Doctor Who

[scottcr]

From Davros's post (dunno why it's a spoiler...)

There is something very painful about seeing Colin Baker come

Sorry - couldn't help it

[Davros sock drawer]

It's just spoilered because Sprite hasn't got that far yet.

[Sprite Machine]

The King's Demons

(Blog has pictures)

Every time the Master turns up now, I'm caught completely off-guard, though it's good to know 1980s TV makeup, a wig and a bad French accent are all it takes to pull off a disguise. This time, he's in 13th Century England with a chameleonic robot disguised as King John, attempting to stop the signing of the Magna Carta, which would obviously be very bad for the future of civilisation. By astonishing luck, the Doctor's Tardis arrives in time to stop him. Phew!

[Picture: The Doctor and the Master have a sword fight... not for the first time.]

There's not much more to say about this one. It's kind of fun to see period characters reacting to futuristic incursions as though they're magical, and the writing is more olde worlde style than they usually bother with, which is something. With only two parts, it's a shorter story than most, and quite a breezy way to wrap up the season. With its emphasis on history, it's almost a throwback to the old Hartnell historical serials. Quite fitting that the Doctor should be travelling with an alien dressed as a schoolboy, as this incarnation is basically like a teacher on a field trip.

[Picture: Tegan is distrustful of the Tardis's new recruit. Again.]

Shockingly enough, the robot, Kamelion, is not a man in a shiny suit. It's an actual animatronic, and probably the most remarkable part of this otherwise forgettable story. Freed from the Master's psychic influence, he's now tagging along with the Tardis crew. I guess the producers wanted to get their money's worth out of it.

[Sprite Machine]

I'm gonna try formatting this post. Apologies if it gets messed up or the pictures don't work...

The Five Doctors

Following on from the 20th season is this remarkable anniversary special, originally broadcast to celebrate the show’s 20th year on the air. To replicate the original experience, I would have preferred to have seen the originally broadcast version, but circumstances led me unwittingly to the special edition released much later, with some of the visual and audio effects updated, so I can only comment on this version.

The Doctors meet!

Much like The Three Doctors, the story is little more than an excuse to get the previous incarnations of the Doctor together, plucked out of time and placed inside an elaborate ancient war game. It’s a shame that Tom Baker decided to opt out and that William Hartnell was no longer alive, as this special really ought to be called “The three and a Half Doctors (plus friends)”, but that’s not as catchy. Nevertheless, it’s a delight to see Patrick Troughton (does that man not age?!), and Jon Pertwee back again, while Richard Hurndall takes over as the first Doctor, and some previously unseen footage from Shada is used to explain the fourth Doctor’s absence. Clever!

Trapped within a maze of mirrors, the first Doctor and his granddaughter Susan are reunited. How’s that non-existent pocket of 22nd century post Dalek-invaded Earth been keeping you, Sue?

Despite the absentees, The Five Doctors is a glorious celebration of the show’s history, using every available cast member, reference and villain it can reasonably squeeze into its 100 minute runtime. I genuinely had no idea that a 20-year older Carole Ann Ford would return to play Susan, nor the cameos by Jamie, Zoe, Liz and Yates. And that’s on top of a bright yellow Bessie, Lethbridge-Stewart, The Master, Yetis, Cybermen and a Dalek all running around the battlefield (there’s even time to reverse the polarity of the neutron flow!). It’s a smorgasbord of nostalgia, a who’s who of Who, and it’s quite amazing that it all works so well.

Turlough doesn’t have much to do in this story, but Tegan accompanies the first Doctor into the tower, while Susan remains in the Tardis.

Essentially, the story splits and jumps back and forth to follow each Doctor and a companion as they each take a different route up to the tower of Rassilon. This allows them some breathing space (as well as time to reminisce with old friends), but it does make the story a little scattershot, never settling in one place for very long, until a satisfying culmination towards the end. The lack of arbitrarily dramatic cliffhangers is a blessing; this is just one epic feature without cuts.

Sarah Jane is still Sarah Jane, panicked and often hyperventilating. The third Doctor is still the third Doctor, determined and confident. I swear he cops a feel of her boob at one point.

