Dead of Night: Return Flight

 "He'll shut up soon, Skip. He's, er, got no legs left."

It's an amusing start as a plane descends to land at Heathrow and the stewardess requests the passengers to "Please extinguish your cigarettes". 1972 was a long time ago, even if it's only five years before yours truly was born...

This one promised to be good. Written by Robert Holmes, known to us Doctor Who fans as being bloody good. A premise that seems to have a fair bit of potential- a recently bereaved airline pilot with his little demons and greavances ishaunted by the subtle presence of the ghost of a Lancaster bomber, with inevitably grim results.

And the thing is... in some senses the  script is good. The characters, from Captain Rolfe to his friends to the surprisingly decent investigator are all well-rounded and believable. Peter Barkworth, too, is excellent. There's a level in which it works as drama.

And yet... there's just no tension. As horrow, it fails utterly. There's a surprising lack of emphasis on the supernatural here. And, well-written though the characters may be, the whole thing is so slow, uneventful and... well, dull.

Unusually for a Holmes script, I'm afraif this is a bit of a dud.

Bernard and the Genie ( TV Film)

 "If you need anything, you just call and I'll be up there faster than a poker up a pervert."

For those of us who are of a certain age- and yes, it causes me a certain amount of distress to type those words- this excellent TV special is a hilarious memory of that telly Christmas of 1991 after Only Fools and Horses had finished. (Wasn't that the year in Miami?) Yet, in hindsight, this is a fascinating halfway house: a TV film by a recently post-Blackadder Richard Curtis, in a period when Blackadder was a justly worshipped recent memory, that would pave the way for his film career, which would prove to be at once increasingly successful and increasingly successful.

There's some sentiment here too. The bromance between Bernard and Josephus is deeper and more full of feeling than anything which the hilariously cynical Blackadder would have tolerated. Yet the opening scenes, where Bernard Bottle's high-flying life falls apart, are played purely for Blackadder-type laughs. As for Rowan Atkinson's delicious baddie... well, hiss ye, hiss ye. Oh, and nice beard,

Bernard is a sympatheic character- nice, naive, more than a little uncool, and portrayed with real comic charisma by an appallingly young Alan Cumming. And Lenny Henry really steals the show as Josephus, a characyer that could easily have been a stereotype but turns out to be a witty commentator on modern society- modern society being so very, very 1991, with even bloody Leonardo turning up, and I mean the chelonian kind.

But while this is, perhaps, plot-widse, a precursor to the sort of stuff Richard Curtis would go on to do. it's every bit as funny as Blackadder and absolutely the same sort of humour. This is a very, very good thing.

Anyway, Merry Christmas. Unless you're the sort of person who whinges that "we're not allowed to say Merry Christmas these days because of wokery and that", in which case, Happy Holidays.

The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes: The Mazarin Stone

 "You know my methods...

What a very odd episode, which I uppose we could dub "Holmes-lite", given that Jeremy Brett hardly appears in his penultimate episode- was this perhaps forced upon the prosuction team by Brett's health?

It's also odd that this is a mash-up of two diparate Conan Doyle short stories- the less than classic The Mazarin Stone and the far more intriguing The Three Garridebs- with one allocated to Watson and the other allocated to a Mycroft Holmes who is drifting further and further from his Diogenes Club personality. It's good to see Charles Gray again, of course, but this simply doesn't work, especially as both stories are tied together at the end. This sort of thing is a far cry from the original mission statement of adapting all the stories.

There's also that syndrome again of directorial touches that are in practice meaningless and simply don't fit into an ITV detective show. This is an episode which simply fails. Without Brett, they should simply have made one less episode.

I really hope the final episode is a good one.

The Return of Sherlock Holmes: The Bruce Partington Plans

 "All the Queen's horses and all the Queen's men cannot avail us in this matter."

This is the final episode in the guise of The Return of Sherlock Holmes; sees the return of Charles Gray as Mycroft; and is one of the finest episodes thus far, after a couple that were perhaps a little below par. It's a fitting end to the eighties for the regular episodes.

