I had hoped to avoid this - particularly since I'd already written more
than half of my next review before I posted the last one - but there's
been no opportunity to watch the animated version of The Amaryll Challenge
(partly due to family health problems) and we're now heading into the
holidays, when I know I'm not going to have much time for blog writing,
because I never do. I'll pick up again here in the new year.
You don't have to go completely without the whitterings of me and my
family, though! My children and I (all of whose writing you have already
seen here) have just recorded the first two instalments of a new
podcast - the Norwood Institute. It's a bit of an experiment, and our
web presentation is a little unfinished, but do check us out over at https://norwoodinstitute.wordpress.com/ or on http://norwood-institute.tumblr.com/. You can download the MP3 or play it on a certain tube, and I promise that there is some Hartnell discussion coming up soon.
Next Time:
The Amaryll Challenge (after a couple more announcements).
Saturday 19 December 2015
Monday 7 December 2015
TV21 11-17/AV02: Duel of the Daleks
Bigger spoilers.
The Comic
The punchline first: this is undoubtedly the story that cemented The Dalek Chronicles' place in history. Almost everyone rates it highly, and in my opinion they are right to do so. Having got that out of the way, then, let's turn to the more interesting question: what makes it so good?
First off, it's just a riproaringly fun adventure serial, perfectly suited to its medium. Pacing is key in something like this: each instalment holds the interest and - six times out of seven - ends on a dramatic cliffhanging moment. (Even the seventh is better than some of Terry Nation's TV efforts, and he's actually pretty good at this sort of thing.)
Oddly enough, in a story that features only Daleks, it's the characterisation too - basically, that there is some. Zeg (the first Dalek with a name, possibly also the last until the Cult of Skaro? I'd have to check) and the Dalek Emperor are contrasted by their personalities, which are broadly drawn but definitely present. Both are confident, but it's a different stripe of confidence in each. Basically, they embody the brash spirit of energetic Youth and the calm wisdom of experienced Age.
Interestingly, Age wins by cheating. The Brain Machine says that Zeg must prove that he is smart, and the Emperor must prove that he is strong; but all along it is the latter setting traps for the former, destruction testing Zeg's casing. He succeeds eventually, ignoring the Machine's dictum in order to do so.
What drives the Emperor is revealed in the final instalment: he genuinely believes that the Daleks can only thrive with him at their head. It's not as visible, but he is just as arrogant as Zeg - and indeed the Black Dalek, making his first appearance here (with an imperiously callous air) as the Emperor's enforcer. Really, it's a key feature of the Dalek psyche, and it's impressive that characters driven by the same basic forces can be made so different.
I haven't said much about the artwork, but it continues to be effective in ways I've already described, and also adds its own spin to the atmosphere. For instance, during the duel Zeg is very prominent, foregrounded or featured on his own three times as often as the Emperor, who tends to lurk around the edges. This really helps to show us that the duellists are not the same.
Published:
Dates: 3rd April to 15th May 1965
Rating:
Comic: 9.5/10.
Terry Nation's The Daleks?
Having talked about the scripting a lot over the last few reviews, it's probably worth saying something about the writer. The logo panel says "The Daleks by Terry Nation". Apparently for some strange reason a few people believed that this meant the strip was written by Nation, though I can't imagine why: it's pretty obvious that Nation had nothing to do with it, and that David Whitaker was the writer (along with TV21 editor Alan Fennell for the first story).
Whitaker needs no introduction to readers of this blog, but this is the first time we've seen him as an actual writer of the Daleks. He had already written some printed Dalek stories - which we'll get to in a little while - and he'll get to write them for TV during Patrick Troughton's time on the show. What he does here is to create much of the imagery that people who grew up in the 60s associate with Daleks, despite much of it not appearing on the show itself - even the Dalek Emperor was conspicuous by his absence until Nation stopped writing the scripts. There are many figures who contributed to the success of the Daleks, and Whitaker is right up there among the most significant.
The Animation
The sound quality here is much better, which is a relief; and Stuart Palmer has reduced the number of times he pro-noun-ces each syll-a-ble se-pa-rate-ly, though he still does so on occasion. The fact that this story features no humanoids also means that it is ideally suited to animation. It's still very primitive compared to the remastered Genesis of Evil, and in a way I'm sorry I watched that one first; but I did enjoy it. Given that this is AV02 and the previous story was AV04, I'd expect this one to be the less advanced; but for the reasons given above it feels like a slightly later effort. At the moment the comic is still considerably better, though!
VCD Extras
This disc has a "making of" documentary, which was really useful for helping me understand quite how much work goes into an animation like this. I can see why almost all the shots featuring speech (and hence flashing lights) were done as basic, 2D animation, and boggle at the hours that go into producing the sets. Worth a watch.
Rating:
Animation: 4.5/10.
Next Time:
The Amaryll Challenge.
The Comic
The punchline first: this is undoubtedly the story that cemented The Dalek Chronicles' place in history. Almost everyone rates it highly, and in my opinion they are right to do so. Having got that out of the way, then, let's turn to the more interesting question: what makes it so good?
First off, it's just a riproaringly fun adventure serial, perfectly suited to its medium. Pacing is key in something like this: each instalment holds the interest and - six times out of seven - ends on a dramatic cliffhanging moment. (Even the seventh is better than some of Terry Nation's TV efforts, and he's actually pretty good at this sort of thing.)
Oddly enough, in a story that features only Daleks, it's the characterisation too - basically, that there is some. Zeg (the first Dalek with a name, possibly also the last until the Cult of Skaro? I'd have to check) and the Dalek Emperor are contrasted by their personalities, which are broadly drawn but definitely present. Both are confident, but it's a different stripe of confidence in each. Basically, they embody the brash spirit of energetic Youth and the calm wisdom of experienced Age.
Interestingly, Age wins by cheating. The Brain Machine says that Zeg must prove that he is smart, and the Emperor must prove that he is strong; but all along it is the latter setting traps for the former, destruction testing Zeg's casing. He succeeds eventually, ignoring the Machine's dictum in order to do so.
What drives the Emperor is revealed in the final instalment: he genuinely believes that the Daleks can only thrive with him at their head. It's not as visible, but he is just as arrogant as Zeg - and indeed the Black Dalek, making his first appearance here (with an imperiously callous air) as the Emperor's enforcer. Really, it's a key feature of the Dalek psyche, and it's impressive that characters driven by the same basic forces can be made so different.
I haven't said much about the artwork, but it continues to be effective in ways I've already described, and also adds its own spin to the atmosphere. For instance, during the duel Zeg is very prominent, foregrounded or featured on his own three times as often as the Emperor, who tends to lurk around the edges. This really helps to show us that the duellists are not the same.
Published:
Dates: 3rd April to 15th May 1965
Rating:
Comic: 9.5/10.
Terry Nation's The Daleks?
Having talked about the scripting a lot over the last few reviews, it's probably worth saying something about the writer. The logo panel says "The Daleks by Terry Nation". Apparently for some strange reason a few people believed that this meant the strip was written by Nation, though I can't imagine why: it's pretty obvious that Nation had nothing to do with it, and that David Whitaker was the writer (along with TV21 editor Alan Fennell for the first story).
Whitaker needs no introduction to readers of this blog, but this is the first time we've seen him as an actual writer of the Daleks. He had already written some printed Dalek stories - which we'll get to in a little while - and he'll get to write them for TV during Patrick Troughton's time on the show. What he does here is to create much of the imagery that people who grew up in the 60s associate with Daleks, despite much of it not appearing on the show itself - even the Dalek Emperor was conspicuous by his absence until Nation stopped writing the scripts. There are many figures who contributed to the success of the Daleks, and Whitaker is right up there among the most significant.
The Animation
The sound quality here is much better, which is a relief; and Stuart Palmer has reduced the number of times he pro-noun-ces each syll-a-ble se-pa-rate-ly, though he still does so on occasion. The fact that this story features no humanoids also means that it is ideally suited to animation. It's still very primitive compared to the remastered Genesis of Evil, and in a way I'm sorry I watched that one first; but I did enjoy it. Given that this is AV02 and the previous story was AV04, I'd expect this one to be the less advanced; but for the reasons given above it feels like a slightly later effort. At the moment the comic is still considerably better, though!
VCD Extras
This disc has a "making of" documentary, which was really useful for helping me understand quite how much work goes into an animation like this. I can see why almost all the shots featuring speech (and hence flashing lights) were done as basic, 2D animation, and boggle at the hours that go into producing the sets. Worth a watch.
Rating:
Animation: 4.5/10.
Next Time:
The Amaryll Challenge.
Monday 30 November 2015
TV21 4-10/AV04: Power Play
Only minor spoilers this time.
The Comic
The first thing I notice is that, within the comic series itself, there appears to be nothing to mark the break between one story and the next. Rather like the original program itself, in fact! Still, as with the TV series, there are definitely serials (or perhaps chapters), so it makes sense to give them names. This second chapter in the sequence is over twice as long, at seven pages, which becomes fairly standard - seven out of the next ten stories are this length.
The story itself is not as strong as the first, but then origins are always a good hook (which is why superhero comics and film series reboot so often). What is clever here is that for a long time it feels like a simple incident, one that doesn't progress the overall narrative; but then, in the final instalment, something key happens that expands the canvas on which future chapters can work.
The Daleks are well-characterised. They are clever and devious, but also limited in key ways (although how they have managed to rebuild a city without slaves is not explained, despite this being a key point last time). There is a nice nod to The Chase, and the various betrayals that happen meant the story held my interest.
Unfortunately, the heroes of the piece are - once again - young, attractive, white humans (or at least indistinguishable from humans), while the villain is ugly and purple. This feels less extreme than last time - it's not something we've escaped in the half-century since, after all - but it still rankles a little.
One welcome artwork change is that the Daleks are now portrayed with their correct proportions (the title panel changes to reflect this partway through the story). The continuity-obsessed part of me can easily justify this, happily: the first, overly-tall Daleks were prototypes, and they have now improved the design. The Mark 2, perhaps.
A less happy change is that the inking on the fourth through sixth instalments is much lighter and less detailed. This makes everything look sketchier, and definitely takes away from the atmosphere. Fortunately the original inker is back for the finale, a very nicely done page in which the climactic event - the launch of a spaceship - distorts not only the panel where it happens, but bends the next row up as well! A simple trick that gives a sense of enormous energy.
TV Century 21
Time for some background. The first comic to feature anything from the world of Doctor Who was the venerable TV Comic, which had already lasted 673 issues before the Doctor came on board. TV Century 21 was a different beast, and had the Daleks - in colour! - out of the gate. The new comic was focused mainly on Gerry Anderson's stable of shows, and cleverly pretended that they all fitted together when they were clearly not designed that way - something us Whovian continuity obsessives would know nothing about, of course.
Throughout much of the 1960s, Anderson's shows (Fireball XL5, Stingray, Thunderbirds, and so forth) were massive - in fact, for a while, TV Century 21 (later simply called TV21) was by far the biggest comic on the stands. It took a unique tack, dating the issues a century in the future and presenting itself more like a newspaper, as if reporting on events in the world of the future. More details can be found in Stuart Palmer's narration of The Story of TV Century 21, an extra on the remastered Genesis of Evil VCD, which is accompanied by a slideshow of covers from issues featuring the Daleks.
Published:
Dates: 13rd February to 27th March 1965
Rating:
Comic: 4/10.
The Animation
One of my problems with the story in the comic was that the Daleks had apparently built their city on their own despite claiming to need slaves for handiwork. The VCD addresses this straight away, with a narrated series of still shots showing the Daleks' extermination and capture of survivors of the neutron bomb. It's just what was needed to set the scene.
Unsurprisingly, this is a much less sophisticated animation than the previous one. The sound quality is poorer (I had to really concentrate to make out some of the dialogue), Palmer hasn't quite got the pacing of the Dalek voices he was to develop later, and some of the scenes are not cut at quite the right point. More importantly, the human characters have no lip sync at all, and are often shown in still shots. It feels much more like a recon than the last!
At just over half an hour for a comic that is more than twice the length, this is a faster-paced adaptation. Some of the cuts are neat, using techniques such as zooming in on the emperor's eye, and I can see the seeds of a very good director in Palmer's work here. In a way I would be much more impressed if I hadn't just watched what he produced later on!
VCD Extras
Dalek Cutaway is an animated guide to the Dalek machine. There have been a number of these published in books; this one is based on Terry Nation's Dalek Special (1979) and The Doctor Who Technical Manual, which I haven't seen. I mostly like it, but the teletype-style text comes up at too slow a pace for me (I'm a fast reader), which means I spent some of the time waiting for the next word to appear. Still, a good effort.
Rating:
Animation: 3/10.
(I should note that I am judging the animations by pretty much the same standard I use for professional work; 3/10 is therefore not as bad as it might sound!)
Next Time:
Duel of the Daleks.
The Comic
The first thing I notice is that, within the comic series itself, there appears to be nothing to mark the break between one story and the next. Rather like the original program itself, in fact! Still, as with the TV series, there are definitely serials (or perhaps chapters), so it makes sense to give them names. This second chapter in the sequence is over twice as long, at seven pages, which becomes fairly standard - seven out of the next ten stories are this length.
The story itself is not as strong as the first, but then origins are always a good hook (which is why superhero comics and film series reboot so often). What is clever here is that for a long time it feels like a simple incident, one that doesn't progress the overall narrative; but then, in the final instalment, something key happens that expands the canvas on which future chapters can work.
The Daleks are well-characterised. They are clever and devious, but also limited in key ways (although how they have managed to rebuild a city without slaves is not explained, despite this being a key point last time). There is a nice nod to The Chase, and the various betrayals that happen meant the story held my interest.
Unfortunately, the heroes of the piece are - once again - young, attractive, white humans (or at least indistinguishable from humans), while the villain is ugly and purple. This feels less extreme than last time - it's not something we've escaped in the half-century since, after all - but it still rankles a little.
One welcome artwork change is that the Daleks are now portrayed with their correct proportions (the title panel changes to reflect this partway through the story). The continuity-obsessed part of me can easily justify this, happily: the first, overly-tall Daleks were prototypes, and they have now improved the design. The Mark 2, perhaps.
A less happy change is that the inking on the fourth through sixth instalments is much lighter and less detailed. This makes everything look sketchier, and definitely takes away from the atmosphere. Fortunately the original inker is back for the finale, a very nicely done page in which the climactic event - the launch of a spaceship - distorts not only the panel where it happens, but bends the next row up as well! A simple trick that gives a sense of enormous energy.
TV Century 21
Time for some background. The first comic to feature anything from the world of Doctor Who was the venerable TV Comic, which had already lasted 673 issues before the Doctor came on board. TV Century 21 was a different beast, and had the Daleks - in colour! - out of the gate. The new comic was focused mainly on Gerry Anderson's stable of shows, and cleverly pretended that they all fitted together when they were clearly not designed that way - something us Whovian continuity obsessives would know nothing about, of course.
Throughout much of the 1960s, Anderson's shows (Fireball XL5, Stingray, Thunderbirds, and so forth) were massive - in fact, for a while, TV Century 21 (later simply called TV21) was by far the biggest comic on the stands. It took a unique tack, dating the issues a century in the future and presenting itself more like a newspaper, as if reporting on events in the world of the future. More details can be found in Stuart Palmer's narration of The Story of TV Century 21, an extra on the remastered Genesis of Evil VCD, which is accompanied by a slideshow of covers from issues featuring the Daleks.
Published:
Dates: 13rd February to 27th March 1965
Rating:
Comic: 4/10.
The Animation
One of my problems with the story in the comic was that the Daleks had apparently built their city on their own despite claiming to need slaves for handiwork. The VCD addresses this straight away, with a narrated series of still shots showing the Daleks' extermination and capture of survivors of the neutron bomb. It's just what was needed to set the scene.
Unsurprisingly, this is a much less sophisticated animation than the previous one. The sound quality is poorer (I had to really concentrate to make out some of the dialogue), Palmer hasn't quite got the pacing of the Dalek voices he was to develop later, and some of the scenes are not cut at quite the right point. More importantly, the human characters have no lip sync at all, and are often shown in still shots. It feels much more like a recon than the last!
At just over half an hour for a comic that is more than twice the length, this is a faster-paced adaptation. Some of the cuts are neat, using techniques such as zooming in on the emperor's eye, and I can see the seeds of a very good director in Palmer's work here. In a way I would be much more impressed if I hadn't just watched what he produced later on!
VCD Extras
Dalek Cutaway is an animated guide to the Dalek machine. There have been a number of these published in books; this one is based on Terry Nation's Dalek Special (1979) and The Doctor Who Technical Manual, which I haven't seen. I mostly like it, but the teletype-style text comes up at too slow a pace for me (I'm a fast reader), which means I spent some of the time waiting for the next word to appear. Still, a good effort.
Rating:
Animation: 3/10.
(I should note that I am judging the animations by pretty much the same standard I use for professional work; 3/10 is therefore not as bad as it might sound!)
Next Time:
Duel of the Daleks.
Tuesday 24 November 2015
AV20: Genesis of Evil
Spoilers again!
The Animation
There have been two versions of the VCD; I've got Genesis of Evil Remastered, which was released in 2009, near the end of the time these discs were being produced. I suppose the creators weren't satisfied with their original offering, but this release is certainly impressive.
