The 800 Day Project - Never The End

Once upon a time, I decided to watch every episode of Doctor Who in order. One a day. Every day. All the way through from "An Unearthly Child" to "The Time of the Doctor". 800 episodes, including reconstructions. The "800 Day Project" was born...

Yes I know I did that same intro last time, but it's worth repeating just to let that big old number sink in. Eight hundred episodes. Eight hundred days. The longest running science fiction TV show in history - and now I can say that I've watched them all, because on 10th March 2016 I finally made it.

I've finished watching "The Time of the Doctor". Goodbye Matt Smith. Hello Mr Peter Capaldi and his new kidneys. "The 800 Day Project" is complete.

I'm going to save my more detailed thoughts for individual posts, but what have I learned over the last 800 days?

• Well firstly, the greatest challenge challenge wasn't keeping my interest from waning during the lows of the Hartnell years, or even the huge swathe of reconstructions. No strangely enough it was the midst of the "Trial of a Timelord" season and the second David Tennant series with Martha Jones. Eyelids growing heavy...
• That if Tom Baker is *my* Doctor - the one I grew up with and made me fall in love with the programme -  then Matt Smith is *my* New Series Doctor.  I just loved everything he did with the part and even the lesser stories were made better by his performances. 
• That "received fan wisdom" is often wrong. I quite liked "The Sensorites". "The Celestial Toymaker" has some redeeming qualities. "The Dominators" has Ronald Allen. "Horns of Nimon" is unashamedly bonkers yet brilliant. "Fear Her" is still terrible though. 
• That I never would have guessed that "Enemy of the World" would be a better story than "Web of Fear".
• That the rose-tinted wonder at a story from childhood can be wiped out when you are forty-eight. "Invasion of Time" I'm looking at you.
• That Mary Tamm really deserved a second season. Dodo maybe deserved one less.
• That Colin Baker's Doctor definitely works better on audio. It's not the costume honest.
• That Richard Briers really isn't that terrible in "Paradise Towers" and Alexei Sayle in "Revelation of the Daleks" is far, far worse.
• That at some point I'm going to go back and do it all again except with the commentaries and production notes turned on.

If I'm forced at gunpoint to choose just one (and I really, really don't want to but it's kind of an old tradition or charter or something...), these are my "favourite" stories from each Doctor:

1. Marco Polo
2. The Enemy of the World
3. The Claws of Axos
4. The Robots of Death
5. Mawdryn Undead
6. Vengeance on Varos
7. The Curse of Fenric
8. The Movie
9. The Empty Child
10. Silence in the Library
11. The Impossible Astronaut

So what now? Well it's not really the end is it? There's tons of stuff sitting there looking at me from my groaning shelves. I've still got the mighty "Shada" to watch (at least two different versions). The animated stories, "The Infinite Quest" and "Dreamland". The apocryphal webcast serials like "Scream of the Shalka", "Real Time" and "Death Comes to Time". The unofficial spin-offs like "Wartime", "Downtime", "P.R.O.B.E", "Auton" and "Shakedown". The sideways universe of "The Stranger". Let's not forget the charity specials "Dimensions In Time" and "Curse of the Fatal Death". Plus of course the official spin-offs: "K-9 & Company", "Torchwood" and "The Sarah Jane Adventures".

Then there's the extras from the official DVD releases - the 'Value Added Material' (VAM). I tried to keep up as I was watching the episodes - I really did -  by adding in some extra viewing time at weekends, but I just couldn't maintain the pace by the time I got to "Vengeance On Varos". I think it was because by that time the serials were only a couple of episodes long so that would have meant watching two or three DVD's worth of VAM at weekends. Too much even for me.

Oh and there's the little matter of 36 further episodes of the series starring Mr Peter Capaldi. I don't even own those ones yet. I know - bad fan.

Loads to look forward to. But you know what? I feel that I'm going to save Doctor Who for the weekends for now. I need a change. Saying that, I've found that 30-45 minute slot every morning before work a really good way of watching something regularly without subjecting my wife to the kind of genre TV she has no real interest in. My Sky+ hard drive is groaning under the weight of all the other thing's I've recorded but not got around to watching yet, let alone the Netflix / Amazon Prime series I want to see - like "Daredevil" and "Sense8" and "Ash vs The Evil Dead", etc, etc. So I think that will be the agenda for the next few weeks at least. Catch-up time.

But after that? Well I've got a hankering for some shorter runs of series. There are shiny new Blu-rays of  "The Prisoner" and "Space 1999" that have been sitting on my shelf since Christmas. Then there are those series which I bought on DVD, started watching but somehow never finished - "Carnivale" and the Richard O'Sullivan "Dick Turpin" for example. Let's not forget the classic short series that I haven't watched in their entirety in an age - "Firefly" and "Star Cops" and "Sapphire and Steel". Alan Bleasdale's "GBH" for a little non-SF flavour. Incidentally, I'm saving "Twin Peaks" for a special re-watch leading up to the new series in 2017...

But in between all of that that I've still got the bug to start another massive series marathon. I toyed with "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" as I have all the DVDs. Or the Jeremy Brett "Sherlock Holmes". Or even "Farscape" - I've never seen all of that.

In the end it was a recent television "event" mini-series that made the decision for me - that plus the fact that there is a fantastic new Blu-Ray box set of all nine seasons just out and I've never seen around 75% of the episodes. Yes, for my next trick I am going to attempt to watch every single episode of "The X-Files". All of the way from "Pilot" to "My Struggle II" with a couple of movies in the middle. Don't worry - I won't be calling it "The 210 Day Project" That doesn't have quite the same ring to it.  I'll come up with a better name before I start.

The 800 Day Project is dead.

Except it's not of course. In a typical timey-wimey Doctor Who way, this blog is going to be dealing with my thoughts from watching all of the episodes for a long time yet.  At the rate I'm going I'll have completed watching everything else I've mentioned before I get round to writing properly about "The Time of the Doctor". I don't mind.

There is also the little matter of an essay on the Target novelisation of "The Robots of Death" to come out in the "You On Target" charity book later this year. I've also realised that I've made no mention at all of the fact that I'm now doing monthly Twelfth Doctor comic book reviews for the "Doctor Who Show" podcast. I'll do a separate post about that soon.

Doctor Who is never far from my thoughts it seems.

Onwards...

"Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning" - Winston Churchill

The 800 Day Project - Day 554 to 557 - Metamorphosis

Once upon a time, I decided to watch every episode of Doctor Who in order. One a day. Every day. All the way through from "An Unearthly Child" to "The Time of the Doctor" 800 episodes, including reconstructions. The "800 Day Project" was born...

Yes, this is still going. I've not missed a single day of viewing since I began on 1st January 2014. As I write this, I'm a mere handful of episodes from the finish line. Success is so close I can almost taste it. Sadly it's not been such a good story with the blog, but then the two were never meant to run in tandem - I just didn't expect to get quite so far behind.

So, I've abandoned any flailing attempts to catch up. Forget about covering seasons or eras - instead I'm going to tackle stories as and when the mood takes me in between all the other nonsense I like writing about. It might take me another 800 days to get there, but at least the time pressure is off, which was spoiling part of the fun of the whole thing. I'm also not going to repeat the work of countless others and do insightful critical reviews of a whole serial - just touch on a few points I liked and concentrate more on the memories and feelings I associate with the stories.

The last proper 800 Day Project post (here) was in August 2015 where I said farewell to "my" Doctor, Tom Baker. That means it's the turn of Peter Davison to go under the microscope. It's the beginning of a bold new era for the show, and Davison's tenure was concurrent with another significant moment in my personal history with Doctor Who. This was the first incarnation of the Time Lord where I had every single episode recorded onto videotape.

 I wrote quite a while back (here) about the first episodes I ever recorded on the mighty Philips Video 2000, but by the time the Fifth Doctor debuted, my dad had succumbed to market forces and plumped for a shiny new (albeit rented) VHS machine. Now I can't remember exactly which make it was but it was definitely a top loading, noisy, clunky thing that you had to treat with respect or your precious tapes would be gobbled up by the hungry innards. The first story that had pride of place in my video library was of course:

 Castrovalva

It's probably far to say that this was the most important regeneration since Hartnell into Troughton. It was the first time in over seven years that the show had featured someone other than Tom Baker in the lead. So indelibly had Baker stamped his mark on the role that he *was* the Doctor (and for some he still is). Not only did the story have to introduce a new face for the Time Lord to an entire generation, but it had to complete the loose "Master" trilogy begun with "Keeper of Traken", flesh out the companions that had only been introduced a few sort episodes ago *and* tell a good story into the bargain.

