Tom Baker’s tenure as the Doctor really hit the ground
running with a strong first two seasons. So how does his third season compare?
Well I’ve just finished watching it, so let’s get right into my review of Season
14 of Doctor Who.
Case in point: how many times it takes a pack of highly-trained alien soldiers to shoot a stationary target.
Take 1975′s Genesis of the Daleks, from the era where Doctor Who was made on the budget of a ham sandwich.
Seriously, the yarn to knit Tom Baker’s 12-foot scarf took half the set-building funds alone.
First of all, our heroes need to find a way to get past a heavily-armed alien prison guard. What do you do?
…yup, just punch him.
One time is enough. No need to overdo it, here.
So, they escape to the rocket-building area…
…start to climb up the scaffolding that’s conveniently built just like a jungle gym…
…but oh noes! Futuristic space soldiers!
If you were wondering, the reason you can tell they’re so futuristic…
…is because they’re wearing yellow safety glasses.
Green jumpsuits, yellow safety glasses, and carnival game rifles were all it took to pass for “futuristic alien planet’s supersoldiers” in the ‘70s.
The bad guys start shooting, and our heroes keep climbing,
–and the bad guys keep shooting,
–and the heroes keep climbing, and it goes on and on andthey just can’t hit them.
The soldiers:
–highly-trained
–using rifles
–have all the time in the world to aim
The targets:
–maybe 30 feet away
–moving slowly upwards, functionally stationary from an underneath perspective
–have no cover of any kind
But nope. Theysimply can’t hit them.
Every once in a while they manage to wing a random unnamed extra, but the prisoners who they’re tracking and most trying to stop? No can do.
Eventually, they send in even more soldiers, because apparently the issue here was numbers and not accuracy…
…but it makes absolutely no difference, and they’re every bit as ineptas the others.
Listening to the sounds, there’s no metallic impacts – they’re not just failing to hit their targets, they’re missing the massive, endless scaffolding entirely.
And the end of the scene, I went back and counted, curious just how many shots were fired before our heroes got to the top.
Turns out,46 tries isn’t enough shots to hit two stationary, helpless main characters.
I’m surprised we didn’t hear ricochets from the bullets bouncing off of their plot armor.
Episode: The War Games Story Number: 050 Season: 6 Screenwriter: Terrance Dicks
and Malcolm Hulke Director: David Maloney
Where are we?:
The First World War?
Thoughts:
Patrick Troughton plays my
favorite incarnation of the Doctor and is among the best pure actors to play
the Doctor’s role. Unfortunately, the
Second Doctor era doesn’t always allow one to see Troughton at his best. For starters, there are the many missing
episodes, but also there were some poor screenplays and production decisions
(all those “monster” and “base under siege” stories over and over) that undermine
the show being at its best.
Coincidentally, Peter Davison – another talented actor – had to endure
some awful scripts and mindboggling production decisions in the Fifth Doctor
era. But at the very least, both
Troughton and Davison were able to go out on a tour-de-force serial before
their regeneration.
The War Games is most famous for how it
ends with the Doctor’s people – The Time Lords – and visiting the Doctor’s
planet (still unnamed for now) for the first time. The Doctor’s companions Zoe and Jamie have
their memories wiped of their adventures with the Doctor, and the Doctor is
forced to undergo “a change of face.”
But I don’t think the earlier episodes should be overlooked. At first we seem to be in an historical set
on the front in The Great War. But soon it is revealed that the British
commander is an alien using futuristic technology to manipulate the
battles. Then we learn that there are
other time zones featuring wars from different eras and that this is not earth
at all. Then they discover the command
center where the aliens are controlling the “war games” and the Doctor attempts
to lead a rebellion by a resistance army made up soldiers from across time
zones. But even then there’s still more
to learn about who is in charge and what their goals are for the “war games.” And it all involves a renegade Time Lord –
the War Chief – who recognizes the Doctor and hopes to manipulate the “war
games” to his own ends (very much a model for the Master).
Almost everything in this serial
is done perfectly – the script, the direction, the acting (Troughton, Frazier
Hines, and Wendy Padbury are at their best and guest stars such as Philip Madoc
and Edward Brayshaw are excellent). The
set design for both the historic period pieces and the futuristic base are incredible
and the electronic music is still very modern and aptly builds the
tension. Okay, the depiction of the
Mexican soldiers is a terrible stereotype, but at least this 1969 production
shows an African American soldier from the American Civil War in a sympathetic
leadership role.
I remember liking The War
Games when I first watched it but I think it’s even better than I
remembered. An all-time classic where 10
episodes doesn’t feel like a huge time commitment.
Score: 10 of 10
Next Stop:
Not unlike The Daleks’ Master Plan and The War Games, we’re going to another
12-part epic with renegade Time Lords and Daleks.
Agreed on all counts! Sad having to say goodbye to the second Doctor and his companions, but a brilliant send-off.
Story Number: 21 Season: 3 Screenwriter: Terry Nation (episodes 1-5, 7) & Dennis Spooner (6, 8-12) Director: Douglas Camfield
Where are we?:
The planet Kembel. Earth. The Past. The Future. And places in-between.
