Knights of God: Episode 4

 "All hail the knights of God!"

This episode isn't quite as intensely totalitarian as the last one, and that's sauying something, as the main focus is on Gervase's brainwashing, done through typical fascist techniques alongside a little light experimental use of drugs, courtest of Michael Sheard as a very British Dr Mengele.

The drectorial style, wisely, avoids trippiness here: it would not suit the bleak, fascist aesthetic as Gervase is initiated, via a creepy ceremony, into the Knights of God. His brainwashing is oddly believable, even to the point of subjugating Wales, pursuing the rebels' mysterious leader... and betraying his own father. But I suspect his loyalty would be tested were he to discover that Julia has escaped... and been shot while doing so. Is she dead?

Meanwhile we're intruducted to Nigel Stock as Brother Simon, Mordrin's right hand man, while Hugo continues to archly plot and be performatively resentful. This is certainly leading to conflict.

An eventful episode, then, for a mere twenty-fice minutes. This continues to be very, very good.

Blake's 7: Power Play

“This is my ship!”

This time around it’s a little less surprising to see Terry Nation’s name in the credits, and things are settling down to a smaller scale after the recent epic events. The status quo is still very much in flux though, and that makes for an exciting episode.

We get a little reprise and carry directly on from the cliffhanger; Avon soon discovers there’s not only this Federation officer chap (Del,Tarrant, the most Terry Nation name ever!) but a full half dozen Federation troops. There’s also a rather thuggish second in command called Clegg. Fascinatingly, he’s played by Michael Sheard, a far from obvious choice for this part. And yet Sheard manages to show what a brilliant range he has by being possibly the best thing in the episode.

Shipping alert: interesting that Avon should describe Dayna as his wife. Let’s face it- they are, aren’t they?

Avon manages to bluff his way through for a short while, but eventually he and Dayna end up locked into a rather familiar-looking cell. But these Federation types aren’t in control; the Liberator will answer only to the existing crew, and they are powerless to control the ship. We hear Vila trying to communicate; evidently he’s in trouble. By this point we think we know what’s going on from the set-up. Rather cleverly, though, we’re going to be wrong-footed by the time the episode ends. The situation is not what it seems. Terry Nation might be a bit basic with his characterisation, but when he wasn’t trying to write two many episodes at once he was a bloody good plotter.

Vila, on a “primitive” planet which bears an odd resemblance to Hertfordshire or some such place, befriends a couple of rather nice “primitives”. It seems they’re being hunted by someone or something which uses searchlights, eerily scanning the forest. Much to Vila’s surprise, they turn out to be rather nice seeming young ladies. Of course, Vila’s relieved to be taken to civilisation. It seems that the original settlers on this planet split into “hi-techs” and ”primitives” in a situation rather similar to The Face of Evil, a Doctor Who Story from a few years earlier by none other than Chris Boucher. Clearly, absolutely nothing can go wrong now.

Cally seems to be all right, too; she’s being cared for on a medical ship, from a neutral planet, staffed by rather nice nurses dressed in strange green nurses’ uniforms. All right, that is, until the next patient to be picked up turns out to be Servalan, who is again acting rather more like Thatcher than she did in the previous two series.

Avon gets to sneakily talk to Zen, and is told that Blake is heading for some planet called Epheron, while Jenna is going to somewhere called Morphenniel for some reason. That’s the last we’ll be hearing from them, then.

Things start to go pear-shaped, though; Dayna gets caught by Mr Bronson, while Avon is caught by Tarrant, who turns out to be a clever chap and to have worked out who he is. Fortunately, Tarrant turns out be a bit of a rebel disguised as a Federation officer and, seeing as he’s rather helpfully been bumping off the troops one by one, there are now only three Federation bods on the ship. I’m not sure about this Tarrant, though. Bit bland, isn’t he?

Vila and Cally meet up just as they’re both about to be taken into the “Hi-Tech” city to make their “useful contribution”. What could possibly go wrong now? Quite a lot, it seems. The Federation may be a shadow of its former self, but Servalan, after a little light humiliation, is able to bribe her way out, and gleefully informs the pair of themselves that they’re about to be vivisected- humanely, of course.

In the end, after a bit of negotiation, plotting and intrigue between Mr Bronson and our heroes, it’s brute force than wins out, as Avon, Dayna and Tarrant simply stop trying to be clever and simply beat the crap out of Mr Bronson and co. Cally and Avon are teleported up seconds before their certain death, and the new status quo is established. We now have two crew members, the rather sexy and likeable Dayna and the yawn-inducing Tarrant…

Doctor Who: Remembrance of the Daleks

Part One



“Ace, give me some of that Nitro Nine you’re not carrying.”

As if the pre-titles sequence isn’t great enough, we begin just outside Coal Hill School. Wicked! Except that the kids seem to be wearing uniforms, an apparent continuity error.

The Doctor and Ace are walking by, Ace very much acting the teenager and hinting at a hinterland never possessed by Mel, while the Doctor ‘s new persona is now firmly and fully formed, as shown quite superbly as he just leaps straight into the van with Rachel and Allison and casually takes charge.