It also has to deal with the now obligatory regeneration crisis. Ever since the first few minutes of Pertwee falling out of the TARDIS in "Spearhead From Space", it has been established that the Doctor never has an easy time of it when he regenerates. Other Time Lords seen to be able to change easily, sometimes even on a whim - but for the Doctor it's always a stressful and dangerous time. Here that theme of confusion and instability is taken to extremes when it looks like the Doctor might not survive the process at all.

Some might complain that this leads to interminably dull scenes set within the TARDIS as the Doctor's personality seems to unravel as fast as his multi-coloured scarf. Personally - I absolutely bloody loved it. Davison is immediately likeable in the role, meandering through the corridors, impersonating his predecessors and referencing previous companions and adventures. Plus - who doesn't want to see more of the rooms in the TARDIS ? It's interiors had been possibly some of the most unexplored areas of Doctor Who lore. I remember at the time being fascinated by every roundel and white corridor. Not to mention the wardrobe and the Zero Room.

Much of the story continues the Christopher H Bidmead preference for featuring strong science-based concepts - charged vacuum embodiments, the laws of thermodynamics, recursion, the "hydrogen inrush", etc. It also has its fair share of  technobabble too - block transfer computation (although one could argue that maths is basically behind all of reality), a referential differencer, telebiogenesis - and ambient complexity allegedly being the cause of many regeneration failures. The thing is, hard science or made up nonsense, it didn't matter to me. I was a child who grew up in the twin worlds of science fiction and science fact -  equally at home with the hyper-reality of E.E. 'Doc" Smith or the physical wonders of the universe around us, as so beautifully espoused by the genius that was Carl Sagan (although some of Bidmead's stuff is more computer science than cosmology). It was all fantastic.

I also loved the worlds conjured up by my favourite fantasy authors and when we eventually get through the lush fern-covered undergrowth to Castrovalva itself, there is definitely a touch of the fairytale about the city. The production design is uniformly excellent, blending distinctive 18th century Dutch costumes with interweaving corridors, multiple levels and and weird angles to build something truly unique looking. Pervading everything is a sense of peace and tranquillity, edged with a tinge of the unreal. There are also the little touches that paint the idea of a living breathing society - the gossipy women in the square, the put upon Mergreve, the ever questioning Shardovan -  I was quite disappointed when it all turned out to be an illusory trap created by the Master. By the way, this is the one story where the Master's disguise genuinely works - I was actually shocked when the Portreeve revealed his true face, but then again the script had cleverly been trying to convince you that Shardovan was the bad guy.

Of course underpinning all this (and I guess the core of this post) is the work of graphic artist Maurits Cornelis Escher. I was 14 years old when this story was first transmitted and what little art appreciation faculties I had were primarily focussed on the SF work of Chris Foss and Jim Burns (although I'll leave you to figure out why his illustrations in Harry Harrison's huge format "Planet Story" had such an impact on my teenage years...there's an idea for a blog post in there somewhere...). But even at this young age, Escher fascinated me - the way he played with perspective and illusions of infinity and impossible locations - it was mesmerising. I'd seen an image of his "Ascending And Descending" lithograph somewhere (it may have been an SF magazine) and had investigated further by getting a book from my local library. It was like a window opened in my mind...

Escher was born in 1898 in Leeuwarden, Netherlands. He spent most of his formative years at a school in Arnhem, but was a very sickly child and did poorly at most academic subjects. However he excelled at drawing and at age 21 attend the Haarlem School of Architecture and Decorative Arts - also learning how to make woodcuts and studying decorative arts.

In his 20s and 30s he travelled extensively across Europe, living for several years in Rome with his wife Jetta and their first son. It was while visiting the Alhambra palace in Spain, and it's geometric decorative mosaics, that he became obsessively fascinated with mathematical tessellations and  his work began to take on the form that he is so widely recognised for today -  complex, interlocking, slowly mutating, designs that bleed off into infinity.

In the late 1950s this influence was melded with his interest in unusual perspectives and multiple points of view and he began to produce some of his most famous "geometries" - work featuring never ending staircases and unusual gravitational perspectives. He was also deeply interested in impossible objects like the "Penrose triangle" and the Mobius strip, which appeared frequently in things like his perpetual motion "Waterfall".

I poured over the book, absorbing every image - every twisting, distorting, mind-bending drawing. I loved how Escher played with levels of reality with his "Drawing Hands", and "Three Worlds" and I stared for what seemed like hours at the ever-changing tessellations of the "Metamorphosis" series of woodcuts. (Years later, a framed print of "Day And Night" would have pride of place on the living room wall of my first house).  Even today I still get a thrill when I see any of his many works on display. I think Escher's special way of thinking combined all of the things that my young mind was grasping towards - mathematical repetitions, duality, endless sets of things, obsessiveness (is that the 'collector' gene in me?), the idea that what we see as "reality" is possibly an illusion, the sheer power of art to depict the worlds of the fantastic (that's definitely comic books). His art led me onto surrealism - Salvador Dali and Rene Magritte and Max Ernst - and back in time to Hieronymous Bosch. I have a lot to thank him for.

Back in the tranquil world of the television version of Castrovalva, reality is breaking down and folding in on itself. You can see what the production team were aiming for - a televisual recreation of  "Ascending And Descending" - and they did their very best with the technology available. When I first saw this sequence I thought it was astonishing, but time has not been kind and it's far less impressive to my modern eyes. Still, at least they made the attempt and it's sold by the performances of the cast.

There's not a lot more I can say. Castrovalva is one of the best debuts for a Classic Doctor. Davison's "pleasant, open face" and more human-like attitude might be a significant change from the alien kookiness of Tom Baker, but he is still recognisable the Doctor, even at this early stage. I think a lot of my fondness for this story stems from the large number of times I watched it  after transmission, the feeling I had of being old enough to truly appreciate the start of something new and exciting and of course the fact that one of my favourite artists was represented so vividly.

Right, I'm off to stare at some transforming reptiles...

The 800 Day Project - End of Part One

Yes, the "800 Day Project" is still going. I've not missed a single day of viewing since I began. Holidays, family birthdays, even dodgy DVD discs - nothing has got in the way of watching one episode of Doctor Who a day, every day.

I still intend to write *something* about the episodes from Peter Davison onwards, but other things like series nine reviews, some brief podcast appearances, writing an essay for publication in the new "You and Who Else" book (more on that another day) and blog posts about obscure 1980s computers have got in the way.

The thing is, I wanted to mark today - Thursday 26th November 2015 - as it's a very special point in the whole project. I've just finished part three  of "Survival". Yes I have now watched every single episode of the Classic era of Doctor Who.

I can't really believe that I made it all the way through. When I started the project back on 1st January 2014 I had a will to do it but thought that, like so many others, I would fall at the first hurdle of "The Sensorites" or maybe struggle with the reconstructions (I actually really enjoyed quite a few of those). There was a huge lift when I knew I could actually watch "Enemy of the World" and "Web of Fear" as they were intended thanks to their return to the archives. I discovered Hartnell and Troughton stories that I only knew from the novelisation's (and it's been many years since I read those) or from memories of grainy single transmissions on UK Gold or BSB Galaxy.

As I progressed through the Pertwee years I remembered more and more and we got closer and closer to the time when I started to watch the show with "Monster of Peladon". Of course when I  reached Tom Baker - always *my* Doctor -  his seven year stint was a joy and I had new appreciation for some less well thought of stories. I also got to watch "Image of the Fendahl", "Sunmakers"  and "Underworld" for the very first time.

The Davison seasons were also fun to watch since I had seen them so many times on my own video copies (yes, even "Timeflight"), while the fall and rise during the Colin Baker and McCoy seasons, with their shortened episode count, seemed to go by in a flash.

So here I am at the end of 26 years of Doctor Who. Luckily I don't have to wade through the 'Wilderness Years' in real time. Tomorrow it's straight into "The TV Movie" and then Saturday it's "Rose" and a whole different era for the programme.

This is only part one of the story. There is another 10 years worth of shows to watch before I get to the end... *



* Plus of course there will have been another 26 episodes transmitted by the time I finish in 2016. But "The 826 Day Project" doesn't have quite the same ring to it.