Thoughts:
It’s the notorious 12-part First Doctor epic. 9 of the episodes are missing. It features Daleks, and I don’t really like Dalek stories. It’s mostly written by Terry Nation, and I’m not particularly fond of Terry Nation. And yet, I found it strangely compelling.
As noted in my post on “Mission to the Unknown,” this story was created as a serial to be watched over months as part of a continuing story so it’s not surprising that that narrative jumps all over the place, especially with the holiday breaks to consider.
A big part of what makes this worth watching is the performance of several key actors.
Adrienne Hill as Katarina doesn’t get to do much but her sacrifice for the Doctor – widely heralded as the first companion death, albeit it remains a question if she was actually a companion at all – is a big shock, especially in the horror of her drifting body. The idea that traveling with the Doctor could be safe was forever shattered.
The story is also known for being Nicholas Courtney’s first appearance in Doctor Who. The Brigadier is still a few years off but it shouldn’t be overlooked how good he is as Bret Vyon. The dynamic of three male leads – The Doctor, Bret Vyon, and Steven – in conflict and collaboration is unique to Doctor Who. And just as we’re getting to know him, he’s shot dead by Sara Kingdom. Honestly, if we count Katarina and Sara as companions, Bret should be one as well, thus making the second companion death.
That we go from seeing Sara as a cold-blooded murderer to someone you wish could travel longer with The Doctor is a credit to Jean Marsh’s performance. Especially since she immediately has to navigate the Christmas and Meddling Monk sub-stories before rejoining the main plot. A woman in an action-adventure role and an authority figure is unusual in 20th century television, and she pulls if off well.
A 12-part story about Daleks is made bearable by the Daleks being backgrounded by the scenery-chewing performance of Kevin Stoney as Mavic Chen, the lead villain of this piece. Stoney would return to make a long Cyberman story much better as the human villain in The Invasion. The only thing that loses marks here is that Stoney is a white actor in brownface, and while his background is never mentioned, his name implies he is supposed to be Asian.
Finally, there’s the Meddling Monk. I loved Peter Butterworth’s performance in The Time Meddler, and it was great to see his comic, amoral, and cowardly performance in this story. If only the Monk had come back in another story where he felt less shoehorned in. Are you listening Chris Chibnall?
One final note about what’s good about this story is the direction of Douglas Camfield which we can see in the three surviving episodes. If the quality of direction is indicative of the whole serial then the recovery of the lost episodes would make for a major reevaluation of how this story is received.
Mind you, I may be laying the sugar on too thick in that the story exceeded my low expectations. The Christmas story
“The Feast of Steven” is pretty nonsensical and doesn’t have much to do with Christmas (but then again you could say the same about some of Russell T. Davies’ Christmas specials). The ancient Egyptians are horribly caricatured. And there are still a lot of Daleks gliding around and shouting at one another. The story sees three companions deaths, all in horrible ways. The Doctor fails a lot, and the writing and production of the time are not quite up to the gravitas of the type of the story they’re trying to tell, but I give them props for trying. It’s not a great story, but it has enough great moments to make it worth watching once.
Episode: “Mission to the Unknown” Story Number: 19 Season: 3 Screenwriter: Terry Nation Director: Derek Martinus
Where are we?:
The planet Kembel, with a stranded spaceship crew and deadly Varga plants. And Daleks.
Thoughts:
Much is made of this being the only single-episode story in Classic Doctor Who, but that isn’t entirely accurate. This is an episode of ongoing story going back at least to the start of Season 3 with the four episodes of Galaxy 4, but even more precisely a story that began two years earlier with “An Unearthy Child.” This is a story that will continue to go on until at the least the following spring when The Savages receives a blanket title for four parts, but more precisely the story continues to this very day. Even in a smaller context “Mission to the Unknown” must be seen as a larger story that includes The Myth Makers and The Daleks’ Master Plan (which itself has two other stories nested within it). The whole point of a serial is to tune in next week and see what happens next.
What’s surprising in this episode is what doesn’t happen: there’s no familiar whirring sound, no TARDIS, no Doctor, no companions. Nothing familiar all except the Daleks. We see three crew members trying to repair their ship and becoming taken over by Varga plants. Meanwhile Daleks and their treacherous allies make plans. It’s a tensely-plotted episode for what it is, and you can imagine how much more so if you were wondering when the Doctor would show up.
As a prelude to “The Daleks Master Plan,” I was expecting it to introduce characters in that story so I was surprised that <spoilers> Marc Cory and his crew all die. It’s all the more the indictment of the Doctor for not showing up. This will be a series of failures for the Doctor where Cory’s crew dies, Vicki is left behind, Steven is injured, Katarina, Bret Vyon, and Sara Kingdom are all killed. And then the next story is called The Massacre. Grim times for a 60s tv show.
I haven’t watched many recons, and I admit that for most of the episode I thought there were four crew members and so the denouement gave me a bit of a “huh?” but I caught up.
Score: 4 of 10 (albeit this is hard to score on its own)
Junkyard Bluebox 