Inside the Antagonist
The antagonist in fiction is that character who has adopted a fixed solution to an inner vacuum or emptiness or threat. This fixed...
The Doctor and James Bond
Twenty years ago, John Devon Roland Pertwee (pictured above with William Hartnell in the 1953 comedy film Will Any Gentleman...?) born in...
The Shifting Archetypes in Early 'Doctor Who'
We have seen in earlier articles that the Doctor began his life on the television screen in a role approximating that of a villain: he...
Endings in 'Star Wars'
In finishing your story, you are trying to do two basic things: 1. Make the ending seem like the consequence of everything that has...
The Doctor and the Sensorites
As we have seen, in Doctor Who’s third broadcast story, ’The Edge of Destruction’ Hartnell’s Doctor, proud and arrogant, who began as a...
Master Authors and the Four Key Questions
Successful stories ask readers four key questions: ‘What will happen next?’ This question forms the basis of even the most primitive tale...
'Doctor Who: The Edge of Destruction'
‘The Edge of Destruction’, first broadcast in February 1964, is a curiosity. This is partly because David Whitaker, the script-writer,...
'Doctor Who' and the Perfect Antagonist Part 2
As we saw in an earlier article,‘The Daleks’, originally aired in 1963/4, came at a pivotal point in the development of Doctor Who....
'Doctor Who' and the Perfect Antagonist
The first episode of the fifty-year-old series Doctor Who had established a unique set of parameters. The juxtaposition of...
'Doctor Who: An Unearthly Child' 2
The rest of the first adventure of Doctor Who, commonly known by its opening episode ‘An Unearthly Child’, is comparatively...