Doctor Who Story 024: The Celestial Toymaker

STORY 024: THE CELESTIAL TOYMAKER

Someone's Playing Games With Us...

This is certainly a sad case.  The four-part story known as The Celestial Toymaker has only one episode known to be in existence: Episode Four (The Final Test).  That one episode is all that remains of the first appearance of Michael Gough in Doctor Who. Although he did return in Arc of Infinity Gough was never to recreate his title villain.  He was set to return as the Celestial Toymaker in The Nightmare Fair but the story was scrapped when Doctor Who went on hiatus in 1986 and was replaced by the season-long The Trial of A Time Lord.  (Side note: curiously, although The Celestial Toymaker was to appear only once his influence is still felt today, but more on that later).

It's a curious thing about Gough.  Most people know him as Alfred Pennyworth from the Tim Burton film Batman and its three sequels (Batman Returns, Batman Forever, and Batman & Robin).  As Alfred, he's a very good guy.  The curious thing is that for most of his career, Gough was better known as a villain: from the Hammer Horror films through Berserk! with Joan Crawford and here.  He had a stern, powerful voice and strong screen presence that denoted evil, so seeing him as the title villain may be a bit of a surprise to Batman fans who know him as the kindly valet to Bruce Wayne.  

On the minus side, as stated only Episode Four is known to exist.  On the plus side, even though only one of the four episodes remains (or at least remains for the present), that one episode is still pretty strong, with good acting and an interesting villain.

The Doctor (William Hartnell) has disappeared and been rendered mute by the Celestial Toymaker (Gough), an immortal being who creates his own world and has captured the Doctor and his Companions, Dodo (Jackie Lane) and Steven (Peter Purves).  The Doctor must play the Trilogic Game (where he must deconstruct and reconstruct a pyramid made up of ten pieces within a certain number of moves from Point A to Point C and with the lower piece always being larger than the one above it).  Meanwhile, Dodo and Steven must play a series of games set up by the Toymaker in order to recover the TARDIS.  If they lose, they remain in this world forever as the Toymaker's playthings.  If they win, the world they occupy is destroyed...along with them.  By the time of The Final Test the Doctor has made a series of moves and is close to finishing the Trilogic game, while Dodo and Steven face their greatest adversary, a large man resembling a child who goes by Cyril (Peter Stephens) whom they've encountered before as the Knave of Hearts and a kitchen boy in the preceding episodes. 

Cyril makes them play hopscotch but always rigs the game to his advantage.  Eventually, Dodo and Steven manage to win but the Toymaker has one more trick up his sleeve: the Doctor at the nearly-complete Trilogic game.  The Doctor outwits the Toymaker, but with the threat that he may return.  In triumph and safe in the TARDIS, Dodo gives the Doctor some of Cyril's sweets, and after one bit he hunches over in pain...

The curious thing about the concluding episode of The Celestial Toymaker is that anyone would think that we would imagine the Doctor would be in danger when the next title is captioned A Holiday for The Doctor.  Even if I were a child in 1964 I still would have thought, 'A Holiday for the Doctor'?  Well, I guess he'll be all right next week".   You can't have such a dramatic ending with such a silly title as A Holiday for The Doctor. 

Now, as for the story itself, The Celestial Toymaker appears to be a rather good story based on the villain: a being who is immortal, evil, and highly intelligent.  At the center of what elevates The Celestial Toymaker is Gough's performance.  He is a being who relishes the ability to match wits with someone of high intelligence, which the Doctor certainly is.  Unlike the bumbling Meddling Monk, the Toymaker can be taken quite seriously in his deadly intentions.  Unlike the Daleks, the Toymaker has no interest in world domination.  He merely enjoys the challenge of capturing others and forcing them to play his deadly games.  In short, Gough is a master of villainy, and in The Celestial Toymaker he gives a great performance of someone who uses his superior intelligence as opposed to brute force to get his way. 

I also have to compliment Stephens' performance of Cyril.  He was perfect as an annoying schoolboy-type who cheats his way to the top.  Curiously, the end of Cyril, although not shown, is still rather gruesome.  It's a credit to The Celestial Toymaker (and especially director Bill Sellars) that while the horror of Cyril getting it at the end is not graphic, the remains are still a bit jarring. 

I also compliment Daphne Dare's costuming, particularly of both Cyril and the Toymaker himself.  He has this Imperial Chinese-style robe that makes him look elegant yet otherworldly, while Cyril is more a naughty British schoolboy. 

Now, even within The Celestial Toymaker, as good as the surviving episode is, some things just can't be fixed.  In this one episode Dodo still appears to be totally stupid--you would think after three games she would have gained some sense in how to deal with someone like Cyril.  The fact that she still can't get it right makes Dodo exceptionally stupid, annoying, and goes a long way to explaining why she is still one of the Worst Doctor Who Companions.  Steven, no MENSA master himself, isn't much better--always growling through every part of the TARDIS hopscotch.  Perhaps this is how they were directed, and while Lane and Purves did better work than in The Ark, they still don't make the best couple.

Despite being incomplete, The Celestial Toymaker is still a strong influence in Doctor Who.  In Amy's Choice, the character of The Dream Lord was so much like that of The Toymaker that I was not the only one that speculated whether or not it WAS the Toymaker making his revenge...I mean, return appearance.  I don't know if that episode consciously drew from The Celestial Toymaker, but it is strange that both characters would have the Doctor play games in order to survive.

