Pyrrho declared that we can determine how things appear, but we can never know the actual, core essence of anything. This seems particularly apt when discussing a television program, where appearance is everything. What is the true nature of Doctor Who? Is it what we see, hear and read, or is it what goes on behind the scenes? Is Yartek, in the end, an alien Voord in an acid-repelling suit disguised as keeper of the conscience on an island of Marinus, or is he a man in a rubber costume in a robe in a studio at Lime Grove? Perhaps more to the point, what were Vasor's intentions regarding Barbara? They are both fictional characters, in a medium which doesn't explicitly express intent; I know what I think, but there is no indisputable, essential answer because on one level it makes no sense to talk about what a nonexistent person was thinking. Certainly, Francis de Wolff's goals were very different from his character's!
The film Galaxy Quest spends some time looking at how fans of a fictional franchise can get caught up in the fiction, blurring the boundaries with the real world. Galaxy Quest thus features imaginary fans getting confused about the reality of a fictional TV show starring nonexistent actors. Similarly, the truth here is that "reality" in the city of Morphoton is no more real than the illusion. Pyrrho says, so what? And while I am no skeptic, I am happy to spend a fair amount of time in my own velvet web.
Enough with the philosophy. There are no alternative titles listed for this serial, which - annoyingly - means two entries with almost identical headings. It's very much a mixed bag, and this is reflected in the averaged episode scores giving me the same result yet again. I find that the Saturday matinee serial format helps, and that my enjoyment of the good-to-excellent episodes is not hampered by the less successful.
This serial was the last time that Terry Nation was invited back to write original villains for Doctor Who; from hereon it was Daleks all the way. Later he cursed the metal monstrosities because he felt he'd been trapped by them, but they also brought him a lot of money, and to be fair he didn't belittle this.
There's nothing more I want to say about the serial itself; but quite a lot to say about the DVD.
DVDs, Part 2: Commentaries and Production Subtitles
I watched each episode of this serial twice, first with the normal soundtrack and then with the commentary. I also watched The Sea of Death a third time, with the production subtitles turned on. These are both standard features on Who DVDs - so much so that I commented on the shortage of commentary in the box set of the first three serials - and my thought was that this might help with the reviewing, pointing out things I missed. The results were mixed.
I don't know why the feeling is so strong, but I find subtitles extremely distracting when watching film or TV. The only exception I can think of is Heroes, where they placed them at appropriate points in the frame rather than along the bottom. I also didn't get anything out of the production subtitles for the first episode of the serial (for some reason they seemed to think you had to look carefully to spot the glaringly obvious stagehand turning the door in the wall). Because of this I decided not to continue with that experiment.
Commentaries are another matter. I don't always listen to them, but without them I would never have attempted to write up my reviews in this much detail. It started with my first ever commentary, Roger Ebert talking about the film Dark City. I can't remember why I decided to try it, but it was a revelation. I'm a fairly intuitive sort of person; I know what I like but can't always express why. Ebert, naturally, looked at the film with a critic's eye, pointing out what the director was doing and how it affected the viewer. This really made me sit up and take notice, and it was from then on that I started paying attention to direction.
My next significant commentaries were those on the Firefly box set, which I tried because I'm a definite browncoat and wanted to wring as much as possible out of that tragically aborted gem. The ones that worked best for me were those where Joss Whedon talked about what he was doing - Out of Gas and Objects in Space. Later, Serenity proved equally interesting.
Other styles of commentary can be fun, too - they add a lot to the experience of watching Time-Flight and Arc of Infinity, for example - but it still remains the director's (and especially writer-director's) viewpoint that interests me most.
So, what of the commentary for this DVD? It's such a long time since the serial was made that the participants almost equate to the survivors. Memory can be a problem in these circumstances, so to keep things moving Clayton Hickman is present as moderator. He's a cheerful, enthusiastic voice who mostly keeps his opinions to himself (except when countering one of the others' self-deprecation), and I think it was useful for him to be there; but it's still not a strong commentary. William Russell is very quiet and Raymond Cusick is persistently negative, leaving it to Carole Ann Ford and John Gorrie to make the running. The former has some amusing tales but it's the latter who gives the most.
Gorrie was not keen on science fiction, but Verity Lambert effectively bullied him into directing for her. There is some dispute over whether it is his only contribution to the show: there are stories that he stepped in to help out with an episode of The Reign of Terror when Henric Hirsch fell ill, but Gorrie himself has no memory of it. Following this brief foray he returned to the plays he loved.
Speaking of Lambert, it is in the section discussing her that the team really comes alive. Quite touching.
So, did the commentaries help with the reviews? Yes, but not because they pointed out things I missed. Rather they provided some of the stories and additional information that I use to spice things up a bit. I will continue to listen to them for the next televised story, which is my favourite pure historical...
Rating:
Single Sitting: 7/10.
Episodic: 6/10.
DWM Mighty 200: 59.66%, 160th.
2011 Gallifrey Base Non-Dynamic Rankings: 6.19, 150th out of 222.
Next Time:
A comic extract: The Forgotten, part 1.
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