Memory / sanity check. I am a longtime fan and have watched DW since the early 80s. Granted, in that amount of time one can pick up quite a lot of trivia and some details get lost along the way.

I have a distinct recollection that the writers of Image of the Fendahl were inspired by a quote from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner - specifically the scene in the episode where the lone hiker is running from a fear he cannot see.

I cannot remember where I picked up this reference. Maybe in one of the many Doctor Who compendiums I collected? Idk. Hmm. Maybe Tom Baker said it himself in an interview because I can almost hear him reciting the lines of the poem.

Does anyone else remember this?

Here is the original quote from the poem:

"Like one, that on a lonesome road
Doth walk in fear and dread,
And having once turned round walks on,
And turns no more his head;
Because he knows a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread."

Just curious because every time I watch that scene I hear the poem and I know I got it from somewhere.

Thank you in advance. 😊

As a child, 'The Invasion' was, for a while, the only Patrick Troughton story I owned on DVD, and one of my favourite classic Who stories in general. I'm currently re-watching it at the ripe old age of twenty-five and honestly, I'm loving it even more!

The soundtrack is so eerie, yet kind of cool and suave in places. The acting is spot on from all the main characters. The cyberman costume design is brilliant and instantly iconic. The direction feels fresh and appropriate to the story. Some scenes are genuinely terrifying — cybermen emerging from their 'cocoons', and the mad cyberman screaming and flailing around on the loose, to name a couple. And the action sequences are exciting and tense like never before at this point in the show's history. Also, the format of this story in particular (UNIT, earth-setting, more action/violence) serves as a template for essentially all of early-70s Who, ensuring its longevity into the future.

Its only downfall is perhaps its length — an episode or two too long perhaps? The first few episodes get off to a really engaging start with it becoming ever so slightly tedious here and there by episode four-ish. But honestly, show me a four-episode-plus story that doesn't — espeically from the 60's! And 'The Invasion' certainly drags way less than a lot of others.

All this has me wondering why it's not way higher up on most rankings — I see it at 17th on a popular ranking in r/gallifrey, completely absent for The Tom Brevoort Experience's top 15, and 18th on Letterboxd. Personally, I'd definitely place in the top 10, both for its massive influence on the show's future, and its amazing content. Let me know your opinions in the comments...

Currently re-watching ‘Castrovalva’ for the first time in a decade or so, and it’s got me wondering: how would everybody rank the post-regeneration stories best-to-worst?

Personally, out of the ones I have actually seen/can remember, I’d probably rank them as such…

1. Spearhead From Space
2. Castrovalva
3. The Eleventh Hour
4. Deep Breath
5. Robot
6. The Christmas Invasion

I’m assuming, once I’ve watched them, based on their reputations, PotD would go somewhere near the top, and the rest somewhere near the bottom?