Doctor Who reviews

The Sea Devils

2009-09-27T18:31:00.003+01:00

Previous viewings - many

It's nice to know that I'm not completely out of step for once. Of all the Pertwee serials so far, it was felt that Doctor Who and the Silurians had the most mileage for a sequel, a sentiment I heartily agree with. Considering the roots of The Sea Devils, it certainly does it own thing; consider this the more action-driven cousin of its predecessor, swapping the intelligent Silurians for warlike Sea Devils, caves for the sea and moral ambiguities for a more clear-cut good vs. evil battle. About the only thing carried over is the terrible soundtrack.

Returning to pen this sequel to his successful original is writer Malcolm Hulke. In many ways, he is the wrong person to write this story, with his penchant for character and ideas-driven stories showing through here, in a story which is really about action and style, with the coastal setting and Navy involvement setting the tone much more than the monsters themselves or the Doctor's dilemma, and which is best when it diverges from the original. I'd almost go as far to say that if the Sea Devils were a typical alien invasion force rather than an offshoot of the Silurians, this story would be all the better for it.

Thats not to say that I didn't enjoy this. It may lack the depth (pun not intended) of its predecessor, but it has a lot going for it that ...and the Silurians doesn't. For the first time in ages, its the present day but UNIT aren't helping out. Instead, Captain Hart is commander of a Royal Navy base, with the use of boats and submarines putting a whole different spin on the action scenes than the norm. This gives the military scenes a freshness to them that we haven't seen since UNIT was introduced. Then there's the return of the Master, with him coincidentally (!) locked up close by the Navy base following his capture in The Dæmons. Then there's the Sea Devils themselves, a widely remembered monster due to some impressive design work, even if they sound a bit generic.

Episode 1 begins with the Doctor and Jo visiting the Master in prison. The irascible Colonel Trenchard is the warden of the top-security prison which has apparently been set up solely to keep the Master under lock and key (what would the taxpayers say?). The Doctor and Jo are let in to see the Master as they're not convinced any prison is escape-proof for the Master. The Master claims to be a changed man, and apparently satisfied the Doctor and Jo leave.

For some reason, these scenes didn't sit right with me. It's just so contrived; the Doctor leaving the Master in an Earth prison is hard to fathom, when he has the option of handing him over to the Time Lords or dealing with him himself. The Doctor chats with the Master, laughing and joking with him like he's his best friend who hasn't tried to destroy the planet a few times. It's there to hammer home the fact that they were once friends, but it's at the expense of the Doctor's integrity and the reality of the scene - consider how unforgiving Pertwee's Doctor is to anyone else. At least Roger Delgado is back and he's as great as ever.

The rest of the episode is more plot-based, with the Doctor and Jo heading to the Navy base to help with an investigation of missing submarines. The Doctor doesn't even bother to show his credentials as he asserts his authority to the base personnel, using sheer charisma to gain access and blunder his way to the top. Pertwee does this very well. Of the personnel, Captain Hart does a good job of filling the void left by the Brigadier, being a good foil to the Doctor in the few scenes they have together, and Edwin Richfield brings a lot of empathy to a role that doesn't receive much characterisation in the script. By the end, I'm crying out for the UNIT family, but for one story this setup works fine and the base here at least has one prominent woman in authority, even though she doesn't get to do much.

The first episode ends with a usual monster reveal, as the Doctor and Jo are menaced by a Sea Devil at a rig. The problem with this is that Pertwee stories aren't monster-driven. They like to take their time to set the scene and let the plot unfold slowly, with the monsters coming out in force very late on. So after this Sea Devil is injured and runs off, the Doctor, Jo and a survivor of an attack are rescued and we don't see any more Sea Devils (and again it's only one!) until the end of Episode 3. What a tease! Just a cheap thrill, really, and a bad pacing problem, because when we get back to the base and the Master subplot we're left feeling like we're missing out on something more exciting than what we're getting.

I'm as big a fan of Delgado's Master as anyone, but there's no denying that Episodes 2 and 3 see the story dancing around on the spot. Having seen the Master infiltrate the Navy base, the Doctor and Jo return to the prison, where he is apparently still imprisoned. The Doctor discovers that he has hypnotised the entire staff, so.... he engages the Master in a swordfight, while some music consisting of strange farting noises plays. The cliffhanger of the Master throwing the knife is good, but what should be a big heroic moment for Pertwee's Doctor is undermined by randomness of it all. The Doctor is a bit cocky in this scene, seemingly enjoying the fight because he finds it fun. Episode 3 is the story's weakest, consisting entirely of the Doctor tied to a chair while Jo breaks in and rescues him.

The second half of the story sees it vastly improve. As they're chased by a Sea Devil rising from the waves, the Doctor and Jo cross a minefield, with the Doctor blowing up mines with his sonic screwdriver. Sure, he's using a gadget rather than his wits, but this is Pertwee's Doctor we're talking about, and as action scenes go, I found this far more effective than that ridiculous swordfight. It doesn't stretch credibility that the sonic screwdriver can be used for this purpose.

As in Doctor Who and the Silurians, the meat of the story lies with the Doctor's attempts to broken a peace between the terrestrial race and the humans. Or rather, that part of the story anyway. The Doctor is captured by the Sea Devils and tries to convince them to cease hostilities. The Master is also present and warns them that humans can't be trusted and are quick to violence. Since there is far less time devoted to these scenes than in Silurians, they can do nothing more than briefly rehash some of the key ideas, avoiding the moral issue almost entirely. It also suffers by having action scenes taking place all around it, with the Navy mobilising under the orders of Private Secretary Walker, who takes on the role the Brigadier did in the previous story. The key difference here is that Walker is presented as a hateable character, with no redeeming features; he shows up at the base with orders to settle the situation, and seems to view the preparation of his breakfast and the bombing of the Sea Devil base as equally urgent, showing no consideration for the kidnapped Naval officers or the Doctor. The Brigadier was a good choice to be the one to quash the Doctor's peaceful plans in Silurians because he was a good guy who the Doctor trusted.

This all sounds like it's a big comedown from Silurians, and intellectually it is. However this is not an intellectual story. The Sea Devils are more monster-ish than the Silurians. They do monster-ish things like invade the base and attack in number. While the latter portion of Silurians involves the Doctor working away in the lab to find a cure to a Silurian plague, The Sea Devils is pure action. It had to be, too; the heavy use of location work, all manner of different Naval vehicles trotted out and terrific direction by Michael Briant give the story an aura of authenticity. The studio scenes early in the story were to its detriment; now we're mostly outside and it's all about action and atmosphere.

Having failed to negotiate with the Sea Devils, the Doctor is forced to work with the Master to build a device which will wake other colonies of the creatures. The Doctor turns the tables by reversing the polarity of the neutron flow (what a rubbish catchphrase - it's hardly clever to use the same tech solution to every problem), blowing up the Sea Devils instead. The Master then escapes using one of his disguises.

Despite my misgivings and my preference for Doctor Who and the Silurians, I really like The Sea Devils. It has action in abundance, but the action is authentic and well directed, almost cinematic. The Sea Devils are iconic, while the Silurians are merely creative. The Master is along for the ride, and the Doctor and the Jo are gelling perfectly. I would have preferred it had it been four episodes, and a different soundtrack, but they're a given.

Horror quotient - The music works against the Sea Devils, because it's just silly. And so obtrusive.
Comedy quotient - With the Doctor it's hit and miss. Hits include his defiant claim about being a personal friend of Nelson, and Hart's reaction. Misses include anything to do with the Master in this story - the 'best buddies' routine is just awful.
Drama quotient - A damp squib compared with Silurians. But then, it makes up for it in other areas.

Doctor Who and the Silurians it ain't, but it's a good action-packed yarn with a decent monster.

8/10

The Curse of Peladon

2009-09-17T11:33:00.002+01:00

Previous viewings - one (Episode 1), none (Episodes 2 to 4)

Yeah, weird one that - last year, pre-marathon, a new classic Doctor Who story was a big event, but I just couldn't get into it. I think part of the reason is that it's a type of story that's difficult to get right - a studio-bound political parody, with neutered Ice Warriors and hardly any action. I noted it had a decent reputation, so come marathon time I approached it optimistically.

The Curse of Peladon is another story that seems to have learned all the wrong lessons from Star Trek. In the future, delegates of the Federation come to planet Peladon to make a decision over whether to admit the planet to the organisation. King Peladon is in favour, while his aide Hepesh is against it. The story revolves around the admission of of Peladon to the Federation and a possible plot to kill the delegates. The Doctor and Jo land in the middle of this and have to take on the roles of the Earth delegates, hoping to investigate and discover the truth behind the events. Outer space diplomacy, ugh. Is there is a worse thing to base a story around?

Brian Hayles is back to write - I guess he wouldn't have the Ice Warriors appearing otherwise, even though they're good guys this time - and he seems to agree, giving over plenty of time to character moments, away from the main action. King Peladon strikes up a friendship with Jo, who he believes to be a Princess, with their relationship effectively getting its own subplot (a rarity for Doctor Who), and a lot of thought has gone into making the delegates interesting characters, both visually and personally. Most of them should be terrible, but they somehow work; Alpha Centauri is a squealing one-eyed cactus, Arcturus is an alien head in a jar and then there's the Ice Warriors, who are just bizarre in a non-threatening context; their scaly look and hissy, heavy breathing sound are all indications of villainy, which helped them in The Ice Warriors but which is a bit out of place and even quite funny here.

As the TARDIS has fallen down a mountain, the Doctor and Jo seem stranded and have no choice but to enter Peladon's palace, as the outside is inhospitable. These scenes putting the location in context are excellent; if nothing else it explains why they stay indoors. After joining the action, a statue falls and nearly kills them. Hepesh warns them that it was a statue of their god Aggedor, and this is a sign that the diplomats are not wanted on Peladon. This encourages the Doctor to stay and settle the crisis.

I think the problem with The Curse of Peladon is that it takes a while to get going. This is one case where a first episode that mainly establishes the characters and setting before introducing peril at the cliffhanger doesn't work - the only groundwork laid by the first episode is bringing the Doctor into the action and arguing about diplomatic policy, and there isn't much drama in either. Further, the Doctor seems to take it for granted that he'll eventually get the TARDIS back, even though it fell quite a long way. Perhaps I just miss the days when getting back to the TARDIS was pivotal to the resolution of the story, it seemed truer to the Doctor's character somehow. Especially considering he's in a position where he might need to make a quick getaway (as indeed he does at the end).

The Doctor quickly finds himself accused of attacking Arcturus by removing a vital component, which Jo is found with after finding it in the Ice Warriors's quarters. The Doctor is locked up but released into some tunnels, where he ends up in Aggedor's shrine. Naturally, he is found there and his execution is immediately ordered for his sacriliege. A tense cliffhanger.

Fortunately, the resolution promises action - King Peladon gives the Doctor an alternative - a fight to the death with the King's Champion. Episode 3 is a strange one, apparently gearing towards the story's climax with both the story's major action scene (the Doctor's fight) and the disclosure of the villain (Hepesh). Hepesh offers the Doctor a way out, leading him instead into the path of the beast Aggedor, which is very real. He hypnotises it but Jo shows up and scares it away. Jo, you stupid girl. The fight itself is pretty good, though in my head I was comparing it to its counterpart in The Aztecs so thats not a great compliment (the enclosed, royal/political nature of the story meant The Aztecs was in my head throughout the story - perhaps that's why I'm hard on it).

After winning the fight and deciding to spare his opponent's life, Arcturus shoots the Doctor, but the lead Ice Warrior shoots him first. As Hepesh runs off, it's revealed that he and Arcturus were working together to stop Peladon joining the Federation, with Arcturus reaching a secret agreement with Hepesh to trade for Peladon's rare minerals. This apparent resolution at the beginning of the final episode seems to come at the wrong time - the only thing thats left to do is capture Hepesh, something that should only take a minute or two. The fact that it's dragged out until the end of the episode turns out not to be the disappointment that it could have been - in the intervening time the Doctor goes to find Aggedor again to confront Hepesh with it, and as a desperate Hepesh tries to control Aggedor, he is killed by the beast. How neat for the plot.

It's hard to come to a conclusion on The Curse of Peladon. I wasn't keen on Jo's subplot with Peladon - David Troughton was clearly trying very hard in the role but he comes across as quite an inexperienced actor, and Katy Manning oversells Jo's conflicted emotions. It's wrong, wrong, wrong, and a pity because Jo is great in the rest of the story. Jon Pertwee gets to flex his singing voice, and pulls off something I doubt many other Doctors could. Ultimately, out of all the studio-bound dialogue-driven stories, this isn't one of the best; the characters fail to come alive (although Alpha Centauri is hilarious) and thus the whole thing sort of flounders. At four parts however, it just about works.

Horror quotient - When the Ice Warriors are the good guys, you know where the story is leaning. It is quite atmospheric, though.
Comedy quotient - Pertwee gets a chance to be daft, even with the threat of execution looming.
Drama quotient - I didn't care much about the diplomacy plot, and was ambivalent about the conspiracy plot. It chugged along fine otherwise.

A solid story, if a tad boring, and certainly no better than average.

6/10

Day of the Daleks

2009-09-16T18:02:00.003+01:00

Previous viewings - none

Talk about starting the new season with a bang! The universe's most fearsome pepperpots are back after an astonishing five-year absence to scare a new generation of kids with their deadly sink plungers - okay, so they're probably the same kids as before, but it's certainly a new generation of Doctor Who, one that has successfully broken away from the past such that, coupled with the lengthy absence of the Daleks, makes it quite seem quite groundbreaking seeing the Pertwee Doctor and UNIT facing the show's biggest icon of the 60s.

Which makes Day of the Daleks quite an oddity. You'd think that with the Daleks being gone so long the producers would aim for a "typical" Dalek story, one that shows them in all their glory as people remember them at their peak. A consequence of Louis Marks's story originally being written without the Daleks in mind is that they're shoehorned into a rigid plot which doesn't leave much room for the Daleks to make much impact. Dalek stories have always been special - longer than four episodes, containing a big confrontation with the Doctor and usually being a turning point in the tenure of a companion or two. As a Dalek story, it feels lacking because they feel like guests in their own story, half-heartedly integrated into a story that worked perfectly without them. And indeed, the Daleks are probably the story's weakest aspect.

Fortunately, the rest of the story is very strong. We finally leave the Master behind as UNIT investigates a diplomat who has seen a ghost - though he later denies it. Meanwhile, the Doctor and Jo see future versions of themselves in the TARDIS, indicating a stitch in time. He and Jo stay at Sir Reginald's house while he is away at a conference, and soldiers from the future arrive to kill the diplomat, as they believe his death will prevent the disastrous future they come from. Yep, Doctor Who predicts The Terminator.

I do love time paradox plots, because they nearly always have twists. They're sci-fi's answer to murder mysteries - the universe is the victim, and the hapless protagonists are the killers. The Doctor is dropped into a situation to break the cycle of destruction. We're drip-fed revelations here, with the true nature of the plot saved until near the climax, but the surprise appearance of the Daleks (well, they're in the title, but you know what I mean) and plenty of action keeps things zipping along until the Doctor realises that by killing Sir Reginald the soldiers will be responsible for the very war they are trying to prevent. Perhaps because of the faster-than-usual pace of the story, I was caught up in the action and didn't see this coming, even though in retrospect it's totally obvious.

The future we see here brings back memories of The Dalek Invasion of Earth - desolation, Daleks and survivors trying to fight back. It's an atmospheric setting for what little we see of it, and in a way it's a shame that the story gives so much time over to the scenes in the present day because we sacrifice something different for something familiar. Further, the majority of the future scenes are set in the control centre, where the Daleks discuss their plans to recapture the soldiers. The Daleks have... odd.... voices - calm, almost polite! It feels like after getting the voices pitch-perfect in the Troughton Dalek stories, we're back at square one and it's jarring. To an extent it makes them not even seem like proper Daleks. They certainly don't act like them - working with the Ogrons and allowing future humans to live if they are useful. They don't even rant about their superiority and the plot isn't about exterminating or destroying, it's about preserving and saving, which is just so un-Dalek. To have a story with the most unique and distinct alien creature ever created for Doctor Who and make them seem so bland is quite a feat.

The conclusion sees the the Ogrons and a few Daleks travel to the past to kill the soldiers, and thus protect their own history. In the open air, away from claustrophobic sets the fact that there are only three Daleks is difficult to hide, and they're anything but scary. The Ogrons are cool though - convincing looking, and believable and simplistic brutes, which is all that's required of them. Certainly a step up from the Robomen. As UNIT holds them off, the Doctor evacuates the house of a Chinese delegation and one of the soldiers blows it up with the Daleks inside.

Day of the Daleks is a story that's better than I give it credit for. The Daleks are undeniably a let down, but putting them aside, there's little to complain about. The pacing is quite unusual for the series, and for once the story doesn't linger in one place or plot point for long, and there aren't many Pertwee stories you can say that for. It would make a nice new series two-parter with very few changes.

The other good thing about it is the characters. For once, Pertwee is at the top of his game - whether that's because he is having a good time making it, or because the Doctor has finally grown out of Season 8 grouchiness, I'm not sure, but it allows his Doctor to be more playful, which is fun. Jo gets lots to do, both opposite the Doctor and the Controller, the main guest of the story, who bonds with Jo to trick her into revealing the location of the soldiers, but who later betrays the Daleks who had kept him alive because he was one of the privileged few. As dim as Jo is sometimes (okay, a lot), most of her idiotic moments come about from her trying to help the Doctor, so if nothing else her heart is in the right place, plus Katy Manning is likeable in the role. UNIT seems quite out of place in this story, as their only job is to set up the conference part of the plot. It's almost a shame that present day has to mean UNIT in this era as this is a story that could have done without them and devoted more time to exploring the future setting.

All in all, jolly good show.

Horror quotient - The Daleks are probably at their least scary here. A story should be created around the Daleks, but here they're bolted onto a time travel story that doesn't leave much room for Nazi allegories and moody lighting.
Comedy quotient - Hmmm.... can't think of much. Though I liked the bit where the Doctor knocks out the soldier then sips his wine. Very James Bond.
Drama quotient - Bits and bobs. For the most part the story moves too fast to savour the drama and horror of the Dalek-run future, as The Dalek Invasion of Earth does. Then again, we've been there and done that, so maybe it's not such a bad thing.

It's probably the only time I'll say this, but here we have a classic story.... but then the Daleks show up. I love the Daleks, but some stories are better without them, and this is one of them. They could at least have got the voices right!

9/10

The Dæmons

2009-09-13T23:00:00.002+01:00

Previous viewings – none

The Dæmons is a story I’ve wanted to see for ages. From the way it’s described, I had it pegged as the better cousin of The Claws of Axos – the UNIT Family era in all its coziness, but done right. Sitting snugly at the end of Season 8, it’s a five-part story by Robert Sloman, with heavy input by producer Barry Letts, so we can expect mild exploration of a topical issue. It all sounds so very The Green Death.

Doctor Who isn’t hard sci-fi by any means, in fact things like the TARDIS and the sonic screwdriver are more magic than science, so it could come off as a bit cheeky for the show to address the magic vs. science issue, putting itself firmly on the science side, noting that anything remotely supernatural can be explained away by science. It’s in keeping with the character of the Doctor and something the show has implied throughout its existence, but never has the realm of the supernatural been dismissed so readily, and at times none too subtly, in such a manner that the Doctor might as well be speaking directly to the camera. There was perhaps no other way to do it, but it comes off as quite patronising and even agenda-setting.

The story itself is great though. The first episode packs a lot in, establishing the village of Devil’s End (yeah, it had to be called that, didn’t it?), and establishing the plot via a BBC news report investigating the excavation of the Devil’s Hump, with the same device used to introduce us to the guest characters, namely local witch Miss Hawthorne, who warns the archaeologists not to open an ancient tomb which has been discovered. The reporter is a clever plot device as it puts us in the know very quickly, as a real news report would, via a completely irrelevant character we don’t have to know or care about (notice how he vanishes when the Doctor arrives). The setup required is minimal.

The UNIT crew are lazing around as the Brigadier is away, and the Doctor shows off his remote control device for Bessie. He sees the TV and rushes to Devil’s End to stop the tomb being opened, arriving just too late and getting blasted when it’s opened, while at the same time the Master (again!) chants somewhere in some robes. In this story, the Master is trying to summon Azal, a Dæmon with immense power whose spaceship is in the Devil’s Hump. He hopes Azal will grant him immense power (ooh, original!), and the “magic” aspect of the story is nothing more than the Master’s usual mind control tricks and his use of the telekinetic energy from the villagers chanting to summon Azal. Of his stories so far, the Master is least restrained in this, at his most unhinged, spending most of his time chanting, which gets boring after a while. This doesn’t hurt the story but the Master has been a great asset to the stories so far, and it’s weird for Delgado’s presence not to significantly improve things. However pivotal his role, he feels peripheral.

The Doctor is knocked out for most of Episode 2, with most of the action falling to Sergeant Benton and Captain Yates, who head for Devil’s End after seeing things going wrong on the TV (weird that they seem to be the only ones concerned about it considering it was on national television). They find some unfriendly villagers and a concerned Hawthorne, who teams up with them. Miss Hawthorne is a strange one – she’s a witch, and is more than willing to challenge the Doctor about his stance on the supernatural, but when she does, she’s shot down. Thanks to a good performance by Damaris Hayman, she’s likeable and retains her dignity, so she never comes off as foolish, and fortunately she is not written as the humourless quack you’d expect.

UNIT tries to enter the village in Episode 3 but can’t get past a barrier which burns anything which tries to enter the town, even from above. This was quite a cool plot twist, because there were some funny scenes of the Doctor trying (and failing) to advise UNIT’s alternative gadget man, unable to pass through and fix the problem himself, and of the Brigadier’s patience wearing thin as their attempts to penetrate the barrier fail. Also, it kept UNIT out of action, keeping the focus on the village and the villagers, allowing us the scenes in Episode 4, where the Doctor is kidnapped during the May Day celebrations, where the people under the Master’s influence try to burn him alive (what a great cliffhanger that would have been! Surprising they pass up the opportunity). Miss Hawthorne warns them that he is a great wizard, and demonstrates his powers using trickery. When released, he gives an obligatory lecture that science is the answer, not magic, before setting off to save Jo, who is to be sacrificed to Azal.

And then it all goes so wrong. In Episode 5, we get the hilarity of the Brigadier’s “chap with wings” line – which I never got but seeing it in context makes all the difference – but the climactic scenes of the Master summoning Azal are ruined by a pretty rubbish resolution, of Azal deciding to destroy the Doctor until Jo steps in and demands that she be sacrificed in the Doctor’s place. Unable to comprehend the notion of self-sacrifice, Azal destroys itself, blowing up the church and the plot. I can only assume the writers were totally stuck on how to resolve the story because Azal’s nonsensical demise comes out of nowhere, surely a (I hate using the term but it fits) deux ex machina. It’s not even as if there wasn’t time left, or the crisis was unsolvable. Very weak, and such a shame for a story that had been very good up to that point.

It’s the inverse of The War Games – the conclusion makes the whole story suffer. That’s not to say there isn’t loads of great stuff in The Dæmons – the characters and themes are solid and it’s very atmospheric. If you like the UNIT family, everything you like is here, and it’s nowhere near as shabby looking as in The Claws of Axos. The regulars look like they’re having a great time, and there’s loads of action. A season in, I’m finally getting the rapport between Pertwee and Katy Manning, building on Colony in Space rather than going back to the relationship in her earlier Earthbound stories. The final scene especially underscores this – the Master is finally captured, so lets all dance and be happy.

So... Master Season isn’t the master of seasons. But at least Doctor Who feels like it’s in a good place, vibrant and imaginative.

Horror quotient – Even the Master fears Azal, getting a cliffhanger to himself as it menaces him (what’s that about, anyway?). For the first time since Troughton left, Doctor Who has a right to call itself scary for reasons intended, rather than because the CSO is dodgy.
Comedy quotient – I’ve mentioned a few favourite moments. With the increasing emphasis on comedy with the Brigadier (he joins the action because he’s worried about his helicopter?), we lose some of the believability of the man as a military man of some importance, but it works in this story.
Drama quotient – Plenty of this too. The tension is deflated by the crappy conclusion, but until then it’s a solid story.

Like a lot of Pertwee stories, everything works well, but it lacks that certain oomph that classics are made of, and is held together by charm. The conclusion is a big disappointment, though.

8/10

Colony in Space

2009-09-12T10:19:00.003+01:00

Previous viewings - none

It's the story that heralds a return to time and space... but Colony in Space isn't a return to anything else we're familiar with. In fact, there's as much new here as there was in the first UNIT story: it's the first of the Earth Empire subset of stories that seem to crop up a lot in the Pertwee era, it's among the first to give us a future setting but make the primary threat to the human protagonists in the story other humans rather than aliens, who sit on the sidelines until near the end (it is written by Malcolm Hulke after all). Sad to say, it's also one of the first to have a rather tedious premise.

The Doctor is showing Jo the TARDIS when the Time Lords whisk them away to the planet Uxarieus, much to the Brig's surprise. It's a great start the story never quite lives up to - we get a glimpse of the Time Lords discussing the Master and a doomsday weapon, which seems to promise some scope to the adventure which never materialises, and for the first time in what seems like forever we have a companion reacting to the TARDIS. Jo is unique in that she’s experiencing the rite of passage that all new companions experience, but she’s not a new companion. We already know her, and we’ve seen the world she occupies – sure it’s fantastic, but the Doctor’s been there to guide her and she understands him, and that’s enough. It’s only when what she thought she knew about him is thrown into doubt that she gets scared. The marathon also puts into context the Doctor’s frustrations at Jo wanting to deprive him of his first visit to an alien planet in ages, and how he feels at conceding after a quick look around. So I get both viewpoints, and a good idea of the warmth between the characters.

I'm too used the convention of Doctor Who plot unfolding to hold the action-free first episode against the story. In the UNIT era, this has become a rare convention, so how do viewers feel when episode after episode ticks by and the story remains focused on dialogue and a dispute over land? Certainly, Colony in Space seems somewhat ashamed of itself, with the first two cliffhangers featuring what looks like a monster but what turns out to be a mining robot.

Fortunately it establishes a strong set of characters, with some old faces from old stories turning up, not that I’d ever have realised it without looking at the cast credits because they’re a capable bunch; the group we’re introduced to first are the colonists, who came to the planet a year ago but have had difficulty farming the area. John Ringham plays Ashe, leader of the colonists, who is intelligent but determined man who is instinctively non-aggressive and accepts the Doctor’s aid. He doesn’t get to do much but he’s a sympathetic character and has an everyman quality that means we’re on his side. Also at the colony are the obligatory more aggressive one Winton, who fills his role but does little more, and Mary Ashe, who is someone for Jo to befriend, at least at the start, although the presence of Gail from Corrie takes me right out of the story whenever she appears.

While investigating two deaths, the Doctor encounters Caldwell, who works for the IMC mining company who have arrived on the colony to mine it. The Doctor quickly determines that the miners have been trying to scare the colonists away. Apart from the benevolent Caldwell, none of the miners come to life as characters, serving only to throw a spanner in the works to facilitate the plot.

Then there’s the Primitives, cheap-looking aliens who live in a tacky city... but coming after the Axons they certainly do their job fine by comparison. At least the aliens are a good idea – a faded empire whose secrets lie in their city, but who themselves have turned into lobotomised, silent drones. For all its faults in the realisation, it stands as an interesting contrast to the rest of the story but somehow also fits right in. The tiny one is creepy though. The Doctor makes a brief trip there to rescue Jo, and they’re allowed to leave on condition they never return.

The story gets a well-needed shock moment when the Adjudicator arrives to decide which of the Earth parties has the right to stay on the planet, and it’s the Master! (Something that would have been a lot more surprising if the Master wasn’t a series regular and his presence hadn’t been mentioned in the teaser.) Any reason for Roger Delgado to show up is fine by me, and at least here it’s in a totally different setting from the norm, and he gets plenty of scenes with the Doctor. For the first time, we see the inside of the Master’s TARDIS, and it’s just like the Doctor’s except with more equipment in the control room. It might be foolhardy to treat the Master as a real character and not a caricature, but while writing can sometimes let the side down I think that Delgado has shown that he can at least keep the Master above panto villain level (no easy task, I’m sure), keeping him a credible threat and a man who, while clearly insane, doesn’t show it by putting on a performance.

When the Master rules in favour of the miners, and pretends to be interested in helping Ashe with his appeal, on the basis that the presence of the primitive city makes the planet a place of historical interest that shouldn’t be mined of its natural resources. The Master forces the Doctor to accompany him to the city, with Jo trapped inside the Master’s TARDIS and able to be killed at the touch of a button. I wouldn’t go as far as to say the last couple of episodes are fast-paced, but they do deliver more tension and excitement than the previous four. We finally get a battle between the colonists and the miners, and the Master outlines his plan to access the dormant doomsday weapon left by the civilisation on Uxarieus, as he hopes to use it to rule the cosmos. I know this is usual Master stuff, but Delgado’s restrained performances seem at odds with the more insane speeches he is required to give. It’s a good moment for the Doctor though as he is delighted when the lead primitive decides that the weapon should be destroyed so the Master isn’t able to follow through his plan.

While this is happening, we’re led to believe that the colonists, having been forced to leave by head miner Dent, have tried to take off in their ship but blown up. This was a great plot point as it briefly made me believe that the writer had done something very daring – but when it turned out that Ashe had sacrificed himself it wasn’t a disappointment. The plot resolves itself very neatly, with the colonists overpowering the IMC men in a surprise attack, and the future looking bright for them with the destruction of the city that was responsible for their crops failing.

Colony in Space isn’t without its faults – it’s still quite a slow-paced story that however diverting isn’t actually about anything interesting – but coming after eight UNIT stories in a row, watching it as part of a marathon is a joy. True, the Master shows up yet again, but the story would have suffered if he hadn’t. All you need for a good Doctor Who is a strong set of characters, decent villains and a strong performance by the lead. By now, you kind of know what you’re getting with Jon Pertwee, there is little variation in his performances but they’re always good. For a great Doctor Who story you need more, but this has the essentials and no elements, aside from the pacing, particularly let it down. Quite underrated.

Horror quotient – The Guardian, perhaps? Or the primitives in general. I’m never going to be scared.
Comedy quotient – Mac Hulke is generally a non-comedic writer. Under his pen, Pertwee’s Doctor came into form as one of the most serious and that trend continues here. The comedy is subtle and limited to the odd line.
Drama quotient – The subplot of Jo’s introduction to life in the TARDIS disappears after the first couple of scenes, which is a big disappointment. Again, apart from the odd scene, there isn’t much drama to get out of the colony plot, and even less from the Master’s latest diabolical scheme. I expected more from the writer of the finest Pertwee story yet.

A story which benefits greatly from being watched in a marathon, Colony in Space doesn’t have much to offer the casual viewer but it’s unfairly maligned. If there’s a more exciting story to be told about an argument over who gets to own a quarry I’d like to see it.

7/10

The Claws of Axos

2009-09-11T10:58:00.001+01:00

Previous viewings - many

What is Doctor Who as people remember it? I mean the general public, whose memories of the classic series, if they have any, are hazy recollections from childhood. It’s not uncommon for adults to mock TV shows they liked when they were young to show how much their tastes have matured. In the UK, Doctor Who is a frequent victim of this phenomenon, and even though I’m a fan of the programme, I can’t deny that occasionally it does deserve it. For the first time in the marathon (black and white did wonders for the atmosphere of the early stories), we have a story that exactly fits the bill for those who remember Doctor Who for its cheap-looking monsters, wobbly sets and terrible acting.

Thats not all that’s familiar in The Claws of Axos. The plot is ripped from half a dozen other Pertwee stories – an alien invasion, with the twist that the aliens pretend to be benevolent to gain a foothold. This is mixed with the usual UNIT escapades with pompous officials on the sidelines, and the Doctor making sarky comments. Staying as close to the basic Pertwee formula as possible, with little to recommend it over its contemporaries and a budget looking lower than ever, can the essentials of what made the era successful at the time carry this story?

The plot is rather thin. An Axon ship lands on Earth near a power complex in England, and the Brigadier leads a team inside, where they meet the Axons, a shape-shifting race that take on the form of gold-skinned humanoids when talking to humans and spaghetti monsters when attacking. Despite an interesting idea behind them, the Axons suffer because they’re an attempt to get the best of both worlds – they’re scary faceless monsters of the type kids loved in the Troughton era, and they’re also individual, reasonable aliens like the Silurians. Neither depiction of the Axons is used to its full potential, and they come across as forgettable.They’re certainly not helped by the realisation of the aliens, the gold aliens are fine except I don’t know whether that’s supposed to be skin or clothes, but the spaghetti monsters – it’s monsters like them that give the classic show a bad name. Looking and moving like men in giant bean bags, they render the whole thing a laughing stock. They’re used sparingly, but frustratingly whenever they do appear it seems to be at one of the story’s key moments.

The Doctor is immediately suspicious of the Axon’s gift of Axonite, which will cure world hunger. He convinces the local scientists to study Axonite before it’s released to the government, but he’s captured by the Axons, who want to time travel to extend their feeding stock (despite them already possessing the Master’s TARDIS). Aside from a few scenes, mostly opposite Roger Delgado, Jon Pertwee lacks the charisma and presence he usually has, and for the first time in a Pertwee story I am not understanding the Doctor’s motivations. He just seems to flit around from plot point to plot point with little purpose, and it’s disappointing as Pertwee so far has been a revelation, surpassing my expectations.

As civil servant Chinn tries to get his hands on the Axonite, securing an agreement to limit its use to the UK, the Master brokers a deal with the Axons to ensure that the rest of the world finds out about the secret deal, but upon his release from Axon capture, makes his way to the Doctor’s TARDIS, hoping to escape in it, leaving Earth to the Axons. I have no complaints about the Master’s return, in fact if anything Roger Delgado should have been in more stories. He always delivers a performance far above what the role deserves. I like that in this story he gets a chance to interact with the regulars more, rather than just hypnotise people and take on disguises. His scene with the Brigadier is a particular highlight – the Master is forced to help destoy the Axons to save the Earth, but his plan will sacrifice the Doctor and Jo. The Master is hilarious in this scene, enjoying the Brigadier’s discomfort at having to work with him. Good cliffhanger, too, until the silliness takes over again.

The final episode is the best one. The Doctor agrees to leave Earth with the Master, but instead takes him to the Axon ship in his now-repaired TARDIS and dupes the Axons into thinking he’s giving them time travel when he’s actually trapping them in a time loop. Any scene with Pertwee and Delgado sparring is wonderful, and while this doesn’t disappoint, it’s a pity that the Doctor has to pretend to go along with the Master’s plan, if only because it means they aren’t arguing; it certainly feels like a big moment from the marathon perspective for the Doctor to seemingly get a working TARDIS back, even if I know in advance that he isn’t going anywhere with it.

The Claws of Axos is a middling kind of story. The bad about it is appalling – aside from the stuff I’ve mentioned, there’s Bill Filer and his “accent”, the same old Dudley Simpson music (though there is some good stuff too, particularly in the first episode), spaghetti monsters (okay I did mention them, but thought I’d do it again because they’re REALLY bad), the caricatured Chinn, and Jo hardly doing anything (she was great in The Mind of Evil!). Certainly compared to Liz by this point, Jo hasn’t really justified her presence beyond Terror of the Autons.

And yet, it has a certain quality. As I noted earlier, there’s a familiarity about it, but the familiarity of a favourite pair of slippers. If you’re a fan, it’s safe to say that budget doesn’t matter. If you’re a fan of the Pertwee era, everything you like is here, even if it’s not the best examples of its type of story. Unspectacular, but a good watch.

Horror quotient – Don’t do that. Seriously, don’t do that.
Comedy quotient – A rather lighthearted story and that’s a good thing. I hate when things take themselves too seriously – the quality isn’t always there to support it. Only the Doctor himself is a bit humourless, although he’s funny in the last scene. A galactic yo-yo!
Drama quotient – There’s another attempt to drag politics and morals into Doctor Who, and this isn’t one of the best stories to attempt it. Any hint of drama is lost under the low-budgetness of it all.

Not a favourite, but at least it has a sense of humour. Certainly no better than average though.

6/10

The Mind of Evil

2009-09-10T10:43:00.001+01:00

Previous viewings - none

For some reason, this is a story I expected to like. I've heard it described as a throwback to Season 7, but with the Master. If you're going to watch a Pertwee story, that's a damn good combination. Then there's the return of black and white, always good for adding atmosphere, a pseudo-political plot with no monsters, and the return of Don Houghton as writer, so I'm expecting a fairly mature story of the sort I'm now used to in this era. Excited enough?

It’s justified, but only to an extent. I’m relieved to see the pitfalls Houghton fell into when writing Inferno are avoided this time, namely the tedious repetition and padding. However, I’m not convinced the plot was sufficiently thought through.

Following Terror of the Autons, the Master is trapped on Earth because the Doctor has the dematerialization circuit from his TARDIS. The Master’s scheme this time doesn’t involve helping the latest invading army of monsters, rather he has concocted a scheme himself, aiming to fire a missile at a World Peace Conference, using prisoners from Stangmoor Prison to hijack the missile from UNIT. This is all fine and dandy, but it’s not six episodes worth of story.