Overall, The Celestial Toymaker is elevated due to Michael Gough's brilliant turn as the title villain.  Even though only one episode survives, there is no reason why the first three (The Celestial Toyroom, The Hall of Dolls, and The Dancing Floor) should not be reconstructed.  HOWEVER, I understand that in Episode Two, The King of Hearts recites the nursery rhyme "Eeny meeny miny moe" with an unacceptable word in it (even in 1966 it should not have aired).  The audio release has the narration cover up this word, and should it ever be reconstructed this is one time I would not object to having it edited out.  Sign of the times, unfortunately.  However, the story itself (officially credited to Bryan Hayles but with extensive work by both Donald Tosh and Gerry Davis) still holds up well and moves to a solid ending (minus the Doctor's toothache--bad way to end).  However, in the end, it is good to see The Dark Side of Alfred Pennyworth.

7/10

Next Story: The Gunfighters

Doctor Who Story 023: The Ark

STORY 023: THE ARK

Keeping One Eye On Things...

This is the debut story of Dodo Chaplet (Jackie Lane), whom we met in the previous story, the now-lost The Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Eve (or just The Massacre).  For better or worse, Dodo is one of the most reviled of Doctor Who companions, and The Ark is well, not the most liked of First Doctor stories.  I never judge something without seeing it first, and now that I have seen the four-part story collectively known as The Ark (not to be confused with the Fourth Doctor story The Ark In Space), I am in agreement with the majority on both The Ark and on Dodo. 

The Ark's first major flaw is that it really is TWO stories lumped together.  Let's start with the first two episodes (The Steel Sky and The Plague).  The Doctor (William Hartnell) and his Companions Steven Taylor (Peter Purves) and Dodo arrive in what appears to be a large nature preserve.  It's a strange one though, in that animals from various continents are living together.  While Dodo (inexplicably dressed as a medieval pageboy) believes herself to be in a London park, the Doctor soon realizes they are actually aboard a spaceship.  This ship carries all of humanity and is governed by the Guardians, with the alien Monoids as basically their servants.  The Commander of the Guardians (Eric Elliot) welcomes them, but soon he is stricken with a mysterious disease.  The mystery is soon discovered: it is Dodo's cold, to which the Guardians have no immunity from. 

Accused of trying to wipe out humanity, the travellers are taken prisoner.  Soon more and more Guardians take sick, with at least one dying.  Put on trial by Deputy Commander Zentos (Inigo Jackson), they would have been executed if not for the intervening of the Commander, ill but still in command, who instead orders the Guardians to allow the Doctor to find a cure.  He tests his treatment on Steven, who is also ill.  The cure works for him, and soon all humanity is saved.  Now humanity can find a new home (Earth having been destroyed by the Sun) on Refusis II.  They can also continue working on the statue they will place there, which will give future Guardians both something to admire and something to do while in space.  With that, the travellers wave goodbye to the Guardians and Monoids and off they go.

Now we get the second story in Episodes Three and Four (The Return and The Bomb--perhaps the most inadvertently accurate title for the series).   While it's only been a few seconds, the travellers find themselves exactly in the same place--the ship now nicknamed The Ark (thanks to Dodo's offhanded comment earlier in the story).   They realize it's been 700 years between when the left and now, so they start looking around.  They come upon the statue, and discover to their shock that now...it has a Monoid head.  They are again captured by the Monoids, only this time they are able to speak using a voice device.  The Monoids have led a coup and have taken over the Ark, keeping humanity alive to serve THEM as slaves.  The Chief Monoid (helpfully named 'One'), has the travellers taken to the Security Kitchen.  Here, the descendants connect the myths of the Travellers to the newest members, giving them hope for a counter-revolution. 

There is little time for it though: the Ark has arrived near Refusis II.  A search party is launched to explore the planet and see if it is habitable.  ONE plots to destroy all humanity aboard the Ark and take Refusis II for the Monoids, but the Refusians (the invisible natives) don't want violent creatures here.  Assured that humans will make Refusis a more hospitable place than the Monoids, the Refusian Voice (Richard Beale) agrees to help the Doctor.  There is dissension in the Monoid ranks: FOUR believes ONE and TWO will bring about the destruction of the Monoids by actions on Refusis II, and soon they start fighting among themselves.  The Doctor and Dodo discover the Monoid plans to destroy humanity with a bomb aboard the Ark, and a desperate search begins.  Eventually they discover where the bomb is, the Monoids destroy each other, and humanity is allowed refuge on Refusis II.  The travellers leave a second time, and Dodo puts on something straight out of Carnaby Street, but now, the Doctor himself has disappeared though his voice remains...

There are so many things wrong with The Ark that it's like shooting fish in a barrel to choose where to begin.  First, let's start with the story by Paul Erikson and Leslie Scott (the latter the first woman credited with a Doctor Who story, although her then-husband Erikson has stated that it was more a deal between them to share credit and that she contributed little to nothing to the story).  As I've stated before, The Ark is really two stories connected by the appearance of the Monoids: the first two episodes dealing with the cold that Dodo has brought and that threatens humanity, and the last two dealing with the Monoids attempts to destroy humanity. 

On a personal level, I think it would have worked better if the focus had remained on the first part because the problem of Dodo's cold was resolved so quickly it wasn't worth investing any time to it.  As a side note to that, it's in retrospect bizarre to think Steven, who probably would have had greater immunity to the common cold than the Guardians, could have been just as deathly ill as the Guardians themselves.  It seems such an inconsistency that it's a wonder no one really stopped to ask how Steven was as easily affected by a cold as the Commander was (especially when he was wearing far more clothes than the Guardians, but more on that later). 

If they had wanted the Monoids in The Ark, perhaps they could have been the population on Refusis II and were attacking the humans in fear that they would destroy their world, or better yet, the Monoids wanted to take over the Ark for themselves from the get-go, rather than be the placid, mute servants of the Guardians. 