3D computer modelling is used for the animation, and let me start with an area that always gives difficulties: living beings. The characters here aren't good enough for TV (though to be fair I thought that was true of the tenth Doctor adventure Dreamland as well). They are stiff, lacking the little movements that characterise real people. There is also a problem with hair, which tends to sink, ghostlike, into the body. The lip sync, however, is very good indeed.
A great deal of care has been spent on the sets, which are lovingly recreated from the comic and then expanded. These and the true Daleks are the highlight of the animation, and - except for resolution - they are TV quality. From the initial view of Skaro in space (with the hateful opening text scrolling, Star Wars-like, in the foreground) to the final rising crane shot of massed Daleks chanting, they are a delight. It's only when there are people in shot or pyrotechnic effects (such as the destruction of Dalazar) that I am reminded that this is effectively an amateur production. Even then, it's a very good one.
The actors do a decent job. Stuart Palmer (who also voices the true Daleks) plays Zolfian very much in the Richard III tradition, reminding me strongly of John Ringham's Tlotoxl from The Aztecs - in fact there's little subtlety in any of the performances, but then that's not what's wanted. A bit of ham suits the pulp SF mood. Richard Dadd's Yarvelling and Paul St. Marter's Drenz join in willingly. The sound quality is great, with effective music and effects from Empire 639.
So, what about the story? This is 20 minutes long, and the first instalment of the comic, in particular, has been expanded significantly - it now takes almost half the runtime. This is a mixed blessing: it lacks some of the punch of the original and some of the new dialogue is a bit flat, but we get to see more of the world (which, as mentioned above, is pretty darn impressive). I was less happy with the alterations than I was with the expansions. The addition of the mutos in the wilderness seems like an intrusion from the later Genesis, as does the way that the original Daleks (now human in shape, presumably because of the availability of 3D models) have been at war with the Thals for a long time, which sits oddly with having a peace-loving leader. On the other hand, putting rational arguments into the mouth of Yarvelling just feels wrong - I think it would have been better to keep the two Daleks focused on Thal annihilation and trusted the audience to figure out that there was an argument against continuing war against scattered survivors! Still, these are minor complaints.
I could say more - about the in-joke of a bomb with the registration DVRS-75, perhaps, or the effective "Stripped for Action" style title sequence - but this review has already been split once because of it turning into a monster, and there's one more thing to cover.
VCD Extras
There are three extras on this VCD, and I'll cover The Story of TV Century 21 next time. The Chronicle Years is a tour through the music and news of the two-year period when the comic strip was being published. It's put together well, with a soundtrack comprising extracts from the number one chart singles playing in order (and identified in a strip at the top of the shot) while the main part of the screen shows images of current events (described in a band at the bottom). During weeks when the TV show was being broadcast, a small image of the current story is displayed bottom left. The month and year is on the right. It took a little while for me to get used to this layout, but after that it worked well - with one caveat. It goes on too long. My brain was divided between interest in how everything fit together (shades of Elizabeth Sandifer's psychochronography) and mental clock-watching. Cutting it into two and having the second half on the Archives of Phryne disc would have worked much better for me. Then, right at the end, there's a delightfully bizarre 1960s BBC "Interlude", showing an invasion of rolykins toy Daleks being fought off by a crawling baby doll. Ah, the 1960s!
That just leaves I'm Gonna Spend My Christmas with a Dalek, to which that last comment could also be applied. This was a single released by the Go-Gos which is, shall we say, not the greatest piece of pop music ever produced, even if we restrict our attention to novelty releases. Enlivened by a very simple, tongue-in-cheek animated "pop video", it's fascinating. Like a car crash.
Rating:
Animation: 7/10.
Next Time:
Power Play.
The Animation
There have been two versions of the VCD; I've got Genesis of Evil Remastered, which was released in 2009, near the end of the time these discs were being produced. I suppose the creators weren't satisfied with their original offering, but this release is certainly impressive.
3D computer modelling is used for the animation, and let me start with an area that always gives difficulties: living beings. The characters here aren't good enough for TV (though to be fair I thought that was true of the tenth Doctor adventure Dreamland as well). They are stiff, lacking the little movements that characterise real people. There is also a problem with hair, which tends to sink, ghostlike, into the body. The lip sync, however, is very good indeed.
A great deal of care has been spent on the sets, which are lovingly recreated from the comic and then expanded. These and the true Daleks are the highlight of the animation, and - except for resolution - they are TV quality. From the initial view of Skaro in space (with the hateful opening text scrolling, Star Wars-like, in the foreground) to the final rising crane shot of massed Daleks chanting, they are a delight. It's only when there are people in shot or pyrotechnic effects (such as the destruction of Dalazar) that I am reminded that this is effectively an amateur production. Even then, it's a very good one.
The actors do a decent job. Stuart Palmer (who also voices the true Daleks) plays Zolfian very much in the Richard III tradition, reminding me strongly of John Ringham's Tlotoxl from The Aztecs - in fact there's little subtlety in any of the performances, but then that's not what's wanted. A bit of ham suits the pulp SF mood. Richard Dadd's Yarvelling and Paul St. Marter's Drenz join in willingly. The sound quality is great, with effective music and effects from Empire 639.
So, what about the story? This is 20 minutes long, and the first instalment of the comic, in particular, has been expanded significantly - it now takes almost half the runtime. This is a mixed blessing: it lacks some of the punch of the original and some of the new dialogue is a bit flat, but we get to see more of the world (which, as mentioned above, is pretty darn impressive). I was less happy with the alterations than I was with the expansions. The addition of the mutos in the wilderness seems like an intrusion from the later Genesis, as does the way that the original Daleks (now human in shape, presumably because of the availability of 3D models) have been at war with the Thals for a long time, which sits oddly with having a peace-loving leader. On the other hand, putting rational arguments into the mouth of Yarvelling just feels wrong - I think it would have been better to keep the two Daleks focused on Thal annihilation and trusted the audience to figure out that there was an argument against continuing war against scattered survivors! Still, these are minor complaints.
I could say more - about the in-joke of a bomb with the registration DVRS-75, perhaps, or the effective "Stripped for Action" style title sequence - but this review has already been split once because of it turning into a monster, and there's one more thing to cover.
VCD Extras
There are three extras on this VCD, and I'll cover The Story of TV Century 21 next time. The Chronicle Years is a tour through the music and news of the two-year period when the comic strip was being published. It's put together well, with a soundtrack comprising extracts from the number one chart singles playing in order (and identified in a strip at the top of the shot) while the main part of the screen shows images of current events (described in a band at the bottom). During weeks when the TV show was being broadcast, a small image of the current story is displayed bottom left. The month and year is on the right. It took a little while for me to get used to this layout, but after that it worked well - with one caveat. It goes on too long. My brain was divided between interest in how everything fit together (shades of Elizabeth Sandifer's psychochronography) and mental clock-watching. Cutting it into two and having the second half on the Archives of Phryne disc would have worked much better for me. Then, right at the end, there's a delightfully bizarre 1960s BBC "Interlude", showing an invasion of rolykins toy Daleks being fought off by a crawling baby doll. Ah, the 1960s!
That just leaves I'm Gonna Spend My Christmas with a Dalek, to which that last comment could also be applied. This was a single released by the Go-Gos which is, shall we say, not the greatest piece of pop music ever produced, even if we restrict our attention to novelty releases. Enlivened by a very simple, tongue-in-cheek animated "pop video", it's fascinating. Like a car crash.
Rating:
Animation: 7/10.
Next Time:
Power Play.
Friday 20 November 2015
TV21 1-3: Genesis of Evil
OK, last post I reviewed a TV episode which now exists only as a recon
but has been adapted into a comic; next I am journeying 8½
months earlier in 1965, to review a comic which has been given an
animated "recon" of its own. Which, I suppose, requires some context;
but since I've got 17 of these reviews to fill, I'm going to space that
out. And, since everything is new here - which means I've so much
to say I'm splitting it anyway - I'm just going to concentrate on the
content. With major spoilers!
The Comic
Genesis of the Daleks this isn't: rather than six slightly bloated 25-minute TV episodes we have three single-page comics. The economy of storytelling on display is impressive, with the entire war happening on page 1 and feeling surprisingly unhurried. Unfortunately, this instalment also has enough space to be rather problematic.
Those of you with total recall may remember that when I reviewed serial B, back near the beginning of this marathon, I complained about the racist and (particularly) ableist themes, with the idea of the Daleks as Nazi analogues being undercut thanks to them being the horrifying mutants and the Thals being noble, physically-perfect Aryans. Unfortunately the beginning of this story is, if anything, even worse, with the "tall, handsome" Thals petrified of being assaulted by the "short, ugly" Daleks - even though the current Dalek leader, Drenz, is a pacifist! And, of course, the Thals are right, because nature will out: the Dalek Minister of War Zolfian assassinates his ruler and takes control once his ultimate weapon is prepared. You can't trust nasty little blue trolls like these even to get war right, though, and a natural disaster sets off their neutron bombs early, wiping out all civilisation on Skaro.
I'll tell you what's short and ugly: this instalment of this comic. But you know what? When I was a child I wouldn't have blinked an eye at that. So I'm going to swallow my privileged, righteous 21st Century anger and move on. 'Nuff said, in the words of an unpleasant character who I used to really admire.
Ahem. Anyway, there are a couple of continuity issues you might have noticed mentioned in passing. Yes, the Daleks (not Dals, not Kaleds) are blue, and humanoid but not quite human in shape. Fair enough; nobody has to pay for makeup here, so why not turn them into a cross between the Mekon and the Smurfs? And I'll tell you what else is different: the machines that will house them are built by chief scientist Yarvelling. Not Davros. The other Genesis is a long way in the future.
I've only covered one-third of the story, so let me plough on. The second instalment opens two years later, with the only two Dalek survivors (Zolfian and Yarvelling, naturally) coming out to explore their dead world. The phrases 'neutron bomb' and 'cobalt bomb' probably don't have the same resonance with people of younger generations that they do with me, but this doesn't strike me as an unrealistic image - it feeds into a fear that most of us had growing up in the 60s and 70s. This was quite possibly how the world would end.
Life hasn't quite ended, though, because there's the traditional final-panel reveal of a "proper" Dalek, encased in a travel machine (sorry, "war machine"). Well, I say proper; the artist hasn't got it quite right. It's too tall and thin. Perhaps it's a Mark I. Nevertheless, this is what we have been waiting for - and in the third instalment Zolfian and Yarvelling work hard to fulfil their sick ambitions before dying of radiation sickness. And we get to witness the creation of the golden emperor!
So: well-written, well-painted, with some unpleasant politics. Oh, and a continent called Darren: that has to be worth something.
Published:
Dates: 23rd January to 6th February 1965
Rating:
Comic: 6/10.
Next Time:
Genesis of Evil revisited.
The Comic
Genesis of the Daleks this isn't: rather than six slightly bloated 25-minute TV episodes we have three single-page comics. The economy of storytelling on display is impressive, with the entire war happening on page 1 and feeling surprisingly unhurried. Unfortunately, this instalment also has enough space to be rather problematic.
Those of you with total recall may remember that when I reviewed serial B, back near the beginning of this marathon, I complained about the racist and (particularly) ableist themes, with the idea of the Daleks as Nazi analogues being undercut thanks to them being the horrifying mutants and the Thals being noble, physically-perfect Aryans. Unfortunately the beginning of this story is, if anything, even worse, with the "tall, handsome" Thals petrified of being assaulted by the "short, ugly" Daleks - even though the current Dalek leader, Drenz, is a pacifist! And, of course, the Thals are right, because nature will out: the Dalek Minister of War Zolfian assassinates his ruler and takes control once his ultimate weapon is prepared. You can't trust nasty little blue trolls like these even to get war right, though, and a natural disaster sets off their neutron bombs early, wiping out all civilisation on Skaro.
I'll tell you what's short and ugly: this instalment of this comic. But you know what? When I was a child I wouldn't have blinked an eye at that. So I'm going to swallow my privileged, righteous 21st Century anger and move on. 'Nuff said, in the words of an unpleasant character who I used to really admire.
Ahem. Anyway, there are a couple of continuity issues you might have noticed mentioned in passing. Yes, the Daleks (not Dals, not Kaleds) are blue, and humanoid but not quite human in shape. Fair enough; nobody has to pay for makeup here, so why not turn them into a cross between the Mekon and the Smurfs? And I'll tell you what else is different: the machines that will house them are built by chief scientist Yarvelling. Not Davros. The other Genesis is a long way in the future.
I've only covered one-third of the story, so let me plough on. The second instalment opens two years later, with the only two Dalek survivors (Zolfian and Yarvelling, naturally) coming out to explore their dead world. The phrases 'neutron bomb' and 'cobalt bomb' probably don't have the same resonance with people of younger generations that they do with me, but this doesn't strike me as an unrealistic image - it feeds into a fear that most of us had growing up in the 60s and 70s. This was quite possibly how the world would end.
Life hasn't quite ended, though, because there's the traditional final-panel reveal of a "proper" Dalek, encased in a travel machine (sorry, "war machine"). Well, I say proper; the artist hasn't got it quite right. It's too tall and thin. Perhaps it's a Mark I. Nevertheless, this is what we have been waiting for - and in the third instalment Zolfian and Yarvelling work hard to fulfil their sick ambitions before dying of radiation sickness. And we get to witness the creation of the golden emperor!
So: well-written, well-painted, with some unpleasant politics. Oh, and a continent called Darren: that has to be worth something.
Published:
Dates: 23rd January to 6th February 1965
Rating:
Comic: 6/10.
Next Time:
Genesis of Evil revisited.
Monday 16 November 2015
Episode 86 (DC): Dalek Cutaway
[This review has been much delayed because Isaac wanted to keep up
Isaac's corner, but school has been a bit crazy lately. Still, I've
written the three following reviews while waiting for an opportunity, so
there shouldn't be any more delays for a little while.]
Every year, a friend who lives further down our street organises the Cheap Thrills Zero Budget Film Festival. People submit videos they've put together on a shoestring, these are edited into an evening of entertainment, and the show premieres in the chapel of the cemetery that lies beyond the bottom righthand corner of our garden. It's been very successful: it started out local, went national, then international...
This year is the first time that there has been an entry from offworld; specifically, a zero-gravity performance of David Bowie's Space Oddity, courtesy of the International Space Station. I don't know about you, but I think that's wonderful! Nevertheless, it points out quite effectively what a different world we live in now, compared to the one that existed when this episode was broadcast - a world where humans had barely ventured into space at all, but where it was assumed that we would keep on travelling further and further.
Of course, it was also a time when James Bond could be seen as an unambiguous hero, fighting the good fight for Queen and Country alongside his fellow (not-quite-so-) superspies. The character of Marc Cory is, basically, James Bond in space, combining two of the nation's fascinations. Ably played by Edward de Souza in a cut-glass accent, he's cool, calm, and callous. Human life means little to him, compared to his mission.
And, like Cory himself, this is an incredibly confident script. Not only is the Doctor absent, Nation makes the canny choice of withholding the Daleks from the screen for nearly a third of the runtime - which does a lot to help build up their menace after the comedy of The Chase. Meanwhile, there are the Varga. All we have, of course, are recons, so it's hard to judge how effective they actually were; but the concept, at least, is horrifying. I remember watching the transformation in The Ark in Space as an eleven-year-old, and the image stayed with me: never mind the bubble-wrap, that was true horror right there! Perhaps for those born a decade earlier, the same would have been true of the Varga transformations. We may never really know: Loose Cannon have once again done a lot with very little, but without any surviving clips that atmosphere is impossible to capture.
I said that all we have are recons, but thanks to Rick Lundeen that's no longer quite true. In later posts I'll go into more of the background to his graphic novel adaptation of The Daleks' Masterplan, but for now I'll concentrate on just this first chapter. The first thing to say is that it is very nicely done, the best-looking comic of this marathon so far: interesting layouts, varied camera angles, consistently recognisable characters, and a good use of colour to set the mood. His adaptation of the script is pretty faithful; he takes some liberties in order to make the story work as a comic, but if anything perhaps he sticks too closely to the original, resulting in some very wordy pages full of Nation's dialogue. That's a minor fault, mind you; it's a great read, and sets the scene nicely for the story to come. And some of the technology looks far more appropriately futuristic than would have been the case if he'd stuck with 1960s designs, such as Cory's recorder!
Getting back to the element that is common to both comic and recon - the story - this builds very well, with the quieter scenes of the Great Alliance (where the main interest would have been seeing all the aliens) interspersed with the action sequences of Cory and Lowery fleeing from the Daleks. There's a lot of exposition, but it doesn't feel overwhelming because it's tied so well into the worldbuilding. I have no hesitation in declaring this to be Nation's finest script for the show to date.
But by golly, it's bleak! All the way through you get the impression that something drastic will have to happen to save any of the humans, or even allow them to complete the mission. It doesn't happen; the beacon never gets activated, and everyone dies.
The Daleks have finally taken their place as the ultimate threat.
Isaac's Corner
Although the reconstruction was very clever, I still found it very hard to follow and only got a fuzzy idea of the story. It was much clearer in the comic. This episode really reminds me of the stories from the Dalek annuals of the time, with its Doctorlessness, and with a lot more action and extermination! The normal Doctor Who stories generally focus on defeating the large-scale Dalek plans rather than the small-scale battles. I didn't particularly like it but I didn't particularly dislike it either. I think I might have been a bit more decisive if we could get a proper idea of the acting, because the soundtrack is fuzzy and that's all we have to go on for acting. The illustration on the comic was good - he seemed to have put a lot of effort into it. Overall I would give it a 6.5/10.