Whether because Houghton wants to provide a context to the various elements of the plot, or because he liked the idea of seemingly unrelated storylines coming together at the conclusion, a lot of screentime is devoted to the Conference early in the story, with UNIT providing security giving our characters reason to be there. Also, the Master, under the name of Professor Keller, has invented the Keller Machine, a device used on criminals to cure them of violent impulses, which piques the Doctor’s curiosity, which explains his presence at Stangmoor at the start of the story. Although enjoyable, for the sake of plot it’s a pity they are included because we can’t just visit these places, things have to happen there that contribute to the plot, and for the most part they’re superfluous. They only don’t feel like it at the time because I expect them to be explained. It might be silly of me to expect the Master to concoct a scheme that makes sense, but this comes across to me as an attempt by the writer to make a shorter story longer.

Putting plot logic aside, this story is far from a failure. It doesn’t quite feel like Season 7 – swapping Liz for Jo makes all the difference, though Jo’s ditziness is very toned down from Terror of the Autons. At Stangmoor Prison, Professor Kettering demonstrates the use of the Keller Machine, until it goes wrong. I was quite annoyed with the Doctor in this scene – making rather loud snide comments to Jo seemed quite Troughton-esque, and I’m not sure Pertwee carried it off without seeming rude. I think of him as one of the most serious Doctors, who very rarely jokes around. I didn’t comment on it much but he was the same in the previous story – he comes off as quite angry and rather bitter. Strange to think that losing Liz seems to have annoyed him more than his actual exile (although he is friendlier to Jo here than before).

Trouble is brewing, however. Two deaths occur – a guy is mauled when alone, and a man drowns without water, both drawing on their greatest fear. Even though it’s obvious what caused them, it follows the typical ‘setup’ formula common to first episodes, ending with a good cliffhanger of the Doctor almost becoming a third victim by imagining himself in the exploding planet in Inferno. At this point, it can go either way, but it’s a decent episode.

From there, however, the World Peace Conference plot is introduced, and the Doctor is called away, leaving the Keller machine investigation in the (in?)capable hands of Jo. Unbeknown to UNIT, a member of the Chinese delegation, Chin Li, is being controlled by the Master, and she is used to kill the Chinese delegate, stirring up trouble between the Chinese and the Americans, before going missing. What I like about this subplot – aside from being quite novel for Doctor Who (although common in spy stories) – is that it reinforces the believability of UNIT as a real organization. For once, their interests and the Doctor’s are separate, and it takes a lot to pique the Doctor’s interest, as he’s become used to concerning himself only with extra-terrestrial events. Plus for some reason it’s weird to see the Master interfering with ordinary Earth politics.

Unfortunately, as I said before, it’s a lot of time devoted to something that, although interesting, doesn’t matter. The Master wants to stir up relations between American and Chinese delegates to set the scene for the firing of the missile, but it just feels weird to seemingly completely abandon a subplot that’s been the main focus of two episodes only to justify it by implying its importance at the conclusion. Out of the two main settings – this and the prison – this is the more interesting and this is where the bulk of the story should have been set.

With the Master’s hypnosis of Chin Li discovered, she becomes co-operative, so the Doctor returns to Stangmoor while UNIT transports a missile to be destroyed. Jo and scientist Dr Summers (the ever-reliable Michael Sheard) have been besieged by rioting prisoners led by Mailer, who has been working with the Master thinking him merely as a shady inventor and businessman who he can manipulate. Here, the story hits a snag – the Doctor is stuck in a cell with Jo for most of the rest of the story, and seemingly every cliffhanger involves the Keller Machine almost killing the Doctor until he’s rescued at the last possible second. It’s quite an action-lite tale, with the two main setpieces being the theft of the missile and the conclusion, and neither is very exciting. Part of me suspects that the reason this story is one of the least discussed of the Pertwee era is that most people’s lasting memory of the story is the Doctor and Jo being stuck in that cell for what seems like an eternity.

Captain Yates gives chase after the UNIT taskforce is attacked by the prisoners and the missile taken. He is then captured himself and questioned by the Master. UNIT retake the prison and the Brig marches off with a taskforce to take on the Master, but the Doctor offers the Master a chance to reclaim his missing circuit in exchange for not firing the missile, although the Brigadier doesn’t like the idea, encouraging the Doctor to come up with an alternative: using the Keller machine as a weapon against the Master. The conclusion, like many of the era, contains plenty of running around and shooting, but isn’t particularly memorable. I did like the last scene of the Master phoning the Doctor to gloat about having a fully functional TARDIS though, and the Doctor bemoaning his continued exile.

By the end, I’m not sure what The Mind of Evil is supposed to be about. It’s place in the ‘Master arc’ is to allow the Master to turn the tables on the Doctor after being tricked in the previous story, and give the pair another chance to spar, but there isn’t much of that. The Keller Machine is invented by the Master as a tool for killing people – what happened to the Tissue Compression Eliminator? It’s very lucky too that the Doctor finds a way to use it against the Master.

What I look out for in Jon Pertwee’s performance at this stage is the ever-developing chemistry between Pertwee and Katy Manning. They’ve already come a long way since Terror of the Autons, and it helps that the Doctor seems to have forgiven her for not being as qualified as Liz, however that could be because Jo’s part in this story was written for Liz – as much as I love Jo, leaving her to handle the Keller investigation herself was hard to swallow, and her managing it well was even more so. I’m also really liking Sergeant Benton, who had a bigger part in this story than usual, his own subplot actually, with him messing up by losing Chin Li then trying to redeem himself. He was clearly having a great time being in charge of the prison, too.

All of this aside, it’s too flawed a story for me to score highly. I think there was a worthy Doctor Who to get out of the idea of the Keller machine, and of the Master trying to pit countries against each other, but putting them in the same story has done them both harm.

Horror quotient – The Keller machine cliffhanger is overused, but is never scary anyway. Nope, no killer dolls or man-eating chairs here.
Comedy quotient – The Doctor and the Brigadier are making for quite the unintentional comedy double-act. I’m still waiting for the Brig to lose it and punch the Doctor though.
Drama quotient – Drama depends on a plot flowing well, which this doesn’t. It starts off well, but the disappointment takes over by about Episode 4.

An entertaining story but one that could have been better with more action and less plodding around.

7/10

Terror of the Autons

2009-09-09T22:03:00.001+01:00

Previous viewings - one

If pushed, I’d probably agree that Season 7 is streets ahead of the rest of the Pertwee era, but one of the great things about it is that it knew when to end, stylistically, before it got dull. With Terror of the Autons, the UNIT era becomes an ongoing story with the addition of recurring baddie the Master, Katy Manning joins the cast as the more traditional companion Jo Grant, shorter stories make a return and the revolving door of alien invasions commences. It’s like putting on a pair of comfort slippers – this is the first time in the new decade it feels like the production team are thinking long-term instead of taking it a story at a time.

Introductions first. If you’re going to be stuck on Earth it makes sense to have a singular returning villain, not just because it gives Jon Pertwee a chance to develop a rapport with someone his character will spar with regularly, but because it provides a get-out-clause for the writers, who before had to think up a variety of plots involving aliens that just happen to occur now that UNIT and the Doctor are around; if the Master being there makes sense, so does the presence of any monster of the week.

As a rogue Time Lord, possessing intelligence equal or greater than the Doctor’s, the Master is a credible threat. The thing about the character is that he shouldn’t work – Roger Delgado plays the role straight but the clichéd appearance – the goatee and black clothes – is pure panto. Yet somehow the writing and the performance overcome this craft a character who make perhaps the greatest impact of any single character since the Doctor himself. A classic creation.

In his debut story, the Master uses his power of hypnosis to influence the manager of a plastics factory, and send a signal to the Nestene enabling them to control their Autons on Earth, and eventually to invade Earth. The Autons don’t appear as much as they did in Spearhead from Space but their new look is creepy, with big smiling heads. Despite being an agent of a greater power, the Master is true villain of the piece. We follow his actions from his arrival on Earth to his defeat, and though we aren’t privy to his motives (not that they need much explanation), the fact that he leads the plot, with the Doctor always a few steps behind, allows him to dominate the story.

The Doctor, meanwhile, is upset over Liz Shaw’s decision to stay at Cambridge, and to make matters worse a new assistant is forced upon him, one who has none of Liz’s qualifications and only got the job through nepotism. The good thing about Jo’s first scene, where she wrecks the Doctor’s experiment, is that we share his frustration, but when soon afterwards the Brigadier gives the Doctor the task of telling Jo that her services are not required, and the Doctor hasn’t the heart to do so, I hadn’t yet accepted Jo, so would have been quite happy for her to disappear. Jo tries to prove herself capable by chasing her own leads in the investigation, but it usually leads to disaster, and though I liked her for her bravery and loyalty to the Doctor (which seems to be borne out of admiration), there were a few times when her screeching was down there with the worst of Victoria or Susan. Aside from vague hints of the deeper relationship that will develop between Jo and the Doctor, Jo’s debut is far from a success.

Onto the actual plot. UNIT is led to a radio telescope where some scientists have gone missing, but one of them turns up dead and shrunken, the work of the Master’s tissue compression eliminator. From there it’s back to UNIT HQ while the Doctor works out what to do next. A lead takes him to a circus which leads to a great cliffhanger of a policeman being unmasked as an Auton, and a shootout between UNIT and some Autons… then back to the lab. It never feels like UNIT or the Doctor are making any progress because after every setpiece involving them they’re left back at square one.

Fortunately, the Master’s part of the plot is interesting enough that it doesn’t seem to matter. His infiltration of Farrel’s plastics factory under the guise of Colonel Masters is fun to watch, mainly because of Roger Delgado’s performance. His Master always seems intelligent and dangerous, even when pretending to be a charming businessman. I like that Farrel Sr. withstood his mind control attempt, not just because it led to some scary monster doll scenes (about as scary as CSO can be, anyway!), but because I thought the fact that the Master wasn’t angry about it but rather quite impressed was a nice touch, and said a lot about the character.

The conclusion comes about rather abruptly – like I said before, the story has little sense of progression. The Doctor stops the Master from contacting the Nestene, but the Master escapes after some disguise trickery. Having stolen the dematerialisation circuit from his TARDIS, however, the Doctor knows he and the Master will meet again.

Terror of the Autons is greater than the sum of its parts. At four episodes, it’s just long enough that it’s curious pacing doesn’t get annoying. The Master, with his own theme music, is very strong villain, it’s a pity we don’t get to see him interact with the Doctor much here but Delgado still manages to carry the story. Perhaps the best thing about the story is its shock reveal moments – the doll coming to life, the shrunken scientist, the Auton policeman – this might not be Robert Holmes’s best work, but it does a good job of establishing what we’ll be tuning in for week after week as the Pertwee era continues, and dares us to miss it.

Horror quotient – Even growing up in 90s, I would have been terrified of that doll as a kid. The disjointed movement of CSO is far scarier than CGI, which looks cartoonish when done poorly. The Doctor’s quite scary in this too – he hasn’t been this grumpy since the days of Hartnell.
Comedy quotient – Difficult one. Pertwee’s gurning is hilarious.
Drama quotient – Robert Holmes is not a good drama writer. I can’t think of any moment of pure drama in this or any of his stories.

There is some element of disappointment – Jo’s debut suffers in a story that’s all about introducing the Master. But what an introduction! Not a great story, but a good one.

8/10

Inferno

2009-09-08T11:50:00.002+01:00

Previous viewings – many

Far from being limited to telling a narrow range of stories, the production team of the time has imagination on its side that’s seen it deliver an excellent Season 7, in fact so far in the Pertwee era there has been more story variation than in Season 5, where the Doctor had free reign of time and space. All the writers need is imagination and determination, give or take inspiration by Quatermass. Inferno follows the trend of trying to avoid an alien invasion without changing the setting and utililising UNIT, presenting us this time with a parallel universe, with twists on the characters we know (with the new larger cast probably being the reason we haven’t had a parallel universe story yet).

There are shades of the Troughton era, particularly Fury from the Deep, in the early episodes, where we are introduced to some characters, working for a drilling project which is supposed to penetrate the Earth’s crust to find a new energy source. Professor Stahlman is the arrogant top man, one of the best of the line of obstructive base commanders, because rather than simply a plot device to slow the story down, he provides antagonism for the early episodes, which are essential because they set the scene allowing us to spot the differences and similarities in the parallel universe later on. Also, his attitude and insecurity are a joy to watch – he’s threatened by even the presence of someone who will challenge him and prefers to assert his authority by demeaning them rather than responding to their actual opinions. He’s also unusual because until his death the only problems the base has to solve under his watch are ones he has created himself through his unwillingness to listen to anyone.

Other base personnel include Sir Keith Gold, a bureaucrat who repeatedly tries and fails to get Stahlman to listen to him, but always remains patient and friendly, a likeable character, as well as drilling expert Greg Sutton, a hardworking but down-to-Earth chap who is a little more prone to losing his rag, and Miss Petra, the assistant to Stahlman played quite unmemorably by Sheila Dunn. Fortunately it’s not too many people to get to know as the familiar UNIT crew fill out the rest of the cast.

I’ve been surprised by Jon Pertwee’s performances and particularly the characterisation of the Doctor in this season. He might later be angrier and standoffish before being softened by Jo, but in the company of Liz, he doesn’t need to extend an olive branch as she works more on his level. That’s how I rationalise it anyway. Here, the Doctor is using the drilling project’s nuclear reactor to experiment on the TARDIS console, hoping to get it to work.

The first two episodes see the story plodding along competently if unremarkably. Even though we haven’t got to the parallel universe bit yet, the story doesn’t feel like it’s lacking something, as we have a murder investigation, and a mystery of people turning green and burning anything they touch, alongside the rising tensions between the base personnel as the drill penetrates deeper and Stahlman refuses to take safety precautions, all enough to carry a typical Doctor Who story. The sound of the drilling never stops and it creates a feeling of unease because there aren’t any quiet, safe moments. And that’s just at the start, when the story is at its least intense.

The turning point comes as the Doctor activates the console as the drilling is accelerated. The Doctor and the console both vanish (as strangely does Bessie), reappearing the next episode in apparently the same hut where he just was. Something isn’t right. His sonic screwdriver fails to open the door and his equipment is gone. The Doctor drives Bessie outside but is shot at by soldiers including Benton, and has to evade them in a chase. Not many stories take a u-turn of this magnitude, and it always has me on the edge of my seat, this has the added bonus of being a u-turn that elevates an already good story into classic territory. Not that I put it all down to the mere presence of the parallel universe plotline, because the execution is flawless – we’re drip-fed revelations about this new world and provided with action and mystery in the meantime. It manages to increase the tension, and it’s not like the story wasn’t tense before. The Doctor does take a strangely long time to realise that he isn’t where he was, but it’s worth it for his amused and baffled reactions to the Brigadier and Liz’s “ridiculous getup”s.

The Doctor is captured and brought before the Brigade Leader, the Brigadier’s counterpart with an eyepatch (is that a British version of Spock with the goatee?). A Republic rules Britain and the Royal family have been executed, and the Brig and his men are overseeing the drilling project, which is more advanced here. What makes it compelling is purely cosmetic – I’m not bothered about the drilling or anything like that, I just want to see familiar characters behaving out-of-character, and the Doctor’s hilarious reactions as he denies being a spy and realises where he is, then tries in vain to explain himself. After the opening interrogation scene, most of the revelations are out of the way however, and we’re left with people facing the same problem they are facing in the real universe. It’s a bit disappointing actually because the first half of Episode3 was something of a rollercoaster and now things are almost back to normal, with the added handicap of the Doctor not being trusted and in a cell limiting the story. What started out as the best plot twist ever has got old fast.

The remainder of Episodes 3 and 4 see the pace starting to slow, but the writer and director desperately trying to maintain the atmosphere of the earlier episodes. The Doctor is interrogated by the Brigade Leader but stands by his story that he is from another universe. I can see the actors are enjoying getting the chance to play it a little differently than usual and are appropriately throwing themselves into the role – I’m surprised how hateable Nick Courtney can be when he tries – but after a while the questioning gets tiresome because it never seems to go anywhere, time just ticks by as the project approaches penetration zero, which the Doctor is desperate to prevent as it will have catastrophic consequences. The only thing that actually happens in Episode 4 is the Doctor escaping from his cell and reaching the control room, allowing us a cracking cliffhanger where he realises he’s too late to stop it and tells the staff to listen as the Earth screams out its rage. An intense performance by Pertwee, though he does have to shout to be heard over the noise of the drill. A great moment but it only disguises the fact that he doesn’t actually accomplish anything while he’s there.

With the parallel universe doomed, the characters react to the Doctor’s warning that they’re going to die, while he tries to get back to the TARDIS console and return home. I didn’t like Episodes 5 and 6 much, to be honest. Apart from the novelty of seeing the Earth destroyed and how different characters react to impending doom, it’s far too drawn out, over two episodes, and there’s some repetitiveness – Greg Sutton’s whole part in the story seems to consist of the same two arguments with Stahlman and the Brigade Leader, repeated over and over, just with more shouting each time. Sir Keith is dead in the parallel universe although I’m not sure why as I would have liked to have seen his reactions to events. Some interest was added by the Primords – the creatures people transform into when they touch the green slime the drill has picked up – but the story could have done without them and been better, by combining Episodes 5 and 6 and focusing on the human characters.

It’s almost worth it for the last parallel universe scene – the Brigade Leader threatening the Doctor at gunpoint, demanding that he take them all with him using the TARDIS console, followed by Liz shooting the Brig. I really felt the desperation of the characters, and their method of coping with certain death seemed believable.

Episode 7 is a strange one. The events playing out we’ve already seen, because they’re a repeat of the parallel universe events in Episode 4, with penetration zero approaching. The conclusion could be dramatically unsatisfying – the Doctor simply convinces them to stop drilling – no villains, no monsters save for the Primord Stahlman, and it’s something that’s over and done very quickly. To pad out the episode, the Doctor is incapacitated and delirious for quite a while, and the Brigadier suddenly obeys the orders of Stahlman and tries to keep the Doctor out of the control room. It just about works out because when the drilling is stopped it’s a huge relief, and I liked the last scene, where Sir Keith returns, having come close to suffering the same fate as the other Sir Keith, and the Doctor tries to use the TARDIS console again only to materialise in the rubbish tip. After an unremittingly tense story (or at least one that tried to be such) I enjoyed the lighthearted last scene, particularly as it’s the last we ever see of Liz.

Yep, Liz leaves, replaced by Jo in the next story after an off-screen departure. I’ve liked Liz as a character, but I can see why she was replaced – she’s too smart. I think if there is only one companion they should embody all the essential traits of a companion, while in Zoe’s case Jamie was there too, and two companions can share the essentials between them to provide the balance. I think this would become even more apparent if Liz has ventured to an alien planet with the Doctor, as much as I’d loved to have seen that.

Inferno… a Doctor Who classic? I would have said so the first time I watched it, all seven episodes in a row, the tension sustained to the end. Now, I see the better qualities of the earlier episodes, and the repetitiveness of the later ones. The best thing about the parallel universe and the characters is exploring how they’re different – if we’re going to see a traditional Doctor Who plot, I want to it to be with the characters I know and love. I found myself delighted whenever it cut back to the normal universe because I could see what the characters I actually cared about were up to. I still liked the parallel universe plotline, but the novelty didn’t last long.

Horror quotient – Season 7 is a strange one to judge, especially coming after the Troughton era which was pure behind-the-sofa television most of the time. There’s plenty here that could be scary, but it’s not presented to scare, it’s presented to be dramatic, which is different.
Comedy quotient – A few moments, but nothing big.
Drama quotient – Now you’re talking! This story probably has the longest stretch of dramatic tension in any Doctor Who, barely letting up till the end. It’s probably the reason so many fans love it.

A great story, but the parallel universe plotline doesn’t stay interesting for long, certainly not four episodes. The repetitiveness and the shouting gets annoying after a while but there are just as many understated, reflective moments that make it worth it.

7/10

The Ambassadors of Death

2009-09-07T11:18:00.002+01:00

Previous viewings - none

The seven-parter is an interesting creature. For all my complaints about the padding in some six-parters, I've never noticed any in their longer cousins. For whatever reason, they just seem to tell richer stories, with deeper themes, more developed characters and unusual structures. I think it's true that the longer the story, the more experimentation becomes a necessity, because the beginning, middle and end will be much further apart than in a four-parter. This is good, because I like stories that stand by themselves in Who catalogue.

The Ambassadors of Death is certainly unique. Its length owes to its keeping the viewers guessing about who the villains are and what threat they pose, both the nefarious human characters as well as the aliens. A reason this is frustrating is because on first time viewing, going so long without knowing what's going on, my expectations constantly subverted, gets tiresome after a while. It's only when the story is over that I reflect on the whole story and notice the subtleties of the earlier episodes, admist the twists and turns that seemed like padding at the time. This is not a wholly satisfying approach, because once we know what's going on, there are only a few minutes left, leaving me little time to savour it.

David Whitaker returns. I approve, not just because of his Who credentials but he seems a particularly good fit to the Season 7 style; the dare I say it more adult style of the show, with a companion who is a fully rounded person and the shady human characters. Unfortunately Terrance Dicks and Malcolm Hulke’s rewrites leave me wondering what Whitaker put in and what came from them – I trust that the scripts were unusable without the rewrites but in this case I think there was too many fingers in the pie. So do the writers’ ideas gel together? I’m surprised how well it flows actually, but then Terrance Dicks is a good script editor. His is the voice I can hear the least when I watch, but I imagine he was mainly worried about just getting a workable script into the studio.

The plot sees the return of a recovery probe, sent into space to investigate the disappearance of a British spacecraft. However the astronauts, who have been replaced in their spacesuits by aliens, are captured by a group of people, only to escape and kill people by touching them. What we soon learn however is that the aliens are ambassadors who are being controlled by the group, led by General Carrington, to sully public opinion of the visitors and encourage military action against them. I like the fact that this isn’t an alien invasion… to an extent. Going down the human villain route is tricky because in such a long story you need a strong sense of menace to keep the interest. Without that, we’re kept guessing until the end, when Carrington surrenders. This is to the story’s detriment; despite enjoying the exploration of how humans would react negatively to friendly aliens, the point would have been better made if we had someone who was willing to die for his beliefs and who was a clear-cut villain from at least the midpoint of the story.

The story begins in a British space centre. The influence of the Apollo missions is clear as despite the TV-scaled set and few actors the scenes of probe launches and communication with outer space is handled a lot better even than in The Seeds of Death only a year ago. That and the inclusion of a TV news reporter makes these scenes more interesting to watch than they would normally be.

Of course, UNIT and the Brigadier are hanging around, but the Doctor isn’t, being more concerned with repairing the TARDIS, what to him is a simple space mission not worth his presence. When a strange sound is heard, the Doctor realises it’s a communication from an alien race and decides to go to the space centre. As usual, the Doctor simply barges in, taking it for granted that the Brigadier will apologize on his behalf and authorise him. When a response to the alien message is sent from a nearby warehouse, UNIT are out in force to investigate, followed by a shootout in said warehouse, resulting in the capture of a culprit.

The first episode crams a lot in. It’s not often we get such a big action scene at the beginning, and the action in general in the story is probably my favourite aspect of it, they’re especially well directed by Michael Ferguson and hold interest even if the Doctor isn’t in them.

Happily, just when I thought the story was just spoiling me early, there’s an even bigger action scene in the second episode as UNIT are intercepted while transporting the recovery probe to the space centre, which results in the probe being stolen by the unknown perpetrators – until the Doctor takes it back in a hilarious sequence where he convinces the thieves to help him movie Bessie, and traps them to the car. Moments like this define the Third Doctor for me; his humour works in a different way from his predecessors but when it’s there it’s just as funny.

Unfortunately, my earlier fears about getting all the good stuff early isn’t entirely unfounded. With the action over, it’s revealed that the men who took the probe were under orders from General Carrington, who despite being from the army has been instructed to keep UNIT out of the loop because it’s a British matter. Now they team up, giving UNIT access to the astronauts, who had been removed from the capsule when nobody was looking. However, ANOTHER group of rogues shows up and kidnaps the astronauts, so we’re back to square one. Although this makes sense at the conclusion, as I was watching I thought this was a tedious twist, they’d have been better building on the threat already established (Carrington, who clearly is up to no good) than introducing a new one, even if they turn out to be one and the same. Also, the pacing slows from that of its first few episodes, as apart from the capture of Liz, not very much happens until Episode 5, when the Doctor goes up to space in a second recovery capsule.

The trouble with a story like this is that it’s interesting, but not very fun. At this point, I actually want the alien ambassadors to go on the rampage, but what we get instead is Liz escaping capture… only to be re-captured by Taltalian, a scientist who works at the space centre. I’m used to escape-recaptures, but they usually at least accomplish something leading to the eventual solution, this doesn’t, it’s just padding. I did like the character of Dr. Lennox, right from the moment he appears he seems like the most defeated person you could imagine, who continues working for the apparent head of the rogue group, Reegan, simply because he has nowhere else to go, having lost his social standing and respect in the scientific community. That he decides to take a chance and tell all to UNIT isn’t a surprise, but his death before he gets a chance is, mainly because it comes at the point where the story is gearing up towards its conclusion anyway, so I would expect UNIT to be homing in on the perpetrators. For a brief moment, the story was all about him as I felt his terror and doubt as he waited in the cell to speak to the Brigadier.

With the knowledge that the real astronauts are still in orbit, the Doctor goes into space and reaches Mars Probe Seven. The aliens in the spacesuits have been attacking and killing people on Earth, but after meeting more aliens, the Doctor finds out that ambassadors were sent to Earth following an agreement between these aliens and humans, but the ambassadors’ actions are not of their own doing. As I’ve said, a novel direction for the story to take, and it does lead to a good last episode as Carrington is revealed to be the man behind the whole scheme, but he believes he’s doing his moral duty by persuading the government to destroy the alien spaceship. My complaint about this is that as a seven-parter I feel it comes across as rather tame. The action is well integrated into the story but still seems like it’s there to make up for the fact that at its heart the story does not need any action. The low-key presence of the villains, some of whom have to co-operate with UNIT and some of whom hide away for the most of the story, combined with the fact that the aliens in spacesuits, destroying with every touch, would make for a scary Doctor Who story in its own right, is disappointing.

Some of the story’s best bits are non-plot related parts though. The music for one – it must be about the strangest Doctor Who score I’ve ever heard, and all the better for it. I’m surprised the UNIT theme didn’t become a regular. Even though he didn’t do much, Ralph Cornish was a good character. The shift between colour and black and white wasn’t one of these good things though, and likewise I hated the *TWANG* in the titles – main titles followed by the cliffhanger then more titles gets annoying after a few episodes, just play the episode already. Then there's Liz being captured for what seems like forever, another negative.

Despite my complaints, I feel the good far outweighs the bad, and the story it tells is worth telling.

Horror quotient – Interesting. This is a story where we’re initially supposed to find the alien ambassadors scary, but then reminded that we’re not supposed to. The real appearance of the aliens is a genuine shock though.
Comedy quotient – Some irrelevant humour, such as the Doctor’s “sleight of hand” (magic in Doctor Who!), and him and Liz jumping forward in time at the TARDIS console. The rest of the humour is more subtle.
Drama quotient – The story’s strong point. If it were shorter, it would have more impact, because it would probably mean the loss of some plot points which were pointless, including making Carrington’s deception a double cross instead of a triple cross.

It starts off by promising an entertaining romp about alien invaders, but then delivers a story that while more interesting, is less fun. A cracking story, nevertheless a disappointment.

8/10

Doctor Who and the Silurians

2009-09-06T12:50:00.002+01:00

Previous viewings - few

(Yes, it's Doctor Who and the Silurians, not The Silurians, production trivia is just that, trivia)

As Terrance Dicks is so fond of saying, this story was borne out of a desire to avoid the usual invasion of Earth or mad scientist scenario (did they ever do a straightforward mad scientist story? Robot might be the closest). Having monsters who aren't really monsters, but rather intelligent beings who happen to be reptiles, and who are native to Earth and want it back, is a fantastic alternative, because it opens up some political and moral issues in how they're dealt with. Even after seven episodes I think there's more mileage in the idea than is allowed for in the time available.

Malcolm Hulke writes Doctor Who and the Silurians. His is a very distinctive writing style - it always feels like he's trying to say something with his Doctor Who stories with his thoughtful depiction of aliens and in this story particularly how humans would react to aliens beyond the usual shock or fear. At times, it seems he is not writing an action/adventure at all, but something far more character-driven where any action is a natural consequence of the situation the characters have been placed in. For some reason he tends to be given the longer stories too, which fits his talent for writing epic but managing to keep it about the characters.

Is this what people want though? It's not the most exciting approach to a story - some early pure historicals like The Aztecs and The Crusade did something similar but the longer stories always seemed to be your more typical monster invasion of Earth extravaganzas, and with good reason. I'm not complaining, I loved those historicals I mentioned, and I love this.

The Doctor and Liz are summoned to Wenley Moor to help investigate power failures at a nuclear research base which is built into some caves. It's surprisingly difficult to pinpoint where Jon Pertwee nails the character of his Doctor and decides to play it that way until he leaves the role, although it's definitely somewhere in this story - in Spearhead from Space there were moments where I felt the role was written for Patrick Troughton, but as more familiar Third Doctor trappings show up, that has faded. Here we get our first proper glimpse of his less than flattering view of humans and the military in particular, which given his exile on Earth is an integral part of his character IMO, and while at the beginning of the story the Doctor is somewhat flippant that soon passes.

Just to note also, we have Bessie! How can anyone not love Bessie? That car has more personality than some of the companions.

The story doesn't exactly have me on the edge of my seat in the first episode, first of all we're back in the studio with the familiar colour videotape, which is a comedown after Spearhead from Space being handed its atmosphere on a plate, and secondly the power failures at the station aren't the most interesting problem. The Doctor becomes interested in a crazed worker who has seen something in the caves and is now making cave drawings in his hospital room. One could call the pacing here slow, but I prefer to think of it as relaxed - slow implies that it should be faster, but there's something to be said for a story that doesn't rush to introducing the monster, allowing time to establish the human characters while setting up the plot points that will be developed later. It's never boring because as the Doctor gets interested, so do the viewers.

The key base personnel are the resentful Director Lawrence, played by stalwart Peter Miles, plus the friendlier Dr. Quinn and his assistant Dr Meredith. Lawrence is yet another variation on the irrational base commander but here his behaviour seems understandable as it's not only the Doctor but UNIT interfering with his operation, quickly bringing it to a grinding halt, and he is at least co-operative at first. Peter Miles excels at playing unlikeable characters and Lawrence ranks as among the most unlikeable, with an irritating obsessive edge to him thats probably too lacking in humour. Quinn I liked more but it's too obvious that he's the traitor.

Believing the problems to originate in the caves, the Doctor goes down there himself to investigate and is attacked by a dinosaur in the show's first CSO nightmare. However, the creature backs off when it's called away by someone else. After a brief UNIT incursion into the caves, one of the reptile creatures escapes and goes missing in the countryside. This is definitely padding - at the very least the search for the missing Silurian plotline is allowed to run on too long, taking up nearly two whole episodes, but it's not like that's the only thing that's happening - one of the good things about the UNIT format is that there tends to be lots going on at any one time. While the Doctor does his own thing, the Brigadier and his troops are out somewhere else, and the screentime is shared between the various parties.

The Doctor notices Quinn's suspicious movements and realises he has taken the wounded Silurian captive. I was surprised that Quinn was killed off but in retrospect it was a good move because first of all he had to die, and if he survived beyond the reveal of the Silurians en masse, he would have been on borrowed time and that could have tedious. The Doctor has correctly guessed that the Silurians aren't your typical monsters, and that any attack of a human has been because of a perceived threat. The turning point for the story is the Episode 3 cliffhanger, where the Doctor is confronted by the Silurian in Quinn's cottage, resolved by a friendly greeting from the Doctor, which the Silurian seems to listen to until he's scared off. It's a turning point because it's where the Doctor turns from investigator into peacemaker, as his main priority becomes preventing a war between humans and the Silurians in the caves.

Unfortunately, both sides seem to be against him. Having discovered that a large contingent of Silurians are waking up in the caves, the Doctor warns UNIT not to attack them, but the discovery of Quinn's body and the capture of Major Baker, plus the attacks so far, suggest the Silurians are dangerous, which is enough for everybody to support destroying them. For some reason, it's slightly uncomfortable to watch what is essentially the Doctor committing treason by warning the Silurians about the UNIT attack - it's been a long time since we've had reason to question whether the Doctor is morally right, or even naive. It's not a situation we often see the Doctor in, and I was struck by how much more three-dimensional a character the Doctor seemed as a result. He's never seemed less like a superhero, and it's brilliant.

After being captured in Episode 4, the Doctor spends most of Episode 5 negotiating with the good Silurian, who is a rare example of an alien who looks like a monster but gets characterisation and seems like a nice guy. The ancient inhabitants of the Earth, the Silurians want their planet back, but the good Silurian is receptive to the Doctor's suggestion that they inhabit the areas of the planet that are of little interest to humans. There's a sense of inevitablility to the outcome of this story because the Doctor's proposition is obviously not going to happen, but like the arrival of the Time Lords in The War Games, I can't help hoping that somehow we get that happy ending, even when I know we don't.

Obviously, there's a bad Silurian, who plots against the good Silurian and develops a virus intended to kill the humans, which he infects Baker with and allows him to escape to spread it. The Doctor is allowed to go free to try to contain the virus, but it's too late. Viruses in TV shows are usually restricted to a quarantined area, and for a while here it seems as though the worst has happened as the virus spreads overseas before the episode is out. I don't think this is padding because as the main 'bad' thing the villain does, it was needed, plus it justifies the Brigadier's later decision to destroy the Silurians and allows for some neat city location filming, which I always love (I think an effective studio-bound story is generally harder to pull off that something with plenty of location work).

The final action set-piece sees the Silurians attack the base (finally!) but the Doctor solves the problem by tricking the bad Silurian into thinking that his people must re-enter hiberation to protect themselves from the radiation from a reactor overload. Episode 7 is the most action-packed and action is welcome, but some reason it seemed shoehorned in, because a finale has to have lots of action.

As the story ends, the Doctor hopes to wake one Silurian at a time to make negotiations easier, but the Brigadier decides to destroy them while he has the chance, blowing up their entire network. It's a pity that we don't see the repercussions of this at the Doctor and the Brigadier's next meeting but that's probably beyond the remit of a family show and what we got did make a suitable ending for the story. Despite my noting that we're expected to take the Doctor's side, I'd say it only goes so far as to establish that fundamentally he is right - practically, the Brigadier's solution is the only solution. The Doctor's final line, "...but that's murder!" gives this viewer food for thought as the credits roll.

There are a few things I've not mentioned. First of all, the music! What was Carey Blyton thinking? The strange percussion sounds do their best to detract from the drama of this story, and is the sole thing responsible for this not being up there with Marco Polo. It's so distracting. Also, despite not having much to do here, Liz was better than in Spearhead from Space, and I prefer her new look to her old one.

All things considered, good show.

Horror quotient - As a deviation from the norm, the monsters aren't really monsters, but they still look like monsters. Less discerning children who don't pay attention to the plot might have been scared, or perhaps confused.
Comedy quotient - It's going to hard to get used to not giving the easy answer of the Doctor. There wasn't much going on here on that front.
Drama quotient - We're back to the times when drama was the highpoint, and I love stories like that. Mac Hulke scores his biggest hit.

A thoughtful, well-written story which manages its length particularly well. The Doctor hasn't been this interesting a character since 1964.

10/10

Spearhead from Space

2009-09-05T11:14:00.006+01:00

Prevous viewings - many

Ask anyone what Doctor Who is about and probably one of the first things they will mention is the travelling about in space and time. As of this story, we've lost that, gaining a fixed setting for the series that will be with us for a few years. This is where Doctor Who was forced into a position where it had to change, however you'd be quicker pointing out the things that hadn't changed between The War Games and Spearhead from Space. More than any other 'relaunch' story, this one dares to hold onto viewers with its sheer quality and showing them how good the new setup is, rather than holding onto the past to reassure them that this is still the same show.

The first change hits viewers right away - a new title sequence, and it's in colour! I love the red swirls, it manages to keep the sequence mysterious. It's also interesting that with no regeneration this is our first glimpse of the new Doctor. The film look at first amplifies the feeling of newness, a shame it turned out to be unique too. It's not a perfect setup; when indoors it's sometimes too bright and the voices echo too much, however after a few scenes I barely notice.

Meteorites come crashing down (in quite a ropey special effect - so one thing hasn't changed!) in some woods in England. In the same wood, the TARDIS appears and the Doctor falls out, although we only catch the briefest of glimpses of his new face. While The Power of the Daleks spoiled us by dedicating the first ten or so minutes to the new Doctor before the TARDIS even reaches its destination, here that urge to see the new Doctor is exploited by delaying it, so that when he joins the action we're just glad to have the Doctor back, whoever is playing him. This has the benefit of allowing time to introduce Liz before the Doctor takes centre stage, however it does result in a first episode where the Doctor is hardly in it.

Anyway, the Doctor is found and taken to hospital by UNIT (bit of a coincidence!) and the (medical) Doctor there can't quite believe the x-ray showing two hearts and blood that isn't human. A porter hears about the medical mystery and reports it to the press. I really liked these hospital scenes. Every so often we need a reminder that above all the Doctor is an alien, mixing with humans who know nothing about aliens, and things can turn nasty very quickly if the wrong people know of his presence. It's purpose is really to alert the villains to the Doctor's presence but in a present-day London story I like these reminders that there's a world out there with real people doing ordinary jobs.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth Shaw arrives at UNIT HQ and is interviewed by the Brigadier (strange that she isn't quite annoyed later that the Doctor takes over her job!). It's great to have Lethbridge-Stewart back, but given the bulk of his stories are in the Pertwee era, it retroactively makes his presence feel not so much like a return, but more that we've reached his era. Nick Courtney includes more humour in his performance here than before, likely to make him likeable given his new status as a regular. Liz also makes a good impression, seeming intelligent but in a more believable way than Zoe, whose intelligence was an aspect of her futuristic background. Liz also seems more mature than all the companions since Ian and Barbara, which is great in story terms as it lends credibility to her job as the Doctor's assistant. A shame that the establishment of the new Doctor leaves little time for development of Liz's character, as early on we're shown her skepticism that aliens exist, and this isn't followed up on. With so much going on it's easy to take Liz for granted, but the only thing I wasn't keen on was her look. I try to ignore the part of me that misses the uber hotness of Wendy Padbury.