Let's now shift to Problem Two with The Ark: the Monoids themselves.  Few monsters have been as mocked and as ridiculed as the Monoids, and with good reason.   There are so many things that are just wrong with them.  First, their appearance: the Monoids are basically one-eyed beings with Beatles wigs who waddle about the place.  In Episode Four, I believe we're told that the Monoids are rushing about the ship.  The idea that these beings who can only shuffle across the floor "rushing about" anywhere is laughable--they can barely waddle, let alone run.  Even worse, their communication.  For the first two episodes, they are mute, able to communicate only with hand signals.  In Episodes Three and Four, they can no speak with the aid of voice collars, but in all those 700 years the Monoids never got around to coming up with names for themselves.  The leader was known simply as ONE, his aide was TWO, and so forth and so on.

How Erikson or Scott or director Michael Imison never thought that this come off as comedic I simply don't know.  Even worse (yes, there is an even worse to an even worse) their numbers appear on the voice collars themselves.  ONE has a 1 on his collar, TWO has a 2, and so forth and so on.  This flat-out doesn't make any sense.  Maybe the Monoids themselves couldn't tell each other apart.  This "number as name" situation leads to unintended moments of hilarity.  Take this line from Episode Four:

There is still no contact from TWO on Refusis, ONE.

As spoken by THREE, it makes it sound like the planet is called Refusis One, and for a moment there is some confusion as to where they exactly are.   I had a theory as to why ONE was the Monoid leader (besides the fact that he was ONE).  I think ONE was leader because ONE was the one who could make large hand gestures (of which ONE made more than one of...pun time now, isn't it?).  Why, one wonders (pun intended) did the Monoids never bother to gain names?  It would have made it easier to figure out which was which.  (Side note: the Daleks never had names either, but the lights always helped in distinguishing who was speaking, and they at least could move faster than the Monoids). 

Going on with the Monoids, when TWO arrives with the Doctor and Dodo on Refusis II in Episode Three (a lot of numbers there, don't you think?), first, TWO almost trips over himself in entering the empty mansion.  Then, to make matters worse, his idea of showing the Refusians who's in charge is by taking out one flower from a vase at a time and throwing it on the ground, culminating in threatening to smash said vase.  I understand Hitler used the same method when the Nazis entered Warsaw.  It all comes off as funny to the point of parody, and one can't take these monsters seriously when you're on the floor...laughing at them. 

Final point on the disaster that are the Monoids, when you've enslaved humanity, the best you can think of doing with them is putting them to work in the kitchen?  Seriously, the KITCHEN?

As a side note on the other aliens, I know Doctor Who was trying to save money on costumes and make-up by making the Refusians invisible, but for my part, I never found invisible aliens credible...it just sounds cheap (in every sense of the word).  Moreover, we just had a story that had invisible aliens (Episodes Five and Six of The Daleks' Master Plan) and I think using the same trick two stories later makes it all look repetitive. 

Now, let's go on to a problem that was not the fault of either Erikson/Scott or Imison: a birdbrain named Dodo.  There's so much wrong with her character that an entire essay could be written as to why she is one of the worst Companions in Doctor Who (both classic and revived series).  First, her accent: she's suppose to be a Cockney girl from swinging London, but her accent comes and goes throughout The Ark (sometimes within the same episode).  This may not be Lane's fault entirely: as an actress, she did as she was asked, and she was asked to add and drop it by both the director and the higher-ups at the BBC.  She cannot be held responsible for being given contradictory direction (which I imagine must have been maddening for her).  However, we might overlook her wayward East End roots if it weren't for other factors.  No one in her right mind would have allowed her to wear such a silly costume for a story like The Ark: it distracts endlessly from what is suppose to be rather serious business.  It also makes her character look incredibly stupid. 

It does not help that Dodo comes off as annoying within the first ten minutes of The Ark in her cheeriness and her accent (right down to using the word 'fab' for 'fabulous').  Moreover, there is an unpleasant shift in the relationship between the Doctor and his newest Companion.  There is an air of hostility between the Doctor and Dodo, as if he just doesn't like her and is unhappy to have her around.  Unlike his relationships with other young, female companions (his granddaughter Susan, or Vicki, or Katarina and Sara Kingdom), there is no suggestion of tenderness and/or fondness for Dodo.  Only once, when in Episode Two the Doctor and Dodo watch with concern the trial with Steven in the witness box, do we even get the slightest suggestion that they have any positive feelings for each other.  For most of The Ark, the Doctor reprimands Dodo for one thing or another (primarily her English, though why he would care more about that than her cold we never get an answer to).

Finally, Lane's actual performance leaves much to be desired.  She may have been trying to be a simply East End girl, but again she just comes off as dumb.  When she says that the Monoids look "terrifying", the line is niether delivered well or believeably. 

Not that Purves' performance is any better.  Steven has never shaken his ability to look a bit dense from his own debut story as a companion, and here, he doesn't seem to believe that they are aboard a spaceship.  How many times will it take for Steven to believe the Doctor?  When the story shifts to the struggle with the Monoids, Steven appears to be secondary to where the Guardians themselves could have had a leader of the revolution. 

The guest stars also do a lot of damage.  Elliot's commentaries as the Commander during the trial as he lay dying are bizarre to say the least, and badly acted.  He, however, is nothing compared to Jackson's Zentos.  His wild overacting in Episode One especially is something to be seen with awe.  It is just so over-the-top one wonders how they could have made him Deputy Dogcatcher, let alone Deputy Commander.  Terrence Woodfield as Maharis, the Guardian collaborator who alerts the Guardians as to the Monoids true intentions, is better but he also comes off as stupid: knowing that the Monoids want to blow them all up, why would he still want to serve the Monoids?