And now, because it seems like the most appropriate time, we're going to be taking a break from the Doctor for a fairly extended period. The next 52 posts (if I've counted right) belong to the early solo exploits of the Doctor's arch-enemies: the Daleks...
Daleks conquer and destroy! Daleks conquer and destroy!
Broadcast:
Date: Saturday, 9th October 1965
Viewers: 8.3 million
Chart Position: 37
Appreciation Index: 54
Rating:
Mine (episode): 9.5/10.
Mine (comic): 9.5/10.
DWM Mighty 200: 64.54%, 133rd.
2012 Gallifrey Base Non-Dynamic Rankings: 6.67, 136th out of 234.
Next Time:
Genesis of Evil.
Every year, a friend who lives further down our street organises the Cheap Thrills Zero Budget Film Festival. People submit videos they've put together on a shoestring, these are edited into an evening of entertainment, and the show premieres in the chapel of the cemetery that lies beyond the bottom righthand corner of our garden. It's been very successful: it started out local, went national, then international...
This year is the first time that there has been an entry from offworld; specifically, a zero-gravity performance of David Bowie's Space Oddity, courtesy of the International Space Station. I don't know about you, but I think that's wonderful! Nevertheless, it points out quite effectively what a different world we live in now, compared to the one that existed when this episode was broadcast - a world where humans had barely ventured into space at all, but where it was assumed that we would keep on travelling further and further.
Of course, it was also a time when James Bond could be seen as an unambiguous hero, fighting the good fight for Queen and Country alongside his fellow (not-quite-so-) superspies. The character of Marc Cory is, basically, James Bond in space, combining two of the nation's fascinations. Ably played by Edward de Souza in a cut-glass accent, he's cool, calm, and callous. Human life means little to him, compared to his mission.
And, like Cory himself, this is an incredibly confident script. Not only is the Doctor absent, Nation makes the canny choice of withholding the Daleks from the screen for nearly a third of the runtime - which does a lot to help build up their menace after the comedy of The Chase. Meanwhile, there are the Varga. All we have, of course, are recons, so it's hard to judge how effective they actually were; but the concept, at least, is horrifying. I remember watching the transformation in The Ark in Space as an eleven-year-old, and the image stayed with me: never mind the bubble-wrap, that was true horror right there! Perhaps for those born a decade earlier, the same would have been true of the Varga transformations. We may never really know: Loose Cannon have once again done a lot with very little, but without any surviving clips that atmosphere is impossible to capture.
I said that all we have are recons, but thanks to Rick Lundeen that's no longer quite true. In later posts I'll go into more of the background to his graphic novel adaptation of The Daleks' Masterplan, but for now I'll concentrate on just this first chapter. The first thing to say is that it is very nicely done, the best-looking comic of this marathon so far: interesting layouts, varied camera angles, consistently recognisable characters, and a good use of colour to set the mood. His adaptation of the script is pretty faithful; he takes some liberties in order to make the story work as a comic, but if anything perhaps he sticks too closely to the original, resulting in some very wordy pages full of Nation's dialogue. That's a minor fault, mind you; it's a great read, and sets the scene nicely for the story to come. And some of the technology looks far more appropriately futuristic than would have been the case if he'd stuck with 1960s designs, such as Cory's recorder!
Getting back to the element that is common to both comic and recon - the story - this builds very well, with the quieter scenes of the Great Alliance (where the main interest would have been seeing all the aliens) interspersed with the action sequences of Cory and Lowery fleeing from the Daleks. There's a lot of exposition, but it doesn't feel overwhelming because it's tied so well into the worldbuilding. I have no hesitation in declaring this to be Nation's finest script for the show to date.
But by golly, it's bleak! All the way through you get the impression that something drastic will have to happen to save any of the humans, or even allow them to complete the mission. It doesn't happen; the beacon never gets activated, and everyone dies.
The Daleks have finally taken their place as the ultimate threat.
Isaac's Corner
Although the reconstruction was very clever, I still found it very hard to follow and only got a fuzzy idea of the story. It was much clearer in the comic. This episode really reminds me of the stories from the Dalek annuals of the time, with its Doctorlessness, and with a lot more action and extermination! The normal Doctor Who stories generally focus on defeating the large-scale Dalek plans rather than the small-scale battles. I didn't particularly like it but I didn't particularly dislike it either. I think I might have been a bit more decisive if we could get a proper idea of the acting, because the soundtrack is fuzzy and that's all we have to go on for acting. The illustration on the comic was good - he seemed to have put a lot of effort into it. Overall I would give it a 6.5/10.
And now, because it seems like the most appropriate time, we're going to be taking a break from the Doctor for a fairly extended period. The next 52 posts (if I've counted right) belong to the early solo exploits of the Doctor's arch-enemies: the Daleks...
Daleks conquer and destroy! Daleks conquer and destroy!
Broadcast:
Date: Saturday, 9th October 1965
Viewers: 8.3 million
Chart Position: 37
Appreciation Index: 54
Rating:
Mine (episode): 9.5/10.
Mine (comic): 9.5/10.
DWM Mighty 200: 64.54%, 133rd.
2012 Gallifrey Base Non-Dynamic Rankings: 6.67, 136th out of 234.
Next Time:
Genesis of Evil.
Thursday 5 November 2015
Episode 86 (T/A): Mission to the Unknown
Yikes, a bit of a long break before this one! Never mind; here at last
is the first of two posts on this strangest of episodes - in which I
don't review the content at all.
There's a reason for this, which is that I found it impossible to come at the story with an open mind. There is just so much mythology and trivia flying around concerning Mission to the Unknown that it clutters up my ability to appreciate it simply for what it is, so I decided to get that out of the way first.
Let's start with the reason it exists, which is, basically, scheduling. Towards the end of the previous recording block the last two parts of serial J (Planet of Giants) were combined into one because there wasn't enough content to warrant a four-parter, but this meant that the team had effectively produced one week's worth of Doctor Who less than planned. Sydney Newman decided to tack an extra episode on the end of the second recording block to make up for it.
Of course this meant that the episode needed to be fairly cheap, and also ran into the problem of the regular cast having to work an extra week. Verity Lambert came up with a solution that solved both of these issues at once, and in the process produced something quite unique.
This, then, is the first ever Doctor-lite story. It's so lite, in fact, that the Doctor doesn't appear at all (which is not quite true of any others, not even the 1960s episodes when William Hartnell was on holiday). His companions don't appear, either. Nor the TARDIS.
It's impossible to imagine the impact this would have had on viewers at the time (though Elizabeth Sandifer gives it a go in her review) - it's almost as if the program had been invaded by another show altogether.
And, in a way, it had. Without the regular cast to hold people's attention, Lambert turned to that other great attraction of the program, the Daleks. (In fact, it could be argued that they were even more popular: the first Dalek film came out in the summer, the stageplay Curse of the Daleks was announced at the end of September, and the second Dalek annual was due to go on sale two days after broadcast. Dalekmania indeed!) Lambert asked Terry Nation to produce a 'teaser' episode for the forthcoming Dalek epic, and Nation decided to use the opportunity to test out the viability of an independent Dalek program.
So, how successful is the only single-episode story of the classic series? You'll have to tune in next time to find out what I thought...
Behind the Scenes: Verity Lambert
Before she disappears from the show I need to say something about Doctor Who's first producer. This was Lambert's final episode before following Sydney Newman out of the door to produce The Newcomers with him, followed by Adam Adamant Lives! (a show my mother remembered fondly). Lambert went on to have a glittering career, which is detailed in the usual places, so I won't reiterate it here. Other people have also said plenty about her contribution to Doctor Who - see Sandifer again for an eloquent example. I just want to add one thing.
When I got properly back into the show (after a long break) in 2006 I decided to investigate some highlights of the eras I had missed first time around, as well as revisit some old favourites. Being new to fandom I defined eras by the most obvious method (the actor playing the Doctor), and the highlights by fan consensus (since I hadn't had a chance to form my own opinions). It took me by surprise quite how off target my expectations were, and in particular quite how much I enjoyed the Sylvester McCoy and Hartnell eras, neither of which had been suggested as highlights.
As time passed and I grew more knowledgeable I could refine that a little more: what I loved was actually the Andrew Cartmel and Lambert eras. Oh, there are plenty of joys still to come before we reach the end of The Tenth Planet, and there have been a smattering of clunkers already; but this has been a real golden age. And it set up the show to run and run, for another fifty years so far. So I am very glad that she lived to see the show successful once again in a new millennium, under Russell T. Davies.
Next Time:
Dalek Cutaway.
There's a reason for this, which is that I found it impossible to come at the story with an open mind. There is just so much mythology and trivia flying around concerning Mission to the Unknown that it clutters up my ability to appreciate it simply for what it is, so I decided to get that out of the way first.
Let's start with the reason it exists, which is, basically, scheduling. Towards the end of the previous recording block the last two parts of serial J (Planet of Giants) were combined into one because there wasn't enough content to warrant a four-parter, but this meant that the team had effectively produced one week's worth of Doctor Who less than planned. Sydney Newman decided to tack an extra episode on the end of the second recording block to make up for it.
Of course this meant that the episode needed to be fairly cheap, and also ran into the problem of the regular cast having to work an extra week. Verity Lambert came up with a solution that solved both of these issues at once, and in the process produced something quite unique.
This, then, is the first ever Doctor-lite story. It's so lite, in fact, that the Doctor doesn't appear at all (which is not quite true of any others, not even the 1960s episodes when William Hartnell was on holiday). His companions don't appear, either. Nor the TARDIS.
It's impossible to imagine the impact this would have had on viewers at the time (though Elizabeth Sandifer gives it a go in her review) - it's almost as if the program had been invaded by another show altogether.
And, in a way, it had. Without the regular cast to hold people's attention, Lambert turned to that other great attraction of the program, the Daleks. (In fact, it could be argued that they were even more popular: the first Dalek film came out in the summer, the stageplay Curse of the Daleks was announced at the end of September, and the second Dalek annual was due to go on sale two days after broadcast. Dalekmania indeed!) Lambert asked Terry Nation to produce a 'teaser' episode for the forthcoming Dalek epic, and Nation decided to use the opportunity to test out the viability of an independent Dalek program.
So, how successful is the only single-episode story of the classic series? You'll have to tune in next time to find out what I thought...
Behind the Scenes: Verity Lambert
Before she disappears from the show I need to say something about Doctor Who's first producer. This was Lambert's final episode before following Sydney Newman out of the door to produce The Newcomers with him, followed by Adam Adamant Lives! (a show my mother remembered fondly). Lambert went on to have a glittering career, which is detailed in the usual places, so I won't reiterate it here. Other people have also said plenty about her contribution to Doctor Who - see Sandifer again for an eloquent example. I just want to add one thing.
When I got properly back into the show (after a long break) in 2006 I decided to investigate some highlights of the eras I had missed first time around, as well as revisit some old favourites. Being new to fandom I defined eras by the most obvious method (the actor playing the Doctor), and the highlights by fan consensus (since I hadn't had a chance to form my own opinions). It took me by surprise quite how off target my expectations were, and in particular quite how much I enjoyed the Sylvester McCoy and Hartnell eras, neither of which had been suggested as highlights.
As time passed and I grew more knowledgeable I could refine that a little more: what I loved was actually the Andrew Cartmel and Lambert eras. Oh, there are plenty of joys still to come before we reach the end of The Tenth Planet, and there have been a smattering of clunkers already; but this has been a real golden age. And it set up the show to run and run, for another fifty years so far. So I am very glad that she lived to see the show successful once again in a new millennium, under Russell T. Davies.
Next Time:
Dalek Cutaway.
Friday 23 October 2015
Serial T: Galaxy 4 (The Chumblies)
What went wrong with Galaxy 4? Part of it is certainly down to
circumstance. Given that Airlock is by far my favourite episode mainly
due to the direction I suspect that the rest of the serial would benefit
similarly from not having been junked. This was John Wiles' first story
as producer (although Verity Lambert was still technically in charge,
her attention was elsewhere) and the first script-edited by Donald Tosh
that wasn't written by a former script editor who knew the ropes. Nobody
could have predicted director Mervyn Pinfield falling ill, creating
disruption (although the direction itself benefits), and writer William
Emms had to rework the script for a different TARDIS team at quite short
notice.
Nevertheless, there's also some blame to be apportioned. William Hartnell acted very childishly, taking out his genuine upset over Lambert's departure on the production team, and the inexperienced Wiles badly mishandled the conflict. Tosh should have done more to rescue the script (particularly The Exploding Planet, where boosting the Drahvins as a threat - for instance, by letting them find a way to neutralise the Chumblies - could have made all the difference and been a relatively easy change).
Because it's the script that is the biggest problem. There are some fascinating and worthwhile ideas here, not least the demolishing of the way that ugliness generally equals evil - a fallacy that Doctor Who has struggled with throughout its history, from The Daleks right through to the current Capaldi season. But these ideas needed a framework in which to flourish, and what we got barely worked as an adventure serial.
Of course, I am not the target audience. Back in 1965, this was better received than The Time Meddler, with a higher average AI and better viewing figures for every episode - in fact, Airlock reached more people than any episode since The Web Planet!
Let's talk about the DVD release. This was an odd one. A cut-down version of the Loose Cannon recon had been prepared for The Time Meddler DVD, appropriately, but in the end it wasn't used. The discovery of Airlock meant the BBC wanted to get the new episode out there, and it was spliced into the recon; but what DVD could it go on? The only sensible possibility was The Aztecs Special Edition. Because of the lateness of the decision, artwork had already been prepared; so the only indication that it also contained Galaxy 4 was a sticker.
Even ignoring the fact that we have an existing episode, this is a much better effort than the Marco Polo reconstruction in The Beginning box set. There is enough, here, to get a good feel for the story; and if I want to experience it again I'll certainly be happy with it.
Right, I should also say something about the tie-in to The Suffering. Ignoring real-world broadcast and release dates, it does seem odd that neither Steven nor Vicki note the likelihood that the Drahvins came about because of events recapped in the audio, especially since they were thinking about it (and recounting it) just before Steven's haircut. Still, it does fit well, and Jacqueline Rayner's story adds some depth to the villains of the TV serial.
It's Thingy, from That Other Program, Part 5: Angelo Muscat
One name jumped out at me from the credits: Angelo Muscat, playing one of the Chumblies. I didn't recognise him, of course; but I knew who he was, because I'm a fan of The Prisoner, where he played the butler. Galaxy 4 was his first TV credit and he was fairly successful for a few years thereafter, also appearing in Alice in Wonderland and The Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour; but after The Prisoner work dried up. Maureen O'Brien said that she spent a lot of time with the actors who were inside the Chumblies, and that because of their height they were treated as youngsters, much as she herself was. Muscat's last role was as an Oompa-Loompa in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory; he died poor, five years later.
Isaac's Corner
We've all been struggling with bugs this half term; and, although his most recent virus has now passed, Isaac has been left with limited breath. He needs to use an inhaler and spacer device for the moment, otherwise he has virtually no energy. I'm grateful the holidays are coming to give everyone a chance just to rest! Anyway, he wasn't feeling up to writing Isaac's corner this time, but told me a few thoughts which I shall try to get down faithfully (as always, he focused mainly on the positive, a trait I really like):
The different societies presented in Galaxy 4 were interesting, and it was particularly good to see differing points of view on the same situation. Having said that, the story wasn't clear enough in showing people's motivations - for instance, why did Maaga shoot one of her own soldiers? It came across as something she did just because she was EVIL. Overall it was a nice, simple story - I wasn't wowed by it, but I did like it. And the Chumblies were cute!
Rating:
Mine: 3/10.
DWM Mighty 200: 55.51%, 172nd.
DWM 50th Anniversary: 57.98%, 210th.
2012 Gallifrey Base Non-Dynamic Rankings: 5.15, 210th out of 234.
Next Time:
Mission to the Unknown.
Nevertheless, there's also some blame to be apportioned. William Hartnell acted very childishly, taking out his genuine upset over Lambert's departure on the production team, and the inexperienced Wiles badly mishandled the conflict. Tosh should have done more to rescue the script (particularly The Exploding Planet, where boosting the Drahvins as a threat - for instance, by letting them find a way to neutralise the Chumblies - could have made all the difference and been a relatively easy change).
Because it's the script that is the biggest problem. There are some fascinating and worthwhile ideas here, not least the demolishing of the way that ugliness generally equals evil - a fallacy that Doctor Who has struggled with throughout its history, from The Daleks right through to the current Capaldi season. But these ideas needed a framework in which to flourish, and what we got barely worked as an adventure serial.
Of course, I am not the target audience. Back in 1965, this was better received than The Time Meddler, with a higher average AI and better viewing figures for every episode - in fact, Airlock reached more people than any episode since The Web Planet!
Let's talk about the DVD release. This was an odd one. A cut-down version of the Loose Cannon recon had been prepared for The Time Meddler DVD, appropriately, but in the end it wasn't used. The discovery of Airlock meant the BBC wanted to get the new episode out there, and it was spliced into the recon; but what DVD could it go on? The only sensible possibility was The Aztecs Special Edition. Because of the lateness of the decision, artwork had already been prepared; so the only indication that it also contained Galaxy 4 was a sticker.
