Torchwood: Miracle Day (Part Nine)

“We need you to write history.”

Two months have passed (“Day 61 of the Great Depression”), and much has happened. This episode feels very different, in fact; the action has largely moved back to Wales, and there’s a real sense that we’re reaching the endgame, with lots and lots of revelations. John Fay does an excellent job of keeping the characterisation on track as we whizz through it all.

The opening scene, with Gwen robbing a pharmacy, has lots of unintended consequences with the recent riots down south, while the use of pizzas echoes Torchwood’s beginnings in Everything Changes, a long time ago now. It’s also quite arresting that Gwen’s dad is being given diamorphine (pure heroin) by his ex-police officer daughter.

Meanwhile, Esther and Jack are holed up somewhere up in Scotland while Jack recovers from his wounds. Once again, Esther shows that she is competent despite her doubts. It’s hard to escape from the realities of what the world has become, though; I’m not sure how Esther is supporting Jack and herself, but Rhys is forced to consider taking a job which is essentially the transport of concentration camp inmates to the gas chambers, just to make ends meet. This series has done an excellent job of showing us how a whole society can eventually come to accept such things.

Surprisingly, it seems that no one at the CIA has noticed Rex’s obvious complicity in last week’s escape. Perhaps Shapiro knows, and is taking advantage of the situation? He’s certainly a lot more pensive and philosophical that he was last episode, even passive in his willingness to allow Rex to pretty much do as he wants.

Rex is certainly on top of things, though, unearthing a 1935 pulp magazine story which is clearly based on Jack’s experiences in 1928. The writer’s entire family seem to have vanished, but the earlier murder of a family member means that DNA traces must exist. Unfortunately, it’s Charlotte who takes charge of this, and she’s an agent of the Families. Unsurprisingly, she finds nothing. There’s only so long this sort of thing can go on before she gets caught.

Things are coming to a head for Jilly, too, as her promotion is shown to consist of a new identity, a one-way ticket to Shanghai and a trip to the “Blessing”. We’re getting a lot of exposition here, not that I’m complaining. An action sequence of some kind is pretty much obligatory at this point, so we have the Gestapo narrowly failing to find Gwen’s dad.

One thing I certainly wasn’t expecting was to see Oswald Danes walking into Gwen’s home. He’s not exactly made welcome, but he has the psychopath’s ability to manipulate. Once Jack and Esther arrive, we get to see what he has to say. At first, all this stuff about “Harry Bosco” doesn’t seem to amount to much, but the simple concept of deliberate mistranslation turns out to be the key to everything. I like this; everything hinges on language, which is all a bit metatextual.

The scene between Jilly and the geeky bloke is fascinating; is he a member of the Families? He certainly seems to know a lot about them, and gets one fascinating line: “One family took politics, one family took finance, one family took media.” It’s implied, though, that this neat division of labour is all in the past.

It all kicks off in the last few minutes. Gwen’s dad is carted off to the death camps, but it suddenly becomes clear that the “Blessing”, whatever it is, runs right through the centre of the Earth between Shanghai and Buenos Aires. Somebody should give Rhys a gold star for his geography homework.

So, the team splits and heads to those two cities. Rex seems to have very little trouble getting permission from Shapiro to “go off-grid”; to me, this heavily implies that Shapiro knows exactly what he’s doing, and is far more in control than he appears. But he and Esther, as soon as they arrive in Argentina, are somehow betrayed by Charlotte. Jack, Gwen and Danes(!), in Shanghai, meanwhile, find Jack’s health beginning to deteriorate at an inconvenient time; is he dying?

Jilly’s trip to see the Blessing is dragged out by all sorts of suspense. We even get a strangely Moffat-esque line about “something in the corner of your eye that you can’t quite see.” What we see, though, is very abstract and odd. We still have no clear idea what it is. But what people see is subjective. And Jilly’s revelation is that “I’m right.” What does this mean? No doubt we’ll find out in the last episode.

Meanwhile, it turns out that Jack’s serious health problems might not be as inconvenient as they appear at first, as his blood seems to roll towards the blessing…

Torchwood: Miracle Day (Part Six)

“Never question a miracle. You might not like what you find.”

