Jack the Ripper: Suspects

 "The Ripper played cricket?!!!"

Here I go again, with yet another Jack the Ripper. Fear not, though: tomorrow is Doctor Who, so it won'ty be five consecutive episodes in succession.

This continues to be entertaining stuff but, well, we get a series of lacklustre suspects all linked to czarist Russia, with even Rasputin getting a mention, before things start to get back on track. Still, this never fails to hold the attention and we do, at least, confirm the point that the relevant archival material is somewhat lacking.

Then we get to M.J. Druitt, a plausible-seeming suspect although, I'm sure, one of many... and we can never be sure whether or not he was a Freemason or not. And then off we go on a royal-themed tangent. That's it, although we do at least focus on the point that there must be a reason the Ripper stopped in November 1880 Did he die, move away, get himself committed to an asylum? Like the Freemasonry stuff, this is a point that needs to be explained.

The last two episodes, while good, haven't matched the gripping intensity and intelligence of their predecessors. Let's hope the same can't be said of the final episode.

Rasputin: The Mad Monk (1966)

"When I go to confession I don't offer God small sins, petty squabbles, jealousies... I offer him sins worth forgiving!"

This is the kind of film that you know is going to be enormous fun before you’ve even seen a frame; Christopher Lee as Rasputin is a prospect that is certain to get bums on seats. Some films are purely about seeing how a certain actor handles a certain part, and this is certainly one of them.

Lee does not disappoint; his Rasputin is raucous, charismatic, larger than life, magnetic. Just, apparently, like the man himself. Not that we should expect historical accuracy from Hammer, of course; they don’t stand for anything so po-faced and serious as that. But it’s fascinating to see a film from mid-period, peak Hammer which is in their usual horror style but not really a traditional horror; the only monster here is Lee himself, and the only supernatural elements are nicely ambiguous.

Barbara Shelley is equally gripping as the tragic Sonya, and there’s a classy performance from Renee Asherson as the czarina- quite rightly, Nicky is kept out of this.

The only disappointment, perhaps, is that the ending- Rasputin’s dramatic and much-mythologised death- is both a little rushed and not particularly well choreographed, but this doesn’t spoil what is a hundred minutes of seeing Christopher Lee doing his splendid stuff.  All this and a nice little role for the great Cyril Shaps. This may be no one’s favourite film, but if you don’t enjoy this then there’s no hope for you...

Dark Season: Episodes 3 and 4

Episode Three

"If I was here to give answers, I'd open an answer shop!"

A satisfying conclusion to the first three part story here, with a nice little twist as it’s revealed by the old man that “Professor Becjinski is my wife!” using Mr Eldritch’s casually misogynistic assumption that the man must be the professor as a trick. Of course, this means that Marcie and her mates don’t actually save the day, but it’s a nice way to end. I also like the way Mr Becjinsky tries to persuade Dr Osley to turn on Eldritch, giving Osley his big speech about the world deserving what it’s going to get.

Also interesting is Eldritch’s motive; although he intends to ensure all computers are networked and under his control, he doesn’t want control; no, he wants to create chaos.

Marcie gets some heroic stuff to do, and there’s a countdown (why do baddies never just press a button that does things instantly?). And, of course, Eldritch vanishes. It’s a big, satisfying ending, although Marcie, Reet and Thomas are perhaps a little sidelined. In fact, things would have pretty much unfolded much the same without them.


Episode Four

“Liberty Hall!”

Don’t imagine I didn’t spit the blatant reference to The Three Doctors up there. Anyway, Marcie, Reet and Thomas are back, with hesitant help from Miss Maitland, as Jacqueline Pearce turns up and steals every scene she’s in with aplomb. She was a force of nature and she will be missed.

Miss Pendragon is an eccentric baddie with a mysterious agenda and, quite rightly, the manners of Servalan, who is conducting a sham archaeological dig in a quest to find the “Behemoth” of Celtic legend. As Thomas notes, her commitment to diversity is less than ideal as all of her underlines have a suspiciously Aryan look. Indeed, she seems to have hired the handsome but dim Luke just to stand around being Aryan and unblemished, and suddenly abandons him when he gets slightly hurt. Nazi much?

Marnie spends the episode being splendidly moody mixed with bursts of Doctorish activity. We’ve established the format in the first three parter; now we can just get on with the adventure, and it appears the Behemoth may now be emerging...

