Oddly, the second episode of The Flames of Cadiz works better for
me because William Russell and Carole Ann Ford are just reading, not
interacting. It allows me to focus on the story rather than getting
distracted while I wonder how an older Ian and Susan are discussing this
adventure in the first place, so this is a case of simpler being
better.
And speaking of Russell and Ford, both give excellent performances, as a
result of which I mostly forget there's only one other actor present.
Ford takes the crown this time around with some splendid, varied voices:
Susan, Barbara and the Doctor are all distinct enough that I never have
any doubt which is speaking, and the "guest cast" - King Philip, his
secretary, the actor and the family sheltering the travellers - all have
their own tones and mannerisms. Just great.
The third voice is Nabil Elouahabi, playing the Morisco who gave the first episode it's title. I recently relistened to Bloodtide,
where the Spanish accents are a slight hindrance to my enjoyment; but
Elouahabi's Moorish/Spanish accent - while still strong - is somehow
easier to listen to, more natural. I looked him up and his nationality
is British Moroccan, so either it is his own or his family's. Big Finish
have quite a good record on hiring appropriate artists for main parts
(with the occasional Minuet in Hell to counterbalance), and while he doesn't have a lot to say this time his presence does enhance Ian's captivity.
On to the writing, then, and this is again very much of the era. There
are references to past travels - the Boxer Rebellion in China, and the
venerable Bede. We visited Bede's World while we were on holiday in the
summer - it's not far from the Roman fort of Arbeia, so we combined the
two into a first millennium day out, which was a lot of fun. But I
digress. This episode also has the kind of action that keeps the main
cast moving between different situations, and one traditional feature
that I'm not so keen on: Susan is kind of useless.
This is one area where The Masters of Luxor was a pleasant
surprise, so it's a bit of a shock to find that - in the only scene
where she isn't just tagging along behind her grandfather - Susan panics
and forgets the vital mission she's been given. Still, it's done quite
awarely, so there's some hope that Marc Platt will subvert it in a later
episode. We'll see. He does also take the sting out of it a bit by
having the Doctor's plans fail, too, quite spectacularly.
Speaking of dear Cardinal Dottore (a Patrick Troughton style moniker, I
feel, and notable for the fact that it's Italian for an academic Doctor
rather than a medico): the scene between him and the king would have
been played for laughs if William Hartnell had got his hands on it, but
is a little dry as reported by Susan. Neither Ford not Platt's fault,
exactly; it's just that describing something funny isn't generally
itself funny. This is where I miss the original cast, at their original
ages.
Ian has less of the focus this time around - you usually get someone
languishing somewhere with a crowded TARDIS! - but when we do see him
it's good. This is of an era before Monty Python, so the Spanish
Inquisition is treated seriously. I was interested in where the play
draws the line in terms of real horror. Whipping is okay - and seeing
victims in a bad way after being tortured - but not torturing itself.
Probably similar to a 1960s production, though the Hartnells are
surprisingly graphic.
Rating:
6/10.
Next Time:
The Doleful Knight.
Monday 25 November 2013
Saturday 23 November 2013
Happy 50th!
Well, I should probably post the next episode review of The Flames of Cadiz, but I'm not going to. I'm a bit busy, and it seems somehow...inconsequential? I listened to The Light at the End yesterday, have heard the first episode of The Beginning today (and intend to catch the second episode tomorrow). And I'll probably watch something tonight.
Whatever you're doing, have fun - and here's to the next 50!
Whatever you're doing, have fun - and here's to the next 50!
Tuesday 19 November 2013
CC7.07a The Morisco
Well, here I am at the first episode of The Flames of Cadiz, a
Companion Chronicle released at the beginning of the year. I've mostly
avoided listening to the first Doctor's CCs, but if my marathon
continues onto the second Doctor I'll have far fewer stories to review
fresh since I have been devouring those at a frightening rate. It's
currently my favourite audio range, partly because there has been more
experimentation than we've heard elsewhere.
