After writing about half of this entry (and trying to decide what to add to finish it off) I popped over to Elizabeth Sandifer's TARDIS Eruditorum to remind myself of what she thought about this serial. The answer is pretty stark: she thinks of it as the show's first flop. This surprised me somewhat, and prompted a quick reshuffle of what I'd already written, making this something of a response to that.
Let's get to the heart of the matter first: the Doctor's decision to throw Iananbarbara off the ship. This is, quite simply, handled dreadfully, and (as I said last time) it's also completely unnecessary. There are plenty of ways to get the crew out of the TARDIS when they land on Earth in pleasant green countryside, not least being the teachers' desire to see if they have actually got back to 1960s England! The difference for me is that I see this as tacked on, having nothing much to do with the main story. Since it is never really addressed, it takes up a few minutes at the beginning of A Land of Fear and a similar amount of time at the end of Prisoners of Conciergerie; plus some fuming from me afterwards. Annoying, but not enough to ruin the rest of the production.
On to the use of the regular cast, then. Susan gets her shortest straw yet, which is saying something. Seriously - she had more to do when she was on holiday during The Aztecs! It's as if Dennis Spooner thought, "well, I'm not going to be working with Carole Ann Ford so I won't bother making use of her character." Barbara is a little better served, with the romance subplot and some proactive moments (such as her initiating the tunnel when she was in prison with Susan), but she still doesn't achieve anything. Ian flaps around the place, getting captured and knocked out. The thing is, except for Susan I didn't notice quite how little they got to do, so it didn't do too much to damage the story for me.
So far, then, I mostly agree with El about the specifics, but I place less emphasis on many of the things she dislikes. On the other hand I think the story hangs together very well, and the atmosphere is helped by the consistent, appropriate music. The historical details are worked in well, and the lack of black and white in the discussions of both politics and people is appreciated. Meanwhile the Doctor spends a little over an episode (not "half the show") walking to Paris, and then dominates the proceedings for most of the rest.
Interestingly, Robert Shearman in his DWM article for this story has almost the opposite reaction to Dr. Sandifer's: he sees the serial as a step forward, not back, with the TARDIS crew finally getting emotionally involved in their adventures, thus changing the tone for the rest of the show's (ongoing) run. I'm somewhere between the two, not straddling the fence so much as still searching for a middle path. When I've seen the story more than once I may shift towards one of these two positions; time will tell. And I will revisit it when I get the DVD.
And now, the return of our latest feature: the nine-year-old view.
Isaac's Corner
The story got better as it went along - the first episode was too rushed with too much happening, and the last episode was my favourite. The two missing episodes were my next favourites; they were still fun to watch, but I could only do it with the soundtrack CD as well because the sound on the recon was so hard to make out. The best actors this time were the jailer and Lemaitre. The story had quite a good plot with more humour than usual, which improved the overall rating. I give it 7.5/10 overall, but it would be less if I did it episodic.
Rating:
Episodic: 6/10.
DWM Mighty 200: 63.37%, 144th.
2011 Gallifrey Base Non-Dynamic Rankings: 6.89, 113th out of 222.
Next Time:
A round-up and overview of the first season.
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