Dark Season: Episodes One and Two

Episode One

“Normal is for the comatose!”

If you think Jodie Whittaker is the first female Doctor Who then you are quite, quite wrong. Let’s look at the evidence: RTD writes; 25 minute episodes; Marcie acts and speaks exactly like the Doctor; the directorial style and incidental music is exactly like Cartmel-era Who which is, after all, only a couple of years ago. The baddie even begins by saying “Nothing in the world can stop me now!”. I rest my case.

This is, in fact, a brilliant bit of telly that only the very 1991 fashions can’t spoil. The script is superb; Victoria Lambert is superb, Sylvester McCoy’s Doctor as a thirteen year old girl. The paddle is a bit of genius. It’s genuinely bizarre that she doesn’t seem to have acted in anything else. Then there’s a young Kate Wibslet (the less said about Ben Chandler the better) and such British telly stalwarts as Brigit Forsyth and the great Cyril Shaps.

Like Cartmel era Doctor Who, the programme hides its lack of budget with lots of mood, atmosphere, and having this and intrigue be a substitute for expensive spectacle, and does it well. It’s also full of strong characters, an intriguing mystery, and an intriguing men-in-black villain in the splendid Mr Eldritch. But the clothes, oh, the clothes...



Episode Two

“If I can teach you two anything it’s this; shut up and do as I say. Out!”

The plot thickens and so does the characterisation; I love Marcie’s fun little relationship with the exasperated and harassed Miss Maitland, and how only she realises that anything weird happened. We also begin to see how the Professor is at the heart of all this, leading to a splendid cliffhanger. And, this being the early ‘90s, we have the obligatory cyberspace bit, with even a kind of proto-internet. In 1991.

It’s weird to think I was about the same age as the kids in this at the time, but in some ways it doesn’t feel so very long ago. It’s intetesting to be reminded of a time where not all schools gave lip service to any of this silly uniform nonsense, for example, whatever the resulting fashion disasters. Thing is, though, what does Mr Eldritch want? So far he just walks around looking cool while talking like a super villain in a vague sort of way, more of a trope than a character as such. Not that I have any problem with this.

Quatermass II: Episode 6- The Destroyers

"This should have been a great moment..."

Mere weeks after a probe was landed on a comet it's instructive to watch this, where Quatermass and Leo make a manned flight to the aliens' comet home, one without fanfare or glory. But Nigel Kneale doesn't do fanfare or glory.

It's a fitting, tension-fuelled and deeply tragic finale, as the likeable boffin Leo meets a horrible end and the final shot is of a visibly shattered Quatermass. Still, cheer up; the great Cyril Shaps unexpectedly turns up. And it's clear that there was never a time when he looked young.

There's some hope, I suppose, in that the aliens are thwarted and those who are controlled, including Dillon, are themselves again. But the price, as always with Kneale, is high indeed. Trying landmark television.

Doctor Who: The Androids of Tara

Part One

“Do you mind not standing on my chest? My hat’s on fire.”

We start with the Doctor and K9 playing chess, as in The Sun Makers, and once again the Doctor contrives to leave the game unfinished once he knows he’s losing. It’s a good scene, but in the context of the marathon it’s a little disturbing to see the seemingly oblivious repeating of something so recent. Never mind though- this first episode is a good ‘un.

Arguably it’s more than a little out of character for the Doctor to have a “day off” at a time like this, although the character has been moving more in that direction lately. Still, I can’t dispute that it’s all well scripted and performed. But if looked at as a commentary on the Doctor Who format itself (as pretty much everything about this story is) it definitely works. On a similarly format-subverting note, Romana finds the first segment within just a minute or so.

I have to admit the monster is… unfortunate. In fact, it’s suddenly quite noticeable that there’s been a distinct lack of monsters this season so far, and the only two proper ones we’ve seen- the Shrivenzale and this one- have been notoriously bad. Could this be why the budget seems to be stretching further this season than last, because of a deliberate cutting back on the monsters?

Peter Jeffrey, on top moustache-twirling form, makes a great entrance as our villain (boo! hiss!) Count Grendel as he “escorts” Romana to his castle, while the Doctor becomes acquainted with Zadek and his unnamed swordsman underling in a rather amusing scene. I particularly love the bit where he briefly grabs the sword to examine it and then immediately hands it back.

