Doctor Who: Nightmare of Eden

Part One

“Interfere? Of course we should interfere! Always do what you’re best at, that’s what I say.”

It seems very strange to see Bob Baker credited as the writer with nary a sign of Dave Martin. But we’re instantly thrust into a familiar environment: deep space, a spaceship and those vaguely dull corridors that were always used to represent the future in the late 70s. The silliness of the incidental moment at the start is worrying but the story gets off to a good start, with David “Irongron” Daker and an early Big Sci-Fi Idea as two ships are melded together following exactly the sort of hyperspace jump we were told was “theoretically absurd” in The Stones of Blood.

Interestingly, I came to The Creature from the Pit expecting to like a story I had fond memories of but came away feeling slightly disappointed. In contrast I’d always thought of Nightmare of Eden as too sensible by half for the season it’s in and dominated by an overly preachy and excessively foregrounded “just say no, kids” moral about drugs. But in truth, I didn’t really find that much to object to on that score. There’s still something not quite right in the depiction of Vraxoin though. If it induces apathy and then kills you as quickly as it seems to, why would anyone take it in the first place? It just doesn’t seem realistic for people to be that stupid- you can’t imagine anyone taking it and imagining they could just take it a few times and not get addicted, which is how drug addiction tends to start in the real world. It’s all just too simplistic and devoid of grey areas, as though people who take drugs in real life are just being suicidal and nihilistic. Having said that, though, this time round it didn’t seem to be there primarily just to provide a cheap patronising moral but mainly to provide the basis for a sci-fi crime caper, if not quite Doctor Who does The Sweeney. And that makes it a lot less of a problem.

There are lots of little things in this episode to give us a flavour of what this future (twenty years after 2096, so roughly 2116) is like- a galactic recession, a real sense of an interstellar economy, scientific research. Other cool things include the Miniscope- er, CET machine, Tryst’s accent and the Doctor’s response to Rigg questioning who he is: “Galactic went out of business twenty years ago.” “I wondered why I hadn’t been paid.” “That’s not good enough.” “That’s what I thought.”

All good so far.

Part Two

“Nothing’s inexplicable.”

“Then explain it!”

Rigg’s drink is spiked with Vraxoin… but it’s meant for Romana! There’s clearly a baddie amongst the guest characters. The murder mystery aspect of the plot is quite well-handled and there’s a lot of misdirection, although the limited number of suspects means it’s not that hard to guess at least who one of the villains is.

We get some rather oddly dressed passengers, a chase involving a mystery man,. Revelations concerning Stott and Della, and two comedy thick excise officers who promptly try to arrest the Doctor and Romana. Oh, for a piece of psychic paper… This is fast-moving and genuinely well-plotted stuff, with the witty dialogue on top of a proper serious story. It’s a formula that seems to be working a lot better than the previous story.

Part Three

“Well, it’s a perfectly ordinary electric dog.”

The Doctor and Romana have been forced to take refuge in the CET machine, in a section taken from the planet Eden. So naturally the Doctor decides “Let’s go east!” Nice touch, that. And we learn that the creatures from the Black Lagoon- er, Eden, are called Mandrels. And Stutt’s been hiding in the CET machine spending most of his time being a narcotics agent (ah!) generally not being dead. This is good plot stuff- such constructive use of a third episode is almost unheard of in Doctor Who.

Meanwhile, the passengers are being attacked by Mandrels. Rigg, high on Vraxoin, protests that “They’re only economy class. What’s all the fuss about?” while the excise men generally faff about being generally incompetent. There’s no real sense of threat even as the excise man threatens Romana with a gun, but that’s ok as they’re basically just there to provide the comic relief.

This episode’s big reveal is that Vraxoin is made from dead Mandrels. But, good, well-constructed story that it is, Nightmare of Eden has plenty of surprises to come…

Part Four

“My arms! My legs! My everything!”

The ships have been separated at last, and the Doctor has vanished from the Hecate. But he turns out to be aboard the Empress, where he discovers that Dymond is implicated in the Vraxoin smuggling. I didn’t see that coming. Tryst’s guilt was just a teeny bit more obvious, but I suspect from the blatant way he tries to manipulate the excise man that we’re supposed to have already worked out that he’s a baddie. His efforts are futile though- from the moment Stott reveals himself it’s the Doctor, up to now a fugitive, who’s instantly in charge.

There’s a neat ending with Tryst being hoist by his own petard, and a nice delivery of “Go away.” By Tom Baker. A very appropriate ending to a very skilfully plotted tale.

Surprisingly better than I remembered, then- much better plotted, wittier, and much less focused on preaching about drugs than I remembered. A solid 4/5.

Doctor Who: The Armageddon Factor

Part One

“Don‘t say it, please! Don’t say ‘Another underground passage!’”

The beginning is fantastic- an ersatz Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard in a spoof piece of propaganda which contains the line “Men out there, young men, are dying for it”. Unfortunately, as the camera pulls back to reveal the joke it also reveals a general cheapness of the kind which was so ubiquitous last season but which has been far less on obvious show recently. And, of course, this is a script by the Bristol Boys, and I fell out badly with them last season. This is not a story I’d been looking forward to, frankly, as the last time I watched it about four years ago I absolutely hated it.

