The Ash Tree

“Cut it down!”

An obscure little gem, this; a thirty minute BBC drama from 1975 and the first of the legendary screenplays based on the ghost stories of M.R. James (who, alas, I have not read) that I’ve seen, courtesy of BBC 4 on Christmas Eve.

It’s well-made on location, superbly acted with a role by none other than Lalla Ward as the not-to-be Lady Fell, and uses good, economic direction to tell a rather complex, non-linear story very quickly. You have to pay attention and, I suspect intentionally, not everything gets explained- what are the creatures in the tree? What’s the connection of the tree to the witch trials of a century earlier? We get only a general gist of what’s going on, but a bit of mystery is good. It’s refreshing to watch something from a time when the audience wasn’t talked down to, earlier. We aren’t spoon fed; the only clue to Sir Richard’s time period is the clothing and the fact that Tom Jones is a current novel, and the switch between time periods is narrated visually rather than overtly signalled. Edward Petheridge, whom I know best as George III in Jonathan Strange & Mr Norell, is superb both as Sir Richard and the hypocritical Sir Matthew, who directly causes an innocent woman to be hanged as a witch.

This packs an awful lot into thirty-odd minutes and is a nice little curio from the BBC of the ‘70s. I shall certainly try and watch more of these M.R. James Christmas ghost stories.

Vampire Circus (1972)

"They play no games. They are death."

I love old Hammer movies, especially vampire ones. The combination of camp humour and genuine creepiness is such fun, and there's such fun to be had with the subtext, too. Take the opening sequence here, for example. It's your typical Hammer setting: somewhere vaguely Mittel-Europa-ish in what looks like Napoleonic times, and everyone has vaguely German or Slavic names. Yet there's a nasty old Count, living in a suitably gothic castle, who's cuckolding the local gentry by stealing their wives, which has mediaeval droit de seigneur overtones, and drinking the blood of their daughters, which has paedophile overtones. Oh, and he's a vampire. Naturally. There are all sorts of sexual and class subtexts here already.

We also have lots more of the usual tropes- mobs with burning torches, sinister forests, even the music. (Incidentally, does anyone know whether the David Whitaker who composed the music here is the same chap who script edited Doctor Who? It's not a common spelling of the surname so I wonder…). Most obviously, of course, there's a very direct equivalence of vampirism with sex; every single scene of necks being bitten in the whole film is so wonderfully erotic. Anna's lust for the Count probably implies that Albert, her husband, is a bit rubbish in the sack. Of course, being a woman who is seen to enjoy sex, she has to be punished by all the men, by being whipped. Which, er, obviously has no sexual overtones whatsoever.

All of this is just the set-up, though, in a pre-titles sequence, something surprisingly rare in films. A lesser film would have this as its main plot, but here it's a mere preamble to establish a curse and get on with the films main purpose; scaring us, titillating us and reminding us that circuses, and not just clowns, are the creepiest things ever. Because they are, aren't they? The mysteriousness, the feeling of a closed world, the highly dodgy treatment of animals and, yes, the clowns. I'm a little worried to see the treatment of a dwarf as "other" and therefore scary, and also the overtones of Gypsies being sinister ("Hey, woman! Gypsy woman!"), but circuses are well creepy. A circus like this would, I suppose, have been recognisable in 1972 but now, thankfully, it isn't.

The plot is wonderful and satisfying, although it's not at all clear why the townsfolk keep going to the circus if they all suspect it of extreme dodginess! There are some nice touches and some nice set pieces. I like the way the strongman (Dave Prowse, no less!) is unaffected by a crucifix as he's not a vampire, and that the quick-thinking (if wet!) Anton is able to use a crossbow as a crucifix. It all looks gorgeous (particularly the large quotient of beautiful young ladies!) and the direction, by Robert Young, is excellent, with lots of particularly brilliant shots. The film is let down by a lack of charismatic actors, however. The cast is mainly competent, or better, but there are no real lead actors to be seen. The exception is John Moulder-Brown, who is eye-poppingly awful and, unfortunately, in a very major role. With a better cast, this would have been a much better film.

Still, there's not a lot wrong with the script or the look of the film. I'm surprised that Robert Young doesn't seem to have done much else. The later Hammers certainly tend to be a lot more erotic, but there's some very good stuff.

Doctor Who: Warrior's Gate

Part One

“Well, we’ll burn that bridge when we come to it.”

From the start it’s clear this story is going to be really well-directed, and in fact it pretty much looks fab all the way through, much as I appreciate the problems this caused in reality. It’s all very much like an art flick in look and style, with the two plebs at the start flipping the coin reminding me of Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Gosh, what an original observation that was…

Interesting TARDIS scene, the conversation somehow managing to get away with talking about the I-Ching (“Astral Jung”!) as though it were serious science without seeming too new agey. That’ll be Bidmead then. I also like the way the Doctor’s old costume is still there on the hatstand- never noticed that before. Intriguing that the ethical problems with taking Adric away from his own universe, probably for ever, are brought up, although naturally this can’t be dwelt on. Let’s just hope it all turns out ok and nothing bad happens to Adric.

Blimey, the TARDIS doors are opening in flight! Have they checked the Fast Return Switch? The scenes of the alien creature (all right, we know it’s a Tharil) operating the TARDIS work brilliantly, essentially because of the effects and direction.

We get introduced to the ship’s crew- an array of interesting characters, seemingly grounded in a very earthy reality. In fact, this is a very lived-in future, as shown by the ship design as well as the crew’s behaviour. I think we have the first Doctor Who story to be influenced by Alien!

More good stuff abounds- the gateway, the strangely mediaeval, cobwebbed interior, the mystery of the Tharils. I haven’t a clue what it all means yet, but I like it a lot.

Oh, and Romana has just said to Adric “What if the Doctor and I went different ways?” Ooh…

Part Two

“And why believe Biroc?”

“Because he was running!”

Romana’s very serious, very Doctorish, in this story. Meanwhile, the Doctor’s arms are full of axe handles. Nice scene. Elsewhere, K9 pointedly addressees Adric as “Young Adric”, not “Master”. Nice touch. Well, all right, he calls him “Young Master” shortly before, but still…

We get some backstory from the Gundans- they were built by “slaves to overthrow an empire. What does this all mean? Does it have anything to do with the humans’ ship with its cargo of Tharils, reminiscent of the ships carrying slaves from Africa to the Americas? There seem to be definite themes developing; enslavement, randomness, time…

Part Three

“The weak enslave themselves, Doctor. You know that.”

Biroc keeps talking to the Doctor in riddles as they walk through a monochrome garden. It’s strange how relatively little happens during this story, yet it’s rendered compelling by the stunning visuals, poetic dialogue, and the fascinating characterisation of Rorvik and his crew, who remind me of people I’ve worked with.

We get a big revelation with the Tharil banquet in an earlier time period with their human slaves- so the roles have been reversed. In spite of all the non-linearness the basic plot isn’t all that complicated, surprisingly, although I’m still unclear on which side of the gateway the Tharil empire was.

Part Four

“The back blast backlash will bounce back and destroy everything!”

The dimensions are contracting, and it’s all because of the “dwarf star alloy” Rorvik's lot use for shackling the Tharil slaves on his ship. Things are looking rather grim, although Biroc doesn’t seem that bothered, content to spend his time thinking up riddles all day. I rather like him.

The conversation between the doctor and Romana in the TARDIS (“I like that, you’re improving”) is fascinating. On the surface it’s the same sort of banter they’ve always exchanged, but there’s a bitter undercurrent, confirmed by Romana’s “It’s a matter of supreme indifference to me”. It seems the Doctor and Romana have fallen out badly, probably at least partly because of Romana’s summons to Gallifrey and the Doctor’s reaction to it, but they’re getting on notably worse than they were in State of Decay. It’s a fascinating scene, with a lot hinging on whether or not you think they were an actual couple. I do.

Ultimately Romana gets a very brusque exit, pretty much confirming things were not good between her and the Doctor. She now has an heroic purpose of her own, freeing the Tharil slaves while presumably dodging Time Lord pursuers.