So it's a little disappointing to find that the format for this adventure is basically that of an enhanced audiobook. I observed in my review of The Cannibal Flower that it was much better to have a natural division of voices: when you have both William Russell and Carole Ann Ford, let each of them do what they are best at! Here we are back to Russell attempting Barbara's speech, and Ford the Doctor's. There is also no framing device beyond generic, timeless reminiscing - and the way Ian and Susan are discussing the story has them mentioning things that nobody would bother to say in a real conversation. So, apart from the multiple first person perspectives, right from the start it sounds like two decent performers reading a Target novelisation - Doctor Who and the Spaniards, perhaps? Quite offputting, after hearing a run of CCs which are much closer to drama.
Another thing that threw me off was the idea of Ian growing up in North-East England, somewhere near Sunderland. He's not an actor, so why would he end up with an RP accent (which is basically middle-to-upper class South-East)? It also conflicts with other stories I've either heard or read, which have him playing in the bombsites of London. Unless I've misremembered the London part, seeing as Northern cities were hit as well during the Second World War.
So, not a particularly good start - but then the mention of Barbara going on holiday to Spain in 1962 hit a nostalgia chord, putting me into a more receptive mood again. We never had foreign holidays when I was a child, but I remember my mum telling me that once - before I was born, but when she was an adult - she took her mother to Spain, which was a once-in-a-lifetime treat to do something that my grandmother had always wanted. The trip as a whole was a great success, but the aircraft was unpressurised and mum had an awful flight as she discovered that one ear - which had been damaged when she was too close to an exploding bomb during the war - couldn't adjust to the pressure difference. (We used to joke that the only difference between her ears was the letter 'S' - one was tone deaf, the other stone deaf.) A little piece of family history I haven't thought much about for years.
And after that we are into the actual story, which fits rather beautifully into this era of the show, reminding me of a cross between The Reign of Terror and The Crusades. It's full of little details alongside spectacle, and with enough of a history lesson to satisfy the show's original brief. It's also a rollicking, action-packed adventure, in contrast to any episode of The Masters of Luxor. Though there are some similarities, too - primarily the focus on the Catholic/Protestant conflict, albeit on the people this time rather than the theology.
And, yes, of course we get the Inquisition. All the iconography is there - torture implements and cells, priests trying to trick sinners into confession - as it would have been on TV in 1964. But there's also a comment about how our historical view of it has been set in stone, which resonated with an article I was reading in the Radio Times by Jeremy Paxman on that very subject. I am writing this on Remembrance Sunday; he was talking about the hundredth anniversary of the First World War, a catastrophe that has been so "overlain with myth and legend" that we can no longer get at the truth. History is what gets written down; what actually happened is just living.
Which is why the comment about Ian's watch working but still being useless is so poignant. We would need a time machine to truly understand the past, but we can remember those who worked to make the future better (in all sorts of ways), and strive to build on their legacy. One day we will be part of that hidden past; the best we can hope for is that history will think well of us.
Rating:
It's hard to rate this. The story was excellent, both in terms of fitting with the period and as an exciting adventure, and I have no complaint about the performances, but the structure irritated me. As a result, I'll give it a compromise mark.
5/10.
Next Time:
The Justice of God.
So it's a little disappointing to find that the format for this adventure is basically that of an enhanced audiobook. I observed in my review of The Cannibal Flower that it was much better to have a natural division of voices: when you have both William Russell and Carole Ann Ford, let each of them do what they are best at! Here we are back to Russell attempting Barbara's speech, and Ford the Doctor's. There is also no framing device beyond generic, timeless reminiscing - and the way Ian and Susan are discussing the story has them mentioning things that nobody would bother to say in a real conversation. So, apart from the multiple first person perspectives, right from the start it sounds like two decent performers reading a Target novelisation - Doctor Who and the Spaniards, perhaps? Quite offputting, after hearing a run of CCs which are much closer to drama.
