Showing posts with label Chris Clough. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chris Clough. Show all posts
Sunday, 29 November 2009
Doctor Who: Silver Nemesis
Part One
“…And I have found his secret out.”
Ooh, captions! Stock footage of the Amazon rainforest! A parrot! Nazis! Ride of the Valkyries! A lot of things are being thrown at us thick and fast. And then we switch to 1638 and Lady Peinforte. Both groups of people in both time zones include someone carrying a bow and arrow.
Eventually things slow down a bit and we’re allowed a bit of exposition. Apparently Nemesis is a comet which, in spite of the fact that its orbit is decreasing, continues to orbit the Earth every 25 years exactly. Er, what?
Meanwhile, the Doctor and Ace are outside watching Courtney Pine. The Doctor’s alarm goes off, but he’s forgotten what it means. Er, what? They return to the TARDIS to find out, and are shot at by some half-Cybernised blokes, to the accompaniment of incidental music which is quite the worst to have been heard on the show so far.
So, the Doctor has made Ace a new tape deck using fantastically advanced technology, which seems an absurd thing to do twenty years later. What next? A digital abacus?
We flit quickly from scene to scene, making the narrative very disjointed. It’s not that this makes the story hard to follow (it’s not really that complicated) or that the plot as a whole doesn’t really make sense (it does, more or less, although lots of little things don’t). It’s the characters’ motivations that don’t make any sense- Lady Peinforte and the Nazis are just behaving as the plot requires them to because that’s their role, with no thought given to motivation or characterisation beyond that. And it’s noticeable that the writer can’t seem to manage much beyond plot mechanics; there’s no successful humour in this story, or development of themes, or meaningful character moments.
Peinforte knows the Doctor, and his “secret”, because the statue told her in 1638, and she also knows how to use a “potion” to travel forwards in time. Both Peinforte and the Nazis are converging on the statue, which has now fallen to Earth just outside Windsor.
The Doctor and Ace are caught trespassing in Windsor Castle- and I can clearly recall that when originally broadcast there was absolutely no explanation of how they escaped before next being seen by the statue. For the video release which I watched these “deleted scenes” have been slipped back in. But the fact that this story was originally edited so as to make the basic plot impossible to follow is simply appalling, and arguably render the episode as originally broadcast unsuitable for transmission.
And then the Cybermen arrive…
Part Two
“The bear will not pursue us. Such things happen only in the theatre.”
Peinforte kills a Cybermen with a gold-tipped arrow. We’ll be seeing a lot more of this sort of thing. Meanwhile people shoot at each other for what seems like an awfully long time. It’s also suddenly noticeable that De Flores seems to be driving a Ford Granada just like the one in Ashes to Ashes. If only it were brown…
The Doctor and Ace pop back to 1638 for no particular reason, something they’ll keep on doing throughout the story. The Doctor plays a bit of chess. You know, I reckon there might be some kind of very, very subtle metaphor going on here.
The scenes with the skinheads are appalling, and are the prime example of the awkwardness of the dialogue in this story. But I like the scene where Richard sees his own grave, although it would have been nice to have dwelt on the timey-wimey paradox-y side of this a bit more.
Although this story often seems to get criticised for its treatment of the Cybermen, it actually gets a lot of things right, with its stress on Cybernisation and cold logic. Unfortunately, though, their vulnerability to gold simply becomes absurd here, utterly diluting any sense of threat.
Unfortunately the Doctor’s silly speech about historical events which happen as the comet passes by every 25 years is impossible to take seriously. And De Flores constant banging on about Wagner is starting to get on my wick too.
I like that shot of the lizard in the tree just before the cliffhanger. It would be nice to think it was filmed on the day rather than being a bit of boring old stock footage.
Part Three
All things will soon be mine.”
Ace refuses to go back to the TARDIS, in spite of the fact she’s “really, really scared”, basically out of bravado. This could have been a good character moment but somehow fails to quite get there in spite of some superlative acting from both regulars. That sums up this script in a nutshell.
Sylvester and Sophie are also fantastic in the scene where they dodge several Cybermen to manoeuvre the bow into the statue’s hands, although the whole thing doesn’t quite come off as plausible.
Unfortunately we get a couple of arse-clenchingly awful things in this episode; the stereotypical American tourist character seems to be written without any hint of self-awareness. And while there’s a certain coolness to the Dirty Harry moment, Ace’s firing gold at Cybermen with her catapults pretty much causes them to leap headlong over a certain predatory fish of the genus Carcharhinus. No wonder we’ll never see the Cybermen of “our” universe ever again.
It’s a shame that the generally laudable attempt to reintroduce mystery to the Doctor should focus so heavily on this story rather than on one where it would have been better handled. As far as the general direction of the show is concerned, though, it’s an exciting move, although of course a lot depends on where this is going. But it’s exciting to hear of the “Old Time” and the “Time of Chaos”.
It’s an odd one, this. The plot actually works well enough, and the similarities to Remembrance of the Daleks are general enough to not be a problem. But plot’s all there is- there’s no real sense of characterisation, humour or mood. 2/5.
Saturday, 28 November 2009
Doctor Who: The Happiness Patrol
Part One
“Can’t you afford a real gun?”
Everything in this story is very obviously studio-based, with the studio floor prominent even in the early scenes set in a “street”. But this is only a problem if you’re expecting things to be “realistic”, and this story isn’t supposed to be. This is abstract theatre with a camera pointed at it, with sets and costumes to match. And it’s great.
The style of the streets, with a very “Big Brother” visible face on the wall, seems very reminiscent of Kneale and Cartier’s 1954 TV version of 1984. The planet of Terra Alpha is exactly this kind of totalitarian state, and the state persecution of those who refuse to conform by being “happy” works well as a metaphor for all sorts of things. I remember a lot of talk in mid-‘90s fanzines of this story being about Section 28; I don’t think there’s anything to indicate that was particularly intended, but it’s one of many valid interpretations.