We’re given a brief précis of the plot so far; Prince Reynart must appear at the appointed time to be crowned king, but Grendel wants him killed first. But he has plans to avoid this, involving an android strangely similar to those in the Android Invasion. Is this originally Kraal technology perhaps?

This is a fascinating world, where everything looks mediaeval on the surface but technology lurks, suitably embarrassed, in all sorts of corners, as this is a society where engineering is the work of peasants. A great concept, and also a great excuse for doing The Prisoner of Zenda as science fiction. I’d better put my hand up here and confess I’ve not read the novel and frankly have no particular intention of doing so, but I love the occasional asides: “Well, it has been done before.”

Part Two

“Don’t be so tediously heroic, my dear fellow!”

Picking up from where we left off, there’s an exchange early in this episode which pretty much sums up how brazen the script is about its debt to Anthony Hope: “There is a secret passage.” “Ah! I thought there might be something like that!” Wonderful tongue-in-cheek self-referential stuff, of course, but let’s take it a bit too literally for a moment- how come the Doctor’s so aware of the rules of the fictional genre he’s in? Is this planet what it seems, or could it be a part of the Land of Fiction or some such place?

We get to meet Princess Strella, played by guest actress Mary Tamm, and get to hear about the rather tragic situation between that cad Grendel and poor Madame Lamia. Apparently she has the hots for him as he once did her “a certain courtesy”, but as he is a noblemen and she a mere peasant she hasn’t a hope. Instantly the audience sympathises with her, even though at no point in the story is she very nice.

We get to see Cyril Shaps again as the Archimandrite, which is nice, and also get a little backstory; two centuries ago a plague decimated the population (I love it when I can use the word “decimated” with complete accuracy) and that’s when androids started to be used to replace people. Not exactly the fullest explanation I’ve ever heard!

Part Three

“It’s funny. They always want you to go alone when you’re walking into a trap. Have you noticed that?”

I love these kinds of episodes; it may be one of those part threes where the plot takes a week off to wait for the conclusion and the time just gets filled up with loads of capture and escape scenes, but frankly who cares when it’s this much fun? I loved the scene where K9 slowly cuts a door in the tent so he and the Doctor can escape- the flip side of so many old Terry Nation Dalek stories!

We get some actual poignancy too here though as Lamia’s story comes to an end. She knows Grendel’s just using her- she’s not stupid- but “That is better than nothing”. And when she’s killed (I think the only character in the story to die), Grendel barely notices.

In other news, most of the episode is taken up with the elaborate springing of Romana from Grendel’s clutches, only for Grendel to restore her to said clutches at the end…

Part Four

“Next time, I shall not be so lenient!”

I love Grendel’s silly and convoluted plan- Romana, posing as Princess Stella, Marries King Reynart. Raynart meets with an unfortunate and tragic accident. Grendel marries the widowed Romana, masquerading as Princess Strella. Romana, that is, not Grendel. Grendel is now prince consort. Romana, still posing as Princess Strella, meets with an unfortunate and tragic accident. Her grieving widower is now king. Phew!

A great conclusion, with all the usual fun, a great exit for Grendel, and even a swordfight. Still, poor K9!

A wonderful story, a very high 5/5. Loads of postmodern humour with almost everything being a commentary on the programme and the genre it’s currently pasticheing. The uber-Graham Williams story. One caveat, though: much as I love this kind of thing, I can understand why some people don’t like the amount of violence that’s getting inflicted on the fourth wall this season. I love it unreservedly, but I can understand how too much of it would threaten the integrity of the programme. Still, we can probably sit back and safely enjoy some more of this sort of thing until that point gets reached. Say, the rest of this season and all of next?

Doctor Who: Planet of the Spiders

Part One
 

“Ah! Doing a bit of hairdressing on the side?”

We start with an unexpected sight- Mike Yates may no longer be part of UNIT, but he’s back. It’s also unusual, and refreshing, to see the Doctor and the Brig watching some kind of variety show, even if it’s not entirely recreational.

Yates has infiltrated himself into a hippyish group of Buddhists whose general appearance is absolutely as ‘70s as it’s possible to get. Clothes, hair, moustaches: all look like something from a contemporary parody of the decade, but there they are.

It’s great to see Cyril Shaps again, playing another nervous character, this time someone with psychic powers. We hear than the Brig has been involved with someone called Doris, and get to see some clips from Carnival of Monsters, something which is always to be welcomed. It’s also nice to get a letter from Jo telling us how she’s been getting on. She’s returned that blue crystal, though, for reasons which seem ominous.