Another thing that threw me off was the idea of Ian growing up in North-East England, somewhere near Sunderland. He's not an actor, so why would he end up with an RP accent (which is basically middle-to-upper class South-East)? It also conflicts with other stories I've either heard or read, which have him playing in the bombsites of London. Unless I've misremembered the London part, seeing as Northern cities were hit as well during the Second World War.
So, not a particularly good start - but then the mention of Barbara going on holiday to Spain in 1962 hit a nostalgia chord, putting me into a more receptive mood again. We never had foreign holidays when I was a child, but I remember my mum telling me that once - before I was born, but when she was an adult - she took her mother to Spain, which was a once-in-a-lifetime treat to do something that my grandmother had always wanted. The trip as a whole was a great success, but the aircraft was unpressurised and mum had an awful flight as she discovered that one ear - which had been damaged when she was too close to an exploding bomb during the war - couldn't adjust to the pressure difference. (We used to joke that the only difference between her ears was the letter 'S' - one was tone deaf, the other stone deaf.) A little piece of family history I haven't thought much about for years.
And after that we are into the actual story, which fits rather beautifully into this era of the show, reminding me of a cross between The Reign of Terror and The Crusades. It's full of little details alongside spectacle, and with enough of a history lesson to satisfy the show's original brief. It's also a rollicking, action-packed adventure, in contrast to any episode of The Masters of Luxor. Though there are some similarities, too - primarily the focus on the Catholic/Protestant conflict, albeit on the people this time rather than the theology.
And, yes, of course we get the Inquisition. All the iconography is there - torture implements and cells, priests trying to trick sinners into confession - as it would have been on TV in 1964. But there's also a comment about how our historical view of it has been set in stone, which resonated with an article I was reading in the Radio Times by Jeremy Paxman on that very subject. I am writing this on Remembrance Sunday; he was talking about the hundredth anniversary of the First World War, a catastrophe that has been so "overlain with myth and legend" that we can no longer get at the truth. History is what gets written down; what actually happened is just living.
Which is why the comment about Ian's watch working but still being useless is so poignant. We would need a time machine to truly understand the past, but we can remember those who worked to make the future better (in all sorts of ways), and strive to build on their legacy. One day we will be part of that hidden past; the best we can hope for is that history will think well of us.
Rating:
It's hard to rate this. The story was excellent, both in terms of fitting with the period and as an exciting adventure, and I have no complaint about the performances, but the structure irritated me. As a result, I'll give it a compromise mark.
5/10.
Next Time:
The Justice of God.
Friday 15 November 2013
Where am I Going? I Don't Know!
A recent comment by one reader prompted me to think about where I am
going with this, and whether it's time to repaint the wagon.
Basically, the problem was that he couldn't always tell from the outset which story I was reviewing, so he suggested including the name of the story in the title of the post, and in the "next time" slot at the end. I thought about it: it made sense, particularly with the non-televised stories whose episode titles are sometimes pretty obscure (or even invented by me, as will probably happen next when I review Frostfire). But I didn't want to do it. I did eventually come up with a solution to the request that satisfied both of us - I would mention the story title in the first sentence of each episode review - but the act of pinning down why I didn't want to go along with his offered solution reminded me of some original intentions I had regarding the blog.
One thing that I may not have ever made clear is that this isn't (primarily) a story review blog. I was prompted to start it when I read a piece on Elizabeth Sandifer's TARDIS Eruditorum about how we consume Doctor Who in the 21st Century, as opposed to how it was seen in the 1960s. Back then it was a serialised show, designed to be watched one episode a week and to provide family entertainment for 25 minutes each Saturday throughout most of the year. It wasn't a bunch of made-for-TV movies split into 25-minute chunks, which we can now watch on DVD in all their long-form glory. Sitting down for almost three hours to watch The Daleks doesn't give the right impression at all.
So, I started my marathon explicitly to experience the show as a series of episodes. And that's why I do so many episode reviews: this is (primarily) an episode review blog. The "Next Time" bit at the end is intended as a caption card, rather than being particularly informative for readers.