But actually, some so-so acting and a bit of visual cheapness aside, there’s not a lot wrong with this first episode. The premise seems simple at first- Atrios is at war with its neighbour, Zeos although, naturally, this being a Baker and Martin script, we shouldn’t expect the “nuclear” part to in any way reflect scientific fact. The Marshal, who seems to be in charge, is a stereotypically trigger-happy military type who owes a fair bit to Jack D. Ripper and, surprise surprise, wants to carry on with the war. Princess Astra (the lovely Lalla Ward- yay!), meanwhile, wants the war stopped, and has been trying to negotiate with the Zeons, alongside her medic boyfriend Zerak. Except that Zeos doesn’t seem to be there. And, this being a sci-fi concepts heavy Bristol Boys script, we instantly know that’s important.

And then more mysteries pop up: the Marshal is talking to a mysterious mirror, and the Doctor and Romana can’t see Zeos from the TARDIS. But it’s not all big sci-fi ideas- there’s some great dialogue between the Doctor, Romana and K9 towards the end of this episode, which makes me suspect the hand of Anthony Read, who’s had an unexpectedly fantastic season as script editor. K9’s description of optimism as “Irrational, bordering on insane” is priceless.

Part Two

“I think one of us is being extremely stupid.”

“Affirmative.”

I love the Doctor’s dialogue when the Marshal unexpectedly becomes friendly towards him, claiming that his coming has been foretold. His mockery of the marshal’s cod-Shakespeare dialogue is great, and I love the way he spends much of this episode gently mocking the Marshal in ways that go over his head. In fact, the awesomeness in this episode pretty much centres on the dialogue; I love K9’s silly yet bathetic “Temperature unacceptable!” as he trundles to his fiery doom.

Oh, and the space invaders scene is brilliant, as is the very fact that Atrios has only six- er, three- ships. The mystery continues, too, with the suggestion of something between Atrios and Zeos. Once again, a surprisingly good episode.

Part Three

“I have watched you and your jackdaw meanderings!”

Suddenly things really start happening and we get some total changes of setting and situation which, rather unfortunately, strain the budget a little, but still show this to be a surprisingly great plot which tends to foreground the Big Ideas- the very things that Baker and Martin are good at.

Our heroes are transmatted to the mysterious third planet we get to meet the Shadow and his similarly hooded underlings. Things start getting rather epic as the Shadow demand the five segments of the Key to Time which are in the Doctor’s possession, and he has the TARDIS. He also has Astra. And, incidentally, if Astra is the only surviving member of Atrios’ royalty, why isn’t she queen? Presumably at some point the Marshal became military dictator and ended the monarchy.

The Doctor manages to talk his way out of trouble- and the Shadow simply walks away declaring he’s just going to wait for the Doctor to make a mistake! Bizarre though it may seem, this scene actually works through clever scripting.

The episode ends on a bombshell- there are no Zeons on Zeos as they’ve all been killed in the war, but their automated defence system, under the control of K9’s new computer friend Mentalis, have carried on prosecuting the war anyway- a brilliant concept. The next stop is “obliteration”. Of everything…

Oh, and I love Shapp’s description of Zeons as looking just like the Atreusians(?) aside from their clothing. The cheap depiction of alien races in this season extends even to verbal descriptions!

We end with the Marshal’s ship, clearly based on the Millennium Falcon- this is our first blatant influence from Star Wars. And, as another aside, it occurred to me while watching it that it’s probably the influence of the Bristol Boys who pretty much caused the word “transmat” to become a Doctor Who standard- they were using it back in The Sontaran Experiment and they’re still using it here in their swansong story as a team.

Part Four

“I’ve stopped the universe.”

So, the Marshal wants to blow up both worlds for some reason, but Mentalis won’t defend itself as it’s won the war- the clichéd military mind versus the clichéd machine mind- “the armageddon factor”. How very cold war. Why was all this not explained at the end of last episode? It certainly would have helped improve the cliffhanger.

After spending a comically long time panicking, the Doctor and Romana finally remember they can take shelter in the TARDIS. Rather cleverly, the Doctor knocks up an ersatz sixth segment so he can use the Key to Time to create a time loop, delaying Armageddon for a few hours.

Great cliffhanger here, as K9 calls the Shadow “Master”!

Part Five

“Your silliness is noted.”

The Doctor and the Shadow get a rather pleasing confrontation scene here, as the Shadow reveals, to no one’s surprise, that he’s an agent of the Black Guardian, and so the Doctor’s counterpart. Rather more of a surprise is the appearance of Drax, a technician coerced into helping the Shadow, who turns out to be not only a Time Lord but an old classmate of the Doctor’s.

We’re told that the Doctor and Drax were both in the “Class of ‘92”, and that the Doctor’s uni nickname was “Theta Sigma” or “Thete”! And all this was 450 years ago, 73 years after the Doctor first stole the TARDIS, if Romana’s comments in The Pirate Planet are to be believed! Drax spent five years in Brixton Prison, where he picked up not only a cockney accent but a complete set of cockney stereotypes, and is now trapped, with his TARDIS on Zeos. He’s a Time Lord, not just an ordinary Gallifreyan. And apparently the war’s been going on for five years, so they’re a lot more efficient at this nuclear war business than, say, the people of Skaro. 

The Shadow, dastardly fellow that he is, wants to do with the whole cosmos what he’s done with Atreus and Zeos, causing a nuclear war between the two sides of the cosmos like a proper Dr Strangelove. The fiend!

