Dead of Night: Return Flight

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

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

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

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

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

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

Doctor Who: The Masque of Mandragora

Part One

“You humans have such limited minds. Sometimes I wonder why I like you so much.”

Once again we get a tale by Louis Marks, author of a bizarrely spread out run of stories. But having seen this story for the first time (now there’s only Underworld and Meglos that I’ve never seen from all of Doctor Who!), I’d probably call it his best.

We start, rarely for this era, with an extended TARDIS scene, in which we get to see places other than the control room for what I think is the first time since Hartnell’s day, more than six years, er, months, ago. The point of this, of course, is to introduce the new and rather excellent looking control room. And it has a recorder in it, so apparently the Doctor used to spend a lot of time here when he was Patrick Troughton, but only when the camera wasn’t looking. I particularly like the new scanner.

All this is admirably rounded off before it can degenerate into fanwank, and we’re off into the plot, with the Mandragora Helix, a strange void, and a fantastic looking late mediaeval / early Renaissance Italy. I have to praise the costumes here, and also the excellent location- Portmeiron, I think.

We’re introduced to our guest characters with admirable economy, and at the same time it becomes clear that this story is about reason versus both superstition and tyranny, hence it being set at such an appropriate time and place. The pace is very fast indeed, with Sarah being captured almost as quickly as good old Babs was, way back in The Crusade. There’s definitely something about mediaeval settings and fast paced plots for some reason.

The Doctor gets a great scene putting an apple on the end of Count Federico’s sword and using a football rattle (what else?) to effect his escape.

Part Two

“They say there are places where the bat droppings are as high as a man.”

We get a case of escape by scarf for the first time in ages. A completely implausible method of escape from the executioner’s block, of course, but easily cool enough to get away with it.

There’s a lot of excitement this episode, but it’s also where the pieces start to be put into place- Heironymous is, rather unsurprisingly, revealed as the cult leader, the Doctor makes friends with Giuliano and his hot-headed boyfriend, and conflict is sown between Heironymous and Count Federico. It’s all rather neatly done, and it all looks so sumptuous too. It’s also worrying me a bit though- I’m loving this, it’s bringing back good memories of John Lucarotti and the like from long ago, but that’s because it practically is a pure historical; the sci-fi elements are thin, perfunctory, and a rather obvious metaphor to boot. What is there here to attract the kiddies? Is there enough buckling of swashes to do the job?

Part Three

“You can’t count, Count!”

Giuliano shows himself to be a damn good swordsman, and then along comes the Doctor to show us that he may have regenerated since The Sea Devils but he’s pretty handy with a sword. Perhaps there is enough swashbuckling after all.

I really like Heironymous’s beard. In fact, I think I want one. There’s nothing quite like a good villainous bit of high maintenance facial hair. He’s quite barmy, of course, but then as an astrologer he would be. But there’s one point in his favour- it must be quite nice for Sarah to be hypnotised by someone other than the Doctor for a change.

We get an important first- Sarah asks how come she can understand Italian as she can’t speak it, alluding to a problem which has been successfully brushed under the carpet by the programme for the last twelve and a half years. Apparently it a “Time Lord gift” which the Doctor “allows” Sarah to share. Well, that explains everything perfectly. And it seems it’s Sarah asking this that makes the Doctor realise she’s been hypnotised. Eh?

Meanwhile Marco gets tortured, and even though this actually happens offscreen it feels a bit nasty for a family show. And things are set up for the finale, with Heironymous foretelling Federico’s death, a “prophecy” fulfilled at the end of the episode; superstition has triumphed against the Machiavellian use of power, how will it prevail against the upcoming values of the Renaissance?

Part Four

“You know, the worse the situation, the worse your jokes get.”

It’s nice to see Giuliano’s authority being affirmed on the death of his uncle; this is the episode where he has to come of age. He’ already shown he’s intelligent and rational, but here he has to find the judgement to rule. The discussion with Marco on the need for the masque to go ahead to maintain appearances is important, and shows a rather subtler kind of Machiavellian thinking than Federico.

The ending works, being satisfying and twisty-turny enough to wrongfoot us at the end, plus everyone (including Sarah) looks great in their fancy dress costumes.

Magnificent, and not at all the sort of thing I was expecting at this stage of the marathon. Easily a 5/5. I’ll certainly be watching this again- it’s obvious there’s an awful lot going on in this script that calls for multiple viewings. I suspect it might have bored the kids, mind.

Doctor Who: The Sontaran Experiment

Part One
 

“I feel a bit like a Morse message- slightly scrambled.”

Hmmm. So there’s been no life on Earth for ten thousand years. How come we can see an awful lot of grass and moorland then, eh?

This is another nice little character piece for our three regulars, with the all location filming giving us a nicely atmospheric location. The TARDISeers are soon split up, just like old times, and the mystery is soon set up- who are all these Sith Efrican voortrekkers from space, and what’s this odd looking robot?

The reveal of the creature’s hand, via the camera on Vural’s chest, is nicely done, a very good bit of directing. There’s also some nice world-building, with the Galsec contingent clearly having a chip on their shoulder about Earth.

