Frontios

I like Frontios, even though the Gravis and his Tractators are victims of the eighties Doctor Who lacks budget. They look like fish-headed woodlice but lack animation and suffer from the much-mentioned-in-this-blog problem of 'waddle'. The willing suspension of disbelief is tough in those circumstances, even for a The Web Planet loving Doctor Who geek like me. However, there's enough oddness and tension in the build-up to their appearance to take a little edge of it.

Particularly praiseworthy is Mark Strickson's sterling work as Turlough dredges up a 'race memory' of the Tractators from deep in his subconscious and forces himself through his cowardice and out the other side. One of the themes of this story - intended or unintended - seems to be 'coming of age'. It isn't really heavily pushed but this is the story when Turlough grows up. It is also the story of a boy king, Plataganet, who is forced to take up his responsibilities to a failing colony, even if he isn't ready for it. There's a hint of Henry IV-V about it if you're pretentiously minded like me.

Plantagenet (played with a perpetual pained pride by Jeff Rawle) talks in speeches. He's acting the King, perhaps because he isn't one yet and it takes the events of this story to make him one. Or at least one more true to himself. Before this, he's trying too hard to be his father, the semi-legendary Captain Revere. After this perhaps - to steal a West Wing episode - the people of Frontios will let Plantagenet be Plantagenet.

The Awakening

That was pretty enjoyable stuff.

This is definitely the best of the three Peter Davison two-part stories. It rattles along at a fair old pace, is well cast & well-acted even if (again) it doesn't feel like there's too much on the line. There is a hint or two that the Malus is a threat to more than just Little Hodcombe but it never really comes across.

It also has the air of an old school British horror movie. One of those 'rural horrors' that Mark Gatiss talks fondly of in his rather nice series of horror movies. Doctor Who does the Wicker Man perhaps. There is something intensely creepy about wrongness in an English rural setting. Perhaps its the opposite of the prettiness and the oddness or the realization - which this story brings home rather nicely - that the veneer of 20th-century civilization is a lot thinner than we'd like to think. It doesn't take much to nudge us back into less enlightened times.

And to think this all started off because Tegan wanted to visit her grandad Andrew Verney (Edward Hall). Only in Doctor Who would say grandad be kidnapped by a raving aristo like Sir George Hutchinson (the magnificent Eric Lil formerly of 'Image of the Fendahl') whose mind has been affected by an alien scout from the planet Hakol. So instead of a nice relaxing trip The Doctor, Tegan & Turlough must battle this big faced creature, it's psychic powers and a belligerent gang of yokels who seem to have followed Sir George down the padded road to lalaland.

Actually one of my minor issues with this story is the bizarrely straightforward way the whole village seems to go along with Sir George. He's apparently cut the village off from the outside world and is going to burn Tegan at the Maypole. Would they have stood by and actually let this happen? Certainly, Colonel Ben Wolsey's reaction suggests that they might have tried to stop him. Wolsey (played in fine yoman style by Glyn Houston, formerly of 'The Hand of Evil') seems to have realized that there's something a bit 'lost' about Sir George. On the other hand, the sadistic fun that Joseph Willow (Jack Galloway) gets from the proceedings seems to suggest that things might have been less straightforward than that.

It seems that everyone who dislikes Sir George's war games is rounded up & locked away: Andrew Verney, Jane Hampden (Polly James, also another excellent performance. She and Peter Davison seem to have nice chemistry and there's some nice 'business' with opening and closing the TARDIS doors towards the end which I enjoyed). 

On which note we must pause for a moment. Is it me or is the Peter Davison era the moment the TARDIS loses a bit of its lustre. Instead of being an astonishing thing, capable of blowing people's minds it has become some kind of glorified taxi service. The Fifth Doctor is constantly inviting people in & taking them on short - or long - hops. But I digress.

The Malus itself, which looks like the angry brother of the Face of Boe (perhaps he's Rex from the latest Torchwood series), isn't as effective as it could be, although the minature version has a certain creepiness to it a la ventriloquist dummy stylee. However, there are some nice scenes involving ghostly Cavaliers and Roundheads, the latter of whom butcher one of the villagers rather unpleasantly. A fact that everyone having a jolly time in the TARDIS at the end seems to forget. Let's hope the poor chap didn't have a wife and family who might miss him (and here the Austin Power's scenes involving the death of henchmen springs to mind). I do wonder how they'll explain his death, Sir George's disappearance, and a massive exploding Church to the authorities, especially as everyone in the TARDIS seems more focused on having a nice cup of tea.

