Dad's Army (1971)

 "And I must ask you to keep your hands off my privates...".

Obviously, this film isn't ever going to be as funny as the TV programme, which I'll prpbably never blog, fuzzy thoiugh my principle of never blogging sitcoms may be. Films, being directed differently and, in this era, on film instead of video, are not directed for comic effect in the same way as a contemporary sitcom episode.

Despite this, the film is bloody funny.

A lot of this is, of course, down to all the familiar characters, well-established by 1971. The opening scenes establish this so well, as Mainwaring walks to the bank in the morning and greets the townsfolk.

It's amazing to ponder that 1971 was fifty-one years ago, and that old people at that time- such as John Laurie and Arnold Ridley- would have been born in the century of Victoria. The cast is superb, as much as the script, as ever with Dad's Army, is the best kind of farce, entirely based on well-developed character.

Yet this is, too, a fascinating historical document, chronicling the events of 1940 through ordinary people. And the ending- where Mainwaring is a genuine, bona fide hero- is both superb and something we'd never see on telly. Mainwaring may be a pompous ass, but he's no coward and, indeed, as brave as any western hero. Such is the complexity of life.

I love the constant comical friction with Bernard Archard's general. I love that this is a rather well done origin story. I love the whole bloody thing. Cinematic versions of sitcoms didn't often succeed in this era. But this certainly does.

The Horror of Frankenstein (1970)

 "Times are hard. People just aren't dying off so quick..."

This isn't the first time I've seen this film, but it's probably pushing two decades since I last saw this, and it's lost none of its power. It's a shame the film, apparently, flopped at the box office; the script, direction and Ralph Bates are all superb, and even Kate O'Mara's inexplicable mittel-European Irish accent strangely works.

The Curse of Frankenstein introduced Hammer Horror films properly, telling the familiat story with a focus on Frankenstein himself as an amoral and obsessive villain rather than a tragic figure. This film absolutely doubles down on that, with Bates' Victor Frankenstein being a cynical, manipulative, cold bastard who not only kills for his work but demands sex from his housekeeper and cruelly refuses to marry Elizabeth, who is besotted with him, but cruelly exploits her financial troubles to make her his housekeeper. This Frankenstein is a deliciously nasty piece of work, and Bates carries this film in an absolute tour de force of a performance, although Dennis Price is absolutely wonderful as the splendidly camp grave robber,.

The monster turns up fairly late on in the film, but that doesn't matter. It's all about Frankenstein himself as the antihero we love to hate. Best of all, he survives unharmed at the end, unlike all of those who have crossed or even annoyed him. This is peak, confident Hammer, and t's superb, box office be damned.

Doctor Who: The Power of the Daleks (Revisited), Episodes Five and Six

Episode Five

"Why do human beings kill human beings?"

The Daleks have revealed their plans, and we know them to be duplicating: you'd expect this to be a water-treading fifth episode. And yet, in spite of the Doctor spending the episode in a cell, and Michael Craze being off for a week, a hell of a lot happens in David Whittaker's intelligent and gripping script.

For a start, the only person to have see the Daleks duplicating is Lesterson, the one character whom no one will believe. The scene where Janley subtly gaslights him in front of Bragen is chillingly effective, his plans to wipe out the Daleks doomed. He's hoist by his own hubris. But he won't be alone. Hubris is everywhere on Vulcan.

Well, perhaps not in production terms. Animation can show us hordes of Daleks, none of them cardboard. But a Daleks reminder that no more than three of them ought to be seen at one time sort of gives away how many props there were. But Janley? She oozes hubris, believing the Daleks can be controlled. Bragen is even worse, riding the revolution to power and then seeking to massacre those who helped him. And then the unexpectedly returned Governor, couped and murdered by Dalek gun in a tense and superb scene which ends with a positively megalomaniacal Bragen in firm control.

Polly only half-convinces Valmar of the plot, but all this plotting ends up being supremely relevant, as we end with the famously surviving scene of revived



Episode Six

"Daleks conquer and destroy!"