Part Six

“Any second now, beautiful mushrooms will blossom and burst!”

So, Astra is the sixth princess of the sixth dynasty of the sixth royal house of Atrios. Good job the Doctor and Romana happened to come across her sixth, then. But the idea of an actual person, with as much right to live as anyone, being a segment of the Key is pretty horrible, and I’m glad we get some dialogue in which Romana says so. It seems even the White Guardian is not necessarily very nice from the perspective of a mere mortal.

The Black Guardian is great. I care not that he’s just the White Guardian with the negative reversed, as we get to hear Valentine Dyall’s magnificent voice. I shall gloss over his silly attempts at disguise and move straight to the Doctor’s “absolute power” speech- another great piece of acting from Tom Baker. The ending doesn’t quite work, which is disappointing- after all this, the Doctor just scatters all the segments through space and time again? What happened to this great crisis we were told about in The Ribos Operation? Surely the White Guardian will be highly displeased? Still, Asdtra’s back, and after a season of the Doctor having absolute control of the TARDIS he’s now obliged to fit a “randomiser”. No doubt he won’t be landing anywhere we’ve heard of for a good while, then.

Surprisingly entertaining stuff, that. Not one of the greats but some great sci-fi concepts and lots of wit and humour make this a strong 4/5. And doing that comes as a shock to me, frankly- before the Marathon I’d have had this down as a dead cert for a 1/5.

And just as shockingly, after last season’s car crash, this season scores a solid 4.667/5, making it my favourite season so far! Now that I was not expecting.

Doctor Who: Underworld

Part One

“The quest is the quest.”

After The Invisible Enemy I can’t say I’m particularly enthused to see another script by the Bristol Boys so soon. And the reputation this story has makes me worry it might be something of an ideal. Still, the Marathon goes on, and this is one of only two stories I’ve never seen. The quest is the quest. Sorry. Couldn’t resist.

We begin in the TARDIS, where the Doctor is dressed rather oddly and seems to have splashed out on a big widescreen scanner.

The TARDIS has arrived at the edge of the universe, where we see a new spiral nebula forming. And we see some guest characters in a spaceship, it’s a relief to see that, unlike with other recent space operas, the sets and costumes are at least competently designed. Unfortunately, Jackson and his underlings may be competently acted but they’re also extremely dull.

A few minutes in things threaten to become interesting, though. These people are from Minyos, a planet destroyed 100,000 years ago, and they describe the overheard TARDIS dematerialisation sound as sounding like “the time ships of the gods”. It seems the Time lords meddled in their affairs with dire results, and this is the reason for their policy of non-intervention. Oh, and the Minyans can regenerate seemingly without limit (thousands of times, at least) and get to keep their original bodies. Why can’t the Time Lords do this then?

This is all very Ulysses 31 (“The gods use us for their sport”). Oh, and there’s a ship, on a quest, led by a bloke called Jackson. I’m sure there’s a Greek myth that reminds me of- Ah! They’re really old and tired of life but have to keep on living until they fulfill their quest. That’ll be the myth of Sisyphus then.

Annoyingly, though, just as they did last time, Baker and Martin are writing Leela as stupid and a target for other characters’ mockery. I really don’t like this.

Part Two

“Whatever blows can be sucked(!).”

The Doctor, Leela and the Argonauts are about to crash into a planet- and at no point is it mentioned that stepping into the TARDIS might be a good idea, what with the whole avoiding certain death thing. Oddly enough though, the blatantly CSO’d caverns bother me mainly because of how dull they look- they may look very unconvincing in out-of-context clips but in fact I got used to them very quickly.

Unfortunately this is all very dull- some dull baddies and some dull slaves. Yawn. I love the way Jackson’s lot decide to split the party. Reminds me of some D&D sessions.

Part Three

“It’s not my plan exactly but it has worked before.”

Oh dear. After a very long reprise things continue to be very dull. There’s one fun Bristol Boys idea (no gravity at the centre of the planet), and a pleasingly bizarre means of execution worthy of Heath Robinson himself, although the fire seems to be taking an awfully long time to burn through the rope. Otherwise, there’s little to comment on.

Part Four

“You’re just another machine with megalomania.”

Sadly, things fail to get any better at the end. The drama stops dead and the story treads water for ages before we realise the cylinders have been switched, and even the script admits that the “Oracle” is just a less interesting version of Xoanon of off of of Face of Evil. And you can’t understand a thing it says.

At long last- a story that was even worse than The Underwater Menace. Rock bottom- surely everything to come is bound to be better than this? 1/5.

Doctor Who: The Invisible Enemy

Part One

“Contact has been made.”

We start the story in deep space, for the first time in ages. Unfortunately we then get a crap spaceship set which sets the tone for the rest of the story- I’ve always been annoyed by bland, featureless corridor sets being used to represent the future in space opera type stories and The Invisible Enemy is one of the worst offenders. Every set and every costume is bland and featureless, which casts a kind of dullness over what should be a fun and silly story. Only three stories after The Robots of Death showed us how it should be done, this shows us how it shouldn’t.

