I've been putting up the reviews for this serial in as pure a manner as
possible, given that I've already seen the story: each entry has been
written and posted before I've seen the next episode (and I'm actually
typing this bit before watching The End of Tomorrow, while I wait
for an opportunity to watch it). This isn't by design, and makes for
longer gaps between entries; it's just the way life has worked out. It
also means that I may not pick the best episodes to discuss subjects
that can be slotted in anywhere.
Time passes, calendar pages are blown away... and now I've seen the
episode. I'm not in the mood for ripping things apart and don't have a
redemptive reading to offer, so this can be one of those times when I
fit in some of the general stuff.
Let me top and tail this review with positives. The End of Tomorrow
is the episode in which we see Barbara charging Daleks in a truck and
driving right through them, a real adrenaline-pumping, crowd-pleasing
scene which is handled just right.
Speaking of Barbara, Jacqueline Hill is pretty much the only continuing
actor who manages to keep her end up, and even she is a little subdued.
(Actually, that's not quite fair: Peter Fraser and Bernard Kay do too,
but they're not given much to work with.) Ann Davies as Jenny has
slipped over from suppressed and tightly wound into wooden; Carole Ann
Ford responds to the fact that she's given nothing but screaming and
hysteria by switching off and acting on autopilot; William Russell makes
a hash of looking at the vast mining vista and pointing things out; and
as for William Hartnell... well, he's not there.
Last time, Hartnell received an injury while being carried out of the
spaceship during rehearsals. Against instructions, the robomen and their
prisoners had marched down the ramp in step, setting up a vibration
that weakened it; and when the Doctor was carried it collapsed and he
fell, hurting his back. He required an x-ray and a week off. Edmund
Warwick acted as his stand-in for the start of this episode, and most of
the Doctor's lines were given to David instead.
This explains a lot, actually: it would have made more sense for the
Doctor to figure out how to disarm the bomb. Of course, if Susan hadn't
already been written off the unearthly child would have been a likelier
substitute, but hey.
Acting and dodgy rewrites aren't the only things wrong with this
episode. There's the realisation of the Slyther, a neat idea for a
monster that could have worked - the costume's about as good as you
could hope for - but it really needed careful handling and limited
views, and that's not what the direction gives us. Even the sets are a
let-down in the Bedfordshire scenes, and the bit at the end where Ian
and Larry are scared of the drop doesn't work at all.
The sewers look better, but Susan and David's excursion feels like
pointless padding - and the bit where she is supposedly hanging above
the baby alligators is rubbish. It's dysergy again, and having slagged
off the acting, script, direction and even some set design I've had
enough. Let's have some subheads.
It's Thingy, from That Other Program, Part 3: Nicholas Smith
I suspect that most people growing up in the heady, un-PC days of the 1970s have memories of Are You Being Served?;
I certainly do. And for this reason, I instantly recognised the actor
who played Wells as the manager, Mr. Rumbold, who Nicholas Smith played
for 13 years. While he appeared in other shows it was the defining role
of his TV career, but he got his first speaking role in this episode of Who.
He does fine - not spectacularly, but still better than most of the
other actors - and we'll be seeing more of him, since he persuaded
Richard Martin to expand his role!
Quite by coincidence I was reminded of the sitcom last night, as it was referred to (in the form Are You Bean Served?) in the first episode of Peri and the Piscon Paradox, which my wife and I were listening to before settling down...
Monsters!, Part 4: Redesign of the Daleks
Being the show's first serial with a returning foe, it was natural that
Martin and designer Spencer Chapman would want to put their own stamp on
the metal monsters. Sometimes this is successful (e.g., Russell T.
Davies and Edward Thomas' first new series design) and sometimes the
results are controversial at best (as with Steven Moffat and Thomas'
later New Paradigm Daleks). Most of the changes this time - the dishes
on their backs, the enlarged fenders - weren't carried forward, but one
change has persisted to this day: colour schemes.
Being filmed in monochrome meant that only choices of colours with good
contrast could work, but having the leader - the original Supreme Dalek -
be black was a great idea. The striped silver-and-black Saucer
Commander wasn't quite so successful, but it was still a useful means of
differentiating him from the rank and file. Still, we'll have to wait
for the next return to see the Daleks settle into long-term stability...
I said I wanted to end on a positive note. I've got two, actually: the
prefilmed and stock-footage mine sequences are good (despite the poor
way they were integrated with the studio shots), and although this
episode was a low point for me, I was shown how differently people think
by my son, who thought it was much better than the previous two! I
think it might be to do with the fact that there is plenty of action;
I'll try to quiz him more before writing up his mini review of the
serial.
Broadcast:
Date: Saturday, 12th December 1964
Viewers: 11.9 million
Chart Position: 11
Appreciation Index: 59
Rating:
2.5/10.
Next Time:
The Waking Ally.
Friday 27 April 2012
Monday 23 April 2012
Episode 48 (K3): Day of Reckoning
There's a lot to write about this time, so I'm going to skip lightly
over most of it (which may therefore get a little disjointed) and pick a
few scenes to tackle in more detail. The sets are great, and we get to
see a bit more of how the spaceship fits together. I particularly like
Ian's hiding place, and the way that the first time we see it, it's shot
as if it could be a different set; but then it's revealed to be
connected.
The big fight scene is an improvement, doing a good job of showing the confusion; but it's still not what Richard Martin (or, indeed, the program) does best. The smaller fight, with Ian and the roboman, also lacks a little something - as most brawls at the time did - and then it ends with one of the good guys stabbing the roboman! Suicide, knives - this serial is providing some pretty good ammunition for Mary Whitehouse's Clean Up TV Campaign, inaugurated earlier in the year.
Meanwhile, back in the rebel base, we have a lovely moment of waiting, of despair. Someone's crying, someone's losing it; the others are sunk. In particular, Alan Judd as Dortmun gives a fine, subdued performance. In fact, this episode is very much his. Third episodes can be tricky; in my First Season roundup they scored second-lowest on average (after fifth episodes), and lowest if you go by director. By focusing so much on one supporting character Terry Nation manages to keep up interest, and in the process shows that he really is pretty good at serial TV.
So let's follow Dortmun's tale. Next we get the impressive whistle-stop tour of London landmarks, with Jacqueline Hill showing off her impressive "pushing a wheelchair at speed" skills. This has got it all - Daleks doing the Nazi salute, Dalek graffiti (which got the designer into trouble), Dalek viewpoint moments and a pounding musical backdrop. This is the "money shot" for this episode, and the sense of scale I mentioned last time is upped another notch. It's also playing up the fear of invasion the British still felt (just as I said when reviewing The Time Travellers) - this is a very 1960s future nightmare.
The story focus zooms in again when we reach the Transport Museum. Judd hits it for six with his portrayal (or knocks it out of the park - choose your idiom), ably supported by Hill (and briefly Ann Davies, before she leaves). This is matched by the finely nuanced script: the way Dortmun handles the others has so many layers. Sending Jenny to check on the Daleks is an obvious misdirection; we just know he's actually doing it to smooth relations between the women. And when he sends Barbara to fetch her this makes sense too, so when we find out that he's actually getting them out of the way it's a real surprise. But the thing is, it makes sense for his personality and feelings at the time - and all layers of the deception make sense, too.
When I first saw this I thought it was cheesy the way Dortmun stands and throws away his sticks when facing the Daleks, but this time around I can see it for the big, defiant gesture it is. A fine end for the character, and - despite a rather too pathetic explosion - for the subplot too.
The other key character this week is Susan. As usual when given decent material, Carole Ann Ford shows what she can do - and here she is helped by Martin's direction, which works better in small, intimate moments. Considering she spends almost the entire episode hiding under a small, leafy twig, the fact that this part of the story is so good is quite an achievement!
This subplot concentrates on two of her relationships: her longest-lasting and her newest. She and David are thrown together by circumstance, and crouch together listening to someone being exterminated in the distance (a truly scary moment). I wonder what it would be like to watch this and not know that Susan is going to leave at the end? It's impossible to say, but David is certainly being set up as a nice guy, and we are getting plenty of hints here that Susan's travelling days might be coming to an end. There's the whole discussion about moving on, about running away (and it's amusing that David mentions going to see what it's like on Venus, when that will be the TARDIS's very next port of call). The talk of Susan's real identity and of her finding somewhere to finally stop may be a little heavy-handed, but when you've got four episodes to set up something this important - and when those episodes are each a week apart - I think it's pitched right. To be honest, only one other companion gets anything like this amount of focus on a relationship before leaving with someone.