The 800 Day Project - Day 526 - 553 - Farewell, My Doctor

Finally I get to season 18. I'm going to be honest here - writing about these stories (which I actually watched back in June and July 2015) has been a struggle. Not because I didn't enjoy them (I did), or that they are not very good (they are) but more because the blog is so wide-ranging and I have so many things that I can't wait to write about that being the thousandth person to write a "review" of classic Doctor Who stories seems like I am covering old, old  ground. The "800 Day Project" was never conceived as having a companion blog and it doesn't have a "hook" like "Adventures With The Wife In Space" or "No Complications"- it's simply me on my own enjoying watching all the episodes in order, one a day. I don't even have any interesting personal anecdotes from my youth to accompany (most of) these particular stories, so how can I possibly say anything different to all those other people that have come before? I hit a bit of a mental block and it's taken a long time to work through it. Anyway, that's a bit of a long winded way of apologising for being so behind and for my comments on season 18 possibly being bit scattershot and not up to my usual (self-imposed) standard. Must try harder...

The Leisure Hive through to Logopolis

I'll admit I have a soft spot for the new Peter Howell / Sid Sutton opening titles and theme arrangement. It probably stems from having heard it so many times during my many re-watches of the Davison and Colin Baker era stories (and of course the DVD menus), but even so I think it still stands up as one of the best versions, with the 'middle eight' in the closing credits and that final "explosion" being particularly memorable. Of course as I revealed last time, I didn't actually see or hear the titles until eight weeks later than many other fans, having being seduced to the dark side by "Buck Rogers".


The Leisure Hive

Let's gloss over that stupidly long panning shot of Brighton beach shall we and move on to the core of the adventure - and boy is there a lot going on. A space leisure centre built on a planet devastated by nuclear war. A hostile takeover bid by the very enemies the Argolin's fought against - gangster lizards no less. Accelerated death cause by radiation poisoning. The Doctor accused of a murder he didn't commit. Foamasi agents disguised as humans. A xenophobic clone determined to raise a new empire. Multiple replication by tachyon manipulation. A little bit of basic computer science. Oh and a Doctor aged by 500 years into an old man.

It's an ambitious tale and to go along with that we have a grumpier and more serious Doctor - both in front of and behind the cameras. Much has been said about the difficult working relationships between the star of the show and his companion and his producer. It seems clear to me from this story that Tom wasn't happy at all about the changes. JN-T and Christopher HAMILTON Bidmead thought they could tame the wild beast and push Tom's excesses back into their box, but I think that in their ideological zeal to "remove the silliness" from the show they also removed some "spark" from their star, to the extent that he just comes across as being weary and bored with the whole thing.

Having said that, the costumes and sets are of a high quality and the model of the Hive is pretty impressive. The Pangolin are also a good attempt at creating an alien species with a convincing backstory, haunted by atrocities from a generation before. The Fomasi might be a somewhat generic reptilian monster, but by limiting their appearances in the early episode to occasional glimpses of a claw or an eye, director Lovett Bickford heightens the tension for their eventual reveal - and I actually like their design, even if we have the traditional Doctor Who problem of how they get those huge heads into the tiny human masks.

It's also all change on the incidental music front. Gone is Dudley Simpson's traditional score, replaced by the Tangerine Dream inspired music from Peter Howell. Later attempts at using all electronic music during this era of the show fail terribly, but here at least there is a feeling of something really new and different. There is a kind of ethereal cinematic quality to the music which fits beautifully with the world of the Pangolin.

I think my one main problem with "The Leisure Hive" is that it isn't a terrible story - in fact it's core concept is quite unique -  but it's not a great one either. It's just...okay. I have no strong reaction to it either way. There are also some fundamental questions left unanswered - Why did the Doctor not get torn to pieces by the Recreation Generator?  Why did that Foamasi spacecraft explode? How does he return from being 1250 years old back down to 750 anyway, and without anyone noticing? Perhaps I'm being picky but these are the kind of cracks that normal 'hand waving' and fan acceptance can't paper over.


Meglos

Apparently Meglos is considered by many to be the "forgotten" story from season 18. Certainly the only thing I really knew about it in the years since it's original transmission (before I got to watch it) was that famous picture of Tom Baker's face covered in cactus spikes and that Jacqueline Hill was the guest star.

Tonally it does seem to somewhat of a throwback to the style of the previous season after the massive reinvention of "The Leisure Hive". Once you get past the batty idea of a sentient evil cactus wanting to take over the universe, Meglos himself is much more of a clichéd villain in a plot full of familiar themes (doppelgangers, religion versus science, an ineffective bunch of intergalactic space pirates...). Granted, there are few ideas thrown into the mix, including the time loop - sorry, "chronic hysteresis" - and an all-powerful macguffin with a great name, the Dodecahedron. 

Speaking of the "chronal hysterectomy", being able to play the same piece of footage multiple times must have done wonders for the budget (a shame they didn't spend it on the sets as it's certainly the shoddiest looking story of the season). I'm still not totally sure how repeating your actions and words gets you out of the loop. Just ask Mr C. Hamilton Bidmead -  he'll know. Ultimately all it means that the Doctor and Romana don't get to the main events until half way through episode two. Is that a bad thing? Well probably not, as the plot is so slow moving that by the time the Doctor gets to Tigella the various factions have probably only just decided who should make the coffee.

The guest cast is not up to much in this story either, but that is probably the fault of the script rather than the acting. Jacqueline Hill may be playing high priestess Lexa -  a role far removed from Barbara -  but to be honest the role is so one note and has nowhere to go that she is totally wasted. She does her absolute best with what little she is given but it's such a disappointment. Her death is also utterly pointless. Bill Fraser meanwhile manages to make General Grugger into a bit of an over the top buffoon, but that's okay as the pirates are really only there for comedy value anyway. You can hardly be fearful of a bunch of cut-throats who can't even figure out that a plant is impersonating a humanoid or where an extra burgundy coat came from. Having said that, Brotodac's constant obsession with it is very amusing. 

At least Baker makes up for all this by turning in a great performance as Meglos. His mannerisms and facial expressions are all subtly different from those of the Doctor and you do believe that the anthropomorphic cactus is arrogant and insane. It's the only saving grace in an other wise lacklustre production though which soon degenerates into a standard run-around with the villain grabbing a powerful weapon.  Part four last just 18 minutes, which can only be because everyone wanted to get this nonsense over with as quickly as possible.


Full Circle

It's incredible to think that Andrew Smith, was only nineteen when he wrote possible one of the most interesting and original stories of the JN-T era. It also deals with some complex themes of evolution and fear and how we as humans change as we learn from our past. This is the opposite of the residents of Alzarius, who seemed doomed to learn nothing because of the Deciders unwillingness to change and the huge effort they have taken to  to hide the truth about their own origins - all while speaking in hushed tones about supposedly important things in capital letters. Mistfall. The System Files. The Embarkation. Maintenance. It's almost religious (the running theme through this season it seems).  It's also a pretty unique story in that there is no behind-the scenes cackling manipulator, just misguided humanoids - with the scientist Dexter being the closest the serial has to a real villain with his attempts at the vivisection of the helpless Marshchild.

Speaking of which, as the rubber-suited "monsters" of the piece, the Marshmen are wonderful, especially in the part one cliffhanger as they rise in slow motion from the mist shrouded swamp. Director Peter Grimwade really makes the most of  the moment and the creature design to heighten the fear factor. The thing is, the Marshmen are not evil either -  just primal, instinctual creatures protecting themselves - and there is a lot more to them that meets the eye. It's another example of the shades of grey in Andrew Smith's script. He also takes care in drawing clear parallels between the behaviour of the humanoids and the Marshmen - Varsh is overwhelmed and killed by the swamp creatures yet the Marshchild is overwhelmed and killed by the humans. Who do you root for?

Elsewhere there is some really good guest casting. George Baker especially is excellent value as Login and James Bree gives a nice understated portrayal of the man at the top burdened with responsibility. Richard Willis is worthwhile as Varsh but the other Outlers are all a bit forgettable. This story is of course best remembered for introducing Adric the boy genius. Matthew Waterhouse's debut on screen is... not bad. Yes he's annoying, but then many teenagers are (I know I was). We're not yet at the point where poor characterisation and underdeveloped acting talent make the character more of a liability that an asset. Maybe it would have made more sense to leave Adric on Alzarius (perhaps assisting the Deciders) but that's not what we got...


