Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Not exterminated
Thursday, August 10, 2006
Thursday, August 03, 2006
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Thursday, July 20, 2006
Thursday, July 13, 2006
'New Earth'
New Doctor Who Series 2
He’s back – and it’s about time. No, I mean it: I’m watching in New Zealand, which means the new series has arrived on screens here just as it finished in the UK – so it’s a whole year since I last saw brand new Doctor Who. Yes, I know there was ‘The Christmas Invasion’. No, I didn’t see it: being otherwise engaged on Christmas Day, coupled with the failure of our VCR to record, meant I missed out – and then I contrived to miss it again when it finally got shown here a week ago (only six and a half months late), so until now my entire experience of the Tenth Doctor has been confined to “Oouhhrr… new teeth. Odd,” and “Barcelona!”, at the end of ‘The Parting of the Ways’ twelve long months ago.
No longer, though; now, I’ve at last seen the Doctor’s latest incarnation in action – and he’s marvellous. David Tennant seems so natural in the role it’s hard to conceive I hadn’t seen him in it before, which I guess is a mixture of his performance, the subconscious knowledge that I was watching his second adventure not his first, and the fact that it’s already been a year since his debut onscreen, plus a couple of months before that since he was named as Christopher Eccleston’s successor – whose own tenure from announcement to regeneration lasted only a year and a half, making the Tenth already seem as much ‘The’ Doctor as the Ninth. Given the brevity of that stint, it’s also logical that Eccleston hadn’t established himself to the extent that a long-term fan, accustomed to these changes, would be disoriented initially in the way that one would have been after say Jon Pertwee or Tom Baker’s reigns, which were lengthy enough almost to erase memories of their predecessors.
All that being said, Tennant’s performance as a whole is spot on – wide-eyed, effervescent, vivacious – and he achieves the transition effortlessly. Unfortunately, some of the material he has to work with is less than brilliant, the character being suddenly shoehorned into periodic outbursts of extreme emotions that all seem forced. These certainly existed in the last series too, but never quite overstepped the boundaries; here, though, isn’t allowed to merely show anger or excitement, he must be Angry or Excited. It’s as if those worst moments from last time have been picked out as ideals rather than borderlines, and used as the basis for Emotional Scenes 101 wherein they are extrapolated and multiplied to unfortunate effect. It’s the Ninth Doctor’s “I am TALKING!” to the Nestene Consciousness in ‘Rose’ – abrupt, but not jarring, and Eccleston has the authority to carry it off – but squared and cubed to form the Tenth’s outbursts against the Rose-stealing Cassandra and the ethically dubious cat-people nurses, which come across more self-righteous than righteous anger. Thus too the ending, where in ‘The Doctor Dances’ we had the corny yet exuberant "Just this once, everybody lives!", here the Doctor drifts around 'doctoring' everyone in sight while radiating such happy-clappy peace and love vibes it would make a Hare Krishna sick. I hate to criticise this - he looks so radiant with joy it's like kicking a puppy in front of Francis of Assisi - but even for someone with as high a capacity for touchy-feely as myself this was too, well, wishy-washy. The trick with the disinfecting lifts was neat, but why di the laying-on of hands cause the myriad diseases to immediately evaporate? Why did the 'lab rat' humans, after a lifetime in cocoons, look (disfiguring pustules aside) so normal? Has Russell T. Davies never seen The Matrix? Okay, they shuffle around like zombies, but otherwise they seem remarkably human - which would stretch credibility if the story was set now, let alone five billion years in the future when 'normal' ought to be unrecognisable to start with. The plot likewise skips just as blithely over the conumdrum of how some are developing speech as do the nurses, whose characters are also underexplored - particularly the sympathetic companion to the Face of Boe, who threatens to be interesting before the second half ignores her. The Face of Boe himself also ends up with surprisingly little to do except allude to an ongoing story arc in a fairly unsubtle manner before vanishing, although this does allow the Doctor the line of the night: "That is enigmatic - that is, that is textbook enigmatic,"!
It's surprising to see Boe and his fellow 'The Emd of the World' alumnus Cassandra reappear; regrettably the Last Human's ability to psychically transfer herself into different bodies means Zoe Wanamaker's delightfully catty performance is reduced to a cameo, and Billie Piper spends most of the story not playing Rose as such - which isn't good when that character has been such an integral part of the new Who's success. On the other hand, she does a great job filtering Cassandra's vocal style and mannerisms through Rose's body, and I can't complain about said body being the focus of much of the transformation... It's a sexy, vampy, bitchy performance - or, I should say, "bit rich-y", as one amusing instance of dialogue cross-cutting would have it. To think, though - all those fans who got hot under the collar about their chaste hero's Eighth-incarnation snogs with Dr. Grace Holloway must be blowing gaskets now, what with the end of the last series (though the kiss with Rose did have a higher purpose) and the latest bout of interspecial tonsil hockey on display here. Anyway, all Cassandra's body-hopping is quite fun, giving Mr. Tennant a chance to camp it up outrageously when the Doctor briefly holds her consciousness, and when she effectively dies in her own arms it is almost affecting in an episode that in general just tries too hard.
I will applaud the producers for effort: the interior special effects are mostly very good, in common with the high standard of the last series. It seems silly to gripe when in this department it clearly blows classic Doctor Who out of any tyoe of water you care to mention, and maybe I'm spoiled by photorealistic movie CGI, but BBC budgets are evdently still a little stretched by exterior effects work - the city backdrop and buzzing aircars stuck out in a way that (to compare with the 'worst' from last time, as above) only Rose swinging from an airship above the Blitz did in the previous series. Still, they're not used to creating alien planets in new Who yet - maybe a good old-fashioned gravel pit is in oder? Mind you, landing on a world that is 'New Earth' is a bit of a cop-out there - although the Doctor's riff on Newnewnewnewnewnew New York" and him being the "New New Doctor" was utterly and infectiously (as it were) charming.
Lots of potential evident then as we get the second new series rolling, but an opening instalment a long way short of greatness - I'll be expecting much better from the episodes to come...!
6/10
He’s back – and it’s about time. No, I mean it: I’m watching in New Zealand, which means the new series has arrived on screens here just as it finished in the UK – so it’s a whole year since I last saw brand new Doctor Who. Yes, I know there was ‘The Christmas Invasion’. No, I didn’t see it: being otherwise engaged on Christmas Day, coupled with the failure of our VCR to record, meant I missed out – and then I contrived to miss it again when it finally got shown here a week ago (only six and a half months late), so until now my entire experience of the Tenth Doctor has been confined to “Oouhhrr… new teeth. Odd,” and “Barcelona!”, at the end of ‘The Parting of the Ways’ twelve long months ago.
No longer, though; now, I’ve at last seen the Doctor’s latest incarnation in action – and he’s marvellous. David Tennant seems so natural in the role it’s hard to conceive I hadn’t seen him in it before, which I guess is a mixture of his performance, the subconscious knowledge that I was watching his second adventure not his first, and the fact that it’s already been a year since his debut onscreen, plus a couple of months before that since he was named as Christopher Eccleston’s successor – whose own tenure from announcement to regeneration lasted only a year and a half, making the Tenth already seem as much ‘The’ Doctor as the Ninth. Given the brevity of that stint, it’s also logical that Eccleston hadn’t established himself to the extent that a long-term fan, accustomed to these changes, would be disoriented initially in the way that one would have been after say Jon Pertwee or Tom Baker’s reigns, which were lengthy enough almost to erase memories of their predecessors.
All that being said, Tennant’s performance as a whole is spot on – wide-eyed, effervescent, vivacious – and he achieves the transition effortlessly. Unfortunately, some of the material he has to work with is less than brilliant, the character being suddenly shoehorned into periodic outbursts of extreme emotions that all seem forced. These certainly existed in the last series too, but never quite overstepped the boundaries; here, though, isn’t allowed to merely show anger or excitement, he must be Angry or Excited. It’s as if those worst moments from last time have been picked out as ideals rather than borderlines, and used as the basis for Emotional Scenes 101 wherein they are extrapolated and multiplied to unfortunate effect. It’s the Ninth Doctor’s “I am TALKING!” to the Nestene Consciousness in ‘Rose’ – abrupt, but not jarring, and Eccleston has the authority to carry it off – but squared and cubed to form the Tenth’s outbursts against the Rose-stealing Cassandra and the ethically dubious cat-people nurses, which come across more self-righteous than righteous anger. Thus too the ending, where in ‘The Doctor Dances’ we had the corny yet exuberant "Just this once, everybody lives!", here the Doctor drifts around 'doctoring' everyone in sight while radiating such happy-clappy peace and love vibes it would make a Hare Krishna sick. I hate to criticise this - he looks so radiant with joy it's like kicking a puppy in front of Francis of Assisi - but even for someone with as high a capacity for touchy-feely as myself this was too, well, wishy-washy. The trick with the disinfecting lifts was neat, but why di the laying-on of hands cause the myriad diseases to immediately evaporate? Why did the 'lab rat' humans, after a lifetime in cocoons, look (disfiguring pustules aside) so normal? Has Russell T. Davies never seen The Matrix? Okay, they shuffle around like zombies, but otherwise they seem remarkably human - which would stretch credibility if the story was set now, let alone five billion years in the future when 'normal' ought to be unrecognisable to start with. The plot likewise skips just as blithely over the conumdrum of how some are developing speech as do the nurses, whose characters are also underexplored - particularly the sympathetic companion to the Face of Boe, who threatens to be interesting before the second half ignores her. The Face of Boe himself also ends up with surprisingly little to do except allude to an ongoing story arc in a fairly unsubtle manner before vanishing, although this does allow the Doctor the line of the night: "That is enigmatic - that is, that is textbook enigmatic,"!
It's surprising to see Boe and his fellow 'The Emd of the World' alumnus Cassandra reappear; regrettably the Last Human's ability to psychically transfer herself into different bodies means Zoe Wanamaker's delightfully catty performance is reduced to a cameo, and Billie Piper spends most of the story not playing Rose as such - which isn't good when that character has been such an integral part of the new Who's success. On the other hand, she does a great job filtering Cassandra's vocal style and mannerisms through Rose's body, and I can't complain about said body being the focus of much of the transformation... It's a sexy, vampy, bitchy performance - or, I should say, "bit rich-y", as one amusing instance of dialogue cross-cutting would have it. To think, though - all those fans who got hot under the collar about their chaste hero's Eighth-incarnation snogs with Dr. Grace Holloway must be blowing gaskets now, what with the end of the last series (though the kiss with Rose did have a higher purpose) and the latest bout of interspecial tonsil hockey on display here. Anyway, all Cassandra's body-hopping is quite fun, giving Mr. Tennant a chance to camp it up outrageously when the Doctor briefly holds her consciousness, and when she effectively dies in her own arms it is almost affecting in an episode that in general just tries too hard.