We get an interesting speech from the lama, Cho-Je , about becoming a “new man" only to realise you’ve “never existed”. It’s almost as if something’s being foreshadowed in Buddhist terms. I wonder what?

Suddenly Cyril Shaps is dead- and it’s hard to escape the conclusion that it’s pretty much entirely the Doctor’s fault, collateral damage from his desire to satisfy his curiosity. Again, foreshadowing.

It’s a great big spider…

Part Two

“Of course we’re flying!”

Spiders which jump on your back, turn invisible yet exert control… a brilliant idea, and one I’m sure we won’t ever be seeing again in the future, such as, for example, in thirty-four years time.

This is actually the last full on UNIT episode of the Pertwee years, and although there’s no real marking of this fact it’s not a bad way to go. The Brig’s hair may be a bit long (I’m one to talk, mind…) but there’s some good stuff, especially a nice line from Benton about how “I’m expendable and you’re not.” And the Brig’s on the phone to a medical officer called “Sullivan”- who he?

We get another mention of the Doctor’s hermit guru from halfway up that mountain, again foreshadowing later events. But basically this is a chase, involving land, sea, air, Bessie and the Doctor’s fantastic flying new car. And I like it- it’s fun, it’s appropriate as a celebration, so who cares if the plot is not advanced one iota, especially as Lupton just teleports away at the end?

Oh, and towards the end, we get our final comedy tramp of the Pertwee era. Not that there were really all that many of them in the end.

Part Three

“You are cleverer than the Two-Legs on Metebelis 3!”

Now there are loads of spiders, and after last week’s high jinks the plot is heating up. We get to hear enough of Lupton’s history to establish that he’s a nutter. I love the scene where both he and the spider attack each others’ minds in turn.

It’s a shock when Sarah is suddenly transported to Metebelis 3, the fabled planet which has been gradually seeded, Bad Wolf style, throughout the last couple of years. Things have changed since the Doctor was last here in The Green Death- it’s now inhabited by human colonists with Mummerset accents who are under the tyrannical rule of the mysterious spiders. Sarah’s quite extraordinarily brave at being suddenly transported to another planet and a bit of extreme peril- she’s quite clearly great by this point.

Interesting to have the Doctor explain to Yates something that’s always bugged me a bit- how come the TARDIS always lands at the right place on a given planet?

Part Four

“Oh dear. This is getting monotonous.”

The above quote most definitely does not sum up my feelings on this story- I think it’s great so far!

We get some nicely and economically sketched details of society on Metebelis 3. It may be a fairly generic Doctor Who trope, a society oppressed by monstrous rulers, but it’s only a minor subplot here. Incidentally, the Metebelis 3 colonists look every bit as uber-70s as the Buddhist group on Earth.

Tommy has a good look at the crystal and goes all Flowers For Algernon, a subtle hint of what’s happened to the spiders on Metebelis 3- they’re Earth spiders made larger and cleverer by the crystals, a big plot bombshell- and just how significant the crystal will turn out to be.

Sarah risks her life for the Doctor by going to get the machine for him, while the Doctor suddenly looks very old whilst lying there. Still, once cured he briefly reverts to some of the old Season Eight style rudeness by loudly waking his hosts at the crack of dawn.

The Doctor gets straight to work. This is good stuff!

Part Five

“Much as I admire your stoic acceptance of the inevitable, I’d appreciate it if you’d shut up for a moment.”

This is a very long reprise indeed, but the effect is that both Sarah and the Doctor end up in the “web”, waiting to be eaten. The Doctor escapes, but his confrontation with the Great One- all the more effective for being unseen- is deeply effective as the Doctor himself is clearly very frightened indeed. The story’s themes are starting to come together nicely; the Great One says to the Doctor “You are proud, little man.”

There’s a nice bit with our heroes about to leave Metebelis 3, as the Doctor briefly panics that he’s lost the key only for Sarah to calmly reveal that she has it. There’s also a nice touch with Tommy; Sarah suggests he might be “normal”, and he replies “I sincerely hope not.”

And then the crux of the whole story arrives as the Doctor and Sarah finally meet the mysterious K’anpo. (Incidentally, for future reference, the Doctor speaks fluent Tibetan.) It becomes clear that the Doctor is the cause of everything that’s going wrong, just because he found that crystal on Metebelis 3: “Found?” “Well, perhaps ‘stole’ might be a better word.”