I'd forgotten that. I was becoming concerned that there wasn't enough meat in the serial reviews at the end of each run of episode reviews - more importantly, I'd started writing episode reviews merely out of habit. And I would spice up my "Next Time" sections to make them more fun, more chatty, or more teasing. But in doing all this I was slipping away from what makes this blog unusual. The fanfic, the "serial # as a whole" reviews, the "what was I thinking?" posts like this, all have their place; but they are subsidiary to the main point of the exercise, which is the episode reviews.
It's aimed at a very niche audience. I could probably attract a lot more readers if I did turn it into a story review blog, but there are plenty of good ones out there already (Doc Oho's, for example), and if I was trying to compete with them I'd give up. Let me focus on my tiny pond instead. That way there's a chance I'll still be doing my marathon in a year's time.
Where am I headed? I ain't certain. Just like the viewers of the 1960s. All I know is I am on my way.
Next Time:
The Morisco.
Basically, the problem was that he couldn't always tell from the outset which story I was reviewing, so he suggested including the name of the story in the title of the post, and in the "next time" slot at the end. I thought about it: it made sense, particularly with the non-televised stories whose episode titles are sometimes pretty obscure (or even invented by me, as will probably happen next when I review Frostfire). But I didn't want to do it. I did eventually come up with a solution to the request that satisfied both of us - I would mention the story title in the first sentence of each episode review - but the act of pinning down why I didn't want to go along with his offered solution reminded me of some original intentions I had regarding the blog.
One thing that I may not have ever made clear is that this isn't (primarily) a story review blog. I was prompted to start it when I read a piece on Elizabeth Sandifer's TARDIS Eruditorum about how we consume Doctor Who in the 21st Century, as opposed to how it was seen in the 1960s. Back then it was a serialised show, designed to be watched one episode a week and to provide family entertainment for 25 minutes each Saturday throughout most of the year. It wasn't a bunch of made-for-TV movies split into 25-minute chunks, which we can now watch on DVD in all their long-form glory. Sitting down for almost three hours to watch The Daleks doesn't give the right impression at all.
So, I started my marathon explicitly to experience the show as a series of episodes. And that's why I do so many episode reviews: this is (primarily) an episode review blog. The "Next Time" bit at the end is intended as a caption card, rather than being particularly informative for readers.
I'd forgotten that. I was becoming concerned that there wasn't enough meat in the serial reviews at the end of each run of episode reviews - more importantly, I'd started writing episode reviews merely out of habit. And I would spice up my "Next Time" sections to make them more fun, more chatty, or more teasing. But in doing all this I was slipping away from what makes this blog unusual. The fanfic, the "serial # as a whole" reviews, the "what was I thinking?" posts like this, all have their place; but they are subsidiary to the main point of the exercise, which is the episode reviews.
It's aimed at a very niche audience. I could probably attract a lot more readers if I did turn it into a story review blog, but there are plenty of good ones out there already (Doc Oho's, for example), and if I was trying to compete with them I'd give up. Let me focus on my tiny pond instead. That way there's a chance I'll still be doing my marathon in a year's time.
Where am I headed? I ain't certain. Just like the viewers of the 1960s. All I know is I am on my way.
Next Time:
The Morisco.
Monday 11 November 2013
The Lost Stories 3.7: The Masters of Luxor
I've just realised that this is quite possibly my last Hartnell six-parter. Certainly there are no more on TV - all the rest are four-parters, except for the season 3 epic (which breaks down nicely into smaller chunks anyway) - so it all depends on whether the last Hartnell Lost Story from Big Finish, The Dark Planet, is four or six parts.
I won't miss them. Two to four parts works well with my reviewing pattern, but any longer and it all feels too drawn out. I sometimes run out of things to say, especially if there are no visuals for me to comment on (acting, sets, direction). As a reviewer, discoveries like the recent Enemy of the World/Web of Fear haul make me breathe a sigh of relief.
Basically, the second half of this has been a bit of a slog. Not to listen to - even my least-loved audios keep me entertained, and this is far from the worst - but to write up. That's why you get quite so many digressions, like the discussion of cliffhangers or authority in my parenting.