I will applaud the producers for effort: the interior special effects are mostly very good, in common with the high standard of the last series. It seems silly to gripe when in this department it clearly blows classic Doctor Who out of any tyoe of water you care to mention, and maybe I'm spoiled by photorealistic movie CGI, but BBC budgets are evdently still a little stretched by exterior effects work - the city backdrop and buzzing aircars stuck out in a way that (to compare with the 'worst' from last time, as above) only Rose swinging from an airship above the Blitz did in the previous series. Still, they're not used to creating alien planets in new Who yet - maybe a good old-fashioned gravel pit is in oder? Mind you, landing on a world that is 'New Earth' is a bit of a cop-out there - although the Doctor's riff on Newnewnewnewnewnew New York" and him being the "New New Doctor" was utterly and infectiously (as it were) charming.
Lots of potential evident then as we get the second new series rolling, but an opening instalment a long way short of greatness - I'll be expecting much better from the episodes to come...!
6/10
Friday, March 17, 2006
Still no updates sorry
Err, yes. Somehow haven't found time since move to New Zealand to add any updates, but sometime soon... sometime...
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
"So where's the rest gone?"
...I hear you cry! Yes, I know I haven't updated this recently - I found I was spending so much time writing about the stories I was cutting great chunks out of the available time I had to actually watch them in...! Figuring that it was silly to watch 100 minutes and then take another 20 or 25 (a whole extra episode's worth) to blog my review, I decided to let things slide here for a bit and concentrate on actually watching the episodes. More reviews will be coming soon, or as soon as I can find time to type them up around moving to New Zealand in sixteen days' time!!
By the way, I'm proud to report that I made it - my 'Survival' bid was a success, reaching that very story in the early hours of Christmas Eve following a heroic effort that involved watching everything from 'The Trial of a Time Lord' onwards in a single gargantuan session broken only by an inadvertent catnap on the sofa during 'The Curse of Fenric'. Finishing 'Survival' at 6:45am on December 24th, I promptly went on to watch the 8th Doctor movie before discovering that I couldn't find tapes or the DVDs of the new series anywhere; deciding that I'd completed my mission within the original spirit of the quest, I went home for Christmas and promptly missed 'The Christmas Invasion' while in London due to my family eating our festive dinner in the evening. Got back to parents' in south Wales after a few days in Norfolk to find that video had failed to record, so missed out again! Now back in Aber, have just started watching the 2005 series again (two episodes so far) courtesy of Tony's DVD and will watch the 10th Doctor's debut after this!
By the way, I'm proud to report that I made it - my 'Survival' bid was a success, reaching that very story in the early hours of Christmas Eve following a heroic effort that involved watching everything from 'The Trial of a Time Lord' onwards in a single gargantuan session broken only by an inadvertent catnap on the sofa during 'The Curse of Fenric'. Finishing 'Survival' at 6:45am on December 24th, I promptly went on to watch the 8th Doctor movie before discovering that I couldn't find tapes or the DVDs of the new series anywhere; deciding that I'd completed my mission within the original spirit of the quest, I went home for Christmas and promptly missed 'The Christmas Invasion' while in London due to my family eating our festive dinner in the evening. Got back to parents' in south Wales after a few days in Norfolk to find that video had failed to record, so missed out again! Now back in Aber, have just started watching the 2005 series again (two episodes so far) courtesy of Tony's DVD and will watch the 10th Doctor's debut after this!
Thursday, December 08, 2005
'Terror of the Zygons'
TERROR OF THE ZYGONS
4 episodes
Marvellous - a strong return to form after the disappointing end to the last series. Once the initial novelty of Tom Baker in a tam o'shanter has worn off, the atmosphere of the Scottish setting is maintained through some great scenery, interesting locals, neat touches (the stag's head bugging device is cool) and wonderful incidental music. Ian Marter shines in his last regular appearance as Harry, turning in a surprisingly intense performance as Sullivan's Zygon double, with the shot of him half-hidden in the barn, one eye staring menacingly up into the camera as he stalks Sarah being particularly memorable. Lis Sladen is as good as usual, showing again here how well she does 'frightened', and the character is as curious and resourceful as ever when exploring the Duke of Forgill's castle. John Woodnutt turns in an excellent triple performance as (briefly) the Duke, the Duke's impersonation by the Zygon Broton, and Broton in his true form. The latter seems to have put some thought into the idea of conquering the Earth, and remains unflappable even in the face of the Doctor's matchless jibe (brilliantly poking fun at the series' own limitations) "Isn't it a bit large for just about the six of you?" - surely one of Doctor Who's greatest ever lines... Even evoking momentary sympathy when he points out that his race can never go home, Broton's death seems almost tawdry as he is shot down by the Brigadier - who at long last has his wish fulfilled to meet an alien menace that isn't impervious to bullets! In UNIT's last proper appearance, Lethbridge-Stewart gets to reclaim a good deal of his old authority, and is as ever backed up capably by Benton; the latter's "Why are you whispering?" exchange with the Doctor after he rescues him and Sarah from the decompression chamber is lovely, as is the Doctor's inducement of a trance in his companion and himself to protect them from its effects.
The design wotk is excellent: the rubbery, suckered Zygon skin makes for great costumes, and their spaceship's correspondingly fleshy controls match up very effectively. The model work of it taking off and in flight is amongst the best I've witnessed to date in the series. Alas the infamous Skarasen lets the side down, being waaaay less than convincing - although the scene where it almost tramples the Doctor on the moor is surprisingly effective. I maintain that the crucial mistake the designers always make with creatures like that is that they make the eyes, though small on the model, too big relative to the scaled-up size of the beast - therefore you get a giant monster that instead of beady reptilian eyes has large and hence cute ones - it's like a huge scaly cyborg puppy, which naturally isn't all that nasty looking! Fortunately the Skarasen's shortcomings were evidently clear to the director, who wisely kept it off camera as much as possible although he was unable to do much about the laughable shot of it rising from the Thames to terrorise London. Fortunately too the best Who is almost benefited by such cheesily bad effects, and the fact the largely blameless beastie is allowed to return happily to Loch Ness at the end is really rather nice of the Doctor and the writers!
8/10
Episodes watched: 297
Episodes still to watch: 425
4 episodes
Marvellous - a strong return to form after the disappointing end to the last series. Once the initial novelty of Tom Baker in a tam o'shanter has worn off, the atmosphere of the Scottish setting is maintained through some great scenery, interesting locals, neat touches (the stag's head bugging device is cool) and wonderful incidental music. Ian Marter shines in his last regular appearance as Harry, turning in a surprisingly intense performance as Sullivan's Zygon double, with the shot of him half-hidden in the barn, one eye staring menacingly up into the camera as he stalks Sarah being particularly memorable. Lis Sladen is as good as usual, showing again here how well she does 'frightened', and the character is as curious and resourceful as ever when exploring the Duke of Forgill's castle. John Woodnutt turns in an excellent triple performance as (briefly) the Duke, the Duke's impersonation by the Zygon Broton, and Broton in his true form. The latter seems to have put some thought into the idea of conquering the Earth, and remains unflappable even in the face of the Doctor's matchless jibe (brilliantly poking fun at the series' own limitations) "Isn't it a bit large for just about the six of you?" - surely one of Doctor Who's greatest ever lines... Even evoking momentary sympathy when he points out that his race can never go home, Broton's death seems almost tawdry as he is shot down by the Brigadier - who at long last has his wish fulfilled to meet an alien menace that isn't impervious to bullets! In UNIT's last proper appearance, Lethbridge-Stewart gets to reclaim a good deal of his old authority, and is as ever backed up capably by Benton; the latter's "Why are you whispering?" exchange with the Doctor after he rescues him and Sarah from the decompression chamber is lovely, as is the Doctor's inducement of a trance in his companion and himself to protect them from its effects.
The design wotk is excellent: the rubbery, suckered Zygon skin makes for great costumes, and their spaceship's correspondingly fleshy controls match up very effectively. The model work of it taking off and in flight is amongst the best I've witnessed to date in the series. Alas the infamous Skarasen lets the side down, being waaaay less than convincing - although the scene where it almost tramples the Doctor on the moor is surprisingly effective. I maintain that the crucial mistake the designers always make with creatures like that is that they make the eyes, though small on the model, too big relative to the scaled-up size of the beast - therefore you get a giant monster that instead of beady reptilian eyes has large and hence cute ones - it's like a huge scaly cyborg puppy, which naturally isn't all that nasty looking! Fortunately the Skarasen's shortcomings were evidently clear to the director, who wisely kept it off camera as much as possible although he was unable to do much about the laughable shot of it rising from the Thames to terrorise London. Fortunately too the best Who is almost benefited by such cheesily bad effects, and the fact the largely blameless beastie is allowed to return happily to Loch Ness at the end is really rather nice of the Doctor and the writers!
8/10
Episodes watched: 297
Episodes still to watch: 425
Friday, October 21, 2005
'Revenge of the Cybermen'
REVENGE OF THE CYBERMEN
4 episodes
Oh dear. After the grandeur of the last adventure, this one brings us back down to Earth with a squelchy bump. Not literally to Earth, mind you - in a neat cost-saving scheme, we see 'The Ark In Space''s marvellous sets reused as the Nerva Beacon, the same (in story) place at a different stage of its history. The crew include Ronald Leigh-Hunt's Commander Stevenson, who comes across rather similar to his Radnor in 'The Seeds of Death' - which, I discovered today in the midst of watching 'Revenge of the Cybermen', I watched just twelve days after the actor's death at the age of 88 - and William Marlowe's likeable Lester; the latter's interesting fact is that he previously appeared as Mailer with the Master in 'The Mind of Evil' and subsequently married Roger Delgado's widow Kismet, who herself provided spider voices in 'Planet of the Spiders'. They also have in their midst a traitor in the form of Jeremy Wilkin's Kellmann, who thanks to the title's massive giveaway is to no-one's surprise revealed to be working for the Doctor's old enemies the Cybermen. It's a little more surprising when later on he's revealed to be a triple-agent working for the inhabitants of the nearby tiny world of Voga, but this is cancelled out by it being correspondingly harder to care by that stage. The Cybermen are coming to destroy Voga, the 'Planet of Gold', as (despite this never having been hinted at before) the metal is their one weakness and the planet is hence a rather large thorn in their collective side. The Vogans are unfortunately such a dull bunch it is hard to care whether they live or die despite the above-average quality of the actors playing the principals. The most arresting feature of their decor is the prominent Celtic-knot-esque design of the circular logo that appears everywhere on Voga, but which is (later) famously known throughout the Whoniverse as the Seal of Rassilon, father figure of the Time Lords - more fun can be had speculating exactly how the Vogans come to be using said design as well as the Gallifreyans (not to mention wondering at which point they'll demolish Earth to make way for a hyperspace bypass) than actually watching this story, truth be told...
The singular achievement of the race, who are confined below the surface on a world that seems to be no more than a large comet, is to apparently maintain air and gravity despite the odds astronomical physics would suggest against such circumstances being likely. Ah well, they're still better than the Cybermen, who are uncharacteristically emotional, use Cybermats that need to be hugged to the neck to attack effectively and have as their leader a posing fool who struts across the room with hands on hips in the heat of debate with the Doctor at one point... and, amusingly, whose 'earmuffs' and 'handle' headpiece are distinctively black rather than silver, which has the unfortunate effect of making him look like the Cyber poster boy for Grecian 2000. Actually, scratch that - despite Voga being so ridden with gold they make jewellery, home furnishings and decorations, and even guns out of it, the Cybermen nevertheless launch an attack on the planet (evocatively filmed in Wookey Hole caves, where I had the willies scared out of me on a school outing aged ten) and effortlessly mow down the Vogan soldiers - evidently the formidable natural defences against the Cybermen availed to them have dulled the Vogans' wits to the extent that they didn't think to make their actual bullets out of gold too; a minor but strategically ill-advised oversight... Still, they've got a big rocket to launch in defence - which, comically, is stunt-doubled by a Saturn V in NASA stock footage... Meanwhile, there is a plan to crash the whole beacon into Voga, with a rolling drum of landscape brilliantly standing in for the surface terrain whizzing by the windows.