Then we’re off to Totters’ Lane. Which looks a lot more plausible than “it” did in Attack of the Cybermen. There’s a building which could be the one where it all started- except that right now there’s a Dalek in it!

I can’t remember any previous story as fast-paced as this. We’re introduced to the clipped but impotent Gilmore, the apparently friendly Mike and the frustrated Professor Rachel Jensen very very quickly, but they all have clear personality traits to remind us who they are. That’s good writing from newcomer Ben Aaronovitch.

I love the Doctor’s muttered “Humans!” as Gilmore insists on sending his men into the meat grinder. For different reasons, I also love the brick Mike uses as a phone! The story’s full of those nice touches to remind us that we’re in 1963- the Doctor having to remind Ace to use the choke in the van, for example.

The scene in the van is extremely nice for a number of reasons- the immense coolness of the Doctor and Ace switching places in the tunnel, the nice character stuff between them, the establishment of the Doctor’s grumpier, more manipulative yet still fluffy personality (or, in other words, a bit like early Troughton, which is definitely a good thing) and of course the exposition. We get an admirably concise potted history of the Daleks and a mention of the mysterious Hand of Omega. Naturally, much is left dangling.

We’re briefly introduced to Mike’s dodgy friend Ratcliffe, only for Mike to let him have the dead Dalek a couple of scenes later. Mr Bronson from Grange Hill turns up- not only Michael Sheard, but as a proper teacher with the glasses and everything! We discover that Rachel is Gilmore’s “Chief Scientific Adviser”- nice title!- and we see the inside of the school chemistry lab, which seems to have a book on the French Revolution left lying about. Hmm.

We finish with the revelation of a Dalek-like thing in Ratcliffe’s office- Davros?- and the doctor and Ace in a spot of trouble in the cellar. The cliffhanger is one of the all time greats as the Doctor is pursued up some stairs by a Dalek…



Part Two



“Frightening, isn’t it? To find others better versed in death than human beings.”

This episode is pretty much the reason I’m doing this Marathon, because one day in October 1988, at eleven years old and having just started secondary school, I happened to come across it. I’d watched Doctor Who before when I was younger, but drifted away from it after Colin Baker took over. This time, though, I was hooked. Looking it up, it seems that 12th October 1988 was the day I became a Doctor Who fan.

And I can see why- it’s bloody exciting. We start with a bit of action, and then we get the fabulous café scene which, bizarrely, seems to feature the butler from The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. There’s some philosophical musings about choices and consequences, and also the unspoken implication that while everyone else sleeps through the night the Doctor remains awake drinking coffee and ruminating.

Early in the morning he retrieves a levitating coffin from an undertaker, having been “an old geezer with white hair” when he first dropped it off. Well, well, well. With the assistance of a blind vicar he buries the Hand of Omega- best not to think of how he actually handled all the organisational necessities- and we hear the grave has been ready for “a month”. So presumably the school has been without a history teacher and a science teacher for about that time.

More exposition, during which the Doctor is seen reading a copy of Richard Gordon’s Doctor in the House in what seems to be a recurring gag after The Doctor’s Dilemma showed up in Dragonfire. Will we see any more of this? Anyway, there are two Dalek factions, the Imperial and Renegade Daleks.

Ace is left behind at Mike’s mother’s guesthouse, where among other things she encounters the phenomenon of television sets needing to warm up and almost catching the start of a new Saturday teatime sci-fi show scheduled for 5.15, called “Doc-“ something. I wonder what it was? But most impressive is Ace’s reaction to discovering the “No Coloureds” sign. It’s a nice moment.

Ace goes to the school to find her tape deck, as she misses her uber-modern technology, and discovers that loads of white and gold, Revelation-style Imperial Daleks have transmatted in. She proceeds to kick no small quantity of arseage, attacking Daleks with her baseball bat and leaping through a window. And this leads to another brilliant cliffhanger.



Part Three



“Weapons- always useless in the end.”

This is the first episode I ever recorded on its original transmission- and I’ve done the same for every episode ever since. So for me there will be no more stories in this Marathon that are particularly unfamiliar- although of course there are loads I haven’t seen for years. This one, for example.

The Doctor gets strangled by a strange looking claw from inside an Imperial Dalek; apparently the blobs inside have mutated functional appendages and are cyborgs. Lovely. And then we get more great moments- Rachel and Allison’s faces after the Doctor smashes the Dalek transmat with the baseball bat; the Doctor’s discussion with Ace about how such unimaginably advanced tech as a tape deck is a glaring anachronism in the year when sexual intercourse began; and a casual mention of “Bernard” and “British Rocket Group”. I’m sure Nigel Kneale would have loved that…

We establish that Ratcliffe has possession of the Hand, and then, in a key scene, the Doctor finally explains to Ace what’s going on. And it’s important stuff. Simply by writing the line “[Omega] left behind him the basis upon which Rassilon founded Time Lord society,” Aaronovitch resolves an apparent continuity clash between The Three Doctors and all Time Lord stories from The Deadly Assassin onwards. It’s fanwank, yes, but dammit, it’s the acceptable face of fanwank. Another interesting line is “Didn’t we have trouble with the prototype?” Gosh, I wonder where this could be going? Could script editor Andrew Cartmel have some sort of, I dunno, master plan up his sleeve?