As soon as the Doctor and Ace arrive they immediately start plotting regime change, and this story charts how the Doctor acts as a catalyst for the overthrow of Helen A’s regime over the course of a single evening. Helen A herself, played superbly by Sheila Hancock, is of course in no way based on Thatcher.
Visually and stylistically, this feels very similar to Vengeance on Varos, not only with the corridors and the go-karts but in the general aesthetic. What’s different is that instead of violence and sadism we see a less graphic but more insidious type of tyranny, much more psychological in how its people are mistreated. Activities such as walking alone in the rain, wearing dark clothing and reading poetry (except poetry) are banned as unconducive to happiness, the result of which is that Terra Alpha is an utterly joyless place. In fact, it resembles 1984 in more ways than one, with the general drabness of this society echoing the late ‘40s Britain of rationing and gloom which partly inspired Orwell’s novel in the first place.
The sight of the Kandyman is a shock, though- how on Earth did the BBC avoid getting sued?
Part Two
“He makes sweets that kill people.”
The “drones” who work in the factories are demonstrating against the regime, while the indigenous people of the planet have been driven underground. The conditions for revolution are in place. But first the Doctor and Earl Sigma (whose white t-shirt and suit looks so 1988) must escape the Kandyman, who seems to have a lot of personality for an artificial being. It’s a great scene, with the Doctor using his wits and some lemonade to affect their escape.
As Susan Q is taken away to be executed, Priscilla P delivers the most horrifying line of the story to Ace, showing just what a conformist nightmare being in the Happiness Patrol must be: “She was never any good. She never had the right attitude. She never joined in. She wasn’t part of the team.” Stifling conformity and forced jollity; is there anything in the world as terrifying as that?
The Doctor gets another great moment, turning the tables on Trevor Sigma by sheer force of personality in a scene that manages to get away with being completely implausible by means of its extreme coolness. And mere minutes later he gets an even better one as he confronts the two snipers on the roof. This is a great story for the Doctor, and Sylvester McCoy plays these scenes brilliantly. I really like this new Doctor, with the contrasts between the cleverness and manipulative side on the one hand and the spoon playing and physical comedy on the other.
I love the bloke at the box office at the cliffhanger- such a typical example of British customer service.
Part Three
“I can hear the sound of empires toppling.”
“Everything’s beginning to fall into place,” says the Doctor. Revolution is imminent. Fifi is lured to her death, the factories are in open revolt, and Helen A is soon attempting to flee the planet. But there’s still time for a bit of comic relief as the Kandyman answers a retro looking telephone.
Helen A is unable to escape, as her shuttlecraft has been commandeered By Gilbert M and her partner Joseph P, who seem to be eloping together! Her final speech to the Doctor before she collapses into tears upon hearing about Fifi’s death is very strongly reminiscent of Thatcher.
This is a brilliant and very clever script superbly realised by a production style that quite correctly avoided realism in favour of the abstract. It would be easy to criticise this for this lack of realism, and especially for the use of a small cast in a story concerning the fate of an entire world, but that would be to miss the point. There are a couple of worries, however. The direction is a bit flat, but then again the fact that this is deliberately presented as televised theatre that would seem to be required. And I’m not sure taking such a boldly avant garde direction was an altogether wise move for a show which desperately needed to appeal more to a mainstream audience. In spite of its superficially childlike trappings, this is a very adult focused story, too; I’m not sure the story would appeal much to kids, many of whom would have probably seen it, ironically, as childish. I certainly did in 1988. But, all this aside, it still kicks arse. 5/5.
“Can’t you afford a real gun?”
Everything in this story is very obviously studio-based, with the studio floor prominent even in the early scenes set in a “street”. But this is only a problem if you’re expecting things to be “realistic”, and this story isn’t supposed to be. This is abstract theatre with a camera pointed at it, with sets and costumes to match. And it’s great.
The style of the streets, with a very “Big Brother” visible face on the wall, seems very reminiscent of Kneale and Cartier’s 1954 TV version of 1984. The planet of Terra Alpha is exactly this kind of totalitarian state, and the state persecution of those who refuse to conform by being “happy” works well as a metaphor for all sorts of things. I remember a lot of talk in mid-‘90s fanzines of this story being about Section 28; I don’t think there’s anything to indicate that was particularly intended, but it’s one of many valid interpretations.
As soon as the Doctor and Ace arrive they immediately start plotting regime change, and this story charts how the Doctor acts as a catalyst for the overthrow of Helen A’s regime over the course of a single evening. Helen A herself, played superbly by Sheila Hancock, is of course in no way based on Thatcher.
Visually and stylistically, this feels very similar to Vengeance on Varos, not only with the corridors and the go-karts but in the general aesthetic. What’s different is that instead of violence and sadism we see a less graphic but more insidious type of tyranny, much more psychological in how its people are mistreated. Activities such as walking alone in the rain, wearing dark clothing and reading poetry (except poetry) are banned as unconducive to happiness, the result of which is that Terra Alpha is an utterly joyless place. In fact, it resembles 1984 in more ways than one, with the general drabness of this society echoing the late ‘40s Britain of rationing and gloom which partly inspired Orwell’s novel in the first place.
The sight of the Kandyman is a shock, though- how on Earth did the BBC avoid getting sued?
Part Two
“He makes sweets that kill people.”
