A Question of Attribution

 "If something is not what it claims to be, what is it?"

This is a 1991 television adaptation of Alan Bennett's stage play from 1988, when Spycatcher had recently been all the rage and there was a great deal of interest in Philby, Maclean, Burgess and all that. Not that the whole affair is any less fascinating today, of course, but it must be borne in mind that Blunt had been dead for a mere five years at the time of the stage play, whereas Philby's drab, dreary Muscovite existence drew to a melancholy close that same year. This was hardly ancient history.

Given the writer, the director and the cast, this is obviously superb. It could hardly fail to be, although it's a bit of a slow burner. It's very Alan Bennett- silences, talking around the subject, the things that are not said, and those that are said are said obliquely or in a nice, safe little metaphor. It isn't the parallel that's drawn between attribution of an artist and the attribution of a spy that's clever, as it's a fairly straightforward conceit- it's the wit, elegance and artistry of how it's done. A lesser writer could easily have hit upon the idea, but it takes an Alan Bennett to execute it this well.

The cast is superb. Prunella Scales, of course, steals the show as the Queen, in a deliciously nuanced and masterly written scene which absolutely nails the themes at play here. Yet James Fox is utterly sublime as Anthony Blunt, a highly cultured man, a snob, and a man who has not yet fully come to terms with the enormity of his reason. It's hard not to see a link between his callous snobbery towards Arthur Chubb and the callousness with which he betrayed those who died because of his youthful treason, sins for which his refusal to name the "Fifth Man" shows he has not fully repented. Yes, he can be kind when he wishes to be, taking young Colin under his wing, but his downfall is utterly deserved.

The twist involving Geoffrey Palmer's character may be a little dated now that we know who the Fifth Man was (John Cairncross), but it's nicely done. Overall, this is vintage, exquisite Bennett. It's philosophical, very English, in the way of that generation- emotions are understated to the point of near-invisibility but far from absent. Beneath the stiff upper lip lies deep emotion, and few show that the way Bennett does.

Inspector Morse: The Infernal Serpent

 "It's too warm for lentil soup.

SPOILERS. Be warned....

It's the '90ds now, or it has been for a few days, although, of course, this would have been filmed in 1989, and decades are an artificial thing, amnyway. Not much instantly changes when the year suddenly ends with a zero instead of a nine. This still feels very much the late '80s- a time of payphones, typewriters, nobody under 40 in a t-shirt, and environmentalist only having truly broken through a few years earlier.

And it feels a subtly different time. The open accent snobbery. The fact that environmentalism is not yet particularly about the climate emergency. And yet... the ending packs an enormous punch. Becauseyes, there's a bit of an environmental scandal. And a cover-up, all of which suddenly feels much modern. But throughout, amongst the Copley-Barnes family, there's the constant sense of some hidden secret, something very, very wrong.

The big reveal, at the end, is both effective and devastating. The attitudes to historic child sexual abuse are surprisingly modern, the message right. The Master is able to get away with his crimes because of his social status and Phil, a mere gardener, would never have been believed about his daughter.

Because of snobbery, of class prejudice. I suppose class snobbery always, in its power structures, colludes with paedophilia, which is certainly something to think on.

A superb, well-written bit of telly, this, with a brilliant pay-off. John Thaw, again, is superb in showing both Morse's moral indignation and how bloody difficult he can be. One of the finest episodes yet.

A Fish Called Wanda (1988)

"Touch his dick and he's dead!"

I first saw this magnificent farce back when I hired out the video, which shows you how long ago it was. It not only stars but is written by John Cleese, and the figure behind Fawlty Towers certainly knows how to do a good farce.

Cleese is bloody good as Archie, of course, the (ahem) archetype of repressed, sexually stultified exemplar of a certain type of public school educated Englishman. Jamie Lee Curtis is also bloody good as the cynically feminine and deeply greedy Wanda with her foreign languages fetish. But truly outstanding are Kevin Kline as the psychopathic Otto and Michael Palin as the stuttering Ken, an extraordinary performance. All four give splendid comedy performances.

There are some laugh out loud moments-  I loved Archie’s apology to Otto- but it’s largely an intricate and character based farce, perfectly constructed. I’m not a fan of the farce in general but John Cleese is a master of the art.

