All in all, a veritable cornucopia of the revolting...

All in all, a veritable cornucopia of the revolting...

We've just uploaded the video in which we natter about 'Earthshock' and 'Time-Flight' and if you fancy a look, you can get it here.

But it was talking about the return of the Cybermen that I remembered one of the more overlooked extras on the 'Earthshock' DVD - the ten-minute clip of 'Did You See?' where Gavin Scott rattles through a mixed bag of monsters whilst sporting a moustache that would not have been out-of-place on a contestant on that year's run of '3-2-1'.

I get the feeling he was partially inspired by the scene where the Cybermen dust off their home videos (let us avoid the question as to how they got exactly the same camera angles as the BBC in these old stories) and try to pass off footage of 'The Wheel In Space' as 'The Tomb Of The Cybermen'.

People sometimes question the timeline of the Cybermen stories, asking how the 'Earthshock' lads can have a recording of 'Revenge Of The Cybermen', but that never bothered me at the time. Or very much now, if I'm being honest.

What does slightly worry me is that the DVD notes say that this edition of 'Did You See?' was shown on Sunday 14th March 1982, but BBC Genome places lists it at 6.45pm the day before...

That aside, this I think neatly illustrates how the return of the Cybermen was the icing on the cake of a Season that was already doing pretty well in the ratings. I was always pleased when the odd vintage clip or two turned up on 'Blue Peter', 'Pebble Mill At One' or 'Nationwide', but to get a whole ten minutes devoted to the past in this way was a real treat.

I'd not yet hit on the idea of audio recording stuff off the telly (that would only start with 'The Five Doctors), so I had no way of keeping this, but it definitely seared its way into my brain. Watching it back many years later, Gavin Scott's schoolteacher-like delivery of his rather limp jokes was very familiar and the eccentric ('The 10th Planet', 'The Sontaron Experiment') captions with their dates came flooding back, too.

As the 80s wore on, these sort of features would veer more towards giving voice to fandom's criticism of the perceived failings of the show, but in 1982 'Doctor Who' seemed to be taken at least mildly seriously in some quarters, and as a fan, this was what I wanted.

What also comes across now is how fuzzy some of the Hartnell prints were. With the DVD range aiming for the highest possible quality, it's a bit of an eye-opener how you could get away with showing such murky material, just on the grounds that it was getting on a bit.

But I suppose these days lots of shows source even worse footage from YouTube, just to save a bob or two.

So long as we don't end up on some future Cyberscanner as an example of How Fandom Used To Be...

(By Andrew Trowbridge)

(With thanks to Dominator Rago for the arty bit)