At least the TARDIS looks good. It’s a shame to lose the wooden control room, but at least the redesigned traditional control room looks good, even if the Doctor does dismiss it as though he was talking about any one of the other sets in the story! We’re in 5000 AD or thereabouts, the time of Magnus Greel and Time Agents, and also apparently the time of the “Great Break Out”. Presumably this refers to much more widespread colonisation than happened during the Earth Empire days two thousand years earlier. And as this is still said to be Leela’s past, perhaps her ancestors were involved.

It’s good to see Michael Sheard again, even if his horribly designed office oozes an awful lot of the unacceptable side of 70s-ness in spite of it being 5000 AD. And the virus is an interesting threat, giving us a good cliffhanger with the infected doctor about to kill Leela…

Part Two

“Blithering idiots, the pair of you.”

Cra;p though the design is, I like the attempt to suggest spelling has changed, with such uses as “isolayshun ward”.

The Doctor’s out of action for a bit, which means we have Leela flying the TARDIS (!) to some hospital asteroid, where the Bristol Boys get a chance to reuse their line from The Hand of Fear about Gallifrey being somewhere in Ireland. We’re also introduced to the very silly yet somehow fab Professor Marius, with his silly accent and his robot dog, K9. Yay! “That tin thing is my best friend and constant companion”, he informs us.

The Prof has to operate on the doctor whilst being assailed from all sides by the ranks of the infected. At the Doctor’s suggestion he, er, clones the Doctor and Leela, shrinks them, and injects them into the Doctor’s body. This is simultaneously awful and brilliant. Oh, an apparently cloning started in 3922. not in, say, 1997, with Dolly the Sheep or anything.

Oh, and why can’t they just cure the Doctor by transmat, as Harry did with Sarah during Revenge of the Cybermen?

Part Three

“I don’t know what to think. I’ve never been in anybody’s head before.”

This episode marks a turning point in the marathon for me personally- halfway through I finally finish my first notebook!

This entire episode is unintentionally hilarious, and the sets of the inside of the Doctor’s brain are much more fun than the sets we’ve seen elsewhere. I love the way the Clone Doctor keeps pointing bits out to Clone Leela. Apparently the Doctor was once able, Matrix-like, to tune himself into the “Time Lord intelligentsia”, but lost this ability when he was “kicked out”. I like the Doctor’s line about the mind and the brain being analogous to the land and the sea, utter rubbish though it may be.

Plenty of hilariousness abounds, from the Doctor’s beach ball-like antibodies to the ridiculous Slowness of Marius’s countdown. But pretty soon both K9(!) and the Professor are infected…

The Nucleus actually gives a pretty good justification of its actions to the Doctor- like any creature it has every right to survive. But of course, that goes both ways. In another context, this could have been a fairly serious discussion.

The ending is most odd, with the sting seeming to briefly start and then stop a minute before the end. Are the last two scenes in the right order?

Part Four

“I only hope he’s TARDIS trained!”

Hmmm, so the nucleus and all its viruses can survive at human size? Er, yes. And it seems the TARDIS is still bigger on the inside with the dimensional stabiliser gone. But this is not the story to be asking such questions- best just to let the silliness wash over you. Amusingly, for the first time here we see the camera panning upwards from the step at the TARDIS entrance as K9 rolls inside. The first of many…

We get the first appearance of another Graham Williams era trope here too, as the Doctor enters the TARDIS and dematerialises with his scarf still caught in the Door. Never mind the fact we then cut to him at the controls with his scarf clearly far from the entrance!

Oh dear. From Talons to this in two stories! For all its faults it certainly wasn’t dull, and has a certain so-bad-it’s-good capacity to amuse, but this is the worst story since The Time Monster- silly and badly designed, with the Doctor often bordering on being out of character. 2/5.

Doctor Who: The Hand of Fear

 
Part One

“Do they have seasons in South Croydon?”

I remember RTD once saying he’d never dream of starting a story on Planet Zog with a load of aliens we’ve never met before expositing at each other. Well, it seems the Bristol Boys have no such qualms! Interesting look for an alien race- faces unseen behind the hood of an anorak…

In an already familiar seeming self-referential moment the Doctor and Sarah land in a quarry on earth, and there’s a hilarious reference to it seeming like an alien world. Oh my aching sides. There’s a siren blatantly going off, and the our heroes are caught in an explosion. You can’t help but be impressed with the Doctor’s health and safety regime for TARDIS landings…

All the same, I’m quite enjoying this. It’s consistently witty, even in little moments- I like the hospital doctor’s speech about pain, a nice little moment for a minor character. And then there’s the agreeable Dr Tyler- er, Carter, who seems a nice chap, enthusiastically investigating this strange, ancient stone hand Sarah’s been clutching. He’s a nice chap, who doesn’t at all deserve to get whacked over the head by Sarah during her latest alien possession. While interestingly dressed- “Yes, just like Andy Pandy!”

Of course, this being a script by the Bristol Boys, the action now moves to a scientific complex…

Part Two

“That’s not as ‘armless as it looks!

A rather long reprise, and what with this becoming practically a hostage situation in a nuclear reaction things get very tense very quickly. Once again Lis Sladen performs being possessed brilliantly, even taking in to account all the practice she’s had.

It’s a shame Dr Carter gets killed- he seemed a nice chap! But it’s a moment which indicates how high the stakes are, something achieved very well with the Professor’s touching “last” phone call to his family.

