Thursday 24 July 2014

Turbulence

Sometimes it's easy deciding where to split this marathon into chapters; sometimes, like now, it's blinkin' impossible. I started with the first three serials because I wasn't sure if I wanted to do a full marathon with hundreds of reviews; in hindsight that didn't make sense, but never mind. The next obvious division was between production blocks, after Susan had left and before Vicki joined, though I also put a break in at the end of the first season just to keep it from being too long. Iananbarbara leaving was another clear breakpoint, and that nailed down the start of this run.

But then I hit a problem. Tonally there is no logical dividing line anywhere between Mission to the Unknown and Dodo's arrival, and a split any earlier than Mission is pretty pointless. Every other reason I could come up with to make a division within that span felt wrong; in the end I decided to bite the bullet and just include the whole lot. 29 TV episodes in (nominally) 6 serials, 24 audio episodes in 10 dramas, a measly one novel, about 37 short stories and at least 40 comic stories (for reasons which will become clear when I get there). Something like 150 reviews (assuming Big Finish don't add to that in the meantime), and I'm going to want to do some fiction as well for Vicki and Sara at least (though probably not Katarina, Bret or Oliver). Even at an average of about two substantial posts a week - whic I haven't managed for quite some time - we're talking at least a year and a half!

Hang on to your hats - it's going to be a long and bumpy ride...

Next Time:
The Watcher.

Thursday 17 July 2014

Iananbarbara

I've been doing timeslipped reviews covering the early period of the show for a while now, and will continue to do so for at least as long as William Russell and Carole Ann Ford keep on recording audios; but I've decided that it's past time to draw a line under this era. Ian's Tale will also continue at some point, but I'll just treat that as a timeslip too. So, just as I did when Susan left, I'm going to do a round-up post for our latest two retirees. This post isn't really as I want it, but as I mentioned before the wait is getting to be ridiculous. Hopefully there's still enough in here of interest.

Iananbarbara
I came up with the portmanteau description of the schoolteachers in my very first review for this marathon. Indeed, the very first scene with significant dialogue in the show was their conversation about an unearthly child, and they left the show together; so the connection is obvious. The description is almost a ship - a canon ship, if you count expanded universe material (heck, last year we even got to see their wedding). I knew about shipping before I started this marathon, though not under that title, and not with the mashed together names; since my daughter became a teenager I've been exposed to a lot more. I suppose the proper version would be 'Barbarian', but that's just wrong.

The standard line is that Iananbarbara teach the Doctor to be a better person, and are then no longer needed. There's truth in that - it's certainly the 'arc' of the first thirteen episodes - but it tends to overemphasise their supporting role. From a modern perspective we think of the show in terms of "the Doctor and his companions", but that idea only really came in with Jon Pertwee; it's not really how the show was set up in the 1960s. What we have at the beginning is an ensemble cast, which only tends to revolve around the Doctor because he's the man with the vehicle. Once Iananbarbara stop being kidnap victims they are part of a group of friends travelling space and time together, each with strengths and weaknesses. They really are so much more than just the people that turn the Doctor into a hero!

Apart from the very first episode, An Unearthly Child - one of the most awesome introductions to a cast ever to open a TV show - my favourite stories to focus on the pair are probably The Time Travellers in books, probably The Fragile Yellow Arc of Fragrance in audio, and... well, TV's difficult because of the way all the cast tend to get separated, and in general focus on the group rather than the couple. Probably The Romans, which has the lovely villa scenes and Ian's determination to find Barbara driving him on when they are separated.

So much for the pair; what about individually?

Barbara
Barbara has been the heart of the TARDIS since the beginning, the emotional core of the team but also holding her own intellectually - and in terms of bravery. She was certainly no "screamer"! Her confrontation with the Doctor in The Brink of Disaster demonstrates all these traits, as she almost singlehandedly creates the family we have been watching for almost two seasons.

On television, I'm going to stick with the crowd and say that the best showcase for Barbara has to be The Aztecs. Audio is harder; she's at a disadvantage in that the viewpoint character is generally someone else, and partly for that reason, I'm going for Farewell, Great Macedon. In books, it's probably The Plotters; for short stories, perhaps The Mother Road.

Ian
Ian, the man of action, is loyal, determined, a fierce fighter though with an ex-military man's sense of humour. Like Barbara he cares deeply for his fellow travellers.

Ian's best moments on TV are spaced throughout his run, making choosing a single showcase story hard. I'm going to be more controversial here and select The Web Planet, which has a good mix of scenes for him. On audio, I'll go for The Rocket Men to highlight the action man, and The Library of Alexandria for his other side; with The Time Museum thrown in to cover his post-TARDIS self. Meanwhile, in books, if I can't have The Time Travellers again I choose Campaign. In short stories we have the lovely Rise and Fall, but he doesn't do much there so I might have to pick the grim The Last Days.