Oh, and last but not least I should compliment Keith Jayne on an excellent performance as Will Chandler. Will's a young lad from 1643 who the Malus drags into the 20th-century and Jayne makes him live. It's quite a charming little performance, reminding me (perhaps oddly) of Fraser Hines as Jamie. You can see him as a companion and I like to think there's a series of adventures out there involving the Doctor, Tegan, Turlough, and Will.

Warriors of the Deep

Ah, Warriors of the Deep how nice to see you.

If there is ever a Doctor Who story that would confirm the prejudices of non-Doctor Who viewer towards Classic Doctor Who it is Warriors of the Deep. It's like The Comic Strip Presents: Doctor Who. You can use the pressure of the production as an excuse - and a fair one - but someone, somewhere should have just said: No, this is not good enough. Scrap it.

It's so easy to give it a kicking: it is too brightly and flatly lit; the sets wobble; the Sea Base doors are foam rubber and obviously foam rubber; the Sea Devils have a severe neck problem and waddle slowly along like drunken ducks; no one can shoot straight etc. That's before we mention the Myrka.

What is admirable is the way everyone in it takes it so seriously. There's no arch-camping about; there's no treating it like a comedy or going way over the top because it is 'just' Doctor Who. Everyone is trying hard to pretend they're in a dark cold war thriller with aliens added so that Peter Davison's final line: "There should have been another way" is heart-breaking. There should. There's another strong scene in the final episode when the Doctor takes out his anger on Preston (Tara Ward) and he rages against the human race - similar to Matt Smith's 'nobody human has anything to say to me' scene in The Beast Below. It's strong stuff with the Doctor bought down to earth by Turlough's little aside 'it doesn't excuse what they are about to do'.

Most of the other actors are doing pretty well, although Tom Adams as Vorshak does feel like he's giving a performance that could slot happily into Airplane as he's so straight down the line master and commander. It borders on the pompous.

But in the end, you can't get away from the fact that this is rubbish. It's not the script particularly, although that does feature some clunking lines: "Bring forth the cutting device" and "...the power bloc opposed to the one that runs this base" being two of my particular favorites. It's not the direction, although that is pretty plodding and features some rather bizarre angles. It's the shoddiness of the whole thing, which is vastly unfair on the people that made it who were put under a ridiculous amount of time pressure. The fault, if it is to be laid at anyone's foam rubber bulkhead, is JNT's.

I have one particular geek bugbear about this story - above and beyond the usual stuff - which is the Silurians flashing lights. This drives me insane and considering that Ian Levine was working with the production team by this point on 'continuity' issues it is a disgrace. The lights flash when a Silurian is speaking in time with his voice. Why? WHY? Even assuming that no one bothered to look up or remember the original Silurian story where the 'light' was effectively the focus of mental power and a weapon why did no one say..."These are living creatures. Why would they have a flashing word light? Do they all find it impossible to tell which one of them is talking? Do they only talk in the dark? WHY? WHY!!

It's a bloody shame because I like the Silurians. They're Doctor Who villains with a decent motivation and some shades of grey. They show us - humans - up for the kind of short-sighted, fear-filled ape descendants we really are.

I should mention the Myrka, even if it is only to hammer another nail into the large, probably green paint-stained coffin, of the poor thing. It can only be excused. It's slow, it waddles and it is basically a pantomime horse with affectations. The fact that it's front and rear ends are played by the front and rear ends of the Rentaghost Pantomime horse just makes it worse. So waddling through a brightly lit studio whilst various extras throw themselves at it doesn't help but we all know what the classic moment is don't we. Oh, come on you didn't think I could write a review without mentioning it.

What the hell possessed Pennant Roberts to allow Ingrid Pitt's Doctor Solow the ridiculous posturing with the Myrka as if they were going to go mano-a-mano. Pitt's karate kick is pretty impressive but so flipping stupid it should be illegal. And once having filmed it why the hell did no one else take Pennant aside and tell him to drop it. Then burn the negative.

This is the sort of story that deserves a drinking game all of its own. So you can gather your like-minded friends together and get quietly drunk whilst mocking the whole thing and when Ingrid Pitt karate kicks the glorified pantomime horse you can cheer.

The Five Doctors

So Season 20 comes to an end with a big, sparkly party. The Five Doctor's together. At last.