I want to take a digression to wonder about the Guardian's costumes.  Daphne Dare does it again: she gave the Guardians short skirts cut into straps that barely hide their underwear.  I thought the costumes were quite daring for outer space, almost provocative.  However, the Guardians must have liked them, given that they wore them 700 years later, they obviously were no slaves to fashion. 

Now, let's have some positive details on The Ark.  Tristram Cary's score (particularly in Episode One) is extremely effective: having both a familiar and otherworldly feel at the same time.   While Imison's direction of the actors was shaky, his visual effects and cinematography are some of the best in First Doctor-era Doctor Who.  The destruction of the Earth at the end of Episode One is beautifully filmed, and the imagery of the Monoid head on the statue at the end of Episode Two is quite effective (with the score enhancing the feel).

Overall, The Ark is a failure for a myriad of reasons: weak/silly monsters (candidates for Worst Monsters in Doctor Who--again for another time), a terrible Companion (again, a candidate for Worst Companion in Doctor Who) some bad acting (and quite revealing costumes--can't get over that one), and a jumbled story that would have worked better if there had been a focus to one plot or another rather than mashing two stories together. 

In the end, the question shouldn't be "Who built The Ark?" but "Who see The Ark?"  The response: "No One, No One".  "Who see The Ark?"  "No one should go watch The Ark".

Now, a bit of housekeeping.  The next story (The Celestial Toymaker) is sadly, again, another lost story, with only the last episode (The Final Test) currently known to exist.  The following complete story is the four-part The Gunfighters.  As before, a short retrospective on Episode Four of The Celestial Toymaker will be made, followed by a review of the next complete story. 

3/10

Next Story: The Celestial Toymaker

Doctor Who Story 021: The Daleks' Master Plan

STORY 021: THE DALEKS' MASTER PLAN

The Best Laid Plans of Daleks & Men Go Missing...

From reading the outline of the twelve-part epic story The Daleks' Master Plan (which has the record for the longest story in Doctor Who*), it looked like a strong story.  However, due to the lack of foresight of the higher-ups, the story is alas, incomplete.  It has in fairness fared better than the three preceding stories (Galaxy Four, Mission to the Unknown, and The Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Eve) in that we have any complete episodes at all.  As of this writing, a quarter of the story remains: Episode Two (Day of Armageddon), Episode Five (Counter Plot), and Episode Ten (Escape Switch).  It is rather difficult to give an overall review of The Daleks' Master Plan without actually having The Daleks' Master Plan to review.  However, since three episodes survive, I've opted to review those episodes and give an overall ranking to what remains of Story 021.  It's not a happy solution, but the best one can do under less-than-ideal circumstances. 

We need a bit of background.  The lost story Mission to the Unknown is a prequel to The Daleks' Master Plan.  The Daleks have decided they will conquer the universe (no surprise there).  The plot is discovered but those who know have been silenced before they can reveal all.  In the interim, The Doctor (William Hartnell) has lost his Companion Vicki (Maureen O'Sullivan), who has decided to stay on in Troy and take the name Cressida.  In her place, Katarina (Adrienne Hill), a handmaiden to the prophetess Cassandra, has boarded the TARDIS, in awe of the Doctor and Steven (Peter Purves).  With that, you should be up to speed.

Episode 2 (Day of Armageddon) has the Guardian of the Solar System Mavic Chen (Kevin Stoney) plotting with the Daleks to conquer all the galaxies.  Of course, both Chen and the Daleks are using each other and planning to betray the other at the first opportunity.  The Doctor, Steven, and Katarina join with Bret Vyon (Nicholas Courtney) to defeat the unholy alliance of Dalek and Chen.  The main task through all of The Daleks' Master Plan is to keep the rare mineral taranium away from them.  This material will aid them taking over and destroying the universe (perhaps all time itself). 

By the time we get to Episode Five (Counter Plot) poor Katarina has died: she opened the air-lock while held captive by a prisoner on Desperus, a planet they had crashed to while escaping with the taranium, and was swept out into space.  Vyon has also died, killed by Sara Kingdom (Jean Marsh), a loyal soldier in Chen's service.  A transport experiment now has swept the Doctor, Steven, and Sara to another planet, Mira, with the Daleks in mad pursuit.  On this planet, the native Visians are invisible but dangerous.  The Daleks, however, have tracked the trio down and the Doctor chillingly announces that "The Daleks have won".

Now, by Episode Ten (Escape Switch), we see the Daleks have not won.  The trio has managed to escape and now are in Egypt of the pharaohs.  In the midst of the chases, a new figure has entered the mad race: the Meddling Monk from The Time Meddler (this time he is billed as the Meddling Monk instead of just The Monk, so we can refer to him as The Meddling Monk).  He wants his revenge, but instead has gotten mixed up in the whole affair and is taken prisoner with Steven and Sara.  The Doctor has no choice but to give the real taranium core in exchange for all of them.  They manage to escape (thanks in part to local Egyptians who attack the Daleks--go Lotus Revolution!), leaving the Meddling Monk stranded on an ice planet, but the trio are engulfed by a massive explosion.

The final two episodes (the now-lost The Abandoned Planet and The Destruction of Time) wrap up the story.  In short: the Daleks are defeated but at the cost of Sara Kingdom's life (in a rather gruesome end, she ages to the point of disintegration).   With that, the Doctor and Steven are off to face another adventure.