Even ignoring the fact that we have an existing episode, this is a much better effort than the Marco Polo reconstruction in The Beginning box set. There is enough, here, to get a good feel for the story; and if I want to experience it again I'll certainly be happy with it.
Right, I should also say something about the tie-in to The Suffering. Ignoring real-world broadcast and release dates, it does seem odd that neither Steven nor Vicki note the likelihood that the Drahvins came about because of events recapped in the audio, especially since they were thinking about it (and recounting it) just before Steven's haircut. Still, it does fit well, and Jacqueline Rayner's story adds some depth to the villains of the TV serial.
It's Thingy, from That Other Program, Part 5: Angelo Muscat
One name jumped out at me from the credits: Angelo Muscat, playing one of the Chumblies. I didn't recognise him, of course; but I knew who he was, because I'm a fan of The Prisoner, where he played the butler. Galaxy 4 was his first TV credit and he was fairly successful for a few years thereafter, also appearing in Alice in Wonderland and The Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour; but after The Prisoner work dried up. Maureen O'Brien said that she spent a lot of time with the actors who were inside the Chumblies, and that because of their height they were treated as youngsters, much as she herself was. Muscat's last role was as an Oompa-Loompa in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory; he died poor, five years later.
Isaac's Corner
We've all been struggling with bugs this half term; and, although his most recent virus has now passed, Isaac has been left with limited breath. He needs to use an inhaler and spacer device for the moment, otherwise he has virtually no energy. I'm grateful the holidays are coming to give everyone a chance just to rest! Anyway, he wasn't feeling up to writing Isaac's corner this time, but told me a few thoughts which I shall try to get down faithfully (as always, he focused mainly on the positive, a trait I really like):
The different societies presented in Galaxy 4 were interesting, and it was particularly good to see differing points of view on the same situation. Having said that, the story wasn't clear enough in showing people's motivations - for instance, why did Maaga shoot one of her own soldiers? It came across as something she did just because she was EVIL. Overall it was a nice, simple story - I wasn't wowed by it, but I did like it. And the Chumblies were cute!
Rating:
Mine: 3/10.
DWM Mighty 200: 55.51%, 172nd.
DWM 50th Anniversary: 57.98%, 210th.
2012 Gallifrey Base Non-Dynamic Rankings: 5.15, 210th out of 234.
Next Time:
Mission to the Unknown.
Tuesday 20 October 2015
Episode 85 (T4): The Exploding Planet
Something bizarre and annoying happened during the writing of my
previous review. I had three issues of DWM out on the bed for reference,
but needed to go off and do some housework and cook supper. When I came
back they were gone, and nobody knew where they were. We have since
looked fairly thoroughly - I even checked that they hadn't been put in
the recycling by accident! - but they haven't turned up. One was the
issue about the return of Airlock, which is a fairly minor loss
now; one detailed the sale of 60s serials abroad and (I think) the
resultant recovery of some episodes, which is more annoying. Worst,
though, is my copy of The Complete First Doctor, which has been
my constant companion during the TV portions of this marathon and helps
set the scene in my mind, even when none of the info gets into the
review. That I will struggle to do without.
Speaking of struggles: as someone who is not comfortable watching recons, we are really entering a barren stretch. This is the first of an unbroken run of seven missing episodes, matching the earliest ever gap - Marco Polo. Worse than that, however, is the realisation that of the next 22 episodes, only three survive. There were only eleven missing in total over the previous two seasons, and two of those have been animated! Thank goodness for other media, is all I can say.
So, what of this episode? Unfortunately, the phrase that springs to mind is "a bit pants". I didn't bother watching the full recon this time, because (a) it wasn't based on stills from the episode anyway; (b) Peter Purves' narration on the audio release is enough to let me know what's going on when it's not obvious from the soundtrack; and (c) I couldn't be bothered.
There's so much wrong with the script here. Let's take the Drahvins first. OK, so they are a threat to the travellers when they catch our heroes on their own, but are so vastly outmatched by the Rills that they cannot pose a credible threat now that the Doctor-Rill alliance is in place. So that's one source of tension removed. Steven is rescued in the first couple of minutes, and after that nobody is ever really in immediate danger; which just leaves the countdown to destruction. Now, countdowns can work - even though we know they are going to make it, especially in the first serial of a new season - but the interest and tension comes not from the countdown itself but from figuring out how they are going to solve it, and/or watching them overcome obstacles. Here, the Doctor figured out what to do in the previous episode, the Rills make it plain that they want the travellers to abandon them and leave if time runs out, and there is no significant opposition. We are left simply watching them clock-watching, and only Steven's first encounter with the Rills even provides meaty dialogue.
Right, that's the script. Visually we know what most of it looks like, and my guess is that the destruction of the planet and departure of the Rill ship would not have been "oh wow" moments, even with the obviously competent direction of Derek Martinus. The Chumblies make their usual cute noises, so that only leaves the acting.
It's possible I'm projecting when I say this, but based on the soundtrack William Hartnell is really not on good form here. My guess is that his heart wasn't in it, and who can blame him? He's fluffing, and he's falling back on a set of stock Doctor mannerisms to an extent I've not noticed before. Meanwhile, Maureen O'Brien gets hardly anything to say; she's probably doing some interesting things with her facial expressions, but sadly we are now past our last view of her on-screen before her departure. Purves puts effort in, but then he's the new boy and it's likely he still has enough enthusiasm to carry him through a poor script. Stephanie Bidmead steals every scene she's in, but isn't as centre stage as before, while Robert Cartland provides a fairly nondescript booming voice for the Rills.
I normally complain about cut-down recons, but the twelve-minute version of this episode on the DVD is actually a much more appropriate length for this - and that includes the trailer for next time...
Broadcast:
Date: Saturday, 2nd October 1965
Viewers: 9.9 million
Chart Position: 20
Appreciation Index: 53
Rating:
1/10.
Next Time:
Serial T as a whole.
Speaking of struggles: as someone who is not comfortable watching recons, we are really entering a barren stretch. This is the first of an unbroken run of seven missing episodes, matching the earliest ever gap - Marco Polo. Worse than that, however, is the realisation that of the next 22 episodes, only three survive. There were only eleven missing in total over the previous two seasons, and two of those have been animated! Thank goodness for other media, is all I can say.
So, what of this episode? Unfortunately, the phrase that springs to mind is "a bit pants". I didn't bother watching the full recon this time, because (a) it wasn't based on stills from the episode anyway; (b) Peter Purves' narration on the audio release is enough to let me know what's going on when it's not obvious from the soundtrack; and (c) I couldn't be bothered.
There's so much wrong with the script here. Let's take the Drahvins first. OK, so they are a threat to the travellers when they catch our heroes on their own, but are so vastly outmatched by the Rills that they cannot pose a credible threat now that the Doctor-Rill alliance is in place. So that's one source of tension removed. Steven is rescued in the first couple of minutes, and after that nobody is ever really in immediate danger; which just leaves the countdown to destruction. Now, countdowns can work - even though we know they are going to make it, especially in the first serial of a new season - but the interest and tension comes not from the countdown itself but from figuring out how they are going to solve it, and/or watching them overcome obstacles. Here, the Doctor figured out what to do in the previous episode, the Rills make it plain that they want the travellers to abandon them and leave if time runs out, and there is no significant opposition. We are left simply watching them clock-watching, and only Steven's first encounter with the Rills even provides meaty dialogue.
Right, that's the script. Visually we know what most of it looks like, and my guess is that the destruction of the planet and departure of the Rill ship would not have been "oh wow" moments, even with the obviously competent direction of Derek Martinus. The Chumblies make their usual cute noises, so that only leaves the acting.
It's possible I'm projecting when I say this, but based on the soundtrack William Hartnell is really not on good form here. My guess is that his heart wasn't in it, and who can blame him? He's fluffing, and he's falling back on a set of stock Doctor mannerisms to an extent I've not noticed before. Meanwhile, Maureen O'Brien gets hardly anything to say; she's probably doing some interesting things with her facial expressions, but sadly we are now past our last view of her on-screen before her departure. Purves puts effort in, but then he's the new boy and it's likely he still has enough enthusiasm to carry him through a poor script. Stephanie Bidmead steals every scene she's in, but isn't as centre stage as before, while Robert Cartland provides a fairly nondescript booming voice for the Rills.
I normally complain about cut-down recons, but the twelve-minute version of this episode on the DVD is actually a much more appropriate length for this - and that includes the trailer for next time...
Broadcast:
Date: Saturday, 2nd October 1965
Viewers: 9.9 million
Chart Position: 20
Appreciation Index: 53
Rating:
1/10.
Next Time:
Serial T as a whole.
Thursday 15 October 2015
Episode 84 (T3): Airlock
My regeneration into a 'proper' Doctor Who fan didn't begin until
2006. As a result the fact that some episodes of the show were missing
had passed me by, and when I finally learned of it I was saddened. I did
read with interest about the discoveries of the past, but it was all on
an intellectual level.
Until December 2011, when I heard about the return of two episodes, Airlock and an early Patrick Troughton. I literally shouted in glee, then rushed around the house telling everybody (including a 'not-we', who was somewhat bemused but glad I was happy). I would never have predicted the strength of my reaction - if it had been something iconic like The Power of the Daleks or The Myth Makers, sure; but for a couple of individual episodes from minor, relatively unloved serials?
So, what's it like? Well, the plot's no improvement: space pilot Steven tries to escape but fails due to being scared by a Chumbley and ends up trapped in an airlock, before forgetting how differences in air pressure work; the Doctor spends ages trying to figure out how to sabotage an atmospheric converter; and Vicki learns that (gasp!) the Rills are good and the Drahvins evil. Oh, what a surprise.
Fortunately, it's a lot of fun to watch. The moving lights in the Chumblies weren't visible in the clip from the first episode (and so weren't included when they were reconstructed); this adds to their weirdness. Similarly, the Rills had previously only been glimpsed in a couple of poor quality photos, and we finally have a chance to see what they were actually like. The results are mixed: they look impressively alien, but their only animation is to rock back and forth, which ironically would have made them a great subject for the limited sort of animation Loose Cannon uses elsewhere! Both these character designs add atmosphere.
Seeing more of the set design also helps. The expansive Rill ship set is fairly unique - and a genuinely wobbly set to add to Toby Hadoke's short list! The Doctor's cry of "I can't move it, it's immovable!" is particularly ironic. We also get a better view of the relatively cramped Drahvin spaceship - which looks like Maaga has set out her garden furniture on the decking to enjoy the limited British summer weather. OK, so I mock; but I would much rather this than something generic. Even the (fairly bare) planetary surface is more reminiscent of The Web Planet than The Chase.
Still, the biggest asset this episode has, visually, is Derek Martinus. This is his third ever episode directing anything, and already he seems more ambitious than he did during Four Hundred Dawns (though there are also certain aesthetic choices there that stand out more in retrospect). Would the Rill spaceship have made such an impression without the shot down through the top panels? Probably not. And I am confident that we wouldn't have got that with the serial's intended director, Mervyn Pinfield, who mainly shot television as if it were theatre. Similarly, the Drahvins making very little eye contact, and the movement and positioning of actors inside the Drahvins' ship being so carefully choreographed, produces some quite unsettling effects.
And speaking of unsettling, Stephanie Bidmead is the other key component of the visual team. She puts in a stellar performance here, full of little facial movements that are so understated she needs to stand very close to the camera so we can see them. The way she expresses her frustrations over the limitations of her troops almost made me feel slightly sympathetic towards her, before this is turned right around the next instant. Steven's look of horror at Maaga's speech says it all.
The Doctor Who Restoration Team have done their usual meticulous job of cleaning up the episode. When it was returned to the BBC, there were a number of problems including a break in the film near the end which meant that almost half a minute of action was missing (as well as the credits); and a large, vertical scratch across Maaga's face during some of her speeches to camera. I couldn't spot either.
If it weren't for a casual conversation between Ralph Montagu of the Radio Times and former TVS engineer Terry Burnett - who had no idea that the couple of Doctor Who episodes he had in his film collection were significant - we would never have seen this. And before that, if someone hadn't rescued the cans from a skip when they were being junked - technically illegal salvage - they would have been lost in the 1970s.
Fingers crossed for many more such unlikely chains of events!
Broadcast:
Date: Saturday, 25th September 1965
Viewers: 11.3 million
Chart Position: 13
Appreciation Index: 54
Rating:
5/10.
Next Time:
The Exploding Planet.
Until December 2011, when I heard about the return of two episodes, Airlock and an early Patrick Troughton. I literally shouted in glee, then rushed around the house telling everybody (including a 'not-we', who was somewhat bemused but glad I was happy). I would never have predicted the strength of my reaction - if it had been something iconic like The Power of the Daleks or The Myth Makers, sure; but for a couple of individual episodes from minor, relatively unloved serials?
So, what's it like? Well, the plot's no improvement: space pilot Steven tries to escape but fails due to being scared by a Chumbley and ends up trapped in an airlock, before forgetting how differences in air pressure work; the Doctor spends ages trying to figure out how to sabotage an atmospheric converter; and Vicki learns that (gasp!) the Rills are good and the Drahvins evil. Oh, what a surprise.
Fortunately, it's a lot of fun to watch. The moving lights in the Chumblies weren't visible in the clip from the first episode (and so weren't included when they were reconstructed); this adds to their weirdness. Similarly, the Rills had previously only been glimpsed in a couple of poor quality photos, and we finally have a chance to see what they were actually like. The results are mixed: they look impressively alien, but their only animation is to rock back and forth, which ironically would have made them a great subject for the limited sort of animation Loose Cannon uses elsewhere! Both these character designs add atmosphere.
Seeing more of the set design also helps. The expansive Rill ship set is fairly unique - and a genuinely wobbly set to add to Toby Hadoke's short list! The Doctor's cry of "I can't move it, it's immovable!" is particularly ironic. We also get a better view of the relatively cramped Drahvin spaceship - which looks like Maaga has set out her garden furniture on the decking to enjoy the limited British summer weather. OK, so I mock; but I would much rather this than something generic. Even the (fairly bare) planetary surface is more reminiscent of The Web Planet than The Chase.
Still, the biggest asset this episode has, visually, is Derek Martinus. This is his third ever episode directing anything, and already he seems more ambitious than he did during Four Hundred Dawns (though there are also certain aesthetic choices there that stand out more in retrospect). Would the Rill spaceship have made such an impression without the shot down through the top panels? Probably not. And I am confident that we wouldn't have got that with the serial's intended director, Mervyn Pinfield, who mainly shot television as if it were theatre. Similarly, the Drahvins making very little eye contact, and the movement and positioning of actors inside the Drahvins' ship being so carefully choreographed, produces some quite unsettling effects.
And speaking of unsettling, Stephanie Bidmead is the other key component of the visual team. She puts in a stellar performance here, full of little facial movements that are so understated she needs to stand very close to the camera so we can see them. The way she expresses her frustrations over the limitations of her troops almost made me feel slightly sympathetic towards her, before this is turned right around the next instant. Steven's look of horror at Maaga's speech says it all.
The Doctor Who Restoration Team have done their usual meticulous job of cleaning up the episode. When it was returned to the BBC, there were a number of problems including a break in the film near the end which meant that almost half a minute of action was missing (as well as the credits); and a large, vertical scratch across Maaga's face during some of her speeches to camera. I couldn't spot either.
If it weren't for a casual conversation between Ralph Montagu of the Radio Times and former TVS engineer Terry Burnett - who had no idea that the couple of Doctor Who episodes he had in his film collection were significant - we would never have seen this. And before that, if someone hadn't rescued the cans from a skip when they were being junked - technically illegal salvage - they would have been lost in the 1970s.
Fingers crossed for many more such unlikely chains of events!
Broadcast:
Date: Saturday, 25th September 1965
Viewers: 11.3 million
Chart Position: 13
Appreciation Index: 54
Rating:
5/10.
Next Time:
The Exploding Planet.
Friday 9 October 2015
Episode 83 (T2): Trap of Steel
In late June, during rehearsals for A Battle of Wits, filming was also taking place for Galaxy 4
at Ealing Studios with Mervyn Pinfield, who was to direct the serial.
In the event Pinfield was taken ill, and never had another opportunity
to direct the show; drafted in to replace him was Derek Martinus, who
had just completed his directorial training. He probably had little idea
of the minefield into which he was being parachuted.
Writer William Emms has gone on record as being very happy with the way his script was accepted largely unchanged, in contrast to many he had submitted for other programs. William Hartnell and his co-stars were less happy. Maureen O'Brien complained that some of her dialogue did not sound like Vicki, while Peter Purves - stuck with many of Barbara's lines - considered his character to have been emasculated. Hartnell also wanted changes, and ended up in a loud argument with Emms. This was effectively the first serial produced by Verity Lambert's replacement, John Wiles, while Lambert concentrated on her final episode; Wiles stepped into the fracas, supporting Emms and telling the cast to perform it as written. When Hartnell still objected, Wiles threatened to sack him.
The fallout from all this is going to have consequences quite a way into the future of this marathon, but one immediate consequence is the decline in Hartnell's performance I noted last time. He's pulled himself together a little for this episode, but listening to it I realised that I have never heard him say "hm" so often!