Except it isn't quite like that. Tom Baker doesn't really appear, except in bits of footage nabbed from the unscreened (and unblogged by me - so far - Shada). Whilst William Hartnell's death means that the First Doctor is played instead by Richard Hurndall. Hurndall doesn't really look much like Hartnell but makes a fair stab at a version of the First Doctor that does the job. After all none of the Doctors - except Davison - are really doing much but a 'best of' performance. The cliches of each incarnation are given a runout. After all, this is a ninety-minute celebration, not an attempt to recreate each Doctor's era.

This was my first proper introduction to most of the older Doctors and unsurprisingly it is Patrick Troughton who I enjoy watching the most. He's so much fun to watch and he's interaction with both the Brigadier, who in post-retirement mode is picked up and dumped in the Death Zone alongside the Second Doctor, and his other-selves is delightful.

The plot is pretty mundane: a.n.other renegade Timelord has seized control of the 'Scoops of Rassilon' and has dragged the various incarnations of the Doctor to Gallifrey and placed them in the Death Zone to play the 'Game of Rassilon'. This is not a particularly cerebral form of Snakes and Ladders but a battle to survive. To add a bit of spice to the mix our nameless renegade sends a Dalek, The Master, a Raston Warrior Robot, a Yeti and a large number of David Bank's Cybermen there to. The purpose of the renegade's complex plan is to find out the secret to IMMORTALITY. He can't do it himself, it's dangerous. So he plans for the Doctor to do it for him. Why he decides to make the Doctor's mission more complicated by adding a load of things in there that'll get him killed I don't know. Gallifreyans never seem to want to do things the straightforward way, do they?

All these monsters have very little function except as nostalgic threats to the Doctor. The loan Dalek is pretty summarily dispatched in a series of Skaroesque corridors that seem to have been built in an extension to the Death Zone, the Cybermen do a lot of marching but are mainly there to be butchered either by the Raston Warrior Robot or The Master. The Yeti, which must be a real one, not a Great Intelligence infested robot, just does some roaring and clawing. (Classic Doctor Who has an uncanny knack of forgetting which of its monsters are robots and which are not. The Yeti are both but the monstrous ones are robots. The Daleks aren't just robots they have organic content. The Cybermen aren't just robots...etc but I digress.)

Even poor old Antony Ainley is the second banana here to the other renegade. Ainley gets to do some nice work, including the nice scenes with the High Council of Gallifrey (which due to budget constraints seems to consist of three Time Lords sitting in a Garden Centre) but eventually ends up tied up after getting a punch in the chops from the Brigadier.

O but he does get involved in one of Doctor Who's more stupid setups. The checkered floor and pi. I'm not going to delineate precisely why this scene is ridiculous because I could be here all day but fundamentally the actions of the characters do not fit with the explanation. Pi is a mathematical concept that I always hated as a schoolboy that has something to do with circles. It does not in any way explain what the hell takes place with The Master, the First Doctor, Tegan, and the Cybermen. It just doesn't make nonsense, let alone sense.

In the end, the renegade is unmasked, the Doctor gets to meet up with old companions - real & imaginary - and the bad guys are defeated - and I do like the fate that awaits those who search for immortality. Rassilon, of whom we hear much-awed talk, turns out to be a chubby mustached man who in a Pertwee story would get cast as the annoying civil servant. I prefer him as Timothy Dalton.

But in the end all these criticisms, the mocking of Paul Jericho's 'No! Not the Mind Probe' line, the cliches and all the rest of it do not amount to a hill of beans. This - like The Three Doctors - isn't a story to be judged on quality. It's almost impossible to juggle this many characters and get a smooth plot from it. We're not watching The Five Doctors for that stuff.

We're watching it as a celebration, as a 'best of' & we want to hear the Third Doctor 'reverse the polarity of the neutron flow' and see the Doctors mocking each other. We want a bit of fun. And that more than anything else is what The Five Doctors is about, fun. That and a little nostalgia.

The King's Demons

Like "Black Orchid" in the previous season this two-parter seems to be just a bit of inconsequential fluff.

The Master, armed with a tissue compression eliminator and a clever robot called Kamelion, is trying to change the course of human history by preventing the signing of the Magna Carta.

Even the Doctor admits this is small stuff for an increasingly messianic Master. It's the sort of minor temporal meddling that the Monk might be more likely to undertake. However, perhaps the Master was just looking for an excuse to practice his French accent and do a bit of jousting. He's not always the most sensible of villains the Master.