The Doctor certainly has a plan, and apparently it’s to ensure that one particular faction gets its, er, hands on the Hand while ensuring there’s as little human collateral damage as possible. But others have plans too; the Black Dalek turns up, and the Renegade Daleks finally turn the tables on their human pawn, Ratcliffe. We discover that the mysterious Dalek thing is in fact that sinister little girl, and also that these Daleks have a “Time Controller” which is so very late ‘80s.

The Doctor and Ace dodge some tatty Daleks to discover the room where all this has just taken place, and the Doctor explains how the Dalek battle computer works- by taking a child’s natural imagination and enslaving it to the Daleks’ will, thus relieving them of their dependence on logic. How they must wish they’d thought of that during their war with the Movellans.

Mike reveals he’s been betraying secrets to his dodgy fascist mates, leading to some slightly embarrassing ersatz swearing from Ace. But never mind that- an Imperial Dalek shuttlecraft is landing…



Part Four



“Daleks are such boring conversationalists.”

It’s good to hear that old familiar throb inside the Dalek shuttlecraft. It’s also nice to see a bit of innovation and coolness with the Special Weapons Dalek, although admittedly it impresses me rather less now than it did when I was eleven.

I’m increasingly noticing how many excellent little bits of physical acting McCoy is always integrating into his performance, such as his umbrella getting stuck in the shuttlecraft door and using his umbrella handle to close a gate. I’m particularly impressed by the way these little comic moments are used to counterpoint the Doctor’s more brooding side. Suddenly this new Doctor seems to have an awful lot of depth. Davison may have been a better actor, but this is arguably the best Doctor since Tom Baker.

The Doctor communicates with the Imperial Dalek mother ship, claiming to be “President Elect” of the High Council. Er, not when we last checked he wasn’t. Just how many untelevised stories did we miss out on between Trial of a Time Lord and Time and the Rani? But then, if he’s 953 that would imply a gap of fifty years. A lot can happen in that time. For example, the Doctor seems to be carrying out some kind of long term plan against the Dalek, and reels off a long list of fancy Time Lord titles. Davros (for it is he), on the other hand, seems hell-bent against the Time Lords. It’s almost as if there’s some kind of, I dunno, “Time War” of some kind under way.

Anyway, the Doctor essentially destroys Skaro, just like that. It’s a very new departure for the Doctor, which could end up either very good or very bad; it all depends on where all this is going in the long term. For now, though, this story is fab.



Brilliant, a strong 5/5. Fast paced, exciting, and just as good twenty-one years later.

Doctor Who: Castrovalva

Part One

“I was forgetting, Nyssa- bioelectronics is your strong point.”

I think this is our first ever pre-titles sequence, and very nice it is too. Unfortunately there follows a lot of dull scenes involving running, security guards, irritating incidental music and Adric being particularly annoying. Suddenly, with a new season and a new Doctor, he’s become a lot more annoying. And then the Master gets him but leaves him on the ground in a trance to be collected by the others, Considering what happens later I can’t see the point of that scene.

With everyone aboard, the new Doctor disappears into the depths of the Ship while Nyssa and Tegan chat. It’s notable that Nyssa doesn’t seem at all bothered by the traumatic recent events, calmly dispensing technobabble as though she hasn’t a care in the world. Meanwhile the Doctor, perhaps recalling The Horns of Nimon, slowly divests himself of his scarf by turning it into thread to guide him through the labyrinth. Ooh, how very symbolic for our new Doctor!

There’s a brief conversation with Adric where it becomes clear he’s confused and has to be reminded that Romana’s gone. I think this is the first time we ever hear the phrase “console room”. There follows what might well be Tegan’s first ever exclamation of “Rabbits!” and our second look at the TARDIS BBC micro, which looks as if it’s now a permanent feature. Still, just as people today have digital radios that look like old wooden radios from the 50s, no doubt the Doctor is just using technology that looks retro in style but is in fact incredibly advanced. Er, right?

Peter Davison does a rather good Hartnell impression and a rather less good Troughton one, although it’s good to see the recorder again. All entertaining enough, but surely we ought to be getting round to quickly establishing this new Doctor? He gets a lot of screen time this episode but we still have little or no impression of what he’s going to be like.

Nyssa and Tegan discuss recursion, which foreshadows, of course, what’s to come. Nevertheless it comes across as awkward, un-naturalistic dialogue, something I’m picking up as a general feature of Bidmead’s scripts.

The TARDIS is apparently even more huge than we’ve previously imagined, so much so that the Master manages to kidnap Adric while he’s lost in the corridors. Happily, this means we won’t be seeing much of him for a while. Meanwhile, Nyssa and Tegan lead the doctor to the “stark simplicity” of the Zero Room- more foreshadowing. The episode ends with Nyssa consulting the TARDIS Wikipedia…

Part Two

“We’re playing Russian Roulette with the TARDIS!”

At last we get a small sign of Nyssa reacting naturally to the terrible things that have happened to her as she expresses her revulsion at the Master and switches off the monitor. Not much, but it’s something.