Everything looks bleak at the start, as it seems that everybody is going to be exterminating. And, well, things just carry on being bleak as the Daleks happily massacre away, all the human skulduggery being for nothing and utterly exploited by the Daleks.

It’s a bit of a fudge that Bragen, the Doctor, Polly and Quinn aren’t just killed by the Dalek at the time, mine. Letting them past and then weakly announcing that “they will be exterminated” doesn’t quite fulfill the Daleks’ promise. But apart from this it’s an episode of slaughter.

Even at this late stage there’s still a bit of plotting- Valmar overhears Bragen telling a reluctant Janley that he and his friends are all to be killed, now expendable after assisting his coup. But it’s all suddenly meaningless, and Bragen is now king of nothing. And the Daleks just keep on killing- it's just that some killings, like that of Lesterson, are laced with more irony than most.

The Doctor finally defeats the Daleks by destroying the (ahem) power of the Daleks- but, interestingly, it's very much lampshaded that the Doctor could have done this in a far less anarchistic way than to destroy the entire colony's electricity supply. Does he intend to help them unite through adversity? Whatever, it's a surprising manipulative act. Then there's the shockingly deliberate decision to use Bragen's arriving guards as bait. This Doctor may be charming, he may on the whole be a goodie, but he certainly has his dark side. That's brave.


And so, as a whole, being able to fully follow what's going on, the story stands revealed as a triumph, and a far better script than I'd even suspected. It also helps that we don't get those bloody carboard cut-out Daleks...

Doctor Who: The Power of the Daleks (Revisited), Episodes Three and Four

Episode Three

"A Dalek is bett... is not the same as a human."

Again, moving pictures make such a difference and mean, for once, that I can fully follow the plot both in ways I knew I wasn’t following before and in getting extra nuances. Who cares if the animation is a bit rubbish?

Anyway, the colony certainly starts the episode enthused about the potential of the Daleks to do labour tasks in mines and so forth that, er, would surely require much better mobility and actual hands, but never mind.

Quinn is clearly innocent, and telling the truth when saying he sent for the examiner, but is locked up anyway. Bragen is the new Deputy Governor- and is immediately revealed to be colluding with Janley and the rebels in a plot to exploit their grievances to launch a coup d’etat. Blimey.

Meanwhile, Lesterson is puzzlingly impressed by what he thinks of as the Dalek’s robotic “positronic brain (so Whitaker read Asimov?) as it recites chemical formulas by rote, and is easily manipulated into getting it materials to build a machine which will absolutely predict meteor impacts as the Dalek claims and in no way manufacture an army of Dalek casings so the Daleks can massacre everybody.

Two more Daleks emerge but, hey, Lesterson is in control, while the Doctor flits about learning things- and we get our first “When I say run, run”. And Bragen knows the Doctor is an impostor- but the Doctor knows he killed the real Examiner. Stalemate?

This is a much better episode, with all the skulduggery, when you can easily follow the plot.



Episode Four

"We understand the human mind."

Lesterson begins by asserting his authority in temporarily switching off the Daleks’, er, power to show his dominance, probably the last chance he will have. This is his last big moment before his nervous breakdown, a good bit of characterisation.

But, not forgetting the new Doctor, we get our first “I would like a hat like that”, Troughton’s early catchphrase. He’s alarmed to see Daleks everywhere as servants... and then there were somehow four Daleks, not three. This concern about the mysterious extra Dalek is a superb way of building tension. One odd thing, though, is that the Daleks suddenly operate by static electricity again, for the first and only time since The Daleks. Meanwhile Polly, kidnapped by Janley last episode, is absent so Anneke can have a week off.

Lesterson is now easily manipulated both by the Daleks and the calmly fanatical Janley, a superbly nuanced female character. The rebels want to use the Daleks, and it’s Janley who persuades then that it will be fine and in no way will the Daleks just massacre them all. Meanwhile Bragen, temporarily in charge, exposes and imprisons the Doctor, giving him a chance to compare notes with Quinn.