There’s a nice moment as Sarah responds to the Doctor’s hypnotising her with “Ah no, that’s not fair! Not aga-“. But on the other hand that’s a bit more mission creep for one of the Doctor’s recently acquired superpowers.

Part Three

“It’s just that no one is going to believe me.”

We begin with our heroes in big radioactive trouble, but fortunately Eldrad absorbs the radiation. Fine so far. But then, as in Claws of Axos, the RAF happily set about dropping a nuclear bomb on the complex while Sarah and the Prof shelter behind a car? Oh dear! Yes, Eldrad absorbs the blast, and the Doctor probably expects this, but that still leaves a hell of a lot of bad science on show.

I like the “I worry about you” chat between the Doctor and Sarah on their way to meet Eldrad- it reminds us what a great relationship they have just as it’s about to end.

Interesting that Eldrad, from 150 million years ago, and Solon, from at least a few centuries in our future, have both heard of Time Lords. They must have been around a while then. And the Doctor tells Edrad, without being contradicted, that he can’t break the “first law” of history and take her back to Kastria in her own time- it has to be the present day. Not only this but the Doctor claims she can’t harm him in the still brand spanking new TARDIS control room because it exists in a state of “temporal grace”, something which seems rather inconsistent with previous stories, The Enemy of the World for one. And these are both rather big and limiting things to set up for plot convenience in one story!

The Prof shoots at Eldrad yet he gets to live. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised in hindsight- after that phone call there was no way he was going to die…

Part Four

“I’m sick of being cold and wet and hypnotised left, right and centre. I’m sick of being shot at, savaged by bug-eyed monsters, never knowing if I’m coming, going or been.”

Well, Eldrad can’t pronounce “matrix”, and the abyss looks too obviously like a set, but otherwise this is a satisfying conclusion. Sadly Eldrad has to become a rather shouty bloke who is much more obviously a baddie from the word go. As Sarah puts it, “I quite liked her, but I couldn’t stand him.” The Kastrians’ trap for Eldrad perhaps becomes implausible if dwelt on, but it feels satisfactory as a conclusion and I for one find it a fitting ending: “Hail Eldrad, king of nothing!”

And then it happens. One of no doubt many half-hearted arguments, but then the Doctor is summoned to Gallifrey, and actresses whose contracts are about to end may not set foot on that world be ancient degree, or not until next season in any case. It’s a great scene, threatening even my own tear ducts of steel. Sarah will be missed. Doing this marathon has shown me just how great she was, and what a great actress Lis Sladen is, especially with facial expressions and so many little physical things. I think at the moment she’s by far my favourite.

All good fun, if not quite up there with the best, as so many of this run are turning out to be. 4/5.

Doctor Who: The Sontaran Experiment

Part One
 

“I feel a bit like a Morse message- slightly scrambled.”

Hmmm. So there’s been no life on Earth for ten thousand years. How come we can see an awful lot of grass and moorland then, eh?

This is another nice little character piece for our three regulars, with the all location filming giving us a nicely atmospheric location. The TARDISeers are soon split up, just like old times, and the mystery is soon set up- who are all these Sith Efrican voortrekkers from space, and what’s this odd looking robot?

The reveal of the creature’s hand, via the camera on Vural’s chest, is nicely done, a very good bit of directing. There’s also some nice world-building, with the Galsec contingent clearly having a chip on their shoulder about Earth.

The Sontaran ship is the moment of the big reveal, and it’s good to see the Sontarans again. Although, bizarrely, we get exactly the same cliffhanger ending as for part one of The Time Warrior.

Part Two

“I’ll get you out of there if I have to knock his bally head of and grab his keys.”

I’m not entirely sure why Styre’s come to earth to “test” humans if it’s empty and he has to lure humans here from elsewhere. Perhaps to avoid interruption? I suppose it just about passes muster.

Styre’s not very popular; the Marshal’s getting impatient with him while the Doctor is morally outraged- the first real show of great moral indignation from this Doctor, and something Tom Baker does very well. It’s implied in both cases that Styre is enjoying his “experiments” too much- again, something much darker than anything we would have seen under Barry Letts.

The two episode format enables the story to rattle along at a furious pace, with no padding whatsoever. We only met Vural an episode ago, but now we discover that he’s a traitor.

There’s a great exchange between the Doctor and Harry where the Doctor says “Never throw anything away, Harry”, swiftly followed by “It’s a mistake to clutter one’s pockets, Harry.” The performance is very difference, but this new Doctor owes a fair bit to Troughton- he even has a 500 year diary.

There’s an awkward moment where, in a blatant outbreak of as-you-know-Bobbery, the Marshal and Styre tell each other things both already know while being overheard by the Doctor. This sort of thing can be done far more subtly.

Unusually, the Doctor saves the day by engaging in fisticuffs, and Vural, inevitably, redeems himself at the end. It’s not an entirely satisfying ending, what with Styre’s deflating head being something of an embarrassment and the Marshal giving up rather too easily.

Not a bad runaround, in spite of some niggles with the plot, and too formulaic to stand out from the crowd, so a 3/5. All the same, a nice little interlude, and another sign of the darker themes we can expect from Hinchcliffe and Holmes.

Doctor Who: The Three Doctors

Part One

“I am he and he is me.”

“And we are all together, goo goo goo joob?”