Oh, and I haven’t mentioned this before but Rorvik is a great villain, and his last line is great.

5/5, then, a hat trick for the e-Space trilogy. This was completely unlike any previous Who story- allegorical, highly dependent on arty presentation, but also full of substance and things to ponder. Even Matthew Waterhouse gave me nothing to complain about this time around.

Doctor Who: State of Decay

Part One

“I take it you don’t get any strangers here?”

It’s so good to see Terrance Dicks’ name again. This is the first story to be written by a member of the old guard since, er, Terry Nation last season. And instantly we know this story is going to be splendidly retro- a mood which is gothic and Hinchcliffe-ish in every sense, dialogue which is rather more engaging that recent stories have shown, and an alien planet that looks uncannily like the South of England. We’re in safe hands.

There’s a village, a tower… and nothing else apparently. The mysterious lords exploit the peasants not only by means of their labour but by actually drinking their blood. Er, slight left-wing subtext, anyone?

Actually, that’s not true at all- the lords aren’t exploiting the peasants at all; they’re protecting them from “The Wasting”, so everything’s fine. It’s often said of this story that it’s never explained what the Wasting actually is, but that’s an outrageous slur. It’s clearly stated that “The Wasting is… The Wasting”.

This whole episode is a delight, from the sparkling dialogue between the Doctor and Romana, whose chemistry with each other never seems to suffer from whatever was going on behind the scenes, to that splendid fade from Autloc to some bats.

Adric’s scenes with the peasants consist mainly of him being an utter git, but at least these scenes perform a function in terms of exposition. It seems that all knowledge is forbidden, a theme returned to as the Doctor and Romana encounter the “Three Who Rule”. This is perfect not only as a nostalgic nod towards the gothic tone of a few years previously but also entirely in keeping with Bidmead’s Entropy Agenda. (Incidentally, the whole Entropy Agenda thing was first pointed out by Philip MacDonald in a splendid article he wrote for DWM many moons ago, which I heartily recommend).

Part Two

“If you need anything, there are guards outside the doors. Many guards.”

More greatness in the same vein here, even more atmospheric than the last episode, if that’s possible, but nicely leavened with humour. In short, just what Doctor Who used to be like, not that I have any problem with the last few series!

One of the best things about this story is Emrys James as Autloc, one of those splendid Welsh actors, like Philip Madoc, who make such great villains. He delivers his lines full-on, just the right side of that dividing line between hamminess and utter genius. He’s the best villain since Julian Glover.

There’s a nice pace of revelations too- the tower is the Hydrax, there’s blood in the fuel tanks…

Part Three

“I’ve never been a great one for swarming.”

No surprise that it’s Autloc’s intervention that resolves the cliffhanger, but I like the way his subsequent unsuccessful attempts to tempt the Doctor and Romana contrasts with his apparently successful attempt with Adric earlier. It’s also interesting to see the power dynamics of the three who rule- Camilla and Zargo may dress as the king and queen but it’s clearly Autloc who’s in charge. In fact, Zargo, the “king”, is shown to be the weakest of the three, asking at one point “Why am I still afraid?”

Watching these in context, it’s an absolutely massive bolt of nostalgia to hear the Doctor speaking once again of the hermit from South Gallifrey (ie K’Anpo), just as he used to do when he was Jon Pertwee. A very effective reminder that both Barry Letts and Terrance Dicks were involved in this story. This scene is great for other reasons, though; it’s very funny, and the relationship between the Doctor and Romana is much more like it used to be.

We get lots of nice continuity porn what with the references to Rassilon and stuff, too. I had to smile at the Doctor’s “No, thank you, not Dracula”- I suspect a reference to this story’s somewhat tortuous production history as a result of a certain BBC classic adaptation! Even the fact the TARDIS seems to have a punch card computer thingy is only the second funniest thing in the episode after this…

Part Four

“It looks as though this is one time the goodies don’t win, after all.”

Once more we see an example of a disturbing trend which others have pointed out in this season’s threads (can’t remember who offhand, sorry!) where Romana effectively becomes the lead, doing all the heroic stuff, while the Doctor is sidelined finding stuff out. I like Romana a lot, and I thing that, being an equal to the Doctor, she works far better as a companion than the stereotypical ankle-twisting, question-asking rescue magnet. But the Doctor is supposed to be the hero of this show!

Interesting and, er, convenient that short hops are much easier in E-Space. Still, this is a satisfying ending, with the use of the tower as a bowship given just the right amount of foreshadowing. The villains get suitable exits- Autloc is allowed a great line (“Then die- that is the purpose of guards”) before the Three Who Rule proceed to go the way of Julian Glover in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. It’s not badly done, at all.

Insufferable git though Adric is, at least his apparent betrayal seems to have been a bluff. But I can’t say I’m disappointed to hear the Doctor insist he’s taking Adric straight home! That, the last we’ll be seeing of him, right…?

Fantastic, a very high 5/5, just outside my top ten. This one makes me feel all nostalgic for the fairly recent past. And that’s two 5/5s in a row for the E-Space trilogy- surely we can’t expect a third?

Doctor Who: Full Circle

Part One

“Well, of course I’m better than you. I’m an elite.”

Romana’s been summoned back to Gallifrey, which gives us an excuse for some references to Leela and Andred and the like. But Romana’s upset by this, and goes to her previously unseen room to be alone, the Doctor seemingly oblivious to how depressing the prospect must be. The Doctor’s attitude is that you can’t fight Time Lords and Romana will have to do as she’s told, and however much this may echo the end of The War Games it just feels wrong and out of character. Still, it’s in keeping with the Doctor’s subdued and sombre mood.

Gallifrey is not to be, though, as something odd happens to the TARDIS and, although they’re in the right coordinates and the scanner is showing images of Gallifrey, as soon as the Doctor and Romana leave the TARDIS they’re somewhere else, an alien planet much more blatantly like southern England than the usual quarry landscape. This is very good indeed, a uniquely mysterious situation as well as lots of character stuff. Oh, and the music is quite peculiar in the context of what’s gone before, but I like it. It sounds very much of it’s time now and unfortunately dated, but then things from twenty of thirty years ago always do. In another ten years’ time it’ll have receded too far into the past to be dated, much as the Sixties have, and instead become simply period.

The society and situation of this planet is sketched out with admirable economy in this episode, telling us everything we need to know while also holding back a lot of stuff to be revealed later on. We’re introduced to the Outlers, the Deciders, the concept of Mistfall, and the Starliner. Oh, and Adric, who from the start is quite badly portrayed by Matthew Waterhouse. Still, we get George Cole and James Bree (putting in a much less mannered performance than he did in The War Games) to make up for this.


Part Two

“How odd. I usually get on terribly well with children”

The Marshmen look quite good- yes, they’re obviously in rubber suits, but this is Doctor Who- but they look as though they’ve come from the Black Lagoon.

This episode keeps up the quality and increasingly makes it clear how well-plotted this is. Characterisation is good, too; I love the moment where Romana hands the knife back to an Outler- very Doctorish.

Revelations trickle out at an appropriate place; this is Alzarius, but the crew of the starliner supposedly come from Terradon. But there’s a great and terrible secret, known only to the First Decider.

K9 is once again beheaded (grr!) but Romana gets a fourth wall-busting line bemoaning his fate this season: “In fact, we always seem to be repairing him”.


Part Three

“These short trips don’t usually work.”

Nice cliffhanger- shame that this results in Romana being pretty much written out of the rest of the story, though.

We get some real bombshells this episode: the maintenance being carried out on the ship is completely unnecessarily as the ship has been ready to fly for centuries, but no one knows how to pilot it. It’s a nice reversal of a trope of the show to see the Doctor lambasting the Deciders for their duplicity and to see them implicitly accepting his criticisms. It’s becoming clear just how good this story is- when a third episode successfully manages to unfold more bits of the backstory at an appropriate pace you know you’ve got something unusually good.


Part Four

“We’ve come full circle.”