The ending is superb, and so much better than the frustration of watching these highly visual scenes via telesnaps, as an agog Lesterson sees a Dalek army being manufactured. I particularly love how the bubbling little lumps of hate are removed from water and placed into casings. The whole sequence is amazing, all the more so for the fact that animation doesn’t do cardboard cut out Daleks.

This story, which I already rated very highly, is rising rapidly in my estimation.

Doctor Who: The Power of the Daleks (Revisited), Episodes One and Two

Episode One

"Life depends on change and renewal."

Been a while since I blogged any non-current Doctor Who, hasn't it? I blogged the actual The Enemy of the World and The Web of Fear when Philip Morris found them, but otherwise I just blogged them all at the very beginning of this blog- which, indeed, didn't start as a blog at all but as a series of reviews, alongside a bunch of others, for The Great Nap Year Marathon of 2008 to 2010 on Outpost Gallifrey. This blog only existed at first so I could keep my own copies of the reviews... and then we all somehow finished marathoning all of Doctor Who, from 1963 to 2010. Only then did I start to turn this into a wider TV and film blog, having caught the habit- keeping up with current Doctor Who along the way, of course.

But I'm drawn back to The Power of the Daleks. My original review was of the Loose Cannon recon, and there are no episodes so frustrating as this one, where the Doctor is recast (I shouldn't yet say "regenerated") for the first time, and we see Patrick Troughton first attempting the role- or, that is, we don't.

So what of this animated version? Well, the animation itself is crude and basic, but it gives us something we lacked: moving pictures. It also helps enormously that we get a) much clearer sound and b) subtitles. It's such a relief to be able to watch one of the most pivotal episodes ever and be able to understand the narrative. Well, almost. It's pretty clear that the Doctor's movements as he wakes up, stands and has his dizzy little trippy experience are pretty much extrapolated from the telesnaps. Much of the movement we see see here is guesswork, inevitably.

It's good to have the brief recap at the start for context, reminding us of just how little the narrative was holding our hands- and in this first episode mercurial old David Whitaker reminds us of the necessity of change and renewal, throwing us a great big mercurial metaphor in the forms of those great big pools of..,. well  yes, remember who's writing this. One could even stretch a point and say that Polly and Ben being poisoned a bit by mercury fumes reflect difficulties in adapting to change. But it's a brave episode that doesn't patronise, lets Troughton be sinister and weird, and allows us to work out for ourselves whether we accept him as the Doctor. As Ben says of Polly and himself, where do they stand now? And where, indeed, do the viewers stand?

The plot of what's happening on Vulcan starts pretty sharpish, although not really foregrounded yet, but the Doctor havng the documents of the Examiner fall literally into his hand is a nice narrative shortcut tantamount to Psychic Paper, and the fiction between Quinn and Bragen shows us immediately that the colony may not be a happy place, Interesting, though, that they claim to have seen the TARDIS "overshoot" like any old spaceship.

It isn't long, though, until we briefly meet Lesterson and Janley, who is established sketchily as A Bit Political, and then our heroes are sneaking into the capsule. There we find THAT door opening sound, lots of incidental music which is not so much by Tristram Carey but simply reused from The Daleks and, well, Daleks...



Episode Two

"One Dalek?"

"Yes. All that is needed to wipe out this entire colony."

This episode foregrounds the Vulcan politics and the many mysteries (Who shot the real examiner? What's going on with the Examiner? Who really cut the communication cables to Earth as Quinn is an obvious red herring?) as we flesh out this colony where we hear of political discontent and, sinisterly "secret newspapers" suggesting this isn't exactly a free society. Everyone is brittle, suspicious and guarded around everyone else, whether the open mutual loathing of Quinn and Brazen or the political incompatibility of Lesterson's two assistants- Janley coming across as a proper Momentum cultist while Resno is your typical working class Tory. It feels as though a storm is about to start, ad establishing that mood is a brilliant piece of writing- and much clearer  with moving pictures.

