Doctor Who: The King's Demons

Part One


“He’s said to be the best swordsman in France.”

“Fortunately, we are in England.”

Crikey, forced to watch a story on video again. Doesn’t seem to happen very often these days.
Terence Dudley again… oh dear. It’s the middle ages, and we begin by having a series of mediaeval tropes paraded before us- the travelling tyrant king; the feast; the challenging to a duel by the dropping of a gauntlet; the joust. Then the TARDIS lands.

Two quite astonishing things happen regarding our heroes early on in the story. Firstly Tegan has actually changed her clothes, and secondly, our heroes unaccountably fail to recognise that Sir Gilles Estram is being played by Anthony Ainley and thus is obviously the Master.

Gerald Flood is excellent as the king, especially as the part he’s playing is somewhat more complicated than it at first appears. The sets and locations are also fab. Of course, the best thing about it is the king’s song. Still, the whole thing feels a bit dull and pointless.

The cliffhanger made me laugh out loud. This is the second time in a row that the return of the Master has been heralded by “So you escaped from…”


Part Two

“Mediaeval misfits!”

There’s something a bit embarrassing about the “Arise, Sir Doctor” scene. Still I’m sure it’s just a one off and it’ll never happen again.

The Master’s plan is just to meddle in history. As the Doctor says, it’s “small time villainy by his standards” and more reminiscent of the Meddling Monk, although of course Terence Dudley’s scriptwriting pales in comparison to that of the great Dennis Spooner. Oh, and he has Tegan flying the TARDIS again.

The Doctor and Master get a rather stagy confrontation scene which makes no sense whatsoever in terms of the Master’s motivation and which consists pretty much entirely of toe-curdlingly embarrassing dialogue. Still, at least we’re introduced to Kamelion, who at least looks rather good.

After a rather contrived ending, Kamelion joins the TARDIS crew for some reason. No doubt we’ll be seeing him all the time now. And after a brief interlude of the Doctor being nasty to Tegan (he really doesn’t like her, and I’m actually starting to feel sorry for her), they’re all off to the Eye of Orion.


Oh dear. That was a bit of a mess. I’ll be generous and give it 2/5 for looking good and being well performed. But the script was awful.

As for the season as a whole, it doesn’t get very good marks either at only 3/5, the worst score so far. Aside from the excellent Enlightenment, only Mawdryn Undead really managed to impress me. I’m hoping for better next season. But first, a bit of nostalgia…

Doctor Who: Time-Flight

Part One

“Are you responsible for this box, sir?”

“Well, I try to be.”

Ah, a Concorde, that technological marvel! That dates this story immediately- this is set back in the days before the future became considered passé. Although the décor inside, and especially the glimpse of newspaper, date this story in quite another way. But oops- where’s it gone?

Inside the TARDIS we have a perfunctory discussion about going back in time to save Adric, but within what feels like thirty seconds all of this is over and they’re all off to the Great Exhibition. This is most awkward, and although it’s probably true to say there can’t be more than a certain amount of character stuff in a format where you’re never more than 25 minutes from a cliffhanger or story climax (something which doesn’t apply to the “new series”, where although the stories are shorter the episodes have time to breathe), it could have been better handled than this. I’m noticing more and more how much poorer the treatment of the current large TARDIS crew compares to the original lot. It’s not as though Ian or Babs got all that much character stuff either, just the amount that was required by the constraints of the genre, but it worked. For this crew, it doesn’t.

The TARDIS lands on a runway- please don’t let this be another Faceless Ones! It’s interesting to look for Tegan’s reaction here to finally being at Heathrow- will she stay or will she go, to paraphrase Joe Strummer at around this time? 

Thankfully, lots of tiresome scenes of the TARDISeers falling under suspicion from the authorities are curtailed by mentions of the good old Brig and some chap called Sir John Sudbury from “C19”, with some UNIT bloke at the end of the phone going so far as to insist the Doctor be briefed on the missing plane. On the other hand, it’s all a bit too continuity heavy. Perhaps they could streamline all this into, I don’t know, perhaps the Doctor carrying some paper that’s, I dunno, psychic?