It’s unusual in Doctor Who for the final episode to be the best of a story, but for once this is the case. In a couple of nicely done early scenes we first see the Doctor holding back the Marshmen by exploiting their apparent religious reverence for K9’s head (pre-empting Return of the Jedi there?) and then we get an excellent scene between the Deciders in the library. There are Marshmen clamouring to get in and presumably kill everyone, yet Nefred prefers to spout management speak (“a holistic approach”) instead of doing anything, to Login’s disbelief.

The final big revelation, from Nefred’d dying words, is a corker; the ship’s crew are not descended from the original Terradonian crew at all, but from Marshmen (themselves descendents of spiders) who got in and killed them all, eventually evolving to their present form, reading the manuals and eventually coming to believe themselves to be from Terradon. Of course, even someone like myself with a pathetically arty education knows this isn’t how evolution really works, but there actually seems to be enough of the right kind of somehow sciencey dialogue to get away with it.

There’s a great moment where the two Deciders are about to press the button for the ship to take off but Garif can’t resist the temptation to procrastinate: “But you will agree, it does require some thought.”
Meanwhile, the Doctor and Romana now realise they’re trapped in E-Space, unless they can find a Charged Vacuum Emboitment™. And unbeknown to them, they have a stowaway…


Absolutely brilliant, which comes as something of a relief after the first two stories of the season. 5/5, in fact. At last we have a script that doesn’t feel like a script from the previous regime with all the humour taken out but instead does something new, and in that context the new seriousness starts to make a lot of sense. This is the sort of “proper” sci-fi that Doctor Who doesn’t actually do that often (it’s the first story since The Mutants that I can imagine being adapted as a “straight” sci-fi short story) and so it feels very fresh and new. And Andrew Smith seems quite a find, coming up with a great central premise and handling structure and characterisation very well indeed, albeit possibly with help from Bidmead. Perhaps the show might want to consider more scripts by fans in, say, 25 years time?

Doctor Who: Meglos

Part One

“He sees the threads that join the universe together, and mends them when they break.”

And here it is- drumroll please- the very last time during this marathon I’ll be watching a story for the first time! Well, apart from K-9 and Company. But that’s not technically Doctor Who and this is. So, the pressure’s on. It’s going to be a good ‘un, right? He asked, rhetorically. Smell that dramatic irony…

Anyway, an alien planet. A familiar-looking science v. religion subplot, which is fine as long as it’s going to be a bit of texture rather than the main focus. And then- OMG it’s Jacqueline Hill! Never have I been more pleased to see a guest performer. And she’s fantastic.

The whole thing between the Deons and the scientists is actually quite well done- the scientists are clearly right about everything, but they’re also insufferably arrogant and boringly dressed, while the Deons may be completely deluded about everything but they’re eloquent, with cool clothes and a poetic turn of phrase, hinting that their beliefs, however absurd, have given birth to a lot of great art and culture. This is a nice balance: the script sides firmly alongside science as you’d expect from Doctor Who, but still allowing its opponents to have dignity. Oh, and Jacqueline Hill is great as Lexa, and I probably wouldn’t have read all that into the situation if not for her magnificent performance.

Incidentally, the quote I used up at the top there made me grin, as I recognised it from somewhere in the text of Peter Haining’s 25 Glorious Years, a book which gave me a great deal of pleasure when I was 12. A less welcome recognition was the Doctor’s question mark lapels, which I noticed for the first time. I hope they get rid of them quickly, and don’t keep them around for, say, six years or something.

Things take a worryingly silly turn with the appearance of Meglos and a human, transported across the universe for some reason. Worryingly because, silly though all this is, it’s being played dead straight, which instantly feels wrong.

Part Two

“I thought for one awful moment you’d forgotten your lines.”

Also worrying is that it’s the start of part two and the Doctor and Romana haven’t even left the TARDIS yet. The whole chronic hysteresis is a mildly entertaining bit of filler, but it’s pretty much there to slow the story down so things can happen elsewhere. And it’s not the last time this sort of thing happens either.

Still, eventually not only does the TARDIS land but Romana actually changes her clothes. But things take an even more distressing turn, as Meglos disguises himself as the Doctor and it becomes obvious that the Doctor’s going to be accused of things he didn’t do. Oh dear! I really hate it when that sort of thing happens in a drama- it’s not tense or exciting, just frustrating. And, in this case, yet another means of slowing the story down.

Worse of all, Lexa’s means of sacrificing the Doctor is too similar to Underworld for comfort, what with the ropes being burned by flames, although actually that’s next episode. Still, let’s not get carried away- this story’s nowhere near as bad as that, merely the epitome of meh. Besides, Jacqueline Hill’s still in it and she’s still brilliant.

Part Three

“…Or is it this way?”

Whatever the faults of the story itself this is very well-made, again looking much better than anything from the previous couple of seasons. This is possibly the finest alien jungle since Planet of Evil. And Jacqueline Hill is great.

The bit with Romana tricking her captors into walking into the Venus flytrap thing is entertaining, but yet again it’s basically there to keep a major character away from the main plot while things happen elsewhere. And, come to think of it, the same could be said of the whole bit with the Doctor’s accusation and attempted sacrifice. Although at least we also got a cliffhanger out of that.

Part Four

“Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?”

Suddenly- too suddenly- everybody believes the Doctor again. And just as suddenly we’re all off to Zolfa-Thura. And Jacqueline Hill’s character is dead, albeit nobly sacrificing herself. Noooo!

Very quickly it’s clear what this story is actually about: Meglos wants to steal a Macguffin. That’s it. There are no underlying themes or anything, not even the science versus religion thing, which is far too perfunctory to count. It all ends just as perfunctorily, but Romana’s just been called to Gallifrey- perhaps not too surprisingly given how she came to be aboard the TARDIS. What’s going to happen now.

Well… that passed the time, I suppose. I mean, it wasn’t actively painful to watch or anything. But it was littler more than a Children’s BBC style generic sci-fi runaround, and it just wasn’t about anything.

It says a lot about this story that the “Earthling”, whose presence could have done with a bit more explanation, didn’t even have a name. To be fair, it feels as though this story was originally designed as a shape around which a lot of Season 17 type silliness was to have been fitted,-which I can imagine working, actually- but the new regime vetoed all that, leaving us with this odd beast of a story that refuses to have any fun with its own silliness. Still, Jacqueline Hill was in it, and she’s great. 2/5.

Doctor Who: The Leisure Hive

Part One

“Why can’t we do something constructive?”

It’s actually quite a shock to see a new title sequence after six solid seasons. Not to mention a new theme tune for the first time in fourteen! It all looks and sounds very much of its time. Not sure what I think of it yet. Not that it’s anything I’m not extremely familiar with, obviously, but the marathon does sort of put it all into context.

Anyway, the opening shot, panning across Brighton beach for about six hours, is quite bizarre. It’s not a bad idea in principle, but about half the actual length would have been quite enough. Personally it helps that I happened to visit Brighton earlier this year and actually recognise bits, but I imagine a lot of people back in 1980 would probably have… what did they used to say? Ah yes, tuned the television set to the other side. Not a good way to start a new series.

There’s clearly a new broom being wielded- the Doctor’s wielding (rather fetching) new clothes, Tom’s performance is being reined in, and what happens to K9 in this episode might just, at a pinch, indicate a teeny weeny bit of an anti-robot dog agenda. This scene might also be seen as symbolic- after the season-long holiday of Season Seventeen, suddenly holidays are no fun any more. What does this portend?

There’s talk of bypassing the randomiser and the general nastiness of the Black Guardian, all of which actually gives a sense of continuity to the regime just departed. And the Doctor and Romana are both the same as ever. There are many obvious changes here, but on present evidence the sudden change in this story is overstated. There’s a lot of new stuff here, but Spearhead From Space it ain’t.

Anyway, this story is all about Argolis, a sort of intergalactic Butlins with added technobabble. One of the Argolins, Pangol (you’d almost think this story was script edited by someone to do with computers…) is played by Inspector Grim himself, David Haig, but unfortunately it’s now the 80s so we have to put up with some rather dull boardroom scenes. It all looks very good, but underneath the story is little more than competent. I’m not sure what to make of the incidental music either, now that Dudley Simpson has been replaced by the Radiophonic Workshop.