We also, this time no longer in the foreground, examine this new Doctor and how he operates- acting the eccentric to seem harmless but always thinking, examining, trying to understand. And yes, when the Dalek recognises him at the end we can finally accept that this is the Doctor.

The cliffhanger is so very, very good anyway, with the Doctor's protestations of how dangerous the Daleks are constantly undercut by "I-AM-YOUR-SER-VANT". But the constant shots from the Dalek's POV make this so much more unnerving. So far this is televsion of the very first rank.

Krull (1983)

"Death and power are close cousins."

"I don't think I like your relatives, old man."

I know I'm not coming up with a startlingly new insight here, but Star Wars was a rather influential film. Yes, it gave space opera a bit of a shot in the arm, but all the science fiction surface stuff took place within a framework based on quest narrative and myth. It had good wizards, bad wizards and magic in the form of the Force, fantasy element dressed up in sci-fi clothes, and skimpy ones at that. Star Wars may not be the only reason there was such an explosion of fantasy movies in the early '80s, but it's an important one.

Krull is more blatant an example than most, though, and not just because it has a princess in it and a rather Luke Skywalker-ish hero. Ynyr (interesting name from Norse mythology there) is a sort of cross between Obi-Wan and Yoda. Torquil is a slightly dodgy Han Solo figure. Ergo is C-3PO. It's using the same structure as Star Wars, but not bothering to disguise the mythical origins. This isn't sci-fi, give or take the odd ray gun and talk of the protagonists' son ruling "the Galaxy", it's outright fantasy.

Not that I'm accusing the film of being a simple rip-off, mind.  There's something honest about how it acknowledges its mythical sources. The film is a quest based around a series of more-or-less contained set pieces, and feels very similar to The Odyssey. Rell the Cyclops seems to be in the film partly to acknowledge this, but with a new and tragic addition: Cyclops are doomed with the melancholy knowledge of the time of their own deaths. This isn't just ripping off old myths, it's treating them creatively. Similarly, the large party of adventurers traversing huge distances and different environments evokes The Lord of the Rings and, again, the film acknowledges this debt with the character of the Widow, a sort of less nasty Shelob. The scene between her and Ynyr owes just as much to Merlin's demise in the Arthurian myths, though.

That's an awful lot of mythological allusions, but that's one of the reasons why this film is so much fun. It's creative. Even the characters aren't the usual fantasy archetypes that would fit neatly into D&D character classes. Instead we get a diminutive comedy wizard and a wise old man who is refreshingly un-wizardy.

There are a couple of eyebrow-raising things around the plot, certainly. Lyssa and Colwyn have barely met and hardly know each other, yet they seem to be head over heels in love. Theirs is a political marriage, so the script has to carefully emphasise that the bride is very willing. But we can overlook this sort of thing; it's what happens in myth. These characters are larger than life, and we shouldn't expect too much in the way of character motivation. Similarly, a glaive is actually a polearm with a sharp pointy blade (yes, I've played D&D), but I reckon we can overlook that too.

This is a fantastically entertaining film, with some brilliant and gloriously imaginative set pieces, and some pleasingly unexpected actors in minor roles. No less a figure than Todd Carty is in it, and there are early roles for the likes of Liam Neeson and Robbie Coltrane. It's not quite up there with the best, but this is a solid piece of fantasy cinema.

Doctor Who: Pyramids of Mars

Part One

“I bring Sutekh’s gift of death to all humanity.”

After an appropriately horror film-esque teaser with lots of stock footage in an Egyptian bent, we get a brief shot of the TARDIS flying through space, Just as we did at the end of Planet of Evil. Sarah’s trying on Victoria’s old dress in a bit of gratuitous continuity that’s mind-bogglingly rare for the Hinchcliffe era. The Doctor, meanwhile, is such a mardyarse that the script cannot be the sole culprit- would Paddy Russell be directing this one, perchance?