So a second Concorde takes off, with the TARDIS, on its side, on board. And our heroes plus pilots end up in some illusory other world which turns out to be the Jurassic. We get a surprisingly highbrow reference to Berkeleyan philosophy for such a silly story (“That is why this tree / doth continue to be…”) and there’s some bloke in weird make up speaking an odd language in a funny voice. It seems he’s played by someone called Leon Ny Taiy. I wonder who he is?

Part Two

“Magic? Arabia?”

Sop, there are some squidgy, semi-corporeal things that control people and do other things required by the plot, except that some annoying professor bloke is able to resist its control. He thinks he’s in Siberia. Ho hum. Still, as time goes on he’ll become gradually less annoying until he morphs into an almost exact clone of Dr Tyler off The Three Doctors. Oh, and the Plasmatons are a bit like Gell Guards, I suppose.

Nyssa and Tegan have to pass through the obligatory illusory version of Adric, on account of he just snuffed it, and then they get a Melkur and a Terileptil, just to remind them of some of the more mildly disappointing of their recent adventures.

We get a decent retro-looking Ray Harryhausen monster conjured up by Kalid, but rather suddenly he’s defeated. And then turns out to have been the Master in disguise all along. Naturally, he had to disguise himself as a bizarre Aladdin style conjurer and speak in some weird made-up language, even when no one else was around, because, er, um, er…

Part Three

“The Xeraphin is calling us.”

We begin what will become a tradition of full frontal refusal to explain how the Master escaped from his last sticky situation with the obligatory “So you escaped from Castrovalva”. Then the plot starts all over again, this time with the baddie being the Master instead of some weird conjurer type. At least our villain, stranded here, now has a motive.

Two pilots muck about in the TARDIS for a bit, while the Doctor discovers the entire Xeraphin race is locked up in some column thing. The Prof sacrifices himself (yay!) and then we get a battle of wills between two random Xeraphins. Don’t get me wrong, it all makes a sort of sense, but it’s all a bit random, innit?

Part Four

“I’ll explain later.”

I don’t at all like the Doctor’s brief admission that the Master has finally defeated him, it’s unDoctorishly defeatist. I realise this Doctor is supposed to be less charismatic and less assertive- fair enough- but more and more I’m seeing something beyond the character of Davison’s excellent Doctor- a lack of respect for the character from the scripts. The Doctor should always be the hero- this is his show, after all.

It all ends with a bargain between the Doctor and the Master, manipulated by the Doctor to strand the Master on Xeraphas- it’s all strangely reminiscent of the conclusion to The Mind of Evil. It’s a nice touch, and at the same time a bit embarrassing, to see Tegan actually acting as an air hostess.

The story does tend to stretch credulity somewhat, even given the necessary conventions of the genre, with how easily the Concorde pilots adapt to the fantastic events they’ve witnessed, with their insistence on joking about it even when faced with scepticism from their superiors really pushing it.

Tegan gets wistful while wandering the terminal (Terminal 3 was new then, right?) but it’s a huge shock when the Doctor and Nyssa just take of without her without warning.

This is an odd story. For the first time in ages it’s obviously been written and performed as though purely a kids’ show- see the bloke playing the captain of the second Concorde- not a bad performance but one clearly tailored for a kids’ show. It’s a throwaway load of nonsense, of course, more like T-Bag or Emu’s Pink Windmill than Doctor Who, but actually on those terms it’s sort of ok. 2/5.

As for Season 19, at 3.429/5 it rather surprisingly ties exactly with its predecessor. But neither season has exactly scored well. This comes as a genuine surprise to me- I thought I actually liked this season quite a lot!

Doctor Who: Black Orchid

Part One

“Medium pace? Slow?”

“Fast.”