State of Decay

This is a blend of the old and the new. Uncle Terrance writes a traditional script that wouldn't have been out of place in the Robert Homes era  - evil tyrants, downtrodden peasant rebels and lashings of gothic horror ripped from the Hammer template with gay abandon. Yet it's also suffused with the patented Bidmead love of scientific explanations and made up jargon. Of course the Dicks spin on the vampire element is that the Three Who Rule are the lost crew of the spaceship Hydrax, given eternal life by the Great Vampire of Gallifreyan legend.

There is a classic example of the "power behind the throne" going on here. Zargo and Camilla may seem to be the King and Queen but they don't really do very much except float around and bare their fangs every once in a while (as creepy as that is). No it's Aukon who is really in charge, barking commands and oozing menace and very good he is at it too. Emrys James turns in an excellent performance as possibly the season's best villain, but all three actors portray the vampire creatures with a somewhat sensual subtext. Certainly Camilla and Aukon seem to be interested in Romana and Adric for more than just their blood. I also love the red eye makeup on all three - it works particularly well on Zargo and Camilla.

The story  revels in the clichés and melodrama and atmosphere of its horror roots. A chase through dark woods by blood-sucking bats? Check. Creeping into a cobweb strewn chamber trying not to wake the sleeping monster? Check. A vampire being stabbed by a knife only to pull it out of its chest and toss it away? Check. A monstrous creature rising from the depths after an eon-long sleep? Triple check. It's all wonderful stuff. Add in some revealing nuggets of Time Lord history (does *everything* have to be named after Rassilon?) is the icing on the cake.

Tom puts in a wonderful performance as the Doctor with all traces of the flippancy of the previous season gone by this point. It's very clear that Baker and Lalla Ward were extremely close by this time and their chemistry shows on screen - most obviously in the scene where the Doctor and Romana are locked in a cell together. For Matthew Waterhouse this was the first story he recorded and although it isn't his worst performance, he's sadly not in the slightest bit convincing when he "betrays" the Doctor and Romana. I guess they were still trying to play up the (supposedly) morally dubious, "Artful Dodger" aspects of his character, with him changing sides dependant on who he saw as having the upper hand. Or it could all have been a big bluff. You just can't tell.

All in all "State of Decay" is probably one of my favourites of the season. I'm even willing to overlook the slightly dodgy ending with the rocket ship because the rest of the story is so much fun. One thing did puzzle me - and I'm willing to accept that this just might be me being unobservant - what exactly was "The
Wasting"? Is it ever explained?


Warriors Gate

Not only is this a story which boldly has nothing but a blank white space as one of its major sets, but for the second time this season it also throws every normal convention of what a Doctor Who villain should be out the window. Instead of  a mad scientist or aliens attempting world domination, we have a ruthless space captain who is just frustrated and driven crazy at not being able to get home. I've worked with similar kinds of people -  just one bad day away from going nuts and bashing their heads against the photocopier glass or attacking the receptionist with a stapler, because the simplest things irritate them to the point of mania. In complete contrast, Rorvik's crew are just a bunch of workmen who get on with the job with a resigned sigh and look forward to their next lunch break. Aldo and Royce remind me of the main characters from Tom Stoppard's "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" - only tangentially involved in the main plot but commentating on events from the side-lines with a world weary and cynical attitude. "It'll all end in tears, mark my words...". What is also interesting about the Privateer crew is that - just this once, everybody dies (spoilers!) . While no one is fully good or evil, all of them are guilty of something, even if in Aldo and Royce's case it's just apathy, where they allow the Tharils to needlessly suffer as they revive them.

Warrior's Gate also has one of the more well realised and morally ambiguous races seen in Doctor Who. The Tharils start off as seemingly innocent creatures, but as the story progresses we learn that they have been rulers of their own cruel and oppressive regime. It also seems that even though they have the unique ability to walk between alternate timelines, they still ended up trapped in slavery to the humans. Perhaps the universe is punishing them for their prior arrogance and tyranny. The creature makeup and costumes are extremely effective. The lionesque appearance immediately conjures up the idea of a noble people. But just like the earth-based big cat, the calm façade hides the true savage beast within.

Despite there only being minimal sets, the costumes, make-up, design and direction is superb. The Gundan robots are a wonderful creation, the Privateer sets look suitable grungy (don't you just love that slow panning shot through the corridors at the start of episode one?) and the Tharil banqueting halls look both sumptuous and dilapidated dependant on the time period. Lovett Bickford really tried to bring a cinematic sensibility to a cash-strapped BBC studio production and despite the well documented behind the scenes problems, I personally think he succeeded admirably.

Of course the departure of Romana (and K-9) is a sad one, but it seems a natural progression of the character. She has seen too much to return to the stuffy corridors of Gallifrey, and wants to make a difference in the universe like the man who has influenced her so much. It's a wonderfully underplayed scene between Baker and Ward and like the departure of Leela, the Doctor seems genuinely upset to lose his companion.


Keeper of Traken

It's time for a story that mixes the Brother Grimm with the Old Testament (plus the return of an old foe), to great effect. Romana and K-9 are gone and the Doctor is left with just a precocious teenage boy to help him. The fairytale elements are there right from the start as the Keeper relates the backstory and history of Traken. All that is missing is a "Once upon a time...". His powers may be science based but he might as well be a wizard for all the sense they make. This mythic feel continues when we set foot on Traken itself, with beautiful princesses, wicked stepmothers and walking statues - and don't forget magical rings which have to be brought together in order to access the Source. It's all wrapped in a pseudo-Shakespearean society where despite the technological marvels at hand, everyone spends their time making friends and tending their rosebushes. It can't last of course. There is a veritable serpent of evil in the alien 'Garden of Eden'...

As the voice of Melkur / The Master, Geoffrey Beevers is having a wonderful time, his voice dripping with malevolence and insincerity. Inside the evil looking statue is....something even more evil. The reveal in part 3 is a genuine surprise. The charm of the old Master is still there as well. You can believe that his silky tones would convince Kassia to do his bidding even without the control collar. Hers is really a classic tragedy of a woman blinded by love into making a deal with the devil - resulting in her having to do evil things -  so it's a shame that Sheila Ruskin is simply not good enough, with her performance being hugely uneven and bordering on cringeworthy at times. In contrast Anthony Ainley gives a lovely low key and sensitive performance as Tremas. I think that his acting skill gets lost somewhat in later years amongst the Master's machiavellian "heh-heh-heh's", but here he is very restrained. The Master's absorption of Tremas is still a wonderful shock to end the story on. It's also probably fair to say that this is Adric's best story. He has a few nice lines with the Doctor in the TARDIS at the start and actually has something constructive to do in the story. Sarah Sutton is also excellent as Nyssa despite the fact it's obvious she wasn't conceived as a companion. In fact she has more to do in this this story than in most of her other regular appearances.

As well as the primary plot of Melkur trying to gain control of the Source, there is an underlying theme of change - the old being replaced with the new and being uncertain about the possible outcome. The ancient Keeper (almost a god-like figure) is replaced by a new individual and the instability that will bring to the Traken Union. Kassia doesn't want her life to change and to lose Tremas. The Master finally succeeds in cheating death and gets "a new body at last". Nyssa's life will never be the same again. And of course in the show itself JN-T has brought in sweeping changes and the Doctor  is about to be replaced by a different man...


Logopolis

This is of course a milestone in the history of Doctor Who. It's the end of an era and only fitting that the story is about a threat to the entire universe. There is a pervading funereal atmosphere and sense of impending doom as the Fourth Doctor realises that not only did he get things wrong in his previous adventure and allow the Master to escape, but now the consequences are huge and add to that he is running out of time. His own fate is unimportant and he must give his life to stop the destruction of everything. The idea of a bunch of strange haired old men sitting in caves and mumbling quadratic equations to themselves to hold back the end of the universe is a great one even if - despite all the attempts to "science it up" by chucking in mentions of entropy and  heat death - it's total nonsense. The Monitor does look like Noel Edmonds though.

(Deal or No Deal ?)

Equally the concept of the TARDIS's inside each other ad infinitum, each one getting darker and darker, is very effective and creepy. Then we have The Watcher. Is it the Master? Rassilon? The White Guardian? It's kept deliberately vague until the very end and adds to the feeling of foreshadowing and predestination. The show will try this kind of thing again with the "four knocks" at the conclusion of David Tennant's run, but it's here that it works best.