The “drones” who work in the factories are demonstrating against the regime, while the indigenous people of the planet have been driven underground. The conditions for revolution are in place. But first the Doctor and Earl Sigma (whose white t-shirt and suit looks so 1988) must escape the Kandyman, who seems to have a lot of personality for an artificial being. It’s a great scene, with the Doctor using his wits and some lemonade to affect their escape.
As Susan Q is taken away to be executed, Priscilla P delivers the most horrifying line of the story to Ace, showing just what a conformist nightmare being in the Happiness Patrol must be: “She was never any good. She never had the right attitude. She never joined in. She wasn’t part of the team.” Stifling conformity and forced jollity; is there anything in the world as terrifying as that?
The Doctor gets another great moment, turning the tables on Trevor Sigma by sheer force of personality in a scene that manages to get away with being completely implausible by means of its extreme coolness. And mere minutes later he gets an even better one as he confronts the two snipers on the roof. This is a great story for the Doctor, and Sylvester McCoy plays these scenes brilliantly. I really like this new Doctor, with the contrasts between the cleverness and manipulative side on the one hand and the spoon playing and physical comedy on the other.
I love the bloke at the box office at the cliffhanger- such a typical example of British customer service.
Part Three
“I can hear the sound of empires toppling.”
“Everything’s beginning to fall into place,” says the Doctor. Revolution is imminent. Fifi is lured to her death, the factories are in open revolt, and Helen A is soon attempting to flee the planet. But there’s still time for a bit of comic relief as the Kandyman answers a retro looking telephone.
Helen A is unable to escape, as her shuttlecraft has been commandeered By Gilbert M and her partner Joseph P, who seem to be eloping together! Her final speech to the Doctor before she collapses into tears upon hearing about Fifi’s death is very strongly reminiscent of Thatcher.
This is a brilliant and very clever script superbly realised by a production style that quite correctly avoided realism in favour of the abstract. It would be easy to criticise this for this lack of realism, and especially for the use of a small cast in a story concerning the fate of an entire world, but that would be to miss the point. There are a couple of worries, however. The direction is a bit flat, but then again the fact that this is deliberately presented as televised theatre that would seem to be required. And I’m not sure taking such a boldly avant garde direction was an altogether wise move for a show which desperately needed to appeal more to a mainstream audience. In spite of its superficially childlike trappings, this is a very adult focused story, too; I’m not sure the story would appeal much to kids, many of whom would have probably seen it, ironically, as childish. I certainly did in 1988. But, all this aside, it still kicks arse. 5/5.
Wednesday, 25 November 2009
Doctor Who: Dragonfire
Part One
“Nonsense, Glitz! A quick adventure and then back for tea!”
It’s an interesting setting for a story- Svartos, a planet with one pole, apparently the only habitable part, which is permanently cold, and another which is permanently cold. And on this world lurks the sinister Kane, who kills with the cold of his touch, and is named after a famous movie. We’ll be seeing a lot of this sort of thing.
On the cold part, Iceworld, is a shopping mall, where the Doctor and Mel sit down in a café. Amusingly, the Doctor starts to read a crumpled classic Penguin paperback of Shaw’s The Doctor’s Dilemma. I think I’m going to enjoy this story.
Up pops our old mate Sabalom Glitz, and it appears he’s in a spot of bother. The authorities on this planet are going to seize his ship, the Nosferatu (oh look, another movie reference…) unless he coughs up a bit of cash. Fortunately there are rumours of a dragon, and treasure. This provides a chance of finding the money he needs for Glitz, and a bit of adventure for the Doctor and Mel. We also meet Ace for the first time, as the soon-to-be-sacked waitress, for the moment providing little but the exposition.
Incidentally, one refreshing thing about Glitz’s reappearance is that the Doctor’s regeneration is quickly glossed over. Unlike his predecessor, this Doctor isn’t going to be undermined by constant references to earlier incarnations while he’s trying to establish himself in the role.
Ace gets sacked, goes back to her room with Mel, and generally seems to be a fairly realistic and well-written teenager. Sophie Aldred is good too, although she sounds perhaps a bit too RP for dialogue like “I ain’t got no mum and dad” to come across right. I like the surreal simplicity of how she got here- a timestorm in her room in Perivale! It gradually becomes apparent that she kicks arse somewhat, what with her Nitro Nine and blowing up the art room at school. I like her. We even get our first “Gordon Bennett” very early on. Ace!
I was amazed to see the scene where Kane offers Ace the chance to become a mercenary- shades of the New Adventures there! Fortunately, though, she not only turns him down but kicks rather large expanses of arse while she’s doing it.
We get to glimpse the dragon. Now, I know I keep going on about influences from said film every so often in this Marathon, but do you reckon there might, conceivably, be perhaps the very tiniest amount of influence from Alien in the creature’s design? Never mind- I love the way Mel screams at this point and Ace pointedly doesn’t!
And then we get the literal cliffhanger. I tend to agree with a comment I remember from Gareth Roberts on one of the DVD extras on cliffhangers (I forget the story). Ian Briggs is clearly trying to make an oh-so-clever postmodern comment here on how inconvenient is to him as a writer to have to fit his script to a format which demands cliffhangers. How very self-indulgent. Still, other than this it’s been a good first episode.
Part Two
“Tell me, what do you think of the assertion that the semiotic thickness of a performed text varies according to the redundancy of auxiliary performance codes?”
The cliffhanger resolution is a total cheat, but I suppose that’s the point. And I’m not sure that assisting Glitz with the hijacking of his ship is quite the sort of thing the character should be doing. Still, good news elsewhere; we seem to be getting decent incidental music for the first time this season.