Part Six

“Not all spiders sit on the back.”

Not only is the reprise very long, it also has scenes fitted around it which weren’t there last episode, which is sort of cheating. But it’s exciting stuff from beginning to end, one of the finest individual episodes yet. K’anpo reveals who he really is- the old Time Lord hermit who tutored the Doctor all those years ago. It seems he’s “regenerated” (the first use of the word- it gave me a thrill!) and that Cho-Je doesn’t technically exist at all but is some kind of avatar, some kind of “projection” of his next life. I’m sure there are Buddhist allusions here that I’m not getting, but it’s cool nonetheless.

The Doctor must face his fear and atone for what he’s done. There a real sense of inevitable doom as he sets off for Metebelis 3. Meanwhile, K’anpo is hurt after being attacked, and “regenerates” into Cho-Je. Cool!

The Great One is huge, and looks very impressive indeed. She’s overreached herself though, and the crystal is too much for her, just as K’anpo thought it would be. All the spiders are killed, but the Doctor’s been fatally affected by the radiation…

UNIT HQ. Three months later, and the TARDIS has finally brought the Doctor “home”- it’s fitting that this Doctor, having got over his exile, is now ready to admit just how attached he’s become to this one place and time. K’anpo gives the process a push and the Doctor’s face change. It may not be that visually impressive, but in context it’s a huge dramatic moment. Wow.

Well, that was great. I’m sure most of the Buddhist stuff went over my head, but it was a perfect framework for this Doctor’s swansong in a story which was truly about him as a character. 5/5.

The season as a whole scores 4.2/5, giving it fourth place so far. It’s been a season of four 5/5s and one 1/5, a strange combination!

Doctor Who: The Ambassadors... OF DEATH!

Part One



"My dear fellow, I simply don't happen to have a pass."

"..."

"Because I don't believe in them, that's why."




Interesting device with the story titles, and as we'll see a very successful way of extracting maximum drama from the cliffhanger resolutions. An intriguing start, too- a British Houston during a British space mission. Possibly the most fantastical concept to appear in Doctor Who so far.

This is very promising- David Whitaker's back (yes, I'm aware of the behind-the-scenes script chaos, but still..)and Michael Wisher makes his first appearance. The first episode is very Apollo 13- how very 1970! The establishing scenes with the Doctor and Liz are nice, too, if a little out of keeping with the general serious tone. It's nice to see the TARDIS console again, though (in colour!) and also nice to have the ending of the previous story referenced- it's not overdone but, importantly, establishes the Doctor's lasting outrage.

The link-up of the capsules to music is very 1968- this story is very much of the Space Age. Great modelwork, incidentally.

Pertwee continues to be magnificent as the Doctor- there's some magnificent rudeness directed against Cornish. But, significantly, the Doctor is not (so far!) unlikeable, partly because he's right and partly because of his obvious frustration at his exile.

It's a bit of a coincidence that the warehouse from which the reply to the alien signal is being sent is only seven miles away. But we get the debut appearance for John Abineri, and a strangely gritty and realistic gunfight which is both very cool and seemingly from another genre entirely. This is something new for Doctor Who, with the sci-fi elements being left in the background and the human reaction being strongly foregrounded.



Part Two



"How many beans make five?"


I love the (clearly magical) sleight of hand by which the Doctor confounds Taltalian. There's an interesting technological footnote too- an "analogue-digital converter" sounds very modern for 1970! There's a bit of a throwback to Troughton, though: the Doctor says of computers that he "never did trust those stupid things"!

All this focus on the capsule returning is all a bit Quatermass Experiment. now, I've not read the rest of the thread so I'm going to guess- am I the, er, seventh person to mention this?

There's a very expensive-looking fight scene around the just-landed Recovery 7, no less impressive for the shift into monochrome. We get another shift in tone shortly though- Bessie's "anti-theft device" is very Batman!

Ah, computer paper. Brings back memories of my '80s primary school days, that does...

Some more top drawer Pertwee rudeness towards Sir James Quinlan towards the end. I'm loving this so far!



Part Three


"I don't know what came down in Recovery 7. But it certainly wasn't human."



