Doctor Who Prop Hunt

This one needs to be credited to Zoe’s Feather Boa. ZFB is someone who has helped me a lot since I started this blog. They frequently post about props they have spotted on Bluesky. Make sure to give them a follow at zoesfeatherboa.bsky.social. They mentioned these thermostat props a while ago. I haven’t found them anywhere else so here are the appearances they found. THE SEEDS OF DEATH,1969 Seeds features two of these props, and they are subtly different. In the shot above you can see the prop has a light coloured face. But when it’s shown in the close up, seen in the picture below, the face is much darker. The text is white, or at least a light tone, while it appears darker in the first picture.  THE SEEDS OF DEATH, 1969 COLONY IN SPACE, 1971 The pair of Thermostats next pop up, both with darkly coloured faces, in Colony in Space. PERCY, 1971 One of the thermostats can be seen in the 1971 sex comedy Percy. THE MUTANTS, 1972 And finally, one year later, one of them can be seen in T...

The inner sanctum of BOSS is a set that is choc full of sci-fi nick nacks. I’ve looked at quite a bit of it already, especially the stuff from UFO and the Flossie computer. But as I trawl the image galleries I occasionally run into some of the small stuff. So here’s a roundup of a few bits from this set. THE GREEN DEATH, 1973 The first thing to look at is this small wall mounted panel featuring a triangle of three circular knobs.  THE MUTANTS, 1972 This panel had appeared the previous year onboard Skybase.  Next up are two larger panels in the ‘seating area’ (for want of a better term). These feature four square dials across the top with one underneath creating a right angle. In the image above the bottom dial is on the right… … and in this view you can see the second panel has the below dial on the left.  DAY OF THE DALEKS, 1972 In this pic from Day of the Daleks you can see both panels (left and right). However, this photo is a bit of a mystery for me. Judging by the ...

This weeks props are cupboards that adorned many a set during the Pertwee era, made a bit of a comeback in the Davison era, and have even appeared in Nu Who. Often paired with a row of circular oven like knobs as seen below, these cupboards made for a quick and easy set dressing for everything from spaceships to submarines. Here are all of the Doctor Who appearances I have been able to find. As always, if you know of any others please do get in touch.  THE AMBASSADORS OF DEATH, 1970 The earliest example I have found is from Pertwee’s first season. The cupboards, along with the circles, can be seen behind the seats in Recovery 7. Keep in mind their orientation here. For this story the circular controls are above the cupboards. But, as we will see in other examples, there was a lot of variety in how these were displayed. THE SEA DEVILS, 1972 This story features the cupboards on two sets. First, in the above picture, in Trenchards office (complete with telephones) and second…. …. on b...

It’s part 4 of a 2 part series all about the vac formed wall design from The Mutants! I thought I was done with this prop but I was tipped off to a couple of appearances I hadn’t previously found. So this post is just to wrap those new items before I move onto something else.  THE LEGEND OF ROBIN HOOD, 1975 An unexpected period piece. The hexagon wall design is actually found on the ceiling this time. This show actually helps me to fill in the blanks a little. Originally I had not been able to find anything between The Mutants and The Stones of Blood. But, along with The Deadly Assassin which I covered last time, we can see that this prop was in use during the mid seventies after all. RED DWARF, 1988-99 The hexagons appear a few times during the shows original run. In particular in the enlarged Starbug set of series VII. You can see it at the top of this screen grab. So with these two appearances I have now found 10 Classic Doctor Who stories and 10 additional programmes that have ...

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...