Feel I can't leave this review without touching on The Discontinuity Guide's expose of a sizeable plot hole - after Sarah is infected by a Cybermat, the Doctor transmats her to expel the toxin from her system as it 'can only transport human tissue' - which leads to the interesting quibble of why it doesn't leave people as naked as the day they were born and totally mangle a travelling Cyberman. Well, sort of interesting. Ah, sod it, I've had enough - I'm outta here.
5/10
Episodes watched: 293
Episodes still to watch: 429
4 episodes
Oh dear. After the grandeur of the last adventure, this one brings us back down to Earth with a squelchy bump. Not literally to Earth, mind you - in a neat cost-saving scheme, we see 'The Ark In Space''s marvellous sets reused as the Nerva Beacon, the same (in story) place at a different stage of its history. The crew include Ronald Leigh-Hunt's Commander Stevenson, who comes across rather similar to his Radnor in 'The Seeds of Death' - which, I discovered today in the midst of watching 'Revenge of the Cybermen', I watched just twelve days after the actor's death at the age of 88 - and William Marlowe's likeable Lester; the latter's interesting fact is that he previously appeared as Mailer with the Master in 'The Mind of Evil' and subsequently married Roger Delgado's widow Kismet, who herself provided spider voices in 'Planet of the Spiders'. They also have in their midst a traitor in the form of Jeremy Wilkin's Kellmann, who thanks to the title's massive giveaway is to no-one's surprise revealed to be working for the Doctor's old enemies the Cybermen. It's a little more surprising when later on he's revealed to be a triple-agent working for the inhabitants of the nearby tiny world of Voga, but this is cancelled out by it being correspondingly harder to care by that stage. The Cybermen are coming to destroy Voga, the 'Planet of Gold', as (despite this never having been hinted at before) the metal is their one weakness and the planet is hence a rather large thorn in their collective side. The Vogans are unfortunately such a dull bunch it is hard to care whether they live or die despite the above-average quality of the actors playing the principals. The most arresting feature of their decor is the prominent Celtic-knot-esque design of the circular logo that appears everywhere on Voga, but which is (later) famously known throughout the Whoniverse as the Seal of Rassilon, father figure of the Time Lords - more fun can be had speculating exactly how the Vogans come to be using said design as well as the Gallifreyans (not to mention wondering at which point they'll demolish Earth to make way for a hyperspace bypass) than actually watching this story, truth be told...
The singular achievement of the race, who are confined below the surface on a world that seems to be no more than a large comet, is to apparently maintain air and gravity despite the odds astronomical physics would suggest against such circumstances being likely. Ah well, they're still better than the Cybermen, who are uncharacteristically emotional, use Cybermats that need to be hugged to the neck to attack effectively and have as their leader a posing fool who struts across the room with hands on hips in the heat of debate with the Doctor at one point... and, amusingly, whose 'earmuffs' and 'handle' headpiece are distinctively black rather than silver, which has the unfortunate effect of making him look like the Cyber poster boy for Grecian 2000. Actually, scratch that - despite Voga being so ridden with gold they make jewellery, home furnishings and decorations, and even guns out of it, the Cybermen nevertheless launch an attack on the planet (evocatively filmed in Wookey Hole caves, where I had the willies scared out of me on a school outing aged ten) and effortlessly mow down the Vogan soldiers - evidently the formidable natural defences against the Cybermen availed to them have dulled the Vogans' wits to the extent that they didn't think to make their actual bullets out of gold too; a minor but strategically ill-advised oversight... Still, they've got a big rocket to launch in defence - which, comically, is stunt-doubled by a Saturn V in NASA stock footage... Meanwhile, there is a plan to crash the whole beacon into Voga, with a rolling drum of landscape brilliantly standing in for the surface terrain whizzing by the windows.
Feel I can't leave this review without touching on The Discontinuity Guide's expose of a sizeable plot hole - after Sarah is infected by a Cybermat, the Doctor transmats her to expel the toxin from her system as it 'can only transport human tissue' - which leads to the interesting quibble of why it doesn't leave people as naked as the day they were born and totally mangle a travelling Cyberman. Well, sort of interesting. Ah, sod it, I've had enough - I'm outta here.
5/10
Episodes watched: 293
Episodes still to watch: 429
Thursday, October 20, 2005
'Genesis of the Daleks'
GENESIS OF THE DALEKS
6 episodes
So here we have it - one of the towering high-water-marks in Doctor Who history, and to be truthful something of a bittersweet moment for me. Having worked my way in order from the beginning to the middle of the programme's epic run, uncovering many hidden gems along the way, this is the very last of the acknowledged top-tier true 'greats' of Who that I've never ever seen: I've already watched 'Pyramids of Mars', 'The Talons of Weng-Chiang', 'City of Death' and 'The Caves of Androzani' in years past, which are probably the only serials of comparable standing that come chronologically after this, so after today there are no more treasures of such magnitude to be unearthed.
I'm glad to say that 'Genesis of the Daleks' is every bit a good as they say it is. A startling reimagining of the monsters' making, their real-life creator Terry Nation drags his most famous spawn out of the rut that they and he had got into in their last few stories in the grandest of style. From the shockingly powerful opening shots of Thal soldiers being mowed down in slow-motion, this is Doctor Who at its bleakest and grimmest. The nightmare that the Doctor and friends walk into on Skaro is epitomised by the Nazi-like figures of Nyder and his Kaled troops (even the relatively appealing General Ravon is played by future ''Allo 'Allo' Lieutenant Gruber Guy Siner), while even the Thals, previously seen as friendly and pacifistic, enter into the horrors of war with gusto. Peter Miles' Nyder is excellent - as fanatical and ruthless as his superior, he is the public face of the growing atrocity that is his master's work, and his duplicitous efforts to root out opposition amongst the Kaleds are particularly nasty. The Kaleds in general aren't too nice either, with their ethnic cleansing policy that sees the scarred and malformed Mutos banished into the wildnerness of no-man's-land.
And then there's Davros. Ruthless, malevolent, mad and utterly evil, Davros is perhaps THE iconic villain of the Who canon. He looks fantastically twisted and deformed, with blind eyes superceded by the electronic third one in the middle of his forehead, a single withered arm, and trapped in his wheelchair whose design echoes his later creations. Michael Wisher's performance is nothing short of superb; considering the limitations imposed by mask, wheelchair and the character's infirmity, he does an excpetional job with little more than his voice alone, and when that voice has in previous stories been used for the Daleks themselves it makes sense that it is chilling, bitter and powerful, without ever slipping into caricature. Davros comes across in this story as someone almost on the far side of madness, who cannot be reasoned with by the Doctor in a way that even the Master, say, could be - this is vividly portrayed in the fantastic scene where the Doctor compares the Daleks to releasing a virus that would wipe out all life in the cosmos, and instead of realising his wrong Davros contemplates this idea and decides that he would indeed do that for the ultimate power it would grant him, his feeble fingers clutching and smashing an imaginary phial of the plague. It is an electifying moment.
The actual Daleks arrive late in the day - naturally, since this is the tale of their creation and what led to it - but new, sleek and gleaming, they are very effective when they do. Exterminating the Thals and Kaleds with equal disdain on their creator's insane orders, it is only when they wipe out Davros' remaining loyal henchmen, even Nyder, that he realises the magnitude of his achievement and folly - he has made them to accept the survival of no other race, and so in the end they even turn mercilessly on him.
It's not perfect, of course - there is a notorious diversion involving giant mutant (and unconvincing) clams attempting to snack on Harry that is pretty needless in its entirety, Sarah's cliffhanger fall from a rocket gantry is awesome until its cheap cop-out resolution, and both of the two warring factions seem to pop in and out of the other's citadels with alarming ease considering they've been waging a war of attrition and espionage for a thousand years, apparently practically on each other's doorsteps. Still, these small quibbles are trifling when laid against the general excellence on display, and perhaps the most iconic scene in Who history - the Doctor's legendary "have I the right?" quandary over whether he can justifiably destroy the Dalek race at the moment of their birth, sparing millions from suffering but unwilling to prevent the positive side-effects that would occur along the way and unwilling to commit genocide. Whatever the arguments for and against, this is Doctor Who at its best.
And, as I say, the last that I will have the priviledge of experiencing as a myth turning into actuality before my eyes. Forty-two years after the programme began, twenty-plus years of having it as part of my consciousness, sixteen years after it was taken off the air, eight years since I became a born-again Whovian, started to hear about these great adventures of the past and began to watch them with a novice's enthusiasm, and fifty days and two hundred and eighty-nine episodes into this quest, the last of the giants has fallen. There are no more of the truly exalted, fabled stories that I have yet to witness, no more epochal achievements of writing, directing and acting that have yet to lay bare their riches in front of me - none that still survive, anyway. It is a great day, but a sad day. On I go...
9.5/10
Episodes watched: 289
Episodes still to watch: 433
Four complete stories in one day - a new record, if not actually the most episodes watched!
6 episodes
So here we have it - one of the towering high-water-marks in Doctor Who history, and to be truthful something of a bittersweet moment for me. Having worked my way in order from the beginning to the middle of the programme's epic run, uncovering many hidden gems along the way, this is the very last of the acknowledged top-tier true 'greats' of Who that I've never ever seen: I've already watched 'Pyramids of Mars', 'The Talons of Weng-Chiang', 'City of Death' and 'The Caves of Androzani' in years past, which are probably the only serials of comparable standing that come chronologically after this, so after today there are no more treasures of such magnitude to be unearthed.
I'm glad to say that 'Genesis of the Daleks' is every bit a good as they say it is. A startling reimagining of the monsters' making, their real-life creator Terry Nation drags his most famous spawn out of the rut that they and he had got into in their last few stories in the grandest of style. From the shockingly powerful opening shots of Thal soldiers being mowed down in slow-motion, this is Doctor Who at its bleakest and grimmest. The nightmare that the Doctor and friends walk into on Skaro is epitomised by the Nazi-like figures of Nyder and his Kaled troops (even the relatively appealing General Ravon is played by future ''Allo 'Allo' Lieutenant Gruber Guy Siner), while even the Thals, previously seen as friendly and pacifistic, enter into the horrors of war with gusto. Peter Miles' Nyder is excellent - as fanatical and ruthless as his superior, he is the public face of the growing atrocity that is his master's work, and his duplicitous efforts to root out opposition amongst the Kaleds are particularly nasty. The Kaleds in general aren't too nice either, with their ethnic cleansing policy that sees the scarred and malformed Mutos banished into the wildnerness of no-man's-land.