Mardy or not, he gets a good line in just-this-side-of-pretentious dialogue from, ahem, “Stephen Harris”: “I’m not a human being. I walk in eternity.” Oooh! The reason for the Doctor’s foul mood (Tom Baker’s obvious foul mood is something else entirely!) Is that he’s got a massive strop on about running around after the Brigadier. Is it me, or is there some sort of running theme emerging here? Actually, I suspect there may be two, the other one being that he doesn’t want Sarah to leave.

The TARDISeers land in the Doctor’s lab at UNIT HQ, except they don’t because it’s 1911 and still “the old priory” before it mysteriously burned down. Gosh, I wonder, for no reason in particular, what the last shot of the story could possibly be?

The Doctor’s getting quite into his namedropping again, Marie Antoinette being this week’s lucky woman. The Doctor’s rather fond of 1911, “An excellent year, one of my favourites.” Sarah, meanwhile, is revealed to be from 1980. That exact year. Fact. She says it straight up. Still, it could really be any old year as UNIT chronology is arguably completely buggered up by this point anyway.

Aside from all this we get a splendidly atmospheric first episode, with a real sense of threat, and the Doctor’s brooding presence and sudden mood changes really help in establish this. The Doctor manipulates Lawrence Scarman (the excellent Michael Sheard) into helping him by being alternately rude and charming. Well, alright, he’s charming once. Oh, and the Doctor claims to never carry firearms. Liar!

Good stuff so far, and a cliffhanger that really raises the stakes.

Part Two

“Holy Moses!"

So the Egyptian gods were really “Osirans”, all-powerful aliens who were behind all of Egyptian culture and, presumably, built the pyramids. Grr! I really hate this stuff. Just for once, can’t we have some ancient monument somewhere just being a result of ancient humans being clever?

Still, that’s not all we get. In what I like to see as a nod to the era just gone we have a poacher getting killed. How nice! And there’s a great scene where Laurence Scarman gets to see the inside of the TARDIS, just to make up for the Doctor bullying him even more than he did last episode, if that’s possible. Blimey, Tom / the Doctor really is in a foul mood. Was the Coach and Horses closed for refurbishment or something? Gosh, this bloke is, clearly, in no way going to get killed. And there’s more accurate piloting from the Doctor, incidentally. 

The guff about the alternate 1980 is nice, too, and something the series had to do at least once. I’m not sure it really works though- surely Marcus Scarman would have found the tomb anyway whether the TARDIS landed in 1911 or not, so all this would always have happened anyway?

Oh, and why is all this happening in England anyway if all Sutekh’s stuff was originally in that tomb near Sakkara?

Part Three

“Perhaps he sneezes?”

This is my fave ever Tom/ Lis episode, as it consists of the Doctor going straight for an attempt of the world mardiness record while Sarah spends the whole episode mocking him. All this and a real sense of peril too. Sadly Laurence has to die (isn’t Michael Sheard magnificent?) but at least he won’t have to put up with any more nastiness from the Doctor. The worst thing is, the Doctor still manages to be likeable even when neither he nor Tom Baker are trying to be.

Sutekh is a uniquely terrifying villain; he doesn’t want to rule the universe but to destroy all life. And it’s made clear just how powerful he is; even the Doctor’s precious Time Lords wouldn’t stand a chance.

The Doctor (well, actually Lawrence) determines to blow up the rocket Marcus Scarman is building with some gelignite, so he dresses up as a mummy with some rags. I love Sarah’s comment that it must have been a nasty accident, although I can’t help wondering how come all that metal framework is clearly visible underneath.

The ending is fantastic- Sutekh stops the explosion through sheer force of will, but then the Doctor distracts him so the gelignite can explodes. But, it seems, only at the cost of his certain death…

Part Four

“Where I tread I leave nothing but darkness. I find that good.”

Gabriel Woolfe must surely have the greatest voice for a superbaddie that ever, er, walked the planet. Just imagine Stephen Thorne saying these lines and you realise just how peerless he is. I mean, he even manages to say the line “You pit your puny will against mine?” without hamming it up, a feat surely once thought impossible.