Still, for me Hartnell is probably the highlight of an episode where the plot largely consists of people walking from place to place. The way he tells Maaga "I never kill anything" is great - he's such a liar! Tell that to the Daleks, Doctor.
Maureen O'Brien gets some time in the spotlight, but I do think what she's given is not quite Vicki-like. Her deduction that the Chumblies can only hear in front of them - and how does that work, exactly? - comes out of nowhere, much like the distrust of the Drahvins last time.
As for Peter Purves... well. This is where the fact that he's stuck with Barbara's lines starts to bite. Purves has said that he wishes they'd played up the sexism angle further, that Steven should have wanted to be captured because the Drahvins were attractive women; and you can hear him trying to put a little of that into his performance. It's not enough, though.
This is the first of two episodes which are entirely absent, and that definitely affects my enjoyment. Loose Cannon put a lot of effort into the reconstruction - they had to, because there are no telesnaps available for this serial. The landscapes and cast are composited from various photos (the recon having been completed long before the discovery of the third episode), and a loving recreation of the Chumblies provides much of the motion. This completely distorts the balance of shots, though; if you can create interesting images of cute robots chuttering, chumbling, and jinking about the place, of course you're going to use that instead of the umpteenth repeat of a still showing the actors in not quite the right pose! It's indisputably the right decision, as well as evidence of why I don't personally get on very well with recons. For such a visual story as this, though, I still find them superior to my (generally preferred) narrated soundtracks.
Ironically, Galaxy 4 is probably the last serial to be junked before the BBC changed their policy in 1978...
Broadcast:
Date: Saturday, 18th September 1965
Viewers: 9.5 million
Chart Position: 22
Appreciation Index: 54
Rating:
3/10.
Next Time:
Airlock.
Writer William Emms has gone on record as being very happy with the way his script was accepted largely unchanged, in contrast to many he had submitted for other programs. William Hartnell and his co-stars were less happy. Maureen O'Brien complained that some of her dialogue did not sound like Vicki, while Peter Purves - stuck with many of Barbara's lines - considered his character to have been emasculated. Hartnell also wanted changes, and ended up in a loud argument with Emms. This was effectively the first serial produced by Verity Lambert's replacement, John Wiles, while Lambert concentrated on her final episode; Wiles stepped into the fracas, supporting Emms and telling the cast to perform it as written. When Hartnell still objected, Wiles threatened to sack him.
The fallout from all this is going to have consequences quite a way into the future of this marathon, but one immediate consequence is the decline in Hartnell's performance I noted last time. He's pulled himself together a little for this episode, but listening to it I realised that I have never heard him say "hm" so often!
Still, for me Hartnell is probably the highlight of an episode where the plot largely consists of people walking from place to place. The way he tells Maaga "I never kill anything" is great - he's such a liar! Tell that to the Daleks, Doctor.
Maureen O'Brien gets some time in the spotlight, but I do think what she's given is not quite Vicki-like. Her deduction that the Chumblies can only hear in front of them - and how does that work, exactly? - comes out of nowhere, much like the distrust of the Drahvins last time.
As for Peter Purves... well. This is where the fact that he's stuck with Barbara's lines starts to bite. Purves has said that he wishes they'd played up the sexism angle further, that Steven should have wanted to be captured because the Drahvins were attractive women; and you can hear him trying to put a little of that into his performance. It's not enough, though.
This is the first of two episodes which are entirely absent, and that definitely affects my enjoyment. Loose Cannon put a lot of effort into the reconstruction - they had to, because there are no telesnaps available for this serial. The landscapes and cast are composited from various photos (the recon having been completed long before the discovery of the third episode), and a loving recreation of the Chumblies provides much of the motion. This completely distorts the balance of shots, though; if you can create interesting images of cute robots chuttering, chumbling, and jinking about the place, of course you're going to use that instead of the umpteenth repeat of a still showing the actors in not quite the right pose! It's indisputably the right decision, as well as evidence of why I don't personally get on very well with recons. For such a visual story as this, though, I still find them superior to my (generally preferred) narrated soundtracks.
Ironically, Galaxy 4 is probably the last serial to be junked before the BBC changed their policy in 1978...
Broadcast:
Date: Saturday, 18th September 1965
Viewers: 9.5 million
Chart Position: 22
Appreciation Index: 54
Rating:
3/10.
Next Time:
Airlock.
Monday 5 October 2015
Episode 82 (T1): Four Hundred Dawns
[Apologies for the delay - it's been longer than I thought, mainly
because of trying to find a time to watch it with my son, added to which
the fact that the official recon combines the first two episodes meant
some untangling was required. Also, life.]
Back to television at last - albeit with the first ever non-historical episode to be missing from the archives. It's not quite missing, of course, as there's a six-minute stretch of actual footage. This exists thanks to its being requisitioned for Whose Doctor Who, a 1977 instalment of the documentary series Lively Arts (which ended up using about half a minute) and then being rescued by Jan Vincent-Rudzki, president of the Doctor Who Appreciation Society, who was acting as an advisor to the show. I'd still call this a "missing episode", though; but I'll postpone saying more about that until next time, as I've a lot of other topics to cover here.
Starting with the episode's status as the beginning of a new season. Last time - with Planet of Giants - the story carried on pretty much directly from the end of season one, making me wince slightly for all those stories shoehorned in between. This time it seems pretty obvious that there is a gap. Steven appears more settled, and the tense mood of the travellers doesn't quite match with the end of The Time Meddler; in addition, the Doctor's comment about 'past experience' adds to the sense that this team has been together for a while. As a polymedial (multimedial?) fan, I give this a thumb's up.
This is pure chance, really. When the script for Galaxy 4 was first written Iananbarbara were still on the team, and mostly for reasons of time (exacerbated by the ongoing change of production personnel) the rewrites made to accommodate Steven's presence were minimal. Of course it's written as if this team has been together for a long time! (Other aspects of this weren't so serendipitous, but we'll get to them later.)
There are a number of continuity references which seem to be included largely to remind viewers of the previous season: in particular, Vicki comparing this planet to Xeros (the setting for The Space Museum), and the return of the astral map. We also have the next instance of Vicki picking a cute name - the Chumblies, this time. (I think this is also the last occasion on TV, though I've only heard The Myth Makers once.) The Doctor also has a signature character moment when he is talking about the impenetrability of "his force barrier", in a lovely, low-key humourous exchange between him and Steven.
When we concentrate on William Hartnell's performance here, it is hard to remember that this is still part of the second production block and being recorded a week after Checkmate. He comes across as particularly prickly, and is getting far more lines wrong than he did last episode - the classic being their "long-deserved, undeserved" break. This has more than a little to do with the troubled recording history of this serial - which I'm also going to leave until next time, since I want to save a modicum of space to talk about the actual content of the episode.
Steven is pretty darn sexist here, referring to the Drahvins as a delightful surprise and commenting that their spaceship has "a few good features" - with the double meaning obviously intentional. As well as explaining what Jacqueline Rayner was drawing on for his characterisation in The Suffering, this is actually really appropriate because of his backstory as a space pilot. In the 1960s, US astronauts were drawn from the high flyers of the USAF, and came from an intensely macho culture. Many (though by no means all) bought into that culture wholeheartedly; and this is the real-life background to contemporary images of "space pilots", while Dan Dare's attitude to Peabody provides an example from popular fiction that is no better.
So, the characterisation is fine, which is actually a pleasant surprise. Less well handled is the central issue of the villains' identity. The TARDIS team are instantly suspicious of the Drahvins for no good reason that I can see (or rather hear), with Steven apparently the only one who is even prepared to consider that they might be telling the truth (Vicki's body language in the main clip is telling, here). Maaga is also presented as almost entirely unsympathetic, so where is the mystery?
On the plus side, there is a pleasing symmetry to the two sides in the conflict. Maaga's Drahvin soldiers being vat-grown and lacking initiative - "not what you would call human" - makes them excellent mirrors of the Rill-controlled Chumblies. And the cliffhanger is both effective and of a style I don't remember seeing so far in this marathon.
I've rattled on for a while. Hopefully the next review will be up in not four hundred dawns, not even fourteen dawns - but four dawns.
Broadcast:
Date: Saturday, 11th September 1965
Viewers: 9.0 million
Chart Position: 23
Appreciation Index: 56
Rating:
4/10.
Next Time:
Trap of Steel.
Back to television at last - albeit with the first ever non-historical episode to be missing from the archives. It's not quite missing, of course, as there's a six-minute stretch of actual footage. This exists thanks to its being requisitioned for Whose Doctor Who, a 1977 instalment of the documentary series Lively Arts (which ended up using about half a minute) and then being rescued by Jan Vincent-Rudzki, president of the Doctor Who Appreciation Society, who was acting as an advisor to the show. I'd still call this a "missing episode", though; but I'll postpone saying more about that until next time, as I've a lot of other topics to cover here.
Starting with the episode's status as the beginning of a new season. Last time - with Planet of Giants - the story carried on pretty much directly from the end of season one, making me wince slightly for all those stories shoehorned in between. This time it seems pretty obvious that there is a gap. Steven appears more settled, and the tense mood of the travellers doesn't quite match with the end of The Time Meddler; in addition, the Doctor's comment about 'past experience' adds to the sense that this team has been together for a while. As a polymedial (multimedial?) fan, I give this a thumb's up.
This is pure chance, really. When the script for Galaxy 4 was first written Iananbarbara were still on the team, and mostly for reasons of time (exacerbated by the ongoing change of production personnel) the rewrites made to accommodate Steven's presence were minimal. Of course it's written as if this team has been together for a long time! (Other aspects of this weren't so serendipitous, but we'll get to them later.)
There are a number of continuity references which seem to be included largely to remind viewers of the previous season: in particular, Vicki comparing this planet to Xeros (the setting for The Space Museum), and the return of the astral map. We also have the next instance of Vicki picking a cute name - the Chumblies, this time. (I think this is also the last occasion on TV, though I've only heard The Myth Makers once.) The Doctor also has a signature character moment when he is talking about the impenetrability of "his force barrier", in a lovely, low-key humourous exchange between him and Steven.
When we concentrate on William Hartnell's performance here, it is hard to remember that this is still part of the second production block and being recorded a week after Checkmate. He comes across as particularly prickly, and is getting far more lines wrong than he did last episode - the classic being their "long-deserved, undeserved" break. This has more than a little to do with the troubled recording history of this serial - which I'm also going to leave until next time, since I want to save a modicum of space to talk about the actual content of the episode.
Steven is pretty darn sexist here, referring to the Drahvins as a delightful surprise and commenting that their spaceship has "a few good features" - with the double meaning obviously intentional. As well as explaining what Jacqueline Rayner was drawing on for his characterisation in The Suffering, this is actually really appropriate because of his backstory as a space pilot. In the 1960s, US astronauts were drawn from the high flyers of the USAF, and came from an intensely macho culture. Many (though by no means all) bought into that culture wholeheartedly; and this is the real-life background to contemporary images of "space pilots", while Dan Dare's attitude to Peabody provides an example from popular fiction that is no better.
So, the characterisation is fine, which is actually a pleasant surprise. Less well handled is the central issue of the villains' identity. The TARDIS team are instantly suspicious of the Drahvins for no good reason that I can see (or rather hear), with Steven apparently the only one who is even prepared to consider that they might be telling the truth (Vicki's body language in the main clip is telling, here). Maaga is also presented as almost entirely unsympathetic, so where is the mystery?
On the plus side, there is a pleasing symmetry to the two sides in the conflict. Maaga's Drahvin soldiers being vat-grown and lacking initiative - "not what you would call human" - makes them excellent mirrors of the Rill-controlled Chumblies. And the cliffhanger is both effective and of a style I don't remember seeing so far in this marathon.
I've rattled on for a while. Hopefully the next review will be up in not four hundred dawns, not even fourteen dawns - but four dawns.
Broadcast:
Date: Saturday, 11th September 1965
Viewers: 9.0 million
Chart Position: 23
Appreciation Index: 56
Rating:
4/10.
Next Time:
Trap of Steel.
Tuesday 22 September 2015
Short Trips, Indefinable Magic 31.02: The Power Supply, by Eddy Robson
I mostly know Eddy Robson from his audio scripts, where, like Jonathan
Morris, I associate him with a reliable base level of quality and a good
variety of styles. His strength there, for me, lies in his humour and
humanity: his most enjoyable stories have either been straight comedy (Grand Theft Cosmos), or ones where he has combined the humour with weirdness (Memory Lane, The Condemned) or with a strong focus on character (Urgent Calls, The Five Companions).
The Power Supply falls more into the weirdness camp. The premise - which I won't spoil - is fun, and a genre clash I don't think we've seen before in Who. Robson then twists it in an unexpected way, and, indeed, he packs a lot of ideas into a small number of words. There's not much action (though there is a medical emergency the Doctor has to deal with that reminded me of Room for Improvement), but then that's not what the story is about.
The short stories I've read in this inter-season gap have been quite varied (except for the lack of historicals, which has been more than made up for by other media), and another thing I enjoyed was that Robson employs a very different style of prose to the others. It's not quite as polished as I would ideally like - early on he massively overuses the word 'day' over the space of two paragraphs - but other than lacking a final edit it is an enjoyable read.
Even though it's been revisited rather too often in prose, Robson manages to find a new angle on the TARDIS translation circuits, which is impressive. He also discusses the TARDIS having agency, which I don't believe has come up since David Whitaker's time. On the other hand, the epilogue made me roll my eyes slightly - it would be fine taken as a single instance, but it's something I've just seen too much of now.
Overall this feels like a lot of good things packed into somewhat too small a space. More room to breathe would have upped my score, I think.
Published:
Date: March 2009
ISBN: 1-84435-384-2
Rating:
4.5/10.
Ordering Stories
Right, since this is the last story I'm covering before the start of season 3 (have I really only got that far in my marathon?), I'm going to lay out my stall for an order. As usual I'm going to try to break up the different kinds of story (forward, backward, sideways) and the different media (comic, novel, short stories, and audios) - and here it really matters that we have frames in the audios, so I'm going to include them separately.
Next Time:
Four Hundred Dawns.
The Power Supply falls more into the weirdness camp. The premise - which I won't spoil - is fun, and a genre clash I don't think we've seen before in Who. Robson then twists it in an unexpected way, and, indeed, he packs a lot of ideas into a small number of words. There's not much action (though there is a medical emergency the Doctor has to deal with that reminded me of Room for Improvement), but then that's not what the story is about.
The short stories I've read in this inter-season gap have been quite varied (except for the lack of historicals, which has been more than made up for by other media), and another thing I enjoyed was that Robson employs a very different style of prose to the others. It's not quite as polished as I would ideally like - early on he massively overuses the word 'day' over the space of two paragraphs - but other than lacking a final edit it is an enjoyable read.
Even though it's been revisited rather too often in prose, Robson manages to find a new angle on the TARDIS translation circuits, which is impressive. He also discusses the TARDIS having agency, which I don't believe has come up since David Whitaker's time. On the other hand, the epilogue made me roll my eyes slightly - it would be fine taken as a single instance, but it's something I've just seen too much of now.
Overall this feels like a lot of good things packed into somewhat too small a space. More room to breathe would have upped my score, I think.
Published:
Date: March 2009
ISBN: 1-84435-384-2
Rating:
4.5/10.
Ordering Stories
Right, since this is the last story I'm covering before the start of season 3 (have I really only got that far in my marathon?), I'm going to lay out my stall for an order. As usual I'm going to try to break up the different kinds of story (forward, backward, sideways) and the different media (comic, novel, short stories, and audios) - and here it really matters that we have frames in the audios, so I'm going to include them separately.
- Are You Listening?
- The Suffering
- The Power Supply
- The Three Doctors (first Doctor bit)
- The Empire of Glass
- Upstairs
- Mars
- Frostfire
- The Schoolboy's Story (ends Steven's time as a new traveller)
- Corridors of Power (has to be after they've landed on a spaceship)
- The Suffering frame
- (stories yet to come in this marathon)
- Frostfire frame (after Vicki's departure)
- Upstairs frame
Next Time:
Four Hundred Dawns.
Wednesday 16 September 2015
Companion Chronicle 8.03: Upstairs
The interview on this disk was more interesting than some I've heard
recently. Once again we get the interviewee asking if they can mention
spoilers, and I do wonder why this continues to happen - surely they
know by now that everyone (except, perhaps, the strangest of fans) watch
or listen to extras after the actual story? It's lampshaded beautifully in Special Features
(featuring the fifth Doctor), though I probably won't be getting to
that one for decades yet! We also get comments about the pleasurable
experience of recording at Big Finish - common enough that I think it
must be true for most people - and, of course, the lunches. So far so
normal.
However, most of the discussion had nothing to do with any of that. I didn't know that Maureen O'Brien is an author, and the story of her relationship with Mat Coward and criticism was told in a very human way.
Like O'Brien, I'm not a great critic. This blog was always an experiment; the experience of writing it has honed my critical faculties to an extent, but my inclination when watching, reading, or listening is always to sit back and go on gut feeling. That makes writing reviews that are interesting for others a bit of a challenge. I'm a good enough writer that people can probably get some entertainment out of reading the odd review I write, but I think it would take a very particular mindset to keep on reading over the years. Therefore this continues more for my fun than anything, though hopefully there are people out there who still get something out of it.