To add to the Doctor's woes, this incarnation of the Master is not the debonair charmer from before - he's now a power crazy maniac and his actions directly affect the Doctor's companions. Tegan's aunt is shrunk to death and Traken is destroyed - plus several other innocent Earth people and Logopolitans lose their lives, not to mention the countless millions wiped out by the now unchecked forces of entropy. The Master has murdered before but it has never been this personal and never on such a scale. Creepily, the Master also impersonates Tremas to confuse and manipulate the distraught Nyssa. It would have been interesting to see more of Nyssa's horrified reaction to the loss of her planet and an evil alien walking around in her fathers body, but there was obviously limited screen time and we have the introduction and development of Tegan to deal with. Janet Fielding makes a reasonable début and her emotional shrieking is nowhere near the annoying decibel levels of the first Davison year. At least she is reacting with some reality to a terrible situation.

The new Master might be more ruthless but his plans are no better thought out. Did he not realise that if he destroys Logopolis that he'll not have a universe left to dominate? Plus if he is talking to the entire population of the universe to hold them to ransom using a 1980s tape recorder, how does he expect them to answer back? Look, there are lots of plot holes and odd things going on in "Logopolis" - Nyssa appearing from nowhere, Adric being reduced to reading out a bunch of sums, the strange plan to get rid of the Master by flushing him out with a large helping of Thames water. The thing is it doesn't matter. The reason? Tom Baker is simply magnificent. It's possibly the most solemn and intense performance of his long tenure on the show - that of a man who knows his fate and is still determined to see it through and stop his arch enemy no matter the cost.

Part of that cost is being forced by circumstance to team-up with his enemy.That cliffhanger at the end of part three is simply chilling. A simple handshake that must have made the viewers at the time really sit up and think "this time it *must* be serious". There has always been (intentionally) a touch of the Holmes / Moriarty relationship between the Doctor and the Master and it's never been more obvious than their final tussle on the top of the Pharos Project gantry with it's echoes of the fight at Reichenbach Falls. The difference is that in this case there is no miraculous escape for the Doctor, and his Fourth incarnation is no more.

Tom Baker was and always will be *my* Doctor. I grew up with him - starting as a innocent seven year old through to being almost fourteen by the time his end came. It's no wonder then that the Fourth Doctor's regeneration was the most emotional one I witnessed - and I'd be lying if I said I didn't have a tear in my eye and a lump in my throat. Oh I was old enough and savvy enough to know that it was just a change in actor and that Peter Davison would be along soon enough, but even so it was like part of my childhood was leaving. Time to at least pretend to grow up I guess. That final scene, that music, those flashbacks, the ultimate realisation of who the Watcher really is as we hear those words "It's the end...but the moment has been prepared for", are all embedded so deep inside me now that I only have to hear the electronic notes as the camera pans down to the Doctor's prone body on the grass, and I'm back in 1981. It's truly one of the most spine tinglingly sensational moments in Doctor Who history and as far as regenerations go only one other has even come close to making me feel the same way.

Farewell Doctor.

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Hello Doctor.

The 800 Day Project - Re-record, Not Fade Away

So this post was meant to be the season 18 overview, but more pressing things have had to take priority. Instead I thought I'd briefly touch on my memories of something else that happened during that same period. Another seismic shift in my life that fundamentally affected my ongoing love affair with Doctor Who...

....

It's 1980. A new decade and everything is changing. I officially become a teenager. Pirate radio station Radio Caroline ceases transmission when their boat sinks. Margaret Thatcher is reshaping the country with unemployment at over 2 million and inflation rising to nearly 22%. Clive Sinclair creates the home computer market by releasing the ZX80. In the world of Doctor Who, it's Season 18 and John Nathan-Turner's new broom sweeps away the old look of the show.

A couple of month's ago I talked about "The Gap" where I stopped watching Doctor Who for twelve weeks in 1977 / 1978 in favour of the dubious delights of Patrick Duffy as the "Man From Atlantis". Now in 1980 it was the turn of Glen A Larson's "Buck Rogers In The 25th Century", to distract me from my favourite Timelord.

Clearly riding on the coat tails of the Star Wars phenomenon, the show was the closest thing we had to a small screen equivalent. Briefly, the story was that NASA astronaut William "Buck" Rogers (played by cheesily handsome Gil Gerard) embarks on a deep space mission in 1987. When something goes wrong, he is frozen in a kind of cryogenic suspension, only to be woken up in the year 2491. Teaming up with Earth Defence Directorate Colonel Wilma Deering, "ambuquad" robot Twiki and super computer Dr. Theopolis (a kind of posher, rounder version of Blake's 7's Orac), Buck battles smugglers, slavers, kidnappers and evil warlords plus a continuing struggle against the Draconian Empire, personified by the scantily clad Princess Ardala (the magnificent Pamela Hensley).

The show was a big hit, with it's combination of attractive leads, humour, fisticuffs and memorable characters (particularly Twiki with his "Biddi-biddi-biddi" catchphrase). It also had pretty good special effects for the space dog-fight sequences - even though it blatantly reused sets, spaceships and sound effects from Larson's previous show "Battlestar Galactica". Another plus was that it had an excellent title sequence and, like "Battlestar", an equally hum-able theme tune:

Although the theatrical pilot version with lyrics and space-bikini-clad women has to be seen to be believed:

Hmmmm. They certainly don't make them like that anymore...

With only one television in the house, I had to chose which show to watch - and the flashier, sexier "Buck Rogers" won (look I'm sorry okay? I was 13 and Princess Ardala was so very attractive). This meant that I completely missed the first eight weeks of Doctor Who season 18, and only caught up with those stories much later. The thing is, "Buck Rogers" continued for a full 22 week season, so how did I get my fix of Wilma Deering *and* see the first appearance of the mighty Adric? It was the arrival of something incredibly important that would change my life forever. You've probably guessed by now - it was this:

(not the actual one we rented, obviously)

Yes the humble video recorder had arrived at my house. It's hard to imagine in the current world of fifty inch LCD screens and DVD players for £25 that back in the 1980s these were incredibly expensive machines. We weren't a wealthy family, so like many, many others at the time, we rented our main television and video recorder from a company like Granada or Radio Rentals (I can't remember the exact shop). For a monthly price you got the latest TV and video and if it broke down or was superseded by a superior model, it could be repaired or replaced as part of the package.

Now the eagle eyed amongst you may have noticed that the recorder pictured above is not one of the all conquering VHS models. No, it's a Philips Video 2000 VCR2020. My dad has always been interested in new technology and electronics, but he doesn't have a great track record of backing the winning horse. When satellite TV first started and many houses were getting Sky dishes fitted, we got BSB and the "squariel" (not that I am complaining because they showed tons of very old Doctor Who). The Philips '2000' range was actually the third horse in the video format race along with VHS and Betamax, even though it only shone brightly for a very short period of time. The VCR2020 was technically a superior system in many ways to VHS, with double sided tapes that allowed you to record up to eight hours of television on a single cassette and excellent picture and sound quality (well for the time anyway). It looked incredibly futuristic with it's digital displays and keypad.

At last I could watch both the SF shows I liked. I clearly remember setting the machine up to record  Doctor Who - finger hovered over the pause button so that it would start recording at exactly the right moment and I would have no gaps or other extraneous material on my prized tape. Once recording I would quickly switch the television over to ITV to catch the latest adventure of Buck, Wilma and Twiki. To be honest, that show could be watched and then forgotten about til next week, but Doctor Who - I could watch it again and again! Consequently the last four stories of season 18 became the first Doctor Who that I can remember seeing many times (there were the summer / winter omnibus repeats during the late 1970s of course and although I must have watched some of those, the memories are lost to the mists of time or so jumbled up with repeated BSB / UK Gold / video viewings that I can't separate them out).

Eventually about a year later we did succumb to market forces and the VCR2020 went back to the rental shop to be replaced by a VHS model, and those few tapes we had were incompatible and useless. It didn't matter though (much). I'd probably already worn them out through repeated viewings by then anyway. What it started though was an interest (that became a near obsession) with recording everything I could. I'll come back to this some more at a later date.