I mentioned last time how little eye contact there was; here Martin gives Ford plenty, first with Peter Fraser's David and later with William Hartnell. There's a lot of affection between Susan and the Doctor, and the actors manage to bring this out in little ways. It's not that they are completely comfortable with each other - part of the point is that Susan has grown, and that phase of their travels is past - but they obviously know and like each other, even when they disagree. Once again it's a combination of script, acting and direction that brings the people to life. The Doctor tests Susan, making his authority clear while prodding around in her skull; but then, when David returns, gives her what she wanted. We see Ford in closeup, and as we watch the emotions playing across her face it is emphasised once more just how wasted she's been in the scripts to date.
There's a lot to like about this episode. The direction means that there isn't quite as much tension as there should be in some parts, and the fights are lacking; but the smaller moments are spot on.
Broadcast:
Date: Saturday, 5th December 1964
Viewers: 11.9 million
Chart Position: 10
Appreciation Index: 59
Rating:
6.5/10.
Next Time:
The End of Tomorrow.
The big fight scene is an improvement, doing a good job of showing the confusion; but it's still not what Richard Martin (or, indeed, the program) does best. The smaller fight, with Ian and the roboman, also lacks a little something - as most brawls at the time did - and then it ends with one of the good guys stabbing the roboman! Suicide, knives - this serial is providing some pretty good ammunition for Mary Whitehouse's Clean Up TV Campaign, inaugurated earlier in the year.
Meanwhile, back in the rebel base, we have a lovely moment of waiting, of despair. Someone's crying, someone's losing it; the others are sunk. In particular, Alan Judd as Dortmun gives a fine, subdued performance. In fact, this episode is very much his. Third episodes can be tricky; in my First Season roundup they scored second-lowest on average (after fifth episodes), and lowest if you go by director. By focusing so much on one supporting character Terry Nation manages to keep up interest, and in the process shows that he really is pretty good at serial TV.
So let's follow Dortmun's tale. Next we get the impressive whistle-stop tour of London landmarks, with Jacqueline Hill showing off her impressive "pushing a wheelchair at speed" skills. This has got it all - Daleks doing the Nazi salute, Dalek graffiti (which got the designer into trouble), Dalek viewpoint moments and a pounding musical backdrop. This is the "money shot" for this episode, and the sense of scale I mentioned last time is upped another notch. It's also playing up the fear of invasion the British still felt (just as I said when reviewing The Time Travellers) - this is a very 1960s future nightmare.
The story focus zooms in again when we reach the Transport Museum. Judd hits it for six with his portrayal (or knocks it out of the park - choose your idiom), ably supported by Hill (and briefly Ann Davies, before she leaves). This is matched by the finely nuanced script: the way Dortmun handles the others has so many layers. Sending Jenny to check on the Daleks is an obvious misdirection; we just know he's actually doing it to smooth relations between the women. And when he sends Barbara to fetch her this makes sense too, so when we find out that he's actually getting them out of the way it's a real surprise. But the thing is, it makes sense for his personality and feelings at the time - and all layers of the deception make sense, too.
When I first saw this I thought it was cheesy the way Dortmun stands and throws away his sticks when facing the Daleks, but this time around I can see it for the big, defiant gesture it is. A fine end for the character, and - despite a rather too pathetic explosion - for the subplot too.
The other key character this week is Susan. As usual when given decent material, Carole Ann Ford shows what she can do - and here she is helped by Martin's direction, which works better in small, intimate moments. Considering she spends almost the entire episode hiding under a small, leafy twig, the fact that this part of the story is so good is quite an achievement!
This subplot concentrates on two of her relationships: her longest-lasting and her newest. She and David are thrown together by circumstance, and crouch together listening to someone being exterminated in the distance (a truly scary moment). I wonder what it would be like to watch this and not know that Susan is going to leave at the end? It's impossible to say, but David is certainly being set up as a nice guy, and we are getting plenty of hints here that Susan's travelling days might be coming to an end. There's the whole discussion about moving on, about running away (and it's amusing that David mentions going to see what it's like on Venus, when that will be the TARDIS's very next port of call). The talk of Susan's real identity and of her finding somewhere to finally stop may be a little heavy-handed, but when you've got four episodes to set up something this important - and when those episodes are each a week apart - I think it's pitched right. To be honest, only one other companion gets anything like this amount of focus on a relationship before leaving with someone.
I mentioned last time how little eye contact there was; here Martin gives Ford plenty, first with Peter Fraser's David and later with William Hartnell. There's a lot of affection between Susan and the Doctor, and the actors manage to bring this out in little ways. It's not that they are completely comfortable with each other - part of the point is that Susan has grown, and that phase of their travels is past - but they obviously know and like each other, even when they disagree. Once again it's a combination of script, acting and direction that brings the people to life. The Doctor tests Susan, making his authority clear while prodding around in her skull; but then, when David returns, gives her what she wanted. We see Ford in closeup, and as we watch the emotions playing across her face it is emphasised once more just how wasted she's been in the scripts to date.
There's a lot to like about this episode. The direction means that there isn't quite as much tension as there should be in some parts, and the fights are lacking; but the smaller moments are spot on.
Broadcast:
Date: Saturday, 5th December 1964
Viewers: 11.9 million
Chart Position: 10
Appreciation Index: 59
Rating:
6.5/10.
Next Time:
The End of Tomorrow.
Friday 20 April 2012
Episode 47 (K2): The Daleks
The action starts again with a recap of the cliffhanger, by the
riverside - which is actually highly appropriate. Production of the show
officially moved from Lime Grove to Riverside Studio 1 with this
serial, though they had been able to use Television Centre Studio 4
since A Bargain of Necessity. Despite having originally been
built for industrial purposes this had been a film studio for many years
and was a much better location for Who, far less cramped and
with less antiquated equipment. It was the Daleks that allowed the move,
as Sydney Newman and Verity Lambert were able to exert more pressure on
the BBC thanks to the monsters' enormous popularity.
The space afforded by the new studio allowed much more freedom for the designers and directors. Spencer Chapman, stepping into Raymond Cusick's shoes as production designer, talks on the DVD extra "Future Visions" about how the extra space enabled him to design sets on multiple levels and allow wide-angle shots that gave more of a sense of scale. Richard Martin ran with this, with the high heliport shots being a particularly fine example. Couple this with the large numbers of Daleks and robomen and you get a serial that feels truly epic.
Everything starts off really well, with the backstory being delivered in a not-too-blatant manner and good cutting between the rebels' base and the riverside. The way the Doctor flounders, muttering about "the middle period of Dalek history" while refusing to acknowledge that he is out of his depth is spot on. The characterisation of the (speaking part) rebels is enough to distinguish them and make them feel like individuals, which is all that we need. Jenny seems the most complex - I thought she was poorly acted at first, but the revelation about her brother made me realise that she is someone who is holding in a lot of her emotions too tightly, and the combination of suppressed anger and blankness is entirely appropriate.
The direction is confident, with some fine camera moves. Take, for example, the moment when we zoom in on Susan and then cut to a closeup of Ian and the Doctor. There's plenty of opportunity for this to go wrong when the edits have to be so limited, but it works really well. The only real negative (other than the robomen voices) is the way the Daleks wobble back and forth. I reckon they need a pee and can't keep still.
There is a different sort of negative when we get to the first extermination (though the Daleks are still saying "kill him", rather than using their eventual keynote phrase). The effect used in the first Dalek serial still does the job, and I get a frisson of (un-PC) excitement when it happens.
Unfortunately, the good run isn't sustained. The idea of an intelligence test for robotising is ludicrous, and watching the Doctor solve a puzzle box doesn't make for thrilling television. "X equals gamma", indeed! Curiously, the audio Solitaire does something very similar years later, but it works because the story focuses on the relationship between the characters and the puzzle itself becomes a backdrop, an excuse for them to interact.
It's not just the script, though. Richard Martin's forte is not to be found in big battles, and the climactic confrontation is shot nearly as badly as in the last episode of serial B. There is also a marked shortage of eye contact between the actors, which makes the thing feel less personal, less engaging. Couple that with a fade too soon at the end, before we can see the Doctor really threatened by the robotiser, and we have an episode that ends with a whimper.
In fact, this is (IIRC) only the third time on TV that the second episode has failed to surpass the opener. Let's hope this isn't the start of a trend...
Broadcast:
Date: Saturday, 28th November 1964
Viewers: 12.4 million
Chart Position: 10
Appreciation Index: 59
Rating:
6/10.
Next Time:
Day of Reckoning.
The space afforded by the new studio allowed much more freedom for the designers and directors. Spencer Chapman, stepping into Raymond Cusick's shoes as production designer, talks on the DVD extra "Future Visions" about how the extra space enabled him to design sets on multiple levels and allow wide-angle shots that gave more of a sense of scale. Richard Martin ran with this, with the high heliport shots being a particularly fine example. Couple this with the large numbers of Daleks and robomen and you get a serial that feels truly epic.