The fifth Doctor is the anchoring point, but he spends much of the story on Gallifrey, outside of the Death Zone, where he uncovers the President’s secret plans for immortality. Yes, sadly, there is corruption on Gallifrey yet again. This is becoming an embarrassing cliché and I can’t blame the Doctor for not wanting to stick around as President. He does get a brief moment to meet his past selves, which is nicely done. You can get a good sense of how the different versions of the Doctor vary. Davison is definitely the least eccentric of the bunch, a normal and level-headed type by comparison. Pertwee and Troughton play their roles much as they ever did, despite the years in between, and Richard Hurndall does a reasonable job of approximating some of Hartnell’s performance, although it would have been more authentic if he’d fluffed his lines a few times and ended all his sentences with “hmm?”.

Lord President Borusa gets more than he bargained for when Rassilon grants him immortality.

The Five Doctors is hardly a masterpiece of imagination, then, but it’s nevertheless well made and a lovely tribute to the history of the show. The sort of silly-but-fun “why the hell not” exercise I can easily get behind. As it’s a one-off special, the budget would appear to have allowed for better production and visuals. One scene in particular is genuinely great, as a robot ninja busts up a legion of cybermen, teleporting around and lobbing arrows at them, causing them to explode and fall to pieces, arms and heads everywhere. Earlier, a rogue Dalek shoots itself in a hall of mirrors and within its exploded remains is its rarely-sighted grotesque embryo. Marvelous!

Total carnage. I bet Hideo Kojima was a fan.

Sometimes logic has to fly out of the window, though. For instance, the second Doctor tricks the illusion of Jamie and Zoe by recalling that they shouldn’t know who he is, since their memories were wiped when they were returned to their time zones. But by the same reasoning, how would the Doctor have remembered that, as it happened almost immediately prior to his regeneration and exile on Earth. He would have had to have been pulled from the past moments before this, but there’s no indication this is the case when he turns up to visit the Brigadier. Similarly, why exactly is K-9 with Sarah Jane? Mk.I was left on Gallifrey with Leela and Mk.II was left with Romana (in a black-and-white photograph). I suppose it doesn’t matter, really; some questions are best left unanswered for the sake of a bit of fun, and this was a lot of fun. Job done.

[Davros sock drawer]

Ah, well I can answer that last question. K9 had his own spin off programme! That's why he appears with SJS:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VS7KpUZ37eM

Featuring opening titles so awful they're brilliant.

I was looking forward to you seeing this one Sprite. Unlike the preceeding stories I have fond memories of The Five Doctors. It's also a shared memory between my partner and I (and her brother), as they watched it almost constantly on a VHS recording when they were kids. Consequently our house will often resound to cries of "YOU'VE MADDENED IT!" "You seek...Immmorrrrtality?", and "No...not the mind probe!", amongst many other memorable lines.

It's a shame about Baker, but really I can't help but think that he would have dominated proceedings. He was at that time trying to emerge from the shadow of the programme, and besides - he'd have had to wear a wig.

"Tom's putting it in now..."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVIFqWOgWKU

The other major memory I have is of choosing the novelisation from which to read out an excerpt to my English class. I chose the Cyberman massacre/Pertwee zipwire escape bit, and remember my English teacher saying "You can't stop there, it was just getting exciting!"

Anyway, it's a fun romp as you say and still good fun now. I might put the DVD on tonight in fact.

All together now:

"To Rassillon's Tower we go...must choose above, between, below!"

[Sprite Machine]

I had no idea there was a Sarah Jane spin-off back then! (I only know of the modern one.)

[Davros sock drawer]

Best add it to the marathon then!

[Sprite Machine]

That ship has sailed, I feel!

Onwards and upwards...

[Davros sock drawer]

Worth at least seeing the opening credits and fast forwarding to her unboxing K9.

[Sprite Machine]

Worth at least seeing the opening credits and fast forwarding to her unboxing K9.

Holy shit, cheese factor 10, captain!

Incredible! "Here I am going for a jog, again."

[Davros sock drawer]

The re-use of footage they've literally just shown you is pure Garth Marenghi.