And then there's Davros. Ruthless, malevolent, mad and utterly evil, Davros is perhaps THE iconic villain of the Who canon. He looks fantastically twisted and deformed, with blind eyes superceded by the electronic third one in the middle of his forehead, a single withered arm, and trapped in his wheelchair whose design echoes his later creations. Michael Wisher's performance is nothing short of superb; considering the limitations imposed by mask, wheelchair and the character's infirmity, he does an excpetional job with little more than his voice alone, and when that voice has in previous stories been used for the Daleks themselves it makes sense that it is chilling, bitter and powerful, without ever slipping into caricature. Davros comes across in this story as someone almost on the far side of madness, who cannot be reasoned with by the Doctor in a way that even the Master, say, could be - this is vividly portrayed in the fantastic scene where the Doctor compares the Daleks to releasing a virus that would wipe out all life in the cosmos, and instead of realising his wrong Davros contemplates this idea and decides that he would indeed do that for the ultimate power it would grant him, his feeble fingers clutching and smashing an imaginary phial of the plague. It is an electifying moment.
The actual Daleks arrive late in the day - naturally, since this is the tale of their creation and what led to it - but new, sleek and gleaming, they are very effective when they do. Exterminating the Thals and Kaleds with equal disdain on their creator's insane orders, it is only when they wipe out Davros' remaining loyal henchmen, even Nyder, that he realises the magnitude of his achievement and folly - he has made them to accept the survival of no other race, and so in the end they even turn mercilessly on him.
It's not perfect, of course - there is a notorious diversion involving giant mutant (and unconvincing) clams attempting to snack on Harry that is pretty needless in its entirety, Sarah's cliffhanger fall from a rocket gantry is awesome until its cheap cop-out resolution, and both of the two warring factions seem to pop in and out of the other's citadels with alarming ease considering they've been waging a war of attrition and espionage for a thousand years, apparently practically on each other's doorsteps. Still, these small quibbles are trifling when laid against the general excellence on display, and perhaps the most iconic scene in Who history - the Doctor's legendary "have I the right?" quandary over whether he can justifiably destroy the Dalek race at the moment of their birth, sparing millions from suffering but unwilling to prevent the positive side-effects that would occur along the way and unwilling to commit genocide. Whatever the arguments for and against, this is Doctor Who at its best.
And, as I say, the last that I will have the priviledge of experiencing as a myth turning into actuality before my eyes. Forty-two years after the programme began, twenty-plus years of having it as part of my consciousness, sixteen years after it was taken off the air, eight years since I became a born-again Whovian, started to hear about these great adventures of the past and began to watch them with a novice's enthusiasm, and fifty days and two hundred and eighty-nine episodes into this quest, the last of the giants has fallen. There are no more of the truly exalted, fabled stories that I have yet to witness, no more epochal achievements of writing, directing and acting that have yet to lay bare their riches in front of me - none that still survive, anyway. It is a great day, but a sad day. On I go...
9.5/10
Episodes watched: 289
Episodes still to watch: 433
Four complete stories in one day - a new record, if not actually the most episodes watched!
'The Sontaran Experiment'
THE SONTARAN EXPERIMENT
2 episodes
A real oddity, this - the first two-parter for many years (and last for many more), 'The Sontaran Experiment' is so lean and efficient it in some ways makes a mockery of the adventures that take two, three or more times as long to get their story told. Shot, uniquely, entirely on location in Dartmoor using outside-broadcast videotape, the serial's look bridges the divide between traditional studio video and location film footage; the locations are excellently used and terrifically atmospheric. In a sense, this sequence of stories is a nod to the programme's early years, presented as a linked chain of adventures that follow on directly one from another, and it is a nice throwback to find that the end of 'The Ark In Space' segues straight into this new story. The group of human settlers look convincingly ragged and hunted, with Glyn Jones' (writer some years earlier of 'The Space Museum', peculiarly enough) South African accent lending a nice multi-national touch. The patrolling robot even looks properly threatening, and the loathesome Sontaran Styre makes for a great baddie... shame the title so gives the game away, much to the writers' understandable displeasure. It's another nice touch that Sarah mistakes him for Linx, the Sontaran of 'The Time Warrior', and Kevin Lindsay indeed makes a welcome return inside the costume - although the two are not in fact identical like she says they are. Styre's horrible experiments are some of the nastiest things yet seen (or referred to) in Doctor Who, and his equally nasty comeuppance is greatly satisfying! It's a pity the Sontarans don't return to the programme after this, I have to say, as I'm rather fond of the potato-headed brutes actually...!
A swift but highly enjoyable diversion, then - but in context of this season, it's an appetiser for the huge main course to follow...
7.5/10
Episodes watched: 283
Episodes still to watch: 439
2 episodes
A real oddity, this - the first two-parter for many years (and last for many more), 'The Sontaran Experiment' is so lean and efficient it in some ways makes a mockery of the adventures that take two, three or more times as long to get their story told. Shot, uniquely, entirely on location in Dartmoor using outside-broadcast videotape, the serial's look bridges the divide between traditional studio video and location film footage; the locations are excellently used and terrifically atmospheric. In a sense, this sequence of stories is a nod to the programme's early years, presented as a linked chain of adventures that follow on directly one from another, and it is a nice throwback to find that the end of 'The Ark In Space' segues straight into this new story. The group of human settlers look convincingly ragged and hunted, with Glyn Jones' (writer some years earlier of 'The Space Museum', peculiarly enough) South African accent lending a nice multi-national touch. The patrolling robot even looks properly threatening, and the loathesome Sontaran Styre makes for a great baddie... shame the title so gives the game away, much to the writers' understandable displeasure. It's another nice touch that Sarah mistakes him for Linx, the Sontaran of 'The Time Warrior', and Kevin Lindsay indeed makes a welcome return inside the costume - although the two are not in fact identical like she says they are. Styre's horrible experiments are some of the nastiest things yet seen (or referred to) in Doctor Who, and his equally nasty comeuppance is greatly satisfying! It's a pity the Sontarans don't return to the programme after this, I have to say, as I'm rather fond of the potato-headed brutes actually...!
A swift but highly enjoyable diversion, then - but in context of this season, it's an appetiser for the huge main course to follow...
7.5/10
Episodes watched: 283
Episodes still to watch: 439
'The Ark In Space'
THE ARK IN SPACE
4 episodes
Wow. I'd forgotten this was so good - a claustrophobic exercise in body horror that succeeds on every level. That we find ourselves aboard a space station in the far future immediately distances this new era from the largely Earth-bound previous one, and the opening episode is spectacular in a very understated way: featuring no-one bar the regulars for the first time since 'Inside the Spaceship' eleven years earlier, it brilliantly establishes the setting, where a hive-like space station carries the hibernating survivors of humanity in an eerily clinical, silent solitude. The rapport between the Doctor and Harry is great, and Lis Sladen shows how well she plays fear when her character nearly gets suffocated. The contemporary viewing public must have realised something was up, as well - the second episode subsequently pulled in the highest viewing figures the series had ever recorded, its 13.6 million finally topping the mark set almost exactly a decade earlier by part 1 of (of all things) 'The Web Planet'... Once the other characters start to wake up things get moving nicely, and are an interestingly mixed bunch - the cool, calm Vira manages to thaw slightly by the end, the doomed Noah transforms compellingly into a green mutant alien creature, Rogin is engaging and makes a poignantly cheerful sacrifice at the end to save the Doctor and his compatriots, while the Wirrn make for impressive and threatening monsters. The sets are tremendous, cold, clean and evocative of the damaged future world they represent, and the modelwork is decent - although not as good as the replacement CGI shots of the station that are viewable on the DVD and which I checked out afterwards! The plot spools out very nicely through the four episodes; again in contrast to the end of the Pertwee era, this is a fine example of how a bloated six-parter with not enough to say is trounced by a sharp four-parter where the action needs to come thicker and faster. Tom Baker's Doctor is excellent; you'd swear he'd been in the role for years so easily does he acclimatise, effortlessly combining the best of his predecessors (wise, playful, action-man) into a unique new package. Roll on the next story...
9/10
Episodes watched: 281
Episodes still to watch: 441
4 episodes
Wow. I'd forgotten this was so good - a claustrophobic exercise in body horror that succeeds on every level. That we find ourselves aboard a space station in the far future immediately distances this new era from the largely Earth-bound previous one, and the opening episode is spectacular in a very understated way: featuring no-one bar the regulars for the first time since 'Inside the Spaceship' eleven years earlier, it brilliantly establishes the setting, where a hive-like space station carries the hibernating survivors of humanity in an eerily clinical, silent solitude. The rapport between the Doctor and Harry is great, and Lis Sladen shows how well she plays fear when her character nearly gets suffocated. The contemporary viewing public must have realised something was up, as well - the second episode subsequently pulled in the highest viewing figures the series had ever recorded, its 13.6 million finally topping the mark set almost exactly a decade earlier by part 1 of (of all things) 'The Web Planet'... Once the other characters start to wake up things get moving nicely, and are an interestingly mixed bunch - the cool, calm Vira manages to thaw slightly by the end, the doomed Noah transforms compellingly into a green mutant alien creature, Rogin is engaging and makes a poignantly cheerful sacrifice at the end to save the Doctor and his compatriots, while the Wirrn make for impressive and threatening monsters. The sets are tremendous, cold, clean and evocative of the damaged future world they represent, and the modelwork is decent - although not as good as the replacement CGI shots of the station that are viewable on the DVD and which I checked out afterwards! The plot spools out very nicely through the four episodes; again in contrast to the end of the Pertwee era, this is a fine example of how a bloated six-parter with not enough to say is trounced by a sharp four-parter where the action needs to come thicker and faster. Tom Baker's Doctor is excellent; you'd swear he'd been in the role for years so easily does he acclimatise, effortlessly combining the best of his predecessors (wise, playful, action-man) into a unique new package. Roll on the next story...
9/10
Episodes watched: 281
Episodes still to watch: 441
'Robot'
ROBOT
4 episodes
Well, here we are. The era of the most popular and longest-reigning Doctor of them all is upon us, with seven years' worth of Tom Baker's Fourth Doctor stretching out ahead of me - fortunately full of a great number of the programme's finest moments, by all accounts!
This first adventure for the new incarnation gets the Baker years underway with what is essentially a throwback to his predecessor's style of story. Having got the regeneration (the first onscreen since 1966) out of the way, we are treated to an extremely idiosyncratic new Doctor - dressing up in an assortment of bizarre costumes before settling on the familiar scarf, hat'n'coat ensemble, spouting random gibberish, and performing a hilarious skipping routine with Harry Sullivan that was possibly the funniest thing I've seen in the series yet. That around him things are much as usual - Sarah, the bemused Brigadier, Benton, the contemporary (well, you never could be quite sure with UNIT stories...) setting - serves to nicely highlight the difference in the new incarnation's character, and Tom Baker makes for an immediately engaging presence. Storywise, this is fairly standard fare, but full marks for the costumiers at least for lifting the titular giant robot above what could have been a shocking piece of design into something quite special; yes, it looks like a kid's cartoon of a robot, but it does look like a robot and not a man in a suit, which is definitely worthy of praise. Michael Kilgarrif's performance lends real pathos to the creature, as it veers between the destructive impulses it is being given and something like genuine compassion for Sarah - it's also a timely promotion of the actor back to his 'Tomb of the Cybermen' status after being reduced to Second Ogron in 'Frontier In Space'... The supporting cast are a mixed bag, with Patricia Maynard's appropriately icy Miss Winters (nice use of neo-Nazi imagery, too...) totally outshining her nothing deputy Jellicoe, while Edward Burnham's Professor Kettlewell is such an archetypal mad professor it's bonkers - while he's very good, the character is shoehorned into an abrupt 'heel turn' where he suddenly becomes one of the bad guys almost needlessly and not entirely convincingly.