Everything starts off really well, with the backstory being delivered in a not-too-blatant manner and good cutting between the rebels' base and the riverside. The way the Doctor flounders, muttering about "the middle period of Dalek history" while refusing to acknowledge that he is out of his depth is spot on. The characterisation of the (speaking part) rebels is enough to distinguish them and make them feel like individuals, which is all that we need. Jenny seems the most complex - I thought she was poorly acted at first, but the revelation about her brother made me realise that she is someone who is holding in a lot of her emotions too tightly, and the combination of suppressed anger and blankness is entirely appropriate.
The direction is confident, with some fine camera moves. Take, for example, the moment when we zoom in on Susan and then cut to a closeup of Ian and the Doctor. There's plenty of opportunity for this to go wrong when the edits have to be so limited, but it works really well. The only real negative (other than the robomen voices) is the way the Daleks wobble back and forth. I reckon they need a pee and can't keep still.
There is a different sort of negative when we get to the first extermination (though the Daleks are still saying "kill him", rather than using their eventual keynote phrase). The effect used in the first Dalek serial still does the job, and I get a frisson of (un-PC) excitement when it happens.
Unfortunately, the good run isn't sustained. The idea of an intelligence test for robotising is ludicrous, and watching the Doctor solve a puzzle box doesn't make for thrilling television. "X equals gamma", indeed! Curiously, the audio Solitaire does something very similar years later, but it works because the story focuses on the relationship between the characters and the puzzle itself becomes a backdrop, an excuse for them to interact.
It's not just the script, though. Richard Martin's forte is not to be found in big battles, and the climactic confrontation is shot nearly as badly as in the last episode of serial B. There is also a marked shortage of eye contact between the actors, which makes the thing feel less personal, less engaging. Couple that with a fade too soon at the end, before we can see the Doctor really threatened by the robotiser, and we have an episode that ends with a whimper.
In fact, this is (IIRC) only the third time on TV that the second episode has failed to surpass the opener. Let's hope this isn't the start of a trend...
Broadcast:
Date: Saturday, 28th November 1964
Viewers: 12.4 million
Chart Position: 10
Appreciation Index: 59
Rating:
6/10.
Next Time:
Day of Reckoning.
Monday 16 April 2012
Episode 46 (K1): World's End
Appropriately for an episode with the word 'end' in the title, I'm going to start with the cliffhanger. This is an iconic moment, and deservedly so - the image of the Dalek gliding out of the Thames is so powerful it makes for a fantastic reveal. Except... well, it isn't really a 'reveal', any more than the numerous, similarly-timed moments in later stories which have the name of the monster in the title. This was the most hyped appearance in the history of the show so far - and the first ever reappearance. I'll have more to say about that later, but the key thing here is that this is an episode which is about the Daleks, but without them actually being present until the final few seconds. So how does it go about this?
Jumping back to the beginning, following the theme tune we have the closest thing to a pre-title sequence that you'll get in this era. A man with a strange metal helmet staggers down to the river, throws himself in, and drowns. This is an explicit suicide on teatime TV - quite shocking - and then we get the shot under a bridge of the poster about dumping bodies in the river, the episode title appears, and as it fades out again the TARDIS materialises.
There's so much in this sequence that sums up the episode overall. The music by Francis Chagrin (what a fantastic name!) is both dramatic and appropriate; Richard Martin's direction is interesting, using low and high camera angles in quick succession, and creating the link between the episode title and the TARDIS; and on top of that we've already seen almost as many location shots as there were in the whole of the first season. You can tell this isn't going to be small-scale, or cozy.
Throughout the episode, the scenes that focus on the world after 2164 build up an impression of decay and despair. The poster, the crumbling docks and unsafe bridge, the abandoned warehouse, Barbara running across a barren London (I particularly like the shot of her coming to the gate) and the view of a broken-chimneyed Battersea power station next to the dome of a nuclear power plant all paint a picture of city that has suffered a terrible calamity sometime in the teachers' future. all the sets are convincing; the Daleks may not be in evidence, but the consequences of their presence are all around.
(Speaking of the power station, this is one of the shots that was redone with CGI for the DVD release - though the most obvious is the Dalek spaceship, which started out as a risible hubcap-on-string affair. Some people object to watching the program in anything but its original form, but I'm not a purist; and if it helps with the atmosphere I say go for it! So long as the unaltered version is there as well, of course - even I want to be able to compare them. The CGI saucer looks much better - I won't be tackling the Doctor-free Dalek strips for a while yet, but it does remind me of them. I only wish something similar could have been done with the robomen's voices, which turn them from fairly effective shambling zombie wannabes into, quite frankly, something a bit rubbish.)
Of course, the future-scene-setting is only half the story, and the rest is the travellers' more personal tale. This part of it begins with the camera rather shakily zooming out from the TARDIS scanner to reveal the central console, then holding fairly steady while the Doctor moves around it, and in and out of shot, adjusting with a small ped-and-tilt before the others enter. It doesn't quite work, but it almost does; and it grabs the attention so much that I had to go and look up what the camera moves were called so I could describe it properly. Well, nearly properly - I'm still not clear what to say when the camera does the equivalent of a zoom through physical movement rather than adjusting focal length. This is the thing with Martin's direction, though - he's always experimenting and pushing things as far as they will go. I think that most of the time to date this has worked (though I admit I am probably in the minority); but sometimes he misses some of the basic directorial touches while concentrating on the flamboyant, and when his experimentation goes too far it can fall right over.
Anyway, our heroes leave the TARDIS, and we have the prospect of Iananbarbara reaching home. They look suitably hopeful, but the one to watch is Susan. Carole Ann Ford does a splendid job of being disturbed that they'll soon be leaving, looking lost as the realisation of what it means hits her. In fact, Ford does a great job throughout - with one exception. Like William Russell in The Survivors, she is really unconvincing at failing to walk.
The two threads of the episode come together towards the end; and the fact that Ian doesn't want to know what has happened, together with his frustration at Barbara and Susan wandering off, is a fine way of showing his disappointment that he's not got home. Terry Nation's script is good, and the Return of the Daleks is off to a great start...
Broadcast:
Date: Saturday, 21st November 1964
Viewers: 11.4 million
Chart Position: 12
Appreciation Index: 63
Rating:
7.5/10.
Next Time:
The Daleks!
Jumping back to the beginning, following the theme tune we have the closest thing to a pre-title sequence that you'll get in this era. A man with a strange metal helmet staggers down to the river, throws himself in, and drowns. This is an explicit suicide on teatime TV - quite shocking - and then we get the shot under a bridge of the poster about dumping bodies in the river, the episode title appears, and as it fades out again the TARDIS materialises.
There's so much in this sequence that sums up the episode overall. The music by Francis Chagrin (what a fantastic name!) is both dramatic and appropriate; Richard Martin's direction is interesting, using low and high camera angles in quick succession, and creating the link between the episode title and the TARDIS; and on top of that we've already seen almost as many location shots as there were in the whole of the first season. You can tell this isn't going to be small-scale, or cozy.
Throughout the episode, the scenes that focus on the world after 2164 build up an impression of decay and despair. The poster, the crumbling docks and unsafe bridge, the abandoned warehouse, Barbara running across a barren London (I particularly like the shot of her coming to the gate) and the view of a broken-chimneyed Battersea power station next to the dome of a nuclear power plant all paint a picture of city that has suffered a terrible calamity sometime in the teachers' future. all the sets are convincing; the Daleks may not be in evidence, but the consequences of their presence are all around.
(Speaking of the power station, this is one of the shots that was redone with CGI for the DVD release - though the most obvious is the Dalek spaceship, which started out as a risible hubcap-on-string affair. Some people object to watching the program in anything but its original form, but I'm not a purist; and if it helps with the atmosphere I say go for it! So long as the unaltered version is there as well, of course - even I want to be able to compare them. The CGI saucer looks much better - I won't be tackling the Doctor-free Dalek strips for a while yet, but it does remind me of them. I only wish something similar could have been done with the robomen's voices, which turn them from fairly effective shambling zombie wannabes into, quite frankly, something a bit rubbish.)
Of course, the future-scene-setting is only half the story, and the rest is the travellers' more personal tale. This part of it begins with the camera rather shakily zooming out from the TARDIS scanner to reveal the central console, then holding fairly steady while the Doctor moves around it, and in and out of shot, adjusting with a small ped-and-tilt before the others enter. It doesn't quite work, but it almost does; and it grabs the attention so much that I had to go and look up what the camera moves were called so I could describe it properly. Well, nearly properly - I'm still not clear what to say when the camera does the equivalent of a zoom through physical movement rather than adjusting focal length. This is the thing with Martin's direction, though - he's always experimenting and pushing things as far as they will go. I think that most of the time to date this has worked (though I admit I am probably in the minority); but sometimes he misses some of the basic directorial touches while concentrating on the flamboyant, and when his experimentation goes too far it can fall right over.