Still, the middle eight’s back in the closing theme tune at least…

Part Two

“How long did the war last?”

“Twenty minutes.”

“As long as that?”

It’s an odd one, this story. The plot itself is sound, giving us a steady stream of revelations about things like the Argolins’ stability. There are good character bits too, like the relationship between Mena and Hardin and our knowledge that Hardin is actually lying to her about his experiments. There’s a nice scene where he confesses to Romana- he’s a believably weak yet sympathetic character.

And although this story has a sense of seriousness that’s been missing for a long time, there are still lots of examples of the type of humour that you’d expect from a David Fisher story, especially the visual gag of the Doctor’s scarf leading to a dead body (“Arrest the scarf then!”). It also looks very good indeed. But in spite of all this there’s something unengaging about this, and you imagine the kids must have been bored.

Part Three

“I’m sick of being old.”

It’s fascinating comparing Tom’s performance to the last few stories. He’s still playing the same character, with the same humour (and lots of funny lines, in spite of what people say) but still, there’s a bit more discipline to his performance, and his use of facial expressions in a serious way is better than it’s been for ages. He’s brilliant as the suddenly aged Doctor, with the shock to the audience being conveyed far more by his performance than by the make-up, excellent though it is. And we’re left to think this might be permanent.

Once again I’m not entirely sure why I’m not enjoying this more- the revelation that Pangol is the only young Argolin, born long after the war forty years ago, is a real twist- but there’s something fundamentally po-faced here, as though David Fisher’s script had had al the fun neutered out of it.

Part Four

“This time I must try to bring him up properly.”

That’s a very long reprise, uncomfortably so, in fact. But it’s an effective resolution to an effective cliffhanger, that our main human protagonist and his lawyer minion have been Foamasi, er, Mafiosi all along. But that also makes me wish I’d seen the fun Fisher originally had with this idea before Bidmead strangled it to death. Still, there’s one familiar fisher motif that’s in evidence here; the syndrome of the story ending right at the start of Part Four, just as in The Creature From the Pit.

Still, this time the filler that takes us to the end of the episode is actually quite good, and it’s been built up enough as a subplot to get away with it, just. And Pangol ends up with a second chance, getting to relive his childhood again. Good idea; they should give it another go sometime. Perhaps in, say, twenty-five years time? It’s a good ending to a story which looks great and has pretty much nothing wrong with it production-wise.

Overall, though, in spite of the fact it looks great, and deserved an awful lot of praise for looking as though it has a much higher budget than anything we’ve seen recently even though it probably hasn’t, already on his first story I have concerns about the direction in which Bidmead’s taking the show. Where was the fun? What was there for the kids to enjoy? 2/5.

Doctor Who: Shada

Part One

“One lump or two?”

“Two please.”

“Sugar?”

For the first time since Underworld, this is a story I haven’t seen (well, I’ve read Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, but…), leaving only Meglos left. And yet frankly I still don’t feel as though I’ve seen it, as there’s so little left, especially towards the end.

Still, this first episode is largely intact. After my comments on The Horns of Nimon I almost burst out laughing to see yet another story start with a spaceship in deep space. It’s an odd beginning, although the roman numerals on the screen are a nice touch. An then we’re off to Cambridge, where we meet Professor Chronotis, who unaccountably has the TARDIS is his study. I love the way this is left unremarked upon for ages, and then Chronotis just casually remarks that “I think someone must have left it there when I was out.”! We also meet Chris Parsons, clearly a prototype of Richard from Dirk Gently.

We then get the familiar scenes of Romana and the Doctor on the Cam, which seem odd in their original context, but soon they turn up at Chronotis’s college. In a nice touch, the Warden knows the Doctor from many previous visits. The scene with Chronotis in his study is hilarious, as is the notion that a Time Lord can quite easily spends three centuries as a Cambridge don without anybody noticing. We also get the funniest line in all of Doctor Who so far, as Chronotis responds to the Doctor’s mention of hearing a “strange babble of inhuman voices” with “Oh, undergraduates talking to each other, I expect. I’m trying to have it banned.”

The first episode judged on its own is an easy 5/5, in much the same way as City of Death. Sadly, it’s the only episode that’s anywhere near complete.

Part Two

“Two lumps, no sugar.” 

This episode introduces us to a load of brilliant sci-fi concepts of the kind we’d expect from the author of The Pirate Planet. A book that’s -20,000 years old, a sphere that steals minds, Chronotis beating his hearts in Morse code. And the dialogue continues to be great. Sadly, there’s a lot less footage here than there was last episode.

Parts Three to Six

And that’s as far as I can go with the individual episodes, as there’s so little that was filmed for the later episodes. I’m watching the video release with Tom Baker narrating the missing bits, and this works well, but I just don’t end up feeling as though I’ve come anywhere close to seeing Shada. I liked what I saw- lots of great dialogue and great concepts- but I just don’t feel competent to judge things like plot and pacing. I’ll give the story a 4/5 for Alinor, but that’s very provisional as I just don’t feel competent to judge. I’m feeling very much inclined to listen to the Paul McGann audio of this story after the TV Movie…

As for Season 17, I’ve already rated it 3/8/5 if Shada’s not included. With Shada it leaps slightly to 3.83/5. But, much as I’ve never been much bothered about what’s “canon” or not, as there’s so little of Shada left I’m not much inclined to think of it as a full Doctor Who story. A shame, as judging by what we’ve got it could have been great.

Doctor Who: The Horns of Nimon

Part One

“Weakling scum!”

We start with space, and a ship flying through it. It’s only by doing this marathon that I’ve realised just how many stories start in this way in the immediate aftermath of Star Wars!

It’s good to see Anthony Read back with a script of his own after his successful term as script editor, and interesting to see another tale based on Greek mythology after the failed experiment of Underworld. The ship is from the planet “Skonnos” (heh!) and its cargo is a shipment of people bearing tribute from “Aneth” (heh!). Most importantly, one of them is the lovely Janet Ellis. Mmmm.

Things go wrong on the ship after an ill-advised bit of tinkering from its captain, a character whose name I unaccountably failed to catch although he’s actually a fairly significant character. Oops. This is of course mirrored by a similar decision with similar results in the TARDIS. This time I remember the character’s name: the Doctor.

We’re introduced to the society on Skonnos and to its leader Soldeed, played splendidly by Graham Crowden, the link between his people and the Nimon. The Nimon promises that, once the sacrifices have all been made, he’ll give them the means to create a new Skonnon Empire just like they had in the good old days.

Most of the rest of this episode is taken up with problems on the ship, where the Doctor and Romana have to stop the gradual creation of a black hole. It’s all just padding really, and aside from introducing our heroes to the wet drips from Aneth it contributes little to the plot. But it’s all good fun, with great lines (“You just hold the gun steady. Don’t tax your mind” and, of course, “Lord Nimon! Lord Niiiimoooon! It is I, Soldeed!”) and great little comedy character moments such as the Doctor trying to exchange his sonic screwdriver with Romana’s. A great start.

Part Two

“He lives in a power complex.”

“That fits.”

I love the reaction to Soldeed this time around as he emerges from the portal to the Nimon’s lair with his usual guff about the Nimon speaking of many things, including the “great journey of life”. When challenged what it means he blurts out that “It’s a metaphor.” “For what?” comes the reply. Not only is this very funny, but it foreshadows the story’s eventual resolution.

As funny as all this is, it’s also very well-plotted, and although the character’s aren’t particularly well-rounded (not a criticism- this is a comedy) they’re well-written. I like Seth’s situation, forced to live up to a lie he told about being some kind of great hero who’s going to destroy the Nimon to avoid disappointing Teka. And the way the Nimon instantly sees through Captain Wotsisname’s bluster is well done.

But the dialogue is fantastic, self-referentially commenting on its own tropes in the scene where the Doctor lands the TARDIS on Skonnos. This isn’t that similar to City of Death, but like that story it’s an out-and-out comedy, and although it’s not quite as good it’s still bloody brilliant.