The Brig and Liz arrive at the hospital where the Brig checks on the Doctor, however he obviously doesn't recognise him. Jon Pertwee is excellent in his first proper scene, the familiar mirror scene. I wouldn't say that Pertwee takes time to settle into the role, but at times the story seems to have been written with Troughton in mind (more comedy, less dry observations about the human race). However, I do think that Pertwee is the weakest of the three actors to play the Doctor so far - he's not bad, but while at their best Hartnell and Troughton were magnetic on screen, Pertwee never quite manages it. He makes up for this somewhat in the way he fuses with the role - it's never noticeable that he's acting, he just seems to be the Doctor, even in his more eccentric moments, handling his persona and quirks with ease. He'll probably always hover just outside my top five Doctors, but I still really like him.

Okay, a story with a lot to introduce is a story with a lot to comment on. Now lets get onto the story itself. The Doctor is kidnapped from the hospital by some sinister people led by a strange-looking man. He escapes but is apprehended by UNIT and taken back to the hospital. Pertwee's first cliffhanger comes off as pretty lame, with the Doctor apparently shot but as it turns out he wasn't, plus the absence of the sting at the end credits doesn't feel right at all.

The plot is a straight invasion, but not as in The Invasion. There isn't a strong villain, and the menace is kept as undefined as possible. We're never quite sure who the mysterious Channing is until the end, and some of the threat is kept ambiguous - Seeley, the man who finds a meteorite in the first episode, gets a surprising amount of screentime apparently just so we know the meteorites are important.

In Episode 2, we meet Ransome, a businessman who returns to his factory to discover that his partner has turned the factory to automation and changed their plans for the business. Ransome finds himself dismissed and forbidden to enter his former office, but he decides to investigate and finds some ready-made Autons, who come alive to attack him. He runs off and alerts UNIT (their penchant for being in the right place at the right time knows no bounds in this story!). Despite knowing little about him, I found Ransome a sympathetic character, we know what he thinks is only his job in crisis is much more and he can't handle the bizarre truth. I could have done without him drooling his tea though.

Meanwhile, the Doctor finally gets up and about, sneaking around the hospital in a bid for freedom (surely he could simply discharge himself?). Pertwee's at his silliest as he sings in the shower to get rid of the Doctor before he notices he's out of bed, then he steals a VIP's clothes and car and goes to UNIT HQ. In this new era, I've practically forgotten the travesty that befell the Doctor in The War Games. It's an interesting aside that the Doctor doesn't care about helping the Brigadier with the meteorite situation until he becomes aware that the TARDIS isn't going anywhere anytime soon. His attempt to make a quick exit after taking advantage of Liz's trust to get the TARDIS key could have come off as cold but Pertwee carries it off and turns it into quite a funny scene.

Unfortunately, once the Doctor decides to aid the investigation, the story becomes slightly less interesting, mainly because the Doctor has settled and the story itself isn't as gripping as The Power of the Daleks. What it does do is what should have been a difficult feat - making me forget about Troughton right away. By the end of the story, it already feels like Pertwee's been around forever.

Thats not to say the story isn't enjoyable. In the third and fourth episodes, the Nestene Consciousness, the intelligence behind the plastics factory takeover, sees to the replacement of UNIT General Scobie with an Auton (although he looks fake!), while the Doctor and Liz visit a mannequin gallery before making their way to the factory with the Brigadier, followed by a shootout between the Autons and the UNIT soliders while the Doctor and Liz tackle the consciousness. There's that iconic scene where Autons come to life in shop displays and smash their way into the street to menace shoppers - a great example of the clash between the ordinary and the extraordinary that Doctor Who does so well.

It does its job, however I always thought that actual villain wasn't so important to this story - the fact that it isn't revealed until the last possible moment supports this. The Autons are memorable, even if there's not much that can be done with them, and by the end of the story I'm sold on the new setup, even though the scope of the series has just been reduced quite significantly. It remains to be seen if the writers can support a story without the novelty film look and the diversion of all the introductions - all of this story's best points - but this is easily one of my favourite Pertwees.

Horror quotient - The colour makes a huge difference to the way horror works. The Nestene Consciousness is laughable, but the Autons are more successful.
Comedy quotient - It's not often cited as one of the funnier stories but certainly for the Pertwee era this is quite often hilarious, mostly because of Pertwee himself.
Drama quotient - Not sure. The way the Doctor is re-introduced is done better than the threat of the Nestene, but not to the extent that it jars.

Robert Holmes delivers his first classic, and the perfect template for the introduction of a new Doctor. Funny, scary, dramatic, it's a good all-rounder of a story. Pertwee couldn't have asked for a better beginning.

10/10

The Troughton Era

2009-09-04T10:52:00.004+01:00

It's goodbye to the Second Doctor, the 1960s and black and white! Here are my final thoughts on the Troughton era.

Complete Troughton era rankings:
1. The War Games 10
2. The Mind Robber 10
3. The Web of Fear 10
4. The Power of the Daleks 10
5. The Tomb of the Cybermen 10
6. The Invasion 9
7. The Enemy of the World 9
8. The Macra Terror 9
9. The Evil of the Daleks 9
10. The Highlanders 8
11. The Seeds of Death 8
12. The Faceless Ones 8
13. The Dominators 7
14. The Wheel in Space 7
15. The Moonbase 6
16. The Krotons 6
17. The Ice Warriors 6
18. Fury from the Deep 6
19. The Abominable Snowmen 5
20. The Underwater Menace 4
21. The Space Pirates 2

Season averages:
Season 4 Troughton portion / 1966-67 7.71
Season 4 overall 1966-67 7.44
Season 5 1967-68 7.57
Season 6 1968-69 7.43

A good spread of scores with about the same average as Hartnells era, managing the same number of 10/10s with fewer stories. With Marco Polo, however, Hartnell still claims the top spot, and overall I'd say despite the growing pains, Hartnell's era is still the superior one, as Troughton's arrival coincided with an increasing sameyness to the stories, and a growing dependence on returning monsters.

It's interesting to note that Troughton's Doctor was poorly received by the audience at the time and viewing figures from his episodes never reached the heights of Hartnell's, despite received fan wisdom now telling us that Troughton is the real prototype for the Doctor, and his era is where the "behind the sofa" meme came from. I think - and I hate to say this - that if all the missing episodes were found, the era would be not be held in such high esteem. Seeing (or listening to) it all in context, immediately following the Hartnell era - as the viewers did at the time - makes it noticeable how formulaic the storytelling is, and that's a massive disappointment by itself, which I made an effort to get over before I considered the merits of each story. Much as I appreciate the strengths of the era - and the few stories which weren't a base-under-siege - at times it feels like the massive universe of the Hartnell era has turned into quite a small universe in the Troughton era, with the same events recurring endlessly with the same few monsters.

If held that against it, I wouldn't be able to see the great things about the era, and there were loads. The base-under-siege format gave us The Power of the Daleks, The Tomb of the Cybermen and The Web of Fear, which alone makes it worthwhile. The two finest stories of the era, The Mind Robber and The War Games, survive in their entirety, which is just fantastic.

The best thing about the era is undeniably Patrick Troughton himself. It pains me to admit it but he is a better actor than William Hartnell, and he creates an entertaining and fascinating character in the Second Doctor. There's a kernel of truth in the notion that future Doctors would follow his example, if only because all three 1980s Doctors cite him as their favourite. The writers have decided on the Docter's heroism as his defining characteristic, and Troughton has the absemindedness of Hartnell's Doctor and combined it with a greater dose of silliness (which I'm sure the kids loved), a greater rapport with his companions (especially Jamie) and a greater sense of the vast intelligence that lies beneath the harmless exterior. Cosmic hobo indeed. Troughton too shows on the whole a better understanding of the scripts, however far-fetched.

For all the reasons I listed in my Hartnell era summary, though, Hartnell is still my favourite. Troughton comes in a close second.

Stats:
Favourite companion: Jamie McCrimmon
Favourite alien: Ice Warriors
Favourite actor: Patrick Troughton, but Kevin Stoney gives him a run for his money!
Favourite actress: Wendy Padbury
Favourite cliffhanger: The War Games Episode 9 - stunning!
Favourite soundtrack: The Tomb of the Cybermen, I think
Favourite writer: David Whitaker
Favourite villain: Tobias Vaughn! "Packer!"

And the Troughton special category…

Favourite comedic scene: Any of Doctor Von Wer's scenes in The Highlanders

Modes of transport
My quest for a full account of the travels of the Doctor continues with the Troughton era:

As the driver
On foot (all stories)
TARDIS materialisation (all stories)
Climbing (The Underwater Menace, The Tomb of the Cybermen, The Mind Robber, The Invasion, The Space Pirates)
Swimming/paddling (The Enemy of the World)
Car (The War Games)
Helicopter (Fury from the Deep)
Space rocket (The Seeds of Death)
Canoe (The Invasion)

As a passenger
Sailing ship (The Highlanders)
Row boat (The Highlanders)
Elevator (The Underwater Menace, The Invasion)
Aeroplane (The Faceless Ones)
Dalek time machine (The Evil of the Daleks)
Car (The Enemy of the World, The Invasion, The War Games)
Being carried (Fury from the Deep, The Wheel in Space)
Helicopter (The Enemy of the World, Fury from the Deep, The Invasion)
Space rocket (The Wheel in Space)
Dulcian travel pod (The Dominators)
Being transported to the Land of Fiction (The Mind Robber)
T-Mat (The Seeds of Death)

Favoured mode of travel: Anything! Seemed to particularly enjoy paddling.

Reverse the polarity... colour begins in the Pertwee years :D.

The War Games

2009-09-04T10:47:00.000+01:00

Previous viewings - none

My first marathon virgin viewing, and a story I tried to avoid learning details about until now - obviously there's only so much I can do with regards to the conclusion, being a turning point in the direction of the series and a frequent point of reference on the documentaries on the DVDs, but this is one case where knowing how it ends is okay, because it's as much a conclusion to the six years of the show so far as a finale to the story itself. The rest was nine episodes I was wary about approaching because when a story is highly regarded you have expectations, and for all I knew its reputation was mostly down to the final episode. I wouldn't rule that out, as it pushes a lot of fanboy-pleasing buttons, but what I found was that it's only the icing on the cake in finest Troughton story of them all.

After some explosive title captions, the scene is set for the TARDIS's arrival in no man's land, close to the German army perimeter in 1917. They're found by ambulance driver Lady Jennifer and taken to the British camp. The Doctor warns Jamie and Zoe that they've landed on the front lines of the first World War, a particularly nasty point in human history. The circumstances of their discovery prompts suspicion, however, and they find themselves accused of espionage, with their every attempt to explain themselves proving fruitless.

This is a very tense episode; the pace doesn't let up as the TARDISeers land in a pretty awful place and even from that starting point things get worse by the minute. In the best pure historical fashion, the idea of facing a firing squad feels scarier than any horde of lumbering monsters. Its a situation the Doctor should be able to talk his way out of, but he finds himself powerless to escape the death sentence as General Smythe seems determined to find him guilty at his court martial. We sense - as does the Doctor - that something isn't right, but everyone defers to Smythe so the Doctor's fate seems a foregone conclusion. I think a big part of the strong sense of danger here comes from the fact that the Doctor isn't dealing with a reasonable person or even staight-forward villain, his "opponent" is a mystery, secretly possessing sophisticated technology and controlling people's minds. We know not his motives or allegiance. This question mark hanging over the episode lends a lot to its impact. Interesting to note that in both the first and last episodes the Doctor is found guilty at a trial .

Anyway, the episode builds to the logical conclusion of the Doctor being shot - although from the cliffhanger it's clear right away that he hasn't been. The resolution is lame in comparison to the buildup (the shot was fired at the British by someone else) but the court martial business was really only cleverly disguised padding serving to allow the story to make a big entrance. With that done, and done well, the important stuff can begin as the Doctor investigates his surroundings, after he and Zoe rescue Jamie from the military prison. What follows is a hilarious sequence where the quick-thinking but resource-lacking Doctor pretends to be an Examiner from the war office and bluffs his way into the Commandant's office. He has no disguise, just a bad attitude. Even though they just get captured again, it's a funny scene.

We now get two allies - the aforementioned Lady Jennifer and Lt. Carstairs, who I thought seemed like a cross between Mike Yates and Benton. Considering the other officers around, they listen to the Doctor and suspected foul play at the court martial. The Doctor convinces them to break into Smythe's office, where his hidden technology is kept. I had my doubts that Carstairs would risk possibly lethal consequences of aiding the Doctor but considering the facsimile nature of the war and his mental processing, I'll put that aside. Having discovered a listening device behind a wall, the Doctor persuades them to leave, as their lives too are now in danger. The cliffhanger to the second episode is one of those WTF moments that only Doctor Who can do - after driving through some fog, the escapees are chased by Romans! At this early stage in the story, it's good to see a plot twist which widens the scope and raises loads of questions to be answered. I'm on the edge of my seat.

Episode 3 is the last of the opening WWI trilogy. Having figured out that the mist which surrounds no man's land leads to other times and places, the Doctor decides that they should look for a map of all the time zones. To get this they return to the British base and blow up the safe in Smythe's office. The urgency of the opening episodes has given way to more standard investigation approach, with plenty of humour from the attempts to keep the other officers from noticing anything is wrong. Conveniently, there is indeed a map in the safe, and between all the time zones is a blank space they must head for, giving the group a place to head for to reach the next plot point.

Intercepted before they get there this time by Germans, the Doctor and the others are taken to the German base. I really liked the scene that followed for a few reasons - I would have expected the Germans to be depicted as villainous but the main guy seems okay, being appropriately tough with them at first but being willing to listen and being amazed when he demonstrates the sonic screwdriver, which for the one and only time does exactly what it says on the tin (my other reason for liking the scene). As a further twist, he goes from reasonable to hostile after being subjected to mind control from the German camp's own version of Smythe, who uses a monacle instead of glasses to hypnotise his subjects (one wonders what the Roman general does?). Fortunately the TARDISeers escape and pass through more mist, into the American Civil War zone.

We now get our first glimpse of the operators of the scheme. The angry-looking War Chief wants the fugitives recaptured. At first I was thinking we were finding out too much too soon - we already know about the different time zones, the TARDISeers are closer to the centre, and now we're introduced to the main baddies.

Anyway, with Carstairs recaptured, the Doctor and Zoe investigate a craft which appears like the TARDIS but are inside it when it disappears, leaving Jamie and Lady Jennifer with the Americans for a couple of episodes. I enjoy the Doctor and Zoe as a team - there's usually a lot less goofing around than when he's with Jamie, so we can focus on the plot. They're close to the control centre and are led into a lecture on the mind conditioning devices used on the humans in the war zones. There's something cold about the way they treat the humans (considering they themselves appear to be human), bringing in Carstairs and brainwashing him as a demonstration of the device. The strange sort of 3-D glasses everyone wears make it even weirder.

Meanwhile, Jamie rallies some resistance fighters in the American Civil War zone. This less-important plotline did its job but didn't care much about any of the characters, I just wanted Jamie to meet up with the Doctor and Zoe again.

The Doctor seems to have put his brush with death behind him as he's already got the whole scheme worked out and is masterminding a way to put it out of action, first of all by saving Carstairs by convincing the scientist to reverse the conditioning, citing faulty equipment. However, the War Chief enters and recognises the Doctor (shock!) leading to a bit of a runaround until Zoe is captured. If there's one regret, it's that there hasn't been much opportunity for character moments so far, and with one of the largest guest casts the show ever had the TARDISeers do get somewhat lost sometimes, with their roles in many scenes consisting mainly of reacting to the latest plot development. I think during the marathon I've become so accustomed to the "typical" Troughton story that this feels a bit out of place. No enclosed setting, no monsters. In fact, I could more easily picture Hartnell or Pertwee in this story than Troughton, even though I'm in the middle of actually watching Troughton in it. Weird, huh?

The middle few episodes introduce the Security Chief and his antagonistic relationship with the War Chief. The Security Cheif questions Zoe and learns about the TARDIS, while the Doctor turns the tables on the scientist working on Carstairs and frees Carstairs and later Zoe. Compared to the fast-moving first four episodes, the story now starts to slow down, with the focus shifting between minor perils the Doctor and the resistance fighters face as they slowly gain a foothold in the war game scheme, taking control of the 1917 zone, and the growing animosity between the Security Chief and the War Chief, as the Security Chief thinks the Doctor was sent here under orders of the War Chief as they are both from the same race, a race that has mastery over space and time. What are major revelations like this are swept under the carpet - compare to the discovery that the Monk is the same race as the Doctor in The Time Meddler, which gets a cliffhanger all to itself - although perhaps a 1969 audience felt differently.

The War Lord is a late arrival in the story, providing a restrained counterpart to the more forceful War Chief. It's strange to think that Philip Madoc was in The Krotons only a few stories ago, he's able to seem totally different even when his face is the same in both. Over the course of the story, he becomes more crazed as his plan falls apart.

It's only now that we get something I've been wanting for a few episodes - a reason behind the scheme. Obviously it's because humans are dangerous creatures, perfect for fighting wars. The Doctor has been captured and pretends to help the War Lord capture the rebels. Episode 9 is where the story gets going again, because it plays the card that the series has always had the option of playing since Day 1 - introducing us to the Time Lords. The Doctor gains the upper hand by pretending to alter Jamie's mind with the scientist's machine, which soon allows the rebels to attack the control centre. Unable to send the humans back to their native time zones using the travel machines used by the bad guys, he's at a loss as to how to send them all home. The War Chief is terrified of even the possibility that the Doctor will summon the Time Lords. The rest of the episode builds up expectations thousandfold - the Doctor is even at first planning to leave Jamie and Zoe behind and try to escape the Time Lords himself. Of course, they can't accept that - they're not going to leave him now. Then we have that cliffhanger, which surprised me coming from a 1969 episode, not because of any technical feasibility, but having now seen 252 episodes from that decade I know what to expect from a ciffhanger and this isn't it. With the Time Lords arriving in the war zone to put things right, the TARDISeers make a run for the TARDIS, trying to escape before it's too late. We see them run in slow motion, each step difficult, the journey looking more impossible every second, until the Doctor slumps door at the door, having failed to turn the key in the lock. End of episode.

If that didn't have audiences tuning in next week, I'll have to assume some catastrophe befell them midweek.

Okay, so here we are at Episode 10, the last episode of the Troughton era (sob). Happily, this can be compared with Hartnell's finale in no way whatsoever. The episode itself is possibly Troughton's finest performance in the role, an award with so many candidates I'd find it impossible to choose.

It's an episode with a lot to accomplish. After trying to land the TARDIS on the edge of the universe, the Doctor fails and the Time Lords pull the TARDIS to land on the Doctor's home planet, as yet unnamed. We see... corridors. And men in black and white robes. In this story, the Time Lords are not required to seem real, but rather sort of god-like; we take their power for granted going by the way the Doctor reacts to them, we know the situation is lost even though we've never met them before. They don't seem like bad guys, not boring like later depictions, merely a sort of forceful killjoys. More than in stories like The Deadly Assassin, I can see that the Doctor left Gallifrey originally because he disagrees with their policies and way of life, rather than just being bored by it.

Anyway, the War Lord is on trial for his crimes. To give the rest of the story its due, he's allowed to briefly think he is in control as his guards show up with guns, only for the Time Lords to destroy them. The rest of the episode is an epilogue to the story, which for all intents and purposes is itself over. In a darkened room, the Doctor explains to a Time Lords played by Bernard Horsfall (great actor with a lot of presence) about the evils he has encountered and invasions of Earth he has foiled (good thing he hadn't just had pure historical adventures, he might have had a tougher case to argue!). While he waits for the verdict, Jamie and Zoe convince a Time Lord to let them see him. At first, they convince him to try to escape, but it's a short-lived attempt as the Time Lords are too efficient. Resigning himself to his fate, the Doctor says goodbye to Jamie and Zoe, who will be returned to their origins in space and time. I was surprised how emotional this was - for one thing we say goodbye to not one but two of the best ever companions, and Jamie has been around so long that him leaving has as much impact as a Doctor leaving. Then there's the manner of their departures - forgetting all but their first adventures with the Doctor, negating the positive character journeys they've taken, and yet the Doctor hasn't the heart to tell them that they'll forget him. I swear, I almost cried.

I've seen this last scene quite a few times before, so it held no surprises really. The Doctor is told that he will be exiled on 20th century Earth and is allowed to choose a new face for a new regeneration, although true to form he finds fault with all of the options. As he tries to stall for time, the regeneration takes effect and the Second Doctor fades away forever...

A story like this makes The Tenth Planet look even worse than it did before. In The Tenth Planet, Hartnell was past his sell-by date - at least, that's how it felt, as he was a spare part in a story that was more suited to his successor. Bowing out with The War Games is good way to go for Troughton, and it feels quite the opposite way: he's a Doctor cut off at the top of his game, despite a reasonably lengthy tenure and plenty of classic stories. After a story like this, I realise how much potential he still had. Heck, if he had been the Doctor for ten years, it still wouldn't have been enough. I missed the pure historicals and would have liked to have seen more of them in his era, and perhaps a few less base-under-siege stories, and way too much is missing, but - and I know others will disagree - his two finest stories, and those responsible for a large chunk of the different facets and imagination of he era - are this and The Mind Robber, and they both survive in their entirety, so it's not all bad.

No more Troughton! How did that happen? This isn't just the end of an era though, it's the end of Doctor Who as it was in the 60s, ready for its reinvention in the 70s. It will certainly be something to get used to. As for now, I'm still in mourning.

Horror quotient - The usual source of horror (monsters) are absent but there's plenty else. The baddies are menacing, the cliffhangers are pretty much uniformly dangerous.
Comedy quotient - I've already mentioned a few of my favourite funny scenes. And they are funny scenes, rather than little moments. Troughton knows when to play it serious and when not to. I'll miss that.
Drama quotient - Obviously, the drama is sharpest at the beginning and the end, as Terrance Dicks says. However he doesn't give himself enough credit for the rest, which despite not being quite as riveting, is still top.

The Second Doctor era saves the best for last. Not just great Doctor Who, but great television.

10/10

The Space Pirates

2009-09-03T10:45:00.001+01:00

Previous viewings - few (Episode 2), one (Episode 1), 1/2 (Episode 3), none (Episodes 4-6)

For some reason I don't feel qualified to review this story. I was so uninterested in it while listening that I made no effort to get into the plot or characters. The audio for this one was particularly bad, with most characters sounding like they were speaking with their mouths closed, in fact at times I barely recognised the Doctor's voice. How I came to this story depends on how you look at it; on my last marathon I gave up somewhere during Episode 3, so that makes the latter half of this story the first proper 'new' Doctor Who to me. However as I listened (or watched in the case of Episode 2) I rediscovered the reasons I quit the first time.

Stylistically, this is probably the closest Doctor Who came to aping Star Trek; the ever-present operatic singing voice reminded me of the opening credits from that show, and along with the music was very effective in setting the desolate tone of the story. Couple that with the way the space setting is used - it's more about people than monsters and involves an Earth space organisation and unconvincing actors. In its own way it feels as far away from the usual Doctor Who as some people claim the historicals are - the regulars seem to get only a few lines in each episode and story lacks the typical juxtaposition of the everyday with the subnormal that the show does so often. In fact this story's closest cousin in the classic series is probably The Smugglers.

It's not all bad. If Episode 2 is anything to go by it looks good and is well directed, and there is some interest in the TARDISeers quest to recover the TARDIS. The charismatic Milo Clancey is a fun character although his accent is down there with the worst of The Gunfighters.

Unfortunately that's about it! I'm a bit in shock that Robert Holmes really wrote something this tedious. In fact, it was so boring I can barely muster up enthusiasm to say bad things about it.

The first episode sets the pattern in that it's not really about the Doctor or his companions at all. They land on a Space Beacon in the middle of a raid by pirates, and end up in the wrong section of the Beacon when it separates, with the TARDIS in another segment. The guest characters, including pirates Caven and Dervish, with Hermack and Warne in charge of the mission to apprehend the pirates, use up most of the screentime. All characters are unfortunately dull, and I'm afraid to say it's down to the writing.

You know where occasionally in a story there's an episode or two where nothing happens? Well in The Space Pirates this applies to all six episodes. The TARDISeers never gain a foothold in the plot, merely being led around by Milo, getting us closer to the pirates even though I've been given no reason to care. We're led to wonder if Milo is mixed up with the pirates but I figured right away that he was innocent. That leaves Caven, who isn't villainous enough to make me invest in the pirate plot as opposed to the recover the TARDIS plot. This left me feeling disconnected, like I do when I have to watch a show I don't like because someone else in the room is watching it. I percieve a story - so what?

The surviving Episode 2 is representative of the overall quality of the story, and it's the episode I tried the hardest to get into. Aside from the usual fancying Zoe and waiting patiently for the Doctor to appear and quite enjoying Milo Clancey's antics, I found the episode painfully slow. Jamie doesn't do or say anything Jamie-ish, and even the Doctor is (perhaps understandbly) downbeat. Only Zoe still seemed like the character she is usually is. Other visual faults I noticed were some poor model work (had the money run out?) and Madeleine Issigri's bizarre metal hair. I was also surprised that Hermack was such a little man given his booming voice. The design work reminded me of The Wheel in Space, and like that was well done but lacking in imagination or originality.

After quite a rubbish cliffhanger - Zoe shouting "you murderer!" at Milo only for us to find out Jamie isn't dead, we soon arrive on the planet Ta. I was struggling to visualise the planet, and I imagine my picture of a barren planetoid is nothing like how it really looked. Zoe calculates that the beacon segments will soon arrive on the planet too, which is a point of interest given I don't care about the pirates. Milo and the TARDISeers try to warn Madeleine Issigri, whose mining company is based on the planet, about the pirates, only to find out that she is in league with them. This twist did briefly get me interested in the plot, but as soon as Episode 5 started and the shock was over (not that I bothered about the character's allegiance) things settled down into the boring routine again.

The final two episodes see more action as the story reaches its climax, yet nothing happens to correct the issue of dull storytelling. I could have listened again, making sure to catch every line, hoping for some magic moment where I "get" the story - I wouldn't rule out seeing it more favourably the next time I listen. By this point, howeve, I'd long stopped caring, because the story just wouldn't seem to end. In way the manner in which this story is bad is even worse than The Web Planet, whose flaws are visible for all to see. This is just as dull, but for some reason I feel like I should be interested. Space pirates are a cool idea, and I can hear action going on that surely must be more exciting that that in The Web Planet, whose conclusion was a mess of Zarbi beeps and embarrassed actors. I detected no enthusiasm from Patrick Troughton, which is very unusual.

As Caven decides to cut his losses and kill Milo and the strangers, Madeleine starts to have doubts about working with him. Madeleine's father, Dom Issigri, is still alive, despite being thought to be dead, and they work to stop Caven, who has finally opted to commit mass murder by bombing the V-ship and the base on Ta. With the destruction of Caven's ship, there isn't enough time left to be devoted to the search for the TARDIS, which should be quite easy now anyway.

Dear oh dear. I don't like disliking Doctor Who stories this much, but after a great season so far this really drags it down. I'm starting to wonder why Robert Holmes was asked to write that pivotal first Third Doctor story, given his track record of this and a merely decent story. I noticed a few things that Holmes loves so much that he uses again and again - argonite being a valuable resource, an illegal operation being the danger part of the story (in a way done far, far better in The Caves of Androzani) rather than simple monsters invading. However overall this is a ponderingly slow and dull story that Robert Holmes was probably better leaving off his CV.

Horror quotient - Get behind the sofa! Close your eyes and put your fingers in your ears too. If you can still see or hear it, switch off the TV. You might be better off smashing the DVD just to be on the safe side.
Comedy quotient - Milo Clancey, I suppose. Come on Patrick!
Drama quotient - I felt so disengaged from this. I wish I pinpoint why I found it so dull, I just did.

The worst Troughton by far. Unlike The Web Planet, it's quite well made and hasn't aesthetically dated as much as that one has, but then The Web Planet has one cracking episode, this has none. Those two even out to it gets the same score.

2/10

The Seeds of Death

2009-09-02T11:14:00.002+01:00

Previous viewings - many

The Seeds of Death is probably the closest we've got to an "ordinary" Troughton story that survives in its entirety. It's a six-part base-under-siege story with a returning monster (The Tomb of the Cybermen might also qualify but it's a four-parter and not set on or near Earth). Brian Hayles returns to pen another Ice Warriors outing, although given the writer's track record I'm not exactly filled with confidence. Can he finally pull off a great story?

The overriding feeling of this story is familiarity, and the half-year absence of bases-under-siege has done nothing to make me miss them. Fortunately the time seems to have been used to work out the good and bad points of the genre and make some changes, and rather surprisingly a fair amount of what have been my criticisms of other stories have been addressed. These include the addition of extra locations, to avoid repetitiveness and a slow pace, easing the TARDISeers into danger rather than landing them in it, and dropping the moronic base commander (hard to think of another variation of one anyway!). Unfortunately, they've also added in some new problems; the budget isn't up to realising the various Earth locations and they all end up looking like the same basic set, Patrick Troughton is missing for a whole episode (fortunately a rare occurrence), and unlike the Season 5 stories this doesn't seem to want to be scary.

It's also one of those stories that starts with a lengthy prologue before we meet up with the TARDISeers. By whenever this is set, the Moonbase is no longer a weather control centre as in The Moonbase, but rather a relay station for T-Mat, Doctor Who's answer to Star Trek's beaming, only without the snazzy effects. For plot reasons it's poorly designed, too; without the Moonbase, T-Mat can't operate, which would throw the world into total chaos. This would stretch credibility if it wasn't for the way Hayles has written most of the characters, as people who have been raised in a world whose many privileges they take for granted, and where catastrophic problems just don't happen. Until now.

At Moonbase we have Commander Osgood, the pathetic Fewsham and technician Phipps. As they try to solve a problem of late deliveries, the base is broken into by a squad of foes. The reveal of the Ice Warrior is the cliffhanger to Episode 1, but we already know it's them before that, as we hear the heavy breathing whenever they speak, akin to "surprising" us that those creatures shouting "exterminate!" are in actual fact, Daleks. Thinking quickly, Osgood sabotages the T-Mat to prevent the Ice Warriors from invading Earth, which gets him killed. On the Moonbase side of things, I found Fewsham an excellent character, a man who was already barely coping with the day-to-day operation of T-Mat, and who fears death so much that he does whatever the Ice Warriors tell him to. We see him turn into a nervous wreck, driven by self-preservation but hating what he's doing, enough to convince himself that he has no choice.

In the TARDIS, the Doctor and his companions find themselves in a space museum (repeating ideas much?). Fortunately this time the presence of the museum makes more sense as we learn more about the history of T-Mat, and how the humans have lost interest in space travel because T-Mat has increased demand in instant travel. The museum is run by Professor Eldred but apparently isn't open to the public. It's all quite lucky too, because Eldred just happens to have a rocket ready for launch that could get people to the moon to repair the T-Mat. Eldred is a good character because, rarely for a base-under-siege story, he gets quite a bit of screentime but is never in danger himself. His temporary refusal to allow the T-Mat personnel to use his rocket is frustrating and probably qualifies as padding. Another strange thing is that he hangs around at Earth Control after the rocket mission is complete until the end of the story, and even seems to have authority there. I must have missed the explanation for that.

On the Earth side of the mission, we have Commander Radnor of Earth Control, a quite dull man who serves little purpose in the narrative except to provide a male authority figure. I did like Miss Gia Kelly, a character who exemplifies the problem-free lives of the people in this era. I think of her as a Zoe-type who excels in command and getting the job done rather than science. Louise Pajo doesn't quite carry off the brains-over-personality character as well as Wendy Padbury, but she's similar to the other characters in this story in that they seem real in a Star Trek: The Next Generation-type faux-futuristic way and has quite an individual look.

End of Episode 2, and the TARDISeers still haven't joined the action, they're up in Eldred's rocket travelling to the moon, with a contrived cliffhanger which is instantly reversed in the reprise. I've not really felt the Doctor is all there in this story, however his chipping in with the occasional comment is in-keeping with his behaviour in similar stories. Zoe is in her element in a time period that brings back memories of The Wheel in Space, while Jamie is his usual self although Brian Hayles seems to have forgotten that the Doctor and Jamie work better as a team, putting them together only sparingly throughout the story. As the rocket lands, the Doctor makes contact with Phipps, who has escaped the Ice Warriors.

Episode 3 is pretty much a runaround, with the plot progressing little despite the Doctor's presence. That's perhaps a big flaw of the story; the Doctor doesn't actually do anything until after his holiday in Episode 5. Sure, he's now where the Ice Warriors are, but he spends half the episode running away from them then the other half listening while they reveal their plan drip-by-drip as he pretends to help them like Fewsham. Apart from the wonderfully Second-Doctor-esque line "your leader will be angry if you kill me - I'm a genius!" Episode 3 isn't great. Unfortunately, with the Doctor knocked out by a seed (a white ball), he's gone for the next episode.

If memory serves, Patrick Troughton's only previous holiday was for Episode 2 of The Web of Fear, and I remember that story coping well with his absence. This one doesn't. As the Ice Warriors proceed with their plan, with T-Mat repaired, Fewsham is told to T-Mat the Doctor into space, and more of the seeds to the various T-Mat centres on Earth. An Ice Warrior also T-Mats down to Earth Control and rampages about a bit. The main thrust of Episode 4 is the Doctor, Jamie, Zoe and Miss Kelly's attempts to retake the base, but it takes them until the cliffhanger to put their plan into action, with Zoe sneaking into the control room to adjust the temperature controls to something the Ice Warriors will find uncomfortable. It's one of those episodes where really nothing happens, although it was a good cliffhanger I suppose.

In Episode 5, it turns out the Doctor was T-Matted into another part of the base, and conveniently the Ice Warriors have returned to their ship, so the surviving Moonbase personnel T-Mat down to Earth. We now enter the best part of the story, because the Doctor is in his element as he analyses one of the seeds, while Jamie and Zoe work out that an Ice Warrior is heading for the weather control station to prevent it from raining, as water is deadly to the seeds. The seeds have a similar effect to the weed creatures from Fury from the Deep, spreading foam everywhere, but it's not scary this time around, only providing us with some silliness courtesy of Patrick Troughton as the Doctor is overwhelmed by foam outside the weather control and pulls all the terrified facial expressions he knows. You've got to feel for the Doctor as he knocks on the door for what seems like ten minutes before Jamie and Zoe answer. A very memorable cliffhanger.

With the seeds taken care of, the Doctor turns his attention to the incoming Ice Warrior spacefleet. The Ice Warriors approach Earth by tracking their homing beacon, which gives Fewsham his inevitable heroic sacrifice moment as he gives the fokls on Earth a chance to duplicate the signal, which the Doctor uses to divert the fleet and send them spiralling into the Sun.

There are loads of reasons why I like The Seeds of Death. The main one is that it's very well directed - I can see how low budget it is but I just don't care. The cleanup for DVD is particularly lovely. The side characters work much better than usual, for one thing I remember all of their names (on first viewing). True, the Doctor is hardly there but I'm a fan of the Hartnell era so that's not enough necessarily a criticism in my view. The other characters are good enough to keep the thing going, and the Ice Warriors themselves are better than they were in their debut.

Horror quotient - Okay, so it's not scary. We've had Ice Warriors before, we've had foam before, and Fewsham occasionally seems over-the-top in his hysterical manner. I don't think any of this hurt the story at all.
Comedy quotient - The usual - Troughton gets the best lines and Jamie has the second-best.
Drama quotient - You wouldn't think it but this story is actually quite dramatic, though I'd attribute that more to Michael Ferguson's direction than Brian Hayles's writing (though this is his strongest story).

There are flaws galore but I love it. One of my biggest Who guilty pleasures.

8/10

The Krotons

2009-09-01T14:28:00.002+01:00

Previous viewings - one

The return of the four-parter couldn't have come at a better time, with the debut of future script editor Robert Holmes. This is a standard monster/robot story with the extra element of the oppressed docile race that we saw so often in the Hartnell era. Neither are anything to get excited about but if Robert Holmes seems to "get" anything right away, it's how to structure a four-parter to avoid using up the interesting ideas in the first episode as many other writers do, so we get a strong sense of beginning-middle-end and the quality is consistent throughout. Ah, but consistently good or bad?

The story begins by introducing us to the Gonds, as they select two of their people to join the Krotons. I usually prefer a story that starts with the TARDISeers, but when we meet the guests first this is the best way - a good scene that's about the plot, allowing us to get to know the characters later. We meet the Gonds, a race of badly dressed people who are choosing two of their teenagers to become companions of the Krotons. Only not all is as it seems, as the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe find when one of the chosen ones is gassed and dies outside, with the Gonds unaware. As soon as we hear that generations of Gonds have been handed over to the Krotons, probably suffering the same fate, a fan should by now be able to suss the entire plot. It's revolution time!