There’s a definite change of focus here from the very start, as we begin with Phicorp middle manager Stuart Owens and Janet, his assistant and bit on the side. He’s curious about what his employers are up to, but as soon as his bloke in Shanghai discovers something big, which we don’t see, he’s so horrified he commits suicide by jumping from a very high building. The “forty-five club” is just the latest of many brilliantly horrible concepts which have followed on from the main theme of the season.

We turn to Rex, recording a message about what he’s seen in the San Pedro Overflow Camp. He’s deeply affected by what he’s seen happen to Vera, and the awful reality of the extermination camp. He has a very clear idea of the implications, noting that it may start with the Category Ones, but will soon spread to convicted felons, illegal immigrants (there’s a subtly disturbing later dialogue echo of this), and so on. It may sound extreme, but all of this has of course happened before.

Marc Vann is superb as Colin Maloney, struggling to come to terms with the reality and the consequences of his actions. The conversations between him and his agonised underling, a kind of Lady Macbeth, are gripping drama. The banal, Pooterish little man from last episodes, with his golf buggy and liking for Phil Collins, is long gone. This is the banality of evil writ large.

Gwen, meanwhile, is trying to get her father out of another camp, on South Wales, and one of her scenes in particular is at the very heart of what this episode is about. As soon as Dr. Patel washes her hands of what she’s doing with a simple “I don’t make the rules, you know,” Gwen lets rip, and she’s magnificent. “Don’t you dare look at me and tell me you’re obeying orders,” she says, “Don’t you bloody dare.” There’s no answer to that. And the parallels are very, very stark.

Jack, meanwhile, might be rather clever in what he’s doing but he doesn’t really discover much. Still, it’s fun to watch how he cleverly manoeuvres himself to confront Owens in a plush restaurant, only to discover that Owens, much though he’d like to, doesn’t know anything, and is no more “evil” than most of us. But this middleman, this ordinary man, nevertheless gets a magnificent speech in which he makes clear just how deep this conspiracy has to go, and how long it must have been planned. We do learn one thing, though; “the blessing” has something to do with it. We know, because we have a basic understanding of how serial drama works, that this will eventually prove very, very significant.

This is an episode full of scenes paralleling other scenes through a series of one-on-one conversations. Dr Patel, seemingly decent, has her hands deep in the blood whereas Owens is hard to particularly condemn.  Rex’s scene with Maloney is different, though. In direct contrast with Jack, he assumes he’s dealing with a decent man who can be reasoned with, and only we, the audience, realise the danger he’s put himself in; the scene where he’s looking for a weapon and alights on a simple pen is the single scariest moment in this episode. Maloney has had a very long day.

Esther has been very self-assured thus far, but as soon as she finds herself in a situation of physical violence she pretty much loses it, only eventually being saved by a change of heart from Private Lady Macbeth. Esther has another crisis of confidence after this, getting a hug from Rex. Is something going to happen between the two of them?

Gwen and Rhys are every bit as magnificent as we expected, not only rescuing Gwen’s dad but blowing up the ovens, and using the Torchwood contact lenses to reveal the truth to the world. Mission accomplished. Except… it’s not. Yes, there’s public revulsion, but the authorities refuse to budge and the situation continues. It’s horrible, but I suspect it’s realistic.

Gwen returns to America, and the lenses are turned against her to provide quite a cliffhanger: “they” have her mother, her husband and her daughter. And they want Jack…

Torchwood: Miracle Day (Part Five)

“Who’s with Anwen?”

“No one. I left her with petrol and a cigarette lighter.”

That opening text thing is starting to get annoying, but never mind. This episode is superb; tense, fast-moving and really pushing the overall story into another stage, with some unexpected shocks.

Vera Juarez is told that the medical panels are over; their conclusions are to be used for establishing legislation defining the three “categories of life”, an ominous phrase. Vera is sufficiently appalled to immediately phone a rather smug Rex. This has to be stopped, and she demands to be involved.