I'm glad it was produced - and that Susan got a decent part to play - but I suspect it's not going to be one of the ones I relisten to a lot.
A Confused Chronology, part 11: That Was Then, This Is When?
I was pleased that my decision to set The Fragile Yellow Arc of Fragrance (FYAoF) before Farewell, Great Macedon (FGM) was confirmed here, when - at the time - just about everyone seemed to have them in the order they appeared on the CDs. These three definitely form their own little run. But where should that run be set?
As I mentioned before, Susan doubting the reality of the food in The Cannibal Flower makes me think they should definitely come after The Keys of Marinus; Susan's presence puts them before The Dalek Invasion of Earth. In that stretch there are three not-completely-tortuous gaps: two slightly dodgy ones just before and after The Aztecs (which is connected to the adjacent stories only by TARDIS arrival/departure scenes) and a third between seasons that should be regarded as dodgy but has been blown wide open by previous Expanded Universe stories.
I think the overall tone implies as early a placement as possible. On the other hand, if they come before The Aztecs, the interference with history in FGM would (in my opinion) make a nonsense of the wonderful interaction between the Doctor and Barbara/Yetaxa; whereas it works the other way round. Ian's feelings for Barbara in FYAoF seem rather developed for an early placement; but then they were always a bit variable, and maybe the amount of downtime they had on Fragrance allowed them to bubble to the surface, only for later action to push them back down again. Similarly, perhaps that downtime - if it came straight after The Aztecs - allowed Barbara to recover from her experiences in Mexico.
On balance, then, I think that (for me) the best placement is immediately post-Aztecs. It's not ideal - and it means on Gallifrey Base I've been reviewing them in the wrong thread! - but it'll do.
Published:
Date: August 2012
ISBN: 1-84435-589-6
Rating:
3/10.
Next Time:
A brief diversion, before I start in on The Flames of Cadiz.
Friday 8 November 2013
The Lost Stories 3.7, episode 6: The Flower Blooms
There - I've made it through the final episode of The Masters of Luxor!
And it isn't bad, really - certainly better than the previous two, and
with a decent cliffhanger resolution; though it's still a little slow,
even for the early days of the show.
One thing I really like about it is that, yet again, Susan is being proactive and effective. This time she does something physical to rescue Ian, adding to the wide variety of positive roles this serial has given her. To be honest I can't imagine something like this making it through script editing, just because of how consistently dreadful the scripts were for Susan in the stories that did make it to screen. The Masters of Luxor has now supplanted The Sensorites as the best story for showcasing the unearthly child, in my mind, although once again it's not one of my favourites overall.
Something I didn't enjoy in this episode is the handling of the (surviving) religious theme. The Doctor telling the Perfect One to abase himself before his creator doesn't fit with my idea of his character, and leaves a nasty taste in the mouth anyway. I know it's meant to be him talking his way out of an awkward situation, but it doesn't sound like that. Either it's close to blasphemous (setting Tabon up as a God-analogue) or it's supporting the worst kind of authoritarianism in organised religion. I'm a parent, and I would never ask my children to bow down before me. On the contrary, Alison and I have always encouraged them to think for themselves. Even when they were young, when they disagreed with what we were saying we would take the time to find out why - and sometimes they would come up with better ideas than we'd had. We retained the ultimate decision-making authority - and many times our greater experience meant we had more context to figure things out better - but that dialogue meant we could all learn from each other.
Dialogue in the broader sense is at the heart of this episode, though much of the time it feels like everyone is shouting their opinion and nobody is listening. (We've occasionally had that in our family too, of course.) It's good that the resolution doesn't come down to physical force, but by golly it's a talky episode!
The bit at the end where the image on the scanner recedes as the TARDIS dematerialises is an interesting artifact of these lost stories. I presume it was dropped either because it was hard to do for TV, or because there were better ways of handling endings. I am torn between thinking it is effective, and feeling that it doesn't really make sense from a time-and-space-travel perspective.