Quite wisely, the Krotons stay out of sight until unusually late in the story. Early on, the pacing is rather slow (unfortunately that doesn't change) as after his relevation the Doctor has little to do except chat to the leader Selris, while some of the Gonds start smashing up the Krotons' machinery. You'd think people as quick to violence would have long ago changed the status quo that led to their deferral to the Krotons, especially since the Krotons themselves haven't been seen for years. However I was delighted to find the Gonds more individual and reactionary than what is probably their closest counterpart - the Xerons from The Space Museum. Not quite individual enough for me to remember their names without looking up Wikipedia, though!

Things get more interesting in the second episode. Zoe (looking gorgeous in this story) takes a test the Gonds take to measure intelligence, and gets the highest score ever, prompting the Krotons to immediately summon her as a companion. The Doctor is angry, but takes the test himself so Zoe doesn't face the Krotons alone. It's unclear whether this is because he's worried about Zoe or because he wants to use the opportunity to confront the Krotons, but it was a nice scene anyway, made entertaining by the Doctor's absentminded manner as he interacts with the test machine, resulting in him getting questions wrong. Yes, and the Doctor isn't perfect, isn't it brilliant? Unfortunately we missed an opportunity for the further comedy of having Jamie take the test and get the worst score ever.

In the Dynotrope, the Doctor and Zoe meet the Krotons, who are quite disappointingly nothing but the usual lumbering robots with "scary" mechanical voices. After a mind attack, the Doctor and Zoe are able to slip away quite easily. Jamie enters the Dynotrope to find the Doctor and Zoe, but is attacked by the Krotons, who question him and find out about the TARDIS. This story does a good job of keeping the Doctor and Jamie at their most entertaining but apart, while the Doctor and Zoe make a surprisingly good team - I enjoy the moments where Zoe is embarrassed when the Doctor shows he is her intellectual superior.

While all this is going on, the Gonds are arguing amongst themselves, with Eelek wanting to take control, replacing the more cautious Selris. Unfortunately one's as boring as the other so I couldn't care less who leads the Gonds.

The Doctor and Zoe return to the Gond city as the story moves towards its climax. The Krotons have been educating the Gonds through the years, but neglecting their chemistry studies - a clue, perchance? The Doctor knows that the Krotons and their ship (the Dynotrope) are susceptible to sulphuric acid as they're made of tellurium. Unfortunately the story doesn't become more exciting at this point, as I was hoping. The Doctor and Zoe are handed over to the Krotons by the less-than-grateful Gonds. The only entertaining aspect of the finale is the Doctor's attempts to stall the Krotons while he exposes them to the acid. The actions itself is a blink-and-you'll-miss-it affair.

The Krotons is a story that isn't as good as it should be. The direction by David Maloney is great at least, but it's all so dull - duller than The Dominators was reputed to be. Like I said though, great moments are scattered throughout, mostly involving the Doctor and Zoe, with Patrick Troughton once again making something out of nothing (I suspect there was some ad-libbing going on in some of his funnier scenes here, to liven things up). Jamie does nothing but wander around looking for the Doctor, being a few steps in the plot behind him, and despite my earlier comment I don't like Jamie being made out to be stupid or foolish, he's just from a less developed time period. The Krotons themselves are too familiar to stand out, with motives and voices lifted from half a dozen other Troughton stories. A decent story but lacks the sparkle that better stories have.

Horror quotient - When I look for the horror quotient, I try to think as a child, and it's difficult but I remember being scared by some rather non-scary things as a wee yin. I reluctantly submit the Krotons. The Gond city is quite dark too, which was a good design choice.
Comedy quotient - As ever, Patrick Troughton is on form, enough that he actually saves the story with his performance, and he doesn't even have Jamie tagging around with him for most of it. The Gonds are humourless and I could have done with less scenes of them arguing with each other.
Drama quotient - Drama is the main thing that should have been built upon. The repercussions of generations of the brightest Gonds submitting themselves to die is horrific but forgotten about right away, and the girl who survives might as well have died because she did nothing afterwards.

A standard Doctor Who featuring familiar story elements, but there are finer examples of such; if you showed this to a non-fan, they might not hate it but at the same time they'd probably wonder what all the fuss was about.

6/10

The Invasion

2009-08-31T12:11:00.001+01:00

Previous viewings - many

The Invasion is The Tenth Planet of the Troughton era - it's a story from the next era, with this era's Doctor. By coincidence, they both have Cybermen in them too! This time I understand rather than simply a change in story styles as dictated by the producer, the budget has been cut necessitating the creation of UNIT and present-day Earth setting that will become the norm next season. The restrictions placed on the format aren't so great however that they would destroy the show, in fact if this story is anything to go by, a change in format might be a cracking good idea to revitalise Doctor Who when it's getting perhaps a little tired.

Eight episodes is a lot to fill up when your characters are stuck in one planet and one time. The Invasion manages this by splitting it up into two 4-part stories: the first four episodes, with the Doctor tackling Vaughn the Bond supervillain and his empire, and the second four with UNIT taking on the Cybermen and their spaceship. Not distinct enough to be standalone, but divided enough that there are no major issues with pacing and that each segment has a different feel, as well as strengths and weaknesses.

I enjoy The Invasion more every time I see it. It's a good action-packed story with memorable characters and plenty of funny bits - something that sounds simple enough but a surprising amount of stories don't have these three essentials.

The story begins in animation, as I'm watching the DVD. It's interesting to come to the animated episodes after so many missing episodes represented by audios and the occasional reconstruction. It's constantly in motion which at least keeps the story visual and moving, however it lacks the authenticity of those other formats and is a bit too blocky, with repetitive facial expressions. By the end of the episode I'm no less gasping for live action as I would be if I had experienced the episode using other means, so I guess it's interesting to fill the gaps in the story but I wouldn't enjoy a full story animated unless more money was spent on it. It's just another form of reconstruction really, albeit a more marketable one.

The TARDIS is damaged after a missile is fired at it in the 20th century. The Doctor decides to look up Professor Travers, though I'm not sure why as they must surely risk altering his timeline if their arrival predates The Web of Fear. They hitch a ride from a nervous driver who is on his way out of the grounds of the International Electromatics compound. The man warns the TARDISeers that people have gone missing after going to work for IE, a major electronics manufacturer. The group skulk around as they try to get out of the heavily guarded area. A visual sequence that makes me wish it was another episode missing and not the first, despite the animation. It does a good job of establishing the threat without dragging our heroes into danger quite yet - having them briefly travel with a guy who gets shot as soon as they part company. This puts us on our guard but allows the TARDISeers to continue on their merry way for now.

With Travers in America, the travellers meet Isobel Watkins, niece of Professor Watkins, who has gone to work for IE. Unimpressed with IE's answering machine, the Doctor and Jamie head off to find Watkins while Zoe models for photographer Isobel. Although the plot is moving along, I'm not sold on the Doctor requiring the help of an Earth scientist he has never met to repair a part of the TARDIS, why can't he fix it himself? It's the one flaw of an otherwise excellent episode.

At the IE building, we're introduced to chairman Tobias Vaughn and his brutal yet dim security chief Packer. Kevin Stoney goes on to give the best villain performance of the series - he even eclipses Patrick Troughton in this story, I'd say, and that's saying a lot. Like Salamander last year, Vaughn is the megalomaniacal supervillain the Bond series never had, although Vaughn doesn't need to take over the world, from his perspective he effectively has already - boss of the world's biggest corporation and we don't see anyone else with any kind of authority in the company - he just wants to take his influence one step further. The best thing about Stoney's performance is the sheer charisma he displays; Vaughn isn't so original a character, in fact he's really quite unoriginal, but his voice seems to command attention and when I watch I feel almost captivated. Also I like the way he says "Packer!"

As the Doctor and Jamie leave, they're apprehended by some people who take them to a plane, the headquarters of UNIT. Nick Courtney is back as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, and we can actually see him this time. Being an exception to the 'closed-minded military' rule we see on TV so often, the Brig is a likeable character although Courtney doesn't quite have the rapport with Troughton as he will do with Pertwee. Curiously, whereas in the Pertwee era we very much see UNIT through the Doctor's eyes, here we're allowed to make up our own minds as UNIT get loads to do even when the Doctor is nowhere around. Clearly UNIT are supposed to make an impression, as at times the story seems more like a pilot for a UNIT spin-off than Doctor Who.

Looking for the Doctor and Jamie, Zoe and Isobel go to the IE building, where Zoe causes their enquiry computer to blow up by asking it to solve nonsensical mathematics, which is perhaps my favourite Zoe scene ever. Just awesome. However as we get deeper into the story, with Zoe and Isobel being captured by Vaughn, we're led into a couple of episodes as padding, with the Doctor and Jamie going back to rescue them. Episodes 3 and 4 see Vaughn and Packer take centre stage - two characters, should be no problem, however the plot has to come to a standstill as I wait for the TARDISeers to escape, which doesn't happen until the middle of Episode 4. There are some good scenes in the meantime, including the Doctor meeting with Watkins, Jamie calling the Doctor "a crafty wee beggar", and Vaughn shouting at Packer (a lot), in fact any Vaughn scene is both powerful and funny because of Kevin Stoney, but this is some of the most blatant padding since the latter episodes of The Daleks, serving only to showcase Vaughn as the villain before the Cybermen take over the story. The UNIT helicopter rescue is cool, though since the episode is animated it somewhat diminishes the impact.

Anyone who has watched The Wheel in Space already knows the Cybermen are around, because that light bulb Vaughn has been talking to is the Cyber Planner. However it's still a great moment when that first Cyberman breaks out of its cocoon. They've been redesigned yet again, being the first Cybermen to have the "headphones". These are certainly the most physically imposing version of the Cybermen so do their job in this story.

The Brigadier tries to get something done about Vaughn, but Vaughn has a hold over his superior so he has to find proof the Cybermen exist. Jamie, Zoe and Isobel go to to the sewers to photograph a Cyberman, while the Doctor fades into obscurity for a couple of episodes while he works out some calculations (seems to be a common occurrence in the Troughton era!). I guess this is the closest we'll get to seeing what The Web of Fear looked like - underground and both directed by Douglas Camfield. Unfortunately it didn't leave as much impression as even the audio of the aforementioned story, despite being an exciting sequence it turns out to be futile as the pictures they get look like fakes. Sure, a UNIT private lost his life to get them out, but lets all shake hands and forget it happened. A totally misguided direction to take the story in.

Better is Vaughn putting his plans into action, testing a device Watkins has been making on the Cybermen, which increases its emotional capacity. In a terrific scene, Vaughn instructs his scientists to make a Cyberman feel fear. As the Cyberman screams, I feel really sorry for it. The main thing it does is give credibility to the fact that Vaughn thinks he can outwit the Cybermen - if this scene is any indication he certainly has a shot at taking them on.

Vaughn is thwarted when Watkins is rescued by UNIT - strange that the incident happens off-screen given the length of the story. Vaughn decides to bring his plans forward, sending out a signal which knocks out everybody in the world (except UNIT and its staff because of a gadget the Doctor has invented), while the Cybermen come out of the sewers and march through London in force. The classic cliffhanger of the Cybermen walking down the steps at St. Paul's Cathedral is great not just because of the image but the sound of the siren, which would have been more effective than the Cybermen theme from The Moonbase which would probably have been the alternative.

With all the padding out of the way, we come to Episodes 7 and 8, my favourite episodes of the story bar Episode 1. It sees the Cybermen ditch Vaughn, UNIT get plenty to do, and the Doctor confront Vaughn and persuade him that the Cybermen must be destroyed. Strangely the Cybermen aren't actually in Episode 7, although you never notice because the threat mostly comes from their spaceship. UNIT personnel are dispatched to Russia to complete a planned rocket launch to fire missiles and intercept the Cyber fleet. This is UNIT at their most credible - getting stuff done themselves rather than simply being military backup for the Doctor. They seem like a real organisation.

Meanwhile at the IE building the Doctor finds Vaughn panicking as the Cybermen decide to cut him out of their plans. The Cybermen attack the headquarters, killing Packer, which prompts Vaughn to decide to get revenge on the Cybermen for betraying him. The Doctor and Vaughn actually make quite a good team, with Vaughn being as good an ally as a villain. As UNIT arrive at the IE building, Vaughn gets blown up by the Cybermen. A nice moment stands out - as UNIT go after the Cybermen, the Doctor composes himself as he is photographed by Isobel. Such a Doctorish thing to do.

With the Cybermen defeated, the TARDISeers return to the field the TARDIS landed, with the repaired component, and leave for their next adventure. Jamie is limping having been out of action for all but this scene in Episode 8. I'd say this isn't one of Jamie's best stories, mainly because he's not the type of character who works well opposite the military.

The Invasion justifies its high reputation up to a point. It's exciting but there is padding, and too many plot points are treated quite oddly - the sewer incident, Watkins's rescue, a capture/escape/recapture too far in the early episodes. However this story has the best villain ever and Kevin Stoney's performance makes up for a lot. It might have been better if it was a monster other than the Cybermen, as they steal Vaughn's thunder somewhat undeservedly. Zoe gets lots to do although Jamie is a little sidelined, and extra characters like Packer and Isobel merit the sizeable screentime they get. Best of all, I can't wait to see more of UNIT!

Horror quotient - The Cybermen in the sewer is not scary at all. Vaughn is actually the scarier of the villains in this story!
Comedy quotient - Plenty there too. When he realises he can't outrun those chasing him, the Doctor stops to play cards. Hilarious!
Drama quotient - Any story that has moments where I feel sorry for the Cybermen deserves kudos. This is overall an action-driven story, with some of the plotting coming at the expense of drama, but it's eight episodes long and it has its moments.

A highlight of the era, which bodes well for the next one. However some issues with padding, and some setpieces which turn out to be fruitless, lose it a point.

9/10

The Mind Robber

2009-08-28T10:20:00.001+01:00

Previous viewings - many

Doctor Who continues to gain creative momentum with this classic five-part adventure from Peter Ling. As I understand it, Ling knew nothing about science fiction when writing this so it's perhaps not so surprising that his take on the show is not what we're used to. Under his pen, Who dips into the realm of the surreal - and quite literally, too, as the TARDISeers discover the Land of Fiction. This gives it something of a unique flavour among all the Doctor Who TV stories; there is nothing even remotely like it.

I'll say it now: when I first saw The Mind Robber I was blown away. If anything, the Troughton era has been a disappointment in the marathon so far because nothing has been written with the imagination or fun element of this story, and as such it's remained my favourite Troughton story since then. So here's why I like it!

Episode 1, hastily written by Derrick Sherwin after The Dominators had an episode cancelled at short notice. No guest cast or new sets, and there's not enough time to rewrite the rest of the episodes much to accommodate this extra one, so the story isn't going to start properly until Episode 2. Imagine how the production team and actors took that news! When you finish the story you hardly remember the first episode because it barely contributes to the plot, and I think I'm one of the few here who thinks that the rest of the story is far better, by virtue of the fact that however good Episode 1 is it doesn't manage to disguise the fact that it's not needed.

Following the volcanic eruption on Dulkis, the Doctor takes the TARDIS out of time and space and into the void - nothing. The Doctor isn't prepared to face the risk of stepping into dimensions unknown so insists everybody stay in the TARDIS. Zoe changes her outfit, Jamie takes a nap and the Doctor works alone to repair the ship. It doesn't last long but I savour this rare glimpse of life in the TARDIS in the Troughton era. Suddenly Jamie and Zoe see images of their homes on the scanner which trick them into leaving the TARDIS - silly beggars - and they find themselves in a white void. As a consequence of the circumstances of the writing of this episode, the rest of the story follows on from it but does not resolve it, hence the things that happen aren't necessarily explained. For the remainder of the episode we're subjected to a series of bizarre events, including Jamie and Zoe lost in nothingness, the TARDIS turning white, the Doctor fighting a mental attack, the TARDIS breaking apart, the Doctor floating around, and Zoe's bum. For the purposes of the plot's internal logic, I have to assume they're already in the Land of Fiction, even though the white void looks nothing like the rest of the place. Whatever it is, it's so bonkers and brilliant that I have to love it - easily the trippiest episode in the whole series.

The other four episodes are slightly shorter than usual. As a result, the whole story seems to whizz by in a flash, which I didn't like actually, because I wanted more of it! The TARDISeers are separated in a strange dimension, and for once we have absolutely no idea what to expect from this place. Jamie is turned into cardboard, except for his facial features, which the Doctor must reconstruct from multiple choices, only he gets it wrong so when returned to normal Jamie looks different, now played by Hamish Wilson. A good way to replace Frazer Hines but serving only to remind viewers just how good Frazer is - Hamish isn't a bad actor but never convinces me he's Jamie, his performance is too different. It was worth it though for the Doctor and Zoe's reactions, especially Zoe when she realises the Doctor is to blame.

As the travellers investigate their surroundings, they meet explorer Lemuel Gulliver. He's the first of several fictional characters we meet in the Land of Fiction but only Bernard Horsfall (who plays Gulliver) makes his character seem like fiction within fiction, something that sounds very hard to do! I've not read Gulliver's Travels but I enjoyed his character.

With Jamie returned to normal, the TARDISeers traverse deeper into the realm, encountering more fictional creations along the way, including a unicorn, Medusa, and the Karkus, placed in their path by an unseen menace watching them on TV. As they discover, any dangers can be got rid of simply by announcing their fictional nature. It works the first time, but in a place that offers limitless potential for cliffhangers, it's a shame to see the same device used again and again, especially as the characters seem to think they're doomed each time! Zoe especially is irritating - for one of the few times in the series - when she can't resist looking at Medusa, forcing the Doctor to allow her to do so using a mirror. Jamie meanwhile has found a castle and climbs up Rapunzel's hair, and inside the castle he finds a tape machine which is writing the events the Doctor is caught up in ahead of time, thwarted by the Doctor's refusal to follow the story plans set out for him. Since the TARDISeers are the only "real" things in the Land of Fiction, their nemesis is trying to turn them into Fiction, which will happen if they become part of his story. It's the kind of Doctor Who tale that's never going to hold up to scrutiny, but at least here you're never sure what to measure it up against. Do the laws of physics even apply? Who knows. Yet this notion that they'll become fiction stands out for not making sense anyway - I'm not sure what that even means! The fictional characters only ever existed in stories, the TARDISeers are real people with minds. However this is a minor issue.

The Doctor and Zoe catch up with Jamie and find the Master of this strange land, who the Doctor quickly works out is being used by a computer for his creativity, and his goal is to force the Doctor to take his place. Nice! Unfortunately a threat to the Earth is tacked on, and one that doesn't quite make sense, but not enough to matter. The Master is a good villain, seeming genuinely intelligent and if it wasn't for the plan to take over Earth, not actually villainous.

Episode 5 is my favourite of the story. Jamie and Zoe have been turned into fiction by being enveloped by a giant book (huh?), as the Doctor discovers when he thinks he's escaped, only for the fictional characters to turn on him. The Doctor decides the only way to defeat the Master is to out-story him, with both wired into the mainframe and creating fictional characters to do their bidding as the Doctor tries to free his friends. It's a hilarious sequence with both conjuring up bigger and better foes which do battle. Unfortunately with that over, it's not clear how the story is resolved because as Jamie and Zoe destroy the technology in the main room, with the white robots programmed to destroy everything, the reality seems to fade out of existence, along with the episode! Mere moments after the TARDISeers have reunited, we see the TARDIS return to normal and that's it, the episode's over. Waaaay too fast a conclusion!

The Mind Robber isn't perfect. I feel Peter Ling didn't get the characters completely right, Zoe especially - although she is still pretty new I suppose. It's the only story Zoe doesn't seem intelligent in, in fact she seems quite stupid - I mentioned the incident with Medusa, but tripping the alarm she's just been told about was disappointingly idiotic and not something I would expect from Zoe. And I wasn't even keen on the silver catsuit! Give me Zoe in her outfits for The Krotons or The Space Pirates anyday. As I watch, I'm wondering if perhaps Ling was aiming more for a child audience than most Who writers do - there's a lot more silliness and goofing around than usual.

However it's one of those stories that is so awesome that any flaws just don't matter. I could watch The Mind Robber again and again and it would never get boring.

Horror quotient - Hard to say. There's certainly lots that could scare kids - two whole sets of alien robots, a creepy place, Zoe has plenty to scream about and the TARDIS breaks up.
Comedy quotient - Much to laugh about too. A nice all-rounder of a story.
Drama quotient - Perhaps there isn't that much drama, because the line between reality and fantasy is blurred.

A real gem. One or two niggles aside, The Mind Robber easily takes its place among the top Doctor Who stories of all time.

10/10

The Dominators

2009-08-27T18:47:00.002+01:00

Previous viewings - one

Norman Ashby gave us back Doctor Who. I'm serious. I know he doesn't really exist and The Dominators was written by our Yeti veterans Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln, and The Dominators had a troubled production that ended with the story being an episode shorter than planned and the writers taking their names off it, but regardless of story quality (this ain't a classic) for the first time in ages I felt a quiver of excitement as I detected that quintessential "essence" of Doctor Who. The Season 5 stories, though they are great accomplishments, didn't have it - they were scary, atmospheric, tense, claustrophobic, the stuff of kids nightmares, but by Fury from the Deep I was starting to think the producers thought Doctor Who should only ever be these things. With The Dominators, all that's gone, replaced by adventure and plenty of humour, just when time to remind viewers that the universe isn't full of bases under siege. Once again, Doctor Who can do anything.

Thats the best aspect of The Dominators - it's so welcome. Then there's the fact that the bulk of the missing stories are over. From a marathon perspective, the hallmarks of the typical Troughton story are so set in stone that as none of them show up I'm shocked - and relieved, because I was sick of them.

The story begins with the arrival of a space ship carrying two Dominators, Rago and Toba, who have been sent on a mission to drill some holes into the planet Dulkis. The work is carried out by the Quarks, robot servants of the Dominators, and as a side effect of the operation the civilization on Dulkis will perish. So they're not nice guys. You have to feel sorry for them; the Quarks are useless, they have to wear the worst shoulder pads ever, and they're played by terrible actors, who never quite mange to make Rago and Toba anything more than one-dimensional grunts. For comedic reasons, they never agree on anything, but even though Rago is in command Toba goes with his gut and is constantly chastised for doing so. All of these work to undermine their effectiveness as threats, so the comedy in their relationship works, even though it gets wearisome after a while.

This is a very silly story. The inhabitants of Dulkis, the Dulcians, used to be a violent race but now abhorr violence, having taken up a policy of peace and dressing terribly. Seriously, the Dominator costumes are memorable but ridiculous and the Dulcian costumes take this a step further, we're used to seeing revealing clothes on women but the men don't get away with their dignity intact either, wearing what appear to be curtains, really stretching my ability to do anything but laugh at them. A serious misfire there.

The TARDIS arrives on the near-abandoned island of the Dominators just after the Quarks have killed some Dulcians. The Doctor has been to Dulkis before - interesting - and is surprised to find a small weapons museum nearby, given the Dulcians attitude towards violence. This is Zoe's first story as a traveller but she copes well enough that if you hadn't seen The Wheel in Space you'd never know she was the newbie. There's no process of showing her the ropes, and infact given in her own way she has led almost as sheltered a life as Victoria I'm surprised there's no process of settling in, as she experiences things textbooks haven't prepared her for, which way a key part of her character development in her debut story. Zoe's a cipher companion in its purest form, but Wendy Padbury has enough charisma to pull off a character that would be dull if played by a lesser actress.

Anyway, as the story goes on the Doctor and company meet up with a group of Dulcians who have visited the island, including survivor of the dead bunch, Cully, who I have to comment on - he suffers the most from the wardrobe malfunctions, a middle aged man trying to escape his father's shadow, wearing something that looks like he's just come out the shower, with the actor playing the role completely straight. No, just no. The others fare better, I liked Kando even though she was a bit too willing to submit to the Dominators, while Balan was stubborn but more believable than Cully.

As the Doctor tries to determine the Dominators' plan, he and Jamie are kidnapped and tested to determine intelligence. This is the kind of material that's worth it because Patrick Troughon and Frazer Hines's performances make it great alone, to say nothing of the writing itself. It presents the Doctor and Jamie in a situation that isn't the end of the world so they can, so it ends up being more fun. Anyway, they convince the Dominators that they aren't clever enough to be worth putting to slave work, so they are released.

The action moves to the Dulcian city as Zoe and Cully try to warn the Dulcians about the Dominators, however the visit ends up being padding, only introducing us to the docile lot who don't believe Cully. Suddenly I'm finding myself not caring much about whether they live or die, although I do care a bit more about the ones who have been captured back on the island and turned into slave labour. The message of the story is about as subtle and obvious as in Galaxy 4, but at least the plot is more interesting than in that story and is played more as an adventure, which certainly helps it - methinks the two writers might have been aiming for different things here, giving us a story that tries to do both. So the Doctor thinks that violence is necessary under certain circumstances, forcing people who have shunned violence for centuries to take up arms to fight off the aggressors (even though the Doctor and his companions end up doing most of the work).

Their main opponents are the Quarks, the robot minions of the Dominators (the Dominators themselves argue too much). The Quarks are strangely cutesy for a group of deadly robots and I think this was a clear attempt to appeal to kids and possibly the toy manufacturers. The Quarks turn out to be easy to blow up however they have limited power and are critical to the progress of the Dominators' plan, which turns out to be to turn the planet into a power reserve for their ships. In a silly story like this, the Quarks do work, because they go along with everything else which is being silly. Put them in The Power of the Daleks and I'd hate it, and at least nobody seems scared of them.

The finale is action-packed. While Jamie and others blow up Quarks (and have lots of fun doing so), the Doctor tries to intercept the Dominators' bomb and turn it against them. Even though the location is a quarry, there's lots going on and its heaps of fun. It's at the expense of drama but it's not like there was any in the first place. As the Dulcians leave, with the Doctor planting the bomb aboard the Dominator ship which will cause a volcanic eruption on the island, Troughton and Hines are at their best as the Doctor enjoys noting that he has saved yet another civilisation - until Jamie points out that they happen to be on the island that's going to be filling up with lava in seconds! The actors' chemistry has never been finer.

The Dominators isn't model Who, but I disagree about it being dull. It probably could have been four episodes and been better, and I'm glad it wasn't six, but five is good. A decent typical fun story with some bad creative decisions that conspire to ruin it, but don't quite manage to. Can't wait for the DVD!

Horror quotient - I'm scratching my head on this one. But we've had quite enough horror lately, and after all the seasons of the RTD era started off with a more lighthearted story.
Comedy quotient - Plenty of comedy. For once, we get a wealth of Troughton/Hines moments instead of little moments.
Drama quotient - Who'd believe in the threat of the Quarks? There's little drama or tension beyond what Troughton does his best to communicate.

Just when I thought Doctor Who had narrowed its scope, along comes The Dominators to widen it, and it's a hoot too.

7/10

The Wheel in Space

2009-08-26T23:30:00.001+01:00

Previous viewings - few (Episode 3), one (Episode 6), none (the rest)

If there's one thing we can depend on in 1960s Doctor Who it's a corker of a season finale. At least it's worked out so far that the story broadcast last each season - whether or not it was the last in a production block - has been great. The Wheel in Space has the dubious honour of being the first disappointing season finale, and I so wanted to like it - David Whitaker writing, Cybermen, introducing Zoe, these things all got me quite excited. However, it's a story with problems.

I'll get into those later, because it starts well, with a first episode mostly featuring only the Doctor and Jamie as the TARDIS lands in an empty ship with a few surprises aboard. The odd exception aside, I prefer it when in Episode 1 of a story centers on the regulars and keeps the threat ambiguous until the cliffhanger. It's the perfect format; it gives us (and the TARDISeers) a breather, as well as character moments, and allows us to better put ourselves in their place as the plot unfolds around them, rather than simply dumping them into the plot and all its baggage within the first few minutes. The Doctor and Jamie are a proven team and they haven't been this fun to watch together since Victoria joined. Even if the story's not that interesting, starting it this way tends to put me in a better mood, like waking up to sunshine.

I could tell within the first few minutes that David Whitaker was writing. Images of idyllic places appear on the scanner to tempt the Doctor and Jamie to leave, and when they don't the fluid link explodes, forcing them to do so anyway as the mercury vapour from the fluid link would be fatal - I can almost hear William Hartnell fluffing a line as I type. The Doctor and Jamie would have investigated the rocket anyway but it was worth it for their reactions to the images on the scanner. A search for mercury follows in the rocket, but the Doctor and Jamie find no crew. Then Jamie decides to go for a nap, but a service robot effects a course change which causes the Doctor to bump his head. Tristan de Vere Cole's direction is a bit flat but I'm going along with the story enough to see where it goes.

Meanwhile, we're introduced to the senior staff of the Wheel, an Earth space station. Throughout the story there are frequent attempts to make the human crew people rather than ciphers, and the results are muddled; there are quite a lot of them, for starters, and the characterisation comes in two varieties; the more important characters are well written and come across as more real for the most part, these include Dr. Gemma Corwyn, a personable yet professional woman, and to a lesser extent Bill Duggan, a sort of everyman character, and commander Jarvis Bennett, who is quite different from the usual base commander in that he seems sane, yet simply not that good at his job. Obviously Zoe Heriot receives the most characterisation given she's the new companion. The other characters aren't ignored, but as there is limited time to do anything with them all we get are not-so-subtle quirks to identify them by - for example Tanya going on about her nose, which I thought was bizarre. In these base-under-siege stories with their numerous similar characters, putting a name to a face is often difficult, and this is probably an attempt to rectify that somewhat, however this was the wrong way to go about it. I prefer it when characters make an impression by actually doing something.

The crew is keen to destroy the rocket as it's off-course, never mind the possibility of survivors, which provides us with our first cliffhanger. Episode 2 sees the Doctor and Jamie rescued before ending with.... the same cliffhanger. Except this time Jamie sabotages the laser, obviously to protect the TARDIS (isn't the TARDIS indestructible? Did the removal of the time vector generator change this?). Episode 2 also introduces us to Zoe.

Ah, the lovely Zoe. Zoe is what Victoria isn't (and vice-versa). Victoria was a very dated type of companion, a generic screamer beyond her first two stories, for the Doctor and Jamie to protect and rescue, and although there was a certain endearing quality about her, her uselessness got tiresome. As a direct replacement, Zoe is about as big a contrast as there could be to Victoria. What they've created with Zoe is a character that it's okay not to develop - she's a scientific and mathematical genius, whose world is opened by meeting the Doctor as he proves that logic is fallible, and that there's more to life than studying. She still screams sometimes but her book smarts allow her to make valuable contributions to plots and hold her own against monsters. I say it's okay not to develop her as a character because she is too much of a logical thinker rather than emotionally driven, and she travels with the Doctor simply to see more of the universe. Obviously Wendy Padbury is gorgeous, so that helps too .

Two episodes survive from this story - Episodes 3 and 6. As Episode 3 begins, we discover that Cybermen are hiding aboard the rocket. The Cybermen's plan in this story is fairly complicated and it mostly holds up to scrutiny; the Cybermen want to invade the Earth using the Wheel by smuggling themselves aboard with the help of some of the Wheel's crew whose minds they have controlled after luring them to the rocket to find bernalium supplies after Cybermats have eaten away the ones on the Wheel which was needed to power the x-ray laser which is needed to destroy meteorites approaching the Wheel after being caused by a nova engineered by the Cybermen. There, as simple as that. Never mind the fact that the Cybermen have a big great spaceship that could do a fair bit of invading by itself. Knowing how clueless the humans of the era are, I don't foresee any problems.

Anyway, in Episode 3 the Doctor is recovering from his injury in the first episode. The good thing about the plot having so many unnecessary stages is that it makes the six episodes rattle along at a good pace; it's never dull - the direction is uninspired, so any lifelessness is down to that. Episodes 4 and 5 are all about the controlled crewmembers doing the Cybermen's deeds aboard the Wheel, while the Doctor works out the Cybermen's plans.

The Cybermen themselves are one of the story's key problems. They've been stripped of most of what is great about them - the funky voices have been replaced by generic alien voices, their distinguished and fascinating background isn't even referenced, they're simply invaders who have set their sights on Earth. They look impressive at least, we only ever see two of them at once which is quite disappointing but but they're imposingly tall. From the standpoint of the portrayal of the Cybermen this is one of their weakest stories, because their plan could have been concocted by anyone and we learn nothing about them. Arguably they will never be quite like as powerful they were in The Tomb of the Cybermen again.

With the meteorites fast approaching, Episode 6 is the story's thrilling conclusion. There is lots of spacewalking - it's good to have a story in space after so many Earth stories - while the Doctor confronts the Cybermen who have infiltrated the Wheel, dismissing them simply as killers and dispensing with them quite easily and quickly. Hardly one of the great Doctor/Cybermen confrontations! The story lacks a proper climax, winding down fairly unsatisfactorily with the airlock closing on some Cybermen reinforcements as they spacewalk to the Wheel and the Cybermen's spaceship is blown up. Some great moments like Gemma Corwyn sacrificing her life are a little too understated and end up having their effectiveness reduced. It's a good last episode but lacked the focus a finale needed.

As the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe return to the rocket with the necessary mercury to get the TARDIS going again, Zoe stows away aboard, curious about the mysterious craft, and is allowed to join the team, forewarned about the danger with a viewing of The Evil of the Daleks (curiously of a scene that didn't have the Doctor in it).

Zoe shows a lot of promise, and to some extent we never see it realised because Zoe is pretty much the same in every story: reliable, clever, and wearing some strange outfits. However in an era in which most stories sit in a comfort zone rather than pushing the boundaries of what Doctor Who can do, Zoe is the perfect companion, and she's certainly one of my favourites. I liked her relationship with Jamie, obviously she considers herself smarter than Jamie, while he thinks she's too bossy, but he's also protective of her and she's too nice to lose her patience with him. Obviously the Doctor appreciates Zoe as someone who can make herself useful and who almost understands the things he says. Season 5 doesn't exactly end with a bang, but in a manner that bodes well for Season 6.

Horror quotient - Any attempt at horror falls completely flat, except at certain moments the Cybermen themselves.
Comedy quotient - David Whitaker has written some funny lines for the three regulars in this. It's no comedy though.
Drama quotient - The threat is too convoluted to be believable. Each setpiece involving danger has its own sense of drama, but the overall story doesn't, which hurts the conclusion.

Some big flaws but there's a really good Doctor Who in here somewhere. Better than its reputation but not by much.

7/10

Fury from the Deep

2009-08-25T15:51:00.001+01:00

Previous viewings - one

Fury from the Deep has the distinction of being the only Season 5 story to feature a monster that didn't return. This story is all the better for that, because another outing for the weed creatures would allow this to sink into total obscurity. I know it's well-regarded, but consider its contemporaries. The Cybermen, the Yeti and the Ice Warriors all took off to varying degrees, while few people remember the weed creatures. This is now the squillionth base under siege story, and it hardly deviates from the template at all, different only because Victoria leaves in it and because it has quite a cool monster.

Okay, that was too negative. If the Hartnell era was Doctor Who's era of finding out what works and what doesn't, the Troughton era is the end of the learning process and giving viewers what's deemed to 'work' week after week, which is probably why the era never coughed up a clunker like The Web Planet. The idea behind this is sound BUT when what 'works' is monster/horror stories in hostile environments it leads me to quite a joyless era - thank goodness for Patrick Troughton and Frazer Hines, whose hilarious double act makes every episode worth it. When Victoria muses over how the TARDISeers always land in trouble, it occurs to me how much I would enjoy seeing the TARDIS crew have fun for a while. Of course, Victoria has been thinking the same thing, which kind of makes the emphasis on constant peril worthwhile from a character development standpoint.

We're launched into the new story with an unusual TARDIS landing, on water. The Doctor whips out his sonic screwdriver to investigate what sounds like a heartbeat inside a pipeline. A decent enough intro. We're led from there to the North Sea base, the centre of a network of rigs used for gas pumping. The Doctor believes something is in the pipes, but Chief Robson dismisses his concerns and has the TARDISeers locked up. On audio, the guest cast come off as among the least interesting yet; there's Robson, the obligatory base commander with a screw loose, Harris, the reasonable one, and Van Lutyens, whose demeanour is somewhere between the other two. There's also Harris's wife Maggie, but we don't see much of her.

In the early episodes, the plot develops in the background while of primary concern is the loss of contact with a rig and the possible problems inside the pipes. There's too much procedure, too little character in scenes of operations in the control room, giving us little reason to care about anyone besides the Doctor, Jamie and Victoria. Overall the first episode is quite weak, with the plot having progressed little except Maggie being stung by seaweed and Victoria being trapped and overwhelmed by foam in an underwhelming cliffhanger. There's certainly a lot of tension driving the story, but its papering over quite a slow pace.

Episode 2 works similarly. The threat is effective both in conception and realisation; an expanding seaweed creature that emits a toxic gas and takes people over when it attacks them. There are no naff men in suits waving their arms around pretending to be monsters, only its catatonic victims and a lot of foam (again with the foam!). Episode 2 has that great clip of Oak and Quill, taken over the by the weed, emitting the gas from their mouths to attack Maggie Harris. It could just be that this is one of the story's best bits, but it seemed to indicate a story better than the one I had been listening to. One of the creepiest Doctor Who scenes ever.