The Sontaran ship is the moment of the big reveal, and it’s good to see the Sontarans again. Although, bizarrely, we get exactly the same cliffhanger ending as for part one of The Time Warrior.

Part Two

“I’ll get you out of there if I have to knock his bally head of and grab his keys.”

I’m not entirely sure why Styre’s come to earth to “test” humans if it’s empty and he has to lure humans here from elsewhere. Perhaps to avoid interruption? I suppose it just about passes muster.

Styre’s not very popular; the Marshal’s getting impatient with him while the Doctor is morally outraged- the first real show of great moral indignation from this Doctor, and something Tom Baker does very well. It’s implied in both cases that Styre is enjoying his “experiments” too much- again, something much darker than anything we would have seen under Barry Letts.

The two episode format enables the story to rattle along at a furious pace, with no padding whatsoever. We only met Vural an episode ago, but now we discover that he’s a traitor.

There’s a great exchange between the Doctor and Harry where the Doctor says “Never throw anything away, Harry”, swiftly followed by “It’s a mistake to clutter one’s pockets, Harry.” The performance is very difference, but this new Doctor owes a fair bit to Troughton- he even has a 500 year diary.

There’s an awkward moment where, in a blatant outbreak of as-you-know-Bobbery, the Marshal and Styre tell each other things both already know while being overheard by the Doctor. This sort of thing can be done far more subtly.

Unusually, the Doctor saves the day by engaging in fisticuffs, and Vural, inevitably, redeems himself at the end. It’s not an entirely satisfying ending, what with Styre’s deflating head being something of an embarrassment and the Marshal giving up rather too easily.

Not a bad runaround, in spite of some niggles with the plot, and too formulaic to stand out from the crowd, so a 3/5. All the same, a nice little interlude, and another sign of the darker themes we can expect from Hinchcliffe and Holmes.

Doctor Who: The Ark in Space

Part One
 

“You’re improving, Harry!”

“Am I?”

“Yes, your mind is beginning to work. It’s entirely due to my influence, of course. You mustn’t take any credit.”

From the start it’s clear that, great though the sets are, the special effects for this story look particularly dated from a modern perspective- from the start the space station is clearly a small plastic model on a wire and the camera has been sprayed with green stuff. I don’t usually bother about such things in old Doctor Who but in this story they are essential to the atmosphere the story is trying to create. Not necessarily a problem at the time, but it keeps me from feeling the suspense.

Not that it’s a problem with this first episode, which may be mostly padding but it explains where we are and gives us a chance to get used to this new and rather splendid TARDIS crew. The dialogue is fantastic, all three actors are great and there are lots of nice character touches, from the Doctor using a yo yo (a first!) to check the gravity to Harry showing us just how old-fashioned he is by suggesting brandy for Sarah’s recovery from oxygen starvation. But the Doctor’s speech is of course great, and a real high point.

Sonic Screwdriver mission creep continues, although we actually see the unscrewing of screws this episode. And I wonder if the voice of the High Minister is based on Thatcher, well known at the time for the snatching of milk?

Part Two

“Gremlins can get into everything, old girl. First law of the sea.”

I was expecting this story to be great, so I was surprised that I found it quite slow and tiresome. Not a lot happens, there’s too much talking, there’s little sense of threat, and most of the drama comes from a character (Noah) becoming irrationally suspicious of the Doctor, something which really annoys me. It’s frustrating for the viewer and seldom achieves much but to hold up the plot.

Oh, and the bubble wrap is somewhat unfortunate from a modern perspective! I’ll let that lie though.

There are some interesting bits though- Noah was given his nickname as a reference to mythology even though his real name, Lazar, rather appropriately recalls Lazarus. I bet that was deliberate. And the concept of alien insects laying eggs in people’s bodies is indeed horrible, as the Doctor says- an early sign of the programme going to darker places than would have been allowed under the previous regime.

Part Three

“Well, fancy a member of the fair sex being at the top of the totem pole.”

There’s a hint that the society that built the ark was not exactly utopia- the TARDISeers are “degenerates” and “the genetically impure don’t count.” But this episode is where the threat posed by the Wirrn becomes established, in a tightly scripted thriller that would’ve been great if it wasn’t so overlit and we didn’t see so much of the rather unconvincing monster. There’s also a great line from the Doctor: “It may be irrational of me, but human beings are quite my favourite species.”

Oh, and I think this is the first time we hear the word “transmat”.

Part Four

 

“How do you think I’m doing? Twit!”

So the Wirrn are from Andromeda? I can accept them surviving without oxygen for years and drifting through space, but the space between galaxies? That’s a very long way!

I love the scene with the Doctor “encouraging” Sarah to get through the vent. And there’s a satisfying ending with Rogin’s heroic self-sacrifice, which strangely echoes the way the BBC worked at the time: “We don’t want trouble with the space technicians’ union, Doctor. That’s my job.” And of course Noah sacrifices himself too. The human spirit indeed triumphs in the end.

I was surprised to feel a little ambivalent about this one. There’s much that’s good, great even, about Holmes’ script, but episode two drags a bit, and it just isn’t directed or lit like the thriller it should be. 3/5.