As with many of the actors, O'Brien is not a fan of Science Fiction. Perhaps that explains why all the Vicki and Steven Companion Chronicles are historicals - the setting keeping them happy and carrying them past the SF elements. This does mean that we only have short stories to space them out and provide some variety. The main story of Upstairs could fit anywhere before the framing sequence of The Suffering (which leads into Galaxy 4); I'm inclined to put it earlier than where I've heard it, but I'll wait until I've experienced the last story of this season gap to complete the ordering.
The Great Man Theory of History
There are a number of 'pop' science theories of history, but one that has particular resonance for Doctor Who is the Great Man theory, which is actually key for this story.
The idea is that history is driven by the actions of great people (usually men), without whom events would have taken a very different course. The Alexanders, Napoleons, and Hitlers of this world shape the political stage, while in other fields we have the Einsteins, the Aristotles, and so forth. In reality it probably bears as close a relationship to actual history as statements like "the First World War was caused by the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo"; but it's a very convenient theory for storytelling, focusing as it does on the actions and motivations of people.
Such as, of course, the Doctor. He is the archetypal Great Man, fomenting revolution, committing genocide, healing divisions, saving lives; damming time tracks over here, digging new ones over there. It fits very well with the colonial, Imperialist nature of his genesis: he has taken up the White Man's Burden, and gone out there to sort out the poor benighted natives. Those of us who love the show have to accept that this aspect is buried deep in the show's genes and cannot be expunged. This doesn't mean that it can't be inspiring and a force for good - I believe it can - but in the real world 'pop' theories are not good enough. We have to be aware both of the nature of stories and the actual history that has led us to this point. People like Sydney Newman, Verity Lambert, David Whitaker, and William Hartnell may have manufactured their Great Man, but the rest of us have to learn to work together and listen to each other if we are going to improve this world.
I hope we achieve that.
Published:
Date: September 2013
ISBN: 1-78178-085-5
Rating:
7.5/10.
Next Time:
The Power Supply.
However, most of the discussion had nothing to do with any of that. I didn't know that Maureen O'Brien is an author, and the story of her relationship with Mat Coward and criticism was told in a very human way.
Like O'Brien, I'm not a great critic. This blog was always an experiment; the experience of writing it has honed my critical faculties to an extent, but my inclination when watching, reading, or listening is always to sit back and go on gut feeling. That makes writing reviews that are interesting for others a bit of a challenge. I'm a good enough writer that people can probably get some entertainment out of reading the odd review I write, but I think it would take a very particular mindset to keep on reading over the years. Therefore this continues more for my fun than anything, though hopefully there are people out there who still get something out of it.
As with many of the actors, O'Brien is not a fan of Science Fiction. Perhaps that explains why all the Vicki and Steven Companion Chronicles are historicals - the setting keeping them happy and carrying them past the SF elements. This does mean that we only have short stories to space them out and provide some variety. The main story of Upstairs could fit anywhere before the framing sequence of The Suffering (which leads into Galaxy 4); I'm inclined to put it earlier than where I've heard it, but I'll wait until I've experienced the last story of this season gap to complete the ordering.
The Great Man Theory of History
There are a number of 'pop' science theories of history, but one that has particular resonance for Doctor Who is the Great Man theory, which is actually key for this story.
The idea is that history is driven by the actions of great people (usually men), without whom events would have taken a very different course. The Alexanders, Napoleons, and Hitlers of this world shape the political stage, while in other fields we have the Einsteins, the Aristotles, and so forth. In reality it probably bears as close a relationship to actual history as statements like "the First World War was caused by the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo"; but it's a very convenient theory for storytelling, focusing as it does on the actions and motivations of people.
Such as, of course, the Doctor. He is the archetypal Great Man, fomenting revolution, committing genocide, healing divisions, saving lives; damming time tracks over here, digging new ones over there. It fits very well with the colonial, Imperialist nature of his genesis: he has taken up the White Man's Burden, and gone out there to sort out the poor benighted natives. Those of us who love the show have to accept that this aspect is buried deep in the show's genes and cannot be expunged. This doesn't mean that it can't be inspiring and a force for good - I believe it can - but in the real world 'pop' theories are not good enough. We have to be aware both of the nature of stories and the actual history that has led us to this point. People like Sydney Newman, Verity Lambert, David Whitaker, and William Hartnell may have manufactured their Great Man, but the rest of us have to learn to work together and listen to each other if we are going to improve this world.
I hope we achieve that.
Published:
Date: September 2013
ISBN: 1-78178-085-5
Rating:
7.5/10.
Next Time:
The Power Supply.
Monday 14 September 2015
Episode CC8.03b: Upstairs, Episode 2: Dust and Empire
Warning: this review spoilers the menace as well as the location and some lesser plot details, but not the overall plot.
As usual, most of the review is going to be taken up talking about the writing; but first let's start where I left off last time, with a quick addition to what I've already said about the production. I found that the throbbing fungus noise got quite irritating after a while; enough so that it distracted me from the story a couple of times.
On to the performances, and Peter Purves seems to have warmed up now, though of course it's mostly up to Maureen O'Brien, who has a larger cast to portray this time. I found her maid's voice to be much better than her Doctor's, and Bartholomew showed that she can be convincing as a man as well. I did note that she uses regional accent for differentiation, something I do myself when reading; and part of me thinks this is kind of a cheat. But then again, it's certainly effective, and I generally don't notice it except in extreme cases; so why worry?
The rest, then, concerns Mat Coward's script. Once again the main cast are nicely characterised - the observation that the Doctor can always seem to make people tell him things, even if they do lock him up afterwards, is spot on. Steven spends quite some time in the comedy sidekick role he often takes in his travels with Vicki - something Purves does very well, on TV as well as audio - and his "member of the EMC" comment made me laugh. Once again Vicki is shown to be smart, although I did wonder when she learned about the proper rules of address for English "persons of quality"?
Speaking of which, the handling of class is done in a satisfying (if not exactly subtle) way. The classic servant habits of deference - which are not just an ahistorical media creation, although they had been vastly overgeneralised by the 1960s - are put to good use. (As is the automatic sexism, too.) I love one observation from the Doctor, which I'll quote in full:
The story is wrapped up well with a nice, tidy ending, but I felt this episode lacked a little of the atmosphere we saw in Dust and Death. I can't quite put my finger on anything specific - the pacing seemed OK - so perhaps it was just the sound effects, taking me out of the moment. It was still very enjoyable, but because of this a bit closer to average overall.
Rating:
6/10.
Next Time:
Companion Chronicle 8.03 as a whole.
As usual, most of the review is going to be taken up talking about the writing; but first let's start where I left off last time, with a quick addition to what I've already said about the production. I found that the throbbing fungus noise got quite irritating after a while; enough so that it distracted me from the story a couple of times.
On to the performances, and Peter Purves seems to have warmed up now, though of course it's mostly up to Maureen O'Brien, who has a larger cast to portray this time. I found her maid's voice to be much better than her Doctor's, and Bartholomew showed that she can be convincing as a man as well. I did note that she uses regional accent for differentiation, something I do myself when reading; and part of me thinks this is kind of a cheat. But then again, it's certainly effective, and I generally don't notice it except in extreme cases; so why worry?
The rest, then, concerns Mat Coward's script. Once again the main cast are nicely characterised - the observation that the Doctor can always seem to make people tell him things, even if they do lock him up afterwards, is spot on. Steven spends quite some time in the comedy sidekick role he often takes in his travels with Vicki - something Purves does very well, on TV as well as audio - and his "member of the EMC" comment made me laugh. Once again Vicki is shown to be smart, although I did wonder when she learned about the proper rules of address for English "persons of quality"?
Speaking of which, the handling of class is done in a satisfying (if not exactly subtle) way. The classic servant habits of deference - which are not just an ahistorical media creation, although they had been vastly overgeneralised by the 1960s - are put to good use. (As is the automatic sexism, too.) I love one observation from the Doctor, which I'll quote in full:
"There exists a desire to be ruled, to be led; and at the same time, in the same psyche, there lives a realisation that the rulers are not up to the job. It's why mobs cut idiot kings' heads off, you know, only to plant another idiot king on the same throne."Lovely. It's the servants, actually, who make this episode - their plans, along with their frankly bonkers loyalty to their Prime Minister, seem very "Whoish". Coward puts some other nice touches in too, though - the idea of Number 10 being bigger on the inside, for instance, or the TARDIS having a Smaller Scent Library, in which smaller scents are kept. We also get a bit more nicely integrated background information, particularly concerning the history of Downing Street. One odd oversight comes up when they are talking about Earth fungi not feeding on people - none of the characters have heard of fungal infections, apparently!
The story is wrapped up well with a nice, tidy ending, but I felt this episode lacked a little of the atmosphere we saw in Dust and Death. I can't quite put my finger on anything specific - the pacing seemed OK - so perhaps it was just the sound effects, taking me out of the moment. It was still very enjoyable, but because of this a bit closer to average overall.
Rating:
6/10.
Next Time:
Companion Chronicle 8.03 as a whole.
Sunday 6 September 2015
Episode CC8.03a: Upstairs, Episode 1: Dust and Death
Well, since my previous post I've had massive problems with internet
access and my computer died. I've got a new one (another £250 we've got
to take from something else), and the internet issue seems to have
mostly been resolved; but I've been busy getting everything set up
again. To cap it all, my PVR has just lost the ability to remember
channel settings, so the only way to record anything is to turn it on,
go through the initial setup, and then record the program before turning
it off again. I think I may end up relying on iPlayer for some of the
next series...
[Warning: this review contains spoilers for where the TARDIS has landed, and for what kind of story we are in.]
The narration opens with Steven, which made me think this was going to be like The Suffering - but it's mostly Maureen O'Brien, with Peter Purves simply providing Steven's voice. Purves actually seems less engaged than usual (his line "Doctor, we're lost in time" sounds particularly like someone reading a script), and I wonder if this is because he was recording separately and less involved in the process. Meanwhile, O'Brien's Doctor is not great here - she gets the intonation right, but (as is often the case with cross-gender impersonations) the voice sounds wrong. There's a jowly "old man" quality to it, but it's not really Hartnell's old man. This is mitigated somewhat by having the Doctor's longer speeches reported rather than quoted; but Purves can do an excellent Doctor, and yet because he's only the supporting actor he's not used to the full. It's frustrating, and I feel the same when Frazer Hines is put in this position. In some ways this is the best argument for The Early Adventures you can have!
Having said that, I love the Companion Chronicles, where you can get the same sense of interiority that you get from books while still having a strong element of performance. The lack of a proper frame weakens that a little, here - it's obvious from comments about her hazy memory of how they exited the TARDIS that Vicki is narrating this quite some time after her travels, but that's all we are given directly. Still, you can also extract something from the way it is narrated. I get the impression that this is an even older Vicki than the one we saw in Frostfire - though it might still be Frosty she's talking to!
One bit of characterisation that made me think was the comment about her fear of being a burden. This is a point that fits for me, with The Space Museum being the turning point where that ceases to be something that holds her back and becomes a driving force.
Mat Coward's writing is engaging, with some particularly nice descriptions, such as "the Doctor seemed to age before our eyes as worry stretched the skin thinly across his face". It's not an image I would have considered, but I know exactly what he means! The regulars' dialogue fits, with some lovely banter, and their characterisation is fine. There are some classic humourous bits - I smiled at the reactions when they first encountered the maid (there's certainly no salaciousness implied) and when Vicki described the Doctor's penetrating whispered asides - and there are more serious moments, such as when Vicki spots a subterfuge that the others walk straight into. Coward's plot structure is also very good, with a fine balance of humour and horror leading up to a delightfully wacky cliffhanger.
Which - so far as writing goes - leaves the content of the plot. This aspect I loved. From the beginning it looks as if we are in a haunted house story, and the three characters fall into classic tropes (the sceptic, the obstinate one who refuses to leave, and the sensible one who doesn't insist on finding a rational explanation before accepting what's happening), but this is skewed into something slightly different. I do think O'Brien's better on the more upbeat or exciting moments than the downright sinister, but fortunately there are few of the latter.
This is a story in which atmosphere is key. It manages to offer a sense of both space (with the seemingly endless parade of rooms) and claustrophobia (with the simple fact that it's set entirely in an attic, and the realisation that there is no way out) - I can see it being produced on TV as a budget-saving serial, much like The Edge of Destruction.
It's also a story about admiring the setting - in a way it's like a celebrity historical, but with the celebrity being the location! Because of where it's set I was first reminded of Aliens of London/World War Three, but another revived series story came to mind later: Gridlock. Like that episode, the location here is more the driving force for the plot rather than just a pretty backdrop, and that's clever.
In keeping with its era, this provided a fair helping of education, covering both history (Downing Street) and science (fungi, with the Food Machine explanation also bringing up a feeling of "forward nostalgia" for a story featuring a certain Professor Jones). It's all served up in a way that enhances the plot rather than causing it to stutter. It's particularly well woven into the travellers' attempts to find out where and when they are - utilising a window, receipt books, newspaper, a history book (I wonder if "A Short History of the Inhabitants of Downing Street" is real?), and the Doctor's encyclopaedic knowledge. Impressive!
On the production side, this is one of the rare releases where I don't think Big Finish got it quite right. The music feels a bit "off" for both the story and the era, somehow, and I found it almost impossible to hear the woman next door (even with headphones) over the fungus sound effect. It's not bad; but I've got used to this aspect being spot on.
And I'd better stop there, in order to save something to say about the next episode. I think I'll just listen to that cliffhanger again...
Rating:
8/10.
Next Time:
Dust and Empire.
[Warning: this review contains spoilers for where the TARDIS has landed, and for what kind of story we are in.]
The narration opens with Steven, which made me think this was going to be like The Suffering - but it's mostly Maureen O'Brien, with Peter Purves simply providing Steven's voice. Purves actually seems less engaged than usual (his line "Doctor, we're lost in time" sounds particularly like someone reading a script), and I wonder if this is because he was recording separately and less involved in the process. Meanwhile, O'Brien's Doctor is not great here - she gets the intonation right, but (as is often the case with cross-gender impersonations) the voice sounds wrong. There's a jowly "old man" quality to it, but it's not really Hartnell's old man. This is mitigated somewhat by having the Doctor's longer speeches reported rather than quoted; but Purves can do an excellent Doctor, and yet because he's only the supporting actor he's not used to the full. It's frustrating, and I feel the same when Frazer Hines is put in this position. In some ways this is the best argument for The Early Adventures you can have!
Having said that, I love the Companion Chronicles, where you can get the same sense of interiority that you get from books while still having a strong element of performance. The lack of a proper frame weakens that a little, here - it's obvious from comments about her hazy memory of how they exited the TARDIS that Vicki is narrating this quite some time after her travels, but that's all we are given directly. Still, you can also extract something from the way it is narrated. I get the impression that this is an even older Vicki than the one we saw in Frostfire - though it might still be Frosty she's talking to!
One bit of characterisation that made me think was the comment about her fear of being a burden. This is a point that fits for me, with The Space Museum being the turning point where that ceases to be something that holds her back and becomes a driving force.
Mat Coward's writing is engaging, with some particularly nice descriptions, such as "the Doctor seemed to age before our eyes as worry stretched the skin thinly across his face". It's not an image I would have considered, but I know exactly what he means! The regulars' dialogue fits, with some lovely banter, and their characterisation is fine. There are some classic humourous bits - I smiled at the reactions when they first encountered the maid (there's certainly no salaciousness implied) and when Vicki described the Doctor's penetrating whispered asides - and there are more serious moments, such as when Vicki spots a subterfuge that the others walk straight into. Coward's plot structure is also very good, with a fine balance of humour and horror leading up to a delightfully wacky cliffhanger.
Which - so far as writing goes - leaves the content of the plot. This aspect I loved. From the beginning it looks as if we are in a haunted house story, and the three characters fall into classic tropes (the sceptic, the obstinate one who refuses to leave, and the sensible one who doesn't insist on finding a rational explanation before accepting what's happening), but this is skewed into something slightly different. I do think O'Brien's better on the more upbeat or exciting moments than the downright sinister, but fortunately there are few of the latter.
This is a story in which atmosphere is key. It manages to offer a sense of both space (with the seemingly endless parade of rooms) and claustrophobia (with the simple fact that it's set entirely in an attic, and the realisation that there is no way out) - I can see it being produced on TV as a budget-saving serial, much like The Edge of Destruction.
It's also a story about admiring the setting - in a way it's like a celebrity historical, but with the celebrity being the location! Because of where it's set I was first reminded of Aliens of London/World War Three, but another revived series story came to mind later: Gridlock. Like that episode, the location here is more the driving force for the plot rather than just a pretty backdrop, and that's clever.
In keeping with its era, this provided a fair helping of education, covering both history (Downing Street) and science (fungi, with the Food Machine explanation also bringing up a feeling of "forward nostalgia" for a story featuring a certain Professor Jones). It's all served up in a way that enhances the plot rather than causing it to stutter. It's particularly well woven into the travellers' attempts to find out where and when they are - utilising a window, receipt books, newspaper, a history book (I wonder if "A Short History of the Inhabitants of Downing Street" is real?), and the Doctor's encyclopaedic knowledge. Impressive!
On the production side, this is one of the rare releases where I don't think Big Finish got it quite right. The music feels a bit "off" for both the story and the era, somehow, and I found it almost impossible to hear the woman next door (even with headphones) over the fungus sound effect. It's not bad; but I've got used to this aspect being spot on.