Jacqueline Hill and William Russell
Of course, there are real people behind the fictional faces; and just as Iananbarbara were important to the development of the show's story, Russell and Hill were important to the show's production. They supported William Hartnell, giving him an anchor when he was struggling; but by mid '65 Maureen O'Brien and Peter Purves were able to take on that responsibility. Hill in particular was an acting rock, scarcely putting a foot wrong in her entire run on the show; Russell was not far behind, and, of the two, had the bigger role in covering for Hartnell's slips (which he generally did elegantly). It's telling that when thinking about weaknesses, the one that sprang to mind was the fact that he couldn't fall down for toffee!

William Russell's real name is Russell Enoch, which is why people keep calling him Russ in interviews. He was an action hero before he was Ian, particularly as the star of The Adventures of Sir Lancelot, and indeed was the closest thing Doctor Who had to a leading man, despite not having the title role. Afterwards, he continued to have a busy career - including a brief stint as a regular cast member of Coronation Street, the supposed arch-rival of our show (though I know plenty of people have enjoyed both) - before taking up the audios in a new millennium. My daughter May met him at Comicon last weekend, and said he was lovely; I'm jealous.

It was Russell who decided to leave before Hill, but it seems she didn't take much persuading and the two landed a run working together in theatre. I get the impression that in the US there is more of a divide between actors of stage and screen, whereas here in the UK people switch between the two more freely. For non-theatre-goers (and for casual researchers - like me - who are reliant on Wikipedia and IMDB to find out what people have done), this means that actors who have busy careers can still seem to disappear from the map for long periods. Still, we do know that Hill mostly stopped work to raise her children with her film-director husband, while Russell carried on. We haven't seen the last of Hill, quite - when she took up acting again in 1979 she accepted a final role in the show for which she is best-remembered - but it'll be a while before we see her again. Russell will continue in the timeslipped audio reviews, of course.

Tragically, Hill died in 1993, of cancer. There is an excellent extra on the DVD of The Chase about Russell and Hill (and their roles in the show), which I can thoroughly recommend.

It's been a fun time travelling with this pair since I started my marathon. Although I think the incoming team is underappreciated, they will be missed.

Next Time:
In a new thread, at last, the beginning of a new strand to the marathon...

Saturday 12 July 2014

Procrastination

From the Latin pro cras: literally leaving stuff "to tomorrow". In case you didn't know.

My school was a comprehensive, but when I first went it had only just changed: all the exercise books still said "Toynbee Secondary Modern" on them. Which, again for those of you who don't know, meant that it had been a working class school occupied by the children who failed their Eleven Plus exam upon leaving primary. This system was basically a social tool for making sure everyone got the right education for their expected role in society, although set up with a slight chance for people to move in order to defuse enough of the resentment. Keeping the masses in their place, in other words.

Anyway, we had a very good headmaster who was looking to cast off the "school for drongos" reputation. (Yeah, class oppression really does promote such thinking, at least here in England.) He was skilled at motivating the existing teachers and at hiring decent new ones, and also came up with some wacky ideas. One of which was to encourage pupils who showed an interest in something.

I'm not just talking about praise and gold stars. No, there were four of us who were interested in learning Latin - not enough to make it worthwhile including in the curriculum - so what he did was to hire a part-time Latin teacher to come in before school started and teach us then. I got my 'O' level Latin, and as a result can spot where quite a few words come from and figure out more spelling than I would have been able to otherwise.

Which reminds me of my daughter, currently at Comicon in London, dressed as Neil Gaiman's Death (one of the Endless). So far she's met William Russell, Bernard Cribbins and Paul McGann, plus Summer Glau (briefly). I'm jealous, but the reason I'm reminded is that tomorrow she will hopefully be meeting that wonderful logophile, Colin Baker.

So. Procrastination, then.

Um.

Back in February, before I went on holiday, the Final Iananbarbara Post (FIP) was half-complete. I've written a lot since then - mostly not for this blog, but even here the published wordcount is over 6,500, none of it intended for publication before the FIP. I came to a firm decision a month or so ago to stop and draw a line under this era.

Since then, the FIP has crept up to maybe three-quarters written. It's pathetic, and I know that this is happening (or rather, not happening) because I am so desperately resisting moving on.

I will be 50 on Thursday, and I have decided to make a public statement. If I have not finished the FIP by then, I will post it as-is. Even if there are still sentences that finish in the middle.

There, Maybe my pride will push me to actually complete it. See you Thursday!