Brett and Hardwicke are very much on form, with plenty of character moments, and the deduction in this episode is first class- the way Holmes sees the significance of the points, and what they mean for Cadogan West's place of death, is an extraordinary sequence. We also have some superb guest actors, not least of which is Catweazle himself.

It's also exciting, especally at the end, so see Sherlock Holmes straying into spy territory. It's also interesting to see how Mycroft is far more important within the Civil Service than we had previously been told, beng a kind of proto-Cabinet Secretary. This is an appalingly small Civil Service, too, with "clerks" being given what seem like senior responsibilities. On the other hand, "junior clerk" Cadogan West appears to be paid rather well, so some Victorian values are certainly worth emulating. It's also instructive that MI5 does not yet exist, so Inspector Bradstreet is called in.

Diversions aside, though, this is a truly fine episode.

The Return of Sherlock Holmes: The Man with the Twisted Lip

 "I sometimes wonder whether men ever really, truly grow up."

This is another superb episode, again a rather faithful adaptation which, if we can forgive Conan Doyle for perpetuating the myth of the wealthy professional beggar, is a rather clever and well-structured little mystery- unless one happens to guess the twist upon which all depends.

I hadn't noticed untill watching this adaptation that the opening sequence, with Watson helping poor Mrs Whitney with her opium addict husband, perfectly mirrors what turns out to be the case with Mrs St Clair and her own, less obviously errant husband. That's a clever piece of foreshadowing, and there's a very interesting theme of long-suffereig, responsible wives and their immature and selfish husbands. I'm not used to seeing such a clear subtext. And I trust that Conan Doyle, writing this in the 1890s, was not intentionally propagating the myth that there are professional beggars who can genuinely sustain a wealthy lifestyle.

The narrative being partly in flashback sadly reduces the screen ime a little for Jeremy Brett, who is as superlative as ever, but Edwardd Hardwicke certainly has the presence to carry scenes on his own. It's great to see the wonderful Denis Lill as Inspector Bradstreet, and Clive Francis is incredible.

So here we have yet another excellent episode. Surely we're due a dud at some point?

Doctor Who: The Awakening

Part One

 

“You must stop these war games!”

It’s Polly James! And it’s the seventeenth century, apparently! Oh, it isn’t. It’s some war games. That sounds a bit familiar.

The TARDIS lands in England, in 1984, with all three TARDISeers wearing the same clothes they had on last story. For once the TARDIS has ended up where it was supposed to. And yet, by an incredible coincidence, there are bizarre and sci-fi tinged goings-on, er, going on. The war games are getting out of hand, the slightly doolally Sir George (the mighty Denis Lill!) refuses to allow anyone to enter or leave the village, and Tegan’s plot convenience-friendly grandfather’s gone missing. Oh, and some bloke from yer actual 1643 has turned up, complete with comedy Mummerset accent.

Hang on, that village square looks familiar- could this have been filmed in the same place as The Android Invasion?

For all the talk of the mysterious legend of the Malus, the threat here is so evidently low-level and human that I started to wonder why no one just simply used the prominent red phone box in the village square to call the police. But then the Doctor goes inside the church and starts explaining things- the Malus came down in a space ship! Some of his stuff came from the Tinclavic mines on Raaga! (Hello to The Visitation!) He’s, er, awakening!

Polly James becomes quite possibly the first person on Doctor Who to scream in the perfect pitch to lead into the closing titles. Oh, and said closing titles show her character’s full name to be Jane Hampden, a nice little reference to her probable ancestor John from this Civil War themed tale.

Part Two

“I’m being bullied, coerced, forced against my will.”

So, Turlough’s captured, and bumps right into Tegan’s grandad. How convenient.

Tegan looks, er, different in her May Queen outfit. I think at long last she’s wearing something which looks even worse than that air hostess uniform. Oh, and she’s going to be burnt at the stake. How nice.