Part Three

“You meddling fool! You shall die!”

Romana’s great in this story, pretty much a second Doctor. But it’s the Doctor who gets to be silly- the scene with the red rag just had to happen in a story based around a bull! 

It’s nice how the horns referred to in the title are actually the antennae of the Nimon’s transmitter. This has something to do with creating a black hole so to enable instantaneous travel to another part of the cosmos. By now it’s clear the Nimon has an agenda of his own, yet Soldeed still thinks he’s in control, and there’s even a nicely placed scene where he gets to gloat on how simple the Nimon is to give the Skonnons something for nothing in the way that they’re apparently doing. But we get to see some other Nimon, and we’re told what the “great journey of life” actually is; the Minotaur’s chain of migration from planet to planet via the manipulation of countless Soldeeds.

Part Four

“Later, you will be questioned, tortured and killed.”

“Well, I hope you get it in the right order.”

We get to meet one of the aforementioned previous Soldeeds on a planet called “Crinoth”. Ha! I wonder what the planets before that were called? Sprata? Elphid? Alympio? Thibes? I’ll stop now…

We get a slightly implausible “Kill him… but not yet” moment as the Nimon capture the Doctor, but that’s ok in a story like this which basically (well, perhaps I’m overstating just a little, but…) existed to do in 1979 what TV Tropes is doing today. It’s a great ending, revealing that beneath the glorious silliness the plotting has in fact been magnificent. Seth finally gets to be a hero and Soldeed gets what is indisputably the finest death scene in all of recorded history. An absolute triumph.

Wonderful, a very high 5/5 and an entry into my personal top ten at number six. As for the season as a whole… well, I’ve never personally felt any pressing need to have an opinion on whether Shada is “canon” or not, so I’ll be including two scores for Season Seventeen, one with Shada and one without. The one I personally think of as being the “official” one will depend on whether I feel there’s enough footage in existence to judge Shada properly (I haven’t seen it yet). As for these five stories though, they score 3.8/5, a surprisingly low score for a season I’d always casually regarded as one of my favourites.

Doctor Who: Nightmare of Eden

Part One

“Interfere? Of course we should interfere! Always do what you’re best at, that’s what I say.”

It seems very strange to see Bob Baker credited as the writer with nary a sign of Dave Martin. But we’re instantly thrust into a familiar environment: deep space, a spaceship and those vaguely dull corridors that were always used to represent the future in the late 70s. The silliness of the incidental moment at the start is worrying but the story gets off to a good start, with David “Irongron” Daker and an early Big Sci-Fi Idea as two ships are melded together following exactly the sort of hyperspace jump we were told was “theoretically absurd” in The Stones of Blood.

Interestingly, I came to The Creature from the Pit expecting to like a story I had fond memories of but came away feeling slightly disappointed. In contrast I’d always thought of Nightmare of Eden as too sensible by half for the season it’s in and dominated by an overly preachy and excessively foregrounded “just say no, kids” moral about drugs. But in truth, I didn’t really find that much to object to on that score. There’s still something not quite right in the depiction of Vraxoin though. If it induces apathy and then kills you as quickly as it seems to, why would anyone take it in the first place? It just doesn’t seem realistic for people to be that stupid- you can’t imagine anyone taking it and imagining they could just take it a few times and not get addicted, which is how drug addiction tends to start in the real world. It’s all just too simplistic and devoid of grey areas, as though people who take drugs in real life are just being suicidal and nihilistic. Having said that, though, this time round it didn’t seem to be there primarily just to provide a cheap patronising moral but mainly to provide the basis for a sci-fi crime caper, if not quite Doctor Who does The Sweeney. And that makes it a lot less of a problem.

There are lots of little things in this episode to give us a flavour of what this future (twenty years after 2096, so roughly 2116) is like- a galactic recession, a real sense of an interstellar economy, scientific research. Other cool things include the Miniscope- er, CET machine, Tryst’s accent and the Doctor’s response to Rigg questioning who he is: “Galactic went out of business twenty years ago.” “I wondered why I hadn’t been paid.” “That’s not good enough.” “That’s what I thought.”

All good so far.

Part Two

“Nothing’s inexplicable.”

“Then explain it!”

Rigg’s drink is spiked with Vraxoin… but it’s meant for Romana! There’s clearly a baddie amongst the guest characters. The murder mystery aspect of the plot is quite well-handled and there’s a lot of misdirection, although the limited number of suspects means it’s not that hard to guess at least who one of the villains is.

We get some rather oddly dressed passengers, a chase involving a mystery man,. Revelations concerning Stott and Della, and two comedy thick excise officers who promptly try to arrest the Doctor and Romana. Oh, for a piece of psychic paper… This is fast-moving and genuinely well-plotted stuff, with the witty dialogue on top of a proper serious story. It’s a formula that seems to be working a lot better than the previous story.

Part Three

“Well, it’s a perfectly ordinary electric dog.”

The Doctor and Romana have been forced to take refuge in the CET machine, in a section taken from the planet Eden. So naturally the Doctor decides “Let’s go east!” Nice touch, that. And we learn that the creatures from the Black Lagoon- er, Eden, are called Mandrels. And Stutt’s been hiding in the CET machine spending most of his time being a narcotics agent (ah!) generally not being dead. This is good plot stuff- such constructive use of a third episode is almost unheard of in Doctor Who.

Meanwhile, the passengers are being attacked by Mandrels. Rigg, high on Vraxoin, protests that “They’re only economy class. What’s all the fuss about?” while the excise men generally faff about being generally incompetent. There’s no real sense of threat even as the excise man threatens Romana with a gun, but that’s ok as they’re basically just there to provide the comic relief.

This episode’s big reveal is that Vraxoin is made from dead Mandrels. But, good, well-constructed story that it is, Nightmare of Eden has plenty of surprises to come…

Part Four

“My arms! My legs! My everything!”

The ships have been separated at last, and the Doctor has vanished from the Hecate. But he turns out to be aboard the Empress, where he discovers that Dymond is implicated in the Vraxoin smuggling. I didn’t see that coming. Tryst’s guilt was just a teeny bit more obvious, but I suspect from the blatant way he tries to manipulate the excise man that we’re supposed to have already worked out that he’s a baddie. His efforts are futile though- from the moment Stott reveals himself it’s the Doctor, up to now a fugitive, who’s instantly in charge.

There’s a neat ending with Tryst being hoist by his own petard, and a nice delivery of “Go away.” By Tom Baker. A very appropriate ending to a very skilfully plotted tale.

Surprisingly better than I remembered, then- much better plotted, wittier, and much less focused on preaching about drugs than I remembered. A solid 4/5.

Doctor Who: The Creature From the Pit

Part One

“What are you doing in the Place of Death?"

“Oh, just pottering around. I have this insatiable curiosity, you see… why do you call it the Place of Death?”

“Because anyone found here is automatically condemned to death.”

“Ah.”

This is a story I’d been looking forward to immensely, as I remember finding this story an utter delight back when it was released on video- silly in a good, Season Seventeeny way, with lots of Douglas Adams-esque witty dialogue which often did extyreme violence to the fourth wall. Plus, it’s written by David Fisher, who penned two great stories last season. What could possibly go wrong?

Well, K9’s new voice, for a start. Perhaps it’ll grow on me, but David Brierley’s vocal style lacks the prissiness of John Leeson’s, and doesn’t deliver the lines the same way. K9 suddenly seems to have lost a large chunk of his personality.

The TARDISeers land on an alien planet where the our heroes attacked by silly yet convincing looking “Wolfweeds” and threatened with death by Eileen Way, a real face from the past. Some of the dialogue sparkles a bit, but it all seems a little formulaic, however much this is acknowledged in the dialogue. And then we get our hirsute cockney bandits, who all seem to be played like Fagin and out to pick a pocket or two. This is a little unfortunate, especially as they’re portrayed as grasping and greedy. Still, I love Romana’s attitude to being captured, and the cool way she contrives her escape.