An interesting footnote at the start, courtesy of the extraordinarily uber-70s Open University lecturer supreme that is Dr Tyler. “We may not be NASA, but we still get results” he says, implying no British space programme. We’ve come a long way since Ambassadors of Death. In fact, by now there seems to be little or no attempt to make it appear that these stories are set in the near future.

We’ve also come a long way since UNIT was something to be taken seriously, of course, and this is not a situation which can be sustained. The Brigadier has now been reduced to comic relief, passing the Doctor a silver rod to stir his tea with. And he gets lines which hardly help either the character or the format: “Make yourself at home. We’re only supposed to be a top security establishment. Liberty Hall, Dr Tyler. Liberty Hall!”

But of course all this doesn’t matter, as the format is about to be pretty much dispensed with anyway. And besides, it’s all such good fun. And it’s odd, because before the marathon I always had a particular dislike for this story. But seeing it in sequence it’s such fun. Never has a story risen in my estimation so much during this marathon.

Anyway, back to part one. It’s all very Pertwee- weird music, magnificently bizarre plot courtesy of the Bristol Boys- but then we get a foreshadowing of what’s to come as the Doctor says to Jo “When I tell you to run, run!” It may not be intentional, but it certainly got me into a frenzied state of anticipation.

Incidentally, where’s Yates? Still in hospital after being blown up in The Time Monster? Benton, meanwhile, finally gets to see the inside of the TARDIS. And it’s been redesigned for the second story in a row. Blimey.

It’s a bit odd to see the Doctor call upon the Time Lords for help for only the second time- the stakes don’t feel anywhere near as high as they did in The War Games. There’ve been eight fewer episodes by this point, for a start. And we see the Time Lords’ planet (we don’t know what it’s called yet, of course) for the first time in colour. Is it me, or is there a very ‘70s-looking brown and orange curtain on the wall to the right? It’s all getting very exciting indeed: one of the Time Lords is a judge from the Doctor’s trial, the Time Lords are in trouble, and they suddenly start talking about bringing back the Trout! Apparently, the first law of time is “Thou shalt not cross thine own time stream”, but nobody cares much about the law at times like this.

It’s the Trout! Yay! And suddenly, after years of assuming the Troughton seen here to have been a caricature of his previous performance, in the context of the marathon I now realise I was dead wrong. Before, I thought of the second Doctor as the character seen in Season Six, because those were the stories I’d seen. But this Doctor, with his whimsicality, his recorder, his intelligence hidden behind a clownish exterior, is the Doctor I remember from recently watching all his stories in order. He’s just right. Extraordinary.

It gets even better though. Soon the Time Lords are talking about “the earliest Doctor” (interesting- it’s explicitly stated he was the first) and there he is. And it’s great to see him.

“So you’re my replacements. A dandy and a clown.” Fantastic!

Part Two

“Because he told me to. And I’ve always had great respect for his advice.”

The Brigadier’s face when he first claps eyes on the Trout is truly a sight to behold. And while his flat refusal to believe what he’s told seems less of a shark-jumping moment in context, it’s still a low point for the character. And his reaction to the TARDIS is even worse. Still, he gets a good line about the Doctor being his own assistant.

A very interesting first; the first Doctor to offer jelly babies is Troughton… in a Pertwee story. I wasn’t expecting that!

We get to see Hartnell again. Fantastic, utterly wonderful in context. There’s a parallel here in my reaction to Troughton this time around; I used to find the Hartnell scenes embarrassing, even wrong, as Hartnell is so clearly ill and struggling with his lines. And yet, in context, it’s really great to see him again. And yes, he may be struggling a little, but there’s something triumphant there too. His scenes are magical.

Part Three

“I’m fairly sure that’s Cromer…”

For the second story in a row we’re introduced to some important Time Lord mythology- Omega, a “solar engineer” who created time travel for the Time Lords by blowing up a star and creating a singularity. Those Bristol Boys and their big, big ideas!

Trout says “Oh, my giddy aunt”! This is such a nostalgia fest. Who cares if the Brig is a buffoon and the cliffhanger is pointless? 

Part Four

“All things shall be destroyed! All things! All things! All things!

It’s genuinely shocking and effective that Omega has nothing under his helmet and only exists through sheer will. Somehow this is such a fantastic idea that it doesn’t even matter that Omega has never once, in his thousands of years in this world, looked into the mirror directly opposite his throne. Those Bristol Boys and their big ideas!

This is as fantastic as all the other episodes, aside from the fact that everyone who walks through the smoke arrives on Earth at once. Troughton’s great, acting Pertwee completely off the screen. The Brigadier says “Wonderful chap. Both of him.” And best of all, the Doctor’s exile is over.

Wow. I thought I was going to give this 1/5. I’ve always hated this story. And yet, this time it didn’t matter that much of it made no sense, that Ollis and Tyler have no reason to be there or that the treatment of UNIT and the Brig was unforgivable. Far more important was the fun of the big, big ideas and, best of all, the old Doctors. It really was great to see them again.

Doctor Who: The Mutants

Part One

“Did you ever read Gibbon’s Decline and Fall?”

“No. Is it good?”

For a moment it looks as though I’ve popped in a Monty Python episode by mistake. It’s…

Gradually it’s becoming less of a novelty to start a story on an alien world, and we know from the start that we’re to expect a trip in the TARDIS courtesy of that large black spherical thing (Lunch?” “No.” “Bomb?”). Jo, continuing her growth in confidence, is determined to go along.