More great stuff here. It's great to see Cyril Shaps again. And General Carrington is most interesting- Columbo-style we've known he's behind it all from the start but we don't know how or why. Plus Liz continues to be great, in her choice of hats as well as her general fabness. I love the car chase, and that's a very well edited cliffhanger.



Part Four



"If that rocket goes up, it means disaster for the entire world"



The bit where Liz flags down a car and it turns out to be Taltalian is an obvious example of whole sequences which are obviously just filler to pad out the time- a real criticism. But although it's often blatant it doesn't annoy me as much as it did in the previous story. I'm not sure why not.

So the Doctor's going to pilot the rocket- or "primitive contraption", as he call it with delightful rudeness. This harks back to The Seeds of Death, of course, and is one of the signs that this season is closer to its predecessor than often assumed. It'll take a while though, as the Brig has to get some parts in from Japan. That'll help to fill in a bit of screen time then.

Another great cliffhanger here, well edited again. Cliffhangers have never been better handled than in this story, and the title sequence has a lot to do with it.



Part Five


""Stop the countdown!"


Colour again! And also the return of Sergeant Benton for the first time since The Invasion. More good stuff here- Lennox's death scene is great, as is every scene with Liz, who gets the best line of the episode as she's being threatened: "It's all right, I won't hurt you."

Another scene in which a rocket leaving orbit too quickly will automatically plunge into the Sun. The tone may be very different, but this story has an alarming number of parallels with The Seeds of Death!



Part Six



"Your Doctor friend's as dead as a doornail."


I couldn't resist using that quote as I remember Terrance Dicks using it as a chapter title in his novelisation of this story. Anyway...

Finally the Doctor gets some answers from the aliens and we begin to understand what's going on- ie exactly what we suspected. Crikey, this story really is very slow indeed! Still, for some reason I don't seem to mind. Oh, and we also get a bit of bad CSO to simulate the weightlessness.

I love the way the Doctor maintains radio silence until he's landed out of pure ego. Oh, and of course to further stretch things out to seven episodes, of course.

We get our one and only glimpse of an alien face, in an oddly underplayed moment. The aliens are much more menacing under those blank visors, moving slowly, with that music heralding their zombie-like advance.

Strangely late on, Carrington says "It's our moral duty" for the first time. It's certainly not the first time a cliffhanger has revolved around someone pulling a gun, though!



Part Seven



"I had to do what I did. It was my moral duty."


Mere moments after he was about to shoot the Doctor, Carrington explains his plans to him. Interestingly, he genuinely craves the approval of this man he was just trying to kill. Realising he's insane, the Doctor "understands". This is very good writing, and foreshadows the end of the episode.

I appreciate the way the brigadier is shown as both capable and heroic here, arguably saving the day. It makes a nice and necessary contrast from his role in the previous story.




Overall, I loved this. I can't in good conscience give it a 5/5 after the way I criticised Doctor Who and the Silurians for being over-long, as there were some obvious and very cheeky bits of filler. But I loved this. It's not necessarily something I'd like to see repeated, but I appreciated the foregrounding of the non-sci-fi elements for once. A reluctant 4/5, with the feeling that perhaps I'm being a bit stingy.

Doctor Who: Tomb of the Cybermen

Part One


"Perhaps we don't want your help."

"That's just it- you so obviously do."


Good Lord- a story that exists in its entirety, the first since The War Machines- such luxury! And probably the first story for ages I've encountered in the marathon that I know very well indeed. That means I'm thinking about what I'm seeing, not absorbing new info, so this review might go on a bit more than usual! Although the fact we get 100% footage may have something to do with it too.

It's such a difference watching this story in context. We start on Skaro, of course, and Victoria is introduced to the TARDIS in a scene I once considered throwaway but is a wonderful little character scene after seeing The Evil of the Daleks- Victoria's father and Maxtible get a nice mention, and the Doctor compares his time machine to Maxtible's.

So, the Doctor's 450 years old. This is our first inkling that he's of any great age, and after the last story only the second confirmation that he's an alien.

We're just bombarded with goodness- Cyril Shaps, some awesome incidental music, and a particularly well-sketched group of characters, nicely introduced. The structure of the story is great from the start, and there's something cinematic about both the look and the style of storytelling.

The one thing that bothers me about this story is there pretty much from the start though; the big, strong, practically mute servant type, always spoken about and seldom spoken to even in front of him, played by a black actor. This is an archetype from an earlier, less enlightened age.