It’s quite surprising to see Morris Barry turning up in an acting role here, executed for his unfortunate lack of “a teaspoon and an open mind”. But the main baddy is played in a suitably pantomimish fashion by Myra Frances- it’s not a particularly subtle performance but Lady Adastra is such a fun character, and there’s no other way her lines could have been delivered. She’s a pure cipher, but this is of course quite deliberate. This story knows exactly the sort of thing it is, as clearly shown by the dialogue’s frequently wrecking ball-like relationship with the fourth wall: “We call it… the pit!” / “Ah, you have such a way with words…”. It’s just that, for the first time in the Graham Williams era, this is all starting to sound a slightly troubling note. This story may know it’s a formulaic runaround crammed with stock characters, but that doesn’t stop it being a formulaic runaround crammed with stock characters.

Oh, and why on Earth does the Doctor just chuck himself into the pit at the end?

Part Two

“We call it… the creature!”

“Ah. That’s original.”

There’s a justly famous scene at the beginning of the episode, with the Doctor, hanging off a ledge halfway down the pit, consulting a climbing manual called Everest in Easy Stages. It’s in Tibetan, so the Doctor pulls out another tome from his bottomless pockets, this time titled Teach Yourself Tibetan. It’s a terrific gag, and I wouldn’t dream of being so churlish as the bring up any linguistic skills the Doctor may or not have displayed in Planet of the Spiders.

We get introduced to the fab Geoffrey Bayldon as Organon in this episode, and he gets by far the best line: “The future foretold, the past explained, the present… apologised for.” We’re also introduced to the eponymous creature, which looks almost exactly like a massive green… words fail me.

We’re introduced fully to the underlying concept behind the story here too- metal is rare and Adastra has the monopoly. It’s fundamentally a sound basis for a story, but never explored in any depth. In fact, much about this society is left vague- what’s the tech level? What about those other communities without a metal mine? How come a single mine produces so many different kinds of metals?

Part Three

“I thought you were dead! Why haven’t you died?”

“I’m sorry, my lady. It was… an oversight.”

It’s becoming increasingly clear that this isn’t going to be as good as I remembered it. It has lots of good one-liners and a fun camp villain, both of which protect it from falling too low in my affections, but I must admit the plot itself is very much by the numbers. Plus, I don’t like the way an astrologer is allowed to be a major character in here without astrology being seriously questioned at any point. That’s not the way Doctor Who has traditionally dealt with the subject.

The most eye-popping moment in this episode (and perhaps in all of Doctor Who thus far!) is a certain moment involving the Doctor and the creature’s, er, protuberance. I suspect it’s this more than the story’s perceived shortcoming that led to this story being one of the last out on video and is delaying its DVD release.

Part Four

“Have a care, Doctor!”

“Have a care yourself. Have a care for your people for a change.”

We finally get the big revelation- the creature, or Erato, is in fact an ambassador from Tythonius, who rather conveniently comes from a world with loads of metal and a deficit in chlorophyll, and arrived on this world to arrange a trade. Adrasta, wishing to retain her monopoly, kidnapped him, shoved him into a pit, and proceeded to drop engineers and astrologers on him. Instead of, say, just killing him. Once the secret is out, both Erato and her own people have a bone to pick with Adrasta and she is quickly killed. End of story. Except we’ve still got most of the episode to fill.

And there lies the problem- with the plot wrapped up, the episode just feels like padding to fill up the time until the end of the episode. Which is exactly what it is. And I’m not entirely sure the science is accurate!

Well, I’ve not exactly been complimentary about this story, but in spite of everything it has enough wit and charm about it to protect it from a seriously low rating. This is an odd one, the first genuine guilty pleasure because the fact is, despite its faults, I can’t help being fond of The Creature From the Pit. 3/5.

Doctor Who: City of Death

Part One

“Do you mean an alien’s trying to steal the Mona Lisa?”

“It’s a very pretty painting.”

For these cash-strapped times we begin with some shockingly excellent modelwork far superior to anything we’ve seen recently. And then, no less un-shoestringly, we’re in Paris, 1979. Just after leaving Skaro. Courtesy of the Randomiser for both landings. Er, yes…

Of course, this story is flawless in every way (well, there’s one piffling little thing in a later episode, but that can wait) so I’m having to try very hard not to spend the whole review gushing and quoting bits of funny dialogue or people might assume I’m the sort of person who does that in conversation, which simply wouldn’t do. So I’ll not quote any of the dialogue from the Eiffel Tower in an attempt to ration myself. It’s all fab though. And so, unusually, is Dudley Simpson’s incidental music. 

I realise what was going on off screen, but for me there’s absolutely no doubt that what we see here on screen is the Doctor and Romana obviously being a couple. The doctor’s clearly been dancing. Look at all the holding hands and the body language as they frolic amongst Notre Dame, the Place de la Concorde, and the Louvre. Oh, and Paris is very pretty by the way.

What’s that Romana just said? “Braxiatel Collection”? Pah! we’ll be heating no more of that, I’m sure.

There’s some nice directing from Michael Hayes, not at all harmed by the location- I love the shot through the postcard rack with the postcard removed. Through all these scenes Duggan is following our heroes, but within minutes settles down to the companion role for our two Doctors.

Interesting cliffhanger- we’ve established from the talk of playing games that the Countess is aware she’s basically just Scarlioni’s beard, but she doesn’t know the half of it…

Part Two

“What I don’t understand is why a man who’s got six Mona Lisas wants to go to all the trouble of stealing a seventh.”

Oh dear, the scene where the Doctor, Romana and Duggan are brought before the Countess and the Count is so damn quotable that I could spend the whole of the next page just quoting from it. But I’ll restrict myself to “My dear, no one could be as stupid as he seems”. Julian Glover is utterly perfect in the way he delivers his lines. It helps that he’s clearly loving it. Even the fact that the room is designed to fit a concept of what’s classy that, er, may have dated just a little, doesn’t detract from this perfect scene.

There’s a nice in-joke after our heroes are locked in the cellar where the Doctor asks Duggan if he’s like to “stay on as my scientific advisor?”, but that’s enough quotage for now. Honest. Other great stuff includes the Count’s lecture on how the Mona Lisa is going to be stolen, Duggan hitting people and the unravelling of the plot. 

Best of all though is the cliffhanger- I love the way Peter Halliday’s mercenary says of Captain Tancredi “He’ll be here instantly”- nicely postmodern, that- and it’s Scarlioni…

Part Three

“You know what I don’t understand?”

“I expect so.”

Hmmm, so the Jagaroth ship exploded 400 million years ago, not, say, 4.6 billion, and we’ll be given this figure again and again. I shall pretend this isn’t happening though as I insist this story is perfect in all ways.

I love Scarlioni / Tancredi’s “I think it’s time we conducted this conversation more formally” before calling for the thumbscrews- but I’m quoting again. Just one more; “When you work for the Borgias, you’ll believe anything!” The Mona Lisa plot becomes clear- Scarlioni is getting Leonardo to paint a further six of them in 1505 so that once he’s stolen the one in the Louvre in 1979 he’ll have seven of them, one each for every potential buyer. Except that the Doctor has just written “This is a fake” on all of them in felt tip. Brilliant!

Meanwhile, we have the Romana / Duggan team-up. Twice Romana sneaks into a building and twice Duggan smashes through a window! Once we’re back to Scarlioni, though, we get my only problem with this story- Scarlioni’s splintered selves being responsible for the pyramids, fire, the wheel and the mapping of the heavens. I don’t like it when it’s implied that humans aren’t clever enough to do all those things so aliens must have done them. Still, one gripe ain’t bad.

There’s something a bit peculiar about this episode though- in the scene where the Doctor walks into the café to enquire about Romana and Duggan, with the television in the background showing (in English, apparently!) the news of the Mona Lisa being stolen, there’s a man at the bar, who appears in no other scene, and says “I’ll see you, eh?” as he takes his leave. This looks very much like a cameo to me- not Douglas Adams, surely?

Part Four

“On the contrary, Doctor, you’re going to help me.”

“I am?”