To end with I'll just mention the reason for the title of this post. Obviously it's a play on the Rolling Stones' "Not Fade Away", but it's more than that. In the mid-eighties (long after the demise of Video 2000 and the domination of VHS) there was a series of very catchy TV adverts promoting Scotch VHS video tapes which featured a dancing skeleton. The idea was that your recordings on Scotch tapes would last so long that they would still be playable long after you were nothing more than a collection of old bones. In fact Scotch were so confident that they offered a lifetime replacement guarantee. Thirty years later video tapes are mostly consigned to the history books (although some things have *still* never been released on DVD), but in recognition of the enormous part they played in my life (and the fact that I had hundreds of Scotch tapes) here's one of those ads...

The 800 Day Project - Day 506 to 525 - Second Genesis

Destiny Of The Daleks through to The Horns Of Nimon

There are going to be somewhat shorter comments from me this time round, but I wanted to touch on something important first. Something changed with season 17. I don't mean with the show (the massive shakeup was still a year away), but with me. I started to enjoy the show even more than before. Why?  I had always been a fan since a young age but now my interest stepped up a gear. Maybe it's because I was twelve years old when the show came back in September 1979. Maybe I was growing up (slowly)?  Actually, I think I *can* pinpoint the exact reason and the exact date. Thursday 11th October 1979. Three words. Doctor Who Weekly.

Now I'm not going to wax lyrical here about what Doctor Who Weekly meant to me or the undiluted love I still have for those early issues - that will come in time I'm sure. But I will say this: apart from a couple of school acquaintances, I didn't know anyone else who liked the show. There was no internet. No forums. I never went to a convention or joined DWAS. It was just something I really liked in amongst all the SF and fantasy novels and the other genre TV and the comics (which were my real love to be fair). My prior exposure to the show was just the transmitted episodes and the Target novelisation's. But  whether it was the comics strips, the articles or a combination of both, Doctor Who Weekly took the feelings I had for the TV series and multiplied them tenfold.

So, because of that, although season 17 may not be considered one of the best by a lot of people, it will always have an special place in my memory. This is where I began my second stage of fandom...

Destiny Of The Daleks

A new season, a new Romana and the humour aspect of the Graham Williams era has never been more obvious. The regeneration at the start is clearly meant to parody the start of "Robot" when the Fourth Doctor goes through all those costume changes. It's a fun scene which luckily stops before it gets annoying. Having Romana's costume mirror the Doctor's is also a nice touch - reinforcing the concept of how much influence the Doctor has had on the once aloof Time Lady.

The idea of an impasse between two warring races who base all their decisions on pure logic is a fascinating one, although I'm not entirely sure the Daleks are that coldly computerised - they've always seemed to be extremely emotional beings to me, like any good fanatic. Terry Nation seems to have forgotten the origin he crafted for them just  few short years ago. With a bit of hand waving you can forgive this though - a lot can happen in the years since "Genesis". The Daleks casings have seen better days though, with some of them looking like they belong in that scrap yard in Totter's Lane.

The Movellans are a funky bunch aren't they? Obviously they've been getting transmissions of Top Of The Pops and the film "10" in deepest outer space, because the android race have based their look on Bo Derek meets Boney M. Being on the zeitgeist of fashion doesn't mean they have the brains to match -  somehow they overlooked the obvious design flaw of putting your power pack on your belt so that it can be knocked off all too easily.

The resurrected Davros doesn't quite have that same presence of the single minded scientist consumed by power and vitriol and hate. David Gooderson makes him sound too normal and sane, and the few rants he has are less powerful because of it. His confrontations with the Doctor are well done, but it's hardly the classic intellectual battle of wills from "Genesis".

I'm difficult to please when it comes to humour in Doctor Who. Although I love the clever wordplay and outright silliness of the Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy, I don't think Douglas Adams always managed to translate it well into the Doctor Who universe. Many of the stories in this season do get the balance between light and shade right, but this story is a prime example of where it doesn't work a lot of the time - Adams and Nation make strange bedfellows. The Daleks are treated as a bit of a joke really, with the Doctor memorably telling them to "Spack Off !". I much prefer it when they are scheming and manipulative. When the funniest scene is a scissors-paper-stone game, something is clearly out of kilter.

All that aside, there are some positives in this story. The quarry locations work well as the blasted surface of Skaro and the sets for the Movellan ship are not bad. The direction and the camera work are of a fairly high standard too - this was the first time they used a steadicam wasn't it? As the initial story of the season and the first appearance of the Daleks since "Genesis" it's overall....okay. There is nothing astoundingly original here but then Terry Nation did like a recycled plot....

City Of Death

So this is that moment that Graham Williams was searching for. The point where plot and characterisation and actors and locations and music score all come together to make something truly special. Dialogue where the one-liners come fast and furious and hit the mark just about every single time. ("You're a beautiful woman, probably", "Garçon, two glasses of water. Make them doubles!", "I say, what a wonderful butler. He's so violent"") Where the worst excesses of Tom Baker's ego were contained to make his portrayal of the Doctor an amalgam of all the good points of the last few seasons. It's almost perfect.

It's extremely difficult to find fault with this story, as so much of it works so well. But let's be honest, those Parisian chase scenes do go on a bit too long - seeming a bit gratuitous just to justify the expense of travelling to the French capital - and the resolution to defeating Scaroth, Last of the Jaggaroth (you have to use his full title every time you know) is just a teensy bit underwhelming. I'm being extremely picky though. Most of the time while watching this story I just had a big grin on my face.

All the supporting cast are good (even though I preferred Catherine Schell as the sexy alien Psychon Maya in Space:1999), but I have to give special mention to Julian Glover and Tom Chadbon. Scarlioni is a genuinely menacing presence - an ice cold alien mind hidden beneath a suave mannered exterior, much like his true face is hidden by that dimensionally transcendental mask. Glover also brings subtle differences to each of his splintered selves. It's a masterclass in brilliant acting. Duggan on the other hand is a man who knows he is completely out his depth, but uses his skills as a policeman and a talent for thumping people to fumble his way alongside this pair of apparent nutcases. He's utterly useless and yet still hugely lovable.

Look, there's not much point me waffling on about how fantastic this story is. You know it is. I know it is. Tom Baker knew it was when he made it (probably). 
I'll never tire of watching it.


The Creature From The Pit

This is a story which I think is unfairly maligned amongst some areas of Doctor Who fandom. They seem to solely focus on the somewhat poor realisation of Erato and that infamous green phallus shaped appendage, missing what is actually a pretty good tale of exploitation and control of rare resources. When I first saw this story back in 1979 I didn't even really register the infamous scene where the Doctor communicates with the creature. Only later viewings have highlighted that it was perhaps ill-advised. Erato actually makes for a refreshing change from the usual gamut of humanoid-like monsters that speak English. When was the last time we had a truly 'alien' creature (one that is all brain in fact) that the Doctor couldn't communicate with? The bulbous looking ambassador to Chloris is not even the real threat anyway. The Doctor himself gives Erato the benefit of the doubt rather than assuming he / it is out to absorb everyone.

Incidentally I found it interesting that the name Erato comes from the Greek muse of romantic and erotic poetry and that his home planet Tythonus (possibly) derives from the multi-headed beast Typhon. I know Graham Williams liked his classics, but I hadn't appreciated that sometimes the delvings into mythology were more subtle - just a name rather than cribbing whole sagas.

Tom Baker gives a strong performance and again seems to be balancing the humourous and the serious more effectively. I love the little scene where the Doctor is hanging precariously onto the side of The Pit and pulls out "Everest In Easy Stages", only to find it is written in Tibetan - so he then produces a Teach Yourself Tibetan book! The change in K-9's voice to David Brierly is very noticeable (explained away in the previous story as "laryngitis"). Whereas before he was a lovable robotic pet keen to provide information, now he sounds like a stuck up head boy, exasperated at having to deal with the lower mortals and their nuisances. Come back John Leeson!  Romana fairs poorly too. It's obvious that, as this was Lalla Ward's first filmed story, the script was written for Mary Tamm. Lalla seems very uncomfortable and unnatural and is back at her "Armageddon Factor" levels of acting skill (i.e. terrible in parts).

As for the guest actors, Adrasta is a great convincing villainess - completely ruthless in her desire to control all the metal on Chloris. She'll throw anyone into the pit for the slightest infraction. I also love the silver headpiece clamped to the sides of her face and the way she slaps Romana violently around the face. The hairy bandits however are utterly pointless to the story and are only there to get that communicator thing off the wall and into the pit in time for part four. Geoffrey Bayldon on the other hand is just wonderful as the astronomer Organon. True, his character doesn't have a lot to do and you don't feel empathy for him in the same way as say, Binro The Heretic, but he is nevertheless always charmingly diverting. I've always loved him as an actor and he would have made a fantastic Doctor (he turned the TV role down twice but did play the part in two Big Finish "Unbound" plays), His acting legacy in genre TV is secure anyway, in the three great roles of Catweazle, Organon and the Crowman from Worzel Gummidge.