On the other hand, it is possible that the Master was just using this as a test run for Kamelion before trying it out on more developed worlds.

Ainley does his best, as usual, erring towards la Fromage only on one or two occasions. Much as I do like Delgado's Master there is something watchable about Ainley. He's certainly fun.

The problem with this story - apart from the big historical question of what the Magna Carta signifies and whether its non-existence would make that much difference - is twofold.

Firstly it takes some rather excellent actors and then throws them away on tiny little parts (Frank Windsor as Ranulf and Isla Blair as Isabella), although Christopher Villiers as Hugh gives one of those performances that is filled with the kind of annoying over-exuberance that requires he be squashed like a bug, called in this household 'The Langford Effect'. Unfortunately, even the Master doesn't get around to doing that. The only actor given a decent part to run with is Gerald Flood as King John & he does a fine job.

Secondly, it just feels a bit tagged on to the season.

There's no real pace or power to the story, it kind of drifts by like the television iceberg. There's never any real feeling that the Doctor and crew are in real danger. Indeed both Tegan and Turlough spend most of the story so unafraid they have time to whine and moan. Tegan mainly about the cold and Turlough about the rough way he seems to be treated by everyone for no good reason. Turlough's complaints have a bit more legitimacy.

Everyone seems to be going through the motions a bit like a West End cast flogging their way through a flop. That doesn't mean every story in Doctor Who has to be deep, philosophical and pretentious but it does mean that a feeling of genuine threat has to be there. Of course we "know' the Doctor will find some way of getting out of it but it needs to feel like a struggle. This just feels like The Doctor and The Master enjoying a bit of light-hearted good guy-bad guy banter for old times sake so low are the stakes.

There's some nice stuff: the Master v Doctor slow-motion fight with broad swords; Kaemelion's banter with Tegan (who doesn't trust him); Gerald Flood; Ainley's laugh; the Monty Python & the Holy Grailesque extras; King John's War song and the Doctor's disapproval of it.

There's some odd stuff: the Master's disguise undoing itself by magic (which isn't explained or a huge surprise to the Doctor) and the rapid way everyone excepts the Master as a good guy once he has been revealed and follow his commands without question.

So despite much to criticize, I did find it mildly entertaining. I think that's just because it's such a throwaway little thing & because Ainley seems to be having a ball, which is always a joy to behold.

Enlightenment

So the Black Guardian trilogy ends with a bang, not a whimper. There's so much to adore in this story, from its initial concept, which is perhaps best described as a mini version of The War Games: various ship's crews are 'borrowed' from different timezones in Earth's history to take part in a race. Instead of the War Lord though we have the Eternals a race 'beyond time'.

They seem empty. Bereft of ideas and emotions, shells of thought. It's a hard concept to grasp. After all, what do they do when they're not racing for 'Enlightenment'? They are clearly supposed to be something but what that something is pretty abstract. And how do they fit in with our bird hatted friends, the White and Black Guardians? After all the prize seems to be in their keeping somehow? Do the Guardians nip into Eternalsville and put out a 'who wants to be a Captain' request? The Guardian's can't have been entirely peripheral because Wrack (Lynda Baron) is clearly already a signed-up member of the Black Guardian's gang. There are some questions to be answered there and frankly, I can't be arsed to answer them. Not now. Probably not ever if truth be told.

As the conclusion to the Black Guardian trilogy, it is also the end of the 'evil' Turlough story arc. Mark Strickson is excellent in this: confused, chicken-hearted, freaked out and finally decided. When he is offered Enlightenment he makes the right choice. Whether the Doctor is right to believe him when he says he never wanted the deal with the Black Guardian is moot. He certainly wanted it initially, but perhaps the price he was asked to pay become too high too quickly. Anyway, after this Turlough's definitely one of the good guys but you're never quite sure if he can be entirely trusted.

The thing is though that Turlough's story isn't really the central one or at least it isn't particularly the most interesting. It is the relationship - if that's the right word - between Tegan and the Eternal Marriner (Christopher Brown) that holds the most fascination. Marriner is fascinated by Tegan, but it isn't physical. It's emotional. Tegan's mind fascinates him. She's full of interesting thoughts & emotions. She is alive. With big, glowing capital letters and Marriner is drawn to that life like - cliche alert - a moth to a flame. Tegan finds it rather creepy, although at the end as Marriner is returned to his unalive living you do get the impression that she's a little sorry for him. Christopher Brown is excellent as Marriner and the scene between him and Janet Fielding is wonderful.