Rocky Roads (The Robots), part 4: Performed at Last!
This isn't the first time the story has been made. In 2001 it was produced as a four part fan adaptation, according to the TARDIS Data Core; still, it's the Big Finish version that most people will know.
And I can't be bothered to type any more.
Rating:
4/10.
Next Time:
The Masters of Luxor as a whole.
One thing I really like about it is that, yet again, Susan is being proactive and effective. This time she does something physical to rescue Ian, adding to the wide variety of positive roles this serial has given her. To be honest I can't imagine something like this making it through script editing, just because of how consistently dreadful the scripts were for Susan in the stories that did make it to screen. The Masters of Luxor has now supplanted The Sensorites as the best story for showcasing the unearthly child, in my mind, although once again it's not one of my favourites overall.
Something I didn't enjoy in this episode is the handling of the (surviving) religious theme. The Doctor telling the Perfect One to abase himself before his creator doesn't fit with my idea of his character, and leaves a nasty taste in the mouth anyway. I know it's meant to be him talking his way out of an awkward situation, but it doesn't sound like that. Either it's close to blasphemous (setting Tabon up as a God-analogue) or it's supporting the worst kind of authoritarianism in organised religion. I'm a parent, and I would never ask my children to bow down before me. On the contrary, Alison and I have always encouraged them to think for themselves. Even when they were young, when they disagreed with what we were saying we would take the time to find out why - and sometimes they would come up with better ideas than we'd had. We retained the ultimate decision-making authority - and many times our greater experience meant we had more context to figure things out better - but that dialogue meant we could all learn from each other.
Dialogue in the broader sense is at the heart of this episode, though much of the time it feels like everyone is shouting their opinion and nobody is listening. (We've occasionally had that in our family too, of course.) It's good that the resolution doesn't come down to physical force, but by golly it's a talky episode!
The bit at the end where the image on the scanner recedes as the TARDIS dematerialises is an interesting artifact of these lost stories. I presume it was dropped either because it was hard to do for TV, or because there were better ways of handling endings. I am torn between thinking it is effective, and feeling that it doesn't really make sense from a time-and-space-travel perspective.
Rocky Roads (The Robots), part 4: Performed at Last!
This isn't the first time the story has been made. In 2001 it was produced as a four part fan adaptation, according to the TARDIS Data Core; still, it's the Big Finish version that most people will know.
And I can't be bothered to type any more.
Rating:
4/10.
Next Time:
The Masters of Luxor as a whole.
Tuesday 5 November 2013
The Lost Stories 3.7, episode 5: An Infinity of Surprises
Hm. Well, the cliffhanger to the previous episode of The Masters of Luxor
resolved as I expected, and unfortunately that put me in a less than
charitable mood. There's only been one decent cliffhanger in the whole
story so far, and that was the one with no immediate peril. I know the
early stories were very slow-paced, but this is getting a bit
ridiculous! The only thing that happens that advances the plot in this
episode is that we move Ian from one room (the one where the Doctor
spends the entire episode doing virtually nothing) to another (the
torture chamber). Meanwhile Susan and Barbara move back there from the
room where they were locked last time.
Actually, other than a lot of discussion and finding Tabon, we are pretty much where we were two episodes ago - which can be fine, but there hasn't even been a proper escape-recapture cycle! Ian isn't recaptured - he basically gives himself up - while Susan and Barbara never escaped. If this were a modern episode you could cut straight from the Perfect One saying that one of the travellers had to give up their life, two cliffhangers ago, to the scene at the end here with Ian being tortured.
I'm underselling this story a little, I know, but then I did say I was not in a charitable mood. Ian's "man of action" sequences spice it up a bit - I liked the scene where he tricks a robot into falling down the stairs, and his confrontation with the Perfect One simmers with suppressed anger as he tries to outwit his enemy. But that's about it for sparkle. I'm not the world's biggest fan of The Daleks - it's a bit of a mess in places, both in terms of script and of direction - but I'm really glad it was the serial B that was actually produced, rather than this.
