Tag Archive: The Mind Robber

Episode 117 – The Second Doctor In Review

NEW_TTV_LOGO_200After a slight delay, this week’s show is now on the feeds. In this episode, we get a little long winded and discuss the Second Doctor’s era. This is our 50th anniversary retrospective on the Patrick Troughton era, and Second Doctor materials, starting with a trip to the Land of Fiction in The Mind Robber.

Then, Frazer Hines takes the reins and a turn as the Doctor, sort of, with the Big Finish and AudioGO adventure Doctor Who – Shadow of Death.

And finally we wrap up the review portion with the second story in the IDW comic series Doctor Who – Prisoner of Time.

Sorry, this is a long one this week.

Then a look back at the entire run of the Second Doctor, including our picks for the story that best represents the Second Doctor.

Also, a look at some of the news of the week.

And, of course, your feedback.

io9 March TV Madness Bracket
Doctor Who Reprint Society

Series Seven Part 2 Scheduling Part 1

Ah. That time of year when you can smell New Who on the air like the coming of Spring, and all my scheduling work goes out the window and has to be cobbled together last minute to take those new episodes into account.  Oh well.

Tonight’s Friday Night Who (3/22) is part of our monthly celebration of the second Doctor, “The Mind Robber”.

Episode #117 of Traveling The Vortex is all things second Doctor, and will include our reviews of “The Mind Robber”, IDW’s comic “Prisoners Of Time 2”, Big Finish: Destiny Of The Doctor 2: Shadows Of Death, our look back over the 2nd Doctor Era for our 50th Anniversary Discussion, and, if Keith gets it read in time, his review of the book “The Moonbase”

Friday Night Who on 3/29 gears us up for the new season by revisiting Matt Smith in “The Impossible Astronaut” and “Day Of The Moon”…

…which leaves TTV #118 reserved to devote our full attention to “The Bells Of St. John”.

On 4/5 FNW revisits “Doctor Who: The Movie” in celebration of Daphne Ashbrook coming to Planet Comicon that weekend.

Look for updates all weekend long, (and maybe a few special exclusives too,) but we’ll give you the full scoop on Planet Comicon 2013 in episode #119, as well as start the month of April with our celebration of Jon Pertwee’s third Doctor by reviewing IDW Comic’s “Prisoners Of Time 3”.

FNW 4/12 is “The Waters Of Mars” with tenth Doctor David Tennant.

Because of the hugeness of Planet Comicon, you may have noticed we didn’t review the new episode of Who last week.  Well fret not, because you’ll get a two-fer in Traveling The Vortex #120, covering both “The Rings Of Akhaten”, and “The Cold War”.

and the plot thickens…

Friday Night Who 3/22/13

70037176For this week’s celebration of second Doctor Patrick Troughton, our Friday Night Who will be the 5 part story, “The Mind Robber”.

It’s available on Netflix, so if you don’t own it and still want to join in the fun, follow @vortexglenn, @vortexshaun, @VortexKeith and @travelvortex for the live tweet-a-long, look for the #FridayNightWho and #TheMindRobber hashtags, and push play at midnight, CDT.

Schedules, Schedules, Get Your Schedules Here!

We’ve tweaked the upcoming schedule a bit to line up better with our 50th Anniversary plans, so for those of you following along at home, here’s an update for the next month or so…

The first week of March (3/1) we’ll finish “The Reign Of Terror” (parts 4-6) on Friday Night Who.

Traveling The Vortex #114 is our First Doctor retrospective.  We’ll discuss “The Reign Of Terror”, give our thoughts on the values of these and other animated episodes, as well as cover the first Doctor era (that we’ve reviewed to date).

Friday Night Who on 3/8 is “The King’s Demons” with fifth Doctor Peter Davison.

TTV #115 covers our reviews of “The King’s Demons” and Big Finish #26 “Primeval”.

Come celebrate my birthday on 3/15 with Tom Baker in “The Ark In Space”.

Traveling The Vortex #116 will have our reviews of “The Ark In Space” and our first foray into the Big Finish 4th Doctor Adventures; #1 “Destination: Nerva”.

On 3/22 our Friday Night Who will be the 2nd Doctor Patrick Troughton in “The Mind Robber”.

And episode #117 will be our Second Doctor retrospective, and have our reviews of the “The Mind Robber” as well as IDW’s comic “Prisoners Of Time” issue 2, and Big Finish’s Shadow of Death (Destiny Of The Doctor 2).

That rams us right up against the new series starting.

(SPOILERS AHEAD) I’m still fleshing things out from that point on, but if the scuttlebutt is to be believed, the first episode of the return of series seven deals with ghosts.  I’d love to pair up the seventh Doctor adventure “Ghost Light” with that one, but we’ll wait and see if things get a bit more nailed down in the coming weeks.

Actor Bernard Horsfall Dies, Aged 82

Doctor_Who_and_James_Bond_actor_Bernard_Horsfall_dies_aged_82It’s always sad to report on a death, but this time seems especially hard for me for some reason.  Actor Bernard Horsfall has died at the age of 82.  He appeared in 14 episodes of Doctor Who spread over 4 story arcs, appearing with the second, third and fourth Doctors.  His first appearance came in the 1968 story “The Mind Robber”, where he played Lemuel Gulliver in the Land of Fiction.  He returned as the First Time Lord in “The War Games” and again opposite Jon Pertwee as Taron the Thal in “Planet Of The Daleks”.

His final role in Doctor Who is arguably his most famous, playing Chancellor Goth in the 1976 story “The Deadly Assassin”. His most famous scene involved a battle with the fourth Doctor inside the Matrix with the climax of one episode showing the Doctor being held underwater by Goth.

Film credits include ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE, GANDHI and BRAVEHEART.

He returned to the world of Doctor Who in 2003 in the Big Finish audio play, “Davros”.  The actor was due to attend the 2013 Gallifrey One convention next month, and I was very much looking forward to meeting him. He collapsed and died this morning.