Talking of not entirely convincing - I can't not mention the silly CSO finale, where it's decided the big robot isn't threatening enough so they make him grow to King Kong proportions via some rather poor CSO work, at which point he was never going to avoid picking up a screaming Sarah like a doll in his hand... that's actually like a doll too, not just a size contrast unfortunately. Nice use of the model tank in the foreground to semi-disguise the differential there, though. And, of course, this story is notable for introducing us to Dr. Harry Sullivan, UNIT medic who slips into shot as if he's been unobtrusively wandering in the background for years and unexpectedly (in context) ends up as a new travelling companion for the Doctor and Sarah. Looking ahead, I realise now that I've clearly seen some of Harry's stories before, yet until Locus reminded me of him a week or two back I'd totally forgotten his existence and was convinced there were no male companions save Adric after Jamie. Whoops... Whereas '70s Doctor Who almost exclusively had a single female companion for the Doctor at any given time, we get a different dynamic for a while here, and it's a refreshing change - Sullivan makes for a likeable Ian Chesterton-style figure, whose presence manages to shake up the established TARDIS crew pattern, which isn't a bad thing, and Ian Marter (already a veteran of 'Carnival of Monsters' is excellent in the role.
Not a great story, but then it doesn't try too hard to be one and thus succeeds quite well on its own merits; plus. at four episodes it doesn't outstay its welcome and all in all fares rather bettet than the last couple of serials... I look forward to seeing where things go next...
7/10
Episodes watched: 277
Episodes still to watch: 445
4 episodes
Well, here we are. The era of the most popular and longest-reigning Doctor of them all is upon us, with seven years' worth of Tom Baker's Fourth Doctor stretching out ahead of me - fortunately full of a great number of the programme's finest moments, by all accounts!
This first adventure for the new incarnation gets the Baker years underway with what is essentially a throwback to his predecessor's style of story. Having got the regeneration (the first onscreen since 1966) out of the way, we are treated to an extremely idiosyncratic new Doctor - dressing up in an assortment of bizarre costumes before settling on the familiar scarf, hat'n'coat ensemble, spouting random gibberish, and performing a hilarious skipping routine with Harry Sullivan that was possibly the funniest thing I've seen in the series yet. That around him things are much as usual - Sarah, the bemused Brigadier, Benton, the contemporary (well, you never could be quite sure with UNIT stories...) setting - serves to nicely highlight the difference in the new incarnation's character, and Tom Baker makes for an immediately engaging presence. Storywise, this is fairly standard fare, but full marks for the costumiers at least for lifting the titular giant robot above what could have been a shocking piece of design into something quite special; yes, it looks like a kid's cartoon of a robot, but it does look like a robot and not a man in a suit, which is definitely worthy of praise. Michael Kilgarrif's performance lends real pathos to the creature, as it veers between the destructive impulses it is being given and something like genuine compassion for Sarah - it's also a timely promotion of the actor back to his 'Tomb of the Cybermen' status after being reduced to Second Ogron in 'Frontier In Space'... The supporting cast are a mixed bag, with Patricia Maynard's appropriately icy Miss Winters (nice use of neo-Nazi imagery, too...) totally outshining her nothing deputy Jellicoe, while Edward Burnham's Professor Kettlewell is such an archetypal mad professor it's bonkers - while he's very good, the character is shoehorned into an abrupt 'heel turn' where he suddenly becomes one of the bad guys almost needlessly and not entirely convincingly.
Talking of not entirely convincing - I can't not mention the silly CSO finale, where it's decided the big robot isn't threatening enough so they make him grow to King Kong proportions via some rather poor CSO work, at which point he was never going to avoid picking up a screaming Sarah like a doll in his hand... that's actually like a doll too, not just a size contrast unfortunately. Nice use of the model tank in the foreground to semi-disguise the differential there, though. And, of course, this story is notable for introducing us to Dr. Harry Sullivan, UNIT medic who slips into shot as if he's been unobtrusively wandering in the background for years and unexpectedly (in context) ends up as a new travelling companion for the Doctor and Sarah. Looking ahead, I realise now that I've clearly seen some of Harry's stories before, yet until Locus reminded me of him a week or two back I'd totally forgotten his existence and was convinced there were no male companions save Adric after Jamie. Whoops... Whereas '70s Doctor Who almost exclusively had a single female companion for the Doctor at any given time, we get a different dynamic for a while here, and it's a refreshing change - Sullivan makes for a likeable Ian Chesterton-style figure, whose presence manages to shake up the established TARDIS crew pattern, which isn't a bad thing, and Ian Marter (already a veteran of 'Carnival of Monsters' is excellent in the role.
Not a great story, but then it doesn't try too hard to be one and thus succeeds quite well on its own merits; plus. at four episodes it doesn't outstay its welcome and all in all fares rather bettet than the last couple of serials... I look forward to seeing where things go next...
7/10
Episodes watched: 277
Episodes still to watch: 445
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
'Planet of the Spiders'
PLANET OF THE SPIDERS
6 episodes
Oh crikey... what a way to go. The Third Doctor's last story is as tedious as the previous adventure, with six more episodes of padding and largely dull action. Yes, the spiders look good, but they are also more interesting than most of the human characters, which is not so good. There is an pointless chase of epic proportions in episode 2, to allow Jon Pertwee to indulge his passion for vehicular antics one last time, where the Doctor goes all James Bond and pursues the spider-possessed Lupton in the 'Whomobile', a gyrocopter and a hovercraft, the sheer effort of which is more than slightly undermined by the villain teleporting to safety seemingly on a whim. We get the belated swansong of Mike Yates, returning after his ignominious departure in 'Invasion of the Dinosaurs', but unless I dropped off and missed something he appears to have vanished two-thirds of the way in with a complete absence of fanfare. Admittedly I was very tired, but the last four episodes followed a pattern broadly incorporating twenty minutes' viewing followed by half an hour's inadvertant snoozing, an attempt at rewinding to the last thing I remembered only to doze off again for a moment and accidentally go back forty-five minutes, watching some more as I didn't recognise it, then hitting another familiar patch and realising I'd obviously missed some earlier without even noticing, and finally fast-forwarding to my actual drop-off point and attempting to watch another episode or so - the whole blurring together in a horrifying CSO-clogged switchback ride that seemed never-ending on at least two occasions. On the plus side, there is a nice update on the progress of Jo and Cliff's Amazon adventure when the blue crystal arrives back at UNIT HQ at the beginning of the story, so setting up the Doctor's fateful return to Metebelis 3. Good use is made of K'Anpo and/or Cho-Je (the latter delicately portrayed by Kevin Lindsay in a performance astonishingly removed from his previous Sontaran role), with a rare confronting of the issues raised by the Doctor's continuous curiosity with and interference in temporal affairs. There is, significantly, the first description of Time Lord 'regeneration' - and ultimately the real thing, with an emotional goodbye from the Third Doctor to Sarah Jane and the Brigadier as Jon Pertwee's features blur and are replaced by those of Tom Baker.
Looks like the show's in safe hands, anyway...
4.5/10
Episodes watched: 273
Episodes still to watch: 449
6 episodes
Oh crikey... what a way to go. The Third Doctor's last story is as tedious as the previous adventure, with six more episodes of padding and largely dull action. Yes, the spiders look good, but they are also more interesting than most of the human characters, which is not so good. There is an pointless chase of epic proportions in episode 2, to allow Jon Pertwee to indulge his passion for vehicular antics one last time, where the Doctor goes all James Bond and pursues the spider-possessed Lupton in the 'Whomobile', a gyrocopter and a hovercraft, the sheer effort of which is more than slightly undermined by the villain teleporting to safety seemingly on a whim. We get the belated swansong of Mike Yates, returning after his ignominious departure in 'Invasion of the Dinosaurs', but unless I dropped off and missed something he appears to have vanished two-thirds of the way in with a complete absence of fanfare. Admittedly I was very tired, but the last four episodes followed a pattern broadly incorporating twenty minutes' viewing followed by half an hour's inadvertant snoozing, an attempt at rewinding to the last thing I remembered only to doze off again for a moment and accidentally go back forty-five minutes, watching some more as I didn't recognise it, then hitting another familiar patch and realising I'd obviously missed some earlier without even noticing, and finally fast-forwarding to my actual drop-off point and attempting to watch another episode or so - the whole blurring together in a horrifying CSO-clogged switchback ride that seemed never-ending on at least two occasions. On the plus side, there is a nice update on the progress of Jo and Cliff's Amazon adventure when the blue crystal arrives back at UNIT HQ at the beginning of the story, so setting up the Doctor's fateful return to Metebelis 3. Good use is made of K'Anpo and/or Cho-Je (the latter delicately portrayed by Kevin Lindsay in a performance astonishingly removed from his previous Sontaran role), with a rare confronting of the issues raised by the Doctor's continuous curiosity with and interference in temporal affairs. There is, significantly, the first description of Time Lord 'regeneration' - and ultimately the real thing, with an emotional goodbye from the Third Doctor to Sarah Jane and the Brigadier as Jon Pertwee's features blur and are replaced by those of Tom Baker.
Looks like the show's in safe hands, anyway...
4.5/10
Episodes watched: 273
Episodes still to watch: 449
Monday, October 17, 2005
'The Monster of Peladon'
THE MONSTER OF PELADON
6 episodes
I actually watched this 'properly', i.e. an episode at a time, over the course of a couple of days. More by accident than design, but probably for the best - this is so dull, I suspect getting through a series of episodes at once could have been difficult at best... Featuring many of the same elements as its prequel, this is essentially 'The Curse of Peladon Redux' - some posts are held by different people but doing essentially the same things as their predecessors, while the topical issue-of-the-month is the then-contemporary miners' strikes that feed into the plot as a lot of stupidly badger-haired miners standing around in tunnels arguing. While it is fun to have back Alpha Centauri and a glimpse of Aggedor, the Ice Warriors hold back to so late in the day that I'd forgotten about their presence... ironically creating a nice surprise that I wouldn't have had if the adventure had gone faster, and forcing the previously antagonistic Peladonian factions to cooperate against the new threat, but not alleviating the tedium that has reached terminal inertia by this point. It is disappointing to see the Martians' characters reverting more to stereotypical baddies, even if it is made clear that these ones are a breakaway group unrepresentative of their race. Eckersley is the only interesting support player, driven seemingly just by financial gain rather than despotic mania - except in one ill-advised speech where he temporarily wants to be master of the galaxy - and played with a kind of laid-back insouciance by Donald Gee. Queen Thalira is endearingly wide-eyed and innocent but more than a little wet, for which she gets a highly unsubtle Women's Lib lecture from Sarah. Speaking of whom, was it really necessary to have her believe the Doctor is dead twice in one adventure, especially considering what's coming up?? I guess I should mention that a good portion of the plot hinges on the unlikely factor of the Peladon mines - that's mines - apparently having not only central heating but air conditioning, but frankly I've lost heart by this stage...