The Doctor’s distraction of the guard with intellectual conversation on such matters as theology and Doctor Who: The Unfolding Text is utter genius, and easily the best thing in this whole season. Also good, though, is Kane’s killing of the sculptor as soon as he’s finished his statue. And come to think of it, Kane sleeps in a coffin- er, refrigeration unit- to recuperate, he bites people in the neck- er, gets them to take his shilling- so that he can own them, and as for how he’s going to die next episode… he’s a vampire, isn’t he?
The dragon turns out to be friendly, and reveals that this was originally a prison planet where Kane, a notorious criminal, was banished 3,000 years earlier. Oh, and the treasure is in the dragon’s head. Crikey.
Elsewhere, Ace makes the makes the similarly Earth-shattering revelation that her name is actually Dorothy…
Part Three
“This is naff. This is mega-naff.”
That quote isn’t actually what I think of the story, by the way. I just picked it because it’s the most ‘80s sentence ever uttered by anyone ever.
Kane’s minions are on an “ANT hunt” in scenes which most definitely are influenced by Alien, while the poor lost little girl gets looked after by that nice dragon. Aaaah! It’s all good stuff, but the one moment where the tone jars a bit is where the Nosferatu blows up with loads of people on it, an echo of the bus from Delta and the Bannermen.
Ace gets to see the TARDIS, and then the story ends in true The Hand of Fear style, with Kane’s gruesome demise being most fitting, seeing as he’s a vampire and all.
As Iceworld is a spacecraft, Glitz has appointed himself captain, and for some reason Mel’s going with him. In the end she never really worked as a companion, really, being fairly one-dimensional. She was always likeable, and a breath of fresh air after Peri and the darkness of the Dark Ages of Saward. But she never acquired a personality or a hinterland- the lack of an origin story didn’t help- and her bubbly, kid-friendly personality has seemed out of step with the show since Paradise Towers. All the same, she deserved a better leaving scene than this; it’s not really about her at all, just a pointless re-use of McCoy’s original audition speech.
Ace, her replacement, on the other hand, feels a lot more in tune with the way the show’s going at the moment, and has loads of hinterland.
Good, enjoyable stuff. Not quite up there with the best, perhaps, but an impressive debut tale from Ian Briggs. 4/5.
As for Season Twenty-Four- well, it’s fifth from bottom at 3.25/5, but still ranks a lot better than I was expecting it too. And if you take Time and the Rani out of the equation it’s a fairly solid season with lots of promise for the future. At long last we’re out of the Saward doldrums of violence and cynicism, and the show has seemingly found a new style.
“Nonsense, Glitz! A quick adventure and then back for tea!”
It’s an interesting setting for a story- Svartos, a planet with one pole, apparently the only habitable part, which is permanently cold, and another which is permanently cold. And on this world lurks the sinister Kane, who kills with the cold of his touch, and is named after a famous movie. We’ll be seeing a lot of this sort of thing.
On the cold part, Iceworld, is a shopping mall, where the Doctor and Mel sit down in a café. Amusingly, the Doctor starts to read a crumpled classic Penguin paperback of Shaw’s The Doctor’s Dilemma. I think I’m going to enjoy this story.
Up pops our old mate Sabalom Glitz, and it appears he’s in a spot of bother. The authorities on this planet are going to seize his ship, the Nosferatu (oh look, another movie reference…) unless he coughs up a bit of cash. Fortunately there are rumours of a dragon, and treasure. This provides a chance of finding the money he needs for Glitz, and a bit of adventure for the Doctor and Mel. We also meet Ace for the first time, as the soon-to-be-sacked waitress, for the moment providing little but the exposition.
Incidentally, one refreshing thing about Glitz’s reappearance is that the Doctor’s regeneration is quickly glossed over. Unlike his predecessor, this Doctor isn’t going to be undermined by constant references to earlier incarnations while he’s trying to establish himself in the role.
Ace gets sacked, goes back to her room with Mel, and generally seems to be a fairly realistic and well-written teenager. Sophie Aldred is good too, although she sounds perhaps a bit too RP for dialogue like “I ain’t got no mum and dad” to come across right. I like the surreal simplicity of how she got here- a timestorm in her room in Perivale! It gradually becomes apparent that she kicks arse somewhat, what with her Nitro Nine and blowing up the art room at school. I like her. We even get our first “Gordon Bennett” very early on. Ace!
I was amazed to see the scene where Kane offers Ace the chance to become a mercenary- shades of the New Adventures there! Fortunately, though, she not only turns him down but kicks rather large expanses of arse while she’s doing it.
We get to glimpse the dragon. Now, I know I keep going on about influences from said film every so often in this Marathon, but do you reckon there might, conceivably, be perhaps the very tiniest amount of influence from Alien in the creature’s design? Never mind- I love the way Mel screams at this point and Ace pointedly doesn’t!
And then we get the literal cliffhanger. I tend to agree with a comment I remember from Gareth Roberts on one of the DVD extras on cliffhangers (I forget the story). Ian Briggs is clearly trying to make an oh-so-clever postmodern comment here on how inconvenient is to him as a writer to have to fit his script to a format which demands cliffhangers. How very self-indulgent. Still, other than this it’s been a good first episode.
Part Two
“Tell me, what do you think of the assertion that the semiotic thickness of a performed text varies according to the redundancy of auxiliary performance codes?”
The cliffhanger resolution is a total cheat, but I suppose that’s the point. And I’m not sure that assisting Glitz with the hijacking of his ship is quite the sort of thing the character should be doing. Still, good news elsewhere; we seem to be getting decent incidental music for the first time this season.
The Doctor’s distraction of the guard with intellectual conversation on such matters as theology and Doctor Who: The Unfolding Text is utter genius, and easily the best thing in this whole season. Also good, though, is Kane’s killing of the sculptor as soon as he’s finished his statue. And come to think of it, Kane sleeps in a coffin- er, refrigeration unit- to recuperate, he bites people in the neck- er, gets them to take his shilling- so that he can own them, and as for how he’s going to die next episode… he’s a vampire, isn’t he?