One thing that makes me a little sad is how much older Carole Ann Ford and (particularly) William Russell sound here than they did in Farewell, Great Macedon, even though there's less than two years between the releases. In some scenes, Russell seems to have more difficulty with his Ian voice than the Doctor's - which makes sense, given that he was born in 1924. Perhaps they were less inspired by the material but I was reminded that they are not going to be producing new audios forever, no matter how much they might want to. Still, even if they stopped tomorrow, I would be grateful for the extra adventures we've had with them in the last five years.
I haven't said anything yet about the third voice in these audios, so let's talk a little about Joe Kloska. I didn't recognise his name and he doesn't have a Wikipedia page so I looked him up on IMDB: he's not done a lot of TV or films, and I haven't seen anything he's been in. Presumably he's mostly done radio and/or theatre. When I first heard his derivitron voice I wasn't entirely sure about it - it wasn't what I expected - but I quickly adjusted. As pointed out in the disk 2 extras, having the same person play all the guest parts actually works well here because the robots are all based on Tabon, and Kloska provides enough variety (aided by a little voice processing) to give us a sense of who is who while maintaining the family connection.
Rocky Roads (The Robots), part 3: The Lost Script
For more than a quarter of a century, little was known generally about the story. That changed when Titan Books decided to start releasing script books of old serials, and contacted Anthony Coburn's widow about the script for The Tribe of Gum. She found the Masters of Luxor script and it was released in book form in August 1992.
Rating:
3/10.
Next Time:
The Flower Blooms.
Actually, other than a lot of discussion and finding Tabon, we are pretty much where we were two episodes ago - which can be fine, but there hasn't even been a proper escape-recapture cycle! Ian isn't recaptured - he basically gives himself up - while Susan and Barbara never escaped. If this were a modern episode you could cut straight from the Perfect One saying that one of the travellers had to give up their life, two cliffhangers ago, to the scene at the end here with Ian being tortured.
I'm underselling this story a little, I know, but then I did say I was not in a charitable mood. Ian's "man of action" sequences spice it up a bit - I liked the scene where he tricks a robot into falling down the stairs, and his confrontation with the Perfect One simmers with suppressed anger as he tries to outwit his enemy. But that's about it for sparkle. I'm not the world's biggest fan of The Daleks - it's a bit of a mess in places, both in terms of script and of direction - but I'm really glad it was the serial B that was actually produced, rather than this.
One thing that makes me a little sad is how much older Carole Ann Ford and (particularly) William Russell sound here than they did in Farewell, Great Macedon, even though there's less than two years between the releases. In some scenes, Russell seems to have more difficulty with his Ian voice than the Doctor's - which makes sense, given that he was born in 1924. Perhaps they were less inspired by the material but I was reminded that they are not going to be producing new audios forever, no matter how much they might want to. Still, even if they stopped tomorrow, I would be grateful for the extra adventures we've had with them in the last five years.
I haven't said anything yet about the third voice in these audios, so let's talk a little about Joe Kloska. I didn't recognise his name and he doesn't have a Wikipedia page so I looked him up on IMDB: he's not done a lot of TV or films, and I haven't seen anything he's been in. Presumably he's mostly done radio and/or theatre. When I first heard his derivitron voice I wasn't entirely sure about it - it wasn't what I expected - but I quickly adjusted. As pointed out in the disk 2 extras, having the same person play all the guest parts actually works well here because the robots are all based on Tabon, and Kloska provides enough variety (aided by a little voice processing) to give us a sense of who is who while maintaining the family connection.
Rocky Roads (The Robots), part 3: The Lost Script
For more than a quarter of a century, little was known generally about the story. That changed when Titan Books decided to start releasing script books of old serials, and contacted Anthony Coburn's widow about the script for The Tribe of Gum. She found the Masters of Luxor script and it was released in book form in August 1992.
Rating:
3/10.
Next Time:
The Flower Blooms.