After watching the surviving episodes of The Daleks' Master Plan, it's a credit to Terry Nation and Dennis Spooner (who wrote the scripts for this massive twelve-part story) and especially director Douglas Camfield that they don't appear as disjointed as they could have.  It helps when you have one object (in this case, the taranium core) be at the center of the story. Each of the surviving episodes has a strong and steady pace and packs a lot of information, action, and even comedy to it (the bumbling scientists in Episode 5 being the prime example). 

One of the best things about the surviving episodes of The Daleks' Master Plan is just how well-acted they are.  Stoney clearly delights in his malevolence as Mavic Chen (although the fact that a character with a vaguely Asian background is played by a European might be troublesome now, I see the character as having no real ethnicity because by this time in the Earth's future, one imagines ethnicity is rather a moot point, but I digress).  Throughout the episodes, he never shifts from being both evil and charismatic, a perfect villain to match the Daleks.  Peter Buttersworth is a delight to have back as the comic yet dangerous Meddling Monk, who is both delightfully evil and duplicitous (with the only caveat being that one wonders if he got thrown in just to be thrown in).  Courtney's Vyon is a tough soldier, a man who doesn't shrink from seeing Katarina killed because he sees the importance of sacrificing one life so that the rest can live.  This applies to himself, he too in the end sacrifices himself for the others. 

Of the performances in The Daleks' Master Plan, the best is Marsh's Sara Kingdom.  In the first episode we see her in (Episode 5), she is a no-nonsense soldier.  By the time we see the last of her (Episode 10), she is a full partner in helping the Doctor (though Marsh insists Sara Kingdom was NOT a Companion, I believe she was, but that debate is for another time).  The humanity behind the toughness of Sara came through, and the fact that she was in only ONE story but still leaves an emotional impact is testament to both Marsh as an actress and Kingdom as a character.

There are within the three episodes a few flaws.  I am not fond of invisible monsters (it screams 'cheap' and 'unbelievable'), and the wigs of the Egyptians in Episode 10 were comical (looking like they had wandered from a Beatles look-alike contest).  As a whole, twelve episodes was probably far too long (and having read the synopsis of Episode Seven: The Feast of Steven, at least one episode was totally irrelevant to the story). 

Even with the missing episodes, The Daleks' Master Plan is still a remarkably strong story that is worth restoring, with great performances by Courtney, Stoney, and especially Jean Marsh.  The Master Plan may have failed, but we treasure what remains.

Now for some housekeeping.  Story 022: The Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Eve (or just The Massacre) has no known surviving episodes, clips, or even off-air recordings.  However, it is important because the next Companion, Dodo Chaplet (Jackie Lane), makes her debut in the story, and she will make her first full-story appearance in the next surviving story, Story 023: The Ark. 

7/10

Next Story: The Ark

* Here we have a curious issue among Whovians.  There is debate as to whether or not the season-long Trial of A Time Lord counts as ONE story or as FOUR.  Those who count it as 1 story will point out that at fourteen episodes it's longer than The Daleks' Master Plan.  Those who count it as 4 will argue that it can't possible be the longest.  Now, an argument can be made both ways. 

The pro-Trial group states that the story had ONE title with Episodes 1-14.  The anti-Trial group will point out that The Daleks' Master Plan had TWELVE titles but is really ONE story.  In this debate, I fall squarely on the anti-Trial side. 

With Doctor Who, titles border on the irrelevant because there has never been any consistency.  In the First Doctor's era, each episode had an individual title but was tied into one particular story until the now-lost story The Savages, which began the tradition of having each story carry an overall title and each episode being Part One, Part Two, etc. The revived series has gone BACK (to my mind bizarrely) to the First Doctor's title methods: the three episodes Utopia, The Sound of Drums, and Last of the Time Lords make up ONE story but (Russell T Davies notwithstanding), I never hear people argue they are THREE stories. (Side note: MY overarching title for these three episodes is Vengeance of The Master, since one of most iconic villains has never had the privilege of having his name on a title.  The Daleks have, the Cybermen have, the Sontarans have, even the Rani has, but the poor Master has never had any story called Blank of The Master or The Master's Blank...until now).  That being said, I believe The Daleks' Master Plan still remains the longest Doctor Who story filmed, but since it is incomplete, the longest complete Doctor Who story is at the moment the ten-episode Second Doctor story The War Games. 

Daddy Dearest

STORY 167: FATHER'S DAY

Father's Day had some of that 'the 80s were a funny decade' business (those clothes!  that hair!  that terrible Thatcher!), but nostalgia tends to bring a bit of mockery.   What Father's Day has at its core is an extremely gentle and heartbreaking story that puts the Companion as the focus of the story, and which makes her one of us in a way that few Companions ever have been so relateable. 

Rose Tyler (Billie Piper) never got to know her father.  Peter Tyler (Shawn Dingwall) died in a hit-and-run accident when she was a baby.  Her mother Jackie (Camille Corduri) waxes rhapsodic about what a great man Pete was to her daughter.  Jackie tells her that when he died, they never found the driver and that he died alone;  now Rose has asked The Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) if she can see him on the day he died, so that he would not die alone.  The Doctor, albeit reluctantly, agrees. 

They go to November 7, 1987, and Rose sees her father run over while getting out of his car on his way to a wedding.  She is too torn to go to Pete, and asks to try again.  The Doctor gives in but warns her of the dangers of having an earlier version of themselves at the same place.  This time, as the car comes towards her father, her impulse takes over and she rushes to pull Pete out of the way. The Doctor is furious at her interference with a point in history, they fight, and he walks out on her.  Pete, thinking the Doctor is her boyfriend, tells her not to worry, and Rose tells him she is also going to the same wedding.  When the Doctor gets to the TARDIS, he discovers to his horror that it is only an empty box.