Anyway, our heroes leave the TARDIS, and we have the prospect of Iananbarbara reaching home. They look suitably hopeful, but the one to watch is Susan. Carole Ann Ford does a splendid job of being disturbed that they'll soon be leaving, looking lost as the realisation of what it means hits her. In fact, Ford does a great job throughout - with one exception. Like William Russell in The Survivors, she is really unconvincing at failing to walk.
The two threads of the episode come together towards the end; and the fact that Ian doesn't want to know what has happened, together with his frustration at Barbara and Susan wandering off, is a fine way of showing his disappointment that he's not got home. Terry Nation's script is good, and the Return of the Daleks is off to a great start...
Broadcast:
Date: Saturday, 21st November 1964
Viewers: 11.4 million
Chart Position: 12
Appreciation Index: 63
Rating:
7.5/10.
Next Time:
The Daleks!
Friday 13 April 2012
Past Doctor Adventure 75: The Time Travellers, concluded
Stories Eat Each Other
This is very much a fan book, and I mean that in two ways - both good. To start with, it's obvious that this is the work of a fan: love for the program pours out of the writing, and there are little details which show just how well the writer understands it. But it's also a fan book because there are other details that are included just for other fans, references that you don't need to 'get' to enjoy the book but that offer a little bonus if you do. These are particularly well done because - like the ideas discussions - they form an integral part of the story, rather than simply being tacked on. The reference to the "machine men" of the Antarctic, for instance, is used to help explain how the South Africans are winning the war, and the consequences are shown (viscerally) too; the Machine from 1966 is largely responsible for creating the setting in the first place; and the cache of alien equipment from the cellar of a school in East London fuels a key part of the plot. Three serials that I knew nothing about when I first read the book, all important components of the story - but I didn't need to know about them. The closest thing to this that I can think of on TV is Turn Left, but even there I think the viewer's enjoyment was more reliant on having seen the referenced episodes.
The same is true of the links to the show's past, particularly Planet of Giants and The Aztecs - and also to the very next serial. Speaking of which...
Keep Her Safe
I've avoid talking about Susan up until now. Susan has, of course, been the most underwritten of the crew so far on TV, and even when later writers have focused on the character they've either been dealing with her when she was still a child (Quinnis, for example) or else have played up the aspects that Carole Ann Ford hated (as in The Witch Hunters). Simon Guerrier does neither of these things, and even if he can't quite redeem her he does make some inroads.
First off, he treats her with respect. This is the intelligent version of Susan, as smart as the Doctor even though she lacks his experience. As I've gone through this marathon, such an attitude has become a prerequisite for my liking the handling of Susan in any story. The intelligence doesn't mean she hasn't got teenage hormone levels, though, and much of her recklessness and overreactions come from that. Guerrier doesn't say so out loud but something about the way he writes her helps to show this, and it make sense. Another thing he gives her is a little alien mental technique: his Susan will analyse a situation, and if there is nothing she can do about it at the moment she will file the problem away and think about something else. You get the impression that it's still not completely forgotten, that if some opportunity presents itself Susan's mind will bring the matter back to the front of her consciousness; but for now she can get excited about some detail that we mere humans would think of as trivial, or be bored in the midst of peril. And why not? It's only because we can't do it that it seems weird.
This view of Susan allows some of her (frankly) badly-written scenes to be retconned, to keep the screaming, easily-distracted peril monkey while still maintaining her unearthly qualities. It is a stretch, but it does improve things. A bit.
I mentioned the next serial, and I think I've already revealed that it will be Susan's last as a regular, so apologies if anyone still considers this a spoiler. The way she leaves has always seemed a bit odd, without much of a lead-in on TV; but here we are given a reason for the Doctor acting as he does, one that is completely in-character. He is, basically, trying to protect her from the consequences of his actions in this book. The fact that he does so in a high-handed way, without even consulting her, is also appropriate.
The Time Travellers fills so many gaps in the series, wielding its alchemy to improve the stories around it, all without sacrificing the story it has to tell. You can insert your own superlative here.
Judging a Book by its Cover
A final thought or two before I go. The title of the book is both straightforward and a double meaning: it can refer to the TARDIS crew or to the Andrewses et al. I like that, and it turns what at first appears a bland title into something more interesting. The image on the cover - a bizarre Christmas tree made of traffic lights - is both symbolic and literal, since it also crops up in the story; and this just enhances how tightly linked everything is. The best cover yet in this marathon.
Well, I hope you have enjoyed this extended review. I didn't intend to write so much, but the nice thing about a blog like this (as opposed to, say, a newspaper column) is that I can if I want! There'll be one or two extra entries after I finish reviewing the next TV serial, too...
Published:
Date: November 2005
ISBN: 0-563-48633-3
Rating:
Mine: 10/10 - currently my second-favourite original Who novel (out of 45 read), and very close to my number one.
2011 Gallifrey Base Non-Dynamic Rankings: 7.77, 9th out of 76 Past Doctor Adventures, 49th out of 286 overall.
Next Time:
Back to TV at last for World's End.
This is very much a fan book, and I mean that in two ways - both good. To start with, it's obvious that this is the work of a fan: love for the program pours out of the writing, and there are little details which show just how well the writer understands it. But it's also a fan book because there are other details that are included just for other fans, references that you don't need to 'get' to enjoy the book but that offer a little bonus if you do. These are particularly well done because - like the ideas discussions - they form an integral part of the story, rather than simply being tacked on. The reference to the "machine men" of the Antarctic, for instance, is used to help explain how the South Africans are winning the war, and the consequences are shown (viscerally) too; the Machine from 1966 is largely responsible for creating the setting in the first place; and the cache of alien equipment from the cellar of a school in East London fuels a key part of the plot. Three serials that I knew nothing about when I first read the book, all important components of the story - but I didn't need to know about them. The closest thing to this that I can think of on TV is Turn Left, but even there I think the viewer's enjoyment was more reliant on having seen the referenced episodes.
The same is true of the links to the show's past, particularly Planet of Giants and The Aztecs - and also to the very next serial. Speaking of which...
Keep Her Safe
I've avoid talking about Susan up until now. Susan has, of course, been the most underwritten of the crew so far on TV, and even when later writers have focused on the character they've either been dealing with her when she was still a child (Quinnis, for example) or else have played up the aspects that Carole Ann Ford hated (as in The Witch Hunters). Simon Guerrier does neither of these things, and even if he can't quite redeem her he does make some inroads.
First off, he treats her with respect. This is the intelligent version of Susan, as smart as the Doctor even though she lacks his experience. As I've gone through this marathon, such an attitude has become a prerequisite for my liking the handling of Susan in any story. The intelligence doesn't mean she hasn't got teenage hormone levels, though, and much of her recklessness and overreactions come from that. Guerrier doesn't say so out loud but something about the way he writes her helps to show this, and it make sense. Another thing he gives her is a little alien mental technique: his Susan will analyse a situation, and if there is nothing she can do about it at the moment she will file the problem away and think about something else. You get the impression that it's still not completely forgotten, that if some opportunity presents itself Susan's mind will bring the matter back to the front of her consciousness; but for now she can get excited about some detail that we mere humans would think of as trivial, or be bored in the midst of peril. And why not? It's only because we can't do it that it seems weird.
This view of Susan allows some of her (frankly) badly-written scenes to be retconned, to keep the screaming, easily-distracted peril monkey while still maintaining her unearthly qualities. It is a stretch, but it does improve things. A bit.
I mentioned the next serial, and I think I've already revealed that it will be Susan's last as a regular, so apologies if anyone still considers this a spoiler. The way she leaves has always seemed a bit odd, without much of a lead-in on TV; but here we are given a reason for the Doctor acting as he does, one that is completely in-character. He is, basically, trying to protect her from the consequences of his actions in this book. The fact that he does so in a high-handed way, without even consulting her, is also appropriate.
The Time Travellers fills so many gaps in the series, wielding its alchemy to improve the stories around it, all without sacrificing the story it has to tell. You can insert your own superlative here.
Judging a Book by its Cover
A final thought or two before I go. The title of the book is both straightforward and a double meaning: it can refer to the TARDIS crew or to the Andrewses et al. I like that, and it turns what at first appears a bland title into something more interesting. The image on the cover - a bizarre Christmas tree made of traffic lights - is both symbolic and literal, since it also crops up in the story; and this just enhances how tightly linked everything is. The best cover yet in this marathon.