Other positives? Well, the jungle sets are damn good, extremely well lit and very atmospheric. It helps that they are shot on film rather than video. The costumes are nice too, with a late medieval vibe. I even like the Wolfweeds. Negatives? The most obvious one is that strange double ending. Adrasta is defeated and the creature is released (even though I'm not quite sure how he is going to get that massive bulk out of the pit to "spin" a new ship. Come to think of it how on earth did Adrasta get Erato in there in the first place?). All is well. But  - oh crap - we're running ten minutes short. Quick, concoct another threat using the Tythonian ship coming to rescue Erato and some technobabble about a neutron star. It makes little sense and totally undermines the original idea that Erato and his people are not hostile. I suppose you could argue that it shows that the Doctor never did trust Erato completely and maybe it was planned that way from the beginning, but in any case it it seemed a rush job.

Overall though this story is a thoroughly acceptable and enjoyable adventure and not the disaster the majority seem to think it is.


Nightmare Of Eden

Written by a solo Bob Baker, this is actually streets ahead of most of the scripts he did with Dave Martin. Partly I think it's because it doesn't try and cram in too many wacky ideas and concepts, but concentrates on telling a good solid adventure. There's a lot of novel things going on (drug smuggling, the ships crashing together in hyperspace, the CET machine, aliens turning into an addictive substance when they die), but it's never unclear, and it all fits together really well. The other major factor is that the characterisation of the Doctor is just superb. We get the cosmic wanderer who is "just having fun" to the moral crusader who is absolutely appalled by the treatment of the Mandrels and the manufacture of a drug as destructive as Vraxoin. He is rightly disgusted at what Tryst has done. The coldly delivered line "Just go away" as Tryst is taken into custody at the end is magnificent (its power only slightly diluted by the "My arms! My legs! My everything!" Tom-foolery).

A lot has been made by some fans of the troubled nature of the production, the poor costumes and the supposedly less than stellar performances of the supporting cast. Yes I guess Tryst does have a peculiar accent but, well, lots of planets have people who talk oddly. To be honest I didn't find his voice distracting at all and the fact that he's an all too human protagonist just out for profit (albeit at the expense of the suffering of millions of drug addicts) is a refreshing change from the megalomaniacs and blacker than black scoundrels. The two customs men in their spangly leather are less successful - the officious busybody being a terrible cliché.

The slice of Eden taken into the CET machine is an nice piece of design - dark, damp, claustrophobic and very eerie, especially when you know that a horde of hulking monsters is out there somewhere -  not to mention shadowy glimpses of a more human set of eyes peering out of the gloom. I don't care what anyone else thinks - I like the Mandrels. I remember being quite spooked by those huge glowing eyes and that enormous clam shaped mouth. Okay so the bottom half looks it belong more on a 1970s cruise ship entertainer and the droopy arms are a mistake, but if I was going to quibble about every slightly dodgy looking creation in Doctor Who we'd be here all night (there are exceptions which will never ever get a pass, as we'll find out in a few months). Sadly they do work best in the dark, losing any menace once out in the light of the ship corridors. They're like over-enthusiastic giant puppies that just might hug you to death, galumphing along in the hope of a fleshy biscuit. Just me that finds them cute then?

The Horns of Nimon

This is the worst Doctor Who story ever. That's what "received wisdom" would have you believe. Most of the season 17 adventures have taken a critical drubbing in one way or another over the years and "Horns Of Nimon" has been on the sharp pointy end of that. It does contain many of the same trait's of the earlier stories, including a somewhat unconvincing monster. But, also like the other stories, there is a decent plot underneath. In fact there is a lot to love.

That this is a another chapter in Graham Williams's Big Book of Greek Myths is obvious. The parallels with the tale of Theseus are plain for all to see - but that's not where the interesting stuff really lies.The Nimon are apparently like locusts, but I think they can be compared to a virus, spreading from world to world rather than body to body, leaving nothing but a burnt out husk in their wake. I also like that they trick their way onto unsuspecting planets by promising great power  - just what the Skonnon's need in their quest to build a glorious new empire and dominate their sector of space. They even get the unsuspecting locals to build their matter transmitter for them! They are utterly evil, with no redeeming features whatsoever. The budgetary limitations may be obvious, but I still like the design of the Nimon. The heads work better than the rest of them (let's not talk about the 'lioncloth') and their voices are very distinctive. Their lumbering platform shoe walk with arms outstretched is perhaps a bit odd and the roaring may be taking the bull analogy a bit far, but if you are hiding in the dark of their circuit board maze they are still pretty scary.

Soldeed, played by the always entertaining Graham Crowden, is a much-criticised element, but I won't hear a word said against him, his deluded fantasies of power beyond imagining  and his fawning in the presence of "Lord Nimon". Yes he's chewing the scenery with relish, but he's not annoying like the terrible Pirate Captain from the previous season. Soldeed doesn't just steal every scene he is in, he bundles it up and runs away, eyes bulging out of their sockets and  laughing madly about the "journey of life". He even gibbers like a maniac when he is about to die ("My dreams of conquest!!!"). He's just majestically wonderful and infinitely quotable. Perhaps he seems larger than life because much of the rest of the cast are so bland (especially the tediously dull Seth and Teka).

 (Soldeed's so great he gets two pictures)

The only other character that makes a decent impression is the co-pilot (he doesn't even get a name). I genuinely love the way the blundering oaf opens the cargo doors to the Aneth tributes, bellows "Weakling scum!" and then closes the door again. It's his catchphrase for dealing with the "sacrifices", the Doctor - basically anyone he doesn't like or who tries to get him to actually do anything. "Weakling scum!" is the only comment the bully makes, because he just loves having someone to push around.

I've been quite critical of some previous stories for wishy-washy story lines, poor production values or hammy acting, so why does "Horns of Nimon" get away with it? The reality is that it doesn't care whether you like it or not. It takes itself very seriously but at the same time winks at you as if to say "Isn't this fun?". The plot devices may be a staple of Doctor Who, the sets might be cheaper than usual, the monster might have a papier mache head, but it has so much entertainment value that it's good enough to surpass the poorer parts and you can't help but like it. Amongst all of season 17, I think it vies with City of Death as being my favourite.


Next time, it's all change as JN-T takes charge...

The 800 Day Project - Day 496 to 505 - The Key Part 3

The Power Of Kroll through to The Armageddon Factor

I'm trying to rattle through these "800 Day Project" posts for the next couple of weeks, as I'm conscious that I am quite a long way behind compared to the episodes I am currently watching. The next update will probably cover all of season 17 in one go. The problem is that as the seasons get shorter - with no more six parters on the horizon - I am watching almost two stories a week, but only updating the blog once a week. I might have to do something about that, perhaps by switching to only capsule reviews or finding a way to sleep less so I can update twice a week. We'll see. For now it's back to the final two stories of the search for the Key To Time - and things are not going well...

The Power Of Kroll

Bow down and chant "Kroll" a hundred and fifty times in a row - it's the biggest monster Doctor Who has every seen. Plus it's the first story this season where the segment of the Key is intrinsic to the plot. Indeed it's the segment that caused the whole mess in the first place. It's a terrible disappointment then when the usually excellent Robert Holmes turns in a script this derivative and tedious.

Basically it's a base under siege story, packed full of all the clichés one would expect. The arrogant expedition leader who is going slowly insane and sees the indigenous life forms as nothing more than obstacles in the way of profit that need to be wiped out. The Doctor immediately being suspected of being the problem. The junior officer who makes a stand and gets shot for daring to speak out. An unimportant crewmember who gets killed by the monster of the week. A nail-biting countdown that can only be solved by the Doctor. Then you have the Holmes creative tics. The morally dubious gun-runner. The local natives worshipping something they don't understand. Some surprisingly grisly deaths at the hands of the giant cephalopod and the Swampies. It just never all comes together into a cohesive whole. You just don't care about any of the characters to shed a tear if they live or die. There are no witty double acts either and although I'll happily give Holmes kudos for trying something outside his more gothic horror comfort zone, in this case there is just not enough to make up the difference.