With Robson still refusing to heed the warnings of the Doctor and his staff by turning off the gas flow through the pipes, he flips out and storms off. His mad rant reminded me of Evil Kirk in the Star Trek episode The Enemy Within, and was unintentionally hilarious. At least with him out of the way the plot could start moving; by Episode 3 still very little has happened. Seeded throughout the story however are little moments where Victoria expresses her weariness with travelling in the TARDIS. It's very cleverly done as this isn't a story you would expect Victoria to leave in; there's nobody for her to fall in love with, no cause to fight for and they're nowhere near her own time. This is about the only card the writer could have played to motivate her to leave, and it completely makes sense, even her screaming all the time works to make it more believable. I also like the way Jamie doesn't pick up on her feelings, differentiating her from him, as he isn't ready to leave yet. I'm no Victoria fan but it's some genuine, real character development rare for the era.

The Doctor, Jamie and Victoria return to the TARDIS to examine some seaweed in the Doctor's own lab (which we've never seen). It's a bit unusual for the Doctor to bring an apparently hostile creature into the TARDIS, especially in the 1960s when (if I'm not mistaken) only the Doctor and companions have ever been inside. In any case, it returns the focus back to the Doctor - at times in base under siege stories it's too much about the uninteresting staff.

I loved the Episode 3 cliffhanger, where an affected Maggie walks into the sea. It leaves a lasting haunting image of the episode.

Fortunately there is more action in the second half of the story, even though the plot still unfolds quite slowly. The base staff finally get around to investigating the impeller shaft, having switched off the gas flow, only to find out the extent to which the weed creature and its foam has enveloped the key areas of the base. The foam is a bit silly but necessary as the seaweed obviously can't be made to move on its own without looking fake, and the foam makes it look bigger and gives it a greater sense of movement. It's a base under siege in its purest form; more weed creatures growing in number and strength at a relentless pace, exciting but as for the characters I'm still not caring about them one jolt. Despite what seems to be a contemporary setting, it feels disjointed from the world we know (although perhaps that's to be expected as it's coastal) and I get little impression that there is a world beyond these rigs.

Anyway, I mentioned action - a delirious Robson, still under the influence of the creatures, escapes and kidnaps Victoria, taking her to a helicopter. The Doctor is forced to confront the creatures through Robson at one of the other rigs. The creatures have been something of a mystery until now, but in speaking their intentions rather disappointingly turn out to be pretty ordinary: to take over the planet. The Doctor and his companions manage to escape in the helicopter and return to the others. The helicopter scenes are rather long, although it's good to see some action in a rather padded six-parter.

With apparently no way to beat the creatures, the Doctor deduces (I say deduces, but it hardly takes a genius to work it out) that Victoria's screams are what has repelled the weed so far. I think the in-joke is more that Victoria is suddenly reluctant to scream so that the Doctor can record it and play it back on a loop to destroy the creatures, than the solution itself. It's a very visual climax, with the final advance of the creatures to besiege the control room, but after so many missing episodes I've learned to picture such climaxes (at least this is the last story completely missing!). Episode 6 is easily the best of the story, not only because of this, but because of Victoria's wonderful exit.

The creatures have been destroyed and as it turns out nobody has died. As the Doctor ushers his companions to return to the TARDIS, he realises without being told that Victoria doesn't want to go back with them. For once, there's plenty of time to give Victoria a decent send-off, even if she hasn't been the best companion ever (she's my least favourite Troughton era companion). It's one of the few exits to deal with the effect of the companion leaving the other companion, not just the Doctor, as Jamie tries to convince Victoria to change her mind. The next day, the Doctor and Jamie return to the TARDIS, with Victoria waving from the beach. I'm quite excited to have just the Doctor and Jamie left in the TARDIS; two's company but three's a crowd.

Horror quotient - Heavy focus on horror.
Comedy quotient - Little focus on humour. The story is even short of comedy Troughton moments. Here's hoping for more comedy in The Wheel in Space, I'm gasping for it.
Drama quotient - The drama is the horror. However as I've said I couldn't care less about the guest characters, they were either irritating or didn't leave an impression at all. Victoria seems to have chosen to stay with quite a boring bunch.

A competent production but an average story, though there are moments of quite unsettling horror. Victoria's exit aside, there isn't much to raise this from the norm.

6/10

The Web of Fear

2009-08-24T11:29:00.001+01:00

Previous viewings - many (Episode 1), one (the rest)

As the era of returning monsters continues, the series offers up this sequal to The Abominable Snowmen, giving us more of the Great Intelligence and its lumbering Yeti robots. Its in a setting about as far removed from Tibet as you can get, which might be bad news if you're a fan of that story as the setting was an integral part of it. I'm not such a big fan but I did like the Yeti so a return appearance in a contemporary story gets my approval.

We begin with a cliffhanger that needs resolving despite having nothing to do with this story. I can't think of any other Doctor Who story that begins this way - usually end-of-story cliffhangers are a tease for the next story, this is a hangover from the last one. When Jamie closes the TARDIS doors, the Doctor shrugs off Salamander's grisly fate and is more concerned with the next adventure. Obviously since The Enemy of the World is mostly missing now we as fans value this glimpse of a missing episode and wish there had been a longer reprise but looking at it more objectively it would have been more effective to start with the scene with Travers then follow it up with the scene of the Doctor and Jamie eating at the console. This is the story's biggest flaw, and it's not even a big one!

Decades after Det-Sen, an aged Professor Travers is worried when he loses a control sphere he has activated, and tries to retrieve a Yeti he donated to a museum to make sure the sphere doesn't allow the robot to become a servant of the Great Intelligence once more. How great is it to have Douglas Camfield back in director's chair? Doctor Who always looks so well made under his guidance, and even in Episode 1 when the story is just warming up, there's loads to enjoy, including quite a few film inserts, which helps build up the atmosphere. The scene in the museum is a cracker, and establishes this as a horror story - the music, the lighting, the camerawork - work together rather than against each other. Right away the Yeti prove to be something beyond what they were in The Abominable Snowmen, and certainly scarier.

With the Great Intelligence out and about somewhere, it tries to ensnare the TARDIS, but the Doctor is able to materialise the TARDIS close to the source, allowing him to investigate on his own terms. It isn't until half way through the episode that we find ourselves in the London underground, following some free time in the TARDIS. I'm not against TARDIS scenes as long as they're not overlong and pointless, and in this case any chance for Victoria to be herself and not screaming is something to value. It surprises me that this is already Victoria's second-to-last story as she hasn't had much to do since she joined, and while she, the Doctor and Jamie make a fun team, Victoria stands out as the weak link and doesn't work so well as a character when they're not around. As for Jamie, for some reason it never bothers me that he doesn't get any character development. He has such a distinct background that we're always reminded of it so it's impossible for him to be a bland companion, his reactions to situations are always funnier than everyone else's and there's Frazer's chemistry with Patrick Troughton. He's my favourite companion so far and I don't see that changing as I watch the rest of the series.

Obviously lots of people remember this story. My dad remembers watching the Yeti in the underground (and also Episode 4 of The Tenth Planet ). The Yeti aren't around yet but even when the TARDISeers are just wandering around it's still extremely atmospheric. The setting of a dark, abandoned subway line and stations is so suited toDoctor Who that it would be hard to waste its potential.

The first episode ends with the Doctor apparently getting blasted when the army blows up the tunnel. We say goodbye to the Doctor for an episode - he is sorely missed - and Episode 2 is probaby the story's weakest. Jamie and Victoria meet up with Professor Travers, who along with his daughter Anne is working with the military in the underground of an evacuated London to clear away the Yetis and their expanding fungus. It's mostly filler as we've already been introduced to the army officers in the previous episode but it rattles along at a good pace, with a good balance of action and character. I'm enjoying Travers more this time around, he's more interesting as a doting old man and a firm ally, and the mystery of the non-aging Jamie and Victoria is something new for the series.

Episode 3 puts viewers to rest with the return of the Doctor who arrives with Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart. It's the Brig! And he's exactly as I remember him: calm under pressure, open minded but still very much a military man, and willing to indulge the Doctor in his crazy solutions to problems. And he's probably the only character whose relationship with the Doctor transcends what incarnation the Doctor is on. If only they met on-screen as we barely see anything of the Brigadier coming to trust the Doctor. In The Web of Fear we see the Brigadier coping with some things he won't encounter later, including having his entire platoon wiped out during a Yeti attack and an officer who refuses to obey orders. Even though his relationship with the Doctor has frequent moments of humur, the Brigadier seems real here in a way that he won't later.

In the middle episodes, the Yeti are the stars, not the Great Intelligence. It's surprising how much more effective they are in the dark, however this is merely because pretty much all Doctor Who monsters work better in darkness if they're supposed to be scary. The Doctor, Jamie and Victoria are largely split up in this, following their own plot strands in different parts of the underground. Victoria is surprisingly restrained scream-wise and Jamie is unusually useful (sorry Jamie!).

A lot of the dramatic thrust of Episode 3 onwards is the presence of a Great Intelligence agent. Thrown into the mix have been a few characters who might be up to no good, including reporter Chorley and the irritating Welsh driver Evans. The Yeti and the fungus which slowly entombs everybody makes this one of the most effectiv base-under-siege stories; it's the middle of one of most heavily populated cities in the world, an ordinary place which provides no reassurances as the Great Intelligence seems just as capable of using the environment to its advantage as the human characters. The Doctor is consigned to running experiments for a couple of episodes when Travers is taken by a Yeti, but there's loads else going on in the meantime, with the Great Intelligence using much more cunning this time around, having Yeti models planted on several people so they can be tracked. Compare this with The Abominable Snowmen where it accomplished very little, proving itself to be a bit rubbish. In The Web of Fear the threat posed by the Intelligence is more pronounced as its more advanced in its plans.

At the end of Episode 4, with most of the army wiped out, Travers returns under control of the Intelligence, and tells the Doctor to hand himself over so his mind can be drained. Fortunately the Doctor is in control of a Yeti having activated a Control Sphere which he himself controls. As we're left with fewer people, there are less suspects for the traitor, even though by now it's largely irrelevant, in fact the revelation that a dead officer has been reanimated by the Great Intelligence to do its bidding, although creepy, comes at a time when there is more exciting stuff happening.

Everybody meets up for the big finale. It's not hard to guess that the Doctor's Yeti will play a big role and indeed it does - once again the pyramid of spheres is destroyed just before the Doctor has his mind drained. In something of a twist we find out that the Doctor had altered the conversion headset so that it drained the Intelligence and not him, so he's angry at Jamie for using the Yeti. What's disappointing about this is not only that it was obviously done to keep the Intelligence alive for a return appearance that never happened, but that even if the Doctor drained the Intelligence, I don't see why it can't return anyway given even more 'definite' ends to the Daleks and Cybermen. The Doctor being angry at not being able to obliterate his enemy is a little uncharacteristic and since he's right back to normal afterwards seems tacked on.

In accordance with the story starting late, it finishes late too, with the Doctor and his companions still looking for the TARDIS when the last episode ends.

What's so great about The Web of Fear? The Yeti are improved and actually scary this time, and the Great Intelligence recovers from a fairly average story to rival the best of at least the Cybermen. By this point the Yeti are primed to be a recurring enemy forevermore - only disagreements between writers and producer put paid to that. Admittedly this story uses up most of the potential for a great Yeti story, but there's still plenty to be done with them and had things been differently I can imagine the beeping of the Control Sphere being as familiar as an "exterminate!" with a few more appearances. Bring back the Great Intelligence!

It's also the story that proves a contemporary Earth setting works magnificently for the show. Sure, The War Machines started it off, but merely set the template - this runs with it and delivers a classic, and one of the first stories even the public would mention when recalling the Troughton era if they watched it at the time.

Horror quotient - What more is there to say? The Great Intelligence itself isn't that scary, but the heavy use of film and the Mark II Yeti build up a terrific atmosphere. Thanks Douglas Camfield!
Comedy quotient - Hmm, tough one. There are moments of humour and they're all in the right places.
Drama quotient - Everybody is used well, and the military officers are a more interesting bunch than the monks. The drama goes hand in hand with the horror here, and there are quite a few plot twists too that I really liked.

The Power of the Daleks has been pipped - this is my favourite Troughton so far. It's scarier and more dramatic. It accomplishes everything that so many stories of the era try to, and then some.

10/10

The Enemy of the World

2009-08-23T18:37:00.002+01:00

Previous viewings - one (missing episodes), few (Episode 3)

Doctor Who vists the "lead actor in dual role" well again, giving Patrick Troughton a chance to flex his acting muscles beyond playing the Doctor. I doubt anyone would argue that this is one of the least talked about Troughton stories and I'll guess a few reasons why - as an action-lite take on James Bond, it doesn't really have a "hook" beyond Troughton playing two characters, which can't compete with the appeal of a popular monster which every story from Season 5 has except this and Fury from the Deep. The surviving episode, while key to the plot, is a talky studio-bound episode. And lastly the title is as generic as City of Death. So what's to like about it?

Loads, as it happens. It's a welcome breather after a swathe of base-under-siege tales (with more to come) and immediately commands attention by being so different. The Enemy of the World is a tale of a politician's quest for world domination, and its political bent (far-fetched nature aside) and lack of alien threat almost allows the story to slip into the pure historical role.

Year unknown, but it's in the timeframe of quite a few stories of the era - 21st/22nd century. The TARDIS lands on a beach in Australia, and the Doctor decides to have a paddle. Instead he finds himself shot at only to be rescued by Astrid Ferrier in a helicopter. Plenty of action to start the story, although I would have preferred it there had been some story beforehand to put the action in context. The setting is worth mentioning - Doctor Who's only visit to Australia, right? It's not the UK and it's weird to see our little island completely ignored in a story with quite a bit of location hopping and strangely makes the serial feel more disconnected from the rest of the series, even from stories not set on Earth.

By the time this story is set, the political landscape is somewhat different to now, divided into Zones, so the world is run by a few people. One of them is Salamander, a shady man with a thick accent, played by Patrick Troughton. The Doctor is taken to Giles Kent, who tells him he is identical to Salamandar, and that despite his reputation as a public benefactor, Salamander is evil and craves world domination. It should be obvious where this is going now, as the story switches from action to exposition overload - Kent wants the Doctor to impersonate Salamander and find proof that he's been up to no good. The first episode is capped off by a really good cliffhanger - security chief Bruce shows up and questions Kent, forcing the Doctor to pretend to be Salamander to get rid of him. It's an unusual crisis for the Second Doctor to face and all the more striking for it, and one of the few times I've felt his anxiety as his abilities are being stretched.

The second episode introduces us properly to Salamander. The situation isn't like Hartnell playing the Abbot of Amboise, for one thing we knows from the off that Salamander isn't the Doctor, and both characters have lots of screentime. I definitely prefer Troughton's performance as the Doctor but I like the way he keeps us guessing how Salamander's mind works by altering his performance depending on who he is interacting with. In Episodes 2 and 3, Salamander commits mass murder by somehow organising a volcanic eruption so that his political opponent Alexander Denes will be removed from office for negligence. As we see him manipulating people and showing no remorse for the consequences of his actions, he quickly becomes a thoroughly dislikeable character. He's too visibly Patrick Troughton for me to completely disassociate him with the Doctor but at the same time I distinguish between them enough that Troughton's performance as Salamander never seems like he's the Doctor in disguise (if anything he was too good - when the Doctor was impersonating Salamander later on I didn't see the Doctor in his performance).

Parallel to the Salamander's schemes plotline, the Doctor conducts his own investigation of Salamander - wanting to know whether he is evil or not before he goes along with Giles Kent and Astrid - by sending Jamie and Victoria to infiltrate his staff. It makes sense given what we know about the Doctor but ultimately this is a bit of plot procrastination to allow the Doctor to fade into the background for a couple of episodes, preventing Patrick Troughton from tiring from exhaustion. It isn't until Episode 4 that the Doctor gets more involved. However it's not like nothing happens while we wait - the story takes the time to establish Salamander and Jamie and Victoria get a good 007ish subplot, with Victoria working in Salamander's kitchen while Jamie pretends to save his life and gets a job on his security force. It's great enough that Victoria doesn't scream, but Jamie was uncharacteristically intelligent, which combined with the uniform could have made him seem not much like Jamie at all if it wasn't for Frazer Hines knowing the character well enough to cope with the different role. In the Hartnell era the companions, especially Ian, showed a variety of skills as they took on various jobs as required in the stories, not so much in the Troughton era. Of course in Episode 4 both of them disappear and in Episode 5 they're back to normal.

The comments people have made about the James Bond allusions are fair for the most part but this story lacks an extra ingredient essential to the Bond formula: action. Aside from the first few minutes and the climax, it's low budget all the way, which isn't Bond at all. I like watching the plot unfold but there is a definite feeling the story is missing something, and this is it. It's especially apparent in the surviving episode, which is therefore an awful episode to watch in isolation on the Lost in Time DVD box set. At least we get to see the characters - usually I'm fine with audio but I like to at least be able to visualise the characters in a story to get a better picture in my head.

The twist in Episode 4 is that the natural disasters plaguing the world are being caused by people underground who have been told by Salamander that a nuclear war is being waged on the surface. This is where we really enter Bond territory as Salamander takes on the supervillain role, all he's missing is his hordes of unquestionably loyal henchmen, rather as the story unfolds he finds himself facing up to his problems alone. The Doctor quickly notices the discrepency involving the large demand for food supplies to the records room while working with Bruce, who turns out to be quite reasonable after all. The Doctor's actual impersonation of Salamander - what the story has been leading up to from Episode 1 - comes to nothing as he drops his cover in front of Jamie and Victoria.

Now we head into the climax, with a few more minor plot twists along the way. Credibility is stretched as Astrid discovers the people beneath the surface and Kent blows up the tunnels. Not only is the survival of the people beneath the surface treated as a minor issue (though it's not clear how many of them there are), but Salamander manages to escape the tunnels alive and instantly find the TARDIS. It's action-packed though so I'm forgiving of these trivial criticisms. The final few scenes finally sees the Doctor confront Salamander in the TARDIS, unmasking him as an impersonator (not that it was hard) and struggling with him at the console. It's a scene I would like to see for obvious reasons - two Patrick Troughtons! Plus Salamander getting blown out of the TARDIS as it takes flight with the doors open, leading us nicely into The Web of Fear. I'm not sure about ending the story on a cliffhanger which doesn't make it obvious that this story is over - the Doctor doesn't confirm that Salamander is dead until the start of the next story.

It's not a typical Troughton story and the budget problems cast serious aversions on it, but I like The Enemy of the World a lot. David Whitaker is up to his usual standard in the amazing characters he creates, the best of this story being obviously Salamander himself, the feisty Astrid Ferrier, the surprisingly honourable Bruce, Griffin the chef and Fariah, who has to work alongside Salamander despite hating him.

A forgotten story? Nah. If the other episodes were found I'm confident this story would become much more popular than it is now.

Horror quotient - This story is a break from the horror season.
Comedy quotient - I've noted that comedy isn't one of David Whitaker's primary interests (that's drama) but I thought the kitchen scenes were quite funny.
Drama quotient - Finally, a six-part story that fully merits the six episodes. It admittedly strings out the plot but in a different way than the two previous stories do, it saves each plot twist for a new episode and builds up the characters in the intervening screentime.

A little more action in the middle and this would get full marks. A shame this story ended up being the money-saver of the season - and makes no secret of that fact on-screen.

9/10

The Ice Warriors

2009-08-22T11:05:00.004+01:00

Previous viewings - one

If there was any lingering doubt what direction producer Innes Lloyd was taking the series, The Ice Warriors should quash it. By 1967, the goods were being delivered based on a tried and tested formula, and this is no more evident than in Season 5. There's a certain numbing effect from experiencing so many similar stories in sequence, mainly because they're not all going to be good enough to stand out. The scripts for this story in particular seem to have been written by taking the scripts for The Moonbase and changing the character's names.

Brian Hayles pens this first outing for the Ice Warriors. Having seen/heard three of his stories now, I'm starting to get a feel for his writing style; he creates fantastical worlds and then writes in such a way as to reign in the outlandishness of the settings or plots, sort of normalising them. In The Celestial Toymaker, this was disastrous - it just made it dull - but it worked quite well in The Smugglers. He has an easier job of establishing a believable, relatable world in The Ice Warriors, as despite the futuristic setting most of the characters could be picked from the present day and be no different. The isolated group of humans this time around are in control of an ioniser, which keeps the glaciers at bay as a new Ice Age looms, an Ice Age caused by a change in levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide. This touches on the modern issue of climate change, which makes the mission of the base personnel hit closer to home than their counterparts in earlier base-under-siege stories.

The Ice Warriors themselves are very memorable. Whether I like them or not I'm not sure - they're certainly not in the league of the Daleks or the Cybermen, but as they come from Mars it gives them a certain distinction that they would lack if they came from the planet Gloob. They are creatures that could only have come from the Troughton era, being portrayed as irredeemably evil creatures, with no regard for human life, and they come complete with distorted voices and lumbering movements, with a body/suit that is way too restrictive. It's becoming something of a Doctor Who tradition for the stock soldiers to be either robot-like or controlled from one central intelligence, and I like that the Ice Warriors are an exception. Their essence is so unashamably B-movie that I can't bring myself to hold any of their design features against them. I'll never be scared of them but as Doctor Who monsters go there's a lot worse.

The story begins with a short montage setting the scene. Yep, it's cold. The TARDIS lands on its side just outside Brittanicus Base. An unusually funny sequence follows as the TARDISeers climb over each other to get out. The Doctor, Jamie and Victoria are being written and played as three best friends, and it's a dynamic thats lots of fun. From then on its right into the action as they wander into the base. The personnel this time around are the obligatory uncooperative base commander Clent, the useless second-in-command Miss Garrett (good to see a woman in authority though), and impulsive scientist Arden. I thought Clent was very well played by Peter Barkworth, being the base commander he is required to be a thorn in the Doctor's side but he's not just playing an archetypal role, he's characterised as a man who sees the world differently from the Doctor and will stand by what he believes in. None of this changes the fact that everybody is only a slight variation on characters we've seen before though.

A spanner in the works is Penley, former scientist at the base who has been expelled and continues to lurk around nearby with his Scottish sidekick Storr. I wasn't keen on either of them, with Storr being especially irritating largely because I hate when the token Scot is the token idiot.

The first episode is a good. As usual, the Doctor wanders into the control room and spots a problem no one else has. It's Patrick Troughton at his eccentric best - the Doctor earns respect by being cleverer than he looks, but like Hartnell at his best, Troughton plays it to leave viewers wondering how much of the Doctor's absentmindedness is deliberate. At their best, the first two Doctors are actually quite similar.

The plot gets going with the discovery of a frozen Ice Warrior, who is taken into the base. He wakes up and takes Victoria hostage as he returns to where he was found to revive his comrades and salvage their ship, which has been trapped beneath the ice for thousands of years. The combination of the hissing Ice Warriors and the screaming Victoria gets hard to endure after a while - Victoria is nice to look at but by god is she irritating, with this story being possibly her worst. The writers gave her a unique background among companions, so why is it never mentioned? I get the impression it's being used merely as a reason for her to be even more scared of everything than a modern girl like Polly would be. She's good with Jamie, and with the Doctor (though they hardly ever get a scene to themselves), but despite a promising beginning she's turned out to be one of the weakest companions.

A large part of the plot concerns the ioniser, a device which is being used to melt the ice. There is a scene I liked in Episode 1 where Clent quizzes the Doctor on solutions to the problem of advancing glaciers. Even when it's dodgy, I like it when science has a role in the plot, as long as it's only used to service the plot.

Obviously, Episodes 2 and 3 are missing. As with the other nearly complete stories, I had a reconstruction of the missing episodes, in this case it was a full reconstruction and not condensed as most people's seem to be. Unfortunately, as seems to be happening a lot lately, the pace slows down as we get to the middle episodes. Victoria remains a prisoner of the Ice Warriors until the last episode so she's out of action, the Doctor doesn't really do much in the base except work out some calculations, while Jamie gets a larger share of the story as he and Arden goes to find the Ice Warrior spaceship and rescue Victoria.

If there's one word to describe these episodes it's ordinary. The Ice Warriors has some striking visuals and music but disappointingly it's not as atmospheric as I was hoping. It's the fact that the Doctor hangs around doing nothing for so long, and that the Ice Warriors are segregated and don't actually attack the base until the last episode, leaving the glaciers themselves to pose most of the threat, that lets it all down. I think Brian Hayles might have fallen into the trap of making a dull story out of an interesting setup again.

Arden is killed and Jamie is injured. Victoria is particularly awful in a scene where she contacts the Doctor to tell him about the Ice Warriors, but can't answer a single question that will give the base personnel a tactical advantage. It's when the Doctor finally decides to go to the Ice Warrior ship himself that the story is livened up a bit. The Ice Warriors view the ioniser as a weapon as they are used to a colder climate and are going to attack the base. Patrick Troughton is wonderful whenever the Doctor has to confront a villain, humour remains integral to his performance but his conviction in playing the Doctor would make you believe in the threat of monster made of pink candy floss. I know Troughton gets loads of praise on this board anyway but there really never was a single bad performance by him.

The conclusion quickens the pace and finally sees more proactive Ice Warriors. While the Ice Warriors enter the base, the Doctor reprograms their weapon to use it against them. They leave in their ship but it explodes upon take-off.

I hate to say this, but The Ice Warriors was another six episodes that could have been four. As I write I'm wondering if I'm being a little hard on the story, but after listening to The Web of Fear, this story has been shown up as something of a dud in comparison. It has a lot going for it - the Ice Warriors themselves are among the best of the crappier Doctor Who baddies (lets face it, they're never going to be the baddies in a classic without a major revamp), and I loved the setting, which is used to its maximum potential. Brian Hayles seems at home writing a monster story, even if not much about it really excels, lifting it above the competition it faces from the other stories in the season which are similar. Worth a watch, and I think it's going to be one that I'll look more favourably on when I watch it on its own, but for now this is definitely one of the lesser Troughtons.

Horror quotient - Do Ice Warriors scare kids? The hissing voices aren't scary. For a base-under-siege, there isn't much sieging going on, the base personnel are left in peace for waaaay too long.
Comedy quotient - The usual carry-on by the Doctor and occasionally Jamie. I wonder why Troughton's Doctor was so frequently put opposite humourless characters?
Drama quotient - Not too bad there. Interest waned a few times over the six episodes but only because of padding. Good direction by Derek Martinus keeps things from getting too boring, at least if we're not in the base.

Like the Ice Warriors themselves, The Ice Warriors has all the elements of something great, but doesn't use them. It's certainly no stinker but my expectations were higher.

6/10

The Abominable Snowmen

2009-08-21T10:47:00.000+01:00

Previous viewings - few (Episode 2), none (missing episodes)

I see judging by the near-universal praise for this story I'm going to have to fight my case for my rather different opinion of it.

From now until the end of the Pertwee era, longer stories are the norm. A six-parter is not merely a longer four-parter, it's a whole different beast of a story, and although budget problems can sometimes preclude broadening the scope of a story to fit the longer length, this isn't always the case and in The Abominable Snowmen, a six-parter, an otherwise polished, expensive-looking production (by 1960s Doctor Who standards), I lay the blame at the feet of the writers for pulling out all the stops to slow the story down - you know what I mean: slow-talking, slow-moving villains, going back and forth between locations for little reason, extended scenes with little dialogue or action, characters not realising the bleeding obvious, all hallmarks of padding out a story beyond its natural length.

The BBC audio of this story was dreadfully quiet. I tried to listen to it when I was out and about but could hardly hear a thing, necessitating a relisten of Episodes 3 and 4. Let me bactrack a bit and start at Episode 1 though.

The Doctor decides to return an old relic to the monastery at Det-Sen when the TARDIS lands in Tibet in the 1930s. There's lots to love about the first episode - the Doctor's massive coat (looks warm!), the location filming (always fun to get out of the studio, even if it's just some hills), the pure atmosphere of the episode - very calm before the storm as the plot slowly gets going. Unfortunately upon arriving at the monastery the Doctor is suspected to be behind the murders of some monks and a comrade of Professor Travers, who has come to Tibet to look for the Yeti. I've never been much of a fan of these misunderstanding subplots, since it's inevitably going to be resolved it requires decent characters to be hostile and for little reason other than the story is not yet ready to advance. The lead monk, Khrisong, is a fairly humourless character and so remains pretty unlikeable throughout the rest of the story. Troughton's Doctor is of course entertaining but by the end of the first episode even he is struggling to stop viewer interest from waning.

The Doctor's decision to leave Jamie and Victoria in the TARDIS gives those two characters a chance to interact more. One thing I like about this story is the way it builds on Jamie's protectiveness of Victoria, like she's his little sister. As they leave the TARDIS and follow some footprints, they get trapped in a cave with a Yeti, which provides us with the story's first cliffhanger.

The second episode survives, yay because it's a good one. The picture on the location filming is very sharp and grain-free, so much so that the black and white looks more like a creative choice than necessity, although it does make it all the more jarring when we cut back to the studio, especially considering the Doctor is supposed to be outside too. The story is still slow-moving but we get a good scene with the Doctor speaking to the young monk Thonmi in his cell. Thonmi is the most likeable of the monks, showing more willingness to listen to the Doctor and quickly trusting him. If Jamie wasn't around he would have made a good addition to the TARDIS crew.

After taking an age to reveal his possession of the Ghanta, the Doctor is tied up outside to draw out his "allies" the Yeti, while we get our first glimpse of the sanctum of the monastery, where we meet the Abbot Songsten, an elusive, guarded but forceful man, and hear the voice of Padmasambhava. Both are clearly up to no good. Jamie and Victoria convince Travers that the Doctor isn't the attacker and he is freed by order of Padmasambhava, giving the story permission to actualy begin with investigaton of the real culprits, the Yeti.

The real stumbling block with The Abominable Snowmen comes in the middle of the story, where two whole episodes go by with nothing happening. The monks capture a Yeti and some control spheres but lose them. We are told at the Yeti are actually robots, inert without their control sphere, and that Padmasambhava is controlling the movements of the Yeti from his chamber, moving them like chess pieces for purposes as yet unknown. This simply isn't enough plot to sustain two whole episodes - even the foreboding atmosphere I noticed earlier in the story has fallen by the wayside. On the whole I think the Yeti are a great idea done badly; iconic look and central idea, but they don't actually get to do anything interesting, just move around a bit. Where are the masses of attacking Yeti, destroying everything in sight? There seems to be no attempt to establish them as a formidable force, or even give them a lot of screentime. I know they are only being controlled, with the Great Intelligence pulling the strings, but people don't generally remember the Great Intelligence when thinking of these stories, they think of the Yeti.

The story occasionally drops hints about the Doctor's previous visit to Det-Sen 300 years ago. I liked the notion of the Doctor returning to somewhere he's already been, and meeting one of the characters, although not enough is made of it - strange in itself as there was plenty of time to elaborate on it. It only raises more questions than it answers. A missed opportunity.

Victoria gets a lot to do here, establishing herself as an independent character who is willing to do her own investigating. After finding Padmasambhava's sanctum, Victoria is put in a trance and returned to the Doctor to convince him to take her back to the TARDIS, a ploy to aid the Great Intelligence whose movements of the Yeti are designed to scare the monks into leaving. We see Victoria at her best and her worst here; there is lots of screaming and she is especially irritating when asking the Doctor to take her away, but she pushes the story forwards and accomplishes more than Jamie does, with Jamie being largely a spare part who worries only about Victoria being missing. Unfortunately, writers Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln don't have a strong grasp of the characters of Jamie or the Second Doctor, and there were moments I was expecting the usual Doctor/Jamie banter but ended up disappointed as it just wasn't there, even though the actors were doing their best. In fact I can see this story being better if Jamie wasn't in the story at all and the Doctor arrived with Victoria. I'm still not keen on the overall triad of the Doctor, Jamie and Victoria, but we see so little of it in this story beyond the first and last episodes there's not much to comment on there.

As we head for the conclusion, Episodes 5 and 6 are a vast improvement on the middle episodes. After sitting around working things out for two episodes, the Doctor becomes more proactive and goes to see his old friend Padmasambhava, who has been kept alive by the Great Intelligence and used as a vessel. The Intelligence starts manifesting itself physically through a pyramid of spheres, having failed to clear the monastery of the monks. The Doctor cuts off the link between the Intelligence and the Yeti, leaving the Intelligence powerless. The climax is exciting enough, with the rampant Yetis.

The Abominable Snowmen is a story there isn't anything more to say about than for a four-parter because a four-parter is what it should be. It's great that the production team got more use out of the location and a monster that quickly resonated with the public, but none of that stops the story from being one of the dullest yet. It has plenty of potential, but it's hardly used; Travers is supposed to be a central character and I wanted to see more of him. The Doctor's previous visit to Det-Sen should have been played up more rather than just being an anecdote. The Yeti don't have enough to do and aren't scary. If they'd just been able to sustain the atmosphere of the first few episodes it could have been so much better. This doesn't mean I've taken the good for granted though, and there's lots to like - the plot and budget hold up and the Great Intelligence is an interesting villain who just happens to irk me by talking so slowly. Perhaps I need to work on my attention span a bit....

Horror quotient - I suspect childhood memories of the Yeti are down to The Web of Fear, I'd be surprised if anybody remembered a walk around the hills more than a dark, tense, underground horror story.
Comedy quotient - Patrick Troughton does his best of course, as does Frazer Hines, but they're working against a fairly serious script. The Doctor and Jamie are thus quite subdued from what we're used to.
Drama quotient - The story was going for dramatic but ended up boring. It's a difficult line to tread - it isn't the first story to fall victim to this and it certainly won't be the last.

One of the dullest Troughtons. If you want Yeti listen to The Web of Fear instead.

5/10

The Tomb of the Cybermen

2009-08-20T21:35:00.001+01:00

Previous viewings - many

Classic Who fandom can be divided into two subgroups: those who remember the days when The Tomb of the Cybermen was missing and the younger crowd for whom it's just another Troughton story with the Cybermen in it. I'm of the latter, and in fact reading the back of the DVD case of this story was when I first learned about missing episodes. There's something comforting about experiencing this marathon by popping on a DVD rather than by other, less accessible means.

The lovely Victoria Waterfield has joined the TARDIS crew and the first scene is her introduction to the TARDIS. The Doctor trots out his usual explanations of space/time travel, telling us his age for the first time too, which is interesting in itself because until now there has been nothing to indicate the Doctor's lifespan is any longer than a human's. It's a great scene, cleverly avoiding being a repeat of similar scenes from the Hartnell era (it's always impressed me how the writers have managed to make each companion's reactions to the TARDIS unique over the years). It distinguishes itself mainly by its short length and emphasis on humour rather than Victoria's disbelief of the abilities of the TARDIS. I like that Victoria quickly believes the Doctor and Jamie - it rings true given her experiences in The Evil of the Daleks and we've seen all that before anyway. I also like that the Doctor is patient with her and answers her questions, as he's clearly excited to get someone new on board, a marked difference from how Hartnell's Doctor usually reacted to someone new.

We're on location on the planet Telos with an archaeological team as the story starts properly. At this point on first viewing, I felt like I was watching a film from the 40s or 50s - it's the retro atmospheric music, the non-vidFIRED film print and lack of unconvincing BBC sets. Unlike most base-under-siege stories, it's not aliens visiting humans but humans visiting aliens, so we have a limited group of human characters coming from one ship, a finite number that thins as they're bumped off through the story. I like this format a lot; everybody is a character rather than an extra (though technically there are a few unimportant rocket crew, they leave early on) so it gives everybody an added importance, and the story a sense of progression as we start losing people.

The characters themselves are a varied bunch; there's Parry, the leader of the expedition, a scientist at heart but also a capable leader who cares about his people, the terrified Viner, as well as Klieg and Kaftan, who are signposted as the villains right at the start by their nonchalant reactions to a man's death and opposition to the TARDISeers joining their exploration of the buried Cyberman city. These are all good, believeable characters and well played (yes, I include Kaftan, I thought she was quite sinister). Less successful characters include Kaftan's "servant" Toberman, regarding whom all I can say is what were they thinking? We've gone through four seasons of the show without any such dated attitudes towards those of different races. Toberman barely speaks and in the early part of the story only seems to be there to lift things. The rocket captain, Hopper, is awful mainly because of his terrible American accent. Strangely, all of the actors playing the Americans seem to be doing the same terrible accent, making their scenes unintentionally hilarious.

The Doctor enters the scene and helps the team open the doors to the Cyberman city, which have been electrified. As they enters, they split up to explore the city, which is a bit like alien cities from Star Trek in that it seems to consist of about three rooms. This copes better than its counterparts in Star Trek, by only having key scenes in the extra rooms and everything else in the control room, where it makes sense for the team to spend the most time as they can make a quick getaway if things go wrong. The first cliffhanger is decent given that it doesn't advance the story and it's obvious that the firing range subplot was only written in because there had to be a cliffhanger to Episode 1 and the Cybermen weren't being introduced until the cliffhanger to Episode 2. After nothing in Cybermen stories so far but squadrons of attacking Cybermen, it's good to see their habitat, even if it's not really that different from the Dalek city on Skaro.

With the death of Haydon, the team decides to abandon its exploration, however the rocket has been sabotaged, with Captain Hopper offering the pretty lame reason that he doesn't want them in his way during repairs to give everybody a reason to stay in the city overnight. Klieg passes the time by working out the logic problems left by the Cybermen, which operates most of their equipment, and curiously the Doctor gives him a helping hand, giving him the solution of how to open the hatch in the control room, which leads to a lower level. If you're an eagle-eyed viewer then you might think the Doctor's behaviour in this story is pretty strange - the team has only made progress because of him breaking down the obstacles, and opening the hatch leads them directly to the Cybermen tombs. Why go down there? Why not let them be? Obviously the Cybermen staying emtombed is the Doctor's main objective, but as he isn't planning on staying around forever he needs to make sure it's impossible for anyone to get to the Cybermen in his absence. For him, this requires working his way through all the traps the Cybermen have set and making them even more efficient.