Well, I hope you have enjoyed this extended review. I didn't intend to write so much, but the nice thing about a blog like this (as opposed to, say, a newspaper column) is that I can if I want! There'll be one or two extra entries after I finish reviewing the next TV serial, too...
Published:
Date: November 2005
ISBN: 0-563-48633-3
Rating:
Mine: 10/10 - currently my second-favourite original Who novel (out of 45 read), and very close to my number one.
2011 Gallifrey Base Non-Dynamic Rankings: 7.77, 9th out of 76 Past Doctor Adventures, 49th out of 286 overall.
Next Time:
Back to TV at last for World's End.
Wednesday 11 April 2012
Past Doctor Adventure 75: The Time Travellers, continued
The Universe is Made of Stories...
The thing about this book is that even though it's packed full of ideas, it's still got a gripping plot as well. If this were a televised story, it would be a six-parter. It has the doubled-up structure of the longer serials, with a change of scene (and pace) two thirds of the way through, at the start of chapter 10, to keep our interest. But it never could be on TV - particularly not in 1964. There's not a lot of impossible special effects shots, though the various duplicate people might cause problems; but the style and mood wouldn't have been right. And yet, in many ways this is quintessentially of the time.
This is a fine line to tread, between the old and the new; but Simon Guerrier makes it seem effortless. The bulk of the book is set in 2006, but not our 2006. This is a 1960s dystopian vision of a war-torn London. The streets are deserted, the monuments recognisable but with damaged buildings everywhere. This is the grim future as imagined by those who lived through The War - the Second World War, now, but back then it didn't need specifying, despite Britain having been involved in others in between. The Blitz continues, and if the enemy is now South Africa the sense of peril is no less. Couple that with a brutal military dictatorship worthy of wartime propaganda movies (and straight out of Golden Age SF), and you have a 2006 very much of 1964.
And yet, much of the action takes place in or close to Canary Wharf - which, at time of first reading, I had recently seen on TV in Army of Ghosts and Doomsday. That marks it firmly as a product of modern times, the 1990s at the earliest. The proximity to the time of publication is also used to highlight the alienness of the setting - in particular the lack of information technology. What, no mobile phones? It's spot on.
The last part, which is set mainly in October 1972, has a different feel. This isn't wartime Britain, this is postwar Britain - with shortages of just about everything (except for emotionally and mentally damaged people) and the drained feeling that comes of suffering but having nobody left to fight, to push against.
In 1972 I was eight years old, and on TV at the beginning of the year we had been watching Day of the Daleks. This was, perhaps, Who's first attempt at a truly timey-wimey story, with its own dystopian future quite different from Guerrier's; and perhaps that was in the back of his mind when he chose this particular year. The dockland setting for these chapters doesn't resonate with me so much but it was time for a change, and the focus on people and their struggles keeps up the tension despite a lack of immediate threats.
...and People are Made of Stories
Ah yes, people. The heart of almost every story, although the degree to which they hold the focus varies. And the degree to which we get inside their heads varies here, too. The treatment of the supporting cast ranges from the almost completely superficial - the Colonel Andrewses (perhaps played by Jonathan Cecil) - through the more nuanced such as Griffiths (Adrian Rawlins), Kelly (Edward Burnham) and Bamford (Liz May Brice). Interestingly, the last two come alive in the second part when we see their younger selves, and can compare and contrast the two versions.
All of these are very sketchy, though, compared to the TARDIS crew. The Doctor is kept at a certain distance, which is appropriate to the show in 1964, but even so we get to see more of his motivation than before - and it's revealed because he comes up against the limits of his instinct for self-preservation. He's scared for Susan, yes, and he feels sorry for the teachers that he has come to respect, even like; but he will risk all their lives to deal with the consequences of the problem they encounter. In Planet of Giants he stuck around to sort out the DN-6 situation, against his better judgement, because of his respect for Barbara; this time he's the one making that decision. It's another step along the road to the hero of later years. Hartnell's portrayal has always been capable of steely-eyed determination; here that's used in a completely unselfish cause, despite his fear and worry. The First Doctor has rarely been portrayed better, and I can see Hartnell's face as Guerrier runs him through the full range of emotions. Everything he says and does feels in character, but this is done without resorting to the easy tics and mannerisms that so often get overused (I think the Doctor only says "hm?" once in the whole book). Beautiful.
Still, that's only a quarter of the TARDIS crew: what about the rest? I'll tackle Susan later, but throughout the novel we spend a lot of time behind the eyes of Iananbarbara. We see Ian's reaction to how he might have turned out if things had followed another path, good and bad; and it changes him. He becomes harder, and also more consciously aware of what (and who) is valuable to him. Barbara, meanwhile, has to deal with seeing Ian's dead body, and then seeing him alive but changed. Her emotional journey is realistically handled, and by the end the feelings that they have for each other are much closer to the surface. There's a sense that they will no longer let the repression that comes from their backgrounds (class, nationality and generation) get in the way. I'm not talking about sex here, by the way - they may still choose to wait for that (in fact I'd guess they would) - but simply that they will say what needs to be said, and not let the opportunity slip away.
Iananbarbara's love is something that was hinted at on TV, but never really shown. It's a given in fandom, though; and this is certainly a book for fans, though it has enough meat to stand on its own. But more on that later...
Next Time:
Still more about The Time Travellers - hope you're not fed up yet!
The thing about this book is that even though it's packed full of ideas, it's still got a gripping plot as well. If this were a televised story, it would be a six-parter. It has the doubled-up structure of the longer serials, with a change of scene (and pace) two thirds of the way through, at the start of chapter 10, to keep our interest. But it never could be on TV - particularly not in 1964. There's not a lot of impossible special effects shots, though the various duplicate people might cause problems; but the style and mood wouldn't have been right. And yet, in many ways this is quintessentially of the time.
This is a fine line to tread, between the old and the new; but Simon Guerrier makes it seem effortless. The bulk of the book is set in 2006, but not our 2006. This is a 1960s dystopian vision of a war-torn London. The streets are deserted, the monuments recognisable but with damaged buildings everywhere. This is the grim future as imagined by those who lived through The War - the Second World War, now, but back then it didn't need specifying, despite Britain having been involved in others in between. The Blitz continues, and if the enemy is now South Africa the sense of peril is no less. Couple that with a brutal military dictatorship worthy of wartime propaganda movies (and straight out of Golden Age SF), and you have a 2006 very much of 1964.
And yet, much of the action takes place in or close to Canary Wharf - which, at time of first reading, I had recently seen on TV in Army of Ghosts and Doomsday. That marks it firmly as a product of modern times, the 1990s at the earliest. The proximity to the time of publication is also used to highlight the alienness of the setting - in particular the lack of information technology. What, no mobile phones? It's spot on.
The last part, which is set mainly in October 1972, has a different feel. This isn't wartime Britain, this is postwar Britain - with shortages of just about everything (except for emotionally and mentally damaged people) and the drained feeling that comes of suffering but having nobody left to fight, to push against.
In 1972 I was eight years old, and on TV at the beginning of the year we had been watching Day of the Daleks. This was, perhaps, Who's first attempt at a truly timey-wimey story, with its own dystopian future quite different from Guerrier's; and perhaps that was in the back of his mind when he chose this particular year. The dockland setting for these chapters doesn't resonate with me so much but it was time for a change, and the focus on people and their struggles keeps up the tension despite a lack of immediate threats.
...and People are Made of Stories
Ah yes, people. The heart of almost every story, although the degree to which they hold the focus varies. And the degree to which we get inside their heads varies here, too. The treatment of the supporting cast ranges from the almost completely superficial - the Colonel Andrewses (perhaps played by Jonathan Cecil) - through the more nuanced such as Griffiths (Adrian Rawlins), Kelly (Edward Burnham) and Bamford (Liz May Brice). Interestingly, the last two come alive in the second part when we see their younger selves, and can compare and contrast the two versions.
All of these are very sketchy, though, compared to the TARDIS crew. The Doctor is kept at a certain distance, which is appropriate to the show in 1964, but even so we get to see more of his motivation than before - and it's revealed because he comes up against the limits of his instinct for self-preservation. He's scared for Susan, yes, and he feels sorry for the teachers that he has come to respect, even like; but he will risk all their lives to deal with the consequences of the problem they encounter. In Planet of Giants he stuck around to sort out the DN-6 situation, against his better judgement, because of his respect for Barbara; this time he's the one making that decision. It's another step along the road to the hero of later years. Hartnell's portrayal has always been capable of steely-eyed determination; here that's used in a completely unselfish cause, despite his fear and worry. The First Doctor has rarely been portrayed better, and I can see Hartnell's face as Guerrier runs him through the full range of emotions. Everything he says and does feels in character, but this is done without resorting to the easy tics and mannerisms that so often get overused (I think the Doctor only says "hm?" once in the whole book). Beautiful.