It’s notable that throughout the whole story, not just those featuring Castrovalva itself, the Master is essentially in control of reality itself as far as the TARDISeers are concerned. His control, through Adric, of block transfer mathematics (for which read magic) allow him to literally reshape reality. The surprising thing, if anything, is that his ambitions are so limited, pretty much focused only on his rivalry with the Doctor. This tells us a lot about his obsession with the Doctor, something which has gone to such lengths that it can hardly be considered rational. And it’s also a little odd that we will never see him using this power again.

“I’ll have to explain how to vent the thermal buffer” states the now bespectacled Doctor. How appropriate that this line will eventually be echoed in a much later appearance by this Doctor! And then we have the expected Pertwee impression. There are some great ideas in this scene, mind- the architectural configuration of the TARDIS can be redesigned from the control room, and rooms can be deleted to provide extra “thrust”.

Finally we get to the countryside outside Castrovalva, which looks strangely similar to the South of England. Odd, that. It’s amusing to hear Nyssa advising Tegan that “There’s a whole room full of clothes if you want to change.” Tegan won’t be following this advice for some time but, on the other hand, pot, kettle…

Oh, and I see Eric Saward’s name appearing in the credits as script editor. That’s surprisingly early. Still, I suppose it makes sense given that this was the fourth story of the season to be made.

Part Three

“I’m beginning to feel quite my old self. Or my new self.”

I very much like the gradual introduction of Castrovalva, and the gradual way it’s revealed that they are in fact friendly and apparently harmless. It’s good to see Michael Sheard again too. We get a nice series of scenes introducing us to the setting, marred only by the fact the Portreeve is so obviously played by Anthony Ainley- “Neil Toynay”, indeed! I particularly like the early signs of friction between Shardovan and the Portreeve- yet more foreshadowing. And, of course, the way everyone is instantly intimidated by Tegan!

“I know so little about telebiogenesis” admits Nyssa. I sympathise- I can well remember Wednesdays at school. Maths, history and physics in the morning, then double telebiogenesis in the afternoon. It never was my favourite subject.

The sequence leading up to the cliffhanger is brilliant (“Yes, well that’s democracy for you!”) and the concept of recursive occlusion is brilliant. It even hits you at the end that the sets actually look like the Escher sketch, which is great design.

Incidentally, I wonder if anyone at the time ever did an etch-a-sketch of an Escher sketch? Sorry…

Part Four

“With my eyes, no. But in my philosophy…”

It’s a nice touch how Shardovan seems so sinister right up until the moment we realise his secret is that he shares the Doctor’s suspicions. Appropriately, he ends up as the hero. And I love the scene where the Doctor uses the mirror and some chalk to demonstrate to Mergrave and Ruther that their entire world is a lie. It really is a great concept- space folding in on itself, the same point in space having multiple locations, and the inhabitants of Castrovalva being part of it. The revelation of the forged history is also brilliant.

I had to raise an eyebrow at Shardovan’s line “Why are all these women here? Is this a holiday?” Along with the fact that all the women in Castrovalva seem to be performing some sort of domestic task whenever we see them it seems that feminism has yet to catch on here.

The Master is unveiled and we get a suitable conclusion, although sadly the Doctor once again addresses his rival as “Master”, something he should never ever do, at least by choice.

Now, that’s more like it. The story takes almost two whole episodes to get going, but the final two episodes are superb. Finally Bidmead is able to turn his brilliant concepts into effective drama. 3/5 overall, but the average mark reflects the fact (well, opinion!) that it’s a story of two halves. Peter Davison was fantastic, but now I’d like to see a story with him actually playing the Doctor!

Doctor Who: The Invisible Enemy

Part One

“Contact has been made.”

We start the story in deep space, for the first time in ages. Unfortunately we then get a crap spaceship set which sets the tone for the rest of the story- I’ve always been annoyed by bland, featureless corridor sets being used to represent the future in space opera type stories and The Invisible Enemy is one of the worst offenders. Every set and every costume is bland and featureless, which casts a kind of dullness over what should be a fun and silly story. Only three stories after The Robots of Death showed us how it should be done, this shows us how it shouldn’t.

At least the TARDIS looks good. It’s a shame to lose the wooden control room, but at least the redesigned traditional control room looks good, even if the Doctor does dismiss it as though he was talking about any one of the other sets in the story! We’re in 5000 AD or thereabouts, the time of Magnus Greel and Time Agents, and also apparently the time of the “Great Break Out”. Presumably this refers to much more widespread colonisation than happened during the Earth Empire days two thousand years earlier. And as this is still said to be Leela’s past, perhaps her ancestors were involved.

It’s good to see Michael Sheard again, even if his horribly designed office oozes an awful lot of the unacceptable side of 70s-ness in spite of it being 5000 AD. And the virus is an interesting threat, giving us a good cliffhanger with the infected doctor about to kill Leela…

Part Two

“Blithering idiots, the pair of you.”

Cra;p though the design is, I like the attempt to suggest spelling has changed, with such uses as “isolayshun ward”.

The Doctor’s out of action for a bit, which means we have Leela flying the TARDIS (!) to some hospital asteroid, where the Bristol Boys get a chance to reuse their line from The Hand of Fear about Gallifrey being somewhere in Ireland. We’re also introduced to the very silly yet somehow fab Professor Marius, with his silly accent and his robot dog, K9. Yay! “That tin thing is my best friend and constant companion”, he informs us.