The dragon turns out to be friendly, and reveals that this was originally a prison planet where Kane, a notorious criminal, was banished 3,000 years earlier. Oh, and the treasure is in the dragon’s head. Crikey.
Elsewhere, Ace makes the makes the similarly Earth-shattering revelation that her name is actually Dorothy…
Part Three
“This is naff. This is mega-naff.”
That quote isn’t actually what I think of the story, by the way. I just picked it because it’s the most ‘80s sentence ever uttered by anyone ever.
Kane’s minions are on an “ANT hunt” in scenes which most definitely are influenced by Alien, while the poor lost little girl gets looked after by that nice dragon. Aaaah! It’s all good stuff, but the one moment where the tone jars a bit is where the Nosferatu blows up with loads of people on it, an echo of the bus from Delta and the Bannermen.
Ace gets to see the TARDIS, and then the story ends in true The Hand of Fear style, with Kane’s gruesome demise being most fitting, seeing as he’s a vampire and all.
As Iceworld is a spacecraft, Glitz has appointed himself captain, and for some reason Mel’s going with him. In the end she never really worked as a companion, really, being fairly one-dimensional. She was always likeable, and a breath of fresh air after Peri and the darkness of the Dark Ages of Saward. But she never acquired a personality or a hinterland- the lack of an origin story didn’t help- and her bubbly, kid-friendly personality has seemed out of step with the show since Paradise Towers. All the same, she deserved a better leaving scene than this; it’s not really about her at all, just a pointless re-use of McCoy’s original audition speech.
Ace, her replacement, on the other hand, feels a lot more in tune with the way the show’s going at the moment, and has loads of hinterland.
Good, enjoyable stuff. Not quite up there with the best, perhaps, but an impressive debut tale from Ian Briggs. 4/5.
As for Season Twenty-Four- well, it’s fifth from bottom at 3.25/5, but still ranks a lot better than I was expecting it too. And if you take Time and the Rani out of the equation it’s a fairly solid season with lots of promise for the future. At long last we’re out of the Saward doldrums of violence and cynicism, and the show has seemingly found a new style.
Tuesday, 24 November 2009
Doctor Who: Delta and the Bannermen
Part One
“For a primitive piece of technology, it certainly delivers the decibels.”
We begin on an alien world realised, as so often really, by an impressive looking celestial body in the sky, and we establish that Delta, last of her species, is fleeing from the Bannermen, who have gone all genocidal for some reason. Meanwhile, the TARDIS has landed in a tollbooth manned by Ken Dodd, and the Doctor and Mel have won a place in a package tour to Earth in 1959.
What a very odd beginning, and what a very odd story. I suppose there’s something of the lighter end of 2000AD to it to link it stylistically to Paradise Towers, just, but fundamentally this feels like children’s television as opposed to a family show, something which would feel right on Children’s BBC at 4.30pm. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, though. If this is kids’ TV, it’s kids’ TV with a lot more charm and appeal than the kids’ TV Time and the Rani had to offer.
The two comedy Americans (I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many stereotypes in one place) are straight out of kids’ TV, as is the sight of the Navarinos changing from purple things to garishly dressed ‘50s holidaymakers. But there are some other interesting things going on, too. For a start, there’s the novelty of Doctor Who being filmed in South Wales for the first time since The Green Death. No doubt future visits to the area will be similarly few and far between.
So, a Butlins style holiday camp in South Wales- Hi de Hi, anyone? This is not quite the same, though; while the Croft / Perry sitcom looked at its subject matter with nostalgia, Malcolm Kohll and Andrew Cartmel clearly find the thought of holidaying in such places as horrifying as I would. The regimented hours, complete with everyone being woken up at the same time; the set mealtimes; the rules and regulations; and worst of all the forced jollity… even The Macra Terror didn’t present this baffling phenomenon in such a terrifying way.
We also meet Billy, a nice bloke with little discernible personality, and the exceedingly likeable Ray. The characterisation of the guest characters may not reach two dimensions at any point, but at least the fact this is Kids’ TV means we’re spared any awkward scenes of characters being suspicious of the Doctor or the supernatural elements, and such scenes as do exist are played for laughs.
Oh my God! They shot Ken Dodd!
It’s interesting following the Doctor’s characterisation here. The malapropisms are back “A stitch in time fills up space”) having taken Paradise Towers off, but they’re clearly about to go the way of “I would like a hat like that,” and disappear. It’s also fascinating seeing how Ray instinctively feels she can confide in the Doctor about her feelings for Billy, but the Doctor is at a loss to comfort her, being out of his depth in the world of relationships and feelings. It’s still early, but we’re starting to get the general shape of this new Doctor.
Part Two
“I’ve seen many things fall from the sky, but nothing that can be described as weird.”
It seems very sudden, but Delta and Billy are very much a couple already. But they’re in imminent danger as the Bannermen are alerted. But first, an even worse horror rears its head; the holidaymakers are woken up by a gong at some ungodly hour (I mean, they’re on holiday. Who in their right minds would get up before midday when on holiday?) and then subjected to an awful burst of singing. Surely this sort of thing was forbidden by the Geneva Convention?
It’s a nice touch, Murray reading The Eagle. And even the Doctor showing Burton around the TARDIS, Davison style, is not without a certain charm. But suddenly the mood changes as Gavrok turns up and kills all the Navarinos, complete with their rather stylish looking bus-cum-spaceship. At least they seem to have somehow contrived to have fun in their last night, awful though it looked to this viewer.