Once we're down in the tombs, Klieg turns on everybody and wakes up the Cybermen. It was an interesting creative choice to have two human villains to stand alongside the Cybermen, especially given that it's blatantly obvious the Cybermen aren't going to agree to any deal Klieg has in mind. That Klieg and Kaftan hope to bargain with them is foolish to begin with, but that they persist with it until the bitter end is rubbish. If Klieg comes to realise he's wrong but has gone mad so can't allow himself to accept the obvious it's never made clear. He just seems like an idiot, which is at odds with his apparent intelligence. Strangely however, for all the holes I can poke in his and Kaftan's plan, they still seem dangerous, because the gaps in logic required to make everything work is limited to them rather than the plot itself. By simply assuming they're bonkers, I can brush over any story problems concerning them and they do manage to be menacing well enough.

The Cybermen wake up, and we get our first glimpse of the Cyber Controller. He's quite a big guy. The Cybermen look as they did in The Moonbase, but the voices have been altered slightly to sound more electronic. These are my favourite Cybermen voices, along with the ones in The Tenth Planet they're the creepiest but not as silly. I think if the Cybermen voices aren't electronic they risk end up looking like simply men in suits.

As with pretty much every four-part Cybermen story, Episode 3 is the where the metal meanies come out in force. The most impressive sequences are the Cybermen leaving their tombs and the introduction of the Controller. Again, the music is what makes it with heavy use of the Cybermen theme from The Moonbase. Why I like the introduction of the Controller is because it's creepy the way he simply stands silently while Klieg speaks. We have no idea what the Cybermen are thinking, because they have no facial expressions, and that's unsettling. They lash out very suddenly and try to grab everyone, intending to convert them into a new race of Cybermen, as they possess superior intelligence having solved their puzzles. These scenes at the start of Episode 3 are as good as the story - and indeed the Cybermen themselves - ever got, because it's the one and only time I'm on the verge of finding them scary.

I'm not one that finds the rest of the story a disappointment. Okay, so the Cybermen simply hang around until they need to go back to the tombs and recharge, but if they're that vulnerable then it makes sense for them to remain where they can have easy access to the tombs. The Tomb of the Cybermen is one of those stories that is more about atmosphere and thrill than plot and motivation. Besides, the rest of the story remains action-packed, with Klieg becoming more desperate and the Controller escaping from the hatch. The conclusion sees Klieg get his comeuppance at the hands of the Cybermen and a hurried exit from the city by the surviving members of the team, the Cybermen safely frozen in their tombs again.

There are a few things I've not mentioned. The main one is Cybermats. Okay, they're dismal, even less convincing than Robomen, but the Robomen were one bad element among many in The Dalek Invasion of Earth, while the Cybermats stand out as the weak link in The Tomb of the Cybermen and aren't on screen much, and the Cybermats are laughably bad while the Robomen were simply bad.

In her first story as a companion, Victoria shines. Her background isn't so important as her character - I would simply describe her as shy and she could be from the present day just as easily as 1866 - and she's a screamer but kicks ass enough to redeem herself. Plus there's that lovely scene with the Doctor where they discuss missing their families. Jamie doesn't have much to do and that's a loss as in the two most recent stories we've seen a lot of the Doctor/Jamie double act and if it's proved anything it's that Troughton's Doctor doesn't need a female companion if Jamie's around. I'm liking Victoria for now, though.

A worthy find is The Tomb of the Cybermen, and it could well be the best Cybermen story of all time. The main reason I love it is that is really does feel like I'm watching a Doctor Who movie, sure it's dated, even by 1967 standards, but Morris Barry's direction is top notch, and good direction can do a lot for a story. The performances are universally good, the characters likeable, in fact it only falls down technically (and only in a few places) and the way the Cybermen don't put up much of a fight, merely deciding it's not worth bothering about. Sometimes a story is so good in some areas that the few flaws simply don't matter.

Comedy quotient - Troughton is on form, as ever.
Horror quotient - The direction and music contribute to the scariness of this story. The fact that it wasn't vidFIREd for DVD could make a difference too.
Drama quotient - The main difference between this and The Power of the Daleks is drama and tension. This has less of both than Power, but it's more representative of Troughton's era. It's base-under-siege comfort viewing - not the scariest, not the not dramatic, but it's atmospheric as hell and the plot unfolds at just the right pace.

Whenever I want a base-under-siege story, this is the one I reach for from the DVD shelf. This would be the case even if every episode existed. A classic in every sense of the word.

10/10

The Evil of the Daleks

2009-08-05T23:03:00.001+01:00

Previous viewings - many (Episode 2), one (others)

Apart from the excellent Episode 2, my experience of The Evil of the Daleks is limited to the last marathon I did, where the other episodes dragged like nobody's business. I think by that point though I was just tired of missing episodes - after whole season of no complete stories, The Tomb of the Cybermen was just on the horizon. Either that or I just changed my mind, because watching the story this time, it was bloody awesome!

This is the first season finale that actually feels like a season finale. So far the production block nature of the programme and the short break between seasons has meant there has been less inclination from the production team to go for whizz bang conclusions to the year's episodes. For the last time until 1972, the Daleks are the baddies (and I think part of the story's impact could be due to the fact that the Daleks didn't return for so long), and David Whitaker can write the Daleks in his sleep. He's one of the show's best writers, putting extra effort into making his characters seem like real people, who have lives beyond the confines of the story. He never wastes anyone either - every character has a story to tell, they're never just a part of the wallpaper.

Of course nobody's perfect. I'd say a common flaw of David Whitaker's stories is that his plots don't always hold up. The Edge of Destruction was a total mess in that regard, and it wasn't until the plot was out of the way that that story shone (in its last five minutes), while the plot of The Crusade shut down in the last episode rather than being resolved. The Evil of the Daleks at its core is about the Daleks taking stock of their numerous defeats by humans and deciding to destroy them by eliminating the Human Factor in them rather than by simple conquest. I think by this point so much had been done with the Daleks that the writers were having to think hard about new stories to tell with them. Fortunately here they succeed in doing something new with the Daleks here, but not through the Human/Dalek Factor stuff, but by introducing the Emperor Dalek and giving us Daleks in an historical setting. We're at the point in Season 4 where had the pure historicals not been dropped we'd be getting another one, so I'm definitely onboard with the 1866 destination.

The story picks up where The Faceless Ones left off. The TARDIS is being stolen! Like that story, we're eased into a lengthy plot with a lot of padding. I've never understood the complaints about padding though - well written padding is better than badly written essentials. The first episode introduces us to Edward Waterfield, who later turns out to have appropriated the TARDIS under orders from the Daleks, who have sent him to the future from his native 1866 to do so. As ever, the Doctor is able to follow the trail of clues left by the TARDIS's captors. As time wears on, it occurs to me that Waterfield would have been better to be more direct in his luring the Doctor to his antique shop, but it's a good episode regardless; various locations, including a bar, loads of fun Doctor/Jamie dialogue, what more could you ask for?

One thing I thought I'd comment on: what programme other than Doctor Who could given us a 19th-century man in a 20th-century setting, facing an fascist alien mutant in a metal casing?

The first reveal of a Dalek is one of their least effective entrances. It simply appears rather than being unveiled, so it's not very memorable.

Episode 2 is the best until the final episode for several reasons. It's a best of both worlds kind of thing - the first half of it takes place in 1966, with the Doctor and Jamie catching up with the plot at the antique shop, and getting knocked out and taken to 1866 for their troubles. When one door closes, another opens; in 1866 we get properly into the story with the introductions of several characters including the crazy scientist Theodore Maxtible, a terrific character who not only has a brilliantly eccentric look (massive beard) but the way he takes the appearance of the Daleks in his stride, as if it happens every day, is hilarious. There's a great scene where the Doctor finally learns about the presence of the Daleks - Waterfield explains that he has been coerced into his actions by the Daleks as they've kidnapped his daughter, while Maxtible explains how he discovered time travel using static electricity, with the Daleks appearing on cue. It's good because it's the one and only episode we can actually see Patrick Troughton as the Doctor reacting to the Daleks. I like the way the Doctor fears the Daleks, something we never saw from the William Hartnell Doctor, and lets viewers hear the revulsion in his voice as he questions the Dalek. It's not a long scene but Troughton's performance in it operates on a level above what Hartnell usually gave us when he faced the Daleks.

The Doctor is required to have Jamie submit to a Dalek experiment. It's chilling to see the Doctor agree to it on Jamie's behalf and go on to withhold information from him, which Jamie soon notices. Jamie was a bit weird in this story - one argument with the Doctor and he suddenly wants to go it alone. It seems like an attempt to develop Jamie's character by showing another side to him, but although the argument itself is good, I don't buy Jamie going off to rescue Waterfield's daughter by himself just because of that.

Obviously Waterfield's daughter is none other than Victoria Waterfield, the new companion. She's held by the Daleks and taken to Maxtible's house (must be a big house). Introducing her as a damsel in distress, and having her captured for the first four of her episodes was a bad move. Even after she is rescued she hardly does anything for the rest of the story. Considering the length of The Evil of the Daleks, I found this quite odd. The only reason I'm looking forward to seeing more of her is that the idea of a companion from the Victorian era is interesting, as her reactions to time travel and the TARDIS will no doubt be different to someone more modern.

We're in Maxtible's house until Episode 6, allowing money to be saved for the big conclusion on Skaro. Once Jamie goes off to rescue Victoria, the story starts to drag a bit, not least because the Doctor sits around monitoring Jamie's movements and the other characters aren't up to anything interesting either. The Doctor is forced to work with the Daleks to isolated the Human Factor, the qualities that humans have that enable them to defeat the Daleks, so Human Daleks can be made which will improve the Daleks. This doesn't ring true with what we know of the Daleks but I'll go with it, considering we know the Daleks are extra devious when Whitaker's at the typewriter.

The thing about the middle few episodes is that the story has such an awesome conclusion that when you get to the end, all is forgiven. However when I'm actually watching these episodes they are a chore because they're so drawn out. Jamie teams up with the mute Kemel and they make their way past some traps to get to Victoria, while some extra characters are added to pad out the episodes, including the rather boring Ruth Maxtible, the likeable maid Mollie, who gains viewer empathy by the way she accepts her low social position but ends up getting punished for helping Jamie, and the rather pointless Arthur Terrall, who struggles with Dalek orders in his head and his own free will. It's mainly the fact that he ends up contributing nothing to the overall plot other than to show us how the Daleks are affecting people, and that he is only there in these middle episodes, that makes him seem so incidental. Episode 1 might have been good padding, but this is bad padding.

The few plot developments we get from Episodes 3 and 4 pay off in Episode 5. It's a great relief when Jamie and the others are able to get back to the main part of the house quickly, even though Victoria is captured again. The Doctor's findings about the human qualities Jamie showed from rescuing Victoria are instilled into three Daleks, and as he intended, it doesn't make them super Daleks, but rather playful and child-like. The cliffhanger to Episode 5 is one of my favourites - lets face it, you've got to love a cliffhanger that makes you desperate to see how people playing trains is resolved.

The Victorian subplot winds down in Episode 6. The Daleks are recalled to Skaro and blow up Maxtible's house. Everybody ends up captured by the Daleks and left in a cell on Skaro. The destruction of Maxtible's house is another of this story's conclusion-but-not-a-conclusion's - bookending a large portion of the story with something that would have worked as a conclusion had the story ended in 1866. Regardless, action is very welcome at this point.

As I mentioned earlier, the highlight of the story is the finale. A lot of time has passed since The Daleks (the Thals aren't even mentioned so we can assume they've either been killed off or left). Skaro is now the centre of a Dalek Empire rather than a city where the Daleks can be switched off by turning the power off. From the telesnaps, the sets are darker than the ones used before, which is a good way to suggest the passage of time and also make the city look bigger. This is where the season finale aspect comes into it - everything is big; the scope, the sets, the budget. We have a seemingly impossible situation; the Doctor thought he had defeated the Daleks by creating the Human Daleks, but the Daleks announce their plan was isolated the Dalek Factor and spray it into the atmosphere of Earth, thus removing humans as an enemy.

Part of what I like about this finale is that the story has quite wisely disposed of the less important characters in the previous couple of episodes, cutting everything down to the bare essentials - the Doctor, the companions, the Daleks, Waterfield, Maxtible and Kemel. It gives the last episode a lot more focus than for example The Dalek Invasion of Earth has. Maxtible is given the Dalek Factor, and so apparently is the Doctor, but his alien physiology allows him to retain his composure and stay the same. By rejgging the arch which converted Maxtible to instill the Human Factor and not the Dalek Factor, he convinces the Emperor Dalek to weed out the Human Daleks by sending all of the Daleks through the arch, supposedly to convert them back into proper Daleks but really to send the Daleks into chaos by converting them into Human Daleks. It would be hard to measure up to The Daleks' Master Plan's conclusion, but this is a very close second - a quick solution but which is entirely in keeping with what we've learned so far. The only flaw is that the Daleks should have known the Doctor is an alien, but that's very minor.

Spectacular is the word to sum up the last episode. The Emperor Dalek tries to keep the situation under control as the Daleks blast each other and destroy the city in the process. Waterfield sacrifices himself to save the Doctor, and asks him to take care of Victoria, although by this point its so obvious that Victoria is going to become a companion that his death comes across as boringly inevitable. Ditto for Kemel, who should really have been killed earlier or left in 1866.

As the Doctor, Jamie and Victoria leave the Dalek city, the Doctor notes that this is the final end of the Daleks. It really feels like the culmination of all the Dalek stories so far rather than just the conclusion to this story, and that's high praise considering I thought it would be difficult to top The Daleks' Master Plan (and arguably it wouldn't be until Journey's End that the Daleks had an ever bigger plan).

So The Evil of the Daleks rests on a conclusion so brilliant that I can brush over its shortcomings earlier in the story, mainly issues of padding and the plot not making complete sense. David Whitaker has done what he does best - create a believable world inhabited by believable characters, and as usual he makes clear how bleak the situation is through the Doctor's reaction rather than the enemies themselves. I'm not sure whether that's good or bad. Victoria is still uncharted territory as a character, but if she doesn't impress then at least this story isn't to blame.

Horror quotient - I'm not up on Dalek voices but they seem to have got a new guy in for this story, and he really nails it. Scariest Dalek voice ever. There are loads of scary scenes in this story, and I think the Dalek city is much improved upon the one seen in The Daleks (which was also good).
Comedy quotient - I think I've found one thing the story lacked. It manages not to suffer from it though.
Drama quotient - David Whitaker script edited the first season. You always know you're going to get drama when he's writing.

Loses a point for the middle few episodes not being up to the standard I expect from a 10/10, as well as the plot problems. Nvertheless, that makes four out of four season finales so far that I've reappraised, with none of them scoring under 9/10, I wonder if The Wheel in Space will be the same...

9/10

The Faceless Ones

2009-08-03T10:54:00.002+01:00

Previous viewings - few (surviving episodes), one (missing episodes)

William Hartnell is my favourite Doctor but I didn't give all of his stories 5/5 just because he was in them. However when a good era is over in hindsight you start looking more favourably on its lesser stories because being part of that golden era gives them a pedigree. This is the case for Season 1. We had three-dimensional companions in Ian and Barbara, whose developing relationship with the Doctor and quest to get home gave the series a sense of forward motion, rather than just a constant crisis/solution cycle. Somewhere in Season 2 the show lost that direction. Individual stories can rate highly, but I like to feel that the series is building to something. When Ben and Polly joined I was surprised that we didn't get that; we too rarely get an insight into them as characters and their origins are merely given lip service from time to time.

Ironically, what I was critical of earlier, the loss of experimentation and more dependence on familiar story ideas, has given Doctor Who its direction back. It's found its niche, and with The Macra Terror I feel the series has once again reached the point where its no longer riding on past successes. The last piece of the puzzle is the departures of the last remaining Hartnell companions, Ben and Polly. Which brings me to The Faceless Ones...

Six episodes. Present-day Earth. Malcolm Hulke. One might think I've watched a Pertwee story by mistake. The TARDISeers can't wait to get into trouble here, as when the TARDIS lands on a runway at Gatwick Airport they decide to have a runaround. When you've got a six-parter on your hands, diversions like these at the start of the story are fun. The weary airport Commandant is bewildered that a police box is obstructing the runway and assumes it's a prank, while the Doctor is caught out not by aliens, but by immigration, for not having a passport. It's hilarious to see the Doctor tripped up by something so normal, especially Patrick Troughton's Doctor, perhaps the most anti-establishment and clueless when it comes to everyday problems of the 1960s.

Ben and Polly can't wait to leave. The moment the story starts Ben runs away from his friends, while Polly witnesses a murder by ray gun in a hangar and tells the Doctor, who insists they return there to inspect the body. Polly has her hair back to its regular length, I prefer it this way as she is prettier. Anyway, the Doctor and Jamie are a bit caught up with the investigation and don't even notice Polly being grabbed behind them. When they see her next, she denies knowing them. Being the forgiving type, it's not because she's mad at them, but because the murdering aliens have affected her. She promptly disappears from the story too.

This is the story where the Doctor/Jamie double-act starts to become something really special. Most of it is because of the chemistry between the actors but you have a classic pairing anyway as the Doctor's experience and vast knowledge contrasts with Jamie's lack of those plus his humility and somewhat childish view of the world. Jamie's extreme loyalty to the Doctor is more that of a son trying to impress his father, and Frazer Hines's entertaining performances make Jamie the most likeable companion yet.

However, The Faceless Ones also rewards viewers by giving us another good character who the Doctor forms a double act with - the airport Commandant, played by Colin Gordon. The Commandant always comes across as a man who has had a long hard day and just wants it to be over, but then the Doctor shows up to tell him about a murder. The body is gone from the hangar, however, so the Doctor has some explaining to do. It's a typical straight man/funny man relationship, and it's funny to see the Commandant reacting to the Doctor's increasingly ludicrous claims. It's a role in the story the Brigadier would later fill, although since the Brig is a military type he tends to be more unflappable.

Strange things are happening with the airline Chameleon Tours. Samantha Briggs arrives at Gatwick to investigate the disappearance of her brother, who was on one of their planes. With Ben and Polly missing, Samantha becomes a pseudo-companion for the rest of the story, and works especially well with Jamie. I'm not sure whether I would have wanted Pauline Collins to continue with the role beyond this story - my instinct says she would have been better than Victoria, but that might be because in this story she is relevant. When it's all over she could turn into a generic screamer with a Scouse accent.

Anyway, Chameleon Tours are up to no good. The oddly smug-looking Captain Blade supervises the transformation of a faceless (yeah, the title) creature into a duplicate of the captured air traffic controller Meadows. He's determined that their flights go ahead, and acts nonchalant when questioned. Several attempts on the Doctor's life early in the story turn out to be unwise as he is pretty terrible at dispatching his enemies and it only gives the Doctor more evidence against him each time, and more co-operation from base personnel. I find it all quite interesting though as it's not clear what Chameleon Tours are up to. Teenagers use their planes and don't seem to arrive at their destinations, despite sending postcards to their families. Not being a direct invasion makes the long investigation process worth taking the number of episodes it does, filling out the six episodes quite nicely. The main problem is that after a while I'm starting to wonder if Ben and Polly are ever going to appear again!

Call me stupid, but I don't think the faceless creatures plot is that predictable. They seem to be spinning a few nefarious schemes: the people in suspended animation, the duplicates, and the missing youngsters. Episodes 3 and 4 show how the three plots are connected. These middle two episodes aren't as good as the first two and last two - they're slower paced - but they have good cliffhangers which take us to the next stage of the story. Yes, the plot twist cliffhangers I love so much, even if the eagle-eyed viewers will have already guessed what they reveal. The first sees Inspector Crossland discover the passengers of a Chameleon Tours flight have disappeared while in the air, and the second has a plane, with Jamie aboard, stop during its flight and move upwards into space, where it meets a bigger spaceship. Jamie had taken Samantha's ticket to protect her and probably to do something other than sit around in the airport as he had largely done so far.

The Doctor gets information from the duplicate of Meadows, who has been left at the airport control. The duplicates wear armbands which if removed will kill them and revive the originals, which gives the Doctor an easy advantage over the Chameleons. The conclusion of the story takes place in the Chameleon spaceship, after the Doctor manages to get aboard the last Chameleon Tours flight by impersonating the duplicate Meadows. The Chameleons have captured enough people are intend to leave Earth, but it turns out to be a poor decision to leave some of the duplicates on Earth as by removing their armbands their counterparts on the Chameleon ship will die. In an unlikely turn of events, Blade sees sense and to save his people he agrees to return the missing youngsters. It's good to see an enemy see they're beaten and try for a solution which can still benefit them rather than going out all guns blazing.

There are a few loose ends to tie up at the story comes to an end. With Pauline Collins not interested in staying on, Samantha gives Jamie a kiss and leaves. It's actually quite surprising how infrequently a companion got a little action during their time in the TARDIS, even if its just a kiss.

In an even more unlikely turn of events, Ben and Polly realise it's the day they originally left London, and decide to stay behind and return to their old lives. Their goodbye is rather hurried but it somehow fits for the type of companions they were; I get the impression they saw their travels in the TARDIS as a bit of fun, with a few friends made, but not something they wanted to continue with. Their presence comes as a shock as I was starting to think they had gone the way of the Dodo.... fortunately we won't have to wait long for another companion to come along who is as hot as Polly (yes, I'm shallow).

The Faceless Ones is proto-Pertwee. I can easily imagine it fitting into Season 8 or 9. What makes it for me is the good characters and decent villains, and Troughton and Hines on fine form. A big flaw is that it's not very scary or interesting visually, at a point where the series was starting to go down that direction (we've got the Emperor Dalek coming up in the next story, and the gorgeous Victorian interiors), but there's too much to love about it to let something so minor drag its score down. Not a classic but a cracking story regardless.

Horror quotient - The body snatcher plot is not played for scares, and it really should be. It might just have given The Faceless Ones the push it needed to enter 'classic' territory.
Comedy quotient - I seem to be saying this a lot, but the Doctor is the clear comedy highlight. He seems to make anyone he interacts with funny, too.
Drama quotient - Lots of procedure, not enough drama. It's interesting to watch but after the laughs are out of the way the Doctor is trusted way too easily.

Not very interesting visually, and not scary enough, but it gets away with it because of an interesting plot and good performances.

8/10

The Macra Terror

2009-08-02T14:46:00.001+01:00

Previous viewings - none

I like it when the marathon throws up unexpected delights like this. Weird, because The Macra Terror is very formulaic - a hidden menace behind a perfect society, the Doctor exposing the truth and fighting some memorable monsters, but this has the distinction of being vintage Troughton and the scariest Doctor Who story yet. Ian Stuart Black has already proved himself to be one of the better Doctor Who writers, and this story brings back some memories of The Savages, a story that was played more as a morality tale, with the horrifying truth being slowly unearthed and the Doctor showing his disapproval all the way. Here, the perfect society is brought about by a secret alien invasion.

The fact that everything's not so perfect is a badly kept secret, given the TARDISeers have just got a big look at the Macra on the time scanner, and the first person they meet outside, Medok, is crazed and warning everyone about creatures. We're on an Earth colony in the future (again), a holiday camp this time, and everyone is happy. The Pilot welcomes the Doctor and his companions, and invites them to enjoy the luxuries of the holiday camp. The colony itself looks like a slightly darker version of Vulcan from The Power of the Daleks; this coupled with what we've already means none of the colonists' cheery behaviour rings true. In fact, with the happy music which plays on the speakers, and the voice of the Controller giving orders but always sounding pleasant, comes off as downright creepy given this foreknowledge. Nice scene setting.

There are a few noteworthy tidbits from the funny scene where the TARDISeers get a makeover. Newcomer Jamie is nervous, saying he's scared of the girls (aww), while veterans Ben and Polly lap it up. The Doctor seems to like his disshevelled appearance enough to instantly change back to it when given his makeover. Patrick Troughton seems to be through his transitional period of settling into the role and is now recognisibly the Second Doctor as we know him. It's the way he handles humour; Troughton plays the role straight, but the Doctor's absentmindedness leads to humour at his expense. The best way to describe his performances up until now is... erratic. Always good, but without nailing it the way he would go on to do. Similarly, Jamie is a point of interest by virtue of being awake and getting lines that weren't originally for Ben. Two growing characters against Ben and Polly, the established characters, and it's the newbies who are more interesting and entertaining.

Onto the plot. The Doctor frees Medok from his cell and sees a giant crab for himself, while the companions are subjected to a bit of brainwashing and propaganda as they sleep. Jamie resists and the Doctor wakes Polly up so only Ben is affected. Ben is now a loyal citizen of the colony and reports the Doctor for tampering with the hypnosis equipment. Finally, a Ben storyline! And one that involves some internal conflict, too. Michael Craze makes the most of what he's given, playing bad Ben well but I was hoping he would make the familiar Ben recognisable beneath the mind conditioning, which he didn't really do. At least it splits up the regulars by a way other than one or two of them being captured.

With the audio CD, it's sometimes hard to tell what's going on. It's worse than usual here, with the narration sometimes not giving enough visual description of what's happening (plus I'm not quite sure why they got Colin Baker was to read the narration rather than Frazer or Anneke), and at moments like the various attacks by the Macra and the dark mine scenes I was making an extra effort to combine the audio with the limited visual material either described or shown in the surviving clips to build up a picture of what it all looked like in my head. The Macra stay hidden for most of the story, generally only showing up for cliffhangers, but one of their prominent early moments is the attack on Ben and Polly in Episode 2, and while they look silly, they quite wisely stay in the darkness, thus managing to salvage their credibility and they're even scary when combined with the oddball music. This is behind-the-sofa material of the highest order when you take the more forgiving kids into account.

As Episode 2 finishes, we find out that the Controller is an old man and the Macra are the ones giving the orders. The colonists however are in denial about this and insist on sending the Doctor, Jamie and Polly to the mines with the Danger Gang to extract gases which will kill them. It's a predictable cliffhanger if you know Doctor Who story structure inside out, but is a definite shock moment otherwise. I love plot twist cliffhangers.

The Doctor is assigned to the control room of the mine, where he is very pleased with himself as he works out some sums and writes a formula on the wall, much to the horror of the Pilot who reveals that it's a closely guarded secret. I want to say it's my favourite Troughton scene so far, but already there is a lot of competition, so I'll just say it's a great one... 11/10 I should say .

The gas is lethal to humans but sustains the Macra, who live down in the mines, the Macra having obviously set up a situation where the entire purpose of the holiday camp is to sustain a colony of Macra, with the human lives expendible (which begs the question of how the human population are sustained with such a high mortality rate, but I'll shrug that aside as it only just occurred to me now, two days after finishing the story). Medok is quite gruesomely killed by one of the Macra, while Jamie is saved only because the Macra who menaces him is growing weak from the lack of gas, the Doctor having supplied oxygen to them instead of their gas.

The conclusion is something of a disappointment, coming across on audio as something that is really meant to be seen, and not just because of Jamie's highland fling. The Doctor and Polly show the Pilot the Macra for himself, converting him to their side as he can no longer deny that they exist. Control responds by ordering that the Pilot no longer has any authority and must die along with the TARDISeers. Ben however manages to break through his conditioning, with his subplot merely fizzling out rather than coming to a climax, all so it happens at the key moment so he can reverse the inflow and outflow switches, killing the Macra. It's one of the more frantic conclusions, but as I enjoy it I'm doing so in a more looking through a window sort of way.

The ending is quite New Series-esque. With the Macra dead, the good guys can live their lives as normal, but the TARDISeers don't get away without a crowd of well-wishers telling them they'll remember and honour the visit of the strangers.

The Macra Terror is a sign of things to come. The Doctor and Jamie are now fully the Doctor and Jamie as they will be at their peak in Seasons 5-6. The horror quotient is turned up to maximum, and monsters turn out to be more than meets the eye. With its echoes of 1984, I can imagine it coming out of the Hinchcliffe era. By later standards, it's a typical story, but it deviates enough from the base-under-siege formula to qualify as atypical Troughton and it's enormously atmospheric. Like I said earlier though, a lot of this might be down to my overactive imagination filling in the blanks, and with such a visual story there are a lot of blanks. I'm starting to think the Troughton era doesn't transfer as well to audio as Hartnell's typically more dialogue-heavy era.

Horror quotient - The audio implies a scary story, but implication can be misleading.
Comedy quotient - Some Doctor moments, some Jamie moments, I've already mentioned the best ones.
Drama quotient - A bit, but there could have been more. The Doctor dismisses the threat of the colonists themselves, pitting himself against the Macra who barely show themselves. I was most curious about Polly's reaction to Ben's hypnosis, but she shows the least. Polly is a bit of screamer here, but this time at least she has reason.

Regarded as either a classic or a clunker depending on who you talk to, The Macra Terror's success depends on how scary it is. Even if it's not, there's lots to like here.

9/10

The Moonbase

2009-08-01T23:24:00.002+01:00

Previous viewings - few

In the surviving episode wasteland that is Patrick Troughton's first season, even a half-complete story is something to get extra excited about. At times I can almost put the missing episodes aside - we have the conclusion and the middle of the other three episodes, which is a good spread of visual material and better I think than the other two episodes existing in The Crusade. While we did get the best episodes of that serial, it definitely felt less complete.

It's odd that I mention The Crusade - it followed the worst story yet, representative of Doctor Who's occasional tendency to go from one extreme of quality to the other in the space of a week. I wasn't very complimentary towards The Underwater Menace but it doesn't dampen my spirits. Plus, the Cybermen are back! And they're much more how people remember them; creepy robots skulking around in the dark, with strange mechanical voices. For all my praise of the original Cybermen, the design was never going to last - it communicated well the concept of body horror, but they were a tad too silly which would limit their potential to really scare the kids. It makes sense story-wise too, if the Cybermen don't possess time travel, then for them this is nearly a century after The Tenth Planet, and if I was them the first thing I would have got rid of after their first defeat would be the bulky chest units and vulnerable human features. The logical Cybermen would surely agree, and their new refined, more metallic look in The Moonbase does well to make them seem like a threat to Earth and the Doctor.

The plot is nothing new, and when I say nothing new I mean we've had this before... just a few stories ago. In fact, it's most similar to the last story the Cybermen appeared in. An isolated setting, the Moon, holds a base which is key to the welfare of the Earth residents in some way, in this case through control of the Gravitron, and thus the Earth's weather. I suppose the base personnel don't expect any interference or problems because the base seems quite small and is run by a skeleton staff, run by the forceful Hobson, who brings back memories of Cutler from The Tenth Planet in that when the Cybermen aren't around he acts as the main obstacle that prevents the Doctor from achieving his objectives. Fortunately Hobson is nowhere near as irritatingly irrational and in the moments where he stands in the way of the Doctor I can understand his reasons for doing so. He comes across as a guy who has a stressful job and is under a lot of pressure.

The TARDIS has appeared on the lunar surface, and Ben and Polly want to take what will probably be their once in a lifetime opportunity to walk on the moon before they leave. We're still two years before Apollo 11 and at the height of the space race, so a Moon story comes as no surprise. I listened to this episode exclusively on Lost in Time, so I only got the raw audio for Episodes 1 and 3, and Episode 1 seemed to suffer the most because I didn't get to see the spacewalk of the Doctor and the companions, which sounded like a lot of fun. Jamie was particularly entertaining with his fish-out-of-the-water reactions to the Moon, like him wondering if they would meet the man on the Moon. The spacewalk is extra interesting from a marathon standpoint because it's about the only thing this story has but The Tenth Planet doesn't.

As we enter the Moonbase, an injured Jamie is taken to the hospital. An mystery illness has stricken some of the crew and they're comatose, including the base's doctor, so our Doctor agrees to investigate. Patrick Troughton is on form here (though when is he not?), and his persona has settled into the more familiar cosmic hobo/moral crusader combo that will continue for the rest of his tenure. At first I thought Troughton's chemistry with Frazer Hines was the main aspect of his performance missing from his first three stories, but I hadn't considered that the change of actor might have left writers unsure how to write for the new Doctor. The Moonbase is our first taste of typical Troughton, both in story and character's persona, and it's good to see his character stabilise as the episodes wear on.

The concern over the sick crew is a large part of the first episode, and it concludes with a Cyberman looming over a bed-ridden Jamie, who thinks it's the phantom piper (no, I don't know what that is either, so it's not a Scottish thing). Good cliffhanger and good reveal of the Cybermen. In the next episode, Polly interrupts the Cyberman and as she screams in terror it flees before everyone else overhears and comes in, which prompts a search of the base and the crew becoming less tolerant of the Doctor as he tries and fails to find a cure to the sickness and the comatose crew are disappearing. Considering Jamie is out of action, I was expecting Ben to have a lot to do but he's a total spare part. Polly is back to making coffee but here it's a plot point, as it turns out the sugar in the coffee has been poisoned. The Cybermen have been used sparingly, leaving us to contend with the mystery of the illness and lots of the base personnel trying to control the Gravitron, which isn't that interesting. The set design and base personnel are an improvement over their counterparts in The Tenth Planet, but perhaps the biggest problem with this story is that while it may slightly improve on the aforementioned story, everything here has a counterpart there, and I feel like I've seen it all before. Fortunately masses of Cybermen are on their way...

An implausible cliffhanger sees the base personnel discover the Cybermen have been hiding in the hospital room where the Doctor has been working. Implausible, but I really liked it, despite the Cyberman almost accidentally knocking the bed over.

Episode 3 didn't leave much of an impression because it did not surprise me or do much to distinguish itself from The Tenth Planet. Cybermen take over the base, and set in motion their plot against Earth. Polly proves herself useful in coming up with a weapon against the Cybermen using nail varnish remover (of course, she's a girl so has to come up with a girly plan ) and soon enough it's problem solved, at least regarding the initial batch of Cybermen - but more are coming. The improved look of the Cybermen might allow for a scarier story, but when all we're getting is a retread of The Tenth Planet I'm wondering why they bothered redesigning the Cybermen.

Another surviving episode rounds off the story. The Cybermen attack the base from outside using some nifty weapons, and send a rescue ship from Earth spiralling into the Sun. Jamie has recovered and everybody is focused on defeating the Cybermen. It's the most atmospheric episode, largely because of the groovy Cybermen march music, although the Cybermen are defeated quite easily when the Gravitron is turned on the Moon, causing them and their ship to lift off into space in a rather poor model sequence. It's an example of very watchable Who, which most stories are in this era because of Troughton alone, but it's not what I'd consider gripping.

Also similar to The Tenth Planet, the Doctor and his companions hurry away as soon as the Cybermen are defeated, allowing us a glimpse of the Macra via the time scanner, used for the first and only time for one of the most contrived cliffhangers yet.

The Moonbase is a perfectly good Doctor Who story. The redesign of the Cybermen is a good one but for all the isolation of the Moonbase and its crew it's only slightly more atmospheric than The Tenth Planet, with pretty much every plot point from that story carried over to this one. For a series as experimental as Doctor Who in William Hartnell's era, this is disappointing. I can't help feeling the talents of the writers and actors are being wasted by not giving us a story that feeds the imagination and instead relying entirely on a past success (why were the Cybermen brought back so soon anyway? The new costumes must have been expensive), set apart only by the intriguing lunar setting. In the context of the marathon it's even worse; to enjoy it as much as possible I had to forget The Tenth Planet and enjoy it in its own right, but the whole point of a marathon is to put the episodes in context through viewing them in order.

Horror quotient - I have to contragulate Kit Pedler in his plotting; the first two cliffhangers are identical, with both being the reveal of the Cybermen, and they're among the best things about the story. The Cybermen still haven't shaken off that 'silly' vibe, but they're scarier than they used to be.
Comedy quotient - It's the Moon! Some laughs to be had earlier in the story, and whenever the Doctor gets a chance to interact with his companions. They're a funny bunch when they're together, and I can imagine the case being the same off-screen.
Drama quotient - A slightly more interesting base crew than The Tenth Planet, but this story doesn't have the regeneration or the exploration of the Cybermen concept to make it more interesting. It could have been better in this regard.

It's the kind of Doctor Who story that even if you haven't seen it, you've seen it.

6/10

The Underwater Menace

2009-07-31T13:53:00.001+01:00

Previous viewings - one (missing episodes), many (Episode 3)

And the award for "most absurd story ever" goes to....

The lesser qualities of The Underwater Menace took my by surprise, but I'm not sure why as I've seen Episode 3 lots of times and thought it was just entertainingly camp. I expect it's because when I watch a single episode I don't care much about the plot because I know I'm not going to see it to its conclusion anyway. Laughing at how bad something is for 25 minutes can be diverting, but for 100 minutes - you're just wasting your time.

The story opens on another beach, volcanic this time so we're not in the UK. Jamie is along for the ride, but is still in his early phase: Frazer Hines hasn't yet developed the chemistry with Patrick Troughton that makes Jamie and the Doctor such a great character, in fact hardly anything at all is done with the character in this story beyond helping out his friends and asking the occasional question. He shows a remarkable ability to adjust to his new lifestyle, I suspect due to his inclusion at short notice than any deliberate characterisation, which is why I'll be kind and not blame the writer for his poorly written first TARDIS scene, where he immediately accepts the dimensional transcendentalism and gets ready for the next adventure.

To say The Underwater Menace's plot doesn't stand up to scrutiny is an understatement. It has more holes than a golf course. At times it's total lack of logic is jaw-dropping, almost making it hard to accept this as a genuine Doctor Who story and not a spoof. It ends up coming off as a sendup of the show, which is odd because it's ranting madman plotting to destroy the world plot is more James Bond-esque than Who (You Only Live Twice, also released in 1967, had an underground volcano lair).

