The Basics - Issue 196, 17 February 1993. The front cover has a photo of Sophie Aldred, who is interviewed inside. From this issue, and for the rest of the year, the new 30th anniversary logo appears on the front cover. Further free postcards are included inside.

Indicia - "Curses" growled the Black Guardian. "The Shadow, Turlough and all my other agents. Useless, every last one of them. And now this, my latest - vanquished!" The Guardian turned off his pan-dimensional monitor angrily, as Jonathan Powell walked through the BBC gates for the last time...

News And Views - It is rumoured that Jon Pertwee will resume his role as the Third Doctor in a series of new adventures for transmission on BBC Radio, with Terrance Dicks and Eric Saward suggested as writers. UK Gold may move their daily transmissions of Doctor Who to late evenings in line with their other cult TV programmes, following disappointing ratings for the 5.30pm transmissions. Kate Orman writes in to defend the recent comic strip Ravens and manages to plug her forthcoming New Adventure The Left-Handed Hummingbird.

New Fiction - In the Brief Encounter "The Stranger, The Writer, His Wife and the Mixed Metaphor", the Fourth Doctor encounters William Shakespeare. The Prelude features The Highest Science.

Reviews - Off The Shelf reviews Terminus ("an abject failure; the nadir of the Davison era") and The Highest Science ("nothing short of marvellous").

Boxpops - Parts Five and Six of Genesis of the Daleks are repeated on BBC2 on Friday 5 and 12 February at 7.15pm. Parts One and Two of The Caves of Androzani are repeated on BBC2 on Friday 19 and 26 February at 7.15pm.

Top of the pop charts in Febuary 93 were the continuing Whitney Houston and No Limit by 2 Unlimited.

Critique - Part of the reason I started on this venture almost 4 years ago was the fun in seeing how things were then compared to now. Looking at this issue from exactly 15 years ago at the time of writing, some things never change! The Doctor encountering Shakespeare (and ironically in the same issue that new author Gareth Roberts is much praised by Gary Russell who hopes that there will be more to come from him!)? A digital station that had been showing chronological Who at tea-time? New adventures on radio?! Plus ça change...

In amongst the usual mix of interviews, comic strip and Archive (complete with some rare colour and b/w photos of The Celestial Toymaker), the highlight of this issue for me is the Rebuilding The Classics feature by one Steve Roberts, concentrating on the colourising of the recently transmitted The Daemons. Back then, we would mostly have been quite unaware of this technical wizardry - and it's not the sort of feature you'd see in DWM 15 years on. Instead, you get to read it online on the Restoration Team's own website...