Burton reacts very bravely- good for him- but the Doctor finishes up with another good confrontation scene, even if it’s lacking something in comparison with those scenes with the Chief Caretaker in Paradise Towers.
Part Three
“All haste and no speed makes Jill a dull girl.”
It becomes increasingly clear with the increasing role of beekeeper Goronwy, an individual with an amazing amount of tolerance for the destruction of his property, that Delta is a queen in the sense of a queen bee, presumably implying that the Chimerons are a hive society in which most are drones. I hope Billy realises what he’s letting himself in for.
The story ends with a fun collection of scenes, although we have to accept a lot of kids’ TV logic. It’s very notable how Gavrok just walks into the Doctor’s rather obvious trap while he spots the booby-trapped TARDIS immediately and for no apparent reason. The incidental music is conspicuously more awful even than usual in these final scenes, too.
Still, the story still has its charm, and Ray continues to be great, especially when she rescues the two comedy Americans. It’s so frustrating to see the Doctor miss a perfect opportunity to invite her to come along in the TARDIS at the end.
So, a bit too lacking in substance to rank particularly highly, but a pleasant bit of undemanding viewing nonetheless. A solid 3/5.
Thursday, 19 November 2009
Doctor Who: Trial of a Time Lord Parts Thirteen and Fourteen: The Ultimate Foe
Part Thirteen
“I’m as truthful, honest, and about as boring as they come.”
The court is back from recess, and who should turn up but James Bree! There’s little time to wallow in nostalgia, though; the main trial plot has stopped treading water and started swimming again, and the Doctor’s in trouble. He’s run out of tricks for his defence, he’s accused of genocide and he’s a hair’s breadth away from being convicted and condemned. So now, of course, is the dramatically appropriate moment for Mel and Glitz to mysteriously turn up to testify in his favour. Glitz, necessarily, has softened from the thug of earlier.
It’s also the dramatically appropriate moment to reveal they’ve been sent by the Master, who is a most suitable means of extracting maximum dramatic potential out of the revelations that follow. Particularly as he turns up from inside the Matrix. Glitz was working for the Master back in parts one to four, and that mysterious box was full of “stuff the secrets had been nicking from the Matrix for years”. And, of course, this being a script by Robert Holmes, a dirty Time Lord cover-up then ensued, involving Earth being naughtily moved across the galaxy to become Ravolox, with enormous collateral damage caused by solar flares. The Doctor gets a great speech after this revelation, describing his own people as “decadent, degenerate and rotten to the core,” although unfortunately this is one of those moments where Colin’s performance suffers a bit of a wobble.
And then the Master casually refers to the Valeyard as “the Doctor” while explaining that he’s been adjusting evidence on behalf of the High Council to ensure the Doctor’s conviction. The Doctor is told that he’s “an amalgamation of the darker sides of your nature, somewhere between your twelfth and final regeneration.” Interesting- this wording, together with the fact he seems to be working for the High Council as some sort of expendable stooge, seems to indicate he’s not so much a future incarnation of the Doctor as a distillation of certain of the Doctor’s qualities, and to some extent an artificial creation of these shadowy Time Lord politicians. This is the Robert Holmes script about corrupt Time Lords to end all Robert Holmes scripts about corrupt Time Lords. Literally.
Oh, and it all seems to make sense, incidentally. The only bits so far that haven’t made sense at all have been in the Pip and Jane Baker episodes, where the workings of the trial seemed to be all over the place and the consequences of the evidence being from the future hadn’t been though through. But the whole business with the sleepers, Ravolox, and the Doctor’s apparent actions on Thoros Beta seem to have been resolved pretty much satisfactorily to me. I don’t think we need to have it spelled out exactly which scenes happened as shown and which didn’t.
Oh, and I haven’t any complaints about Peri’s fate, either. It makes sense, more or less, given her earlier relationship with Yrcanos.
Anyway, Holmes recalls his own script for The Deadly Assassin as the Doctor and Glitz spend the rest of the episode inside the Matrix. Among other things they encounter a number of Mr Popplewicks, all played by Onslow from Keeping Up Appearances, a wonderfully Holmesian satirical dig at bureaucracy.
Part Fourteen
“You are elevating futility to a high art. There’s nothing you can do to prevent the catharsis of spurious morality.”
…So, after a sublime swansong from Holmes, we move to the ridiculous in the shape of this script by Pip and Jane Baker. Sadly, the comparison with their lamented predecessor hardly shows them in a good light.
We get to see the familiar sight of the inside of the Master’s TARDIS. It’s only by doing this marathon that I’ve come to realise just how consistent was its appearance during the ‘80s. We also get an exploding quill pen, by far the coolest thing in this episode. Unfortunately, there’s an awful lot of utter poo here. The Doctor states that “I would trust Mel with my life,” but he’s not even met her yet! I know he’s only pretending to go along with the fake trial, but still. At least I got a cheap laugh out of “Never mind the Sydney Carton heroics,” mind.
This is so poor compared to the previous episode, though. There’s not actually much wrong with the plot, but the dialogue is awful and the characters keep explaining the plot to us in a condescending manner which rubs me up the wrong way. Plus, we get loads of no doubt accurate scientific gobbledygook which reminds me of all the things I didn’t like about the Bidmead scripts. And then the Master, hearing that the High Council has been deposed and insurrection has ensued, actually makes a speech to the Time Lords in the courtroom offering to take control which bears uncanny similarities to a certain speech in Logopolis. Unbelievable.
As a final indignity, the Doctor actually suggests the Inquisitor as a candidate for the presidency. Why? She’s spent the whole season being nothing but an incompetent buffoon.