The Prof has to operate on the doctor whilst being assailed from all sides by the ranks of the infected. At the Doctor’s suggestion he, er, clones the Doctor and Leela, shrinks them, and injects them into the Doctor’s body. This is simultaneously awful and brilliant. Oh, an apparently cloning started in 3922. not in, say, 1997, with Dolly the Sheep or anything.

Oh, and why can’t they just cure the Doctor by transmat, as Harry did with Sarah during Revenge of the Cybermen?

Part Three

“I don’t know what to think. I’ve never been in anybody’s head before.”

This episode marks a turning point in the marathon for me personally- halfway through I finally finish my first notebook!

This entire episode is unintentionally hilarious, and the sets of the inside of the Doctor’s brain are much more fun than the sets we’ve seen elsewhere. I love the way the Clone Doctor keeps pointing bits out to Clone Leela. Apparently the Doctor was once able, Matrix-like, to tune himself into the “Time Lord intelligentsia”, but lost this ability when he was “kicked out”. I like the Doctor’s line about the mind and the brain being analogous to the land and the sea, utter rubbish though it may be.

Plenty of hilariousness abounds, from the Doctor’s beach ball-like antibodies to the ridiculous Slowness of Marius’s countdown. But pretty soon both K9(!) and the Professor are infected…

The Nucleus actually gives a pretty good justification of its actions to the Doctor- like any creature it has every right to survive. But of course, that goes both ways. In another context, this could have been a fairly serious discussion.

The ending is most odd, with the sting seeming to briefly start and then stop a minute before the end. Are the last two scenes in the right order?

Part Four

“I only hope he’s TARDIS trained!”

Hmmm, so the nucleus and all its viruses can survive at human size? Er, yes. And it seems the TARDIS is still bigger on the inside with the dimensional stabiliser gone. But this is not the story to be asking such questions- best just to let the silliness wash over you. Amusingly, for the first time here we see the camera panning upwards from the step at the TARDIS entrance as K9 rolls inside. The first of many…

We get the first appearance of another Graham Williams era trope here too, as the Doctor enters the TARDIS and dematerialises with his scarf still caught in the Door. Never mind the fact we then cut to him at the controls with his scarf clearly far from the entrance!

Oh dear. From Talons to this in two stories! For all its faults it certainly wasn’t dull, and has a certain so-bad-it’s-good capacity to amuse, but this is the worst story since The Time Monster- silly and badly designed, with the Doctor often bordering on being out of character. 2/5.

Doctor Who: Pyramids of Mars

Part One

“I bring Sutekh’s gift of death to all humanity.”

After an appropriately horror film-esque teaser with lots of stock footage in an Egyptian bent, we get a brief shot of the TARDIS flying through space, Just as we did at the end of Planet of Evil. Sarah’s trying on Victoria’s old dress in a bit of gratuitous continuity that’s mind-bogglingly rare for the Hinchcliffe era. The Doctor, meanwhile, is such a mardyarse that the script cannot be the sole culprit- would Paddy Russell be directing this one, perchance?

Mardy or not, he gets a good line in just-this-side-of-pretentious dialogue from, ahem, “Stephen Harris”: “I’m not a human being. I walk in eternity.” Oooh! The reason for the Doctor’s foul mood (Tom Baker’s obvious foul mood is something else entirely!) Is that he’s got a massive strop on about running around after the Brigadier. Is it me, or is there some sort of running theme emerging here? Actually, I suspect there may be two, the other one being that he doesn’t want Sarah to leave.

The TARDISeers land in the Doctor’s lab at UNIT HQ, except they don’t because it’s 1911 and still “the old priory” before it mysteriously burned down. Gosh, I wonder, for no reason in particular, what the last shot of the story could possibly be?

The Doctor’s getting quite into his namedropping again, Marie Antoinette being this week’s lucky woman. The Doctor’s rather fond of 1911, “An excellent year, one of my favourites.” Sarah, meanwhile, is revealed to be from 1980. That exact year. Fact. She says it straight up. Still, it could really be any old year as UNIT chronology is arguably completely buggered up by this point anyway.

Aside from all this we get a splendidly atmospheric first episode, with a real sense of threat, and the Doctor’s brooding presence and sudden mood changes really help in establish this. The Doctor manipulates Lawrence Scarman (the excellent Michael Sheard) into helping him by being alternately rude and charming. Well, alright, he’s charming once. Oh, and the Doctor claims to never carry firearms. Liar!

Good stuff so far, and a cliffhanger that really raises the stakes.

Part Two

“Holy Moses!"

So the Egyptian gods were really “Osirans”, all-powerful aliens who were behind all of Egyptian culture and, presumably, built the pyramids. Grr! I really hate this stuff. Just for once, can’t we have some ancient monument somewhere just being a result of ancient humans being clever?

Still, that’s not all we get. In what I like to see as a nod to the era just gone we have a poacher getting killed. How nice! And there’s a great scene where Laurence Scarman gets to see the inside of the TARDIS, just to make up for the Doctor bullying him even more than he did last episode, if that’s possible. Blimey, Tom / the Doctor really is in a foul mood. Was the Coach and Horses closed for refurbishment or something? Gosh, this bloke is, clearly, in no way going to get killed. And there’s more accurate piloting from the Doctor, incidentally. 