And I'd better stop there, in order to save something to say about the next episode. I think I'll just listen to that cliffhanger again...
Rating:
8/10.
Next Time:
Dust and Empire.
Saturday 29 August 2015
The First Doctor Tarot, Seasons 3-4
I'm going to just let these speak for themselves. There are many missing episodes, and that increases the difficulty of trying to pick images; but the meanings are pretty clear, I think.
T. Galaxy 4: Tifireth
Meaning: Beauty
DC. Mission to the Unknown: The Devil
Meaning: Preconceptions, Binding, Adversarial Power
U. The Myth Makers: Judgement
Meaning: Punishment and Reward, Rebirth
V. The Daleks' Master Plan: The Hanged Man
Meaning: Sacrifice, Dedication
W. The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve: Justice
Meaning: Responsibility, Guilt, Fairness
X. The Ark: The Tower
Meaning: Upheaval, Sudden Change, Shattered Illusions
Y. The Celestial Toymaker: Kether
Meaning: Crown
Z. The Gunfighters: Netzach
Meaning: Victory
AA. The Savages: Temperance
Meaning: Balance, Moderation, Compromise
Meaning: Balance, Moderation, Compromise
BB. The War Machines: Strength
Meaning: Courage, Patience, Control
CC. The Smugglers: Chesed
Meaning: Mercy
DD. The Tenth Planet: Death
Meaning: Transformation, Endings and Beginnings
And there you have it! There are a few forced correspondences, but I was actually surprised how well the majority of the stories fitted.
Next Time:
May and Isaac have both decided to skip doing reviews, having found out quite how much work it is (and with still quite a bit to fit in during the last week of the holiday), so I'm going to plough on with my own reviews.
Dust and Death.
Meaning: Courage, Patience, Control
CC. The Smugglers: Chesed
Meaning: Mercy
DD. The Tenth Planet: Death
Meaning: Transformation, Endings and Beginnings
And there you have it! There are a few forced correspondences, but I was actually surprised how well the majority of the stories fitted.
Next Time:
May and Isaac have both decided to skip doing reviews, having found out quite how much work it is (and with still quite a bit to fit in during the last week of the holiday), so I'm going to plough on with my own reviews.
Dust and Death.
Monday 17 August 2015
The First Doctor Tarot, Season 2
OK, it was harder this time to find appropriate images. Last time many
just fell into my lap - I mean, the Emperor and Empress are just perfect
- but this time it's a case of what can I get that vaguely appropriate
in a ten-minute search for many. Ah well.
J. Planet of Giants: Binah
Meaning: Understanding
A stretch, perhaps, but there is a thread running through the story that matches.
K. The Dalek Invasion of Earth: The World
Meaning: Completion, Closure, Accomplishment
Of course, it had to be really. The Earth, the World, the end of Susan's story...
Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150AD: Yesod
Meaning: Foundation
Really, the closest I could get to duplicating the TV meaning without all the completion aspect.
L. The Rescue: The Star
Meaning: Hope, Trust, Renewal
Elizabeth Sandifer used to describe Vicki as a "star child" - and she fits this card perfectly in this story.
M. The Romans: The Sun
Meaning: Fun, Comfort, Success
I could have gone for two images: Iananbarbara relaxing, which better matched the meaning, or Nero being all sun Emperor.
N. The Web Planet: The High Priestess
Meaning: Intuition, the Subconscious
Nope, couldn't find a decent image. The meaning isn't a straightforward match, but I think it works well if you look behind the obvious.
P. The Crusade: Malkuth
Meaning: Kingdom
Um, yeah, this is me being shallow with the meaning.
Q. The Space Museum: The Wheel
Meaning: Cycles, Turning Points, Lack of Purpose
Apathy and revolution!
R. The Chase: The Lovers
Meaning: Choice, Union
Of course.
S. The Time Meddler: The Hermit
Meaning: Time, Introspection, Obstinacy
And again, what else?
Next Time:
The First Doctor Tarot, Seasons 3-4.
J. Planet of Giants: Binah
Meaning: Understanding
A stretch, perhaps, but there is a thread running through the story that matches.
K. The Dalek Invasion of Earth: The World
Meaning: Completion, Closure, Accomplishment
Of course, it had to be really. The Earth, the World, the end of Susan's story...
Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150AD: Yesod
Meaning: Foundation
L. The Rescue: The Star
Meaning: Hope, Trust, Renewal
Elizabeth Sandifer used to describe Vicki as a "star child" - and she fits this card perfectly in this story.
M. The Romans: The Sun
Meaning: Fun, Comfort, Success
I could have gone for two images: Iananbarbara relaxing, which better matched the meaning, or Nero being all sun Emperor.
N. The Web Planet: The High Priestess
Meaning: Intuition, the Subconscious
Nope, couldn't find a decent image. The meaning isn't a straightforward match, but I think it works well if you look behind the obvious.
P. The Crusade: Malkuth
Meaning: Kingdom
Um, yeah, this is me being shallow with the meaning.
Q. The Space Museum: The Wheel
Meaning: Cycles, Turning Points, Lack of Purpose
Apathy and revolution!
R. The Chase: The Lovers
Meaning: Choice, Union
Of course.
S. The Time Meddler: The Hermit
Meaning: Time, Introspection, Obstinacy
Next Time:
The First Doctor Tarot, Seasons 3-4.
Thursday 13 August 2015
The First Doctor Tarot, Season 1
This is kind of a random miniseries of posts, just because the idea
popped into my head one night recently while I was having trouble
getting to sleep. I'm not actually a believer in divination of any sort,
but I am nevertheless interested in much of the symbolism involved -
and I do believe that Jan Woudhuysen got it right when he said that the
tarot can be used as a mirror to give our conscious minds access to the
subconscious. Basically, how we interpret a spread of cards can give us
insight with no mysticism required.
This, however, isn't even going that deep. It's just a bit of fun to see if I can match up cards to serials.
The observant reader will notice that there is a fundamental problem with this, namely that there are 29 Hartnell serials and only 22 Major Arcana. What I have done is to add in the ten sephiroth of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life (which has been associated with the tarot since the days of the Golden Dawn), giving 32 possibilities; I've then split serial A into the first episode (An Unearthly Child) and The Tribe of Gum, and added the two Cushing movies. Simple.
On to the tarot associations, then, with a few comments. Enjoy!
A(i). An Unearthly Child: The Fool
Meaning: Beginnings, Innocence, Spontaneity
It is, of course, virtually compulsory to begin any tour of the Major Arcana with The Fool; but fortunately, in the figure of the unearthly child - the version of Susan that disappeared from the program all too soon - we have the perfect representation.
A(ii). The Tribe of Gum: The Magician
Meaning: The Trickster, Skill, Resourcefulness
The Magician is the next card, and happily matches up well with the figure of the Doctor in the rest of serial A. What else could the man who brings fire to the tribe and transports his kidnap victims through time be but a magician?
B. The Daleks: The Chariot
Meaning: Triumph, Control, the Will
Surely a chariot is a kind of travel machine? And the daleks are all about control.
Dr Who and the Daleks: Hod
Meaning: Splendour
This is the first of the non-tarot associations. What is most different about the film version of the story for many people, myself included, is that it is in vibrant, startling colour. Hence, splendour.
C. The Edge of Destruction: The Moon
Meaning: Illusion, Anxiety, Insecurity, the Subconscious
Seriously, with those meanings, do I need to say anything?
D. Marco Polo: The Emperor
Meaning: Order, Authority
The overt reasoning is obvious, but the story is also all about authority, about who is in charge.
E. The Keys of Marinus: The Hierophant
Meaning: Patience, Analytical Intelligence
I mean, good grief, those Marinusians have patience in abundance! And there's a fair degree of analysis going on, particularly during The Velvet Web and the last couple of episodes.
F. The Aztecs: The Empress
Meaning: Sensuality, Fertility, Abundance
I could go on about how the Aztec blood sacrifices were to keep the gods happy and keep the land fertile and abundant; but really, let's be honest, it's all about Barbara as Yetaxa.
This, however, isn't even going that deep. It's just a bit of fun to see if I can match up cards to serials.
The observant reader will notice that there is a fundamental problem with this, namely that there are 29 Hartnell serials and only 22 Major Arcana. What I have done is to add in the ten sephiroth of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life (which has been associated with the tarot since the days of the Golden Dawn), giving 32 possibilities; I've then split serial A into the first episode (An Unearthly Child) and The Tribe of Gum, and added the two Cushing movies. Simple.
On to the tarot associations, then, with a few comments. Enjoy!
A(i). An Unearthly Child: The Fool
Meaning: Beginnings, Innocence, Spontaneity
It is, of course, virtually compulsory to begin any tour of the Major Arcana with The Fool; but fortunately, in the figure of the unearthly child - the version of Susan that disappeared from the program all too soon - we have the perfect representation.
A(ii). The Tribe of Gum: The Magician
Meaning: The Trickster, Skill, Resourcefulness
The Magician is the next card, and happily matches up well with the figure of the Doctor in the rest of serial A. What else could the man who brings fire to the tribe and transports his kidnap victims through time be but a magician?
B. The Daleks: The Chariot
Meaning: Triumph, Control, the Will
Surely a chariot is a kind of travel machine? And the daleks are all about control.
Dr Who and the Daleks: Hod
Meaning: Splendour
This is the first of the non-tarot associations. What is most different about the film version of the story for many people, myself included, is that it is in vibrant, startling colour. Hence, splendour.
C. The Edge of Destruction: The Moon
Meaning: Illusion, Anxiety, Insecurity, the Subconscious
Seriously, with those meanings, do I need to say anything?
D. Marco Polo: The Emperor
Meaning: Order, Authority
The overt reasoning is obvious, but the story is also all about authority, about who is in charge.
E. The Keys of Marinus: The Hierophant
Meaning: Patience, Analytical Intelligence
I mean, good grief, those Marinusians have patience in abundance! And there's a fair degree of analysis going on, particularly during The Velvet Web and the last couple of episodes.
F. The Aztecs: The Empress
Meaning: Sensuality, Fertility, Abundance
I could go on about how the Aztec blood sacrifices were to keep the gods happy and keep the land fertile and abundant; but really, let's be honest, it's all about Barbara as Yetaxa.
G. The Sensorites: Chokhmah
Meaning: Wisdom
This is a cerebral story, and it's not too much of a stretch to read it as being about wisdom, who makes use of it, and who doesn't.
H. The Reign of Terror: Gevurah
Meaning: Severity
In contrast, this serial starts with the Doctor chucking out Iananbarbara in a fit of pique, in the midst of a particularly violent setting governed by people whose judgements were pretty darn harsh.
Next Time:
The First Doctor Tarot, Season 2.
Meaning: Wisdom
This is a cerebral story, and it's not too much of a stretch to read it as being about wisdom, who makes use of it, and who doesn't.
H. The Reign of Terror: Gevurah
Meaning: Severity
In contrast, this serial starts with the Doctor chucking out Iananbarbara in a fit of pique, in the midst of a particularly violent setting governed by people whose judgements were pretty darn harsh.
Next Time:
The First Doctor Tarot, Season 2.
Saturday 8 August 2015
Short Trips, Solar System 17.04: Mars, by Trevor Baxendale
I've experienced maybe half a dozen stories by this author, and they have been a bit hit-or-miss. In audio, neither The Dark Flame nor Something Inside
have really hit the spot; but in text he has the benefit of a solidly
entertaining prose style which lifts his more mediocre plots, and when
the storyline sings too - as in Prisoner of the Daleks, for example - he is very, very good indeed.
The plot for Mars is exceedingly simple, and unoriginal to boot. That doesn't mean it's not a good one - in fact it's a classic, which is why it's been used so often - but it does mean that Baxendale has to work harder to make the tale enjoyable.
Structurally, the story is very sound, opening in the middle of the action and filling us in on the details of how we got to that point in a natural way as the plot progresses. It also stops in just the right place - as a writer I would have been tempted to drag it out a bit further, but this is definitely a case of "less is more".
As is common with this particular plot structure the peak of the action actually comes right at the beginning, and the rest of the drama concerns the consequences. This puts a lot of pressure on the character relationships - in this case, Steven with the alien he is trying to help on the surface of Mars, Vicki and the Doctor on Phobos Base with the crew (and an alien ambassador). None of the guest cast have much space to breathe, which is a problem, though the explicit focus on the thoughts of Steven and Vicki distracts from that.
Steven's part of the story - which is the primary plot, although similar wordcount is devoted to each - is definitely the better developed. There's some excellent visual imagery, and for once Steven actually gets to use his piloting skills! I can't remember this happening on TV, and certainly it hasn't happened in any of the audios I've heard so far in this marathon. Mars doesn't add anything particularly new to his characterisation, but it is solidly presented. The only exception is that he swears mildly, saying "damn you" more than once to his companion. This feels slightly off, since Steven comes from the clean-living Dan Dare school of space pilots; but it occurred to me that even if he was modelled on real air force pilots it would have seemed out of place, since they would use much stronger language! It's almost an 'uncanny valley' of swearing. Still, this is a nit, and otherwise this was a good use of Steven.
The scenes on Phobos Base, while not bad, are less successful. The Doctor's mannerisms are exaggerated - I lost count of the number of times he called someone "my boy" or "my child", he "hmm"s, grumps, and is generally something of a caricature. Vicki also comes across as slightly off. She keeps her childlike sense of wonder and hope, but displays less of her logical intelligence than usual, even going so far as to wonder out loud if, perhaps, they could get the TARDIS to work this time. It's made clear afterwards that she knows this is a vain hope, but I still can't see her saying that.
Still, I've nitpicked enough. The problems I've listed weren't sufficiently bad to stop me enjoying reading it, though they were noticeable enough that I got to thinking about what the point was of publishing the story: what does Mars add to this classic plotline, or indeed to Doctor Who?
The answer to the former is probably 'nothing', but the focus on Steven - and in particular his abilities as much as his good character - is something that was lacking from the latter.
And in any case, it was fun, and for me that's generally enough.
Published:
Date: September 2005
ISBN: 1-84435-148-3
Rating:
6/10.
Next Time:
In a change to our advertised programme, The First Doctor Tarot (Season One).
The plot for Mars is exceedingly simple, and unoriginal to boot. That doesn't mean it's not a good one - in fact it's a classic, which is why it's been used so often - but it does mean that Baxendale has to work harder to make the tale enjoyable.
Structurally, the story is very sound, opening in the middle of the action and filling us in on the details of how we got to that point in a natural way as the plot progresses. It also stops in just the right place - as a writer I would have been tempted to drag it out a bit further, but this is definitely a case of "less is more".
As is common with this particular plot structure the peak of the action actually comes right at the beginning, and the rest of the drama concerns the consequences. This puts a lot of pressure on the character relationships - in this case, Steven with the alien he is trying to help on the surface of Mars, Vicki and the Doctor on Phobos Base with the crew (and an alien ambassador). None of the guest cast have much space to breathe, which is a problem, though the explicit focus on the thoughts of Steven and Vicki distracts from that.
Steven's part of the story - which is the primary plot, although similar wordcount is devoted to each - is definitely the better developed. There's some excellent visual imagery, and for once Steven actually gets to use his piloting skills! I can't remember this happening on TV, and certainly it hasn't happened in any of the audios I've heard so far in this marathon. Mars doesn't add anything particularly new to his characterisation, but it is solidly presented. The only exception is that he swears mildly, saying "damn you" more than once to his companion. This feels slightly off, since Steven comes from the clean-living Dan Dare school of space pilots; but it occurred to me that even if he was modelled on real air force pilots it would have seemed out of place, since they would use much stronger language! It's almost an 'uncanny valley' of swearing. Still, this is a nit, and otherwise this was a good use of Steven.
The scenes on Phobos Base, while not bad, are less successful. The Doctor's mannerisms are exaggerated - I lost count of the number of times he called someone "my boy" or "my child", he "hmm"s, grumps, and is generally something of a caricature. Vicki also comes across as slightly off. She keeps her childlike sense of wonder and hope, but displays less of her logical intelligence than usual, even going so far as to wonder out loud if, perhaps, they could get the TARDIS to work this time. It's made clear afterwards that she knows this is a vain hope, but I still can't see her saying that.
Still, I've nitpicked enough. The problems I've listed weren't sufficiently bad to stop me enjoying reading it, though they were noticeable enough that I got to thinking about what the point was of publishing the story: what does Mars add to this classic plotline, or indeed to Doctor Who?
The answer to the former is probably 'nothing', but the focus on Steven - and in particular his abilities as much as his good character - is something that was lacking from the latter.
And in any case, it was fun, and for me that's generally enough.
Published:
Date: September 2005
ISBN: 1-84435-148-3
Rating:
6/10.
Next Time:
In a change to our advertised programme, The First Doctor Tarot (Season One).
Monday 3 August 2015
Companion Chronicle 1.01: Frostfire
"It begins here." There are many stories for which such a claim can be
made, but thinking about the first Doctor, this is the only real choice
in audio. It was not the first Companion Chronicle I heard - that was Solitaire,
although in my mind it hardly counts since at the time it was the only
full-cast release in the range - but it might have been my second. (I
bought Shadow of the Past at the same time, and can no longer
remember which I listened to next. The pair of them sold me on the
concept, and it then became a mainstay of my Big Finish purchasing, more
so even than the Main Range.). Regardless, Frostfire was both my introduction to the first Doctor on audio and the first Companion Chronicle released.