I must admit the Malus looks good. And threatening too- after all, the Doctor is forced to allow three people he’s just met, in the form of Jane, the Colonel and Will, into the TARDIS and he never ever does that these days.

It all seems to end rather slowly, with the Doctor destroying the Malus by means of some technological hokum while he holds Sir George at bay while talking at him. And then there really are loads of people in the TARDIS. How very characteristic of its era. We finish up with a debate on the relative merits of ale and tea, which are without doubt the two finest liquids in the known universe. With the exception of a nice glass of red, obviously.

Well, that all looked very nice, but not a lot happened really. The plot was very slight and not a lot happened character-wise. This seems pretty much the epitome of 3/5. Come to think of it, none of the two-parters have particularly impressed me much aside from The Rescue, and that only worked because it was basically a character piece.

Doctor Who: Image of the Fendahl

Part One

“You must have been sent by Providence.”

“No, I were sent by the council to cut the verges.”

After the car crash that was The Invisible Enemy it’s a huge relief to see Chris Boucher’s name popping up, and once again he doesn’t disappoint. We start with a mysterious skull, but in spite of the obvious parallels with Quatermass and the Pit there’s a lot more going ion here than just a rehash. And fittingly for a Chris Boucher story Scott Fredericks appears, again reminding me of the excellent Kaldor City audios. K9 only gets fleeting appearances at the start and end of the story, but he’s have jarred with the story’s tone in any case.

It’s immediately noticeable how much better written the Doctor and Leela are compared to the previous story, which should come as no surprise from Leela’s creator. And the story, atmosphere and guest characters are all brilliant from the start. It’s a clever touch that Thea and Adam, the sympathetic characters amongst Fendelman’s group, are implicated by being persuaded not to tell the police about the corpse found by Adam. And I just love the Doctor’s “Good morning, ladies!” to a herd of cows. We also get a self-referential moment that’s much wittier than usual: “You’ve both escaped from somewhere, haven’t you?” “Frequently.”

Part Two

“Alas, poor skull.”

We get to see a glimpse of the Fendahleen here, and we’re given the beginnings of a backstory- it seems the fifth planet of the solar system broke up about twelve million years ago, the same age as the skull. And Thea is mysteriously claiming to have planned the whole thing. This is all excellent stuff, with a mystery developing nicely and a threat which may be a little nebulous but somehow feels defined in the way it didn’t in Horror of Fang Rock.

It’s noticeable the Doctor isn’t around much in this episode, mind.

Part Three

“Dr Fendelman, I think you have an industrial relations problem.”

Leela saves the Doctor’s life, and we get a moment that could be sexual tension between them if not for the fact that there hasn’t been any other sign of any such thing. We get another excellent episode, with even the use of sci-fi concepts to explain second sight being just about passable. Stael’s agenda becomes clear, and Scott Fredericks really is excellent here. Arguably the Quatermass and the Pit connection starts to get a bit much here, what with Mrs Tyler’s “race memory” and all, but it’s all so good I don’t really mind.

We get drip fed some more backstory; apparently the fifth planet was erased from existence, War Lord-like, by the Time Lords. And the situation is nicely summed up by Fendelman just before Stael shoots him: “I have been used! You are being used! MANKIND HAS BEEN USED!”

Part Four

“…Or, on the other hand, it could all be just a coincidence.”

A simply staggering conclusion to a simply magnificent story, with elements from folklore turning out to be essential to the plot- the use of salt here is clever, and in many ways shows how this story in some ways parallels The Dæmons, only done much better.

Oh, and the Doctor fires a gun. Again. He’s always doing that!

I love the Doctor’s explanation to Adam, which at the same time explains what’s going on but remains just ambiguous enough for the Fendahl to retain its mystery. Apparently it destroyed Mars on the way, but it’s not as though Doctor Who has ever featured any Martians!

Utterly superb. An easy 5/5, and a new entry to my top five. After a wobbly start the Graham Williams era suddenly pulls an all time great story out of the bag.