[Sprite Machine]

Warriors of the Deep

(Blog has pictures)

Whenever I hear the word "Silurians", I can't help but hear it in Jon Pertwee's posh lispy voice. It's been a long time since they or their Sea Devil cousins appeared in Doctor Who, in two fairly poor serials, and now they've teamed up for round three.

[Picture: The Sea Devils look like samurai. With ray guns. They are awful shots, though.]

Although the rubber suits are better, the story sadly isn't. A group of surviving Silurians has awoken an army of hibernating Sea Devils and plans to attack an underwater base and use it to push the Earth into a nuclear war, wiping out the "primitive" ape life and reclaiming the surface for their own kind. As ever, this comes down to a clash of opposing sides, Silurians versus humans, and, despite the Doctor's reservations, always results in one side snuffing it. I just don't think the Silurians and the Sea Devils are interesting foes. There could be a good story to tell, but this is just your typical monsters/aliens attack story.

[Picture: The inevitable end, but the Doctor doesn't like being forced to kill.]

It's not even particularly well done. Yes, the costumes are a lot better (particularly the Sea Devils - their military armour is a massive improvement over their awful chain mail), but there's still that very cheesy "man in a rubber suit" effect that dates it so badly. The Myrka is even worse. Ambitious though it may be to have a giant quadrupedal lizard roaming the halls of a sea base, it just looks so bad; it's like an oversized pantomime horse. The shootouts are cramped and badly staged, the laser effects weak and ineffective, and when Dr. Solow fights the Myrka, I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry - she does some sort of judo kick slash interpretive dance in front of it, before it zaps her. It's so hilariously bad, in fact, that I'm going to link to a clip of it (skip to 0:36):

On the plus side, the actual sets are well made, with a clean white aesthetic and one room even features a pool! Some of the miniature model work is nice, but you don't see much of it. The computer stuff is in a dated 8-bit retro style, but the concept of a human/computer interface is at least nicely sci-fi-y, although it amounts to nothing in the end.

[Picture: The sea base control room.]

As for the Doctor, I think he's developed an edgier personality, or the writers just wanted an excuse for him to have more fights. He gut-elbows and face-kicks a couple of the security guards before threatening to blow up their reactor "to keep them busy". Granted, it's arguably self defence, but it's a bit more vicious than his usual routine, and let's ignore the fact that he's just infiltrated a secure military facility and shouldn't be there anyway. I blame the new haircut.

[Davros sock drawer]

"There should have been another way...."

Yes, there bloody well should have been!

Warriors is an absolute turkey IMO. Apparently the Myrka was so rushed that the paint was still wet, and it was actually played by the two guys who played Dobbie the pantomine horse in Rentaghost!

[Davros sock drawer]

I think you'll largely agree with this review Sprite:

http://www.shadowlocked.com/201101211322/reviews/doctor-who-complete-reviews-warriors-of-the-deep.html

Fortunately there is some better fayre in this season.

[Bluejam]

The original Myrka design

Agree with all that has been said about Warriors of the Deep. Wasnt that whole sequence used by Michael Grade as evidence as to why Who needed to be cancelled back in the day?

The DVD extras and commentary are really good and they do discuss the Myrka. Apparently you can see the paint on bits of scenary and clothing.

I think I recall the guys inside the costume were given very little time to rehearse.

EDIT - yep, that link confirms what I recall!

[Teabag]

The Myrka is one of the famously bad Doctor Who monsters. That and the Taran Wood Beast. And maybe the Garm.

The next story put the proper shits up me when I was a kid though.

[Davros sock drawer]

I don't mind the Garm too much. There are much worse monsters in the show! The Taran Wood Beast is up there definitely.

[Sprite Machine]

The Awakening

(Blog has pictures)

The Awakening is another two-part story and, as such, presents a comparatively lean adventure. Nevertheless, as a story of an advanced alien probe spawning a devil-like creature, feeding off of "psychic energy" (Doctor Who sure does love its psychic energies), opening a rift into the 17th century and brainwashing a village of war reenactors, it is by no means small, but it does have to rely on a lot of clumsy exposition to push things along.