Archie’s speech to Wanda about the stultifying embarrassment of being English is both funny and true, up to a point. I tend to think the stiff upper lip stereotype applies only to the public school educated, separated from their parents and put into a strange and repressed existence that I know mainly from popular culture; the English are fundamentally open, emotional, beer swilling north Europeans quite culturally close to the Scandinavians, Germans and Dutch, but something about that sense of very English embarrassment has permeated throughout our culture. Perhaps the upcoming horrors of Brexit will change that. Perhaps they won’t.

Be that as it may, this is a true comedy classic, and possibly the last creation of John Cleese to have true greatness.

Henry IV, Part II (Richard Eyre, 2012)

"Presume not that I am the thing I was!"

It's been a while since I reviewed Part I, I know. The last few weeks have been somewhat unusual, though. The blog is now back to normal and you can expect Henry V fairly sharpish, probably next Saturday. I was actually going to review a film today but I really have to get these Hollow Crown adaptations watched and reviewed as I recorded them off the telly and they're taking up too much space. So, the current schedule is Shakespeare for two consecutive Saturdays, after which Saturday (or Sunday if I happen to be out Saturday) will be where I review new episodes of Doctor Who. I'll be doing a film on Bank Holiday morning. Only one other person (yes, you, Nick!) knows what it is. After the five weeks of Doctor Who then Saturdays will revert to films again, although I also plan to slot in a recording of Macbeth from BBC 4 at some point. The rest of the week will be all Buffy and Angel.

So, Part II. Again, the only one of these plays I've read or seen before is Richard II, so forgive me if I react to a play that is new to me. There's a real sense of foreboding right from the start. All these parallels of different pairs of fathers and sons are soooo last play. The old Earl of Northumberland, such a presence in the last play, gets only two scenes, in one of which he suffers the bereavement of his much-loved son, and another in which he buggers off out of the play. It's interesting that the scene in which he hears of his bereavement should take place amongst such bleakly beautiful Northumberland countryside.

But this play, unlike its predecessor, is concerned with just one father and one son. Even Falstaff, this time, is no longer a father figure; he and Hal are on strained terms from the beginning, and Simon Russell Beale gives Falstaff a palpable anxiety throughout, as if he knows, deep down, that the prince will disown him. There's much more emphasis on his physical age, even to the point of a sex scene which makes it clear that his performance is not what it was. Tom Hiddleston, too, gives us a more serious prince from the beginning, with the frailty and mortality of his father weighing upon his mind.

This play is much more serious than its prequel. It's not that there isn't comedy- there are some glorious insults in the scene where Falstaff is arrested, and Robert Shallow is a brilliant comic creation. But there's an ever-present sense of decline and doom which can only be redeemed by the accession of a king freed from the original sin of being a usurper. The old king visibly declines throughout the play, and becomes much more morose and philosophical, even getting a soliloquy on his insomnia, which even kings are subject to. Like Cnut, this king knows that nature marks a limit to his power. Perhaps there's also a suggestion that his inability to sleep, and the tumult that besets his realm, are a result of his illegitimacy as a king. It's significant that he even quotes Richard.

We're reminded that Falstaff, as a knight, has certain feudal obligations in time of war as we see him recruiting peasants to take with him.  One of them, Ralph Mouldy, points out that his wife and children will have no breadwinner while he's away fighting, a reminder that these aristocratic wars have cruel consequences for those further down the scale. Another peasant is fatalistic about his possible death, a motif that recurs throughout the latter stages of the play: as Shallow points out, "Death is certain". For everyone in this play, death is very near. Shallow is conscious of his many dead acquaintances; he sees his generation beginning to pass away. The king is dying. People die in wars, "traitors" are casually and summarily executed, and there are many, many mentions of old Falstaff's mortality, which culminate in his admonishment from the new King Henry V.

This scene is the fulcrum of both plays, of course: the new king's "I know thee not, old man." His new, royal persona is so very different from the playboy prince of the recent past but then, of course, as we knew from Hal's soliloquy at the start of the previous play, the playboy prince was no less of a mask than the kingly one. Hal has to clearly separate the man and the king, having learned from his father that kingship is a burden.

