donald cotton Archives - Galactic Journey

By Jessica Holmes

I love musicals. I love — despite its flaws — this weird little science fiction show: Doctor Who. You’d think if you put the two together you’d end up with something I adore. It didn’t work.

Yes, this is essentially a musical serial– or rather, a serial with musical narration and more than one actual on-screen musical number. It sounds completely bizarre, and that’s because it is.

Rather than the usual incidental music peppering Doctor Who’s serials, this time around the action is interspersed with a ballad written by Tristram Cary and performed by Lynda Baron. Cary has provided music for Doctor Who before, in The Daleks, Marco Polo and The Daleks’ Master Plan. I wish I could say I remembered any of the music in those serials, but I can’t. All the same, I have found that his latest offering has wormed its way into my brain, and I keep catching myself humming the tune… much to my dismay.

This one’s also an alleged historical with more inaccuracies than I can count, so to save us all a lot of time I’ll quickly explain the very basics of what ACTUALLY happened in Tombstone on October 26, 1881.