“You are indeed. And if you do not, it will be so much the worse for you, for this young lady and for several other people I could mention if I happened to have the Paris telephone directory on my person.”

Poor professor! Interesting conversation between Scarlioni and Romana afterwards, though. It’s here that it strikes me what a mind-blowingly paradoxical concept it is to have splinters of Scaroth scattered through time- the later splinters must have their personal timelines altered many times by the earlier ones.

The professor’s death is followed by that of the Countess (I rather liked her). There follows a race against time in which we get to see some of the bits of Paris we missed out on in Part One such as the Arc de Triomphe and, er, some taxis. But just at the point the Doctor and co, anxious to travel back and stop Scaroth, reach the TARDIS, we get another fab scene with Eleanor Bron and yer actual John Cleese. This is roughly the last point where the possibility of this story being ranked anything less than the top spot so far disappeared utterly. Even the fact that prehistoric Earth features an obvious matte painting doesn’t detract from anything.

And the ending is perfect. Duggan’s punch saves the day! The Doctor has arranged for one of the Moma Lisas with “This is a fake!” written on it in felt tip to be hung in the Louvre, but that’s fine because it’s what it looks like that matters. Wow.

Well, that was stonkingly good, perfect, genius. 5/5, obviously. The best story so far, easily. For the first time in 13 years we have a story that’s actually better than The Massacre. I’m still reeling from how good it was. There’s a reason for my policy of rationing my viewings of this story to avoid diluting the pleasure of each viewing!

Doctor Who: Destiny of the Daleks

Part One

“Oh, look. Rocks!”

So, K9 has laryngitis (no behind-the-scenes reasons for that, I’m sure…) and has to stay in the TARDIS. That’ll be Terry Nation not wanting a fight between the Daleks and K9 then.

Lalla Ward is here to stay (yay!) although not without a certain amount of faffing about. I refuse to make any great play out of the fact she seems to try out four bodies as the whole thing’s supposed to be a laugh, and the whole thing seems a lot less worrisome continuity-wise since the Doctor grew that hand back in The Christmas Invasion. Which, of course, hasn’t happened yet, so pretend I didn’t say that.

Incidentally, just as significant as the change in lead actor is the fact that Romana’s still hanging around after the quest for the Key to Time is over.

Anti-radiation pills- yep, it’s definitely Terry all right. And as the Doctor and Romana step on to the planet we hear a very familiar background sound instantly telling those in the know that it’s Skaro. It’s all thanks to “special sound” chap Dick Mills, I suspect, that such touches are still there sixteen years after The Daleks. And let’s see… a ruined city; part one spent exploring; slave workers… already this is looking like Terry Nation’s Greatest Hits Part II (Planet of the Daleks being Part I, but you knew that). And then we have a spaceship landing and the line “Well, at least it’s not a flying saucer.” Is Nation mocking himself or is new script editor Douglas Adams doing it for him, I wonder? On the subject of our new script editor, incidentally, I couldn’t help noticing the Doctor saying “bye bye” rather a lot throughout this story.

Terry gives us some more of his standards as Romana is followed by a mysterious figure who, let me try out a wild guess, may well turn out to be a goodie, and access to the TARDIS is blocked by some less than solid-looking rubble. The scenes are familiar, but the dialogue is notably wittier than usual for a Nation script, and the Doctor’s reading a book by Oolon Caluphid. The contrast in style between Adams’ dialogue and Nation’s doing his usual stuff really makes it hit home just how dated and, frankly, tired the usual Nation stuff feels by this late stage.

The Doctor is captured by disco dancers from space (I have to say that cos it’s 1979) and Romana gets the Dalek cliffhanger. There’s one thing I’m not sure of, though- do the Daleks want Romana to move or not?

Of course, the best bit about it is that Romana only falls into the Daleks’ path after our mysterious figure walks towards her menacing and doesn’t say anything to her for some reason.

Part Two

“If you’re supposed to be the superior race of the universe, why don’t you try climbing after us?”

The Doctor’s captors are called the Movellans and they’re actually quite nice- or are they? Whatever, I like their hair. And they give the Doctor someone to boast that he knows the Daleks “better than you can possibly imagine” to. Romana’s captors are definitely baddies, though, and their lair still has that cool throbbing sound after all these years. Thank you, Dick Mills!

Romana seems quite frightened during her interrogation, perhaps a little less self-assured at this stage than when she was being played by Mary Tamm? The Daleks, meanwhile, demand to know if she’s in the employ of a “space power”. We’ll be hearing about an awful lot more space thisses and space thats. I suspect they amused Douglas adams as much as they amuse me so he left them in. Good call.

Romana’s sent to work as a slave, but it’s immediately apparent that she doesn’t fit in, as she’s clearly the only person present capable of saying anything that isn’t 100% exposition. So she fakes her death and escapes, hopefully to find a better standard of conversation elsewhere. Meanwhile, the Daleks are burrowing deeper into what we now learn is the same Kaled city from Genesis of the Daleks. Heh. That Dalek just said “penetration”.

The big reveal is Davros, apparently perfectly preserved (we can’t see much of the lower bit of his mask yet) and coming to life…

Part Three

“What were we talking about?”

“Your inevitable destruction.”

“No. no, no. we had that conversation the last time we met.”

Davros opens his mouth. Oh dear. The voice is possibly the most important aspect of the character, and David Gooderson just isn’t any sort of replacement for Michael Wisher’s alternately ranting and silky tones. These scenes are well directed, mind- I particularly like the lighting with all the green, and the fact the Daleks are always shot from slightly below to make them look bigger.

The doctor has a bit of a chat with Davros, and it’s him who has to do all the work to keep the conversation as Davros is a bit of a bore, and the bottom half of his face is all rotten to boot. The Daleks clearly want Davros and approach, but the Doctor has a bomb (well, he’s always using weapons, after all) and so off they all spack. We have a bit of a stand-off, with the Doctor managing to negotiate hard even after the Daleks start killing prisoners- suddenly they’re Nazis again.

The Movellans turn out not to be so nice after all, but as the Doctor and Tyssan (and what a well-rounded character he is) easily defeat one by playing catch they’re obviously not much of a threat.

The moment the story goes very badly wrong is where the Doctor finds a Kaled mutant and comments that the Daleks are just “another” race of “robots”, about which more next episode. But first we get two countdowns (clichés duly counted) and a cliffhanger.

Part Four

“Vision impaired! Vision impaired!”

Interesting to see that Davros seems very much in control. There’s apparently still a Supreme Dalek but “That is a title I shall dispute most vigorously!”

Lan points out that the Movellans need someone to stay behind to guard their bomb and is immediately volunteered for this suicide mission, to his complete equanimity, as he’s a robot. But here’s the problem- this episode reveals the whole crux of the story to hinge around, as the Doctor puts it, “one race of robots fighting another”. No, no, no! The cool thing about the Daleks has always been their personality. They’re not logical creatures- they’re cruel, they’re arrogant, they can be quite anal, they can throw a right mardy every now and again, and most of all they’re sneaky and Machiavellian. Making them just robots takes away all their character, and is a thousand times worse than what was done to the Cybermen in Revenge of the, er, Cybermen. 

So we have a logical deadlock- two battle fleets, two computers calculating the optimum moment to strike, and not a shot fired- as the Doctor puts it, the perfect recipe for eternal peace. This is actually a brilliant idea which would work fantastically if one of the two sides didn’t happen to be the Daleks.

We move to the scissors paper stone scene, which seems to go a bit too neatly- how come the Doctor always beats Commander Sharrel? Then Davros has the Daleks turn suicide bombers while the ex-slaves start doing stuff. Only Tyssan ever says anything, of course. A couple of spots of bother with bombs from Sharrel and our suicide bomber Daleks are dealt with by the Doctor and Romana respectively, and that’s it. It’s a good job the Daleks happened to reveal their plans to an eavesdropping doctor, mind. A rather neatly plotted ending, I admit, but it’s treatment of the Daleks is just wrong wrong wrong.

