273, and the behind the scenes colour photos from the filming of The Enemy of the World are a rare treat. It has taken Marvel six years to run the telesnaps - it's been a fun ride.

Everyone's favourite noveliser, Terrance Dicks talks about script editing, script and stage-play writing, and novelising Doctor Who (the final part of his interview - centering on the New Adventures - is published in #274 which was not available for review). Surprisingly, there is no mention in this interview of The Haunting, an aborted script written by Dicks for Season 13. Supporting the second part in #273 is a feature on the origins of the early Pertwee years, which analyses the reasons for the production decisions, and gives short summaries of the script ideas that never made it. The second part looks like it might shatter a few myths...

I've never been a fan of the comic strips, but Wormwood makes a "Sch-Kroom"ing finale in #271. And a new adventure starts in #273 with the return of a certain female heart surgeon from San Francisco...!