Hello everyone! 🙂
Welcome to ‘Bradley’s Basement’ blog and I’m Tim Bradley!
Over Christmas 2020 and early 2021, I’ve been checking out the ‘Time Lord Victorious – Road to the Dark Times’ collection of ‘Doctor Who’ stories on Blu-ray. This is in preparation for me to check out the ‘Time Lord Victorious’ event that’s happening from 2020-21 with books, audios and comic tales.
The ‘Road to the Dark Times’ Blu-ray is ‘a compendium of stories exploring the ‘Time Lord Victorious’ universe’. I’m currently looking forward to checking out the stories featured in the ‘Time Lord Victorious’ series later in 2021. Hopefully the audio story ‘Echoes of Extinction’ will be out very soon.
There are seven stories in the Blu-ray set, including ‘Planet of the Daleks’, ‘Genesis of the Daleks’, ‘The Deadly Assassin’, ‘State of Decay’, ‘The Curse of Fenric’, ‘The Runway Bride’ and ‘The Waters of Mars’. They seem rather random but hopefully the stories somehow tie into each other.
I have shared reviews on each of the seven stories featured in the ‘Road to the Dark Times’ Blu-ray set over the years since I started doing ‘Bradley’s Basement’ in 2015. Please feel free to check out my reviews, but I would like to share brief thoughts on how much the stories mean to me recently. 🙂
The first story of the set called ‘Planet of the Daleks’ features Jon Pertwee as the Third Doctor and Katy Manning as Jo Grant. They help a group of Thals to tackle some Daleks on the planet Spiridon. The story comes straight after the events of ‘Frontier In Space’ as featured in the ‘Dalek War’ saga. 🙂
I enjoyed revisiting the story over the Christmas period including the 25th, 26th and 27th of December 2020. It made me think of when I wrote ‘Doom of the Daleks’ for the first time. ‘Planet of the Daleks’ helped me in writing the Fifth Doctor, Nyssa and Billy tackling the Daleks and the Dwaxi.
‘Genesis of the Daleks’ features Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor, Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane and Ian Marter as Harry Sullivan. This is still regarded as one of the best Dalek stories ever made in the ‘Doctor Who’ TV series and it’s notable for featuring the debut of Davros, played by Michael Wisher.
Revisiting this story made me think of when I wrote ‘Psychic Image’, a story featuring the Fifth Doctor, Nyssa and Billy in the ‘Genesis of Terror’ collection by the Divergent Wordsmiths. It’s an alternative retelling of the ‘Genesis of the Daleks’ story where the Fifth Doctor tries to kill Davros. 😀
‘The Deadly Assassin’ features Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor and he travels alone, dealing with Time Lords on Gallifrey where an assassination of the Time Lord President takes place and the evil Master is causing trouble. The ‘Part Three’ cliff-hanger of this story is still terrifying and disturbing. 😐
The story did make me think of when I included Gallifrey in my story ‘The Prime Factor’ where the Fifth Doctor, Nyssa and Billy were summoned there and they met the Castellan and Commander Maxil. I had my own unique on Gallifrey and how Time Lords did things compared to Robert Holmes’.
‘State of Decay’ features Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor, Lalla Ward as Romana, Matthew Waterhouse as Adric and K-9, voiced by John Leeson. It was surreal to watch this story in the collection, being the middle part of ‘The E-Space Trilogy’, and with it featuring three nasty vampires.
I paid tribute to writer/script-editor Terrance Dicks as well as to Trevor Martin in my latest story for the Divergent Wordsmiths called ‘The City of the Bad Wolf’, featured in the ‘Unbound Imaginings, Volume 2’ anthology. In that, vampires were mentioned in being a part of the Bad Wolf’s backstory.
‘The Curse of Fenric’ features Sylvester McCoy as the Seventh Doctor and Sophie Aldred as Ace. It’s ironic that I recently revisited this story last year in the Season 26 Blu-ray box set of ‘Doctor Who’. The story features the vampire-like Haemovores and it revealed a disturbing revelation for Ace here.
Watching the story again made me reflect on how I’ve written for Ace and the Seventh Doctor already in my Short Trip called ‘The Space Car’. I’m also very lucky to have met Sophie Aldred at conventions over the years and I look forward to seeing her as well as other ‘Doctor Who’ stars again soon.