Interesting line from the Doctor about the TARDIS controls being “isomorphic”- they certainly never have been in the past. Either he’s been tinkering or he’s telling porkies. Can Sutekh actually be lied to, though?

Tom Baker is spine-chillingly good as the possessed Doctor in a scene which must have scared the kiddies out of their wits. This is a great last episode; until the last couple of minutes it looks as though our heroes stand absolutely no chance whatsoever. Still, at least the Doctor survives his possession by using yet another previously undivulged superpower, his “respiratory bypass system”.

Incidentally, I love the Doctor’s description of the Osirans as having “dome-shaped heads… and cerebellums like spiral staircases”.

The bit with the puzzles is nice (I especially like the use of the old “forked road” riddle) and doesn’t hang around long enough to outstay its welcome. Bits of it look uncannily similar to puzzles in Death to the Daleks, but that’s ok because Sarah gets to undercut this by actually pointing it out!

The time loop ending is a clever twist, although I have no idea whether it makes sense or not. But in dramatic terms it’s a triumph. Oh, and famously all the supporting characters have been killed!

Probably not quite as good as either of its two predecessors, but still earns the third 5/5 of the season. Is this going to be the best season ever?

Doctor Who: The Power of the Daleks

Part One

"It's not only his face that's changed- he doesn't even act like him!"

Surely back in 1966 there had never been so much anticipation before the first episode of a new story. I'm certainly feeling it.

Of course, we start with a reprise of Hartnell changing into Troughton, all in glorious footage. Interesting that his clothes, although not his cloak or ring, change as well. Also adding to the tension is that Ben and Polly only enter the TARDIS asfterwards and are unsure of this stranger- and I like the way the captions on the Loose Cannon recon refer to him as such!

Point of continuity: why is it no longer cold inside the TARDIS as it was at the end of The Smugglers? We haven't dematerialised yet.

The early scenes with the new Doctor are most frustrating- if only we could see Troughton's performance- these are visually perhaps the most important few minutes ever of Doctor Who! still, the mirror's a nice touch, as is the Doctor's ring falling off.

The Doctor's been "renewed" ( I must be careful not to use a certain other word whose time has not yet come!), and apparently it's "part of the TARDIS". The post-regeneration stuff is fascinating, but interestingly in doesn't outstay its welcome- during all this the Doctor's set the TARDIS in flight.

Once more we miss what was no doubt a great visual gag as the Doctor avoids the deadly mercury swamps without looking up from his 500 year diary. And given the extra job this episode has to do the story's actual plot gets started commendably quickly, and the Doctor being able to pose as the Examiner means there's no need for any tiresome scenes of suspicion.

We finish with Daleks, and that door sound. The first six-parter for ages is off to a great start...


Part Two

"Of course, the real Doctor was always going on about the Daleks."


Nice way of establishing the Dalek threat- one Dalek is "all that is needed to wipe out this whole colony". And early impressions of this Doctor, in spite of the recorder playing, are of an easy-going yet manipulative and Machiavellian character who keeps things to his chest. It's fascinating the way the characterisation of this new Doctor is being slowly fed to us.

Up to this point it's been hard to tell the guest characters apart without footage but in this episode things become clear- there are two political factions with the "apolitical" Lesterson in the middle.

Marco Polo gets a reference! And Ben still doesn't quite believe this stranger is the Doctor. It's clever the way Ben's being used as the audience identification figure here- much of the audience would have felt real resentment for this newcomer.

The Dalek recognises the Doctor! And very cleverly drowns out his warnings by creepily repeating "I am your servant...". Top stuff so far.

Part Three

"A Dalek is bet... is not the same as a human."



The Doctor is powerless to argue that the Daleks are dangerous, in a scene which uses the knowledge the audience has of the Daleks to great effect. But by this point Troughton is undoubtedly the Doctor- quite an achievement in such a short time and after such a magnificent predecessor.