“Top hole!”

Another script by Terence Dudley, and I’ve no idea what to expect. Will it be another good ‘un, like Four to Doomsday? Or more drivel in the style of K-9 and Company? One thing’s for certain: he certainly watched Brideshead Revisited on ITV last year. It’s the 1920s, and the BBC does this period even more splendidly than it did the 17^th century in the last story. Everything about this story looks sumptuous. It’s just that its roots are showing rather obviously, what with its being set largely in an aristocratic country house in the ‘20s.

I had to laugh at the TARDIS landing a mere second after it would have been seen by the porter on the platform. Still, it’s a charming setting from the off. So much so that apparently even Tegan has now decided she’s not in such a hurry to get back to Heathrow after all, and wants to stick around a bit. All well and good, but it feels rather sudden.

There’s dialogue about the Great Fire of London which our heroes started at the end of the last story, which tends to deepen the sense of paradox even further- apparently the fire would have happened anyway. Eh? Even if the Terileptils had been left to get on with things? Perhaps we can retcon this to be a fixed point in time, but the only way the fire would have happened anyway is if the Terileptils’ plan was inevitably doomed, which rather does away with any sense of threat.

Anyway, back on topic. Our heroes are unexpectedly picked up by Lord Cranleigh’s chauffeur, and driven away in a rather fab looking car. The Doctor is expected, and is charged with a task of the utmost seriousness; Cranleigh himself is out for a duck, and his team is in the midst of a batting collapse. Can the Doctor save the day?

It’s an odd premise, and above all an odd idea for a Doctor Who story. This is often stated to be the first “pure historical” since The Highlanders, and obviously that’s true in the literal sense. But it doesn’t really belong in the same category as all those stories from all those years ago, being neither a comedy nor a serious rumination on history. I suppose it could be said to be a pastiche, doing for Brideshead Revisited what The Smugglers did for Doctor Syn, but this is no swashbuckler. No, this is a real oddity- not necessarily a bad thing, and this season has shown a commendable variety in types of story. 

There’s a lot of fun with the period, with words like “mater” and “ripping” being thrown around with abandon, Traken being “near Esher” and the party scenes are great fun, with Nyssa at last allowed to let her hair down a bit courtesy of Anne’s scheme. Plus Michael Cochrane’s great, and Tegan’s having fun, and is thus great again.

But after the initial fun of the party stops and the plot starts, it’s all quite slow, with the scenes of the Doctor lost in the priest hole dragging interminably.

Part Two

“Brazil?”

“Where the nuts come from…”

There’s some fun at the start, with Adric being a pig and Nyssa having fun, but sadly things become very tedious indeed as soon as the Doctor is accused of murder. I hate it when the device of our heroes being wrongly accused of things is used as a cheap dramatic hook- it’s lazy, and frustrating in a way which simply isn’t at all entertaining. The story never recovers from this, with the final revelation being that the story may look like Brideshead Revisited but it is in fact Jane Eyre with a touch of King Kong. But the lack of any significant clues early on in the story means the resolution comes out of left field. 

It’s also annoying to once more see pretty much most of the characters in the story being invited into the TARDIS for a short hop back to the house. This sort of thing is starting to become a real problem.

So overall, in spite of some charmingly amusing scenes at the beginning, in the end the story doesn’t really work dramatically. It looks great, but left me feeling rather annoyed with things. 2/5.

Doctor Who: Four to Doomsday

Part One

“How can Earthlings have penetrated us?”

Oh dear, Terence Dudley. I didn’t enjoy his K-9 and Company script very much. But incredibly he’s managed to produce a real gem with this story.

We begin with a spaceship drifting through space like an Imperial Star Destroyer. It’s enough to make one nostalgic for Season Seventeen. Then we move into the TARDIS for a scene which, with three companions, feels almost domestic in its familiarity. Suddenly this TARDIS crew feels fully established, with Adric flying the Ship (he’s being shown a lot more trust by this new Doctor) and Tegan wanting to get back to Heathrow.

