Satan's Slave (1976)

 "Don't forget- tomorrow is your special day!"

This film has such a lurid title, and an equally lurd opening scene and sequence. There's a fair bit of female nudity in it. Indeed, there's even a flashback to the witch hunting days of the 17th Century as a naked woman is branded, whipped and then immolated. Er, lovely.

Shame the film is so slow, dull and talky, then. Even with a scene of Mochael Craze being nebulously enchanted in a lift, causing him to die by suicide. Even with Michael Gough starring- he's phoning it in here, but he's incpable of not dazzling the audience with his charisma.

Candace Glendenning and Martin Potter are ok, but they can't phone it in as well as Michael Gough can. And, let's face it, they are playing cousins who have incestuous sex with each other. That's disgusting, and one wonders what they thoiught they were playing at.

The film drags terribly, consisting of mediocre actors and Michael Gough chatting nonchalantly in a country house while the direction fails to establish any kind of horror atmosphere. Even the twist at the end, with a little light gaslighting of Catherine and James Bree delivering a much less mannered performance than usual, underwhelms. The whole film reeks with the air of "that'll do". If you want a good horror film about Devil worshipping cultists, watch The Devil Rides Out. If you watch this, the only possible reason could be because of an actotr within it (for me, Michael Craze, seen sleeping in the most awful bedding in history) and no other reason. This film is pants.

The Year of the Sex Olympics

“Do you like to read?”

(Shakes head)

“Well, who does?”

There’s a certain narrative that we’ve all come to expect from reviews of this teleplay, isn’t there? We’re supposed to mention how prescient it is (to be fair, it gets there first at the very start with the caption “sooner than you think”, but...), in 1968, in predicting reality TV, tasteless sex programmes and crappy telly in general, and to fawn on how it’s a great piece of British dystopian sci-fi in the lineage of Nineteen Eighty-Four and (especially) Brave New World. Actually, though, well-made, well-acted and (objectionable subtext aside) well-written though this may be, it’s still a pile of reactionary crap. So much so that even the metatextual fun of its being a TV drama about TV production wasn’t even enough to placate me, and you know how much I love metatextual fun.

The expository dialogue we get fairly on from Ugo Priest (the excellent Leonard Rossiter) establishes the situation; overpopulation has led to a situation in which the masses (low-drives) do nothing all day but watch crap telly about food (to put them off eating) and sex (to put them off sex), the theory being “see, not do”. The theory seems a pile of crap to me, but let’s run with it. Even the elite (high-drives- this seems to be the first society in fiction where your place in society is determined by your sex drive!) don’t read, struggle to understand the concept of paintings as art, dress like hippies (it’s probably a mercy that only a monochrome version has survived; I’m sure the costumes would look garish and horrible in colour) and have very small vocabularies owing to a lack of any meaningful cultural or intellectual pastimes. Never mind how absurdly unrealistic it is for a managerial class to be so under-educated.

Let’s look at what Nigel Kneale is saying here. Everyone looks and shags like stereotypical hippies, so I think it’s fair to take this largely as a stab at youth culture and the “permissive society”. We’re essentially being told that the art and music of the baby boomer generation has no cultural value and is, without exception, a load of dumbed-down crap which will rot the minds of society. No one reads; they just watch telly, because it’s obviously an idiot box. Even the bizarre cod-northern accents are suspect in this context; are we being told that even the use of regional accents on TV constitutes part of this dumbing-down? Then there’s the apparent endorsement of traditional family values as Nat, Deanie and Keten (until outside agencies make everything go horribly wrong) are shown, as a family unit, to be truly happy in the way that makes everyone else, with their flighty, ridiculously exaggerated polyamorous ways, look incredibly shallow. Yes, I know: I’m probably not going to like The Quatermass Conclusion. But all this, as a subtext, is extremely nasty, mean-spirited and spoils the whole play for me. I happen to quite like sex, TV and youth culture.

That’s a shame; there’s a lot that’s good here. Perhaps the problem is partly that this is obviously in the tradition of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. I quite like the novel, but it’s no Point Counter Point. And the whole concept of the Sex Olympics is just absurd to me, even aside from the fact that it looks just like It’s a Knockout. Now, I admit I may not be typical. After all, I’m a man who doesn’t watch porn. I just don’t get turned on by watching other people: do and not watch, so to speak. I’m no puritan- actually, I’m quite the libertine- but the thought of having sex for the pleasure, not of your partner, but the watching public, just horrifies me.

Oh, and I just don’t buy the sadism of the watching public at all. Yes, I know that cruel and evil talent shows like The X-Factor are fundamentally based on the general public’s ever-present sense of bastardry and schadenfreude, and seem to prove Lasar Opie (Brian Cox) right, but murder and death on the equivalent of live Big Brother on E4 is orders of magnitude different.

For balance, though, I ought to mention something I genuinely liked about this programme: the credits mention “custard pie experts”.