4.5/10
Episodes watched: 267
Episodes still to watch: 455
6 episodes
I actually watched this 'properly', i.e. an episode at a time, over the course of a couple of days. More by accident than design, but probably for the best - this is so dull, I suspect getting through a series of episodes at once could have been difficult at best... Featuring many of the same elements as its prequel, this is essentially 'The Curse of Peladon Redux' - some posts are held by different people but doing essentially the same things as their predecessors, while the topical issue-of-the-month is the then-contemporary miners' strikes that feed into the plot as a lot of stupidly badger-haired miners standing around in tunnels arguing. While it is fun to have back Alpha Centauri and a glimpse of Aggedor, the Ice Warriors hold back to so late in the day that I'd forgotten about their presence... ironically creating a nice surprise that I wouldn't have had if the adventure had gone faster, and forcing the previously antagonistic Peladonian factions to cooperate against the new threat, but not alleviating the tedium that has reached terminal inertia by this point. It is disappointing to see the Martians' characters reverting more to stereotypical baddies, even if it is made clear that these ones are a breakaway group unrepresentative of their race. Eckersley is the only interesting support player, driven seemingly just by financial gain rather than despotic mania - except in one ill-advised speech where he temporarily wants to be master of the galaxy - and played with a kind of laid-back insouciance by Donald Gee. Queen Thalira is endearingly wide-eyed and innocent but more than a little wet, for which she gets a highly unsubtle Women's Lib lecture from Sarah. Speaking of whom, was it really necessary to have her believe the Doctor is dead twice in one adventure, especially considering what's coming up?? I guess I should mention that a good portion of the plot hinges on the unlikely factor of the Peladon mines - that's mines - apparently having not only central heating but air conditioning, but frankly I've lost heart by this stage...
4.5/10
Episodes watched: 267
Episodes still to watch: 455
Saturday, October 15, 2005
'Death to the Daleks'
DEATH TO THE DALEKS
4 episodes
Well, as Locus pointed out to me a while ago, it's pretty much the quintessential middle-of-the-road Doctor Whostory - 'Death to the Daleks' is four 25-minute episodes long, features the combination of a 1970s Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith, a couple of wobbly sets and costumes, some polystyrene modelwork, plenty of mist and fog, a quarry doubling as an alien planet, lots of corridors, lots of tunnels with an oo-nasty lurking in them... and, of course, the series' defining monsters the Daleks. You could show it to anyone and they'd be able to tick most of the boxes for what is commonly understood to constitute Doctor Who.
Alas, while a little better than the prior two, this is the third and final disappointing Daleks story out of three for the Third Doctor, with nothing much to say about it bar the above. The beginning is marvellously sppoky, with the TARDIS losing every vestige of power and the Doctor disappearing into the fog leaving Sarah alone to fight off an assailant inside what should be a safe place; unfortunately I could never look at the cloaked Exxilons without thinking of Star Wars' Tusken Raiders, rather undermining the drama even while they were having a big voodoo ceremony to sacrifice Sarah... The later involvement of the Exxilon Bellal is welcome, as he makes a likeable and interesting surrogate companion for the Doctor for the latter parts of the story, although their progress through the city's puzzles seems rather too easy considering - but in fairness this is meant to be the case, it turns out. Likewise, the 'cliffhanger' of episode 3 of the Doctor spotting a TILED FLOOR (gasp) is so insignificant I had to rewind to check I hadn't missed anything... but again in fairness this was apparently not meant to be the original cliffhanger! Otherwise, the Daleks have had a nice spruce-up but are a little irrelevant, although their menace in some ways seems greater for being a small party terrorising a backwater mining plant rather than plotting galactic domination etc. It is edifying to see how ineffectual they are once stripped of the ability to exterminate anyone, and scary to see how quickly they develop new, non-energy weapons as substitutes - and laugh-out-loud funny to witness them using a small model TARDIS as target practice! The scene where one, consumed with distress at perceived 'failure', self-destructs, is simultaneously also funny yet quite shocking too. Otherwise, the mechanical "root" that defends the city and its environs is an interesting idea that doesn't receive enough screentime; looking like a cross between a hoover and a giant Red Dwarf Scutter, it nevertheless makes for an impressive Watcher-in-the-Water-style monster in its devastating waterhole-side attack on the Daleks; of the supporting cast, all are bland with the exception of the wily veteran Galloway, who while perhaps a touch loose with his morals is nevertheless personable enough to not be truly unpleasant.
6/10
Episodes watched: 261
Episodes still to watch: 461
4 episodes
Well, as Locus pointed out to me a while ago, it's pretty much the quintessential middle-of-the-road Doctor Whostory - 'Death to the Daleks' is four 25-minute episodes long, features the combination of a 1970s Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith, a couple of wobbly sets and costumes, some polystyrene modelwork, plenty of mist and fog, a quarry doubling as an alien planet, lots of corridors, lots of tunnels with an oo-nasty lurking in them... and, of course, the series' defining monsters the Daleks. You could show it to anyone and they'd be able to tick most of the boxes for what is commonly understood to constitute Doctor Who.
Alas, while a little better than the prior two, this is the third and final disappointing Daleks story out of three for the Third Doctor, with nothing much to say about it bar the above. The beginning is marvellously sppoky, with the TARDIS losing every vestige of power and the Doctor disappearing into the fog leaving Sarah alone to fight off an assailant inside what should be a safe place; unfortunately I could never look at the cloaked Exxilons without thinking of Star Wars' Tusken Raiders, rather undermining the drama even while they were having a big voodoo ceremony to sacrifice Sarah... The later involvement of the Exxilon Bellal is welcome, as he makes a likeable and interesting surrogate companion for the Doctor for the latter parts of the story, although their progress through the city's puzzles seems rather too easy considering - but in fairness this is meant to be the case, it turns out. Likewise, the 'cliffhanger' of episode 3 of the Doctor spotting a TILED FLOOR (gasp) is so insignificant I had to rewind to check I hadn't missed anything... but again in fairness this was apparently not meant to be the original cliffhanger! Otherwise, the Daleks have had a nice spruce-up but are a little irrelevant, although their menace in some ways seems greater for being a small party terrorising a backwater mining plant rather than plotting galactic domination etc. It is edifying to see how ineffectual they are once stripped of the ability to exterminate anyone, and scary to see how quickly they develop new, non-energy weapons as substitutes - and laugh-out-loud funny to witness them using a small model TARDIS as target practice! The scene where one, consumed with distress at perceived 'failure', self-destructs, is simultaneously also funny yet quite shocking too. Otherwise, the mechanical "root" that defends the city and its environs is an interesting idea that doesn't receive enough screentime; looking like a cross between a hoover and a giant Red Dwarf Scutter, it nevertheless makes for an impressive Watcher-in-the-Water-style monster in its devastating waterhole-side attack on the Daleks; of the supporting cast, all are bland with the exception of the wily veteran Galloway, who while perhaps a touch loose with his morals is nevertheless personable enough to not be truly unpleasant.
6/10
Episodes watched: 261
Episodes still to watch: 461
'Invasion of the Dinosaurs'
INVASION OF THE DINOSAURS
6 episodes
Oooh dear... this is infamously meant to be one of the all-time worst Who adventures, as evidenced by the fact that it was the very last complete story to be released on video a mere two years ago - a full twenty years after the first! Actually, I'd watched the first episode then and been rather impressed; admittedly, its black-and-white (the 157th and last episode to exist as such) status helps the atmosphere, but the empty, abandoned streets of London are genuinely eerie and bleak, the mystery suspenseful, and the sole attack from an extinct reptile (a pterodactyl) legitimately frightening when it smashes the car window.
Then I realised a little later in the viewing that I had in fact watched the full six-part story a couple of years back, but apparently blanked-out my memory of the latter five parts, which speaks volumes about the rest of the serial... Hmmm - maybe that's a bit unfair actually: it's still far better than you might expect, but drags a lot despite the interesting plot ideas. Ironically, it's the dinosaurs themselves that most contribute to the negative vibe... While the herbivores look okay, particularly the apatosaur and stegosaur (the Triceratops is a little dorky), albeit a trifle stationary, it is far easier to spectacularly stuff up the appearance of a tyrannosaur - and so they do. Despite being specifically named as a Tyrannosaurus Rex the beast blatantly has an excessive tally of three fingers on each hand, which any ten-year-old could have corrected the makers on, and its beady-eyed, squashy-nosed, slack-jawed oafish face is hopelessly unintimidating. The effect is not helped by the pudgy, upright (and slightly lopsided) body and "RRRAAAWWWWOOOORRR" voice, while the poor creature is so static it fails to even lumber threateningly.
Ah well - the rest of the plot is pretty good, really: the Doctor and Sarah's initial befuddlement as to what is going on, culminating in their arrest as 'looters', is excellent, and it isn't until the comforting form of the Brigadier turns up that they and we feel a measure of 'safety'. Of course, not even the rest of the military can be trusted - John Bennett's cold, heavy-lidded General Finch makes for a fascinating 'villain', as does Noel Johnson's Government minister Grover since he seems to honestly believe he is in the right in wanting to roll the Earth back in time to a 'Golden Age' despite the fact this would wipe out billions of people. It is a shame Martin Jarvis' Butler has little to do, although the actor's presence here means his illustrious Doctor Who career involves... (cue fanfare) 'Invasion of the Dinosaurs' and 'The Web Planet'. Eeeuchh... The device of Sarah being on a 'spaceship' seemingly headed for a distant New World is very clever and quite shocking in its denouement, and the behaviour of the some of the others 'on board' is brutal in terms of how willing they are to recondition or dispose of those who might be destabilising influences... Meanwhile, the ever-redoubtable Sgt. Benton proves himself yet again, standing up to the bad guys and allowing the Doctor to incapacitate him and escape; and, of course, the revelation is Captain Yates, whose exposure as another of the traitors is shocking for someone so much part of the 'UNIT family'. Again, he seems to really believe in the eco-message Grover and the others are touting (very different to that in 'The Green Death'), and the Brigadier's effort to enable the disgraced Yates to take a dignified 'extended leave' at the end - compared with Finch's court martial - is fitting and touching. Jon Pertwee does well throughout, even when confronted by wall-to-wall awful CSO and rubber dinosaurs, and despite some reviewers' negative impression of it I found the extended chase sequence where the Doctor dodges the military through the woods of Hampstead Heath to be extremely tense and gripping - not to mention inclusive of some neat trickery on the Doctor's part! Of course Nicholas Courtney is as reliable as ever, and gets in my opinion one of the Brigadier's best ever scenes in his High Noon showdown with Finch, the two pulling up in Land Rovers either side of the Doctor in a deserted back street and the Brigadier refusing to back down in his attempt to rescue his friend.
All in all, 'Invasion of the Dinosaurs' isn't a bad little story at all - just a shame they had to put the lousy dinosaurs in...