The Doctor leaves the TARDIS to explore, in a charming scene with the strange Monopticon- something which would have seemed far more sinister at the time than it does in today’s CCTV infested age. Instantly the new Doctor feels fully-established, and it’s clear he’s going to be great. Already he’s the Doctor. 

Unfortunately, the scenes with the three companions inside the TARDIS are a complete contrast to this. Tegan has a right whinge, really annoying me for the first time, while Adric takes his utter gittery to heights undreamed of as he announces that “That’s the trouble with women. Mindless, impatient and bossy.” This raises even Nyssa’s heckles; there’s a definite sense that this is the story during which she slowly comes to the settled conclusion that Adric is an utter pillock.

The Doctor dangles a spare key around in a moment that feels very low key post “New Series”. The TARDISeers disembark, watched by Monarch, played magnificently by Stratford Johns. He’s a great villain, with eminently quotable dialogue, right from the start. And there are plenty of opportunities for banter between him and the Doctor from the very start. Instantly this story feels fun in a way no story since The Horns of Nimon (or Shada) really has.

It’s 1982, and at last we get the first reference to punk rock in Doctor Who! Apparently the Doctor thinks that wearing safety pins is “barbaric”. Grr! Tegan, on the other hand, seems to prefer the Spandau Ballet look. How very contemporary. 

Meanwhile, further 80s pursuits abound as Adric plays Manic Miner in the TARDIS, bored with Nyssa’s company. Eventually he tires of such pleasures and appears before Monarch, to be heralded as “the boy who got his sums wrong.” Monarch’s dialogue in this scene is all somehow rendered hilarious by Johns’s performance.

After a pleasant chat Monarch dismisses everyone and sods off to have a look at the TARDIS. He is most put out at its refusal to yield to his instruments. Meanwhile our heroes meet the ships motley crew of “Earthlings”. It feels wrong for the Doctor to be describing them as such. And when Adric asks for someone to “pass the sodium chloride please”, clarified by the Doctor as salt, I’m reminded of the educational element of the early Hartnells, and in fact the whole script seems to have a Hartnellesque feel. Of course, it also reminds me of the unfunny Doctor Who “spoof” in the finale of Extras.

Part Two

“Ah, the flesh time!”

It’s odd to have a story which is carried along by intrigue rather than actual peril, but this is gripping all the same. We’re fed bits of information gradually, mainly through Bigon, and he’s an interesting character- rational, sceptical, much tried and rather depressed. We also get this Doctor’s first historical namedrop (Drake) and this era’s first big historical error, that the Mayans existed eight thousand years ago.

There’s more Hartnellesque educativeness with Bigon’s gratuitous mention of photosynthesis, and lots of bizarrely Blue Peter-esque cultural displays. But it all works rather well, however strange and unusual in style it may be for a Doctor Who story at this point.

The revelations continue, all relevant to the story, culminating in the hoplite surviving being stabbed to the heart and Bigon’s revelation that he’s not flesh and blood but in fact an android in the Android Invasion style. Again, no real threat to our heroes, but a magnificent cliffhanger once again.

Part Three

 

“Love?”

“The exchange of two fantasies, your majesty.”

Monarch “explains” the situation to Nyssa and Adric and, before our very eyes, Adric proceeds to leap headlong over a carnivorous fish of the genus Carcharhinus. At least in State of Decay his apparent betrayal was an apparent ruse; here, he is simply being an utter git. And possibly worse than anything is his cheap shot at Nyssa over the Master and her father, which just might be a bit of a sensitive subject.

Sadly, for the first time, Tegan starts to become annoying, panicking and trying to get to the TARDIS for no reason. Only the character’s third story and already she’s being written badly. Still, there are positive aspects to this; the Doctor’s failure to convince her reminds us that this Doctor has far less charisma or gravitas than his predecessor, something he finds frustrating, and this is already becoming a character point. Best of all, of course, is that Tegan hits Adric in the face and knocks him unconscious. I suddenly like her again.