‘The Runaway Bride’ features David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor and Catherine Tate as Donna. It’s ironic that this 2006 Christmas Special of ‘Doctor Who’ featured Donna’s debut as it was unpredicted she would return for Series 4 in 2008. The story also has that red spider-like Empress of the Racnoss.
Like with ‘The Curse of Fenric’, ‘The Runaway Bride’ made me reflect on the times I’ve written for the Tenth Doctor and Donna and I’ve penned quite a number of adventures with them, including ‘The Popiz’ in ‘The Paul Spragg ReCollections’ anthology by the Divergent Wordsmiths. It’s amazing!
The final story of the collection is ‘The Waters of Mars’, featuring David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor. This is where the ‘Time Lord Victorious’ comes from as the Tenth Doctor tries to save the lives of the Bowie Base One crew, led by special guest star Lindsay Duncan as Capt. Adelaide Brooke.
In my opinion, ‘The Waters of Mars’ remains one of the best ‘Doctor Who’ stories ever made in the new series era. Just to tease you, I’ve written a horrific ‘Doctor Who’ story in a similar vein to this called ‘The Blood of Honos’, featuring the Fifth Doctor, Nyssa and Billy. I look forward to sharing it soon. 🙂
The ‘Time Lord Victorious – Road to the Dark Times’ Blu-ray collection has been an enjoyable set of ‘Doctor Who’ stories to revisit lately. I don’t know how it ties into the ‘Time Lord Victorious’ series itself, but I’m looking forward to checking out the books, audios and comics featured in that series. 🙂
As well as the Big Finish audios including ‘Echoes of Extinction’ starring Paul McGann and David Tennant’s Doctors, there’s the ‘Defender of the Daleks’ comic, ‘The Minds of Magnox’ audio, the ‘All Flesh is Grass’ book, and more. I hope it won’t be too long before I check out ‘Time Lord Victorious’ soon.
Stay tuned! In the meantime, please feel free to check out, read and comment on my reviews for ‘Planet of the Daleks’, ‘Genesis of the Daleks’, ‘The Deadly Assassin’, ‘State of Decay’, ‘The Curse of Fenric’, ‘The Runaway Bride’ and ‘The Waters of Mars’ by clicking on the links for them above. I’ve also reviewed the novelization ‘Doctor Who and the State of Decay’ by Terrance Dicks, with the audiobook read by Geoffrey Beevers and the novelization ‘Doctor Who – The Curse of Fenric’ by Ian Briggs, with the audiobook read by Terry Molly.
You can purchase ‘Doctor Who – Time Lord Victorious – Road to the Dark Times’ on Blu-ray either from Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com.
Enjoy!
Bye for now!
Tim. 🙂
Bradley's Basement 
Hello Tim.
I’m not really interested in this Blu-Ray because I already own all of it’s stories apart from ‘The Waters of Mars’ on Blu-Ray. It just feels pointless getting as they would be better to be viewed in their respective ‘Collection’ box sets and in the ‘New Series’ Blu-Ray range. Speaking of the ‘Collection sets, one thing that’s annoying me is that people have been buying the standard editions even if they already own the limited editions. Don’t tell me you’ve been doing that Tim!
But I digress. I just received an email to tell me that my copies of ‘Interstitial’/’Feast of Fear’ and ‘The Crooked Man’. I also ordered ‘Sink or Swim’ on DVD which I’m hoping will arrive soon.
Take care, WF92.
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Hi WF92,
No I haven’t gone down the route of purchasing the standard editions of ‘Collection’ Blu-ray box sets of ‘Doctor Who’ as I don’t need them after purchasing the limited editions. The ‘Road to the Dark Times’ Blu-ray was a one-off and a treat for Christmas last year. I know it’s pointless but it was a nice curosity to have and it helps those who want to know what the ‘Time Lord Victorious’ series is based off from.
Glad you got your e-mail notifications for ‘Interstitial’/’Feast of Fear’ and ‘The Crooked Man’. I’m currently waiting for my CD box set of ‘The War Master: Killing Time’. I hope it’ll come soon after receiving the second ‘Ninth Doctor Adventures’ box set from Big Finish first.
Many thanks for your comments.
Tim 🙂
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