Professor Zaroff intends to raise the lost city of Atlantis from beneath the sea. His plan will destroy Atlantis and in fact the whole planet, but he's insane so he doesn't care. While he finalises his project, the TARDISeers are brought down to Atlantis, where Zaroff saves them from being eaten by sharks as sacrifices to the goddess Amdo because of a false claim by the Doctor to hold crucial information. Glossing over the odd detail that the Doctor knew in advance that he would be able to find Zaroff in this presumably isolated and unknown community, Zaroff's attitude towards the Doctor makes little sense. He asks him to help him with his project because he is a scientist - the Doctor, being the good scientist we know him to be, quickly realises that Zaroff's plan will destroy the world, and sets out to stop him. Run that past me again?

The Atlantisans sure are keen on their sacrifices. Having just escaped being shark food, Polly is taken to be turned into a fish, as the Atlantisans do to strangers, who become fish people and slaves, who are responsible for maintaining the Atlantisans food supplies. Polly escapes and teams up with Ara. In a different story, the threat of Polly being turned into a fish would be a definite WTF moment, but here it barely raises an eyebrow. In the context of the rest of the story, good cliffhanger though.

At this point, Zaroff believes the Doctor will help him. Ben and Jamie have been sent to work in the mines, far too normal a punishment for a story like this. The Doctor finds an ally in Ramo, a priest who opposes Zaroff, but Thous, leader of Atlantis, supports Zaroff and hands the Doctor and Ramo over to him.

What's this - moving images! If there's one good thing about this being the earliest surviving Troughton episode, it's that I have visual evidence to support my opinion that the story is utter tosh. The set design and costuming resembled that of The Aztecs, but The Underwater Menace is nowhere near as well directed and has some rather odd mechanical electronic music permeating it, which in any other story would be got very annoying but somehow it worked here.

Zaroff decides to have the Doctor and Ramo sacrificed, but Ben, Polly, Jamie and some stranded sailors have found a passageway behind an Amdo statue in quite an unlikely turn of events, which provides the Doctor and Ramo with somewhere to hide when everybody else is bowing. Their movements aren't exactly discreet, and ultimately for the Atlantisans to assume their vanishing is a miracle from Amdo only shows them up as morons. If I was taking the story seriously, that would ruin it, but I'm not, so it didn't.

Perhaps that's a great strength of this story. Okay, so it makes no sense, but it's never boring. If you're watching it with someone else, you can make a game of it - see who can count the most plot holes, under the assumption that everything is supposed to make sense and the characters are supposed to have normal motivations and agendas. Episode 3 is rubbish - having met up with his friends, the Doctor decides to kidnap Zaroff, while the others convince the fish people to strike so the Atlantisans food will go bad. The fish people are slaves with total control over the food of those who have enslaved them. See what the problem there is? At least we get a funky underwater fish people sequence, although quite what it's supposed to mean is anyone's guess. The Doctor, meanwhile, makes Zaroff chase him so that he can incapacitate him. Zaroff tells him it's too late to stop his plan, then fakes a heart attack, which everyone believes despite it being very poorly acted. Of course he easily escapes and accelerates his plans.

Until this point, I was willing to overlook many of the story's flaws, because despite the absurdities, including the questionable acting of Joseph Furst, easily the most over-the-top villain Doctor Who villain ever, the poorly realised Atlantisan culture, who seem to live in a series of very small rooms, and the ruining of Polly, who has degenerated into screamer and a wimp, it was still entertaining, and none of this was so bad that I couldn't enjoy it. However the last episode is the worst of the lot. The Doctor floods the lower levels of Atlantis, which includes Zaroff's laboratory. Despite the depth, and presumably pressure, the water kindly takes its time to destroy the city while the surviving inhabitants (all the good guys, none of the bad guys) swim to safety and reach ground level. Zaroff is of course still determined to carry out his plan but is trapped behind a grille and drowns. Back above ground, the Doctor and his companions return to the TARDIS.

If you're in the right mood, The Underwater Menace is loads of fun. Entertainment doesn't have to be 100% realistic. The Underwater Menace takes it to the other extreme. Asking the viewers to accept the science in this story is an insult to their intelligence. Add the other flaws I mentioned and you have one of the poorest stories yet.

Horror quotient - With a story like this, who knows what's supposed to be scary. The fish people are possibility.
Comedy quotient - "Nothing in the world can stop me now!" The line is poor already, but the delivery makes it the most memorable line of the story, for all the wrong reasons.
Drama quotient - Drama? Who needs drama.

There are laughs to be had if you're revelling in how awful it is, but to give it a high score would be a disservice to stories which at least tried to be good, even if they failed in the realisation.

4/10

The Highlanders

2009-07-30T11:12:00.002+01:00

Previous viewings - few

Are there any other Scots doing this marathon? The story's setting definitely gets thumbs up, although Inverness is quite some way north of me. It's the last pure historical, and we're in similar territory to The Smugglers at least in regards to theme; a villain has some plot that ensnares the TARDISeers, a plot that can be thwarted as it doesn't involve any real historical people. It's an interesting look at how the Second Doctor can be in an historical, and if this is anything to go it's a shame there weren't any more.

Culloden, 1746. Jacobite rebels are defeated by the English army, after which a surviving Laird and his family seek refuge in a cottage. William Hartnell is forgotten as the Doctor's recent regeneration is no longer a point of concern; Ben and Polly have accepted the new Doctor and from here and it doesn't look like we're expected to dwell on it either, even though his reactions to stepping into history is much changed from what we got before. The old Doctor would be looking for clues to their whereabouts and explaining his thoughts and findings to his companions. The new Doctor is more of a closed book and spends a lot of time goofing around with hats. The narration explains more about the period than the Doctor. Troughton is good at being silly, but this different approach is hard to get used to.

The Doctor and his companions are captured by the surviving Scots. The Scottish accents vary in success; Jamie's is the best, while Kirsty's sounds more like Welsh. I'm surprised Ben survives the episode given he foolishly alerts the English soldiers to the Scots presence and is glad to hear about their approach. The first episode is a typical historical story introduction in that it starts out as a mere exploration of surroundings, but the TARDISeers get dragged into someone else's problem which by the end of the episode is life-threatening. However the pacing is faster than usual as the Doctor, Ben, Jamie and the Laird are about to be hanged long before the episode finishes, only stopped when by nefarious Solicitor Gray who has hatched a scheme to have them contracted as slaves in an illegal operation. The Doctor has adopted the persona of Doctor Von Wer, a German scientist, which sees Patrick Troughton at his comedic best as he hilariously exaggerates the accent and uses his guise to bamboozle people enabling him to turn the tables on them. It's maybe too early in the new Doctor's run to have him not be himself for most of the story, but Troughton's entertaining performance steals every scene.

As the Scots are marched away to a prison in Inverness, while Polly and Kirsty are left on their lonesome. Polly is awesome in this story, for successfully trapping the Lt. Ffinch in an animal trap and robbing him, and being lumbered with the useless Kirsty. In essence she's only being used as she usually is - only caring about getting back to her friends, with no hint about how her experiences affect her emotionally, which by now I've pretty much given up any of hope of seeing. Still, it's better than getting kidnapped, and I'd take Polly the minx, who manages to blackmail Ffinch on a subsequent encounter, over coffee-making Polly any day.

In a hilarious scene, the Doctor as Von Wer locks Gray away and convinces his assistant Perkins that he is having head pains by banging his head against the table and convinces him to rest. It's not clear what the Doctor is thinking or planning, but he disguises himself as a servant woman (the Doctor in drag agenda - see also The Green Death) and fortunately goes unnoticed as he leaves the prison. Ben doesn't get much to do as he and the highlanders are taken to the Annabelle, where Trask will set sail for one of the colonies. Ben convinces the Laird and Jamie not to sign the contracts which will save them from hanging but consign them to a life of slavery. Jamie's role is surprisingly limited given that it was a last-minute decision to have him join the TARDIS crew when he impressed the team. Jamie doesn't quite seem like Jamie yet as he's in his natural environment and doesn't know anything more than his fellow Scots about the Doctor. With what he's given though, Frazer Hines plays a likeable character, the young rookie who nevertheless picks things up quickly.

The Doctor has a chance encounter with Polly and Kirsty and decides that he wants a nap, though Polly is assertive and determined as usual. The fact that she robbed Ffinch works out better than originally thought as he had a lot of money on him, as it allows them to buy weapons. I liked this plot development, it doesn't come out of nowhere like some of the sci-fi conclusions do, although it's equally as convenient it doesn't seem so. Meanwhile, having caused trouble aboard the Annabelle Ben is thrown overboard, but swims to safety (a rather lame but obvious conclusion to a cliffhanger) and has another chance encounter with the Doctor, althoug by this point it's stretching credibility a bit that they wouldn't have to track each other down. Although the Doctor doesn't say so in as many words, he's taking up another cause for moral reasons - stopping Gray, and saving their new friends from prolonged deaths. Again, Ben and Polly go along with it without an argument.

Aboard the Annabelle, Von Wer is back to offer Gray information about the whereabouts of Bonnie Prince Charlie, who he says is Jamie. However, the rebels have been secretly armed with the weapons the Doctor bought, and a battle erupts, although I couldn't see it as I only had the BBC audio (which was fine). Luckily, both Trask and Perkins switch sides when it becomes clear that the Jacobites have won. Another adventure finished, well one with elements of bleakness anyway.

For one of the few times in the series, an issue is made about the journey of getting back to the TARDIS, as the Doctor and his companions aren't sure where it is. Jamie volunteers to come along (and miss the transport to France, which would have saved his life) and they seek out Ffinch, who becomes an ally when he hears about Gray's scheme and arrests him. The action is out of the way early in the last episode, resulting in a rather less eventful finale, but I liked this, because the trip back to the TARDIS should be a journey in itself if it's a long way away. As the TARDISeers set off, Jamie enters the TARDIS for the longest stay of a companion yet.

The Highlanders is the last pure historical (). Yes, it's a genre I'll miss, not just because I like it, but because we also lose the variety. The Power of the Daleks got full marks, but I can't imagine myself giving that score to many base-under-siege stories, which I find less imaginative and they have that hurdle to get over to impress. Between this and The Time Warrior (in Season 11!) the producers and writers seem to lose interest in any historical settings whatsoever, which is just awful. We could be entering the most difficult period of the marathon now...

The story isn't without its flaws. Like The Smugglers, it sometimes feels like it doesn't want to be an historical, just a romp, an adventure. I rate it higher than The Smugglers because though they're similar types of stories I think this on the whole works better.

Horror quotient - There is some violence, and near-hangings. I would need to see it though.
Comedy quotient - Patrick Troughton! He is a totally different kind of funny to William Hartnell, but almost as good, although by Episode 4 I'm a bit tired of his obsession with hats.
Drama quotient - The Doctor doesn't take much seriously, and I think overall Hartnell was better at being funny and dramatic at the same time.

It doesn't quite have the "wow" factor of a classic, but it's very entertaining. Of course the Scottish setting is a huge plus too!

8/10

The Power of the Daleks

2009-07-29T10:51:00.001+01:00

Previous viewings - few

A new Doctor! It's not every show that can replace their lead actor to play a same-but-different character and simply carry on as if it's all part of some big masterplan. Until now, there was no such thing as regeneration, it was simply a device to retire William Hartnell from the role, and I doubt anyone imagined it was going to happen again and again as the show ran and ran. Suddenly the show theoretically has no expiration date beyond what the BBC decrees.

It wasn't guaranteed to be a success, and a lot of the credit goes Patrick Troughton and to the writer of his debut story, David Whitaker. The story begins with an extended scene in the TARDIS showing the aftermath of the regeneration. Future writers take note. As will become something of a tradition, the Doctor is slightly unhinged and unforthcoming to his companions who are questioning whether this change of appearance means this isn't the Doctor. The question is left in the background until later. His odd behaviour (referring to the First Doctor as if he's a different person, his dismissive behaviour towards Ben and Polly) is offset by plenty of comedy (playing the recorder), so that even if we're unsure what's happened, at least we're entertained. Best of all, there is a genuine sense of mystery, making this one of the most effective post-regenerative scenes, lacking the self-awareness and more forced manic behaviour of some later versions.

Patrick Troughton impresses straight away. A younger Doctor for the younger companions - somewhat showing up William Hartnell as a relic from an era of the show that had already ended when he left. The scruffier, less refined look goes well with the absentmindedness of Troughton's Doctor, which is at such an extreme in his opening scenes that it's not obvious that behind the buffoonery the Doctor is a very intelligent man. Visually, the most striking difference from Hartnell's Doctor is Troughton's dark hair and haircut, seemingly shedding a generation from his age, leaving the 'grandfather' aspect of the character behind for good. No more walking stick!

If there's one flaw, it's that as newish companions who didn't connect with Hartnell's Doctor, I'm not invested in Ben and Polly as characters much and I would expect them to show more fear at what they have witnessed.

The TARDIS lands in a mercury swamp on the planet Vulcan. The Doctor barely acknowledges his companions and they explore separately. It's a horrid, unwelcoming place, from which we dive into the main plot - a human character enters the scene and is murdered. The Doctor takes the place of this Examiner to investigate his murder as he and his companions are taken to the nearby human colony. The characters we're introduced to here are the stoic head of security Bragen and jovial deputy governor Quinn. The colony on Vulcan is not immediately interesting, being merely a lot of people in dull clothes in dull featureless sets, with little sense that this is a city and not merely a military base - keeping in mind we've just had one of them in The Tenth Planet. However never has the setting for a story been so deceptively uninteresting. By the end of the first episode it's already proved appearances can be deceiving - impersonating the Examiner, the Doctor has free reign of the colony, and as he inspects a mysterious capsule in a science lab, he finds some inactive Daleks inside, and they've been there a while, and something skulking around the floor...

The Power of the Daleks does not appear to have a large budget. Fortunately, for once it's actually fine from the off that there are only three Dalek props. Viewers know the Daleks, Ben and Polly have heard about them, and through his recognition of them, the Doctor convinces viewers that he is the still the same man he was before. The scientist inspecting the capsule, the ever-so-slightly eccentric Lesterson, wants to revive the Daleks, and succeeds, albeit removing their weapons. Gone are the Dalek stories of yesteryear, which each one upping the stakes from the last, because this is smaller in scale. The Daleks don't have their weapons, so they can't simply exterminate everyone (though that is obviously their ultimate goal), and have to use psychological manipulation as their weapons. By offering their services as servants to the humans, their plan is to find a way to make their own power source and reproduce. A race like the Daleks can come across as robots or machines, so when they use intelligence and cunning to survive, distancing themselves from that misconception, I think they're more effective. Automatons chanting "exterminate!" might be the iconic Dalek image, and a good way for the Daleks to make an entrance in a story, but beyond that there has to be something deeper, something that lets viewers know and understand the Daleks a little more. It's chilling that their operation in the story has nothing to do with leaving the planet and rejoining their fellow Daleks but simply exterminating the humans. I would expect nothing less of course, but they gain points for willingly putting themselves at a disadvantage in the meantime.

Of course, the story is not all about the Daleks. A rebellion is flaring up in the colony, which the "Examiner" has been brought to Vulcan to address. Quinn is implicated in damaging the communication equipment, preventing the Doctor from warning Earth about the Daleks. Lesterson's assistant Janley is a rebel and kidnaps Polly, while the Doctor and Ben eavesdrop at a rebel meeting and find out Bragen is the leader of the rebels, and with Governor Hensell on a tour and Quinn in prison, Bragen is serving as relief Governor, a position he intends to be permanent. The two plotlines are cleverly intertwined; ignorant of the Daleks' true nature, the rebels plan to use the Daleks to take control of the colony, assuming they can control the Daleks so that they don't kill rebels. It's desperate situation that makes use of the viewers' knowledge of the evil of the Daleks. We know that as soon as the Daleks can strike, they will do so, and the Doctor knows it, though he is prevented from acting because everyone else is convinced the Daleks can be controlled.

The side characters vary in success; Lesterson is probably the most interesting, starting off as the scientist swept up by the excitement of his discoveries but through working with the Daleks and seeing glimpses of their true selves he gradually turns against them, and goes mad as he realises what he's done. The cliffhanger to Episode 4, where Lesterson enters the secret compartment of the Dalek capsule and sees the production line, is a classic. Robert James plays the different sides to him well, although I didn't feel any sympathy for him when he died - he was in a position to stop the Daleks but ended up useless, simply ranting and raving so that everyone thought he was mad and didn't listen to him. He gets a cracking death scene in Episode 6, offering to serve the Daleks as they served him, but getting exterminated instead.

Polly is missing while she is locked away in Episode 4, and Ben gets the same treatment in Episode 5. It's disappointing but there is so much of Doctor/companion interaction in the story that I can forgive it. Ben isn't convinced that he is really the Doctor until the Dalek recognises him. There are moments when the Doctor seems distant or more interested in being silly, but over time we learn that during these moments he is actually deep in thought. This more playful interpretation of the character seems more intelligent than Hartnell's Doctor, where what we saw was what we got most of the time, something perpetuated by things like getting Ian's name wrong. After getting over the Doctor changing, Ben and Polly are their usual dependable selves; rather two-dimensional but very likeable, enough to liven up any scene they're in.

The Doctor himself is locked away with Quinn in Episode 4, so as a result he doesn't get many scenes with the Daleks. The Daleks have been given more equipment and have made more Daleks, with only a source of static electricity still to finish. Bragen kills Hansell when he doesn't co-operate and the rebels get ready to take control of the colony, just as the Daleks descend on them with weapons at the ready. Episode 6 is a bloodbath, as the Doctor, his companions, Quinn and the one rebel who has seen sense work to destroy the Daleks' power source. As this is the action episode, it didn't transfer as well to audio/static visual as the more dialogue-driven episodes, but I've seen enough Daleks shoot people in featureless corridors to visualise it. Bragen gets his comeuppance and the Doctor blows up the Daleks before they can spread through the whole colony.

With the adventure over, the Doctor, Ben and Polly return to the TARDIS, wishing things had turned out differently. As the TARDIS dematerialises, a 'dead' Dalek looks on.

A story like this is an odd choice to launch the new Doctor. It's gripping and it's tense, things a lot of great Doctor Who stories are, but aside from the Doctor himself it's a little lacking in comedy. There's the possibility that the producer wanted to play down the fact that William Hartnell had been replaced by drawing attention to the popular monsters. Also as a studio-based story it is limited in scope, and as great as it is, doesn't herald a new era as say Spearhead from Space does.

However, I won't judge it by those failings, as they don't consider the story itself, just that fact that it has been chosen to introduce Patrick Troughton, because he is very well introduced. By the end of the story, I'm not thinking I want things back to normal, but that I want to see more of this stranger. He's not quite as we will later know him but still gets to show a lot of sides to him; he's a strong believer that evil must be fought, and we see this when he talks about the Daleks, we see his fear when he reacts to the Daleks, his cleverness when he escapes from the cell, his humour as I mentioned earlier, the only thing missing is the bond he has with his companions, especially Jamie, but that will come later. I'm very much looking forward to seeing more.

Horror quotient - Doctor Who has scarier days to come, but this is no comedy. The Dalek saying "I am your servant" over and over while the Doctor tries to shout over it, warning the humans in vain that the Daleks will destroy them, is on a whole other level than a bog-standard "exterminate!". The Daleks gliding off in their masses, so many of them chanting "Daleks conquer and destroy" that it ends up sounding like white noise, has a similar bond-chilling effect.
Comedy quotient - The Doctor doesn't let a bad situation get him down. Troughton is a natural at comedy, and while Hartnell was too he tended to have "serious stories" and "funny stories".
Drama quotient - Six episodes and not a second of padding. While there isn't any more plot than a typical four-parter, it's written so well that I wouldn't want to lose any of it. I criticised Galaxy 4 for being predictable, and I suppose the same applies to this, but here the predictability is the whole point rather than bad writing. The ignorance of the colonists gets frustrating after a while, but I think that's intentional.

Many Troughton stories will follow a similar formula to this, but The Power of the Daleks sets the bar very high. Can it be beaten?

10/10

The Hartnell Era

2009-07-28T11:44:00.003+01:00

Thats all the First Doctor stories watched, scored and reviewed. Before I advance to the Second Doctor, here are the rankings for the era:

Complete Hartnell era rankings:
1. Marco Polo 10
2. The Myth Makers 10
3. The Time Meddler 10
4. The Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Eve 10
5. The Aztecs 10
6. An Unearthly Child 9
7. The Daleks' Master Plan 9
8. The Reign of Terror 9
9. The Crusade 9
10. The War Machines 9
11. The Ark 8
12. The Chase 8
13. The Romans 8
14. The Daleks 8
15. The Smugglers 7
16. The Savages 7
17. The Gunfighters 7
18. The Rescue 7
19. The Keys of Marinus 6
20. The Tenth Planet 6
21. Galaxy 4 6
22. The Space Museum 6
23. Planet of Giants 6
24. The Sensorites 5
25. The Celestial Toymaker 5
26. The Dalek Invasion of Earth 5
27. Mission to the Unknown 5
28. The Edge of Destruction 4
29. The Web Planet 2

Season averages:
Season 1/1963-64 7.625
Season 2/1964-65 6.78
Season 3/1965-66 7.6
Season 4 Hartnell portion/1966 6.5

As the oldest era, it's the most radically different from what came later because the series was still establishing itself, what stories could and couldn't be done, what role companions should play and what they should be like, and most of all who the Doctor is, and often the answers it finds differ from what we're used to from later eras.

I expect other eras might score above it, but the Hartnell era will remain my personal favourite (probably!). It's just dragged down by the experiments that didn't work - namely The Web Planet and The Celestial Toymaker. However even if the story doesn't live up to the concept, I like that feeling at the start of the story that absolutely anything can happen when the travellers step outside the TARDIS, I could be in store for monsters, no monsters, pure drama, comedy, horror, puzzle solving, a space opera, or romance. It's a variety that no other era of the show offers. True, there's variety in scores too, but you get crap formulaic stories, without the imagination. I hate seeing Doctor Who stick to a rigid formula. To think after this era there will only be one more pure historical, simply because they don't have any monsters in them!

Companions are mixed in this era. Ian and Barbara are well written and well acted, but the rest go wanting in one or both departments. More interesting is the change in companion 'types' - the man of action is the only one present in all stories, beginning with Ian and continuing with Steven and Ben. Barbara is unique and is not replaced, as two companions become the norm. The granddaughter figure starts with Susan then is represented by Vicki and Dodo, but while Polly is clearly a new type of companion - the first in the long line of the "something for the dads" late teens/early twentysomething girl, the Doctor still treats her like he treated his earlier female companions. The earliest dynamic makes the most sense considering the characterisation of the Doctor in this period, and I think this is the main reason for the lack of chemistry with the final crew.

As for Hartnell's Doctor himself - I have nothing but praise for William Hartnell's performances. The main three things I expect put new viewers off are the age of his episodes, the age of the actor himself and his frequent passive role in his episodes. I often read people's estimation of Hartnell going up though when they watch his stories in order and understand his character a bit more, seeing him develop as the stories progress, because more than most Doctors he does have a character, he's not just a character type (I don't like dismissing the other Doctors, they're very well played and acted, but this is one of the areas Hartnell's Doctor has the edge I think). Through his stories, we see his character soften from the crotchety old man he starts out as, who is willing to indulge in violence for little reason, and who doesn't think about how his actions affect other people. This is probably where Hartnell's performance is at its best, but he acquits himself well as the character changes. I can see Hartnell isn't a sci-fi actor, because he occasionally struggles with technical dialogue, sometimes getting it wrong completely, but away from the technobabble, when asked to deliver comedy or a dramatic speech, he's owns the stage.

What makes him the best Doctor? The way he can be funny and dramatic at the same time. His absendmindedness, which leaves us wondering if he means it or not. How we can meet his granddaughter and see many different sides to him but he is still the most mysterious Doctor. The way he revels in getting involved in history, throwing himself into the roles he assumes. I hate seeing him near the bottom of fan polls. Without him, I'm confident that the show would not still be here.

Stats:
Favourite companion: Ian and Barbara (can't choose between them).
Favourite alien: Cybermen (as of The Tenth Planet - the first and best version of them).
Favourite actor: William Hartnell of course - showed more dimensions to the Doctor than he is often credited for.
Favourite actress: Jacqueline Hill. Especially in The Aztecs.
Favourite cliffhanger: "The Plague" (Monoid statue).
Favourite soundtrack: The Time Meddler.
Favourite writer: John Lucarotti.
Favourite villain: Tlo'toxl.

And the special (and favourite) Hartnell category…

Favourite fluffed line: "floating cinders in Spain"

Modes of transport
My special project is to take note of the modes of transport the Doctor uses, of all kinds. Here are the results for the Hartnell era:

As the driver
On foot (all stories)
TARDIS materialisation (all stories)
On horseback (Marco Polo)
Travel dial (The Keys of Marinus)
Climbing (Planet of Giants, The Rescue, The Chase, The Tenth Planet)

As a passenger
Caravan (Marco Polo)
Space ship (The Sensorites, The Daleks' Master Plan, The Ark)
Being carried (The Reign of Terror, The Dalek Invasion of Earth, The Smugglers)
Wooden horse (The Myth Makers)
Molecular dissemination (The Daleks' Master Plan)
Electric cart (The Ark)
Taxi (The War Machines)
Elevator (The War Machines)

Favoured mode of travel: Walking

Onto the Troughton era... oh my giddy aunt!

The Tenth Planet

2009-07-28T11:34:00.001+01:00

Previous viewings - one

Wow, is that the Hartnell era over already?

I'll say nothing about what went on behind the scenes, and the question of whether or not Bill Hartnell was pushed. What's relevant is what's on screen, and here writers Kit Pedler and Gerry Davis offer us another in a line of experimental stories, albeit of a type that seems more like an attempt to find a reliable formula than the more esoteric one-offs like The Celestial Toymaker or The Web Planet. Although the base under siege format of The Tenth Planet will quickly become old hat, even tiresome, it's all new here, and with the chilling original interpretations of the Cybermen thrown in, the First Doctor can only be bound to go out in a blaze of glory.

Conceptually, the base under siege format is a Doctor Who classic; it has a B-movie monster/horror formula ripe for behind the sofa viewing and I enjoy stories with confined settings, but like any story type, it's not guaranteed to deliver the goods every time, it needs the right ingredients. It demands scares, it demands atmosphere. The Tenth Planet certainly has a terrific premise: an underground base in Antarctica where rocket launches are monitored, picking up the approach of a new planet, and besieged by its inhabitants. The snowy setting is new for the show and gives the early scenes of the story a cinematic feel, with the Doctor, Ben and Polly leaving the TARDIS and being brought down into the base.

The year is 1986 - likely an attempt to give us a near-enough present day story but not so close that Ben and Polly would want to stay behind at the end. Away from the cities and the fashions, this passes as 1986, so that's all good. The first episode is the buildup, introducing viewers to the base personnel as they work to ensure the survival of some astronauts. General Cutler provides an early source of frustration for the Doctor as he tries his best to ignore the strangers, even when the Doctor works out some calculations for him. As an international installation, there are American accents to be heard, and they're far less offensive to the ears than what we were offered in The Gunfighters, although most of the base personnel are merely ciphers anyway which is disappointing as we spend four episodes in their company. The two main guests here are the irrational base commander Cutler and scientist Barclay, Barclay being the more likeable of the two as being a scientist he at least is on the same wavelength as the Doctor, even if he doesn't get to do much.

Unfortunately the TARDISeers also don't have much to do, and are relegated to observers for the early part of the story. As the new planet approaches, the Doctor allows himself to be dismissed by the base personnel, quite disappointingly so as I expected him to stand up to them as he usually does. As the first episode ends, the invaders the Doctor warned us about appear, attacking some men outside the TARDIS - our first glimpse of the cloth-faced Cybermen.

The Cybermen steal the story in the second episode, easily infiltrating the base and taking control. Their plan is to take the humans to their planet, Mondas, before Earth disintegrates from an energy drain caused by the proximity of the two planets. They're imposing robot-like creatures, although by today's standards their appearance is rather silly: massive chest units, car headlights on their heads, bizarre sing-song voices, less threatening than later incarnations but as we learn Mondas is Earth's former twin planet, and thus the Cybermen used to be human but converted themselves into Cybermen to survive, there is a tragedy in this imperfect, unrefined look. The glimpse of human eyes and real hands really hits home that these are humans, not robots, and as silly as the overall effect is I think we get a good impression of the humanity they've lost, which makes these the most effective incarnations of the Cybermen.

Of course the look is not the only definitive aspect of the Cybermen, there's also the "improvements" they've made to themselves by getting rid of emotions, I like to think because what they've done to themselves is too emotionally painful to bear. They don't let the base personnel save the rocket crew, and their cold, logical minds can't comprehend why saving them is so important when people all over the world die every day. The Doctor poses a few questions, but they are poor villains for Hartnell's Doctor, who is less of a moral crusader than later Doctors and Hartnell is best when allowed to integrate comedy into his sparring with villains, and obviously there is no opportunity for this with the Cybermen. Clearly the Doctor thinks they are too far gone and doesn't make any attempts to save the Cybermen, but the second episode is largely one big explanation of who the Cybermen are and where they come from, with the other characters merely reacting in horror. Cutler is incapacitated when he warns his superiors that the base is under attack, and Ben gets a chance to shine by killing a Cyberman, though I was surprised and delighted to see him not reacting with thrills, but horror that he has taken a life. Character-wise this is the most interesting thing Ben has done so far, it's a shame we don't see anything like it again. Luckily the Cybermen's weapons can be used against them, which allows the human to retake the base.

An unplanned absence of the lead actor puts the Doctor out of Episode 3 - damn! With the exposition out of the way this should have been his big moment. Unfortunately in the third and fourth episodes the story is less interesting. The Cybermen barely appear, as they take forever to send more troops to the base, Polly is reduced to making coffee, and Ben is imprisoned for trying to stop Cutler making rash actions to ensure the survival of his son, who is in another rocket. It's entertaining enough, but pretty ordinary compared with later Troughton stories and the irrational Cutler is especially yawnsome. The biggest problem is the knowledge that this is William Hartnell's last story, and he is nowhere in sight, and even when he is, he isn't doing anything. It's like the First Doctor's era has already ended and the production team are moving ahead with a story that he doesn't fit well in, and thus has little to do. However, judged on its own merits it holds up better, probably because despite there being similar stories to follow, this is the first.

The destructive Z-bomb is introduced to the plot in Episode 3, which is to be aimed at Mondas which if destroyed when also kill many on Earth. Ben enlists the help of Barclay and sabotages its launch.

My copy of The Tenth Planet included the fourth episode as a reconstruction, but I don't know who made it. Anyway, the Doctor is back but he's behaving quite oddly, like a feeble old man about to collapse at any moment. Then he gets stuck in a cupboard with Polly until the end of the episode. It's often said that the Doctor regenerates from old age, but it's made very clear that the energy drain is having an effect on him and it's this that causes the regeneration.

The conclusion sees the arrival of a new batch of Cybermen, but Ben is able to devise a new radiation weapon to kill them, giving the humans the time they need to let Mondas disintegrate on its own. The Earth saved, its time for the even bigger finale. The Doctor is very ill and insists on returning to the TARDIS. Hartnell plays the Doctor as confused and dazed. In the TARDIS, the Doctor collapses and changes into Patrick Troughton with a close-up of his face being enveloped in a bright light and convincingly changing. The special effects for this are pretty decent for 1966 and in fact the transformation is less jarring than some later ones. I've hated Hartnell being sidelined in his last story, but in an odd way him being out of sorts from half way through has allowed this twist ending to seem like a natural conclusion rather than coming out of nowhere.

The Tenth Planet is a difficult story to come to a judgement on. It's exciting because it's a new kind of story and we're entering a new era, but so many superior base under siege stories are still to come and Patrick Troughton's Doctor is much more suited to them. We got some great Cybermen, although they're not as scary as later versions - and that's another flaw of this story, it's not scary or tense. Polly might as well not have been there for all she did. In light of later stories, it's badly flawed, with the lack of Hartnell especially disappointing, and ultimately it leaves me feeling like he went out not with a bang but with a whimper.

Still, I'm about to embark on a new era and I'm very excited.

Horror quotient - The Cybermen provoke more laughs than scares, although I stand by my comment about this being the closest they've come to effectively presenting them from the original concept. I never feel the Earth is in danger and all we see of Mondas is a still image.
Comedy quotient - Very little.
Drama quotient - Plenty of excitement when the Cybermen are around, but Cutler makes a poor villain. It's decent enough material, but has been eclipsed by what followed.

A story with plenty to enjoy, but its flaws - the lack of Hartnell, the boring base personnel, not scary enough - are big ones, and Episode 3 is dull. William Hartnell deserved better.

6/10

The Smugglers

2009-07-27T12:15:00.001+01:00

Previous viewings - one

I've read up on the animosity between William Hartnell and the production team at this stage in the show's history, and I wish I hadn't because as I watch (or listen in this case), I'm constantly looking out for signs that Hartnell's health is in decline, as the reports say. At least at the point of The Smugglers, this is nowhere in evidence; I see a leading actor at the top of his game, in a story of the pure historical genre where he usually gives his best performances. As in The Gunfighters, historical events are gone, it's a voyage into another genre, this time Pirates, with all the trapping that ensues - treasure, secret codes, deceptions, ships, and plenty more.

Thats not to say everything's perfect. This story contains Ben and Polly's first trip through time, the first time the Doctor's companions have been replaced all in one go. Viewing The Smugglers as Hartnell's last hurrah before the big finale, the companion issue is moot, but in isolation Ben and Polly are still at the "newbie/passenger" phase of travelling with the Doctor, so although they look out for each other, there is a distance between them and the Doctor. Further, Ben and Polly don't fit into the Hartnell era mould, and don't form a family unit with the Doctor (except perhaps that of a grandfather and two errant grandchildren). Certainly I favour these in-story explanations for the divide between the Doctor and companions than blaming any tension between Hartnell and his co-stars, which is basically an accusation of unprofessionalism on Hartnell's part.

It's interesting to note Ben and Polly's reactions to the TARDIS. They didn't learn much about the Doctor in The War Machines except that he was Dodo's "boss", and nothing about his mysterious background, but here they trust him and don't get angry or scared about being cut off from 1966 when they finally admit they've travelled through time. For them, all that matters is what's immediately practical. Getting out of a cell, finding the TARDIS, etc. They're a breath of fresh air because they're new and contemporary, but there are things that aren't being dealt with and it gets frustrating as time goes on and they don't raise the issues. If it was me, I would want to know more about the TARDIS and about the Doctor, and why I should put my faith in both. After Ian and Barbara's very realistic reactions in the first season, this is disappointing.

Okay, enough deliberating over the new crew. We're at a 17th-century Cornish coast. The Doctor follows a disbelieving Ben and Polly out of the TARDIS and the group makes its way to a church, where the Doctor's kindly behaviour towards churchwarden Joseph Longfoot leads Longfoot to impart a message to the Doctor. A timely visit from the menacing Cherub, who kills Longfoot just after the TARDISeers leave for an inn, sees the Doctor and his companions suspected of murder. Nothing new here. The Doctor is kidnapped by Cherub and taken to the Black Albatross, where pirate Captain Pike is interested in what Longfoot told the Doctor.

To be honest, the plot isn't that interesting. There are plenty of characters, although on audio it was sometimes hard to tell who was who, especially with allegiances changing. It's lots of fun; Ben and Polly taking advantage of the superstition of the era to aid their escape from prison and the Doctor distracting his captors by telling fortunes are particular highlights. More's the pity that the story is missing because using the audio I was focusing on following the plot when it wasn't that important, it's inevitably a showcase for some nefarious characters, with the TARDISeers mixed up with them, leading to the Doctor figuring out what Longfoot's message means. It falls short of portraying the pirates as comedic, and is generally a more serious story than The Gunfighters, and I think this is a case where it should be funnier than it is. The characters end up interchangeable and only Captain Pike and perhaps Cherub are interesting, but again this could be because it was on audio.

As the Doctor reunites with Ben and Polly, they find a graveyard where people carrying the names in the secret message are buried. Again, the Doctor is determined to see the situation through to the end despite having the opportunity to get back to the TARDIS, attributing it to moral reasons (a pretty selfish thing to do to Ben and Polly on their first trip), and we get a pretty exciting conclusion as the surviving pirates meet up there and head into a crypt, double-crossing each other as they intend to keep the treasure for themselves, for Longfoot's message leads to the holdings of the deceased Captain Avery. It makes me want to see it even more, because it was difficult keeping track of who was present in each scene and I wanted to see what the crypt looked like (although the surviving clips on the Lost in Time DVD set gave a few glimpses via the story's most violent moments). Despite taking up the whole last episode, the finale was the most exciting part of the story.

As the story wraps, the Doctor finds a moment to slip away to the TARDIS, Ben and Polly having already gone back earlier. They're hopefull they will land in 1966, but again the opportunity for a more substantial character moment is passed up. The TARDIS lands in the coldest place on Earth - although given the resolution of the cliffhanger of "Coronas of the Sun", it might just be Scotland.