When Pete and Rose get to the church, Jackie is extremely unhappy.  She thinks Rose is a girl Pete is having an affair with (something he may have done before, though he protests his innocence about when he was found underneath a pile of coats with a hatcheck girl).  In the meantime, strange creatures are taking people out by devouring them.  A child runs toward the church, screaming about monsters, and soon, everyone in the wedding party sees said monsters.  The Doctor, having rushed to the church, tells everyone to get inside to take shelter within the old building.

Soon, the Doctor tells everyone what is going on.  There has been a wound in time (though he doesn't tell them it's because Pete did  not die as he was suppose to).  Now these creatures are taking advantage of the wound by removing every living thing in sight: the younger the more vulnerable.  Rose realizes that by saving her father she has brought these monsters, and soon, Pete realizes the girl who saved him (and at one point called him "Dad" is the infant Rose all grown up).  The Doctor comes up with a plan to save them, and thanks to the fact that the TARDIS itself was thrown out of the time wound, it still exists and can be brought back. 

Jackie is still suspicious of this pretty young thing Pete has been talking to, and refuses to believe his story that it's their own daughter.  In the midsts of their fight, Jackie hands baby Rose over to adult Rose, inadvertedly does the one thing Rose was told not to do: touch the infant version of herself.  When she does so, the creature manages to enter the church and devours the Doctor as well as the TARDIS.  Pete has been observing that a car has been circling the church, disappearing and appearing at intervals.  Pete realizes that with the Doctor gone, the only thing left to do is to make history take its proper course by putting himself in front of the car and allowing himself to die as he was suppose to do.  Rose is torn at having to lose her father again, but Pete tells her that the few hours he had that he didn't before have allowed him to know the daughter he would never see grown.  Pete rushes outside, avoids the creatures and is run over.

The story concludes with Jackie telling the young Rose the story of how her father died...but with a few differences.  Now, the young man who accidently ran over Pete stayed.  It was not his fault since Pete had just darted out in front of him before he had a chance to stop.  More importantly, a young woman had stayed with Pete in his last few moments and then left, with no one knew who she was.

Paul Cornell's script for Father's Day is one where the science-fiction is secondary to the human story within it.  The story is centered around not an external alien threat or even around the Reapers (the name given to the monsters thought I don't think they were ever referred to as that on-air).  Instead, it deals with a far more complex situation: the human desire to change history for the better (at least to the one doing the changing) and the impulse to save a loved one, to have them stay longer.  This wish to have more time with those who are no longer with us is a universal one, and that central point is what makes Father's Day an extremely personal story that touches the emotions.   Having gotten to know Rose, we know that her father's absence left a great hole in her heart.  Now, in a moment of impulse, she does what as an infant she could never have done: saved her father's life and more importantly, gotten to know him.

Of course, Father's Day adds some humor by showing that things between Pete and Jackie were not how The Widow Tyler presented them to her daughter.  If truth be told, I think all of us suspect that the stories our parents told about each other and themselves had a bit of shading.  For those who have children, the stories told might be exagerrated to make the parents look better or smarter.  This isn't always the case, but especially for those who have no memories of parents who are gone, presenting the dead in a more positive light appears to be better: to show the missing parent as good is a very human thing to do.  It may also be that the stories Jackie told the young Rose about Peter may have been how she wanted him to be remembered. It should be noted that, despite having a husband who may have cheated on her and who was failing in all his financial ventures, Jackie never remarried and always stayed true to Pete's memory.  In short, Father's Day is the cry of the heart of the Tyler women: for Jackie, a chance to keep Pete alive and realize that she did truly love him (warts and all), and for Rose, a chance to bond with a man who was always a shadow in her life.

These are the moments that make Father's Day so brilliant.  Piper is given an opportunity to be the center of the story, and moreover, a wonderful chance to actually act.  She communicates the conflicts within this simple girl: love for her absent father, confusion as to how the reality of her parent's situation was different to how it was presented, and finally acceptance that she had to let go of her own desires for the complete unit.  Her joy at finally getting to know her father, and then her heartbreak at having to lose him, is done so beautifully that the scenes between Piper and Dingwall are truly some of the best in Doctor Who.

Dingwall and Coduri are also wonderful as the troubled Tylers, people who have genuine flaws but who at heart love each other and especially their daughter.  Coduri maintains Jackie's combative nature but as in previous episodes never makes her a harpy or shrew.  She's just a woman who doesn't suffer fools gladly, and that includes her husband's philandering.  The credit should go to Joe Ahearne's sharp direction of people.  He brings all the conflicting human emotions and draws wonderful performances from Piper, Dingwall, and Coduri.

Ahearne also manages to keep the story going smoothly.  Never in Father's Day does anything seem to drag or conversely appear rushed, and it's a credit to him as a director that he kept a steady pace throughout the story. 

It's a curious thing that Eccleston for once is the secondary character.  Granted, he's the one looked at to sort the dangerous situation out, but again, the Doctor isn't the one who can ultimately fix this.  He's got hints of the manic Doctor, but he can rage like the best of them.

Another curiosity in Father's Day is, oddly, how uninteresting the danger from the Reapers was.  Truth be told, I wasn't interested in how these creatures were devouring people in some effort to heal this wound in time.  It's a rare Doctor Who where the alien aspects of the story are not the things that keep me riveted.  In this case, it was the intereaction between Rose and Pete that was teh far more interesting thing.  The Reapers as monsters weren't terryfing or interesting, but in this case I think it was because we needed some consequence of what could happen when history is altered, even ever so slightly.  It appears that by saving Pete Tyler, history is getting jumbled (Alexander Graham Bell's first message keeps getting crossed over into the wedding party's cell phones--curious that they had cell phones in the late 80s). 