6.5/10
Episodes watched: 257
Episodes still to watch: 465
6 episodes
Oooh dear... this is infamously meant to be one of the all-time worst Who adventures, as evidenced by the fact that it was the very last complete story to be released on video a mere two years ago - a full twenty years after the first! Actually, I'd watched the first episode then and been rather impressed; admittedly, its black-and-white (the 157th and last episode to exist as such) status helps the atmosphere, but the empty, abandoned streets of London are genuinely eerie and bleak, the mystery suspenseful, and the sole attack from an extinct reptile (a pterodactyl) legitimately frightening when it smashes the car window.
Then I realised a little later in the viewing that I had in fact watched the full six-part story a couple of years back, but apparently blanked-out my memory of the latter five parts, which speaks volumes about the rest of the serial... Hmmm - maybe that's a bit unfair actually: it's still far better than you might expect, but drags a lot despite the interesting plot ideas. Ironically, it's the dinosaurs themselves that most contribute to the negative vibe... While the herbivores look okay, particularly the apatosaur and stegosaur (the Triceratops is a little dorky), albeit a trifle stationary, it is far easier to spectacularly stuff up the appearance of a tyrannosaur - and so they do. Despite being specifically named as a Tyrannosaurus Rex the beast blatantly has an excessive tally of three fingers on each hand, which any ten-year-old could have corrected the makers on, and its beady-eyed, squashy-nosed, slack-jawed oafish face is hopelessly unintimidating. The effect is not helped by the pudgy, upright (and slightly lopsided) body and "RRRAAAWWWWOOOORRR" voice, while the poor creature is so static it fails to even lumber threateningly.
Ah well - the rest of the plot is pretty good, really: the Doctor and Sarah's initial befuddlement as to what is going on, culminating in their arrest as 'looters', is excellent, and it isn't until the comforting form of the Brigadier turns up that they and we feel a measure of 'safety'. Of course, not even the rest of the military can be trusted - John Bennett's cold, heavy-lidded General Finch makes for a fascinating 'villain', as does Noel Johnson's Government minister Grover since he seems to honestly believe he is in the right in wanting to roll the Earth back in time to a 'Golden Age' despite the fact this would wipe out billions of people. It is a shame Martin Jarvis' Butler has little to do, although the actor's presence here means his illustrious Doctor Who career involves... (cue fanfare) 'Invasion of the Dinosaurs' and 'The Web Planet'. Eeeuchh... The device of Sarah being on a 'spaceship' seemingly headed for a distant New World is very clever and quite shocking in its denouement, and the behaviour of the some of the others 'on board' is brutal in terms of how willing they are to recondition or dispose of those who might be destabilising influences... Meanwhile, the ever-redoubtable Sgt. Benton proves himself yet again, standing up to the bad guys and allowing the Doctor to incapacitate him and escape; and, of course, the revelation is Captain Yates, whose exposure as another of the traitors is shocking for someone so much part of the 'UNIT family'. Again, he seems to really believe in the eco-message Grover and the others are touting (very different to that in 'The Green Death'), and the Brigadier's effort to enable the disgraced Yates to take a dignified 'extended leave' at the end - compared with Finch's court martial - is fitting and touching. Jon Pertwee does well throughout, even when confronted by wall-to-wall awful CSO and rubber dinosaurs, and despite some reviewers' negative impression of it I found the extended chase sequence where the Doctor dodges the military through the woods of Hampstead Heath to be extremely tense and gripping - not to mention inclusive of some neat trickery on the Doctor's part! Of course Nicholas Courtney is as reliable as ever, and gets in my opinion one of the Brigadier's best ever scenes in his High Noon showdown with Finch, the two pulling up in Land Rovers either side of the Doctor in a deserted back street and the Brigadier refusing to back down in his attempt to rescue his friend.
All in all, 'Invasion of the Dinosaurs' isn't a bad little story at all - just a shame they had to put the lousy dinosaurs in...
6.5/10
Episodes watched: 257
Episodes still to watch: 465
Friday, October 14, 2005
'The Time Warrior'
THE TIME WARRIOR
4 episodes
Slightly inconsequential but enormous fun, this story served as the introduction to Season 12, new companion Sarah Jane Smith, the Sontarans, the first 'time tunnel' opening credits sequence and a new Doctor Who logo, the diamond-shaped one that went on to be perhaps the series' most famous - although the one it replaced after four years was later resurrected for the 1996 Eighth Doctor movie and has since fronted the entire BBC range of Who products for the first eight Doctors!
A pseudo-historical, this adventure features a faintly slapdash medieval setting, into which numerous top British scientists are drawn from the present day by the activites of Linx, a stranded Sontaran warrior. The Doctor's decision to trace the missing scientists in the TARDIS inadvertently involves the journalist Sarah Jane Smith, whose investigative instincts first lead her to pose as her aunt, the noted virologist Lavinia Smith, and then to poke around in the blue police box that subsequently whisks her off to the Middle Ages... Elisabeth Sladen makes an immediate impression as Sarah, being as endearing as Jo but with a much more pronounced intelligent, independent streak that soon sees her leading raids single-handed and the like! Her initial refusal to accept that she has been swept hundreds of years into the past is entirely understandable and highly enjoyable, as she struggles to persuade the bemused locals to snap out of their 12th century mannerisms, and the fact that for a long time she distrusts the Doctor is an original twist not seen since the very beginnings of the programme.
The chief joy of 'The Time Warrior' lies in its magnificent and hilarious dialogue. The bulk may not be strictly accurate to the period, but it has a meatily authentic-feeling cut and thrust to it that renders such considerations irrelevant. The repartee between Linx and medieval warlord Irongron is especially fantastic, as the two jockey for position in their fractious but mutually beneficial relationship - a classic example of the famous 'Robert Holmes double-act'. It is fascinating to see the interplay between them, two warriors from very different backgrounds yet almost equal face-to-face; although Irongron's attempts to intimidate the Sontaran fall flat and on one occasion result in a humiliating buffeting at Linx's hands, he continues to poke fun at his "toad-faced" accomplice. Irongron in truth gets almost all the best lines in the serial, although his dimwitted subordinate Bloodaxe's awed tribute "Yours is truly a towering intellect" - delivered apparently without irony - runs him close... These two form a subsidiary double-act that is also well-written and almost affectionate. The other supporting characters are also fleshed out nicely, from the myopic but admirably resilient Professor Rubeish to the kitchen servant Meg, and we get another appearance from Star Wars' Boba Fett, Jeremy Bulloch, as Hal the archer and one from EastEnders' Dot Cotton, June Brown, as the resourceful Lady Eleanor.
What is perhaps the most interesting is the depiction of Linx the Sontaran. The costume and makeup are fantastic, the squat, solid alien looking tremendously threatening both in and out of his tradmark helmet. Far from being the stock megalomaniac villain, he harbours no globe-straddling desires or delusions of grandeur - he is merely a soldier, who just wants to get back to the frontlines of his interminable war as soon as possible. We get quite a lot of backstory to fill us in on the legendary, millennia-spanning Sontaran/Rutan conflict (which was never to be seen directly on screen) and a sense of Linx's contempt for the primitive world he finds himself stranded on - plus, of course, the first-ever naming of the Doctor's home planet 'Gallifrey', where slightly surprisingly the title of the Time Lords' homeworld is slipped nonchalantly into the conversation as if it had been known all along...!
8/10
Episodes watched: 251
Episodes still to watch: 471
4 episodes
Slightly inconsequential but enormous fun, this story served as the introduction to Season 12, new companion Sarah Jane Smith, the Sontarans, the first 'time tunnel' opening credits sequence and a new Doctor Who logo, the diamond-shaped one that went on to be perhaps the series' most famous - although the one it replaced after four years was later resurrected for the 1996 Eighth Doctor movie and has since fronted the entire BBC range of Who products for the first eight Doctors!
A pseudo-historical, this adventure features a faintly slapdash medieval setting, into which numerous top British scientists are drawn from the present day by the activites of Linx, a stranded Sontaran warrior. The Doctor's decision to trace the missing scientists in the TARDIS inadvertently involves the journalist Sarah Jane Smith, whose investigative instincts first lead her to pose as her aunt, the noted virologist Lavinia Smith, and then to poke around in the blue police box that subsequently whisks her off to the Middle Ages... Elisabeth Sladen makes an immediate impression as Sarah, being as endearing as Jo but with a much more pronounced intelligent, independent streak that soon sees her leading raids single-handed and the like! Her initial refusal to accept that she has been swept hundreds of years into the past is entirely understandable and highly enjoyable, as she struggles to persuade the bemused locals to snap out of their 12th century mannerisms, and the fact that for a long time she distrusts the Doctor is an original twist not seen since the very beginnings of the programme.
The chief joy of 'The Time Warrior' lies in its magnificent and hilarious dialogue. The bulk may not be strictly accurate to the period, but it has a meatily authentic-feeling cut and thrust to it that renders such considerations irrelevant. The repartee between Linx and medieval warlord Irongron is especially fantastic, as the two jockey for position in their fractious but mutually beneficial relationship - a classic example of the famous 'Robert Holmes double-act'. It is fascinating to see the interplay between them, two warriors from very different backgrounds yet almost equal face-to-face; although Irongron's attempts to intimidate the Sontaran fall flat and on one occasion result in a humiliating buffeting at Linx's hands, he continues to poke fun at his "toad-faced" accomplice. Irongron in truth gets almost all the best lines in the serial, although his dimwitted subordinate Bloodaxe's awed tribute "Yours is truly a towering intellect" - delivered apparently without irony - runs him close... These two form a subsidiary double-act that is also well-written and almost affectionate. The other supporting characters are also fleshed out nicely, from the myopic but admirably resilient Professor Rubeish to the kitchen servant Meg, and we get another appearance from Star Wars' Boba Fett, Jeremy Bulloch, as Hal the archer and one from EastEnders' Dot Cotton, June Brown, as the resourceful Lady Eleanor.
What is perhaps the most interesting is the depiction of Linx the Sontaran. The costume and makeup are fantastic, the squat, solid alien looking tremendously threatening both in and out of his tradmark helmet. Far from being the stock megalomaniac villain, he harbours no globe-straddling desires or delusions of grandeur - he is merely a soldier, who just wants to get back to the frontlines of his interminable war as soon as possible. We get quite a lot of backstory to fill us in on the legendary, millennia-spanning Sontaran/Rutan conflict (which was never to be seen directly on screen) and a sense of Linx's contempt for the primitive world he finds himself stranded on - plus, of course, the first-ever naming of the Doctor's home planet 'Gallifrey', where slightly surprisingly the title of the Time Lords' homeworld is slipped nonchalantly into the conversation as if it had been known all along...!
