Marinus, Aztecs and Sensorites

Hello there! Before this week's update I'd just like to say thanks to those of you who have left comments and been in touch, it's good to know there's people out there reading and watching, because let's face it, this is pretty niche stuff... so thanks! Let's get started...



UK Gold's copy of The Keys of Marinus (or Marnius as the continuity announcer mistakenly calls it!) was pretty dire compared to the recent DVD release - or even the VHS release, come to mention it - but in those days we didn't really care; after all, it was a minor miracle that those stories were being repeated at all! This recording was made on Saturday 11th July 1998 at a time when the channel were showing the (complete) black and white stories on Saturday mornings. There's a few unique edits worth mentioning here: the establishing shot of the island is missing the title caption (The Sea of Death), while the final episode is missing both the next episode caption (The Temple of Evil) and the director's credit.

More "vintage Doctor Who" followed a week later on Saturday 18th July 1998 with a showing of The Aztecs from 10.05am-12.05pm, just before the Eastenders omnibus. Surprisingly the first episode's caption (The Temple of Evil) was not removed, but the end of episode four was cut to remove the caption for the next instalment, Strangers In Space (episode 1 of The Sensorites).

This recording of The Sensorites actually originates from a repeat aired on Friday 22nd January 1999 - I missed the previous showing on Saturday 25th July 1998 because I overslept! Awful, I know. Whenever UK Gold showed The Sensorites the next episode caption for The Land of Fear was always missing (sadly The Reign of Terror is missing two episodes and could not be included as part of their run) and the original rolling credits replaced with new, dull, static captions. The story finished at around three o'clock in the morning - yawn! - followed by a look ahead to Saturday evening (Bread, haha! Those were the days!)

Finally, as a little bonus, there's a couple of trailers from 1999 which I found on another tape... until next week!

Thursday trailer (9-11pm)
Clips: Only Fools And Horses, Porridge, Bottom

Tuesdays trailer (9.00-10.20pm)
Clips: Absolutely Fabulous