[Picture: The face of the Malus is quite excellent.]

It's all a bit wishy-washy, really, with giant faces, psychic projections and ghostly apparitions thrown into a melting pot of bizarre happenings. The imagery and implications are quite dark, admittedly, and the brainwashed Hutchinson is an entertainingly mad villain, but I found it unbelievable how the whole village just went along with his progressively weirder requests. There is an uneasy atmosphere to the proceedings, where you're not quite sure how serious everybody is being, whether the threats are real or all part of the game.

[Picture: It isn't shown, but this guy totally gets his head cut off... right?]

I think they could have played up the "are we in the past?" angle a bit more, or played into the "mysterious happenings in a quiet village" theme, where everyone is acting strangely. Maybe a longer story would have done that, but then again, there is something to be said of a story that doesn't drag for the sake of it. There's sadly not much time to develop Tegan's character or her relationship with her grandfather, which turns him into just a plot device and a reason for Tegan to go wandering off. Oh well.

[DonRumsfeld]

The Awakening terrified me as a kid. The Doctor tearing down the wall, the smoke, and then you see the Malus's eyes glowing. Nightmares for a week.

[Teabag]

Yeah, there was a crack in the wall for you.

It's a great idea - a small village with a 50 ft Satan buried behind a wall.

[davidcotton]

Actually I think it was the little one inside the tardis that freaked me out more.

[Teabag]

Especially towards the end when it starts spewing green goo.

[Sprite Machine]

Frontios

(Blog has pictures)

I didn't really think the Tardis was destroyed at the end of part 1 - let's be honest, that's never going to happen - but if such a thing were to occur, it would have to be in a far more interesting story than this, and in a manner far less mundane than being caught in a meteor shower.

[Picture: The Doctor looks good in glasses; he should wear them more often.]

Gravity is the theme here, and a race of Tractators are using it against a crashed Earth colony to smash its people with meteorites, drag them underground, and eventually turn the planet itself into a mobile home. For some reason that is never explained, the colony leaders want to control the flow of information and keep this whole underground business hush-hush amongst the colonists. Predictably, the Doctor and company are accused of being the aggressors, there's a power struggle amongst the colonists, and frankly by this point I was bored.

[Picture: I like how the Doctor saves Tegan by pretending she's a robot slave. Speaking of robots, what has happened to Kamelion since he joined the crew?]

There are a few things that kept my interest. Turlough recalling his ancestral memories (what?) about the Tractators, leading to a superb piece of overacting. I like Turlough; it's as if he knows he isn't going to be in the show very long so he overdoes everything. He's never dull, I'll give him that. There's also some funny business with a hatstand, which apparently the colonists have never seen before and they think it's a gun or something.

[Picture: Get back or I'll shoot you... with hats.]

There is definitely potential in this idea, but it's so blandly presented. The direction is poor, particularly where any action is involved, and the Tractators are just your typical silly-looking rubber suit monsters. The odd bit of gruesome imagery, such as the corpse of Captain Revere controlling the mining machine, goes some way to make this memorable, but nothing else resonates. A mediocre effort overall.

[Davros sock drawer]

Watched Frontios recently myself, and that's exactly my thoughts on it too. Only thing I would add is that the repetitive Militaristic musical refrain got on my nerves throughout.

[Davros sock drawer]

By the way, we watched the Five Doctors special edition at the weekend, as we'd never seen it before. We were all set to do our best Rassilon impressions when - what the hell?! They've changed his voice! The original is one of the funniest performances in the whole story!

My gf was so upset she didn't watch the ending. Boo!

[Sprite Machine]

Aww, that's a shame. Is there any way we can blame George Lucas for this?

[Davros sock drawer]

Why not! Unlike George Lucas though, the BBC put both versions on the DVD.

[Creamstick]

If you cycle through the audio tracks on disc 1 of The Five Doctors, there's a hidden commentary track with David Tennant, Phil Collinson and Helen Raynor. It's good stuff, and quite funny.

[Davros sock drawer]

Cool, I'll have a look for that.

[Teabag]

It is good. I'm pretty sure they're drinking.