Also, I didn't quite believe the idea that the TARDIS got thrown out of the time wound and how the Doctor was going to fix things.  In this case, I hold that the emotional story was more important than the scientific one.  Therefore, one won't be too harsh on it. 

Father's Day really is about accepting death, of knowing that we all have to let go of those we can't hold anymore, and of sacrifice.  It's a remarkably human story that would easily fit outside the realms of Doctor Who, which is what makes it so brilliant.  I'll grant that the Reapers aren't interesting, and in an odd way seeing the Doctor himself devoured by the Reapers wasn't as shocking as one thinks it should have been (seeing the TARDIS be empty was more shocking).  Still, on the whole Father's Day is a simply tender and beautiful and sad story, one that is deeper than most stories have been.  This is because it reaches you at the emotional level, not with supernatural threats but with ordinary human flaws and emotions. 

Father's Day allows us to get to know Rose far more than we have: both her heart and how she may think she's doing good when she really isn't.  We get to see what she is willing to do for Pete's sake...

10/10

Next Story: THE EMPTY CHILD (The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances)

Sarah Jane, Standing Great And Tall

ELISABETH SLADEN

1946-2011

Cancer did what the Sontarans, Cybermen and Daleks could never do: take our beloved Sarah Jane.  Less than a couple of months after the death of The Brigadier (Nicholas Courtney) comes the news of the death of Elisabeth Sladen, better known to Doctor Who fans as Companion Sarah Jane Smith.  It's even more shocking when you consider that at 65 she was still rather young, which makes the news all the more sad.  Sladen and Sarah Jane had some firsts and onlys:

• She was the first Companion to ever be in a Doctor Who spin-off (K-9 and Company)
• She was the first and only Companion to have more than one spin-off built around her (the aforementioned K-9 & Company and The Sarah Jane Adventures)
• She was the first and (at the time of her death) only Companion from the classic series to guest star in the revived series
• She was the only Companion to have had The Doctor guest star on HER program 

It's interesting that Sladen's tenure as Sarah Jane Smith was actually longer than some of the Doctors.  Starting in 1973 in The Time Warrior with Third Doctor Jon Pertwee, she stayed on through the end of his time and went on to work with Tom Baker's Fourth Doctor, leaving in 1976 at the end of The Hand of Fear.  In an interesting bit of history, Sladen has the honor of being the Companion to have worked with the most Doctors as a Companion from both the classic and revived series: a total of Four Doctors (Pertwee, Baker, David Tennant, and Matt Smith), that is if you don't count her appearance in The Five Doctors, which would bump her Doctor Count to seven.  (Side note: in The Five Doctors, how could you NOT have had an anniversary special without Sarah Jane Smith?  Sadly, she will not be here for the 50th Anniversary in 2013.  Breaks my heart). 

As stated, Sladen is the only (so far) Companion to have returned to Doctor Who itself after the show's revival.  It would make sense since her job as an investigative journalist would put her in a position to uncover secrets.  In fact, her character Sarah Jane Smith was something quite different when she came on the scene.  The intent was to make this Companion stronger, less of a screamer.  Sarah Jane is very open about being a feminist, a person who won't stand by helplessly as previous Companions might have.  In The Time Warrior, if memory serves correct, she seems rather appalled at how the characters, particularly the women, appear to not take stands against the Sontarans.  Sarah Jane was different than previous Companions in that she wasn't going to be patronized by The Doctor.  The fact that he was a male was not a reason to be talked down to or put aside 'for her own protection'.  In later years Sladen may have thought her character was very 'cardboard', but I never got that impression when she was performing.  I got Sarah Jane's intelligence, strength, and warmth both in the classic and revived series, and it's a credit to her acting ability that those qualities came through even when the scripts didn't quite measure up or when she was placed in ridiculous situations (prime example, her 'rescue' from a gentle slope as writer Terrance Dicks put it in The Five Doctors--not to mention her terrible costume in the same episode). 

In a Doctor Who Magazine poll in 2009, Sarah Jane Smith was voted Favourite Companion, and it is an interesting result given how vast the history of the show is.  She was the clear winner with 22.51%, putting her 7% higher than the second choice (Donna Noble, Companion to the Tenth Doctor--I personally feel that Catherine Tate's second-place win was due more to the fact that she was THE Companion at the time of the polling than to her overall effectiveness as a Companion, so she may have been better remembered, but I digress).   It wasn't as if she didn't have some stiff competition: some of the Doctor's Companions have been simply wonderful: from Jamie McCrimmon to Jo Grant to Leela and both Romanas right down to Ace and Rose Tyler, there have been some truly brilliant characters that were not alien.

Still, why was it that Sarah Jane Smith, a character that had not appeared on Doctor Who since 1976 (barring The Five Doctors and Dimensions in Time) and that many of the revived Doctor Who viewers were not even alive to have seen her on the show, ended up the winner?  I think that it was because Sarah Jane Smith was a perfect combination of strength and vulnerability.  She was tough, she was fearless, but she also knew the dangers involved.  Someone like Jamie or Leela would go rushing into a fight, while other Companions like Susan Foreman or Peri would be more wary.  Sarah Jane could do it, and do it well, but she wasn't belligerent.  Sarah Jane knew enough to understand fighting was necessary, but that there was a cost to it.