The guff about the alternate 1980 is nice, too, and something the series had to do at least once. I’m not sure it really works though- surely Marcus Scarman would have found the tomb anyway whether the TARDIS landed in 1911 or not, so all this would always have happened anyway?

Oh, and why is all this happening in England anyway if all Sutekh’s stuff was originally in that tomb near Sakkara?

Part Three

“Perhaps he sneezes?”

This is my fave ever Tom/ Lis episode, as it consists of the Doctor going straight for an attempt of the world mardiness record while Sarah spends the whole episode mocking him. All this and a real sense of peril too. Sadly Laurence has to die (isn’t Michael Sheard magnificent?) but at least he won’t have to put up with any more nastiness from the Doctor. The worst thing is, the Doctor still manages to be likeable even when neither he nor Tom Baker are trying to be.

Sutekh is a uniquely terrifying villain; he doesn’t want to rule the universe but to destroy all life. And it’s made clear just how powerful he is; even the Doctor’s precious Time Lords wouldn’t stand a chance.

The Doctor (well, actually Lawrence) determines to blow up the rocket Marcus Scarman is building with some gelignite, so he dresses up as a mummy with some rags. I love Sarah’s comment that it must have been a nasty accident, although I can’t help wondering how come all that metal framework is clearly visible underneath.

The ending is fantastic- Sutekh stops the explosion through sheer force of will, but then the Doctor distracts him so the gelignite can explodes. But, it seems, only at the cost of his certain death…

Part Four

“Where I tread I leave nothing but darkness. I find that good.”

Gabriel Woolfe must surely have the greatest voice for a superbaddie that ever, er, walked the planet. Just imagine Stephen Thorne saying these lines and you realise just how peerless he is. I mean, he even manages to say the line “You pit your puny will against mine?” without hamming it up, a feat surely once thought impossible.

Interesting line from the Doctor about the TARDIS controls being “isomorphic”- they certainly never have been in the past. Either he’s been tinkering or he’s telling porkies. Can Sutekh actually be lied to, though?

Tom Baker is spine-chillingly good as the possessed Doctor in a scene which must have scared the kiddies out of their wits. This is a great last episode; until the last couple of minutes it looks as though our heroes stand absolutely no chance whatsoever. Still, at least the Doctor survives his possession by using yet another previously undivulged superpower, his “respiratory bypass system”.

Incidentally, I love the Doctor’s description of the Osirans as having “dome-shaped heads… and cerebellums like spiral staircases”.

The bit with the puzzles is nice (I especially like the use of the old “forked road” riddle) and doesn’t hang around long enough to outstay its welcome. Bits of it look uncannily similar to puzzles in Death to the Daleks, but that’s ok because Sarah gets to undercut this by actually pointing it out!

The time loop ending is a clever twist, although I have no idea whether it makes sense or not. But in dramatic terms it’s a triumph. Oh, and famously all the supporting characters have been killed!

Probably not quite as good as either of its two predecessors, but still earns the third 5/5 of the season. Is this going to be the best season ever?

Doctor Who: The Mind of Evil

Part One


"He drowned. In the middle of a perfectly dry room."


Back to black and white, only this time we can imagine all the garish colours that we're missing. Interesting opening, though: "Smile, Jo. You're on camera." It's 1971, and a CCTV camera, even outside a prison, is seen as a sinister Orwellian presence. How times have changed. The Doctor's changing too; he may not be too pleased about it, but this time he's carrying a pass.

Hmmm. It's ambiguous, but the Doctor could have implied he supports capital punishment in this episode. He certainly doesn't like mind control as part of criminal justice though, or indeed as part of anything. In attitudes to mind control, and up to a point computers, this Doctor is not so unlike his predecessor. He's quite extraordinarily rude to Kettering here, interrupting everything he says and pooh-poohing everything. Kettering's not too sympathetic himself though-, as some of his dialogue implies: He will take his place as a useful, if lowly, member of society". The science is a bit dodgy too- what are these "negative" and "evil" brain impulses, and who defines them as such?

I'm not sure about UNIT's role here- in what way does providing security for a peace conference relate to dealing with "the odd, the unexplained"?

For the second time, the Doctor almost implies he's lived for thousands of years! Definitely a real continuity problem here. Perhaps when he said he was 450 years old in Tomb, which can't be more than a few years ago in the Doctor's timeline, he was speaking "in Earth terms"? He starts getting well mardy at the end. Which makes him look bad. And jo sticks up for him. Which helps us to like her, even though the Doctor's acting like a tit.

Keller installed the machine "over a year ago". We all know who he is, so either this is a whole year after Terror of the Autons or You-Know-Who's been around for longer than we thought.



Part Two


"Depends on how you look at it. An idiot or a saint..."


It's quite jarring to see the Doctor actually scared. Although it's comfortably familiar to see Benton spying in his civvies. He's not as good at it as he was in The Invasion though- sign of the times.

There's some good plot structuring going on here- the Chin Lee and Keller Machine subplots are beginning to intertwine at just the right moment and we're being fed plot developments at just the right pace. We also get introduced to the Master at just the right moment- his disguise is obvious but I think it's supposed to be.

