It Was a Thing on TV: An Anthology on Forgotten Television

The first of the three Doctor Who specials for the 60th Anniversary aired on the BBC and Disney+ this past weekend. Chico watched the first of the specials and pops on in this Instant Reaction about the return of David Tennant and Catherine Tate to the TARDIS. Did RTD's first episode back as Executive Producer of Doctor Who recapture the magic from his first stint? You'll have to listen to find out. Meep, Meep.

We cap our celebration of the Doctor Who 60th anniversary with a look at “The Curse of Fatal Death”, a Red Nose Day special from 1999. The Doctor’s looking to settle down but can’t stop regenerating, the Master is rebuilt with Dalek spare parts, and it’s all going down on a planet with a special form of communication. The BBC got some amazing talent for this one-off that foresaw a lot of things.

"Doctor Who" has had a storied history these past 60 years, but thanks to the economics of television at the time, it - much like that of any TV show at the time - is sketchy at best. But recently, the BBC has ramped up efforts to find and restore episodes long lost to tape wiping by any means necessary. We look at how this piece of TV history is being preserved and what is still missing media.

By the mid 1980s, Doctor Who had emerged as one of the BBC’s longest-running brands, but even then it was getting long in the tooth. In 1986, they tried something big - a season-long arc, resulting in “The Trial of a Time Lord”. Will the Doctor be brought to justice? Will audiences be brought to watch?

Vincent Price wanted to bring Doctor Who to the States, with an American version.  When that failed, he decided to make his own version aboard a train.  Time Express was a limited series, starting while Supertrain was still airing.  Both shows got derailed in May 1979.

Doctor Who was an instantaneous sensation that, in 1964, the ABC in Australia commissioned a show similar to yet different from The Doctor.  Thought to be lost for decades, The Stranger found its way to the Internet in 2019.  Judge for yourself as we continue our tribute to the Doctor's 60th anniversary.

Our tribute to Doctor Who continues with an entry that picks up where it all began. Join the students of Coal Hill Academy as they team up with an alien prince and the teacher/warlord he’s psychically tethered to as they protect the school from otherworldly threats for all of 8 episodes. “Class” is in session.

We talked about the Second Chance from 1977 and the Second Chance from 1987.  This Halloween season, we're covering a third entry with that name, from 2016.  This version was loosely based on Frankenstein but it was "depressingly awful" and couldn't hold viewers after a decent lead-in show, albeit against tough competition.

In 1984, the same year horror master Wes Craven gave us "A Nightmare on Elm Street" he directed this ABC TV Movie starring Robert Urich, Joanna Cassidy, and Erica Kane herself Susan Lucci.

In this made-for, Susan plays a devilish dame who tries to tempt ol' Spenser for Hire with power if he can just join this hot country club that just about everyone at his company works for. Join us on an Invitation to Hell!

A bookish girl & a jock are selected to attend high school in space. An up-and-coming movie scribe & a legendary anime studio are chosen to bring them to life. What started as a Saturday morning failure turned into a cult classic. Strap in and hold on as we round out this year’s Back to School special with a trip to Galaxy High School.