After an off-screen journey right across America, Vera arrives in Venice and meets the team. This is a good opportunity for exposition, and that’s exactly what we get: category one means you’re so badly injured or sick that you’re unable to function yet unable to die; category three means you’re pretty much healthy; and category two is anything that lies in-between, a particularly murky and subjective category. And yet anyone defined as category one or two is sent to one of these mysterious camps. Oddly enough, this all seems to be a result of the medical panels in Washington DC, but seems to have been implemented throughout much of the world, including Europe. Er, not sure about that.

Gwen is off back to Wales to rescue her dad, and her scenes with Rhys are some of the few moments of humour in this uncharacteristically sombre script from Jane Espenson. She has an important mission to undertake, as her mother reminds her in no uncertain terms. The conspiracy runs deep; Phicorp, a private company, is apparently taking over the entire NHS!!!

The scene between Esther and Jack is a nice little character moment. Esther is still struggling with her confidence, as we also see in the following scene, but we also later see her carrying out her mission perfectly effectively. The subsequent discussion is fascinating, too; as Rex points out, there’s no objective way of deciding which category he belongs to. It’s an arbitrary decision, to be made by those with the power to do so. As Vera says, no one should have that much power.

It seems that every camp is equipped with “modules”, which are hidden from view in every photograph. The group quickly plan to infiltrate one, with Rex being taken away in an ambulance complete with hidden recording equipment. I love Jack’s parting words to him!

Oswald Danes, meanwhile, is to speak at a sinister-sounding “Miracle Rally”. Bill Pullman and Lauren Ambrose again show themselves to be the two best actors in this series as Oswald and Jilly Kitzinger argue over the contents of his speech.

Rex discovers the camps, inside, are cold and dark, and that there doesn’t seem to be enough room for the apparent demand. Meanwhile, Vera, posing as a kind of inspector, infiltrates the camp where Rex is being held, where she encounters the rather arrogant and unpleasant Colin Maloney, with his sneer and his golf buggy. And she becomes increasingly horrified by the conditions she finds.

Gwen, in parallel scenes, finds her dad at a similar camp in South Wales. A lot of care has been taken to make this look very different from its counterpart in California- the lighting is much darker, and the camera is certainly much more hyperactive. The atmosphere is unbelievably tense as Gwen and Rhys try to get Gwen’s trusting dad out of the camp. But catastrophe happens from an unexpected quarter; the stress gives Geraint another heart attack. Escape is now simply impossible and Geraint, now no longer conscious, is reclassified to category one. As we shall see, this is going to have horrible consequences.

Vera shows her inexperience with this kind of undercover work as the increasingly awful conditions she uncovers lead her to lose her cool and start a shouting match with Maloney. Tragically, she threatens to have him arrested and prosecuted, showing a touching faith in the authorities which will very shortly turn out to have been horrifyingly misplaced. Maloney, who has consistently exhibited psychopathic tendencies, responds by shooting her, several times. This is a massive shock, but it’s not the first time that a member (sort of) of Torchwood has been unexpectedly and cruelly killed in action. If the word “killed” is appropriate, that is. Things look ominous, though; after a messy cover-up, Vera is quickly put into a module, with the “category ones”.

Jack has been spending this time following Danes, and we get a scene in which he urges him to instead read a speech of his own devising, exposing Phicorp. Sadly, though, pairing John Barrowman with an actor of Pullman’s calibre doesn’t exactly make him look good. He’s a competent actor, although his range is limited, but he doesn’t really belong in this exalted company. Certainly, Pullman brings off the speech magnificently. Danes delivers the message intended by Phicorp, but in his own way.

We end with the shocking revelation that the “modules” are ovens, and that the camps are extermination camps. It’s the Holocaust all over again, on a massive scale. Suddenly Torchwood is dealing with some very, very big themes.

Torchwood: Miracle Day (Part One)

“Wales is insane!”

Now that Torchwood has started airing in the UK I’ll be reviewing it pretty much as it airs for the first time- hopefully in a day or two at least. Blake’s 7 will continue for the rest of the week; though; series three will probably start on Sunday.