What astonishes me coming back to this is the way that almost all the staples of the range are assembled right from the start. There's the two-voice structure; a more significant framing device than we've seen in the CCs I've reviewed so far; Vicki being separated from her companions in a way that feels natural but eases the burden on Maureen O'Brien; and the sound work making it feels less like an audiobook than I had expected (it was only the strong reviews that eventually persuaded me to give the CCs a go at all). Indeed, the music here consists of short and slightly weird snatches, capturing the feel of the 60s even better than a number of the later stories.
One aspect which is different is that this release, like the others in the first series, is only available on CD rather than download - allegedly since one of the participants (most people presume director Mark J. Thompson, who has not returned since) wouldn't give permission, though I have no authoritative source for the supposition. Another oddity is that there are no interviews or other extras, which surprised and mildly disappointed me even on this listening; perhaps I thought it would be different this time? The CCs started just after Nick Briggs took over as head honcho of Big Finish from Gary Russell and introduced the idea to their Main Range, so I probably just assumed the feature was universal. I'm glad they were introduced here, too, in the second series.
When Should You Listen?
Unlike The Suffering, this story is told from Vicki's perspective after she has parted company with the Doctor; and because the frame is fairly substantial - embedded in her future history as well as interrupting the narrative at various points, rather than simply sitting at the beginning of each episode - it tells us rather a lot about events we haven't yet reached in this marathon.
That makes this the perfect time to talk about a tension in the Companion Chronicles for marathon runners. There are a number of threads on Gallifrey Base discussing cross-media story continuity, and with the Doctors for whom the CCs provide the bulk of the audio material there are two schools of thought. One is the straightforward idea of listing them by the main plot (just like, say, a sixth Doctor story that has a cameo from the seventh at the end would work best in the former's timeline). The other is to go for a spoiler-free approach, which generally means placing it by framing sequence. In this scheme I would have delayed reviewing Quinnis, for example, until after The Dalek Invasion of Earth.
Both ideas have merit. I've gone for the straightforward approach so far, although that will be adjusted slightly for an upcoming trilogy. If I ever do such a marathon again - just for fun, and not with reviews! - I may try the alternative. Who knows? I may like it better!
Published:
Date: 5th February 2007
ISBN: 1-84435-263-0
Rating:
8/10.
Next Time:
Mars.
What astonishes me coming back to this is the way that almost all the staples of the range are assembled right from the start. There's the two-voice structure; a more significant framing device than we've seen in the CCs I've reviewed so far; Vicki being separated from her companions in a way that feels natural but eases the burden on Maureen O'Brien; and the sound work making it feels less like an audiobook than I had expected (it was only the strong reviews that eventually persuaded me to give the CCs a go at all). Indeed, the music here consists of short and slightly weird snatches, capturing the feel of the 60s even better than a number of the later stories.
One aspect which is different is that this release, like the others in the first series, is only available on CD rather than download - allegedly since one of the participants (most people presume director Mark J. Thompson, who has not returned since) wouldn't give permission, though I have no authoritative source for the supposition. Another oddity is that there are no interviews or other extras, which surprised and mildly disappointed me even on this listening; perhaps I thought it would be different this time? The CCs started just after Nick Briggs took over as head honcho of Big Finish from Gary Russell and introduced the idea to their Main Range, so I probably just assumed the feature was universal. I'm glad they were introduced here, too, in the second series.
When Should You Listen?
Unlike The Suffering, this story is told from Vicki's perspective after she has parted company with the Doctor; and because the frame is fairly substantial - embedded in her future history as well as interrupting the narrative at various points, rather than simply sitting at the beginning of each episode - it tells us rather a lot about events we haven't yet reached in this marathon.
That makes this the perfect time to talk about a tension in the Companion Chronicles for marathon runners. There are a number of threads on Gallifrey Base discussing cross-media story continuity, and with the Doctors for whom the CCs provide the bulk of the audio material there are two schools of thought. One is the straightforward idea of listing them by the main plot (just like, say, a sixth Doctor story that has a cameo from the seventh at the end would work best in the former's timeline). The other is to go for a spoiler-free approach, which generally means placing it by framing sequence. In this scheme I would have delayed reviewing Quinnis, for example, until after The Dalek Invasion of Earth.
Both ideas have merit. I've gone for the straightforward approach so far, although that will be adjusted slightly for an upcoming trilogy. If I ever do such a marathon again - just for fun, and not with reviews! - I may try the alternative. Who knows? I may like it better!
Published:
Date: 5th February 2007
ISBN: 1-84435-263-0
Rating:
8/10.
Next Time:
Mars.
Thursday 30 July 2015
Episode CC1.01b: Frostfire, Scroll II: Miss Austen Regrets
"What happens next in the story?"
Keith Drinkel has a bigger part to play in this episode, and although his character's speech is clipped and to the point - contrasting with Vicki's more florid, literary style - his role rather neatly brings the framing and framed stories into closer contact as time goes on.
Unlike The Suffering, we've known almost from the start that this is not a pure historical. Rather, it's a celebrity historical somewhat in the modern style, although Jane Austen is less at the heart of the action than fellow authors Charles Dickens or Agatha Christie. Indeed, while she has a larger part than Steven, Miss Austen seems more on a par with Jem, the boy from the chimney introduced at the end of the last episode.
This really is the perfect period to feature a chimney sweep's apprentice as a character. It sits in the uncomfortable gap between the invention of mechanical brushes in 1803 (the results of a prize competition, no less - shades of Longitude!), which took away the last excuse, and the new legislation introduced in 1834 to replace the (completely unenforced) act of 1788. We may be a long way from the end of this particular chapter of human misery (The Water Babies still has relevance nearly half a century in the future), but the practice is at least at the beginning of its long decline.
So it's a bit of a shame that Jem is a completely programmatic, stereotypical urchin. Like Valzaki, he's exactly the sort of figure we might expect from the 60s TV show; but the rest of the production has moved along, so we can't use "faithfulness to the period" as an excuse (even if we wanted to, which in cases such as this I don't). And sadly, this observation also points up the shallow characterisation of the rest of the guest cast. It's not a deal killer for the entire story - which has plenty of other charms - but it does damage it.
[Mild spoilers from here on.]
"I live it again with each telling."
I mentioned that the framed and framing stories grow closer here, and we do actually learn quite a bit about Vicki's life after leaving the Doctor. The struggles she's had living in history make me a little sad - part of me just naturally wants a fairytale ending for one of the brightest shining companions, and there is also my general impatience with the pessimistic outlook for the Doctor's friends expressed in my review of The Schoolboy's Story. However, she is not crushed or made totally miserable: she simply has to deal with a less-than-perfect world. And she has obviously continued to grow as a person, which is great - her travels with the Doctor have merely been part of a full and rich life. So, overall, it's not really a bad thing. And the fact that we learn so much about her is vital to helping us invest in the framing story as much as the 1814 section.
(Incidentally, it was also this which prompted me to refer to the episodes as "scrolls", since Vicki mentions when beginning the narrative that she is starting to read the first scroll. My alternative idea was to break it into four scrolls corresponding to the four tracks on the CD - the joint-lowest track count, I believe - but that was too restrictive.)
[And major spoilers for the rest of this review - skip down to the rating if you want to avoid details about the ending.]
"Perhaps next time it'll change."
The series of quotes I've taken here from Frosty - and what a perfectly Vickiesque name that is! - really set the tone for the structural twist which is revealed at the end to form the retroactive driving force of the story. (And incidentally, it was given just enough emphasis that I spotted it before the reveal, but not too long before.) I've recently been relistening to the anthology release Circular Time, which looks at the difference between cyclical time (for example, the seasons) and linear time (e.g., mortal lives); and this is at the heart of Frostfire, too. The story goes round and round in a timey-wimey fashion, and who knows? Perhaps the story can change on each iteration - certainly my second time hearing it (as with other twist-ending stories ) was not the same experience as my first.
But for Vicki and Frosty? I suspect not.
Rating:
Good, but not quite so good as the opening episode, despite a superb build-up to a perfectly judged ending.
7/10.
Next Time:
Companion Chronicle 1.01 as a whole.
Keith Drinkel has a bigger part to play in this episode, and although his character's speech is clipped and to the point - contrasting with Vicki's more florid, literary style - his role rather neatly brings the framing and framed stories into closer contact as time goes on.
Unlike The Suffering, we've known almost from the start that this is not a pure historical. Rather, it's a celebrity historical somewhat in the modern style, although Jane Austen is less at the heart of the action than fellow authors Charles Dickens or Agatha Christie. Indeed, while she has a larger part than Steven, Miss Austen seems more on a par with Jem, the boy from the chimney introduced at the end of the last episode.
This really is the perfect period to feature a chimney sweep's apprentice as a character. It sits in the uncomfortable gap between the invention of mechanical brushes in 1803 (the results of a prize competition, no less - shades of Longitude!), which took away the last excuse, and the new legislation introduced in 1834 to replace the (completely unenforced) act of 1788. We may be a long way from the end of this particular chapter of human misery (The Water Babies still has relevance nearly half a century in the future), but the practice is at least at the beginning of its long decline.
So it's a bit of a shame that Jem is a completely programmatic, stereotypical urchin. Like Valzaki, he's exactly the sort of figure we might expect from the 60s TV show; but the rest of the production has moved along, so we can't use "faithfulness to the period" as an excuse (even if we wanted to, which in cases such as this I don't). And sadly, this observation also points up the shallow characterisation of the rest of the guest cast. It's not a deal killer for the entire story - which has plenty of other charms - but it does damage it.
[Mild spoilers from here on.]
"I live it again with each telling."
I mentioned that the framed and framing stories grow closer here, and we do actually learn quite a bit about Vicki's life after leaving the Doctor. The struggles she's had living in history make me a little sad - part of me just naturally wants a fairytale ending for one of the brightest shining companions, and there is also my general impatience with the pessimistic outlook for the Doctor's friends expressed in my review of The Schoolboy's Story. However, she is not crushed or made totally miserable: she simply has to deal with a less-than-perfect world. And she has obviously continued to grow as a person, which is great - her travels with the Doctor have merely been part of a full and rich life. So, overall, it's not really a bad thing. And the fact that we learn so much about her is vital to helping us invest in the framing story as much as the 1814 section.
(Incidentally, it was also this which prompted me to refer to the episodes as "scrolls", since Vicki mentions when beginning the narrative that she is starting to read the first scroll. My alternative idea was to break it into four scrolls corresponding to the four tracks on the CD - the joint-lowest track count, I believe - but that was too restrictive.)
[And major spoilers for the rest of this review - skip down to the rating if you want to avoid details about the ending.]
"Perhaps next time it'll change."
The series of quotes I've taken here from Frosty - and what a perfectly Vickiesque name that is! - really set the tone for the structural twist which is revealed at the end to form the retroactive driving force of the story. (And incidentally, it was given just enough emphasis that I spotted it before the reveal, but not too long before.) I've recently been relistening to the anthology release Circular Time, which looks at the difference between cyclical time (for example, the seasons) and linear time (e.g., mortal lives); and this is at the heart of Frostfire, too. The story goes round and round in a timey-wimey fashion, and who knows? Perhaps the story can change on each iteration - certainly my second time hearing it (as with other twist-ending stories ) was not the same experience as my first.
But for Vicki and Frosty? I suspect not.
Rating:
Good, but not quite so good as the opening episode, despite a superb build-up to a perfectly judged ending.
7/10.
Next Time:
Companion Chronicle 1.01 as a whole.
Monday 20 July 2015
Episode CC1.01a: Frostfire, Scroll I: The Eye in the Egg
And back to audio, with Maureen O'Brien's previous (and, inevitably,
first) Companion Chronicle. Here she is not so strong on voices as the
other performers we've encountered in this marathon so far - an aspect
she improved on by the time of The Suffering - but she reads it
beautifully. In terms of simply being a listening pleasure, I'd rank her
performance in this episode right up there with many of William
Russell's, which long-term readers will know is high praise indeed.
It helps, of course, that the words are well written. Marc Platt, as I've mentioned elsewhere, is strong on worldbuilding and not normally particularly interested in plot, with characterisation sitting somewhere in the middle (which is a different mix to Jacqueline Rayner's, but - in the right circumstances - one that can be equally effective). Here the 'alien world' conjured up is early 19th Century London, and his carefully chosen prose gives a strong feel for the setting, the Frost Fair in particular. Supported by some well-placed snippets of music and sound I had no trouble picturing what was going on, visualising it in black and white, although on a cinematic budget that the TV show could never have matched.
Well, I say I had no trouble imagining it, but there is one instance where that is not quite true. During the scene with Vicki first meeting the egg I completely lost concentration, and came back to myself after she had been revived. I rewound, and the same thing happened.
It took me four times before I could force my mind to focus on what I was hearing, and I did so through sheer willpower. Afterwards I was surprised to find that I'd only tuned out for about half a minute; it had felt longer. I also remembered that the same thing had happened the previous time I listened to Frostfire, although in that instance I gave up after two attempts because I remembered the gist and couldn't be bothered to rewind again.
This I found to be a bit creepy, in all honesty. Still, I suppose the odd shiver is appropriate for this story! Though, actually, what is it about expanded-universe Hartnell-era stories and extreme winters featuring cold-related creatures? Kim Newman tackled one in Time and Relative, now we have this.
Anyway, the Frost Fair (a title I considered for this episode, before hearing Platt's preference) is only one of two major locations, the other being Sir Joseph's soirée. The latter is the more humorous, featuring a very different array of supporting characters and Steven being admired and ridiculed in equal measure. It's not so colourful, in a way; but provides a nice contrast. Valzaki - a character we first met at the fair - returns; and this is slightly unfortunate, since he's a stereotype of the sort that we might very well have seen in the 1960s. Having said that, he is woven more firmly into the story now, which helps. More unambiguously positive is the introduction (just before the cliffhanger) of the chimney sweep's boy Jem, about whom more next time.
Getting back to O'Brien, she elegantly (I was going to say effortlessly, but I'm sure it wasn't) distinguishes between the adult Vicki of the framing sequence and the teenager of the main story, while still showing her to be the same person. The warmth and irreverent cheekiness is in both, but she's slowed down and grown more worldly-wise - even a touch world-weary - since leaving the Doctor.
Which does bring up the issue of the framing sequence, but for reasons of balance I'm going to leave that until next time...
Rating:
It's gripping, atmospheric, performed and directed well, with a nicely judged soundscape. Other than preferring full-cast dramas on the whole, what more could I ask for?
9.5/10.
Next Time:
Miss Austen Regrets.
It helps, of course, that the words are well written. Marc Platt, as I've mentioned elsewhere, is strong on worldbuilding and not normally particularly interested in plot, with characterisation sitting somewhere in the middle (which is a different mix to Jacqueline Rayner's, but - in the right circumstances - one that can be equally effective). Here the 'alien world' conjured up is early 19th Century London, and his carefully chosen prose gives a strong feel for the setting, the Frost Fair in particular. Supported by some well-placed snippets of music and sound I had no trouble picturing what was going on, visualising it in black and white, although on a cinematic budget that the TV show could never have matched.
Well, I say I had no trouble imagining it, but there is one instance where that is not quite true. During the scene with Vicki first meeting the egg I completely lost concentration, and came back to myself after she had been revived. I rewound, and the same thing happened.
It took me four times before I could force my mind to focus on what I was hearing, and I did so through sheer willpower. Afterwards I was surprised to find that I'd only tuned out for about half a minute; it had felt longer. I also remembered that the same thing had happened the previous time I listened to Frostfire, although in that instance I gave up after two attempts because I remembered the gist and couldn't be bothered to rewind again.
This I found to be a bit creepy, in all honesty. Still, I suppose the odd shiver is appropriate for this story! Though, actually, what is it about expanded-universe Hartnell-era stories and extreme winters featuring cold-related creatures? Kim Newman tackled one in Time and Relative, now we have this.
Anyway, the Frost Fair (a title I considered for this episode, before hearing Platt's preference) is only one of two major locations, the other being Sir Joseph's soirée. The latter is the more humorous, featuring a very different array of supporting characters and Steven being admired and ridiculed in equal measure. It's not so colourful, in a way; but provides a nice contrast. Valzaki - a character we first met at the fair - returns; and this is slightly unfortunate, since he's a stereotype of the sort that we might very well have seen in the 1960s. Having said that, he is woven more firmly into the story now, which helps. More unambiguously positive is the introduction (just before the cliffhanger) of the chimney sweep's boy Jem, about whom more next time.
Getting back to O'Brien, she elegantly (I was going to say effortlessly, but I'm sure it wasn't) distinguishes between the adult Vicki of the framing sequence and the teenager of the main story, while still showing her to be the same person. The warmth and irreverent cheekiness is in both, but she's slowed down and grown more worldly-wise - even a touch world-weary - since leaving the Doctor.
Which does bring up the issue of the framing sequence, but for reasons of balance I'm going to leave that until next time...
Rating:
It's gripping, atmospheric, performed and directed well, with a nicely judged soundscape. Other than preferring full-cast dramas on the whole, what more could I ask for?
9.5/10.
Next Time:
Miss Austen Regrets.
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