Doctor Who: Time Crash / Voyage of the Damned

Time Crash

“You mostly went hands-free, didn't you? ‘I'm the Doctor! I can save the universe with a kettle and some string. And look at me; I'm wearing a vegetable…’”

Hooray! At last I get to watch this with subtitles and catch all of Tennant’s dialogue! Not to be churlish, though; this is fantastic, and his performance is too.

Peter Davison’s appearance is a powerful and wonderful moment, and all the more so in the context of the Marathon. Although I can’t help wondering why he’s wearing a hat, what with it being indoors and all…

It’s interesting how different Davison’s performance is here. Partly it’s the fact that he’s older, more authoritative and, well, more authoritative. But there’s also the obvious point that this is the version of the Doctor he plays in Big Finish these days.

But just as good as Davison himself is this fantastically witty script from the Moffmeister General, in which Tennant’s Doctor gets to make some great quips about his predecessor. I love the digs at the celery, and the revelation that both of the Doctors wear glasses for purely cosmetic reasons. Davison gets the best line, though. (“You’ve changed the desktop theme, haven’t you?”)

It’s hard to believe, as the Fifth Doctor heads back to times of “Nyssa and Tegan, Cybermen and the Mara, Time Lords in funny hats and the Mara”, that this has been just eight minutes long. It’s pure joy. 5/5, no contest. Oh, and I do believe this is only our second every “wibbly wobbly, timey wimey”.



Voyage of the Damned



“Any day now they start boxing!”

Ah… there’s nothing so surreal as reviewing a Christmas special in late May as the Spring blossoms are behind us and the hay fever drugs are starting to kick in…

It’s the Christmas Day blockbuster: time for something light in mood yet exciting and action-packed for the post-Christmas Dinner hours, and easy to follow for the benefit of those of us who had a little bit of wine earlier cos it’s the one day of the year you can start drinking in the early afternoon. And this delivers splendidly; before the credits roll we’ve already established that this is indeed the Titanic, there are apparently aliens on board, Kylie Minogue is on board, and, oh, said ship is flying through space. How very Enlightenment. Not only that, but those angel robots look suspiciously Robots of Death to me. That’s two conscious homages in the space of a minute!

The first third of the running time, before the peril kicks in, are devoted to introducing us to the situation and to the characters who are soon going to be struggling for their lives. The script sparkles here, giving exactly the sort of humour the festive circumstances demand. The highlight of all this is of course the dodgy history lesson given by Clive Swift’s Mr Copper, along with the brief trip to earth which helps the Doctor to bond with Kylie’s Astrid Peth- and her joy at what we would think mundane is wonderful. We also meet a newspaper vendor (it’s London, innit?) played by Bernard Cribbins, but there’s no need to dwell on him as he’s probably just a one-off cameo.

Incidentally, we’re told again that Earth is indeed a “Level 5” planet. That settles it; there is indeed a consistent system.

Oh, and Geoffrey Palmer’s in it, too, as the Captain, and Russell Tovey’s in it, too! But here’s when things start to turn serious as the Captain deliberately allows the ship to be hit by meteors, and the Heavenly Host turn nasty. Not only that, but they have haloes of death! It’s now, in true disaster movie style, that every character has a secret and all the nice characters die, mostly nobly (I love our sweet competition-winning couple, but knowing RTD’s scripting I feared for their life expectancy the minute they opened their mouths…). Unfortunate that the black guy dies first, but probably not a deliberate use of the trope…

The Doctor’s big speech, in response to Rickston Slade’s sneering, seemed a bit over the top at the time, but in the context of what’s to come (I know that’s not really in the spirit of the Marathon!) it now looks far more like a part of a character arc with, in hindsight, a defined direction, than it ever did at the time. I also love his Christmas quip soon after (“I was there. I got the last room”).

Things are going well with Astrid until she agrees to be the Doctor’s companion; at that point you know she’s doomed, just like Lynda with a “y” in a similar scene. This is where it starts, though: RTD, awesomely great writer though he is, has been writing the series for three years ago, and from this point onwards we’re bound to get little bits like this where he repeats his earlier tricks. It can’t be helped, and it in no way undermines RTD’s stature as a genius, but it’s there.