It’s a dramatic start; Oswald Danes, a convicted murderer and child rapist, about to be judicially killed. It looks painful. Next we get introduced to CIA operative Rex, who’s pleased his career is going to benefit from a colleague’s wife contracting cancer. Nice. He’s talking on the phone to another new character, the tenacious Esther Drummond. There’s also another apparent regular, Dr. Vera Juarez, who understandably spends much of this episode reacting.

Oh, and there’s Gwen and Rhys, now quietly living in a farmhouse with their baby daughter. They’re still the beating heart of the show and this is completely and utterly the Torchwood we know and love.

It’s hard to judge this episode, really, as it understandably consists mostly of set-up. But set-up should be judged on its own terms, and this is a typically assured example of the beast from good old RTD. All of the new characters feel like real people very, very quickly, there’s plenty of action, and it’s all as pacey as ever. It’s also extremely well directed by Bharat Nalluri of Life on Mars fame.

The central concept is great, too- suddenly, everyone is immortal- and as yet we have no idea where any of this is going. People still get sick, they still get old, they still get injured, but they can’t die, not even when blown up, or when their head is removed. And we have no idea whether people, including Rex, who have survived certain death, will just drop dead if this situation should end.

Our new American viewers are introduced to Wales via some sweeping vistas of the countryside, and we see Gwen and Rhys’ idyllic, if isolated lifestyle. It’s not a life that this urban person would fancy, and I do wonder how they’re supporting themselves. But it’s established that Rhys, domestic as ever, is extremely determined that Gwen’s extremely dangerous life should never again intrude on their lives, especially as they now have a baby daughter. And there’s a real potential for terrible things to happen if they ever get found, as their reaction to an innocent knock on the door makes clear. Except… the last shot of the scene makes us wonder whether those two “tourists” are as innocent as they appear.

There’s a great scene with Oswald Danes insisting that, as his sentence has been successfully carried out, he should be released, or he will sue the Governor of whatever state he’s in, personally, with a good chance of winning. As we later discover, this works, and he’s freed on parole. Bill Pullman nails it here; I’ve never seen him play such an unlikeable character before, but he manages to be both convincing and charismatic here. It’s a superb performance.

Esther, meanwhile, is following up a mysterious email about a hush-hush old British organisation called Torchwood, which is “classified under the 456 regulations”. Her search for scarce information on this organisation leads her to some documents, including photographs of Gwen and Captain Jack Harkness. It’s at this point that Jack arrives, and saves her from a mysterious (and, as we’ll find out, unfortunate) suicide bomber by grabbing her and jumping out of the window. Esther now learns that it’s Jack who’s been destroying all Torchwood records to protect Gwen, and that Torchwood is a kind of defunct British X-Files. Unfortunately for her Jack has, of course, used retcon.

Jack is carrying out investigations of his own, though (at one point posing as “Owen Harper” of the FBI- nice!), and Gwen can’t help but be drawn into things. It starts with her dad suffering a heart attack, leading her and Rhys to travel to Cardiff. Here she learns about Miracle Day from now-Sergeant Andy. Apparently TV and Internet reception is not much good in West Wales and, in spite of owning such a nice house, neither she nor Rhys can afford a smartphone. It’s a nice scene, though and, as ever with RTD, the little touches of the family’s relationship are wonderful.

Sneaking away with Andy to do some investigation (which Rhys has declared verboten), Gwen soon discovers that the “miracle” is only affecting humans, and that population growth is such that society has four months until it collapses. At this point we get a blazing row between her and Rhys, who doesn’t want his wife and daughter getting involved in any of this very, very dangerous stuff.

Esther’s forgotten the previous night’s events, but as soon as she (eventually) gets into work she’s handed a file which will, presumably, jog her memory. While speaking to Rex on the phone she discovers the connection between Miracle Day and Torchwood; that mysterious email arrived at exactly the same time as the last recorded death on the planet. With this, Rhys discharges himself out of hospital and, in some very amusing scenes, hops on a plane and comes to Blighty.

Using information on Gwen, who joined Torchwood in October 2006 (hmm… surely that doesn’t fit with the “one year ahead” continuity?), Rex manages to rather efficiently find out where Gwen lives. He’s not so clever with the Severn Bridge toll, though; why doesn’t he just take a detour and drive around it?

