The Basics - Issue 146, March 1989. The main photo on the front cover is of Ace from Silver Nemesis.

News And Views - A new stage play, Doctor Who - The Ultimate Adventure, begins a national tour towards the end of March, starring a "named actor" as the Doctor. Sales of the Dapol figures were buoyant in the lead-in to Christmas. With 6.1 million viewers, the first part of Silver Nemesis achieved the highest ratings since Revelation of the Daleks. Season 26 will again consist of 14 episodes, split into two 4 parters and two 3 parters. A full colour compilation of The Voyager strips has been scheduled for release early in the year.

Reviews - After Image reviews Silver Nemesis - "After the enjoyable and impressive start to the new season, this story was a massive retrograde step." The David Banks Cybermen book is reviewed - "everything in it is amazing." Off The Shelf reviews Delta and the Bannermen and Dragonfire, respectively "destined to be the naff novel of '89 1/5" and "superb; a refreshing change after the other three rather dire Season 24 novels 5/5".

Boxpops - Max Headroom - The Series debuts on Channel 4 on 2nd March. Top of the pop charts in March 89 were the continuing Belfast Child, Too Many Broken Hearts by Jason Donovan and Like A Prayer by Madonna.

Critique - I went to France for five months from April 89, so never really had a chance to go to the stage play. The ratings for Silver Nemesis were encouraging at the time - no doubt helped by a fairly impressive publicity campaign for the 25th anniversary story in the media and a BBC1 trailer for the first episode which I saw several times. In my opinion, they got their reviews for both Silver Nemesis and the Cybermen book pretty much spot on. "Naff" - now there's a word you don't hear so often these days! The second and final part of the comic strip was notable for having two of its pages printed in the wrong order - I'm fairly sure I didn't notice at the time, but then the story was fairly unorthodox in the first place...
Paying the Bills
DWM's movie critic shows his disgust at pointless sequels