The Doctor speaks to Fu Peng in Hokkien, and for the first time ever in Doctor Who we get subtitles! And the Doctor's apparently quite chummy with Mao. Such classy mates he has.

I'm fairly sure that's Jaws from the Bond films...



Part Three

"Don't point that thing at me, my man! It might go off!"

Blimey- the Doctor speaks Cantonese as well! jo gets to show her talents as well though- she does a pretty good job of escaping, if not for long.

At last the Master and the Doctor meet. And the Masters still making the same mistake as last time: "It can't harm me- I created it."

Part Four


"I do have remarkable powers of recovery, don't I?"


I like that- the Master's greatest fear is apparently the Doctor laughing at him.

Interesting to hear the Doctor say that an aspirin "could kill him"! I seem to recall him taking aspirin at least once, back when he was William Hartnell. He don't half look sweaty, incidentally.

I like the Doctor and Jo's escape. but this episode has problems. Why is the missile so incredibly lightly guarded? And I think this may well be one Keller machine cliffhanger too many.


Part Five


"A fortress? I suppose there couldn't possibly be a secret underground passage or something?"

Nice scene with the Doctor and Jo playing draughts, pointedly ignoring the Master. Particularly nice that Jo wins. It's also nice to get our first nostalgia sequence under the new Doctor, with brief flashes of stock photos of an Ice Lord, Cybermen, a Zarbi(!) and a Dalek. Almost enough for me to forgive yet another use of the Keller Machine.

We get our first real Moment Of Charm here, as the Doctor namedrops Raleigh to Jo and reminisces about how he "kept going on about this new vegetable he'd discovered".

A cliffhanger not involving the Keller Machine for once, and it's a good 'un for once- Mailer just shoots the Doctor. Sometimes the simple ones are the best.


Part Six


"Thank you, Brigadier. But do you think for once in your life you could arrive before the nick of time?"


Blimey, the Doctor is just so rude to the Brigadier after having his life saved. And he carries on being a pillock right through the scene: "Apart from losing the Master and the missile, you're doing very well, Brigadier." This really is a bit much. Part of this, admittedly, is Pertwee's acting choices- I suppose he could have delivered his lines in a less abrasive way. But ultimately he's playing the character as written. And the Doctor's actually not all that likeable at the moment. I know he's been exiled and we should cut him a bit of slack, but for the first time in the marathon the character of the Doctor is actually alienating me a bit.

We don't really get a very satisfactory ending aside from the generally well done Doctor / Master ongoing arc scenes. If the missile can be blown up, why recklessly transport it to the coast with a ridiculously tiny escort in the first place? And there's an extraordinary exchange following Barnham's rather unnecessary death where Jo regrettably says to the Doctor that "We should never have left him there". And instead of offering any sympathy the Doctor barks at her "How do you think I feel?"

The very last scene is nice, though. The contrast between the Doctor's exile and the Master's new-found freedom is very poignant, and it looks as though this arc will continue.





Overall- well, the first real clunker of the Pertwee years- 2/5. And worryingly the things I didn't like about it tend to sum up the way the programme's going at the moment. This was dull at times, and over-reliant on a single MacGuffin, but I've given 3/5s and 4/5 to other stories with those faults. Far more worrying, I think, was the tone. Like Terror of the Autons, this was fundamentally a fairly silly bit of fluff which only makes sense if you assume (as I think you're supposed to) that the Master is just essentially larking about and trying to get the Doctor's attention. But unlike Terror of the Autons, this isn't played for laughs. I like silliness, but silliness only works if the script gives you the occasional nod and a wink. And it doesn't here. Instead we get silly events but no signpost from the script that it's supposed to be fun.

Just as bad, UNIT are suddenly a tiny, very cosy organisation who are made to look useless. And I hope the Doctor gets himself into a better mood soon. Fortunately there are signs this could be a planned character arc. We'll see...

Doctor Who: The Ark

The Steel Sky

"Look, stop prancing about over there. What happens if you get lost?"

"I catch a bus back!"


A nice little mystery to open with, although I've no idea how obvious or not it may have been to the unspoiled that they were on a huge spaceship. I started this episode with some trepidation; we're about to get an exploratory episode one without a settled TARDIS crew. Instead we have a barely post-row Steven and Dodo who's... well, Dodo. There's an instability to the TARDIS crew that there hasn't been before, and a lot of this is down to the fact that Dodo as a character, with no hinterland whatsoever, is no more than a cipher. Incidentally, the comedy accent has been toned down but she sounds more northern than we're often led to believe.

From the moment Dodo leaves the TARDIS she's constantly annoying ("Earth? Earth? Well, it couldn't be anywhere else, now could it?"). But after a while, perversely, I start to like her, if not necessarily for the right reasons. Some combination of the lines and the delivery just makes me laugh- "I think I'm beginning to enjoy this space travel or whatever it is". I suspect to some extent I'm subconsciously rebelling against what I know to be fan orthodoxy (oh, to come to a story completely fresh!). Of course, the joke is quite likely to wear thin eventually and I reserve the right to perform a u-turn later. Or sooner.

