Doctor Who Prop Hunt

Just a quick update this week. Some of you came forward to suggest examples of The Mutants wall decorations I’d missed. THE DEADLY ASSASSIN,1976 I really thought I’d caught all of the Doctor Who examples but Tim Dickinson pointed out its use in The Deadly Assassin. This sent me back through 70s and 80s Who, just in case I’d missed anything else. I’m sort of confident this is the only one but you never know. There may well be other Who stories that feature the hexagons waiting to be spotted.  I’ve shouted out Tim’s excellent site Pink For Your Actual Pterodactyl before but just in case you’ve never visited I’d really recommend giving it a click THE PAUL DANIELS MAGIC SHOW, 1993 Now this one has really got me thinking. As you can see the hexagons feature in the 1993 set of the Paul Daniels show. It ran from 1979 to 1994 so may well pop up at other times. However I checked a few episodes and couldn’t find them anywhere else. But what’s really got me thinking is that this is a light ...

Last week I looked at the hexagon wall pattern that first appeared in The Mutants and all its subsequent classic Who appearances. This week I’m looking at some of the other shows that used this same set decoration. BLAKE’S 7, 1978-81 Probably the most obvious place to start is the show that is frequently viewed as a sort of Sister programme to Doctor Who - Blake’s7. The hexagons are featured throughout B7’s four seasons but perhaps the most visible use is in Servalan’s office as pictured above. THE ADVENTURE GAME, 1980-86 The hexagons proved to be popular on Children’s shows of the Eighties. As you can see it featured in the early seasons of the proto escape room sci-fi themed game show - The Adventure Game. CAPTAIN ZEP - SPACE DETECTIVE, 1983-84 Another BBC children’s sci-fi game show. And a firm favourite from when I was a nipper.  STAR COPS, 1987 The short lived galactic police procedural from Doctor Who and Blake’s 7 Writer, Chris Boucher. ASTRONAUTS, 1981 Another short lived ...

Nothing quite says ‘science fiction’ more than putting hexagons all over your walls. This design, first seen in The Mutants, pops up throughout the 70s and 80s. In this post I tried to catalogue all of its appearances in classic Doctor Who. Next week for part 2 I will cover the other shows it appears in.  THE MUTANTS, 1972 As mentioned, this story is widely considered to be the origin of this prop. I have checked to see if I can find an earlier appearance but have drawn a blank. THE MUTANTS ORIGINAL DESIGN DRAWING BY JEREMY BEAR As you can see in this original production drawing, the hexagons were always part of the design. THE STONES OF BLOOD, 1978 Rather surprisingly the hexagons don’t appear again for another six years. NIGHTMARE OF EDEN, 1979 Once they did return in the late seventies they were back for good. This one is quite subtle but it’s the first of two appearances in this season. THE HORNS OF NIMON, 1979 And here is the other. MEGLOS, 1980 For Meglos, Designer Philip Lin...

Hey! I’m a bit late with this weeks post. And unfortunately I’ve not had a lot of time to devote to the hunt. But I do have a couple of updates on previous props I have looked at. First up the Sensorite Stools I first looked at here .  It seems I missed a couple of Doctor Who stories that feature these props. By coincidence it’s the two Troughton Dalek tales.  THE POWER OF THE DALEKS, 1966 THE EVIL OF THE DALEKS, 1967 The other prop I wanted to update is the fireplace from The Visitation  In my original posted I mentioned a few different shows where this appears. But there is one appearance I knew about but had forgotten to include. It’s an episode of Yes Minister called The Whiskey Priest.  YES MINISTER, 1982