Sunday 3 November 2013
The Lost Stories 3.7, episode 4: Tabon of Luxor
Well, finally we get to meet one of the real Masters of Luxor - and it's
a bit of a disappointment, to be honest. For one thing, there's too
much exposition; and the Doctor and Ian's reactions to Tabon swing too
quickly. I don't think William Russell was quite up to his usual form
distinguishing the two voices, either, and I occasionally had to do a
double-take as I readjusted my idea of which character was speaking. I
wish they'd got Peter Purves in to play the Doctor opposite Russell's
Ian, but that opens up the whole recasting issue, which I don't want to
go into here!
Carole Ann Ford fares better, both in terms of plot and performance. Susan gets to be smart once again, spotting the hidden camera and dealing with it intelligently; and she and Barbara get all the action that can be portrayed effectively on audio (climbing never seems to work). Of course, they also get the cop-out peril of being put in the life-drainer and it then not working on them (well, so far as the Perfect One is concerned it's never worked, but you know what I mean - it doesn't drain their lives); but at least it wasn't made into a cliffhanger.
Speaking of which, we have another of those all-too-easy-to-predict cliffhangers at the end of this episode. For me, there are (I think) two effective types of cliffhanger:
Back to this, though, and at the end of the disc we get the first of the extras, a bit of discussion between David Richardson and Nigel Robinson about the adaptation of the story to audio. It was interesting that they mentioned religious allegory and that it had been mostly cut out - since I found it pretty explicit anyway!
Rocky Roads (The Robots), part 2: Moving the Goalposts
Getting the story lineup finalised for the new show's first season proved difficult. In September 1963, David Whitaker and Verity Lambert decided that Terry Nation's script The Survivors needed less work than Anthony Coburn's for The Robots, and swapped them in the running order. By late October a run of seven serials had been hammered out; ironically, fewer than half would make it to the screen. The Masters of Luxor limped along until the following year, when it was pushed back to season 2 and eventually written off.
Rating:
3.5/10.
Next Time:
An Infinity of Surprises.
Carole Ann Ford fares better, both in terms of plot and performance. Susan gets to be smart once again, spotting the hidden camera and dealing with it intelligently; and she and Barbara get all the action that can be portrayed effectively on audio (climbing never seems to work). Of course, they also get the cop-out peril of being put in the life-drainer and it then not working on them (well, so far as the Perfect One is concerned it's never worked, but you know what I mean - it doesn't drain their lives); but at least it wasn't made into a cliffhanger.
Speaking of which, we have another of those all-too-easy-to-predict cliffhangers at the end of this episode. For me, there are (I think) two effective types of cliffhanger:
- Ooh, How Will They Get Out of That? This puts people in peril, and we get a week of wondering what's going to happen next. For me not to be disappointed there must be some action that is taken to avert the crisis. Resolutions like "the apple wasn't poisoned after all", or "it was just a tremor, the volcano isn't actually erupting" are no good. If the life-drainer situation above had been a cliffhanger it would have failed in the same way.
- Ooh, That's a Twist! Something new is introduced, and we get a week of speculating about it. It doesn't have to imperil anyone, it just needs to be intriguing; but it has to prove to be genuinely interesting next time.
Back to this, though, and at the end of the disc we get the first of the extras, a bit of discussion between David Richardson and Nigel Robinson about the adaptation of the story to audio. It was interesting that they mentioned religious allegory and that it had been mostly cut out - since I found it pretty explicit anyway!
Rocky Roads (The Robots), part 2: Moving the Goalposts
Getting the story lineup finalised for the new show's first season proved difficult. In September 1963, David Whitaker and Verity Lambert decided that Terry Nation's script The Survivors needed less work than Anthony Coburn's for The Robots, and swapped them in the running order. By late October a run of seven serials had been hammered out; ironically, fewer than half would make it to the screen. The Masters of Luxor limped along until the following year, when it was pushed back to season 2 and eventually written off.
Rating:
3.5/10.
Next Time:
An Infinity of Surprises.
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