Pausing only to marvel at the awesome computing technology of the far future, we're quickly introduced to our surroundings by means of, er, loads of exposition. But the ideas are good; this is a time when sci-fi was primarily seen as a literary, rather than cinematic, genre. Indeed, I recall the recently released BBC documents from the dawn of Doctor Who referred to the sci-fi novel as primarily based on ideas rather than character and as such it, er, shouldn't form the basis of television drama. But actually I rather like the fact that we're getting a literary sci-fi take on Big Ideas, and we certainly get some; a space Ark, with 700 years to reach its destination, most of the population of Earth miniaturised and frozen in filing cabinets (a detail that's dated somewhat!), and some individuals fated to be "guardians, living and dying on the Ark, never living to see their destination.

Incidentally, I assure you that I will endeavour never to write a sentence as long as that again. Clearly I need another stint in semi-colon rehab. But I'm enjoying the story so far.

The Plague

"That unfortunately tells me only one thing."

"What is that?"

"That the nature of man even in this day and age hasn't altered at all. You still fear the unknown, like everyone else before you."


Annoyingly, all the poncy things I've been wittering about have to be interrupted by the plot. And some recycled music from our first visit to the Dalek city, naturally. But I'm still enjoying this. There's no character development for the regulars here, of course, but there's a nice bit of acting from Hartnell early on as he starts moving to hug Dodo to comfort her but can't; he's not able to be tactile with Dodo as he was with her predecessors.

Nothing actually happens for ages, and the guest characters are all extremely bland. But the ideas nevertheless carry the story and carry it well; the idea of the travellers causing a fatal outbreak of the common cold amongst their far future descendants is actually quite good, and has a fair bit of mileage as long as it isn't dwelt upon too much, which it isn't.

The justice system aboard the Ark is a little dodgy, amounting effectively to mob rule, but fortunately that nice Commander manages to briefly gather enough strength to use his arbitrary dictatorial powers to sort things out. This is crude drama, perhaps, but I'm still quite impressed by the hard sci-fi ideas. This fantastic and radical season continues to experiment.

The ending rather glosses over the fact that people have actually died from the TARDISeers' carelessness, but rather more interesting is the treatment of the Monoids. Yes, the Doctor gets a line to a Monoid foreshadowing the next two episodes: "You're far more knowledgeable than most people realise". But I still feel uneasy that at no point have our heroes denounced what is pretty clearly a system of apartheid.

So far this story has been great, in spite of not actually being very good as such. A very nice cliffhanger, yet more gleeful experimentation with the concepts and format of the show. What a season! Oh, and apparently Michael Sheard was in this episode.



That's all for now cos I'm knackered- I'll post the rest tomorrow. In this story of two halves will the second half match up to the first, he said, trying not to exude too much dramatic irony...

The Return

"Are you up to something?"

"Um, no..."


There's something quite fundamentally comical about the Monoids' voices. And we hear a lot of them, as the first few scenes consist of lots of exposition. And the message suggested by the situation here (oppressed minority overthrows dominant majority due to "weakness" of dominant minority) seems on the face of it to be a bit Enoch Powell, even pro-apartheid. Or at least it seemed so at the time- fortunately the next episode makes it clear this isn't so. Phew. Don't worry, I'm not Lawrence Miles and this is not The Unquiet Dead.

The Monoids saying "Get back" reminds me of a certain most excellent video I've seen at a certain online location.

Still lots of exposition, plus a rather interesting take on science- so a solar flare turned the Refusians invisible, did it? And the cliffhanger is a bit artificial too. All of a sudden the fun and the great ideas seem to have gone. The concept of seeing the Ark again after 700 years and of the Monoids taking over was initially a great idea with real impact, but we've been treading water since a couple of minutes into the episode. This is very dull.

The Bomb

"Stupid trusting creature!"

Gosh, what imaginative names the Monoids all have. And why do they only communicate with each other through a device invented by the Guardians? Gah!

On a positive note, although none of the characters get any development worth mentioning Steven is at least shown to be resourceful and heroic in this episode, essentially acting as the Guardians' leader. But the episode is still infuriating. The bomb's going to explode in a whole 12 hours' time- oh, the suspense! How helpful of Monoid Four to tell a Monoid something he already knows just so he can be overheard by the hidden Doctor and Dodo. And what's motivating the Refusian to be so extremely helpful, to the extent of taking a shuttle to the Ark and staying there, in the full knowledge there's a bomb on it? Gah!

Oh, and the Refusians are pretty much the ultimate in (dare I say it?) deus ex machina. I mean, they're practically gods anyway and we know for the entire episode that at some point they're going to just walk in and stop the plot. But it's nice to see the Doctor's speech at the end, effectively denouncing South African apartheid. So the allegorical content is now clear, not that the story was in any way about this theme.

We end with Dodo's fab gear, Steven being allowed to operate the controls, and a truly bizarre cliffhanger...



Overall, it's a story of two halves. The first half, in spite of the stock plot and moments of clumsiness, was packed with interesting ideas and charmed me into liking it. But the second half was just plodding, dull, and lacking in any sense of real peril. sadly, this is below average overall and so gets a 2/5. But there's a lot I liked about the first two parts.