As soon as Rex finds the house, all Hell breaks loose. There’s an initial stand-off, but the still-injured Rex soon collapses. Tying him up doesn’t work, but soon they’re all faced with a bigger problem; a mysterious helicopter, here to assassinate them. This leads to much coolness, with Gwen holding a big gun in one arm and a baby in the other. But this is the point at which Jack turns up, and his gun is even bigger. Still, it’s Gwen who eventually blows up the helicopter. And that’s not the only way in which she’s one up on him; now she’s immortal, and seemingly he’s not.

Just as their troubles seem over, though, Rex has them all kidnapped by the police (including a reluctant Andy), ready to be taken to America...

Torchwood: Something Borrowed

“By day you’re chasing the scum of the universe. Come midnight, you’re the wedding fairy…”

Of all the weeks to watch this one…!

It occurs to me before watching this that there’s something quite clever in making sure that the previous story features a wedding ruined by the death of the groom. Let’s face it: there are all sorts of tropes and genre conventions indicating Rhys should be dead meat. And the similarities between this series and Angel remind me that Joss Whedon would have definitely killed him off. So it’s not only nice, but a genuine twist, that it doesn’t happen.

I’ll be honest; I didn’t really get the humour in this episode. It’s not necessarily that it’s a farce; I’m not exactly the world’s biggest fan of them but I liked The Romans. Then again I don’t exactly have a wide frame of reference when it comes to farces. No, I think it’s the mother-in-law jokes (even if they’re about Nerys Hughes) and seeing this kind of humour in a modern context for which put me off for some reason. I can accept farce in The Romans; that was made in 1965 and is now archive television. It doesn’t feel very Torchwood. Still, lots of individual moments were great, and Ianto gets some nice one-liners. Plus Jack gets his fashion sense critiqued by Rhys’ mum, and Rhys says a very naughty word.

There’s some good character stuff, too; I like the moments with Gwen and Tosh, alone with the wedding dress, unable to really connect with each other, as always. And still we’re being told that Gwen and Jack have a forbidden attraction to each other; it might actually be the shape shifter, but for a moment it looks as though Gwen is actually going to kiss Jack. And, gentleman that he is, it’s clear throughout that he’s jealous of Rhys. There’s always potential for this as a possible future love triangle. After all, the scene with Rhys’ chainsaw cutting out just before Jack shoots the alien dead with a Very Big Gun might be seen to symbolise something by those with dirty minds.

There are other good moments, of course: the shop assistant’s scepticism at Ianto buying a wedding dress for a “friend”; Owen dancing with Tosh to Paul Weller (aaah!); “That’s for calling my mother an ugly thing”. The final revelation that Jack was married long ago isn’t one of them, though; random revelations from Jack’s past are a much devalued currency by now. There’s no sense of any thought-out pattern to his history.

So, an amusing bit of fluff, little more. 3/5. Oh, and is it just me but is it only weddings in pop culture where you get asked if there’s any reason why the couple shouldn’t get married? I’ve been to a fair few weddings, and this never seems to happen in real life.

Doctor Who: Boom Town

“Dinner in bondage. Works for me.”

I’m not sure if I’m remembering correctly here, but a short while before this Marathon started- and what a scarily long time ago that was- there was a thread in the old forum about what we were expecting to happen. I can’t remember what I put, but I rather suspect I’d have been expecting most of all to slag off The Keys of Marinus and to mount an impassioned defence of Boom Town, the most underappreciated gem in all of Doctor Who. And once I’ve finished writing this I’ll have done them both. How time flies.

This blew me away in 2005 and it blew me away again earlier this evening. Which might seem a little odd given its reputation as a cheap and silly bit of lightweight fluff. Certainly I remember not being impressed with the trailer at the end of The Doctor Dances. Actually, I’m very curious about how other Marathoneers have rated it (I don’t read the threads until just after I post my own review)- I’m guessing rather higher than its general reputation if not necessarily that highly overall. It’ll be interesting to see if I’m right.