We get an awful lot of exposition this episode, and two blatantly obvious allegories are set up- decolonisation and apartheid, both of which would have been contemporary issues. In fact, I’m sure the Marshall is at least partly based on Rhodesia’s Ian Smith. Interesting that Earth’s empire in the late 30th century is going the way of Britain’s a century earlier- a nice bit of future history.

Oh, and Rick James is every bit as bad as I remember.


Part Two

“I’m surrounded by incompetents!”

Pertwee’s performance is notably worse here than it’s been recently- it’s as if he’s going through the motions. I’m beginning to see a reverse correlation between how engaged Pertwee is in the story and how much he rubs the back of his neck. And there are some rather poor performances elsewhere.


Part Three

“The Marshall’s solution to what he calls the Mutt problem…”


Cotton invoking Grimm’s Law there…

Paul Whitsun-Jones is playing the Marshall as a fairly standard cartoon baddie, and while this certainly works and Whitsun-Jones executes it well, I can’t help feeling there’s a missed opportunity here. The character is written believably- he doesn’t suspect Stubbs and Cotton out of sheer narcissism and obsession, and his descent into irrationality and essentially madness is gradual and believable as written. A different style of performance would have wrung out more of the depth to the character that’s there in the script. Interestingly, this is a character who’s inevitably going to be in very serious trouble with the Earth authorities- it’s only a matter of time. And this makes him all the more dangerous- he’s a cornered dog, liable to cause as much trouble as possible before he’s caught.

The plot’s moving on well though, and so far there seem to be few problems with the script, which so far has been a well-paced and well-plotted effort from the Bristol Boys with some good concepts and no returning baddies- a plus at this point in the series. But there are so many problems elsewhere- Paul Whitsun-Jones, Frederick Jaeger and Rick James are all clearly miscast, and actively bad in the case of the latter. Pertwee’s still oddly subdued too. And this seems to be our first glaring example of what would become the bane of depictions of the future in 70s Who- bland, featureless corridors and silly, unconvincing uniforms. A lot of this has to be blamed on Christopher Barry.


Part Four

“Professor Sondergaard, I presume?”

The good Professor is quite the exposition machine, isn’t he? Still, someone has to be and, frankly, Pertwee’s still looking a bit flat at the moment. One thing hasn’t been explained though- why are the Time Lords sending these hieroglyphs to Ky if he can’t read them? Still, aside from little niggles like this the script is essentially quite good- it’s just everything else that isn’t! The concept of the Solonian life cycle in the context of the planet’s 500 year long seasons is brilliant.

So. An Investigator is coming? Just after Varan’s rebels have taken over Skybase? It’s all getting a bit Colony in Space.


Part Five

“Marshall, you are quite mad.”


Hmmm, so Solos is now radioactive. A fact which, of course, won’t be dwelt on so to spoil the happy ending!

Things start manoeuvring for the endgame here, with some good bits- Jo’s escapology again in what’s actually been quite a good story for her, the Doctor finally gets a good moment with the Marshall, and Stubbs’ death is a genuine shock. But all this is counterbalanced by the sheer awfulness of Rick James’ performance, which seems particularly bad in this episode. Also cringeworthy is the Doctor’s silly speech about “un-people doing un-things un-together”.


Part Six

“I am a scientist!”

*cough*

A rather dull last episode in the end, mainly because of the intrinsic dullness of the Administrator, whose sole function in the story seems to be to stop anything happening until all the pieces (ie Sondergaard and Ky) are in place. He seems strangely fickle too, switching his sympathies according to dramatic convenience.



Well, a real curate’s egg, that one. While not without its faults, the script was actually quite good, with a great central concept, good dialogue and characterisation (wasted in some of the performances, sadly), and mostly well-paced. It’s just that the acting was atrocious- not only was this by far the worst guest cast yet assembled, but Pertwee seems to have caught some of their bad acting germs himself. And then there’s the whole look of the thing, the most generic- looking piece of that’ll-do futuristic space opera yet. I’ll be very generous and give this a 3/5, as I feel sorry for the poor script for being so cruelly treated.



Rankings

The Massacre 5/5
The War Games 5/5
Spearhead From Space 5/5
Fury from the Deep 5/5
The Evil of the Daleks 5/5
The Myth Makers 5/5
The Aztecs 5/5
The Tomb of the Cybermen 5/5
Marco Polo 5/5
The Crusade 5/5
Day of the Daleks 5/5
Inferno 5/5
The Highlanders 5/5
The Daleks’ Master Plan 5/5
The Time Meddler 5/5
The Invasion 5/5
The Power of the Daleks 5/5
The Mind Robber 5/5
The Web of Fear 5/5
The Rescue 5/5
The Reign of Terror 5/5
An Unearthly Child 5/5
Colony in Space 5/5
The Macra Terror 5/5
The Savages 5/5
Mission to the Unknown 5/5
The Ambassadors of Death 4/5
Doctor Who and the Silurians 4/5
The Curse of Peladon 4/5
The Gunfighters 4/5
The Claws of Axos 4/5
The Tenth Planet 4/5
The Moonbase 4/5
The Dalek Invasion of Earth 4/5
The Romans 4/5
Terror of the Autons 4/5
The Krotons 4/5
The Ice Warriors 4/5
The War Machines 4/5
The Smugglers 4/5
The Abominable Snowmen 4/5
The Sea Devils 4/5
Planet of Giants 4/5
The Daleks 3/5
The Seeds of Death 3/5
The Enemy of the World 3/5
Galaxy Four 3/5
The Space Museum 3/5
[B]The Mutants 3/5[/B]
The Chase 3/5
The Space Pirates 3/5
The Sensorites 3/5
The Edge of Destruction 2/5
The Dæmons 2/5
The Mind of Evil 2/5
The Faceless Ones 2/5
The Ark 2/5
The Wheel in Space 2/5
The Dominators 2/5
The Web Planet 1/5
The Keys of Marinus 1/5
The Celestial Toymaker 1/5
The Underwater Menace 1/5