Still, that's only a quarter of the TARDIS crew: what about the rest? I'll tackle Susan later, but throughout the novel we spend a lot of time behind the eyes of Iananbarbara. We see Ian's reaction to how he might have turned out if things had followed another path, good and bad; and it changes him. He becomes harder, and also more consciously aware of what (and who) is valuable to him. Barbara, meanwhile, has to deal with seeing Ian's dead body, and then seeing him alive but changed. Her emotional journey is realistically handled, and by the end the feelings that they have for each other are much closer to the surface. There's a sense that they will no longer let the repression that comes from their backgrounds (class, nationality and generation) get in the way. I'm not talking about sex here, by the way - they may still choose to wait for that (in fact I'd guess they would) - but simply that they will say what needs to be said, and not let the opportunity slip away.
Iananbarbara's love is something that was hinted at on TV, but never really shown. It's a given in fandom, though; and this is certainly a book for fans, though it has enough meat to stand on its own. But more on that later...
Next Time:
Still more about The Time Travellers - hope you're not fed up yet!
Monday 9 April 2012
Past Doctor Adventure 75: The Time Travellers, by Simon Guerrier
Okay, this really should have followed on from Crisis straight away - the events even overlap, with the final TARDIS scene of that episode being recapped here. Still, as a sophisticated 21st century viewer (ha!) I can cope with cuts between parallel storylines. Once again it emphasises the importance of context, though, as when I first read this book I had no idea that the tight coupling existed - and, indeed, had no idea how many references to other stories there were.
Let me set the scene. It's late 2006, and I've seen six Hartnell serials: the first three, The Aztecs, and The Dalek Invasion of Earth this year on DVD, plus The Time Meddler some years earlier on terrestrial TV. Oh, seven if you count The Three Doctors on original broadcast. I've read only one Who novel, I think - Atom Bomb Blues, which was pretty good - as well as a number of short stories. Then I get this book from the library, and (not to put too fine a point on it) I'm wowed. Over the next five years it's only bettered three times, and when I finally get around to rating it I give it 9/10.
This was Simon Guerrier's debut novel. He's since become something of a First Doctor Season 3 specialist on audio, and has done other things as well; but how does this inaugural book stand up to a second read, now I'm far more steeped in the program, and can spot the references to other stories that I missed first time around? The impatient among you can skip down to the rating, everyone else has some reviewey stuff to work through first...
Spoilers in this review will be minor in terms of plot, but significant in terms of ideas. And, since this is a book in which the ideas are an important part of the enjoyment, I strongly recommend reading the book first. Go on, this will still be here on the Internet when you get back - assuming civilisation hasn't collapsed in the meantime.
The Moving Finger Writes
Let's start with the prologue and epilogue. Both feature Ian's first meeting with Joan Wright, Barbara's mother, and in both he is nervous and she is wary. Beyond that, it's the contrast that's important. The first (dated 16 September 1967) sets up the tone of the book, getting us to wonder what has happened in London. It paints a bleak picture, describing a period of hardship - but at the same time it celebrates the resilience and humanity of ordinary people. We learn later that this is the aftermath of another Hartnell story, one we haven't got to yet, but a version of that story in which the Doctor wasn't there to save the day. The epilogue - dated 26 June 1965 - also follows on from another story, The Chase, this time an immediate consequence of the TARDIS team's actions in Planet of Decision. The tone here is one of relief, of looking to the future; and it nicely rounds out the book, pinning down the happy ending despite some truly awful things that have happened along the way.
You'll notice that I said both of these were Ian's first meeting with Joan. That's possible because this is a wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey story, albeit with a 60s spin and published a couple of years before that particular marmite phrase entered fandom's collective consciousness. There's two other phrases that are relevant, from almost five decades apart. Quotes, in fact, from the Doctor:
You can guess where this is going. Most of the series has ignored that first statement anyway, but Guerrier actively retcons it instead by making use of the second. In the process of explaining why the Doctor lied, he sets out his stall selling his vision of the underpinnings of the series. In brief:
It's a great theory. Most of the show's history works seamlessly with it, and it can be used to explain some of the inconsistencies between stories, like a gentler, less indiscriminate version of the Last Great Time War. It makes sense of TARDISes. Why do they need so much space inside? Because the observers live there the whole time they are away from home base. And it's why they need scanners, and chameleon circuits, and food machines.
There's more: that third point, about the Doctor's avoidance of his people, ties in with the final serial of the 1960s; but it has more immediate consequences too. However, do you remember when I said the impatient could skip down to the rating? Like the Doctor, I lied, because I'm splitting this review. It deserves to be given the space it needs. Consider this a cliffhanger of sorts.
Next Time:
More about The Time Travellers...
Let me set the scene. It's late 2006, and I've seen six Hartnell serials: the first three, The Aztecs, and The Dalek Invasion of Earth this year on DVD, plus The Time Meddler some years earlier on terrestrial TV. Oh, seven if you count The Three Doctors on original broadcast. I've read only one Who novel, I think - Atom Bomb Blues, which was pretty good - as well as a number of short stories. Then I get this book from the library, and (not to put too fine a point on it) I'm wowed. Over the next five years it's only bettered three times, and when I finally get around to rating it I give it 9/10.
This was Simon Guerrier's debut novel. He's since become something of a First Doctor Season 3 specialist on audio, and has done other things as well; but how does this inaugural book stand up to a second read, now I'm far more steeped in the program, and can spot the references to other stories that I missed first time around? The impatient among you can skip down to the rating, everyone else has some reviewey stuff to work through first...
Spoilers in this review will be minor in terms of plot, but significant in terms of ideas. And, since this is a book in which the ideas are an important part of the enjoyment, I strongly recommend reading the book first. Go on, this will still be here on the Internet when you get back - assuming civilisation hasn't collapsed in the meantime.
The Moving Finger Writes
Let's start with the prologue and epilogue. Both feature Ian's first meeting with Joan Wright, Barbara's mother, and in both he is nervous and she is wary. Beyond that, it's the contrast that's important. The first (dated 16 September 1967) sets up the tone of the book, getting us to wonder what has happened in London. It paints a bleak picture, describing a period of hardship - but at the same time it celebrates the resilience and humanity of ordinary people. We learn later that this is the aftermath of another Hartnell story, one we haven't got to yet, but a version of that story in which the Doctor wasn't there to save the day. The epilogue - dated 26 June 1965 - also follows on from another story, The Chase, this time an immediate consequence of the TARDIS team's actions in Planet of Decision. The tone here is one of relief, of looking to the future; and it nicely rounds out the book, pinning down the happy ending despite some truly awful things that have happened along the way.
You'll notice that I said both of these were Ian's first meeting with Joan. That's possible because this is a wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey story, albeit with a 60s spin and published a couple of years before that particular marmite phrase entered fandom's collective consciousness. There's two other phrases that are relevant, from almost five decades apart. Quotes, in fact, from the Doctor:
"You Can't Rewrite History! Not One Line!" (The Aztecs)
and"Rule #1: The Doctor lies." (Let's Kill Hitler, among others)
You can guess where this is going. Most of the series has ignored that first statement anyway, but Guerrier actively retcons it instead by making use of the second. In the process of explaining why the Doctor lied, he sets out his stall selling his vision of the underpinnings of the series. In brief:
- The travellers can change history. In fact, they do so every time they step outside the TARDIS, and this is the crime of which the Doctor and Susan are guilty: they should have watched the universe from within the Ship, using the scanner, and not got involved.
- Changing the past effectively creates a new timeline. There is no paradox, but the travellers can no longer get back to the future from which they came - which is now (to appropriate a Pratchettism) in the wrong trouserleg of time.
- Too ostentatious an involvement in history is likely to be noticed by the Doctor's people, and bring down their wrath; and this is his main reason for avoiding big changes.
It's a great theory. Most of the show's history works seamlessly with it, and it can be used to explain some of the inconsistencies between stories, like a gentler, less indiscriminate version of the Last Great Time War. It makes sense of TARDISes. Why do they need so much space inside? Because the observers live there the whole time they are away from home base. And it's why they need scanners, and chameleon circuits, and food machines.
There's more: that third point, about the Doctor's avoidance of his people, ties in with the final serial of the 1960s; but it has more immediate consequences too. However, do you remember when I said the impatient could skip down to the rating? Like the Doctor, I lied, because I'm splitting this review. It deserves to be given the space it needs. Consider this a cliffhanger of sorts.