The cliffhanger to this episode, with the Doctor about to be beheaded, is incredibly the first time any of the TASRDISeers are placed in any danger whatsoever. And yet the story has been intriguing, gripping and above all fun.

Part Four

“You may keep the pencil.”

There’s an allusion to the previous era as the Doctor is asked to turn out his pockets, a scene which symbolises that there are things which have changed (a cricket ball rather than a yo yo) but also things which haven’t (the piece of string is something I can imagine Tom carrying). The following scene, in which the Doctor admonishes Adric for being such a complete and total utter git, also throws light on what has changed. Tom wouldn’t have had all this trouble keeping the brat in line. But this apparent weakness of the Doctor actually works well in developing his character; old, wise, but cursed with a young and unprepossessing appearance which leads others to underestimate him. I’m sure there’ll be many changes but Davison’s Doctor seems fully formed at this point. Oh, and Davison was several years younger than I am now when he filmed this, which is in no way scary.

The whole stuff with the cricket ball in space is fab (sod the physics of it, it’s great!) and we get a satisfying ending with Monarch hoist by his own frog poison. 

I’ve always been extremely fond of Four to Doomsday. I know most other fans don’t feel the same, but this is the story which roused my fandom from a semi-inert state when I recorded it from UK Gold in 1997. My mate and I would quote reams of Monarch’s dialogue for weeks. Next week came Kinda, and I was hooked again for good. I was worried this viewing would spoil it for me and it wouldn’t be as good as before, but I should have had more faith. I don’t care that the history is dodgy or the plot doesn’t really make sense- this is the most fun I’ve had with a Doctor Who story since The Horns of Nimon. 5/5.

K-9 and Company: A Girl's Best Friend

“Oh Doctor, you didn’t forget!”

Wow. Surely that’s the greatest theme tune / title sequence combo in all of recorded history? Classy, sophisticated, and in no way tacky or dated. Good to see that Sarah (great to see her again!) is a fellow Grauniad reader, although sadly she prefers the white stuff to a nice glass of red.

We have a new writer, Terence Dudley, and as per usual for the marathon I’ll try my best to pretend I’ve never encountered anything of his, before! I haven’t seen K9 and Company before, though, and it’s the last story in the whole marathon to be a first viewing. I have now seen everything. Exciting, innit?

We get a string of clichés to begin with; a coven of stock pagan human-sacrificing bad guys, we know the drill. Unfortunately anyone who’s seen The Wicker Man is going to suspect the whole village of being in on it, so there’s little in the way of surprising plot twists all the way through. So we get such vaguely familiar tropes as a Herne the Hunter figure, a goat, and worship of both Hecate and a Celtic goddess whose name I don’t recall- surely’ different pantheons? And I had to raise an eyebrow at the concept of an entire village practising the “old religion” in 1981…

We finally get to meet Sarah’s Aunt Lavinia. Unfortunately, though, we also get a lot of long, stagy, awkwardly acted drawing room scenes where all the characters seem to be based on Margot and Jeremy from The Good Life.

Still, Sarah’s fab as always, but the story relies rather heavily on her general fabness to carry everything else. This is pure telefantasy by numbers, not very encouraging for what’s supposed to be a pilot.

Oh, and K-9’s in this, isn’t he? Mark 3, so presumably constructed alongside Mark 2 as that seems the only opportunity for it to have happened. We get an interesting exchange between Brendan (surprisingly likeable; a sort of non-annoying Adric) concerning the Doctor: “Who is the Doctor?” “Affirmative.” It’s all gone a bit War Machines.

Overall it’s a bit of a wasted opportunity. A plot which consists of a few well-known tropes working their way through in the predictable fashion, and establishing very little that would sustain a series, what with its very small regular cast and total lack of a direction to go in. 2/5.

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.