News, Views, and Reviews

Zine
Title:	News, Views, and Reviews
Publisher:
Editor(s):	Jonathan L. Pinkney
Date(s):
Medium:	print
Size:	A5
Fandom:	Doctor Who
Language:	English
External Links:
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News, Views, and Reviews is a non-fiction Doctor Who zine. Issue 13 was published in 1983.

cover of issue #13

A tightly packed ‘News Page’ gave us snippets such as a Tyne-Tees Television programme ‘Northern Life’ interviewing a fan, news of planned Target Book releases; Peter Davison’s appearance on ‘Saturday Superstore’; the new television network ‘Channel Four’ featured David Frost’s ‘End of the Year Show’ in which the hit record ‘Why Do Fools Fall In Love?’ was played over a photo of Lalla Ward and Tom Baker; ‘Points of View’ had viewers complaining about the story ‘Mawdryn Undead’ time setting; the magazine programme ‘Nationwide’ celebrated the twentieth anniversary with interviews with Verity Lambert, Peter Davison, Jon Pertwee and Patrick Troughton.

An overcrowded TARDIS resulted in this article, ‘Three’s Company, Four’s Ridiculous!’ by Peter Martin, where he believes that the Doctor doesn’t need to have a companion all the time and having three on board was just plain ridiculous: “It is a shame that Tom Baker did not press the producers to take heed of that esteemed theatre saying “Never work with children or animals”…because the end of Baker’s run was akin to a Keystone Kops farce.” Peter then goes on to give his views of the latest companions: Adric, “…was the most clichéd and wafer-thin character that has ever tumbled its way across the TARDIS floor.” Nyssa, “…typifies everything that I don’t like about a Doctor Who companion.” The BBC guidelines stated that Nyssa was, “Tutored by her father in the advanced sciences…a skilled apprentice in bioelectronics…calm assessment, lightening judgment and nicely judged action” – in short, a replacement for Romana.” and Tegan, “…we have for the first time in many years someone completely overwhelmed by the technology around her…Essentially, this is the human element again, which has always been preferable in my opinion to these Romanas…”

‘VNR Fiction: The Moon of Millendior’ by Michael Emmerson was the third of a four part story featuring the Doctor, Nyssa and the Sontarans. The ‘Crossword’ followed with the Target Book publications of ‘Quiz Book of Dinosaurs’, ‘Logopolis’, ‘The Sun Makers’ and ‘State of Decay’ being reviewed in ‘VNR Book Reviews’

Colin Jenkins fanzine ‘Vortex’ and the Central London Local Group’s publication ‘E [equals] MC3’ were reviewed by Jonathan L. Pinkney in the ‘Fanzine Forum’.

‘The Works of Malcolm Hulke’ An article, looking at the writer’s work on the series, story by story with a small section looking at his other television contributions.

‘The Scientific Approach’ by Alec Charles looked at the character of Davros while ‘The Generation Ship’ is an excellent, well drawn picture strip by Ernie Phillips, featuring the third Doctor and of course the Master. The issue then concluded with a look at ‘Season Twenty’ and the stories which made up the anniversary season for that year. With ‘The Twentieth Season’ illustrations from Paul Vyse accompanied the article along with a wrap-a-round cover by him too.