8/10
Episodes watched: 251
Episodes still to watch: 471
Thursday, October 13, 2005
'The Green Death'
THE GREEN DEATH
6 episodes
Yes, it's 'the one with the maggots'... Perhaps more than any other individual Doctor Who adventure, 'The Green Death' is branded on the British collective consciousness - thanks to its memorably grotesque transformation of the humble maggot into a giant crawling eco-menace. That the maggots themselves do not glow green as many might remember (it's just the poisonous sludge that spawned them), and are in some ways only an adjunct to the main plot, seems to be irrelevant: for good or for bad they've gone down in history. The realisation of said beasties is pretty impressive, the use of rats' skulls in the models to provide their teeth being a particularly nice touch - although why one leaps for the throat of its unfortunate victim while the others are content to merely wriggle menacingly remains a mystery. Better still is the 'green death' itself, the virulent glowing patches that spread over the skin of those unlucky enough to catch it, which provides an eye-catchingly horrible demise for several minor characters and a scare for Professor Clifford Jones. Stewart Bevan's portrayal of the idealistic young academic is excellent, with his then real-life relationship with Katy Manning perhaps contributing to the obvious onscreen chemistry between Cliff and Jo Grant that builds convincingly through the six episodes to its inevitable conclusion, the pair both so wide-eyed and heart-on-their-sleeve-wearing they were obviously meant for each other...
In many ways this is Jo's story - we've seen her grow up so much over the three years she's been with the Doctor, and from the moment she accidentally destroys the professor's experiment on their first meeting, just like she did on her first encounter with the Doctor, a new relationship is clearly beginning to take shape in her life. The Doctor's initial distress when this becomes clear to him is obvious, and his clumsy attempts at near-sabotage understandable, before he eventually reconciles himself to losing another steadfast companion once he has come to trust Cliff to take care of Jo in his place - and again the warmth of the real-life fondness between Jon Pertwee and Katy Manning shines through. This is never clearer than in the tender and moving closing scenes, some of the finest in Who history, where the Doctor presents her with an engagement gift of the blue crystal from Metebelis 3 and in effect 'gives her away'; the quiet, resigned manner in which he then downs his drink and slips away alone from the impromptu party starting up sticks long in the memory, and the closing shot of Bessie disappearing across a starlit horizon is a perfect, elegiac finale.
That I've got this far through the review without covering the actual plot as such is indicative of the unusual stremgth of this subplot, if you can call it that. The main theme, inspired by producer and co-writer Barry Letts' real ecological worries, is atypically overt for Doctor Who, and testament to the amount of political issues it was possible to slip in under the cover of being a 'children's show'. Global Chemicals, the progenitors of the toxic waste that causes the contagious green death and mutates the maggots into outsized monstrosities, are a none-too-subtle allegory for the perils of globalisation and unchecked big business coupled with environmental thoughtlessness. The ultimate villain, BOSS, is another 'mad computer', but scores many points higher than WOTAN, say, thanks to being extremely charismatic, rather funny (humming Wagner and eulogising instead of getting on with its plan) and ultimately not without pathos. Its 'slave' Stevens also gets some sympathy, as he is shown to experience something like remorse or compassion on more than one occasion, and his final sacrifice to stay with the expiring computer while the plant blows up around them is amazingly affecting. The supporting cast chop and change a little too often to empathise with properly (partly through necessity thanks to illness), with the exception of the luckless Bert, but play their parts well enough - and although this story is oft-criticised for stereotyping the Welsh, I don't think it's over the top and the Welsh actors fit their roles appropriately. UNIT get a great showing for the first time in a while thanks to the welcome return of the Brigadier - who is shown to be intelligent, authoratitive yet sympathetic to the aims of the 'Nut Hutch' group and dignified even when being batted down by the Prime Minister - plus the ever-reliable Sgt. Benton, and a cracking undercover turn from Captain Yates. Incidentally, Mike Yates' reluctant yet genuine congratulations at the end to Jo and Cliff are one of the great aspects about those closing scenes - after all, it was hinted many times that he might be the one to get together with Jo yet this never transpired.
The effects are one area where this story loses points, although not through lack of trying - while the explosions are as reliable as ever, and the detonations of the mines and the factory are absolutely first-rate and very realistic, in contrast the heavy use of CSO lets down the scenes where the Doctor and Jo 'punt' through a maggot-infested tunnel and infamously where the Doctor drives Bessie through the maggot-covered slagheaps to rescue Cliff and Jo and later with Benton throwing fungus from the back to kill off the maggots. Despite this, they are still enjoyably cheesy, and the majority of the 'underground' scenes are very well done and convincingly atmospheric, while the large amount of location footage shot in Wales gives a sheen of realism to much of the goings-on... even if they had to stage some 'outdoor' shots of the Brigadier and UNIT men in the studio afterwards to fill in a gap or three! Jon Pertwee excels, again, with his legendary comic turns as first a milkman (to get into the chemical works) and then a cleaning lady (to help get out again) showing what a talented character actor he was; his 'Venusian aikido' - as opposed to the frequently-demonstrated 'Venusian karate' - scene is also terrific and forms a centrepiece to an excellent action sequence with Stevens' goons. His scenes with Stevens and BOSS are also very effective, and then of course there's that ending sequence. Plus, we also get to see the Doctor reach Metebelis 3, the famed 'blue planet' he was trying to land on in 'Carnival of Monsters'; apart from being a significant moment in his relationship with Jo, as she insists on following her heart to Wales rather than seeking adventure with him, and from being rather different to what he expected - the Doctor receives a hilariously hostile reception, with weapons and detritus bouncing off the TARDIS as it dematerialises - this is also a foreshadowing of the events that will wrap up the Third Doctor's tenure in one series' time...
Excellent use of the whole six episodes, relatively unusual for this format, with great location work, a deeper than average subtext and one of the most emotional finishes of any serial lift this into the realms of top-drawer Who.
9/10
Episodes watched: 247
Episodes still to watch: 475
6 episodes
Yes, it's 'the one with the maggots'... Perhaps more than any other individual Doctor Who adventure, 'The Green Death' is branded on the British collective consciousness - thanks to its memorably grotesque transformation of the humble maggot into a giant crawling eco-menace. That the maggots themselves do not glow green as many might remember (it's just the poisonous sludge that spawned them), and are in some ways only an adjunct to the main plot, seems to be irrelevant: for good or for bad they've gone down in history. The realisation of said beasties is pretty impressive, the use of rats' skulls in the models to provide their teeth being a particularly nice touch - although why one leaps for the throat of its unfortunate victim while the others are content to merely wriggle menacingly remains a mystery. Better still is the 'green death' itself, the virulent glowing patches that spread over the skin of those unlucky enough to catch it, which provides an eye-catchingly horrible demise for several minor characters and a scare for Professor Clifford Jones. Stewart Bevan's portrayal of the idealistic young academic is excellent, with his then real-life relationship with Katy Manning perhaps contributing to the obvious onscreen chemistry between Cliff and Jo Grant that builds convincingly through the six episodes to its inevitable conclusion, the pair both so wide-eyed and heart-on-their-sleeve-wearing they were obviously meant for each other...
In many ways this is Jo's story - we've seen her grow up so much over the three years she's been with the Doctor, and from the moment she accidentally destroys the professor's experiment on their first meeting, just like she did on her first encounter with the Doctor, a new relationship is clearly beginning to take shape in her life. The Doctor's initial distress when this becomes clear to him is obvious, and his clumsy attempts at near-sabotage understandable, before he eventually reconciles himself to losing another steadfast companion once he has come to trust Cliff to take care of Jo in his place - and again the warmth of the real-life fondness between Jon Pertwee and Katy Manning shines through. This is never clearer than in the tender and moving closing scenes, some of the finest in Who history, where the Doctor presents her with an engagement gift of the blue crystal from Metebelis 3 and in effect 'gives her away'; the quiet, resigned manner in which he then downs his drink and slips away alone from the impromptu party starting up sticks long in the memory, and the closing shot of Bessie disappearing across a starlit horizon is a perfect, elegiac finale.
That I've got this far through the review without covering the actual plot as such is indicative of the unusual stremgth of this subplot, if you can call it that. The main theme, inspired by producer and co-writer Barry Letts' real ecological worries, is atypically overt for Doctor Who, and testament to the amount of political issues it was possible to slip in under the cover of being a 'children's show'. Global Chemicals, the progenitors of the toxic waste that causes the contagious green death and mutates the maggots into outsized monstrosities, are a none-too-subtle allegory for the perils of globalisation and unchecked big business coupled with environmental thoughtlessness. The ultimate villain, BOSS, is another 'mad computer', but scores many points higher than WOTAN, say, thanks to being extremely charismatic, rather funny (humming Wagner and eulogising instead of getting on with its plan) and ultimately not without pathos. Its 'slave' Stevens also gets some sympathy, as he is shown to experience something like remorse or compassion on more than one occasion, and his final sacrifice to stay with the expiring computer while the plant blows up around them is amazingly affecting. The supporting cast chop and change a little too often to empathise with properly (partly through necessity thanks to illness), with the exception of the luckless Bert, but play their parts well enough - and although this story is oft-criticised for stereotyping the Welsh, I don't think it's over the top and the Welsh actors fit their roles appropriately. UNIT get a great showing for the first time in a while thanks to the welcome return of the Brigadier - who is shown to be intelligent, authoratitive yet sympathetic to the aims of the 'Nut Hutch' group and dignified even when being batted down by the Prime Minister - plus the ever-reliable Sgt. Benton, and a cracking undercover turn from Captain Yates. Incidentally, Mike Yates' reluctant yet genuine congratulations at the end to Jo and Cliff are one of the great aspects about those closing scenes - after all, it was hinted many times that he might be the one to get together with Jo yet this never transpired.
The effects are one area where this story loses points, although not through lack of trying - while the explosions are as reliable as ever, and the detonations of the mines and the factory are absolutely first-rate and very realistic, in contrast the heavy use of CSO lets down the scenes where the Doctor and Jo 'punt' through a maggot-infested tunnel and infamously where the Doctor drives Bessie through the maggot-covered slagheaps to rescue Cliff and Jo and later with Benton throwing fungus from the back to kill off the maggots. Despite this, they are still enjoyably cheesy, and the majority of the 'underground' scenes are very well done and convincingly atmospheric, while the large amount of location footage shot in Wales gives a sheen of realism to much of the goings-on... even if they had to stage some 'outdoor' shots of the Brigadier and UNIT men in the studio afterwards to fill in a gap or three! Jon Pertwee excels, again, with his legendary comic turns as first a milkman (to get into the chemical works) and then a cleaning lady (to help get out again) showing what a talented character actor he was; his 'Venusian aikido' - as opposed to the frequently-demonstrated 'Venusian karate' - scene is also terrific and forms a centrepiece to an excellent action sequence with Stevens' goons. His scenes with Stevens and BOSS are also very effective, and then of course there's that ending sequence. Plus, we also get to see the Doctor reach Metebelis 3, the famed 'blue planet' he was trying to land on in 'Carnival of Monsters'; apart from being a significant moment in his relationship with Jo, as she insists on following her heart to Wales rather than seeking adventure with him, and from being rather different to what he expected - the Doctor receives a hilariously hostile reception, with weapons and detritus bouncing off the TARDIS as it dematerialises - this is also a foreshadowing of the events that will wrap up the Third Doctor's tenure in one series' time...
Excellent use of the whole six episodes, relatively unusual for this format, with great location work, a deeper than average subtext and one of the most emotional finishes of any serial lift this into the realms of top-drawer Who.
9/10
Episodes watched: 247
Episodes still to watch: 475
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