Season Five: 4/5
Season Seven: 4/5
Season Three: 3.9/5
Season Four: 3.889/5
Season Six: 3.857/5
Season Two: 3.778/5
Season One: 3.625/5
Season Eight: 3.4/5

Doctor Who: The Claws of Axos

Don't worry- I like this a lot more than The Mind of Evil!


Part One


"Oo arr? Oo arr? oo arr? Oo arr.."


This is reminding me a lot of the opening to Spearhead. But it looks impressive- those tentacles, the organic ship.

A couple of interesting guest characters; Chinn is the first really imbecilic civil servant we've seen- we're not all really like that, honest! Interesting once again to hear the Brigadier state that the Doctor is his personal responsibility. Then there's Bill Filer, who I assume is from the US branch of UNIT. Oddly enough I seemed to remember his accent being unconvincing, but this time it sounded fine to my British ears.

I'm enjoying this a lot- Pigbin Josh has something to do with it, but also the Doctor's abrasiveness is less alienating when directed against a true imbecile, Chinn, and his arseheaded nationalistic witterings. I can certainly see the value of that kind of character as set against this Doctor. Other nice sci-fi touches; science that's taken an organic path. This is so good I don't even mind the blatant CSO and "freak weather conditions"! a promising start from a new writing team.



Part Two


"Who leads the investigation?"

"Why, you do, of course."


The conversation between Chinn and the minister is good fun, and also signals to us that we shouldn't get too frustrated about Chinn's inane splutterings; he's there to provide comic relief, not to be a true obstacle. Which is a relief, because he's even more of a pillock here than he was last episode.

So, the Time Lords were not mentioned at all for six years and now the Axons know of them? The currency seems to be devaluing before our eyes...

Once more there are some nice touches- both UNIT and the Master are trying to achieve the same goal for very different reasons. In fact, Chinn is unwittingly doing good whilst UNIT are unwittingly sealing the world's fate. That's clever. I feel sorry for Winser though- the Doctor spends the whole episode being rude to him and then he dies!


Part Three


"Oh, I suppose you can take the usual precautions against nuclear blasts. Sticky tape on the windows and that sort of thing."



So, apparently "Axonite is simply bait for human greed." Actual subtext? Nah, probably not. Still, there's nothing wrong with not being very deep if it works as entertainment, and this does. I like Chinn's videophone, incidentally. There have been a lot of those lately. Almost enough to make you believe we're a few years in the future. Except everything on screen screams that we're not.

Bill Filer's saying urgent stuff while in a coma. We've been seeing a fair bit of that recently too...

We finally get our first sight of the TARDIS interior in colour. It's clearly the same set, and getting very tatty. And we get the first indication that the exterior is no longer a contemporary piece of street furniture as Hardiman calls it an "obsolete police box". The Master's just as scathing about the up-to-dateness of the interior too! these scenes are advancing what seems to be the season's Doctor / Master arc, mind, with the Master getting the measure of the Doctor's TARDIS. It's an interesting season to see in sequence.

Delgado is magnificent in this episode. I love both the delivery and the facial expressions at the exchange with Hardiman towards the end: "Are you trying to tell me you can absorb the total output of this complex in a police box?" "Yes."



Part Four


"Goodbye, Jo. I shall miss you."


I certainly raised an eyebrow at the Doctor slapping Jo!

A nice sense of crisis is achieved here- Hardiman going down with his ship is a nice touch. And I note that Chinn, who we haven't seen for a while, has now been relegated entirely to comic relief.

Previously I've not liked the ending to this story because the Doctor's apparent betrayal felt wrong. But this is a case of a story rising in my estimation because of the marathon; here his apparent betrayal feels exactly right. Whether intended or not, it comes across as a satisfying climax to the Doctor having been such an arse recently. There's a suspicion in the back of our mind that the increasingly nasty Doctor of recent weeks might actually be serious. Yet again Jo looks sympathetic as she refuses to believe in the Doctor's treachery.

Of course, not only was the Doctor not intending to leave his friends in the lurch (although escape from Earth, naturally, was part of the plan), he was selflessly risking eternity in a time loop. So he does care about others above himself, however much he might whinge.

In other news, we see the exterior to the Master's TARDIS- is this its undisguised form, a brown cupboard?



Overall, good fun. Not the greatest story ever told, but at least we get a script that tells us to enjoy ourselves, which makes the silliness of the setup work. And the Doctor's a lot more likeable here, partly because of the climax making it clear that he's just a big teddy bear underneath, but also because his rudeness is better targeted most of the time.