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.
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