In a story with few laughs, I had to chuckle at the revelation that the Cybermen have "dynasties". And also raise an eyebrow that, in the 25th (?) century, the women have to stay behind while the men explore!

Jamie states of the dormant Cybermat that "It's as dead as a stone". In no way is it going to prove a threat later then...

There's a lot to praise in this episode, but I'm particularly enjoying the verbal sparring between the Doctor and Klieg, well scripted and well acted by both troughton and George Pastell. And the Doctor's manipulating Klieg even from the first episode, of which more later.



Part Two



"You belong to us. You shall be like us."


I love Viner, both the character and Cyril Shaps' general magnificence. A minor character plot-wise but he adds so much to the story by voicing the audience's fears. And whilst ostensibly a comic character in some ways you never actually laugh at him; you know his tragic fate is inevitable and you sense that so does he.

Parry is in no way the leader of this expedition- it's the Doctor and Klieg who are competing for the alpha male slot here and the winner's never in any doubt. The character dynamics are very well developed as the plot progresses.

Kit Pedler's influence is clear in the technical stuff on symbolic logic and general lack of howlers, but rather surprising the excellence in plot and characterisation must presumably come from Gerry Davis, who's not previously impressed me much.

Oh look, food pills! I love these charmingly 60s sci-fi tropes. And the Cybermen's awakening scene, again to that music, is one of my favourite dramatic telly moments ever. It's awesome.

Up until the last story, it seemed as though character development had been a thing of the past, of the days of David Whitaker and Dennis Spooner. And yet, for the second story in succession, the Doctor continues his development into a more manipulative figure. The Doctor admits he allowed Klieg leeway with the controls just to see what he would do- and as a result Viner is killed! Surely the Doctor is partly to blame for this? In fact, surely Jamie should be pulling him up on this, especially after what happened last story?

It's interesting seeing the ritual by which the Cybermen awaken their Controller. They may have no emotions, but they seem to have cultural practices of a sort.



Part Three


"We're not like you!"


"You will be."



Interestingly, this story is a battle between three manipulators: Klieg, the Cybermen and the Doctor (in ascending order). Klieg's own serious pretensions to control of the situation are punctured at the very start of the story, while the Cybermen reveal their motivation more fully than before: they attacked the moonbase as their machines had failed and their extinction was nearing. Desperate to survive, they fled to the tombs.

Once again the terrifying prospect of Cybernisation is raised, and once again a first wave of Cybermen is beaten back halfway through the story. For the first time in a Cyber story, though, we're not blatantly being fed the same plot as The Tenth Planet, or at least it's being done sufficiently differently. I won't be marking the story down for excessive similarity to The Tenth Planet as I did The Moonbase.

The Cybermats are actually quite scary, although why they're called that I have no idea.

George Pastell shows what a fantastic actor he is, convincingly looking scared as Klieg knocks for the others to open the hatch and let him out. At this point Klieg is no longer at all in control, being manipulated by Kaftan. But even she is worried by his erratic behaviour,

The chat about bereavement between the Doctor and Victoria is a wonderful little scene, once again all the more so for seeing the story in context.



Part Four


"Well, now I know you're mad. I just wanted to make sure."


The final cliffhanger, with Klieg the threat, is appropriate as by this point, with the Cybermen safely below, he's the only potential cause of further danger. The threats posed by the Cybermen throughout this episode are all caused by him. This episode centres around the psychological battle for dominance between the Doctor and Klieg, but not without some other nice touches. Victoria is clever to feed the paranoia of Kaftan and Klieg with talk of "the other weapon". And I notice in the Doctor's scene with Toberman he tells him the Cybermen want to control him and make him their slave; this Doctor's dislike of slavery and control is becoming a definite character trait by now, as much as his interventionism and the hiding of his razor-sharp intellect behind the clownish exterior.

The Doctor's never been so manipulative, though, and this is a fascinating trait to behold. Al throughout the final scene with Klieg, with a gun being pointed at him, the Doctor is always in full control as he goads Klieg for just long enough for the Cyberman to sneak up behind him.





Overall, superb. The pacing was masterful, with every scene having its part to play, as was the characterisation of both regulars and guest characters. And the Cybermen have never seemed so threatening. And most of all I'm fascinated by the development to the Doctor's character, played awesomely by Troughton. Best season opener since An Unearthly Child?