Next Time:
More about The Time Travellers...
Friday 6 April 2012
Eh? Elv Who? What's He Talking About? part 2
I probably could have rushed something out for The Time Travellers, but it deserves better; so instead, here are some more random thoughts.
The Title
I've had thousands of messages* asking me why this blog is called 'Elv Who', or why my internet handle is 'elvwood' when I'm quite open about the fact that my real name is John G. Wood.
Let's tackle the latter first. Cast your mind back to the autumn of 1982. I had just gone to college, looking far younger and more clean-cut than I do now. Certain people there noticed a resemblance to popular musical artist Elvis Costello, and started calling me Elvis. I hated it, and unfortunately wasn't very good at hiding this - which meant people kept on using the nickname. Ain't humanity wonderful? Anyway, I eventually gave up trying to do anything about it, and friends decided to use a modified version - shortened to 'Elv' - which was actually OK. When it came time to pick my first email address, I needed to use something unique - and longer than three letters.
I picked 'elvw'. Later, inspired by The Blues Brothers, I lengthened it to 'elvwood', which (unlike almost any variation of 'John Wood') doesn't seem to get used much by other people, allowing me to use it for all of my (non-business) internet activity.
Okay, on to the first question. I wanted to put my internet/nickname in the blog title as well as indicate the Doctor Who connection, and I was choosing a name shortly after watching An Unearthly Child - where the misquote that heads this entry comes from. You should be able to see that the title was an obvious choice.
So now you know.
Other Shows
One idle thought I had was: if I wasn't doing this, what else might I have tackled instead? Probably my next-favourite 'canon' is that of the roleplaying game Traveller, but I can't see how to make that fit this form. I'm not interested enough in Star Trek, the obvious contender; nor Babylon 5, although I enjoyed that a lot. In fact, I could only think of one show that I would be happy to think this deeply about.
Firefly.
OK, so it would be a lot shorter, and Joss Whedon's commentaries short-circuit a number of things I'd like to say about some of the episodes (going deeper and saying them better, too); but it would still be fun. I should be finished with this marathon in another quarter-century or two. I'll see about it then. ;p
Scoring
Quite some time ago, when discussing The Who, I mentioned that the album Who's Next included my first, third and fourth favourite songs by the band - but that it still wasn't my favourite album of theirs. This puzzled one friend, until I explained that Quadrophenia took the title because it was more than just a collection of songs, and that the coherence of the work added a lot to my enjoyment.
Having been doing these reviews for some time, I find myself unsatisfied with the idea of averaging episode reviews to decide the overall score for a story. for one thing, doing this pulls the scores towards the middle, so most stories end up somewhere around a 6; but it also fails to take account of those aspects of the story that can't be judged from individual episodes. I adjusted the score for Farewell, Great Macedon based on an impression that it deserved more than I was giving it, and I will do so again.
And that's it for now. Have a great weekend!
* This is a lie. But it sounds impressive.
Next Time:
Really the delayed look at The Time Travellers.
The Title
I've had thousands of messages* asking me why this blog is called 'Elv Who', or why my internet handle is 'elvwood' when I'm quite open about the fact that my real name is John G. Wood.
Let's tackle the latter first. Cast your mind back to the autumn of 1982. I had just gone to college, looking far younger and more clean-cut than I do now. Certain people there noticed a resemblance to popular musical artist Elvis Costello, and started calling me Elvis. I hated it, and unfortunately wasn't very good at hiding this - which meant people kept on using the nickname. Ain't humanity wonderful? Anyway, I eventually gave up trying to do anything about it, and friends decided to use a modified version - shortened to 'Elv' - which was actually OK. When it came time to pick my first email address, I needed to use something unique - and longer than three letters.
I picked 'elvw'. Later, inspired by The Blues Brothers, I lengthened it to 'elvwood', which (unlike almost any variation of 'John Wood') doesn't seem to get used much by other people, allowing me to use it for all of my (non-business) internet activity.
Okay, on to the first question. I wanted to put my internet/nickname in the blog title as well as indicate the Doctor Who connection, and I was choosing a name shortly after watching An Unearthly Child - where the misquote that heads this entry comes from. You should be able to see that the title was an obvious choice.
So now you know.
Other Shows
One idle thought I had was: if I wasn't doing this, what else might I have tackled instead? Probably my next-favourite 'canon' is that of the roleplaying game Traveller, but I can't see how to make that fit this form. I'm not interested enough in Star Trek, the obvious contender; nor Babylon 5, although I enjoyed that a lot. In fact, I could only think of one show that I would be happy to think this deeply about.
Firefly.
OK, so it would be a lot shorter, and Joss Whedon's commentaries short-circuit a number of things I'd like to say about some of the episodes (going deeper and saying them better, too); but it would still be fun. I should be finished with this marathon in another quarter-century or two. I'll see about it then. ;p
Scoring
Quite some time ago, when discussing The Who, I mentioned that the album Who's Next included my first, third and fourth favourite songs by the band - but that it still wasn't my favourite album of theirs. This puzzled one friend, until I explained that Quadrophenia took the title because it was more than just a collection of songs, and that the coherence of the work added a lot to my enjoyment.
Having been doing these reviews for some time, I find myself unsatisfied with the idea of averaging episode reviews to decide the overall score for a story. for one thing, doing this pulls the scores towards the middle, so most stories end up somewhere around a 6; but it also fails to take account of those aspects of the story that can't be judged from individual episodes. I adjusted the score for Farewell, Great Macedon based on an impression that it deserved more than I was giving it, and I will do so again.
And that's it for now. Have a great weekend!
* This is a lie. But it sounds impressive.
Next Time:
Really the delayed look at The Time Travellers.
Wednesday 4 April 2012
Daleks versus the Martians
This oddity is a comic strip in a magazine dedicated to Peter Cushing's Doctor. Writer Alan Barnes (better known to me for his work on audio, starting with Storm Warning) captures the enthusiasm of this incarnation and the action-orientated nature of his stories. Much of the dialogue is a bit trite, but in an eight-page homage to the movies it's entirely appropriate. As is the focus on spectacle: massed daleks on flying platforms from the TV21 comics! A Skaro Saucer! A huge battle with a giant robot war machine! Artist Lee Sullivan captures this well, with clear lines and simple, effective layouts. He also has a good grasp of light and shade, using this to create a contrast between the inside and outside scenes as well as to emphasise dramatic moments. If I have one complaint about the art, it's that Susie looks a little too old in the close-up shots; but that is a minor complaint.
The lettering by Elitta Fell is clear, I always like it when the angular dalek font is used for their speech, and there's good variety on the (plentiful) sound effects; but I'm not a good judge of it's quality beyond that.
The setting - a mysterious bubble of air on Mars - is just an excuse to have somewhere to stage the action, but that's fine in context. The grey-like telepathic Martians, similarly, provide an enemy for the daleks to fight, and someone for the Doctor to talk to, and the mystery of the Martian sphinx is good for pacing. We end with a bit of foreshadowing of the second movie. Basically, there's not a lot to this - but like a number of the 21st Century charity specials, what is there is well done.
There. As I expected, that didn't take long; so I've room for something a little different that won't fit into the review of the next film.
Fan Theories #1: Old Doctor 10.5
I've occasionally referred to the setting of the Amicus films as the Cushingverse, but I suppose in a similar vein it could be referred to as Pete's World. Which is kind of appropriate, given a particular fan theory that I am rather keen on. Credit where credit is due: I first came across this idea on Gallifrey Base, put forward by a timelord called Coco Nutkin. Ta very much, yer lordship!
For this theory, we need to fast-forward to 2008 and discuss SPOILERS for the Tenth Doctor story, Journey's End. Through reasons too complicated to go into now, the Doctor ends up with a single-hearted, human-lifespanned duplicate ("10.5") who he then dumps on a parallel Earth with an inconvenient old girlfriend (who happens to have a younger brother on the same Earth). So much for what appears on screen, but in a deleted scene 10.5 is also given a piece of coral from which he can (eventually) grow a new TARDIS. Assume that the brother has a daughter, Louise; and that the Doctor and the Missus have children, and eventually grandchildren - called Barbara and Susan. Meanwhile, 10.5 grows old and forgetful, loses his wife, builds/grows a TARDIS, and in an early experimental flight takes his grandchildren back to the 1960s...
We're all set, and there's a plausible explanation tying the movie universe into mainstream Who. David Tennant even has a similar body type and face shape to Peter Cushing! The question is, why would anyone care about making such a connection? Search me, but actually I do. It's not a big deal, but it is a really neat theory: too good to languish in an old thread. So it can languish here instead.
Published:
Doctor Who Magazine Spring Special, February 1996
Rating:
7.5/10.