So, Quinn sent for the Examiner. And Bragen becomes deputy governor with Quinn out of the way- in no way a suspect then!

It's quite chilling to see, or rather hear, how the Daleks manipulate Lesterson. It's this story, far more than The Daleks' Master Plan, which justifies the reputation of the Sixties Daleks for cunning.

The New Doctor's character continues to develop; his anarchistic streak shows itself in an extraordinary series of vandalisms, and we get our first "When I say run, run". And the conclusion works well; both the Doctor and Bragen have found each other out, and there's a position of stalemate. By this point it's clear how extremely clever the plotting is.



Part Four

"We understand the human mind."



"We will get our power" chant the Daleks- the title of this story is clearly more relevant than those of most "Of the Daleks" stories! Lesterson is by now uneasy around the Daleks and starting to have second thoughts, a stage in the character's gradual evolution which is brilliantly acted right through the story.

I wouldn't have paid any particular notice to the Doctor saying "I would like a hat like that" to Bragen, but I've already seen the first two parts of The Highlanders- it's a phrase 'll be listening out for in future!

The Dalek hovering around as a servant is extremely sinister; the tension is beginning to be ratcheted up. Interesting how they're still powered by static electricity.

Polly's not in this episode- it's been a while since a companion last had a week's holiday!

This story's about manipulation and power, not only in terms of the Daleks manipulating the humans and needing power to fulfil their aims, but also the power game played out between the humans, who are constantly manipulating and double crossing each other. The plot's actually really complicated, but not too hard to follow- the sign of a good script.

This is the most chilling cliffhanger yet, as Lesterson watches the Dalek assembly line with blobs being put into cases- oh, for more than a couple of seconds of footage here!



Part Five

"We are not yet ready to teach the human beings the law of the Daleks!"



Surely the longest reprise so far, and finally Lesterson cracks up- this is a fine piece of acting. Meanwhile, the imprisoned Doctor is seemingly arsing about with a glass of water, to Quinn's obvious frustration. But interestingly, so far the Doctor's apparent eccentricities come across either as devices to give him time to think (the recorder) or ways of deliberately hiding the fact that he's in control of the situation. The new Doctor is every bit as sharp as his predecessor, if not more, and not really the cosmic hobo figure of myth.

Lesterson is ignored and treated as though he's mad, the Daleks are in control, and the Doctor's facade is gone. The sense of doom and foreboding is building nicely. An interesting line from the Dalek who kills the Governor as Bragen's order (the story's first death); "Why do human beings kill human beings?"

The cliffhanger is brilliant, possibly the best yet, so good in fact that we're treated to some actual footage, and arguably good enough even to make us overlook the blatantly obvious use of cardboard cutout Daleks"



Part Six


"Exterminate all humans!"

"Exterminate all humans!"

"Exterminate! Annihilate! Destroy! Daleks conquer and destroy! Daleks conquer and destroy! Daleks conquer and destroy! Daleks conquer and destroy! Daleks conquer and destroy! Daleks conquer and destroy!"


(Sorry, don't know what came over me.)


So, if there hasn't been enough skulduggery already, Bragen double crosses his fellow rebels. Blimey, this story ain't half complicated! And while this is happening hordes of Daleks are unleashed, and the killing starts. Lesterson's completelt lost it by now, insisting that the Daleks are going to replace the human race.

The Doctor's plan involves sacrificing the lives of Bragen's guards, so he's not only manipulative but ruthless with it when he has to be.

Lesterson's death scene is brilliant. From the spot-on intonation of "I am your servant" to the callous attitude of the Dalek. As soon as Lesterson says "But you wouldn't kill me- I gave you life" we know he's going to be shot, for such are the rules.

it's a little unclear whether the final moments of the Doctor's plan work partly by accident or in fact are planned all along- I suspect the latter. This new Doctor is actually quite a layered and interesting character.



Overall, a gripping and very clever script, easily a 5/5, and a great introduction to the new Doctor. The balance between introducing Pat Troughton and getting on with the story was perfectly judged.