Add in some flat pedestrian direction and a few less that special effects (It's beyond me how Graham Williams ever thought he could make a three-hundred foot high squid look remotely convincing, but you have to admire his ambition) and you have a story that is not spoken of in hushed tones of reverence but often in mocking tones of derision. I wouldn't go that far - but it's certainly well below par. It's just...dull.

It's also a criminal (under) use of some fine actors. I hardly recognised the great John Abineri under the fright wig and green makeup (although maybe he would prefer it that way). He's okay as high priest Ranquin, yelling his religious doctrine at the lesser Swampies, but it's a bit of a nothing role for one of Doctor Who's best guest actors. Ditto for the normally riveting Philip Madoc. Just imagine him in the role of the psychotic Thawn - that delicious Welsh voice and steely gaze brimming with menace. Instead he's given the humdrum part of Fener. I suspect that permanent scowl he wears throughout the story required very little acting on Madoc's part. I would've been teed off too. Neil McCarthy does bring a certain amount of gruff intensity to the part, but he's not the best actor in the world and I do think it would have worked better if the roles had been reversed. Oh and let's not even mention Glyn Owen sleepwalking his way through the part of Rohm Dut. His death scene is a merciful release.

Positives? Well there is the germ of a potentially good story buried somewhere here - maybe something about faith vs. science or the destruction of indigenous populations in the name of progress. Uncle Tom does his level best to bring some energy and humour to proceedings and it's really his performance that saves the story from a watery grave. The boggy marshes *do* make a nice change to the usual quarries and sandpits, and the model work is also pretty good, including the design of mighty Kroll himself. Actually that's the thing - Kroll is not a terrible monster at all to be honest - just unconvincingly presented in the long shots. He works far better as a hidden lurking threat than as an image via split screen. I do have a soft spot for the good old rubber tentacles coming through the ducting of the refinery to whisk away an unsuspecting crewman. Nothing wrong with that at all.

I'm a big fan of the gigantic monster movies like King Kong or Godzilla. This story isn't up there with those classics by any stretch of the imagination, but viewed as a Saturday tea-time "creature-feature" it has a certain charm. Kroll attacking the refinery is no worse an effect than some seen in movies of that genre (although admittedly TV has always lagged many years behind Hollywood in what it can accomplish - at least until recently) The monster isn't the problem here  - it's the plot. It could have been so much better with a little more effort.

The Armageddon Factor

Oh dear. This is the point where instead of a thrilling conclusion to the season, the whole crumbling edifice of the arc plot collapses under the weight of its own expectations. We've had twenty episodes to build up to this, so you would expect a story of epic proportions that puts the Doctor in mortal danger in a battle between good and evil. What we get is a serial that would be considered passable in many other seasons but as a capstone to the whole quest it just doesn't work for me.

It's a story driven by its ideas, not its characters - who are, in the main, forgettable. Mind you, the lack of good well developed roles shouldn't really be a surprise - this is a Bob Baker and Dave Martin script after all. They were always ideas men first and foremost. I still think their best script is "Hand of Fear" - but this is a long way off that. It's not all their fault though. Douglas Adams and Anthony Read need to shoulder some of the blame too as they tinkered about with things a fair bit.The end result of four writers input is no better though. It's all over the place. Yes, the main driver is the search for the final segment and keeping the completed cube out of the clutches of the Black Guardian, and yes the core concept of two planets tricked into war (presumably as a test run of the Black Guardian's plan to engender chaos by setting the two halves of the universe against each other) is an intriguing one, and finally yes, it could be seen as a not-so-subtle comment on the Cold War. But there is so much pointless "noise" around this that there is no sense of urgency or scale or and it just doesn't deliver the goods.

The acting is tolerable at the best of times but atrocious elsewhere. Only John Woodvine as the Marshal comes out of this with any kind of dignity - and they shuffle him off into a timeloop to shout "Fire!" ad infinitum all too soon. Based on her performance here as the wet Princess Astra, I'm amazed that Lalla Ward got the role as the regenerated Romana. It's startling how different her subsequent performances are. Mary Tamm definitely wins the battle of the Timeladies on screen here. It's such a shame that her last performance as the character is in such a lacklustre story. I would have loved to see her get another season's worth of adventures under her belt. Perhaps I should check out the Big Finish Fourth Doctor audio plays to get my Romana I fix...

As poor as Lalla Ward is in her first Doctor Who appearance, her characters beleaguered boyfriend Merak is infinitely worse. The only lines he seems to get are a constant whimpering "Astra!!" at every opportunity. He's yet more filler, and certainly doesn't seem to be there for much else beyond being a supposed love interest and bumping up the character count. He's not even a worthwhile hero trying to rescue his princess.

The Shadow is a stereotypical pantomime villain. He's the Hooded Claw from "The Perils of Penelope Pitstop" but without the marvellous voice of Paul Lynde (although that fifty-a-day rasp is not bad). Oh and he loves a good laugh does our bad guy. He's "MWA-HAAAA-HAAAA-HAAAA!"-ing at everything and anything. Putting on his underpants. Having beans on toast. Throwing the Doctor down a pit. Watching 'Countdown'. Seizing the Key To Time. It's all maniacal guffaws a-plenty. It gets a bit tiring to be honest. Actually, I do think that something / someone like the Shadow should have been introduced much earlier in the season, to demonstrate that the Black Guardian was a tangible presence behind the scenes (we only got a couple of throwaway lines across the previous four stories). Imagine if Mr Fibuli from "The Pirate Planet" had actually been the Shadow in disguise! He does say that he has been watching the Doctor for some time. Maybe I'm trying to assign modern scripting techniques and our current fascination with arc plots seeding throughout a season too much to something made in 1979. I just think it would have spiced things up a bit and also made the Shadow's reveal in this story more of a big deal. Thinking back to when I first watched this though, I do remember being scared witless by the Shadow and his skull mask and deep voice, so maybe it was pitched at the right level for children after all.

In the litany of acting awfulness how could I forget Davyd Harries as the hapless Schapp. A man so inept that he can't even fall over properly. He starts off as a dull but reasonably efficient aide to the Mashall, and there are some nice facial expressions as you can see he is a bit bemused by his leader's increasingly erratic behaviour. But all of that gets lost because Shapp transforms into a bumbling imbecile by around episode three. There is a long proud tradition of the male as a fool in British situation comedy, but - newsflash - this *isn't* a comedy (well not intentionally). That cry of “MERRAA-AAAA-AAA-KKKK!” as he stumbles into the lift -  <<Shudder>>. His partner in the crime of mediocrity is Del-Boy Timelord Drax. Barry Jackson does his best, bless him, but sadly, he fails to make Drax anywhere near believable. Again it's this dichotomy of the writers trying to lighten the mood amongst all the supposed drama (the story isn't as serious and grim as it likes to think it is) but instead they give us cliché after terrible cliché. Like Merak, Drax seems only to be there to pad out things so they can fill the six episode slot. Cut out all that fooling around and shrinking and stuff and it wouldn't make a jot of difference to the real plot. Tom Baker tries to salvage things with his own brand of humour but it's a thankless task. He is as watchable as ever though and gets his slice of "ham" just the right side of the line including that eyelash-fluttering, look-at-me-I'm-bonkers scene in the TARDIS. That was probably the toned down take knowing Tom.

The biggest disappointment of course is that fact that after spending twenty-six episodes finding the Key to Time, nothing is really resolved. What was the great disaster that was causing things to be "out of balance"? How do we fix it? You "stop time" and then what? Basically all that happens is that the Doctor gets all the segments, has a bit of a chat with the Black Guardian (not even in person and doing a very poor impression of the White Guardian) and then...scatters them through time and space again. (At least we get to enjoy the sonorous tones of Valentine Dyall, so that's some small consolation. I could listen to that man read the back of a cereal packet). The viewer is left thinking "what was all the fuss about?". It's a shame because many of the rest of the stories from this season are very good, but the "The Armageddon Factor" diminishes them slightly when watched in sequence. That's not something I will be repeating any time soon.

All in all, I would consider the Key To Time season a noble failure. It was the first time Doctor Who had tried this kind of arc plot and although the end result didn't work, it did pave the way for things to come (with their own varying levels of success). If nothing else, amongst all the clunkers (and I realise that I have perhaps been quite harsh on a couple of them) this season did contain some of my favourite Tom Baker stories. Of course despite all its faults, the Graham Williams era is about to produce a stone-cold classic. Yes, The Horns of Nimon is almost upon us...