It's interesting to note that the Edwardian Eternals, Marriner, and Striker (Keith Barron) are both quite buttoned-down and unemotional at the beginning and whilst Striker remains pretty much like that all the way through (and I should pay a minor tribute to Keith Barron for a surprisingly good performance) Marriner starts to fray a little at the edges. Meanwhile on the Wrack's ship, a Pirate Ship in full Oo-Ar cliche mode, the Eternals there seem to be acting - very loosely in the case of the terrible Leee Johns - as if they've stepped out of a Hollywood Pirate blockbuster. Lynda Baron is delightfully OTT. If she had a mustache she'd be twirling it. It's like two two-parters have been stuck together. One all serious and Bidmeadesque and the other some kind of camp Pirate tribute. All that's missing is a Parrott.

So it makes for a slightly odd, if vastly entertaining story, which I have fond memories of as a twelve-ish-year-old. Tegan's party dress in particular remains a fond memory for me. (Cough)

Enjoyable, entertaining and well worth a watch even if Peter Davison gets a little sidelined. It's almost, but not quite, a Doctor light episode. Davison is good though but for once the bulk of the action and acting is left in the hands of the companions.

Terminus

Terminus: it's a bit of an odd one. There are things about it I love.

I like the Vanir, especially Bor (Peter Benson) who might just be one of my favorite minor characters in the entire programme's history, at least so far. That lugubrious cynicism is wonderful and unusual in Doctor Who and his line in the final episode about 'hoping for something better on the other side' is delivered to perfection.

I liked Sarah Sutton's departure, which seems right for the character. Although with the number of clothes she was shedding as she went along there was a danger - if that's the word I'm looking for - of her ending stark naked. The idea of Nyssa staying on Terminus where she can use her skills to do some good, both for the Vanir and those suffering from Lazar's disease. For me, I think Nyssa is the best of the Fifth Doctor's assistants and the little peck on the cheek she gives him as she departs has as much emotion in it - for me at least - as any amount of weepy snogging from the modern series.

I like the first two episodes, where the story builds quite well but in the last two episodes, it doesn't really go anywhere. It ends up feeling like a tale designed simply to get rid of Nyssa. I think part of the problem is that the story gets confused by what scale it should be operating on.

On the one hand, there's an excellent story about the plague, privatization, and slavery that feels intimate and personal, as when we learn that Olvir's sister was bought to Terminus & when we hear Inga (Rachael Weaver: who isn't actually that good I'm afraid) talking but then there's this ridiculous grand plot about Terminus being at the centre of the Universe and responsible for the Big Bang. If Terminus goes, the Universe goes, which seems too big when wrapped around what to me is the centre of the story: the survival of ordinary people against indifference.

Surely the damaged engines threatening to destroy Terminus itself would have been threat enough?

At the same time the Black Guardian arc is running through the story so periodically Turlough has to go off and have a chat with his 'employer', which makes things a little awkward. Especially as most of the rest of the time, Turlough gets stuck with Tegan in some underfloor ducting. In fact, Mark Strickson seems to spend a large chunk of this story looking at Janet Fielding's arse.

Then there's the Garm. Ah. A large man with a giant Yorkshire Terriers head waddling about the place trying to look terrifying and dignified. It just doesn't work and unfortunately is a real kicker to the credibility of the story, if you get upset by that kind of thing. Annoyingly I think there's an interesting character trying to get out of the Garm, who is as much as a slave as the Vanir and as much a victim as the Lazar's themselves.

I should also throw some credit the way of Andrew Burt (Valgard) and Tim Munro (Sigurd) who with Bors make up a fine triumvirate of Vanir performances. Dominic Guard as Olvir and Liza Goddard as Kari play abandoned soldiers in some very 60's sci-fi costumes: all white and shiny. They do a competent job. Nothing more, nothing less. In fact, Olvir and Kari seem to have been dressed for an entirely different television series. So when they appear it as if a couple of cast members from some slick space opera wannabee have stumbled into this dirty, rundown thing by accident.

So Terminus has some good, some bad bits. There are some good lines and some clunkers. And can only be described as either average or mediocre depending on whether you're a glass half full or half empty type.