Still, RTD is often criticised for his climaxes but there’s nothing to criticise here. The doctor’s plan to get himself to the bridge is genuinely clever, Max Capricorn is a great villain, superbly played by George Costigan (yes, I know his performance is a tad broad, but so it should be- that’s the character, and it’s appropriate villainy for a Christmas special). The final revelations tie things up nicely- and were even foreshadowed earlier. Unfortunately, Astrid has to die at this point. Even more unfortunately, the Doctor ascends to the heavens with two angels. Now, I’ve been quite tolerant of this pretentious Christ imagery, but this is the point where, for me personally, the screaming starts. Please let there be no more…

Again, it’s interesting in the light of later events (not strictly in the spirit of the Marathon, again!) to see the Doctor trying so hard to bring Astrid back, insisting that “I can do anything!” Importantly, though, he fails. Not yet is he the Time Lord triumphant, but he’s travelling alone, and certain tendencies are going unchecked…

The last scenes with Mr Copper are splendid. I love the metatextuality of Mr Copper's comment, after Rickston Slade again shows himself to be an obnoxious git, that “Of all the people to survive. He’s not the one you would have chosen, is he?” But anyone making such a choice (ie, the writer) would be “a monster”. Is this RTD commenting on his own rather more than usually homicidal tendencies as a writer?

Good to see the recently departed Verity Lambert get an acknowledgement, too. Casts me back to the early days of the Marathon, that does.

Brilliant. Not quite up there with the 5/5, but one of the very top 4/5’s.

Doctor Who: The Mutants

Part One

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

“No. Is it good?”

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

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

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

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


Part Two

“I’m surrounded by incompetents!”

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


Part Three

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


Cotton invoking Grimm’s Law there…

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

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


Part Four

“Professor Sondergaard, I presume?”

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

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


Part Five

“Marshall, you are quite mad.”


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

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


Part Six

“I am a scientist!”

*cough*

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



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



Rankings

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

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

Doctor Who and the Silurians

Part One


"I take it you're yet another member of this UNIT team?"

"Yes, depressing, isn't it?"



Scenes on video, in colour- there's a first. And our first glimpse of Bessie. Oh, and a scientific research establishment. Suddenly the new era seems to have clicked entirely into place. I'm still loving this new Doctor: "My dear Miss Shaw, I never report myself anywhere. Particularly not forthwith!"

This one has quite a cast- Peter Miles and Fulton MacKay, and once more the tone is quite adult. we have yet another link to the past, though: the Sonic Screwdriver gets a welcome mention. This is a strangely different programme, yet somehow still Doctor Who.

Suddenly Jon Pertwee is playing an unmistakably new character, and not just a different-looking version of his predecessor. So far (can you see where I suspect this might be heading?) I'm impressed.



Part Two


"That's typical of the military mind, isn't it? Present them with a new problem and they start shooting at it."


Paul Darrow! The cast just keeps getting better and better! The direction's very good too- I'm particularly impressed by the creature POV shot.

More yokels here, and this time a pitchfork too. The Pertwee era tropes are coming thick and fast. Still- a Mummerset accent? In Derbyshire?


Part Three



"It is rather like the reptile house in a zoo, isn't it?"



This episode is all about the Faustus-like Quinn, and we get to see how the acting talent of Fulton MacKay stretches far beyond Porridge. The scene between the Doctor and Quinn in the cottage is very well written and acted by both Pertwee and MacKay. Quinn having kidnapped one of the creatures is simultaneously both a big revelation and the moment we know he's going to die.

Some extremely odd music at the end there! This is great stuff, but the pace is a bit too slow nonetheless- there seems to be a fair bit of foot-dragging.



Part Four



"The man's a raving lunatic. He's insolent. He's impertinent. He shows no respect for my authority."


This episode is where the ethical conflicts really start to fissure. We start off with the Doctor trying to talk to the Silurian in Quinn's cottage, but before long he's lying to the Brigadier about what happened. This is interesting for a number of reasons- it's the first real disagreement between the two characters; it's happening early on in the new format and will help define their relationship; and it showcases their different philosophies. The Doctor, a scientist, wants to understand the Silurians, and his idealism means he sees room for negotiation. The Brigadier, meanwhile, sees the Silurians as a threat- more narrow-minded, certainly, but given his responsibilities not necessarily unreasonable. The situation is well handled; we, the audience, are able to sympathise with both characters and aren't told what to think.