So, it’s a tale of two episodes. The first part, a worthy swansong from Robert Holmes which fortunately doesn’t leave the plot for Pip n’ Jane to explain, gets 5/5, while the Pip n’ Jane monstrosity gets 2/5. I’m not too bothered about what Eric Saward’s version would have been like, but I’d have loved to have seen Robert Holmes’. I was going to give it a 1/5 but I suppose giving one episode 5/5 and the other 1/5 would have been a bit much.
The last episode aside, though, it’s actually been a damn fine season. I wasn’t actually expecting that I’d be rating this particularly highly until I got to it, but it’s a relief to give a season a good score for once- at 4/5 it’s a creditable joint sixth, which comes as a genuine surprise to me. Who’d have thunk it? Not only is this much-maligned season a triumphant return to form after a poor few years, but it’s the best season of the ‘80s so far by a long way. I suspect the famously diminished presence of Saward may have something to do with it…
“I’m as truthful, honest, and about as boring as they come.”
The court is back from recess, and who should turn up but James Bree! There’s little time to wallow in nostalgia, though; the main trial plot has stopped treading water and started swimming again, and the Doctor’s in trouble. He’s run out of tricks for his defence, he’s accused of genocide and he’s a hair’s breadth away from being convicted and condemned. So now, of course, is the dramatically appropriate moment for Mel and Glitz to mysteriously turn up to testify in his favour. Glitz, necessarily, has softened from the thug of earlier.
It’s also the dramatically appropriate moment to reveal they’ve been sent by the Master, who is a most suitable means of extracting maximum dramatic potential out of the revelations that follow. Particularly as he turns up from inside the Matrix. Glitz was working for the Master back in parts one to four, and that mysterious box was full of “stuff the secrets had been nicking from the Matrix for years”. And, of course, this being a script by Robert Holmes, a dirty Time Lord cover-up then ensued, involving Earth being naughtily moved across the galaxy to become Ravolox, with enormous collateral damage caused by solar flares. The Doctor gets a great speech after this revelation, describing his own people as “decadent, degenerate and rotten to the core,” although unfortunately this is one of those moments where Colin’s performance suffers a bit of a wobble.
And then the Master casually refers to the Valeyard as “the Doctor” while explaining that he’s been adjusting evidence on behalf of the High Council to ensure the Doctor’s conviction. The Doctor is told that he’s “an amalgamation of the darker sides of your nature, somewhere between your twelfth and final regeneration.” Interesting- this wording, together with the fact he seems to be working for the High Council as some sort of expendable stooge, seems to indicate he’s not so much a future incarnation of the Doctor as a distillation of certain of the Doctor’s qualities, and to some extent an artificial creation of these shadowy Time Lord politicians. This is the Robert Holmes script about corrupt Time Lords to end all Robert Holmes scripts about corrupt Time Lords. Literally.
Oh, and it all seems to make sense, incidentally. The only bits so far that haven’t made sense at all have been in the Pip and Jane Baker episodes, where the workings of the trial seemed to be all over the place and the consequences of the evidence being from the future hadn’t been though through. But the whole business with the sleepers, Ravolox, and the Doctor’s apparent actions on Thoros Beta seem to have been resolved pretty much satisfactorily to me. I don’t think we need to have it spelled out exactly which scenes happened as shown and which didn’t.
Oh, and I haven’t any complaints about Peri’s fate, either. It makes sense, more or less, given her earlier relationship with Yrcanos.
Anyway, Holmes recalls his own script for The Deadly Assassin as the Doctor and Glitz spend the rest of the episode inside the Matrix. Among other things they encounter a number of Mr Popplewicks, all played by Onslow from Keeping Up Appearances, a wonderfully Holmesian satirical dig at bureaucracy.
Part Fourteen
“You are elevating futility to a high art. There’s nothing you can do to prevent the catharsis of spurious morality.”
…So, after a sublime swansong from Holmes, we move to the ridiculous in the shape of this script by Pip and Jane Baker. Sadly, the comparison with their lamented predecessor hardly shows them in a good light.
We get to see the familiar sight of the inside of the Master’s TARDIS. It’s only by doing this marathon that I’ve come to realise just how consistent was its appearance during the ‘80s. We also get an exploding quill pen, by far the coolest thing in this episode. Unfortunately, there’s an awful lot of utter poo here. The Doctor states that “I would trust Mel with my life,” but he’s not even met her yet! I know he’s only pretending to go along with the fake trial, but still. At least I got a cheap laugh out of “Never mind the Sydney Carton heroics,” mind.
This is so poor compared to the previous episode, though. There’s not actually much wrong with the plot, but the dialogue is awful and the characters keep explaining the plot to us in a condescending manner which rubs me up the wrong way. Plus, we get loads of no doubt accurate scientific gobbledygook which reminds me of all the things I didn’t like about the Bidmead scripts. And then the Master, hearing that the High Council has been deposed and insurrection has ensued, actually makes a speech to the Time Lords in the courtroom offering to take control which bears uncanny similarities to a certain speech in Logopolis. Unbelievable.
As a final indignity, the Doctor actually suggests the Inquisitor as a candidate for the presidency. Why? She’s spent the whole season being nothing but an incompetent buffoon.
So, it’s a tale of two episodes. The first part, a worthy swansong from Robert Holmes which fortunately doesn’t leave the plot for Pip n’ Jane to explain, gets 5/5, while the Pip n’ Jane monstrosity gets 2/5. I’m not too bothered about what Eric Saward’s version would have been like, but I’d have loved to have seen Robert Holmes’. I was going to give it a 1/5 but I suppose giving one episode 5/5 and the other 1/5 would have been a bit much.