Doctor Who: Terminus

Part One

“Don’t patronise me, Turlough.”

I’m approaching this with an open mind, although I’m well aware of its reputation. I’ve only seen it once before, in the late ‘90s, and I can remember very little. The only bias I have going into this is that I was hugely impressed with Steve Gallagher’s Warrior’s Gate. Still, there’s the awkward fact that I’m watching this in the full knowledge that it’s not popular and whatever I end up thinking I’ll suspect myself of either conforming to received opinion or setting myself in rebellion against it. I don’t win either way- much better to enter a story completely blind! Anyway, here goes…

We open with more development of the Turlough / Black Guardian angle as Turlough sabotages the TARDIS. Mark Strickson is excellent in playing this rather shifty, cowardly, self-centred yet redeemable character in a way I haven’t appreciated before. Tegan is getting suspicious of this newcomer, and incidentally is still wearing the same outfit. I assume she gets to change them once a season? Still, it’s shaping up to be an interesting relationship.

Meanwhile, we get to see Nyssa’s room again. And also Turlough’s room, which used to be Adric’s room, and still has all his old stuff in it- a nice touch, reminding us that Turlough doesn’t share the painful memory the other TARDISeers have to deal with, and is still yet an outsider.

As a result of Turlough’s sabotage things start going wrong with the ship, leading to yet another “I’ll explain later” from the Doctor. And then the Ship merges with somewhere else- a nice different way of arriving somewhere with the TARDIS exterior not being seen at all throughout the story. It’s very effective seeing the four TARSISeers gradually disappearing into the mysterious vessel.

And then of course we end with loads of lepers appearing, one of whom is apparently Kathy Burke…

Part Two

“We’re all going to die!”

The computer operated by the Doctor in this episode looks uncannily like the sort of thing that would have been released as a board game and advertised on kids’ TV at the time. Now that the Marathon is reaching a time I can actually remember I’m getting all these random outbreaks of nostalgia triggered by the most bizarre things.

Things are still good so far, with an interesting backstory of plague and corporate greed, and the odd coincidence of Terminus being at the exact centre of the universe. Not to mention Kali and Olvir being officially the most ‘80s people ever. I mean- that hair!

Peter Benson as Bor is instantly recognisable as Henry Tudor to those, like me, who have seen the first episode of The Black Adder far more times than is healthy. And there are other characters in similarly great looking armour with names like Eirak, Valgard and Sigurd, known as the Vanir. Hmm. I’ll take this as an indication that Norse myths are being referenced here but I’ve no idea which ones. The Garm’s a giant, too, so the giants are superseded by the gods, or “Vanir”, but that’s both very tenuous and not relevant to this episode.

Nyssa gets infected, and promptly strips off into her underwear. And at the same time she acquires some unsightly buboes and lesions. Yep, that’s how you get the dads watching, I’m sure they’re all leprosy fetishists…

Part Three

“You’re weird, Turlough.”

At this point it starts to feel a bit slow and plodding, presumably the problem people have with it, but I can’t quite put my finger on why it feels so. We’re getting plenty of plot revelations, the characters are well written and played, there are some good concepts and it’s even well designed. But still, there’s something a little unengaging about it all for some reason.

The Vanir power struggle subplot begins, to be paid off next episode, Tegan and Turlough have a conversation about the ethics of killing, mandated by the story arc- they’ve both been sidelined a bit- and we get the big revelation; Terminus’s first engine blowing up started the Big Bang and the second one’s about to blow, taking the universe with it! I’m not sure I buy this- surely the civilisation that built this ship also built many more, each with the potential to do the same, so by the law of averages the universe should have ended by now? Still, in the context of the story, it works. Oh, and it’s technically all Turlough’s fault if it does.

Part Four

“You represent a pure investment of my time and energy!”

It’s quite unexpected to see that the Garm does actually cure Nyssa. Not only that, he can talk, too, and also save the universe by pushing a lever. He’s a giant (Norse mythology!) as are the Vanir (Norse mythology!) and presumably the same species as the ship’s dead pilot.

The cure may have worked on Nyssa, but it’s crude, unfocused and as likely to kill as to cure. Nyssa, on the other hand, would be able to turn it into a much better cure, much as she would be able to synthesise unlimited supplies of hydromel to free the Vanir from their dependence on the Company, just as the Garm has been freed by the Doctor.

“It’ll be good to see the TARDIS again.” says the Doctor. “And Tegan.” Adds Nyssa, “Well…” says the Doctor!!! It isn’t even the first time he’s said something like this- he doesn’t even like Tegan, and is only putting up with her to avoid an unpleasant scene. Blimey!

Nyssa stays behind where she’s needed, in a fitting and unexpectedly emotional departure.

I can’t put my finger on anything that was actually wrong with this, but it seemed somehow unengaging for large stretches. There’s a lot about it that’s good though, and its bad reputation hardly sees fair. I give it a solid 3/5.