Next Time:
Possibly the delayed look at The Time Travellers? We'll see.
The lettering by Elitta Fell is clear, I always like it when the angular dalek font is used for their speech, and there's good variety on the (plentiful) sound effects; but I'm not a good judge of it's quality beyond that.
The setting - a mysterious bubble of air on Mars - is just an excuse to have somewhere to stage the action, but that's fine in context. The grey-like telepathic Martians, similarly, provide an enemy for the daleks to fight, and someone for the Doctor to talk to, and the mystery of the Martian sphinx is good for pacing. We end with a bit of foreshadowing of the second movie. Basically, there's not a lot to this - but like a number of the 21st Century charity specials, what is there is well done.
There. As I expected, that didn't take long; so I've room for something a little different that won't fit into the review of the next film.
Fan Theories #1: Old Doctor 10.5
I've occasionally referred to the setting of the Amicus films as the Cushingverse, but I suppose in a similar vein it could be referred to as Pete's World. Which is kind of appropriate, given a particular fan theory that I am rather keen on. Credit where credit is due: I first came across this idea on Gallifrey Base, put forward by a timelord called Coco Nutkin. Ta very much, yer lordship!
For this theory, we need to fast-forward to 2008 and discuss SPOILERS for the Tenth Doctor story, Journey's End. Through reasons too complicated to go into now, the Doctor ends up with a single-hearted, human-lifespanned duplicate ("10.5") who he then dumps on a parallel Earth with an inconvenient old girlfriend (who happens to have a younger brother on the same Earth). So much for what appears on screen, but in a deleted scene 10.5 is also given a piece of coral from which he can (eventually) grow a new TARDIS. Assume that the brother has a daughter, Louise; and that the Doctor and the Missus have children, and eventually grandchildren - called Barbara and Susan. Meanwhile, 10.5 grows old and forgetful, loses his wife, builds/grows a TARDIS, and in an early experimental flight takes his grandchildren back to the 1960s...
We're all set, and there's a plausible explanation tying the movie universe into mainstream Who. David Tennant even has a similar body type and face shape to Peter Cushing! The question is, why would anyone care about making such a connection? Search me, but actually I do. It's not a big deal, but it is a really neat theory: too good to languish in an old thread. So it can languish here instead.
Published:
Doctor Who Magazine Spring Special, February 1996
Rating:
7.5/10.
Next Time:
Possibly the delayed look at The Time Travellers? We'll see.
Monday 2 April 2012
Serial J: Planet of Giants - The Miniscules
What's in a name? This show could have been called Lost in Time and Space, and this serial could have been called Land of Giants. So let's talk a little about the 1960s science fiction TV shows of Irwin Allen.
Across the pond in the US, a show called Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea had started airing just after the last episode of Doctor Who's first season had gone out over here. This was the start of a series of series produced by Allen - four in total - the others being Lost in Space, The Time Tunnel and Land of the Giants. I'll deal with the first three on later occasions, but this last is of obvious relevance now.
I'd never seen serial J before this marathon, and had managed to avoid finding out too much about it - though I knew it wasn't highly regarded. Because of this, my mind wandered to similar-themed stories from my childhood, in particular the film The Incredible Shrinking Man (the ending of which shocked my mum and I at the time) and Land of the Giants. Technically, Allen's show (which ran from 1968-70 in the US, but presumably later when I was watching) is about normal-sized humans in an outsized world, but the result is the same. I don't remember the plots, but I remember the images (including giant scenery and props) - and the style, which was very 1950s/60s with clean-cut lantern-jawed heroes, eye-candy women, the plucky kid and the comedy fat guy. The thing I notice now, watching Who's take on the same theme, is that while Ian, Barbara and Susan seem at first glance as if they should fit into those first three categories, none of them really do. Even in these early days there is a degree of stereotype subversion going on.
Which brings us back to the matter at hand. Another thing that is notable is that serial J comes at a time of transition for the show. Original script editor David Whitaker had already left before the first episode was broadcast; by the end, his novelisation of The Daleks had been published, the film version had been announced, and the very first episode of the long-running strip in TV Comic had appeared. Doctor Who had truly become a franchise. It's visible in the program too, with the softening of the Doctor's personality firmly underlined. The trust between him and Barbara has never been so evident, and he's never been so willing to put himself and Susan in danger to sort out a problem. We've also got people (writer Louis Marks, composer Dudley Simpson and director Douglas Camfield) and themes (environmental issues, an off-kilter contemporary setting) which will return many times.
Ratings were good, and the second season was off to a successful start; but the story was completely overshadowed by the excitement over what was coming next.
Apparently, the DVD release will have a reconstruction of the missing sections, presenting episodes 3 and 4 as closely as possible to how they were originally produced. I look forward to seeing that, and will post an update in a future entry. Meanwhile I'll leave the final word to my son, in what will be his final review before reaching the big one-oh...
Isaac's Corner
It was generally a good story. I liked the twist where the pesticide was really deadly but the nasty businessman lied to the scientist about it being able to save millions of lives, and it was also good that the scientist managed to stop Forester until the policeman arrived. The miniature sets were very good, and Barbara being poisoned but not telling the others added a lot of suspense to the story. She had a really bad time of it, with twisting her ankle and fainting as well. I'd give it 7½ out of 10.
Rating:
Episodic: 6/10.
DWM Mighty 200: 58.17%, 163rd.
2011 Gallifrey Base Non-Dynamic Rankings: 5.76, 165th out of 222.
Next Time:
We should be moving back into print for The Time Travellers, but I messed up and didn't order it from the library in time. I picked it up on Friday, but rather than leave a long gap while I read it I'll slip in a trip sideways for Daleks versus the Martians!
Across the pond in the US, a show called Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea had started airing just after the last episode of Doctor Who's first season had gone out over here. This was the start of a series of series produced by Allen - four in total - the others being Lost in Space, The Time Tunnel and Land of the Giants. I'll deal with the first three on later occasions, but this last is of obvious relevance now.
I'd never seen serial J before this marathon, and had managed to avoid finding out too much about it - though I knew it wasn't highly regarded. Because of this, my mind wandered to similar-themed stories from my childhood, in particular the film The Incredible Shrinking Man (the ending of which shocked my mum and I at the time) and Land of the Giants. Technically, Allen's show (which ran from 1968-70 in the US, but presumably later when I was watching) is about normal-sized humans in an outsized world, but the result is the same. I don't remember the plots, but I remember the images (including giant scenery and props) - and the style, which was very 1950s/60s with clean-cut lantern-jawed heroes, eye-candy women, the plucky kid and the comedy fat guy. The thing I notice now, watching Who's take on the same theme, is that while Ian, Barbara and Susan seem at first glance as if they should fit into those first three categories, none of them really do. Even in these early days there is a degree of stereotype subversion going on.
Which brings us back to the matter at hand. Another thing that is notable is that serial J comes at a time of transition for the show. Original script editor David Whitaker had already left before the first episode was broadcast; by the end, his novelisation of The Daleks had been published, the film version had been announced, and the very first episode of the long-running strip in TV Comic had appeared. Doctor Who had truly become a franchise. It's visible in the program too, with the softening of the Doctor's personality firmly underlined. The trust between him and Barbara has never been so evident, and he's never been so willing to put himself and Susan in danger to sort out a problem. We've also got people (writer Louis Marks, composer Dudley Simpson and director Douglas Camfield) and themes (environmental issues, an off-kilter contemporary setting) which will return many times.
Ratings were good, and the second season was off to a successful start; but the story was completely overshadowed by the excitement over what was coming next.
Apparently, the DVD release will have a reconstruction of the missing sections, presenting episodes 3 and 4 as closely as possible to how they were originally produced. I look forward to seeing that, and will post an update in a future entry. Meanwhile I'll leave the final word to my son, in what will be his final review before reaching the big one-oh...
Isaac's Corner
It was generally a good story. I liked the twist where the pesticide was really deadly but the nasty businessman lied to the scientist about it being able to save millions of lives, and it was also good that the scientist managed to stop Forester until the policeman arrived. The miniature sets were very good, and Barbara being poisoned but not telling the others added a lot of suspense to the story. She had a really bad time of it, with twisting her ankle and fainting as well. I'd give it 7½ out of 10.
Rating:
Episodic: 6/10.
DWM Mighty 200: 58.17%, 163rd.
2011 Gallifrey Base Non-Dynamic Rankings: 5.76, 165th out of 222.
Next Time:
We should be moving back into print for The Time Travellers, but I messed up and didn't order it from the library in time. I picked it up on Friday, but rather than leave a long gap while I read it I'll slip in a trip sideways for Daleks versus the Martians!
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