The last episode aside, though, it’s actually been a damn fine season. I wasn’t actually expecting that I’d be rating this particularly highly until I got to it, but it’s a relief to give a season a good score for once- at 4/5 it’s a creditable joint sixth, which comes as a genuine surprise to me. Who’d have thunk it? Not only is this much-maligned season a triumphant return to form after a poor few years, but it’s the best season of the ‘80s so far by a long way. I suspect the famously diminished presence of Saward may have something to do with it…
Tuesday, 17 November 2009
Doctor Who: Trial of a Time Lord Parts Nine to Twelve: Terror of the Vervoids
Part Nine
“Let’s exercise the grey cells for once, shall we?”
The Doctor, still very upset at Peri’s death, is nevertheless forced to continue with the trial, and to show some evidence of his own. And this evidence is… from the future. His mind really must be addled by grief. And how does this work anyway? Can’t the Doctor think of anything that’s already happened to him throughout his entire life that will help his case? Why is evidence from the future even admissible? After all, by definition it can only be from a possible future, particularly as it seems at the moment that the Doctor is to be executed long before he ever gets to meet Mel or visit the Hyperion III.
So, it’s 2986, and said ship is travelling between what appear to be the colonial possession of Mogar and Earth- interestingly, given the fact that we appear to be in the same time period as The Mutants. We’re not in the same genre, though; there’s a murderer on board, and the spirit of Agatha Christie hangs in the air. No doubt this’ll be just as good as The Robots of Death, then.
Honor Blackman’s in it. The Doctor’s wearing a yellow cravat. Oh, and there’s a new companion, Mel, or rather there will be once the Doctor actually meets her. I’m enjoying this sort of timey-wimey stuff, much as the trial framing sequence is no longer making any sense. And I like Mel. And I like Bonnie Langford. There, I’ve said it.
Our scheduled broadcast of carrot juice and exercise bikes is interrupted by a mayday call, and our two TARDISeers are, er, embroiled in a web of intrigue. The Doctor and Mel have a great relationship, very tactile, with no serious bickering and a great chemistry. And Mel’s a likeable character who actually seems to enjoy travelling in the TARDIS, which comes as a huge relief. Because arguably no one else really has ever since Romana.
There’s an awful lot of aerobics in this story; it may be the 2980s, but it’s still the ‘80s. It’s all such fun though. I love the novel Professor Lasky’s reading…
We finish with some more apparent evidence that the Matrix has been tempted with. But on the plus side, Mel is definitely great- she can scream in the exact same key as the closing theme…
Part Ten
“The fellow may be a fool but he’s not a criminal.”
We get our first intimations here that there’s a dangerous alien plant species on the loose. And some more stuff happens with the murder mystery plot. But the main distinguishing feature of this episode is that rather cool-looking three dimensional Space Invaders clone the Mogarians are playing. Aside from its obvious coolness, it’s another example of how impressive the effects have been this season. Seldom before have we seen such casual brilliance.
We get a mention of the Black Hole of Tartarus, but we’re assured it’s perfectly safe. It’s definitely not going to be a threat at any point, then. The Mogarians discuss Earth’s plundering of their planet- bit of politics there- and there’s another murder. There’s some rather too heavily telegraphed Poirot stuff from the Doctor in the courtroom as he shows off about the Mogarian translator, but by now the murder mystery plot is bubbling nicely.
Mel screams in exactly the right key again.
Part Eleven
“Never mind the Just So Stories! That guard looks trigger happy to me!”
In a departure from the norm, Mel screams quite early in the episode this time. And narrowly escapes being murdered in true Perils of Pauline fashion. Meanwhile, the Vervoids appear properly and turn out to look fab- once again on the production side things are superb. And they get such naturalistic dialogue, too, with lines such as “We are doing splendidly!” which sound in no way bizarre coming from a talking plant.
Meanwhile the viewer gets confirmation that the Matrix’s pants are well and truly on fire as the Doctor is shown smashing the communications equipment. Much as this may not be anywhere near as well-written as Mindwarp, and the trial sequences make a lot less sense, I must admit that this time at least we know when the Matrix is lying and when it isn’t.
But the trial sequences make no sense at all here. The Investigator implies that the Doctor is guilty until proven innocent, the Valeyard is now trying to condemn the Doctor for things which haven’t actually happened yet and possibly never will, and the Investigator describes the Doctor’s “fair trial” as “an indulgence”. Everything tells us that this is just a show trial, with barely a pretence of justice, yet the Doctor seems to have no objection whatsoever to the Inquisitor’s conduct, and the script seems to assume that the audience are supposed to accept her as a legitimate authority figure, which is absurd.
Part Twelve
“The charge must now be genocide!”
Well, there’s a surprise- the ship’s headed straight for the Black Hole of Tarsarus. Who’d have thunk it? Technically, of course, there’s no danger at all as the Doctor and Mel could simply bundle everyone else in the TARDIS. In fact, that’s definitely what he would have done back when he was Peter Davison, although come to think of it that sort of thing more or less stopped with Planet of Fire.
Anyway, Rudge and the Mogarians slightly irritate our heroes with a fairly crappy hijack attempt. This is soon dealt with, but at least it manages to highlight the rather fantastic looking graphic effect on the screen on the bridge. The Doctor rather cleverly fingers Doland as the killer and turns the tables on him, and Lasky rather suddenly sees the error of her ways. Although she gets killed by the Vervoids anyway in the obligatory “But you can’t kill me! I’m your creator!” scene.
As a final nice touch, the Vervoids’ leaves turn autumnal before they crumble and die. Unfortunately things then start going all arbitrary in the courtroom…
The actual Vervoid story was rather good, I thought- nothing particularly clever, unlike last story, but it was a straightforward adventure done well and there’s nothing wrong with that. And like everything else in this season so far it looks great. It’s just a shame that the trial sequences, rather well-integrated until now, have started to unravel. Still, 4/5.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)