The Smugglers is an adventurous, exciting story, although I've not seen many pirate movies to base my opinion on, it's not quite as lighthearted as I was expecting and doesn't contain quite so many cliches as The Gunfighters. It comes across as a half-hearted attempt at a pirate story, with any of its successes achieved somewhat unwittingly. In many respects its a huge disappointment - splitting up the Doctor and his companions seems to leave Hartnell without central characters to spar with, as his opponents change throughout the story, and we get hints of how Ben and Polly are feeling, we should have had more. Its a story I suspect would benefit from visuals, although I don't know much about Julia Smith's work as a director, because written by Brian Hayles, veteran of The Celestial Toymaker and later creator of the Ice Warriors, The Smugglers comes across as a story desperate to add more life to the 'boring' historical genre, and ends up losing most of what I love about the historicals. It was a good listen, but next time I might listen in conjunction with the slideshow on the BBC website and see if that makes a difference. In a year, perhaps?

However, as the last 'proper' Hartnell story, The Smugglers is a treasure. It dispells the myth that Hartnell was winding down as he approached the regeneration - the material isn't the best but whatever's there, Hartnell makes the most of it, and a comedy script at that.

Horror quotient - One of the few historical stories with the possibility of being scary, although the censor clips could be diluting this view because they're all violent! Still, a graveyard and a crypt, that's got to be eerie at least.
Comedy quotient - As I said, as enjoyable as it is, it should have gone further. A fresh, lighthearted start to the new season that will quickly take an unexpected turn.
Drama quotient - A surprisingly good blend of drama and humour, which I hadn't noticed until now.

Hartnell's last hurrah, before the real one. An enjoyable romp with potential to be even better - hurry up and find it!

7/10

The War Machines

2009-07-26T13:07:00.001+01:00

Previous viewings - few

The War Machines doesn't feel like a Season 3 story. The reason it doesn't feel like a Season 3 story is that as the first contemporary story one would expect it to be something the show attempted back in its first season. It's an obvious idea, along with the premise of the enemy being an artificial intelligence gone evil - another idea I would expect to have been done long before now. It's new, it's fresh and it's exciting.

London, 1966. The Doctor and Dodo marvel at the new Post Office Tower and go off to investigate. The Doctor and Dodo seem to have a closer relationship than the last time we saw them, which is nice to see. I'm instantly struck by how odd it is to see the First Doctor in the present day. He just doesn't seem to belong there, and I admit this isn't due to anything other than it being so unusual. While he becomes interested in the Tower's supercomputer, WOTAN, Dodo goes off clubbing with secretary Polly Wright (during the day, it seems). This is all new, and more than usual - it's not merely a twist on a familiar format, it is a new format, in a 'who changed the channel?' kind of way.

Poor Dodo. The Inferno club scenes are blatantly there to introduce us to her replacements as companions, and not only that, but to show us how much better than her they are. Dodo is the most generic of Doctor Who companions - given very little distinctiveness to increase the diversity of stories that could be told with her, but it ends up making her less interesting and so bland that she'll react to situations in the same way whether she was from the past, present, future or an alien planet. This is supposedly her native era but she sticks out like a sore thumb, and yet we're led to believe that clubbing is a hobby of hers. Compare with 'hip' Polly, who right away makes more of an impression than Dodo has in her entire tenure. Having been asked to 'look after' Dodo, she's placed in a position of superiority. We know a lot about her - she's a bit posh, she's a secretary, and she has a social life. Anneke Wills plays Polly with plenty of charisma so that I want to see more of her, and she's written so that although she's clearly companion material, it doesn't feel contrived that the Doctor should suddenly meet her just after a companion has left. All the boxes are ticked.

But that's not all. Perhaps because of the success of Ian and Barbara being introduced at the same time, we get a second new companion, sailor Ben Jackson. Obviously his Cockney accent is startling at first in a show that has been uniformly RP so far (except for Dodo's wandering accent). Meeting Polly and Dodo in the Inferno, he's upset about his shore assignment, but proves he's no soft touch when he sees off a sleazy guy who accosts Polly. I'm struck by Ben's salt-of-the-earthness. It's an instant assurance that he's a good guy. I do hope we learn more about him, but except for Ian and Barbara, whose introduction was unbeatable, first impressions don't come any better than the ones we got for Ben and Polly.

Meanwhile, it's all happening at the Post Office Tower. The Doctor doesn't have that much to do as he attends a press conference announcing the 'thought computer' WOTAN, which is currently in the process of brainwashing key personnel, including Dodo over the phone. Obviously the Doctor is next on its hit list, but it also orders the construction of deadly gas-spraying machines (if you're afraid of gas, beware). The Doctor teams up with Sir Charles Summer, who WOTAN luckily isn't interested in. The story is quite Pertwee-era from here on in. The Doctor discovers Dodo has been hypnotised and sends her off to the country to recover - I'm more forgiving of this than most as Dodo has been by far the weakest companion so far and at this stage seems like part of an old regime or old style that is being phased out. We really don't need the 'granddaughter' companion figure in the show anymore. It's still a rubbish exit of course, given this is the last we see of her and she's not herself, but I wonder if the writers knew that it would be a mistake to draw attention to the fact that she was leaving for no reason whatsoever - Dodo has always seemed happy in the TARDIS and wasn't upset about being cut off from her home.

WOTAN's machines seem to get assembled in record time, because by the end of episode 2 there's already one up and running. The Doctor is happy to give the action part of the plot to Ben, despite only meeting him fleetingly earlier, while he waits behind for an update (lazy Doctor!). The war machines are very well designed, and it's obvious a lot more time was spent on making them in reality than in the show. I don't know if they're meant to be a cross between a Dalek and a tank, but they come across that way, but less threatening than either, as although they look good on screen we mostly see them just pushing boxes over.

Ben gets a bigger slice of the action than Polly, who has also been hypnotised by WOTAN but is stong enough to will herself to let Ben escape from the factory when he has been captured. The rest of the story is almost entirely action, which of course means little of the Doctor except him standing around observing, with the occasional line. It's unavoidable that this is the case, and I'm glad that the producer ended the season with an action-driven story. William Hartnell gives an appropriate performance for the story - for once his peripheral involvement makes sense. Once the army gets involved, it's their game, although for the first and certainly not the last time they don't show much intelligence and are easily wiped out. The thrilling conclusion sees the Doctor figuring out how to capture one of the war machines and reprogramming it to destroy WOTAN, which of course can't defend itself as it's still only a computer.

As will become familiar with present day stories, the Doctor doesn't hang around for the authorities to show up and ask questions. As soon as everybody turns their backs, he's gone.

The final scene sees Ben and Polly show up outside the TARDIS to let the Doctor know that Dodo has chosen not to bother telling him about her decision to stay in person. It's interesting that after the adventure they still only see him as a doddering old scientist, unaware of his alien background, something soon to be remedied as they follow the Doctor into the TARDIS using Dodo's key. I want to see more! The two companion removed from their own time, and who want to get back, worked with Ian and Barbara, and it might seem unwise to go there again. There isn't an existing companion to bridge the gap betwee the elderly Doctor and the new youthful team, and they share a much different relationship with the Doctor than Ian and Barbara did, and although it might only end up in the Doctor seeming more like the isolated figure he has been in other Season 3 stories, if it does there are only two stories of his tenure left anyway. I'm quite excited.

It's good to know that The War Machines was deemed enough of a success to have more present day stories. Unlike many fans, I love the pop culture aspects of the stories and seeing familiar things. The TV news report is something we get even now in the new series, and an attempt to show the reaction of the public to the threats the Doctor is quashing. It's not perfect - the evil computer is new, but will be done better later, and the guest characters are all fairly generic. I see The War Machines as a template for present day stories, leaving them to go off on their own tangents and find ways to improve upon it. However calling a story a template is very high praise I think.

Horror quotient - Fear the War Machines! Maybe not. More should have been made of the horror of people being controlled by a computer, especially since a companion is one of the victims.
Comedy quotient - Ben and Polly are shown to be fairly grounded companions and have a lot of humour in them, although I suspect there's more to come as once introduced they got involved in the serious plot quite quickly.
Drama quotient - Action, not drama. Most drama came from the Doctor, although rather disappointingly he didn't get to confront WOTAN. How much drama can you get from having a computer as a villain though?

Subsequent present day stories have rendered this fairly generic, but The War Machines did it first and gave us two excellent companions to boot. A fantastic way to end the season.

9/10

The Savages

2009-07-25T12:14:00.003+01:00

Previous viewings - none

I enter somewhat uncharted territory as this is the first story I've not experienced in any form before. New writer Ian Stuart Black is brought in to pen Peter Purves's last story, which I listened to with the BBC audio in conjunction with the slideshow on the BBC website (which was better than I expected, I might use it again for future stories).

We're in the future, a planet inhabited by the cave-dwelling Savages, who are intelligent but caught in a cycle of exploitation by the more advanced Elders. Yep, pretty familiar stuff - just like in Galaxy 4, a twist our expectations of who the good guys and bad guys are subverted. However, while that story "disclosed" that as the main twist, surprising no-one, The Savages has more to offer.

After some of the most experimental stories yet, it's good to see a fairly typical TARDIS landing on an alien planet and the Doctor invstigating his surroundings with a scientific eye. Innovation doesn't end with the setting and format, which has been mainly how the stories so far have distinguised themselves. Curiously, Steven and Dodo wait in the TARDIS while the Doctor goes about his business outside. Even more curiously, the Doctor meets some people who have predicted his arrival and he is taken to an idyllic city. It's a pity the Doctor being known to the Elders doesn't turn out to be that important - given the way the rest of the story plays out, it would have been interesting if this story substituted the Elders for the Time Lords. It wouldn't be so forgotten then! Although the Elder society seems too good to be true, they put on a better show of sincerity than the Drahvins and are at least likeable on the whole.

We're also introduced to the Savages; they're a suspicious lot but they have every right to be as they're being hunted by the Elders and as Elder leader Jano is telling the Doctor why his people are so brilliant, Dodo goes missing on a tour and stumbles across the dark underbelly of the city (although the Elders seem to make no effort to hide it): a lab where the mental energy of captured Savages is drained, which the Elders use to strength themselves. Again, it's hardly original, and its success is in the delivery - for once, Dodo reacts to danger in a normal way, rather than the thrill she got out of the games in The Celestial Toymaker, and as a result I care more than usual about her safety. Also, that the fact the Elders don't simply turn on the Doctor and his companions, and even let them go (rather than insisting on one of them staying, which is what I would have expected), keeps them from falling into the usual villain traps.

The second half of the story is more focused on the Savages, with Steven and Dodo meeting up with them and being taken to their caves, while the Doctor is coerced into returning to the city and enters the energy machine, a bit of a damp squib as a cliffhanger because we know it means the Doctor will only be out of sorts for a while. I like that the Savages do not all share the same views, with some wary about involving Steven and Dodo, and rightfully so as they are almost instantly found by an Elder guard. I thought Steven's trick with the mirror was clever, but thinking about it a bit more it's an obvious solution to a paralysing light gun. However, it's pretty much the only thing Steven has done in the whole story so far, and at this stage I'm not prepared for him leaving at all.

With the Doctor out of most of the third episode, Jano decides to transfer the Doctor's energy to himself. I was looking forward to hearing Frederick Jaeger's character take on the Doctor's personality to hear his Hartnell impression, and I wasn't disappointed, although surprised that he seemed to shift back and forth between Jano's personality and the Doctor's, leaving him unsure whether he wants to re-capture the escaped travellers or discuss peace with them. I was surprised by how good a performance Jeager gave - he had to play a character whose outlook changes by taking on a double personality, not an easy task. Upon reflection, earlier in the story he still seems like the same character, but an unenlightened version of the one we see later in the story.

The story wraps up with the usual social upheaval, and the Doctor suggests Steven take up the role of mediator that the Savages have suggested. Ah, Steven's departure. Ian and Barbara leaving came out of nowhere as this does, but that was a long time coming as they were lost in time with the Doctor and had an opportunity to get home. Steven seems quite content to stay with the Doctor and Dodo, but the Doctor insists that he is the man for the job. For the purposes of the story this is poorly done - the Doctor would run out of companions if he needed to leave someone behind to mediate between societies he turns upside down during his visits, and I didn't get the impression that Steven was keen. Also, they had to outdo The Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Eve, when Steven stormed out of the TARDIS (although to be honest I wouldn't have wanted that to be the last of him either), and this comes off more as the writer getting rid of Steven having already written the script and being told Peter Purves was leaving with ten minutes to the deadline. I ended up feeling bad for Steven, practically pushed out of the TARDIS without even getting a chance to go back for his panda.

Such was the character though that he could have ended up anywhere, the writers never even told us where he was from.

The Savages rests on interesting ideas, as all Doctor Who stories should (and most do). If the story existed, I might view it more favourably, but like with Galaxy 4 it seems more focused on presenting the ideas to the viewers, taking care to label each one good or bad, than simply giving us a fun adventure on an alien planet. The pure historicals are noted as having been phased out around this time because kids expect monsters - well there are none here. The main problem with doing a story like this is as with Galaxy 4 it falls short on excitement, despite giving us much more interesting alien cultures and characters and putting in a few more twists to keep viewers guessing.

Horror quotient - Relatively scare-free. I think the show at this stage is trying to get back on its feet after the grim-fest of the first half of the season, although grim does not equal horror. As we're nearing the end of the Hartnell era, I can probably conclude that Daleks aside the horror aspect of the show started with Troughton (the era, not the man).
Comedy quotient - Not many laughs in a story more interested in other things.
Drama quotient - A strength, helped by Christopher Barry's direction. I felt for the Savages and even the Elders, who managed to avoid the out-and-out evil that permeates many of the humanoid races. It's good to see that third dimension which all too often is seen as optional in characters. The Doctor's defiance at the way the Elder society works was a particular highlight.

One of the best examples of a genre of Who story I'm not keen on.

7/10

The Gunfighters

2009-07-24T10:49:00.001+01:00

Previous viewings - one

As a television programme, Doctor Who's main purpose is to entertain, so I approach this story with some trepidation given its shockingly low AI figures, and a setting which seems to jar with the non-violent character of the Doctor. A comedic Wild West story is no more of a risk than anything in Season 2, and with Donald Cotton writing after the excellent The Myth Makers I'm somewhat reassured.

The Gunfighters places the TARDISeers at the OK Corral in 1881, in the events leading up to the gunfight between the Clantons and the Earps. A search for a dentist leads the Doctor to Doc Holliday, who takes advantage of the Clantons thinking the Doctor is him to slip away with Dodo in tow. There would probably have been a Western setting evenually, and although technically a pure historical it doesn't feel like one, having nothing to do with the politics of the time, but merely jumping on a Hollywood bandwagon. Its not history, its movie cliches. This is not a bad thing, but future historicals will be more in this vein that what we're used to so it's farewell to the 'proper' exploration of history.

My first reactions to the story probably mirror those of most people. Those accents! That ballad! I didn't think the American accents were that bad, they were deliberately exaggerated for the purposes of the story, even the TARDISeers put on pretend American accents (Steven's is especially bad). I can't defend the ballad, although I can't deny that the decision to have singing every few minutes is gutsy. It continues until the very end of the story, so that when we hear the Doctor Who end credits music again it seems weird. It's almost turning the show into an actual Western rather than simply having Tombstone, 1881 be the setting for a Doctor Who story. Yes, it's repetitive, but in the context of the rest of the story, makes complete sense and is even quite innovative.

The scene where the Doctor has his tooth pulled is a classic and sees Hartnell on fine form. It's weird seeing him so worried about the pain, as it's a very human concern we're not used to seeing in the Doctor. Doc Holliday, despite giving the Doctor his gun so that the Clantons will think he's Holliday, is the most entertaining of the guest characters, as he's the only one who's funny but still seems like a threat. We've seen the Doctor mistaken for someone else before, but the characterisation of the Doctor in this story is very curious. The Time Meddler showed us a Doctor who can sometimes seem absentminded, but then surprise us and the villains by showing that this is only a facade. In The Gunfighters, despite the historical setting he usually impresses in, the Doctor's act as the bumbling grandfather makes him look feeble and ineffective, and at certain points in the story he seems to have got the wrong impression (for example the way he keeps insisting that Holliday is a friend of his because he gave him his gun, not having realised the real reason). Whatever the Doctor's been like before, he has always convinced me that he's on top of the situation, but in this story I had my doubts.

Anyway, the story twists and turns a bit. The Doctor is in the Sheriff's custody and Steven is left to deal with the Clantons, who try to hang him, while Holliday, Dodo and barmaid Kate are long gone. Dodo is a surprise in this story - nothing she does goes along with her usual stupidity, making this her best story. I wouldn't go as far as to say that she's great here, just that her being bearable is a nice surprise. Jackie Lane doesn't seem to have Peter Purves' ability to give more for the character than the script deserves - she just delivers her lines with a touch of enthusiasm, and here they happen to be decent lines. There is never a sense that Dodo is a person with a life.

Gunman Johnny Ringo appears as the title character in Episode 3 and gives the story an extra dose of menace by shooting the likeable bartender dead. The Doctor doesn't have much to do after being freed from the jail as his role in the plot has largely ended, getting Dodo back is the only pertinent priority left. By this point, more Earps arrive and with so many Clantons around, I'm starting to get confused keeping track of so many characters. My main complaint so far is that none of them really stand out, or are even interesting - history would record who took part in the gunfight, so they have to be there, but there doesn't seem to be much of an attempt to distinguish them or give the Clantons much to do except act like Western rogue stereotypes. However this is partly because they're mostly in busy bar or crowd scenes - Johnny Ringo instantly stands out despite having the same personality and demeanour, because of his opening scene. As time goes on, although I'm keen to see the finale, no further attempts have been made to rectify this. Everything is a means to get us to the end. The pacing is fine, but there isn't much inclination to care - and we really need it considering the TARDISeers's involvement thins as the story wears on. With the shooting of the younger Earp, I was suitably interested, as the story was starting to slow down.

The gunfight, although exciting and well directed, suffered from the same problem - it was exciting because it was action, I knew the Earps would win anyway and the Doctor was nowhere to be seen. Was this a disappointment? I wasn't really expecting anything more, the Doctor clearly wasn't going to shoot anyone and I would think less of Steven or Dodo if they got involved, and I had had enough of the bumbling Doctor who was clearly a few steps behind everyone else. So ultimately despite it being little more than a necessity I think it did satisfy as a conclusion.

As they return to the TARDIS, everybody is back to normal, as we get a cliffhanger pretty much identical to the one in Episode 1 of An Unearthly Child.

I can forgive some characterisation flaws given the comedic nature of the story, like I did in The Romans. It was a lighthearted adventure romp that I enjoyed a great deal, and although it was nowhere as enjoyable as Cotton's earlier The Myth Makers, I'm shocked by the low reputation of The Gunfighters in fandom. What's so bad about it? I'll have a read of the rest of this thread and maybe someone will point out something I missed, but beyond some dull side characters and the Doctor acting a bit too absentminded, I struggle to think of any serious flaws.

Horror quotient - Okay, so it's a comedy, and a lot of the violence is cartoon violence, so this isn't scary or horrific.
Comedy quotient - Few one-liners, but it's a story that sends up the genre, and is an admirable attempt at a Western given it's a British TV show (is it unique in that respect?)
Drama quotient - This is another story that leans more towards comedy than drama, but in such a way that whenever there is drama, it feels real. Some clever writing there.

For being the first time I've had a real problem with the Doctor's characterisation, I'm marking it down, even though it does provide a few laughs. However, the plot is engaging and the story is entertaining, so as an experiment I'd say it's mostly successful (except with the audience of course).

7/10

The Celestial Toymaker

2009-07-23T12:10:00.003+01:00

Previous viewings - none (missing episodes), many (Episode 4)

Innes Lloyd takes over as producer, but as I understand it this story was well into planning stage when John Wiles was still in the producer's chair, as this was to be the story that carried through with his idea of replacing William Hartnell as the Doctor. More on this later.

It's always a delight when the TARDIS's destination isn't somewhere that can be described as either a time or a place - the writers are pushing the boundaries of what the show is capable of, which is risky, but I love The Mind Robber which is probably the best example of the surreal subgenre of Doctor Who stories. Unfortunately The Celestial Toymaker is nowhere near as good; despite some good ideas behind it it is handicapped by some shocking flaws that should have been addressed before recording began.

The TARDIS has materialised in the realm of the Toymaker, a supernatural being who ensnares his victims and forces them to play his games - if they win, they can go, if they lose, they're his forever. The Doctor is invisible, and plays the Trilogic game against the Toymaker, and is required to win the game at the exact same time Steven and Dodo complete their assorted challenges. This all sounds like a brilliant premise for a Doctor Who story, although it's one that demands to be fun in a creepy sort of way - mindful of the danger, but with some life to it.

Okay, strengths first. Michael Gough plays the Toymaker. I'm not quite sure what to make of him - calm and measured despite doing nothing but plays games for goodness knows how long, and with a dry sense of humour I wouldn't have expected. It's not quite clear why he plays the games. His plan to turn the TARDISeers into his toys is certainly cruel, but considering he makes the rules which makes it his decision to give the players a chance, however unfair, makes him a little more three-dimensional than usual. If only we had learned more about the character - he has bags of potential, but we don't see enough of him. Fortunately Michael Gough gives a scene-stealing performance (though most of his scenes are opposite an invisible and mute Doctor so most of the time he's only got disembodied hands to compete with) which makes him a very memorable character.

Minimalist sets reign supreme, but here it makes sense. It has all been conjured up by the Toymaker rather than being part of physical reality; they're sufficient for the games to be played in them, detailed enough for the set designers to use their imaginations a bit, daft enough to be believable. It's the type of story where Doctor Who's budget works to its advantage rather than its detriment - by concentrating on just a few sets, the designers can do them justice and perpetuate the 'pocket universe' claustrophobia of the Toymaker's realm, and it's very well done.

Those are two key strengths, but they're far outnumbered by the weaknesses. By far the worst of these is the absence of the Doctor. William Hartnell takes two weeks off as his character plays the Trilogic game against the Toymaker. This subplot is sidelined obviously because scene after scene of the Toymaker taunting a silent Doctor would get tiresome. Of the games played, the Trilogic game was the one I found the most interesting, because it seemed to be based on actual rules and the cheating in the other games removed any dramatic tension. Unfortunately more than in any other 'Hartnell holiday' episode the Doctor's absence is felt and his presence is missed. The Toymaker is great villain, so why deprive viewers the joy of seeing him sparring with the Doctor for most of the story? There's some interaction in the first and last episodes but it's not enough.

The bulk of the story, and the episodic structure, revolves around Steven and Dodo facing off against assorted creatures in a battle to return to the TARDIS. The first challenge is a game of blind man's buff against some clowns - cheating clowns at that. Dodo is only slightly annoying so far, and Peter Purves does the best he can, however I wasn't too clear on what was happening amongst the commotion, with squeaky clown voices and horns. It wasn't fun and it wasn't interesting. The second episode was a bit better, with Steven and Dodo trying to determine which one of seven chairs was safe to sit on. Again, the competitors - this time the King and Queen of Hearts - weren't entertaining enough for it to be worth listening to a whole episode of them deliberating over testing the chairs with dolls. It's obvious that every time Steven and Dodo win a challenge the TARDIS they find will be a fake, although I did like the structure of the episodes - ending with the end of a challenge rather than some contrived peril which would have probably had to come out of nowhere just for the purpose of having a cliffhanger. It led me to continue listening because I was hoping the next challenge would be better than the last one.

The final episode is probably the best one, and the only one I watched rather than listened to. Strangely, it's also the one where Dodo grates the most - with her and Steven competing against Cyril in a hopscotch game, Dodo seems to think it fun and keeps giving Cyril the benefit of the doubt despite knowing that the Toymaker's prisoners cheat. It's the first time I've been actively annoyed at a companion's stupidity. Again, there's nothing wrong with the idea of having an episode revolve around a simple game, but it's done in such a pedestrian way that it's dull to watch. It might have been better to save the script for the colour era, who knows it could have been a classic.

In the second half of the final episode, yay the Doctor is back! And more than a match for the beaten Toymaker, who retains his composure despite being about to lose his entire world. The story ends with one last victory for the Doctor, who is able to trick the Trilogic game into accepting his final move from the inside of the TARDIS, allowing them to escape without being destroyed with the Toymaker's world. Hartnell seems quite refreshed after his holiday, which is good because I was getting tired of hearing his voice being dubbed into the scenes where the Doctor was invisible. It didnt convince me at all that the Doctor was really "there". By this point, however, it's clear the Doctor isn't as commanding as he was in the first and second seasons. I'm not sure why; he's less present in the stories, but I can't help wondering if he is being deliberately sidelined because of the creative differences between Hartnell and the production team (this was after all supposed to be the story where he was replaced). Where in the first few seasons the Doctor seemed to be undergoing a character arc and the writers seemed to know where they were taking him, at this point I think they don't know what else to do. For all the talk of Hartnell's health declining I'd say the change in the Doctor is down more to the writing. I'm glad William Hartnell is still aboard, even if only for a short time more, but I'm hoping that the writers make the most of their leading man again!

The Celestial Toymaker is not a Doctor Who classic. The Toymaker manages to be one of the all-time great villains, but I can see him being better in a return story (no, I don't mean The Nightmare Fair).

Horror quotient - The horror doesn't come across well on audio, but if "The Final Test" is anything to go by, it's not a horror story visually either.
Comedy quotient - Despite the danger, this story demanded to be fun, or at least enjoyable.
Drama quotient - Stifled. Steven and Dodo's foes are (unfunny) comedy figures, and Dodo ruins it even more with a strangely upbeat attitude, even after sitting in the freezing chair. It's watchable, but the constant prolonging of the conclusion gets annoying after an episode or two.

A rewrite or two, with Hartnell in all episodes and in fine form, and we're talking. As it is, a huge letdown.

5/10

The Ark

2009-07-22T13:48:00.002+01:00

Previous viewings - few

Past Galaxy 4, the third season so far has been a relentless bloodbath, with the majority of the guest cast of each story dying, and a revolving door policy in the TARDIS. Step forward The Ark, which promises to thrill with its tame, conventional sci-fi plot and characters.

It wasn't what I expected. The premise of a generational ship taking humans to a new world doesn't tell me much - there's so much you can do with that premise it can go either way. Fortunately the writers were full of ideas, most of them good. For once, the cliffhangers are used as plot twists, rather than coming out of nowhere because the episode is about to end. For the first time, the TARDIS returns to somewhere it's already been, but hundreds of years later, so we can see the long-term consequences of the Doctor's actions, something that the show hasn't dealt with before. At least these show that even in the more traditional sci-fi stories, experimentation is going on.

We're still getting to know Dodo Chaplet as the story begins. I'm afraid I'm not endeared to the character - by this stage in the series, I thought we were moving past the Susan surrogate figure, and Dodo strangely seems more like a direct Susan replacement than Susan's actual replacement, Vicki, did. Dodo looks more like Susan and isn't given much personality to distinguish her, other than that she's not too bright. It's slightly unnerving that she doesn't have that 'adjustment' period that companions have when they first meet the Doctor and see the TARDIS - she takes everything in her stride and nothing seems to faze her. Why? It makes no sense. The redeeming feature of her joining the TARDIS crew is that the Doctor and Steven react to her odd behaviour appropriately. Of course it only highlights how odd it is, but I'm glad it was at least addressed.

The TARDISeers land in a jungle inhabited by animals and plantlife usually found in opposite parts of the world, and are surprised to find they're on a ship. After meeting the ship's inhabitants - some typical futuristic humans (ie. somewhat two-dimensional) and the servant Monoids, the Doctor discovers that the humans have no protection to Dodo's cold and it's fatal to them if they catch it. Although it doesn't sound like exciting enough material to build a story on, it's surprisingly interesting, perhaps because it's not allowed to be drawn out, with each episode playing a particular part in the story - "The Steel Sky" is the introduction, and "The Plague" is about, erm, the plague. The human characters were a little more interesting than I expected, for once they were interesting enough that I remembered a few of their names for instance, which I hardly ever do. Also, them imprisoning the TARDISeers and their hostile behaviour towards for once is completely understandable - given their clothing and appearance, I was dreading that they would follow the Thal mould, in that they're trustworthy, cardboard cutout good guys.

By this point, one expects a twist. Surely the whole story can't be about the plague? The Doctor is allowed to work on a cure and test it on Steven, who is now afflicted, and very quickly succeeds, and the TARDISeers don't hold a grudge against the humans who mistrusted them, which was good. After an explanation of the statue the humans are working on, which will take 700 years to build, we're back off to the TARDIS and onto the next adventure.

We've had two-parters before, but if this was one it would be the only one to have a fully developed story and characters, with a premise that was only touched on, and critically we didn't see it to its conclusion. The only way viewers would be satisfied at this point would be if the plague was the most interesting aspect of the story, which it wasn't. However this leads to possibly the best cliffhanger the series has given us yet - the TARDIS lands in the same place! The Doctor, Steven and Dodo return to the Ark and find it empty, but the status is now completed, and it has the head of a Monoid. I wasn't expecting that! So much for a return to the same old, same old.

The third episode plays out like no episode before, except perhaps the first episode of The Dalek Invasion of Earth, in that its a search for missing backstory, an explanation of what happened in the years the TARDISeers didn't experience, although it's obvious from the Monoid statue - the humans are now the slaves, and the Ark is about to reach the new planet, Refusis. It was interesting to have monsters that for a while didn't want to conquer the Earth, so it's disappointing that we no longer have that, but the Monoids aren't terribly interesting as villains, except for their striking one-eyed appearance. As it turns out, the story's greatest strength (that cliffhanger) turns out to be its greatest curse, as nothing that happens afterwards is very exciting. The human characters we meet now, obviously entirely different from the ones in the first two episodes, are faceless and interchangeable, and this time I didn't remember any names. Oddly enough, as the story reaches its conclusion, it doesn't feel like it's going anywhere.

As we reach Refusis, some Monoids travel down with the Doctor and Dodo. The planet is inhabited by the invisible Refusians, who turn out to be good guys, leading some of the Monoids to change their minds about settling on the planet (while planning to blow up the Ark to get rid of the humans). It's not clear why the Monoids didn't simply kill the Doctor and his companions when they showed up, but that is an issue in so many stories that I'm inclined to dismiss it.

Anyway, there is nothing particularly wrong with how the conclusion comes about. The Doctor finds allies in the Refusians, and while the Monoids battle each other, the Refusians travel up to the Ark and get rid of the bomb. It all makes sense, it's logical, but it's just not very exciting. There was more drama to be had from the plague subplot than the threat of mass death, partly because the TARDISeers are key players in the former, but they only either stand by and watch the plot unfold (Dodo and Steven) or ask others to solve everything for them while they sit around doing nothing (the Doctor). The crisis is solved by aliens who can't be seen. Overall, the conclusion is a damp squib on a largely superb story.

The Ark was well worth a watch. Dodo impressed in that it already feels like she's been there forever, but to honest she didn't impress in any other way - she caused the plague, and didn't show much intelligence throughout the story. Steven didn't have much to do, in fact in Episodes 3 and 4 he might as well not have been there, but I did far prefer the first two episodes anyway, in fact until some way through Episode 3 I would have gone for 10/10, but it went wrong through a combination of boring human characters, bland villains the Monoids, and plot progression that was lacking the spark that made everything up to the second cliffhanger so interesting. It wasn't a total loss - it was all very entertaining, but it definitely began better than it ended.

Horror quotient - The Monoids, perhaps? The kids might have been scared by them.
Comedy quotient - Okay, so it's not a comedy, but it doesn't veer as far into humourless territory as many stories. This is mainly down to the Doctor, as Hartnell seems to be in a lighthearted mood.
Drama quotient - Different sorts of drama as the plot twists, some better than others. The most interesting drama was anything not involving the Monoids.

Probably the highlight of the First Doctor non-Dalek sci-fi stories. It's latter half is flawed, but overall it's an enjoyable, imaginative story.

8/10

The Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Eve

2009-07-21T10:03:00.001+01:00

Previous viewings - none

(A thing to note - the most recent stories I've been saying no previous viewings, for all of them I have read the transcript once but I figured that didn't really count as a viewing)

John Lucarotti is back to pen another script after his two first season successes. I've missed his approach to the historicals - he has a way of eking as much drama as possible out of the plot, and he plays up that feeling of desperation the TARDISeers feel as they cling onto their hopes of getting back to the TARDIS and leaving. He has a good feel for character, and in this story he is given Steven as the lead, a character who under other writers hasn't really come into his own yet.

A lesser-known historical event is chosen as the setting for this story, that of the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre in Paris, 1572. I'd never heard of it before I stumbled across this story, but it's good that the series doesn't just go with the obvious historical choices (Tudors, WWII, etc.) and goes back to its "educational" roots. I've always felt though that the "educational" tag is a misnomer - the historical stories are no more about teaching kids about history than the sci-fi stories are about teaching them about science - both are sometimes dodgy, it's better when it's accurate but the most important thing is telling a good story.

The Doctor is absent in most of this, but this is the first time that a story requires his absence to work - in a storytelling device that will be repeated in future stories, a familiar actor plays a dual role, with William Hartnell playing the Abbot of Amboise, but without the Doctor around, we're left wondering if this is the Doctor is disguise or not. The plot revolves around rising tensions between Catholics and Huguenots in the streets and political offices of Paris, with the lone Steven trying to survive with the Doctor missing and learning more about the unrest in the city. This leads to a larger focus on guest characters than normal, but it's a fascinating and unusual premise for a Doctor Who story made even more interesting from being told through Steven's perspective (save a few scenes).

The Doctor's involvement is largely confined to the first episode, when he decides to go off in search of apothecary Charles Preslin, but is worried about leaving Steven by himself. Steven is cautious but not afraid - he's never afraid (one of my main gripes with him so far). He's also inquisitive and interested in the things around him, and by this point he and the Doctor share a sort of master/apprentice relationship, which sadly falls by the wayside when Dodo Chaplet joins the team.

With the Doctor off to meet Preslin and vanishing, Steven waits in the tavern and meets Nicholas Muss, a Huguenot, and joins his party of drinkers. I was with Steven as he was interested in the religious unrest in Paris enough to pay attention, but my interest lay with why the Doctor hadn't returned. This was a common feeling I got when listening to this story - Steven's search for the Doctor is the main plot, and that's the main point of interest for me. The fact that he's in the middle of a religious riot is just set dressing. I sound like I'm criticising it, but I'm really not; actually I'm praising it because Steven is the character viewers identify with in this story and his priorities are the same. The challenge for the writer is to get viewers to gradually care more about the people Steven meets, as he does, and make the tragedy of the massacre seem more real.

I did get somewhat confused trying to remember who was who going by the audio, and there did seem to be a lot of characters in this with different positions and agendas. Steven's involvement deepens when he recognises the Abbot of Amboise as the Doctor, and his new friends think he is working for him. Fans somewhat overrate Hartnell's performance as the Abbot - he hardly does anything, and his lines are minimal. He might lack the characteristic line fluffs but there aren't many to remember. I never considered the Doctor was impersonating anyone, because as someone in a position of authority an impostor would be recognised. However it gave Steven a chance to shine as he went from the friendly stranger to an enemy by just about everyone. It might be that Steven wants to believe the Doctor is the Abbot because it's the only clue he has to his whereabouts, and when he hears the Abbot is dead that desperation is heightened, even though by this point it's pretty clear that he's not the Doctor.

It's worth a mention the way the characters are written. I would never do so in any other story, but I was subconsciously subscribing to the notion that those of different religions were completely different types of people, like two cultures. I had to remind myself that politics and religion are separate - the characters here almost convince me that they're the same thing, they treat them as such and aren't challenged in that belief, especially the despicable Catholic leaders who treat the lives of the Huguenots as worthless. Steven is inexperienced and the Doctor isn't around to comment or deliver a few morals, so the story is almost allowed to play out as a proper historical drama.

The Doctor reappears in the fourth episode, and ushers Steven back to the TARDIS, despite Steven's knowledge that the Huguenots are being blamed for the murder of the Abbot and mob violence is inevitable. I'm not sure if I liked the Doctor's attitude as they returned to the TARDIS and left, showing almost as much disregard for people's lives as the culprits back in Paris. The Doctor gets a nice speech as he tries to explain why he can't rewrite history (not one line) and it's a good enough speech that he redeems himself from his seeming stubborn heartlessness. The best thing about this scene is that for once the show doesn't end as soon as the TARDIS leaves - the travellers are affected by the things they experience (who wouldn't be?), and Steven is the last companion one would expect to storm out of the TARDIS in disgust at the Doctor's actions.

And then it all goes to pot. Dodo Chaplet wanders into the TARDIS thinking it to be a real police box - so far, so good - but seeing the inside of the TARDIS doesn't faze her, and she asks where the phone is. Get ready for the Dodo era, folks, a lot worse is to come....

At least Steven returns just before the TARDIS dematerialises, ready for more adventures, even if it somewhat negates the sentiment of his last scene. There aren't many individual personality traits unique to Steven as a companion, but this story shows that with good writing and the ever reliable Peter Purves making the most of it, he can be as good as the best of them.

Horror quotient - The third story produced by John Wiles is yet another death-fest! Did that guy have a fetish or something? I think we've reached the point where stories are best watched individually rather than in sequence - certainly by the time we hit the Troughton era that will be true.
Comedy quotient - For the praise I give John Lucarotti, comedy never seems to be one of his priorities...
Drama quotient - ...but drama certainly is. The story is full of tension. Violence could erupt at any moment. Steven has made friends but they don't trust him and can (and do) turn against him. It's a drama-packed story that doesn't let up even after the TARDIS has landed at Wimbledon Common. It dissipates when Dodo appears though.

Arguably the most 'pure' of the pure historicals - the story tries some daring ideas, even for the genre: the Doctor going missing, the companion taking the lead, no female companion, extended scenes about medieval politics - and it's all the better for it. One of the best written stories ever.

10/10