Doctor Who Prop Hunt

 Time for a round up of additional finds. Let’s dive right in. This funky blue space rifle originally came from the film Madame Sin and appeared in Frontier in Space and Invasion of the Dinosaurs. Here it pops in The Tomorrow People episode  A Man For Emily. In the image below it’s held by Sandra Dickinson. The episode also featured Peter Davison in a similarly outrageous wig.    THE TOMORROW PEOPLE, 1975 Up next it’s more washboard fun . These metal objects (actually heat exchanger plates) appear in Destiny of the Daleks, Shada, Warriors Gate, and Terminus. Outside of Who they are in Blakes 7, Red Dwarf, Alien, and even Inspector Morse. Well, I have another Who appearance courtesy of Zoe’s Feather Boa as they turn up in The Twin Dilemma. THE TWIN DILEMMA, 1984 And what’s more here is another Who adjacent appearance in the infamous Lenny Henry Doctor Who sketch. THE LENNY HENRY SHOW, 1985 This wedge shaped controlled unit was in The Space Museum, Colony in Space an...

A month ago I posted about these black panels seen in The Ambassadors of Death. They also appear in sixties sci-fi show Object Z and the film Spaceflight IC-1. But other than I didn’t know anything about it.  Well it turns out it’s part of a real computer. It’s the control panel from an ICT 1201 dating from the 1950s. Incidentally the other occasion I inadvertently covered a real computer was the ICT 1301 , part of the same lineage of machines from International Computers and Tabulators. As always with this niche tech stuff I am indebted to the excellent blog Starring the Computer who identified the other appearances of this panel shown in this post. ICT 1201 THE AVENGERS, 1964  From the season 3 episode The Wringer OUT OF THE UNKNOWN, 1965 From the first season of the BBC anthology series. The episode is The Counterfeit Man. OUT OF THE UNKNOWN, 1965 And later in that first season in an episode called Sucker Bait. HELP, 1965 And finally one pops up in The Beatles flick help ...

Hello folks! Science Fiction television props seem to fall in and out of fashion very quickly. As computer technology changed so too did the way it was presented on screen. This week’s prop was briefly popular in the mid sixties and then, as far as I can tell, seems to have faded away. Presented here are four appearances of the prop, all dating from 1966 and 1967. If you are aware of any later uses please let me know. DALEKS - INVASION EARTH 2150 A.D, 1966 We get a good look at the prop in this, the second of the two Aaru Dalek films. It’s the robotising desk in the lower half of this image. It’s identifiable by the a row of a square and two circles at the top, on either side. OUT OF THE UNKNOWN, 1966 In the same year as the Dalek flick it’s on the small screen in the OOTU episode, Lambda 1. The prop belonged to The Trading Post prop house explaining how it could be in both a film and the BBC production. THE MACRA TERROR, 1967 One year later and the desk appears in Doctor Who. THEY CAM...

Right! So this time I’m taking on a prop I have been avoiding. It’s one of the flat computer panels that were very popular in the mid Sixties. These were from a prop house called The Trading Post and according to Dalek 63.88 there were Eighteen distinct variants. And that’s part of the reason I have been dodging these. It felt like there were just too many to look for. So, to ease myself in, for this first post on these TTP panels I am going to look for just one. And here it is. THE DALEKS MASTER PLAN, 1965 Here in this Master Plan pic we can get a good look at our panel. It’s most distinguishing feature being the two triangular arrangements of three dials at the top. ADAM ADAMANT LIVES!, 1966 It’s partially obscured in this picture. But all the elements on the left hand side line up with the Master Plan panel. The only difference being the very bottom section seems to have been replaced with a plainer panel. The episode is To Set A Deadly Fashion. THE AVENGERS, 1966 In the same year i...

I’m back after a short break. And this first post back corrects a mistake I have made in the past. Below are two large bronze pillars known as Syrian Candles. They look very similar but as you can see there are slight differences between the two. Unfortunately I have incorrectly credited both of these candle styles as being the one that appears in the TARDIS during the Sixties. But actually it’s only the left one that comes from Hartnell’s ‘ship’, the one on the right is an imposter. So let’s take a look at this counterfeit candle and where it can be found. CARRY ON SPYING, 1964 Here is where I first noticed there was a difference between the two. TARDIS CONSOLE ROOM, 1963 And here for comparison is a picture of the original TARDIS console. You can clearly see the bulb like bulge appears in the middle of the pillar rather at the top as it does in Carry On Spying. That prompted me to go back to my previous posts and I found a trio of Doctor Who stories I miscredited. The below stories a...