The way the Daleks have suddenly turned into robots is wrong on all sorts of levels. Having said that, though, they don’t behave particularly more like robots here, and the plot’s sound. But the problem is that the story consists of a load of things we’ve seen before from Terry Nation one after the other, and it all suddenly feels very tired. Perhaps I’m being a little harsh (Planet of the Daleks was very very silly and a load of old tosh but I enjoyed it, and that was comprised of similarly recycled Terry Nationage) but this only gets a 2/5, narrowly avoiding a plasce in my bottom 10. I suspect this story is one of those that lose out from being watched as part of the Marathon.

Still, I suspect I’ll like the next story better!

Doctor Who: The Armageddon Factor

Part One

“Don‘t say it, please! Don’t say ‘Another underground passage!’”

The beginning is fantastic- an ersatz Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard in a spoof piece of propaganda which contains the line “Men out there, young men, are dying for it”. Unfortunately, as the camera pulls back to reveal the joke it also reveals a general cheapness of the kind which was so ubiquitous last season but which has been far less on obvious show recently. And, of course, this is a script by the Bristol Boys, and I fell out badly with them last season. This is not a story I’d been looking forward to, frankly, as the last time I watched it about four years ago I absolutely hated it.

But actually, some so-so acting and a bit of visual cheapness aside, there’s not a lot wrong with this first episode. The premise seems simple at first- Atrios is at war with its neighbour, Zeos although, naturally, this being a Baker and Martin script, we shouldn’t expect the “nuclear” part to in any way reflect scientific fact. The Marshal, who seems to be in charge, is a stereotypically trigger-happy military type who owes a fair bit to Jack D. Ripper and, surprise surprise, wants to carry on with the war. Princess Astra (the lovely Lalla Ward- yay!), meanwhile, wants the war stopped, and has been trying to negotiate with the Zeons, alongside her medic boyfriend Zerak. Except that Zeos doesn’t seem to be there. And, this being a sci-fi concepts heavy Bristol Boys script, we instantly know that’s important.

And then more mysteries pop up: the Marshal is talking to a mysterious mirror, and the Doctor and Romana can’t see Zeos from the TARDIS. But it’s not all big sci-fi ideas- there’s some great dialogue between the Doctor, Romana and K9 towards the end of this episode, which makes me suspect the hand of Anthony Read, who’s had an unexpectedly fantastic season as script editor. K9’s description of optimism as “Irrational, bordering on insane” is priceless.

Part Two

“I think one of us is being extremely stupid.”

“Affirmative.”

I love the Doctor’s dialogue when the Marshal unexpectedly becomes friendly towards him, claiming that his coming has been foretold. His mockery of the marshal’s cod-Shakespeare dialogue is great, and I love the way he spends much of this episode gently mocking the Marshal in ways that go over his head. In fact, the awesomeness in this episode pretty much centres on the dialogue; I love K9’s silly yet bathetic “Temperature unacceptable!” as he trundles to his fiery doom.

Oh, and the space invaders scene is brilliant, as is the very fact that Atrios has only six- er, three- ships. The mystery continues, too, with the suggestion of something between Atrios and Zeos. Once again, a surprisingly good episode.

Part Three

“I have watched you and your jackdaw meanderings!”

Suddenly things really start happening and we get some total changes of setting and situation which, rather unfortunately, strain the budget a little, but still show this to be a surprisingly great plot which tends to foreground the Big Ideas- the very things that Baker and Martin are good at.

Our heroes are transmatted to the mysterious third planet we get to meet the Shadow and his similarly hooded underlings. Things start getting rather epic as the Shadow demand the five segments of the Key to Time which are in the Doctor’s possession, and he has the TARDIS. He also has Astra. And, incidentally, if Astra is the only surviving member of Atrios’ royalty, why isn’t she queen? Presumably at some point the Marshal became military dictator and ended the monarchy.

The Doctor manages to talk his way out of trouble- and the Shadow simply walks away declaring he’s just going to wait for the Doctor to make a mistake! Bizarre though it may seem, this scene actually works through clever scripting.

The episode ends on a bombshell- there are no Zeons on Zeos as they’ve all been killed in the war, but their automated defence system, under the control of K9’s new computer friend Mentalis, have carried on prosecuting the war anyway- a brilliant concept. The next stop is “obliteration”. Of everything…

Oh, and I love Shapp’s description of Zeons as looking just like the Atreusians(?) aside from their clothing. The cheap depiction of alien races in this season extends even to verbal descriptions!

We end with the Marshal’s ship, clearly based on the Millennium Falcon- this is our first blatant influence from Star Wars. And, as another aside, it occurred to me while watching it that it’s probably the influence of the Bristol Boys who pretty much caused the word “transmat” to become a Doctor Who standard- they were using it back in The Sontaran Experiment and they’re still using it here in their swansong story as a team.

Part Four

“I’ve stopped the universe.”

So, the Marshal wants to blow up both worlds for some reason, but Mentalis won’t defend itself as it’s won the war- the clichéd military mind versus the clichéd machine mind- “the armageddon factor”. How very cold war. Why was all this not explained at the end of last episode? It certainly would have helped improve the cliffhanger.

After spending a comically long time panicking, the Doctor and Romana finally remember they can take shelter in the TARDIS. Rather cleverly, the Doctor knocks up an ersatz sixth segment so he can use the Key to Time to create a time loop, delaying Armageddon for a few hours.

Great cliffhanger here, as K9 calls the Shadow “Master”!

Part Five

“Your silliness is noted.”

The Doctor and the Shadow get a rather pleasing confrontation scene here, as the Shadow reveals, to no one’s surprise, that he’s an agent of the Black Guardian, and so the Doctor’s counterpart. Rather more of a surprise is the appearance of Drax, a technician coerced into helping the Shadow, who turns out to be not only a Time Lord but an old classmate of the Doctor’s.

We’re told that the Doctor and Drax were both in the “Class of ‘92”, and that the Doctor’s uni nickname was “Theta Sigma” or “Thete”! And all this was 450 years ago, 73 years after the Doctor first stole the TARDIS, if Romana’s comments in The Pirate Planet are to be believed! Drax spent five years in Brixton Prison, where he picked up not only a cockney accent but a complete set of cockney stereotypes, and is now trapped, with his TARDIS on Zeos. He’s a Time Lord, not just an ordinary Gallifreyan. And apparently the war’s been going on for five years, so they’re a lot more efficient at this nuclear war business than, say, the people of Skaro. 

The Shadow, dastardly fellow that he is, wants to do with the whole cosmos what he’s done with Atreus and Zeos, causing a nuclear war between the two sides of the cosmos like a proper Dr Strangelove. The fiend!

Part Six

“Any second now, beautiful mushrooms will blossom and burst!”

So, Astra is the sixth princess of the sixth dynasty of the sixth royal house of Atrios. Good job the Doctor and Romana happened to come across her sixth, then. But the idea of an actual person, with as much right to live as anyone, being a segment of the Key is pretty horrible, and I’m glad we get some dialogue in which Romana says so. It seems even the White Guardian is not necessarily very nice from the perspective of a mere mortal.

The Black Guardian is great. I care not that he’s just the White Guardian with the negative reversed, as we get to hear Valentine Dyall’s magnificent voice. I shall gloss over his silly attempts at disguise and move straight to the Doctor’s “absolute power” speech- another great piece of acting from Tom Baker. The ending doesn’t quite work, which is disappointing- after all this, the Doctor just scatters all the segments through space and time again? What happened to this great crisis we were told about in The Ribos Operation? Surely the White Guardian will be highly displeased? Still, Asdtra’s back, and after a season of the Doctor having absolute control of the TARDIS he’s now obliged to fit a “randomiser”. No doubt he won’t be landing anywhere we’ve heard of for a good while, then.

Surprisingly entertaining stuff, that. Not one of the greats but some great sci-fi concepts and lots of wit and humour make this a strong 4/5. And doing that comes as a shock to me, frankly- before the Marathon I’d have had this down as a dead cert for a 1/5.

And just as shockingly, after last season’s car crash, this season scores a solid 4.667/5, making it my favourite season so far! Now that I was not expecting.