More bizarre music as the Doctor and Liz explore is followed by a glimpse of the rubber dinosaur and our first ever bit of bad CSO. And the casting finally breaks the sound barrier with Geoffrey Palmer appearing as a civil servant- a relatively unannoying one, thankfully. There's a great line from the Doctor though: "I've got no time to talk to under-secretaries- permanent or otherwise..."

It's all about the ethical dilemma though- once Miss Dawson discovers Quinn's death she turns into our genocidal warmonger-in-chief, while the Doctor's behaviour is looking uncomfortably like betrayal...



Part Five


"Traitor!"


Lawrence is in denial about everything- he's clearly not going to survive the story!

The situation is quite awful, really- the humans and Silurians both have a valid claim on the planet but the Doctor's hopes of them sharing it seem awfully naive. Both groups have bigots among their number (Miss Dawson, the Young Silurian) who seem to be in the ascendancy. But the awful thing is that each side is fundamentally right to consider the other as hostile, however much other opinions may exist on both sides. The Doctor's never going to win here, especially as it's the Silurians who seem the more intolerant.

A deadly pandemic- it's all kicking off! That's two stories in a row with hospitals...

Part Six



"Did what hurt? oh, yes. It was agony."


It's clear from early on that this is all going to be about the disease and the race to find a cure. Fine by me, as it's certainly entertaining, but I can't help noticing the plot seems to have pretty much stopped.

Masters pays the taxi driver 7s 6d! If decimalisation was brought in at the same time as our world then this can't have taken place any later than 1971. And that's impossible- The Web of Fear was stated to have taken place over forty years since The Abominable Snowmen, which took place in 1979. And The Invasion was four years after that. So that would mean this story was set in 1979 at the very earliest, well after decimalisation. But it's not just that- the fashions, the decor, everything- it all points to the end of the '60s. UNIT dating is already insoluble this early in!

The montage shot with the pictures bleeding into one another is extremely well done. There's some fantastic direction in this story.

Interesting line from the Doctor- "I'm beginning to lose confidence for the first time in my life. And that covers several thousand years." Interesting because it can't be true- if the Doctor was 450 years old in Tomb he can't be much older now as Jamie aged no more than a few years at the most after that and he was there right until the end of the Second Doctor's tenure, there's no significant gap between The War Games and Spearhead (Season 6b Schmeason 6b!), and this story can't be more than months later, about a year at the most. Not sure how to explain this one.

Anyway, enough continuity. Good episode. I like the bit where Lawrence starts ranting and then dies suddenly. And dramatically.



Part Seven



"But that's murder!"



Hmmm, so the Silurians want to destroy the Van Allen belt, essentially killing all warm blooded creatures? Hmmm. Not a very clever way to treat the ecosystem, chaps. Food supply and that. Besides, they don't seem all that cold-blooded to me. There's not an awful lot of sun-basking going on in those caves.

"I'll try fusing the control of the neutron flow" says the Doctor. I'm wondering, for no particular reason, if we'll ever hear him say anything similar again? Incidentally, it's most unnerving to see the Doctor in a t-shirt!

The Doctor's plan of gradually awakening the Silurians one by one is reasonable and workable, but immediately undercut by the fact that the Young Silurian is still alive and still in very much genocidal mood. He, interestingly, is allowed to be noble and self-sacrificing in staying so that his fellow Silurians can hibernate- he may be a racist but he's capable of moral and admirable behaviour with his own kind. That's good writing.

Once again the facts can support both the Doctor's point of view and the Brigadier's, which is important- the viewers must continue to like both characters to support the premise of the show. And the Young Silurian's survival helps achieve that by giving the Brigadier a supporting argument, albeit one visible only to the audience.

None of this diminishes the power of the final scene. Liz shows quiet solidarity with the Doctor, and the silence finally hangs in the air.



A truly excellent script, this, using the extra time to really flesh out the characters and themes in a way that arguably hasn't been seen before. Even minor characters shine in terms of script and acting. And this may be the finest cast we've seen yet. And yet... I can't quite justify giving it 5/5 as in the end the pace is just too slow. I don't usually have a problem with long stories- I loved The Invasion and The War Games- but compared with both of those stories, full of twists and turns and lots of story, there just didn't seem to be enough plot to justify the running time here. Not enough things happened to justify seven episodes, however skilfully the script filled up the time with character and theme. Still, a very high 4/5.