Sci-Fi Bulletin: Exploring the Universes of SF, Fantasy, Horror and Spy-fi!

Christopher Barry, who directed Doctor Who stories for the first four incarnations of the Time Lord, has died aged 88, following a fall at home last week.

Barry’s first story was The Dead Planet, the opening episode of Doctor Who’s second ever adventure, which introduced the Daleks. He directed three episodes of that story, as well as The Rescue, The Romans and The Savages for William Hartnell’s Doctor. He was given the responsibility of introducing a new incarnation of the Doctor on two occasions – The Power of the Daleks, with Patrick Troughton, and Robot with Tom Baker.

He helmed the fan favourite Jon Pertwee story The Daemons – for which he provided a fascinating live commentary at the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary convention at the Excel last year – as well as The Mutants for Pertwee, and The Brain of Morbius and The Creature from the Pit for Tom Baker. He also directed the fan film Downtime, which introduced the character of Kate Lethbridge-Stewart, recently brought into the main series.

His other SF directing work included Out of the Unknown, Moonbase 3 – for the Doctor Who team of Barry Letts and Terrance Dicks – and The Tripods.