I may not have realised before I reached this stage of the Marathon that I was going to rate every single story so far 5/5, but it’s safe to say I’m not particularly surprised that this season is looking really quite likely to be my favourite. And Boom Town is absolutely vital to this best of all seasons, in fact the heart of it. Set just before the non-stop action of the season’s climax, this is where the season stops to examine its themes in ways which look both backwards and forwards.

The early scenes are very silly, of course. And yes, technically there are problems with the plot logic. How can Margaret Blaine become Mayor of Cardiff without ever having been photographed? How on Earth can a proposal to demolish Cardiff Castle and replace it with a nuclear power station stand any chance of being reality? How can so many absurd and suspicious deaths not cause someone in authority to raise an eyebrow, however much London may not care if all of South Wales falls into the sea?

But all these things are supposed not to make sense. It’s part of the joke. I can understand how a lot of people would object this type of comedy device being used, of course. (I don’t- I have a weakness for self-referential humour, and I accept this sort of thing as part of the wonderful diversity of styles in Doctor Who) But it’s funny; when Margaret replies to journalist Cathy Salt’s question about the fate of the European safety inspectors with “But they were French!” and regrets that the signs saying Danger: High Explosives were only written in Welsh, the dialogue is signalling that this part of the episode is following the narrative rules of sitcom rather than drama; it’s allowed to have dodgy plot logic as long as it knows that and makes a joke of it.

There’s one very important serious scene in this part of the episode, mind; Margaret decides not to kill Cathy, which will be referred to later on. But essentially the entire section with Margaret and the nuclear station is just a bit of light-hearted preamble, albeit well-crafted, and it’s the serious stuff later on that’s the real meat of the episode. This is paralleled with the regular characters, too; their lighter scenes are put at the beginning before things get serious later, so we get a bit of fun, a bit of banter, a bit of exposition about the rift being a good refuelling spot, and, bizarrely, a brief allusion to the events of An Unearthly Child. But there’s stuff bubbling under, of course; Mickey’s relationship to the three time travellers is fascinatingly ambiguous. On the one hand he’s now being welcomed socially into the group and even takes part in the plan to capture Margaret. But he’s still something of an outsider amongst his maybe-girlfriend and two alpha male types. Jack, meanwhile, gets to be the action hero before taking a back seat for the rest of the episode.

It’s not long before Margaret is captured and the episode proper can begin. After one last great comedy line (“Oh, I sound like a Welshman,” says Margaret, in a line which was of course scripted by a Welshman. “God help me, I’ve gone native.”), the TARDISeers decide to take Margaret back to Raxacoricopalafatorius(?). And with a single line- “They have the death penalty”- the episode suddenly turns on a sixpence. As Margaret explicitly states, the Doctor now has to face the consequences of his actions, and this of course foreshadows coming events in which the aftermath of The Long Game will play a central part. But it also looks back to the consequences of the Doctor causing Rose to be missing for a year (the consequences of which are still being played out in this episode)- in fact, the consequences of the Doctor’s wanderings are a central theme of the season, and this is the episode where we stop to explore it. Throughout the season RTD has been deconstructing the tropes of the programme, and this is the ultimate example of that.

Of course, it’s great for other reasons, too. The dialogue between Margaret and the Doctor before and during their “date” is great not just for the gripping discussion of ethics but for her obvious manipulation of him, for Margaret’s comedy assassination attempts, and for the Doctor’s triumphant reoccupation of the moral high ground as he points out that occasionally sparing the odd someone is how a murderer like Margaret can live with herself.

This is paralleled by the conversation between Mickey and Rose, where Rose finally has o confront the way she’s been treating him- she leaves him behind to go travelling but gets jealous when he starts seeing another woman. And yet she only has to call and he comes all the way to Cardiff for her. She’s forced to conclude that “He deserves better.”

The resolution may be a little overly neat, and perhaps over-reliant on the ever-increasing powers of the TARDIS, but it’s very satisfying as far as the themes and characters are concerned. And now that all that’s been dealt with we can finally get to the climax…



5/5. You guessed it.

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.