Also, there was something likeable about Sarah Jane Smith and Elisabeth Sladen.  I'll say it if no one else will: she was pretty, and she had a genuine sweetness to her.  However, there was more: we saw a caring nature to Sarah Jane, both for The Doctor and her own adopted family on The Sarah Jane Adventures.   The genuine affection she had came through, and I think that was the case not just for Sarah Jane Smith but for Elisabeth Sladen.  There didn't seem to be a drop of maliciousness in her.  She seems a likeable person, witty, pretty, and highly intelligent.   

It is difficult to identify with some Companions: the aristocratic Romana or the aggressive Leela or the Queen of Scream Mel Bush for example.  There was never that problem with Sarah Jane; she was someone we could relate to: a mix of fighter and mother (she did adopt Luke in The Sarah Jane Adventures), a person whom you could rely to protect you and fight alongside you.  In short, we LIKED Sarah Jane: we liked her when she was putting up with The Doctor, we liked her when she mocked The Doctor (as she did when sharing stories with Rose Tyler in School Reunion).  It's that likeability (both of Sarah Jane and Elisabeth Sladen) that made her such a hit with fans. 

I figure The Sarah Jane Adventures, as well as Sarah Jane's Alien Files, will come to an end if they hadn't already.  That's the technical aspects of Sladen's death.  The emotional one is more daunting: a woman who appeared pleasant and warm, joyful and brave, one who didn't shrink from a fight--it could describe both character and actress.  It pains Doctor Who fans to know that she is gone, and it is one of those curious notes of history that both The Brigadier and Sarah Jane Smith (two of the most iconic humans in the Doctor Who canon) both left us within such a short span of time. 

 

I freely admit that when I heard the news, I was overwhelmed and did what I don't remember doing for any actor: I cried when I heard that Elisabeth Sladen died.  I cried deep tears of sorrow, and felt so sad that I had to go into the bathroom to collect myself. 

The Eye of Harmony, having been dimmed for The Brigadier, now dims in tribute to Elisabeth Sladen.  Fare thee well, Our Sarah Jane Smith. 



The Reasons We Love The Smiths.

IN MEMORIAM

Doctor Who Story 016: The Chase

STORY 016: THE CHASE

Daleks Experiencing Mechanoid Issues...

We see now that the Daleks are somehow indestructible. Having already had two adventures with them (The Daleks and The Dalek Invasion of Earth) we now get two types of stories for the price of one: a historic piece and a science-fiction story collectively called The Chase. Whether it's a good or bad thing to have such a long story in The Chase depends on your tolerance. Over the course of six episodes (The Executioners, The Death of Time, Flight Through Eternity, Journey Into Terror, The Death of Doctor Who*, and Planet of Decision), we see both the good and bad of the Daleks, both as villains and as comic pieces.

The Doctor (William Hartnell), and his companions Ian Chesterton (William Russell), Barbara Wright (Jacqueline Hill), and Vicki (Maureen O'Sullivan) have just left the Space Museum.  Unbeknown to them, the Daleks have been tracking their movements, and are now in pursuit of the travellers.   They land on the planet Aridus.  While the Doctor and Barbara are content to stay and get some sun (courtesy of the dual suns in the sky--pre Tattoine), Vicki goes exploring with Ian guarding her.  The Doctor and Barbara soon discover, thanks to the Time & Space Visualizer that the Daleks are after them.   While Vicki and Ian attempt to escape from the Mire Beasts which have taken over this once-watery world, The Doctor and Babs get help from the Aridians, fish-like people who are barely surviving in this now-desert world.  The Daleks attempt to take the TARDIS but cannot, and then try to take the Travellers.  However, they manage to escape Aridus and fly off, with the Daleks in furious pursuit.

Now it becomes a chase.  They first arrive at the Empire State Building in 1966 New York, much to the befuddlement of Alabama native Morton Dill (Peter Purves), with the Daleks coming soon after.  Next, they give them the slip aboard a sailing ship, and when the Daleks arrive there, the crew flees in terror...off the Mary Celeste.  Next, they arrive at what the Doctor calls a world of dreams, filled with the Frankenstein monster and Dracula, and at first we think the Daleks will be overcome, but in the confusion Vicki becomes separated from the others.  With no way of going back for her, it's decided that the Travellers will make a stand.  Vicki, however, discovers the Daleks have made a robot Doctor, with the intent to infiltrate and kill.

They arrive on Mechanus, a planet filled with large fungi.  Vicki and the others are reunited, and the False Doctor is destroyed, but they are not out of the woods yet.  Trapped in a cave, they find rescue with a Mechanoid, a gigantic round machine.  At first, it is believed they are saved, but they discover that they are now prisoners of the Mechanoids, as is astronaut Steven Taylor (Peter Purves...again).  It is decided to make an escape while the Daleks and Mechanoids are battling it out.  They destroy each other, and the travellers believe Steven has been killed when he went back to get Hi-Fi, his teddy bear (in reality, he had survived and was last seeing fleeing into the forest with his bear in his hands).  Barbara and Ian realize that the Dalek time machine could take them back to their own time, and after a furious argument with the Doctor he reluctantly agrees to show them how to operate it.  The Coal Hill teachers safely arrive in 1965 London, delighted to be back home.  The Doctor and Vicki see them on the Time & Space Visualizer, and while he is happy, he is also sad. 

As a whole, The Chase holds up remarkably well, especially for such a long story.  Terry Nation wrote some wonderful moments of adventure and even comedy.  For example, in Episode One the Doctor is singing when Barbara hears something off.  "What is that awful noise?" she asks.  The Doctor is insulted, telling her that's no way to refer to his singing.  "No, not THAT awful noise," she replies perfectly straight.  Most of the time in New York with the country bumpkin Dill was just for comedy.  We even have comedy from the Daleks...one Dalek stutters (The Dalek's Speech, anyone), and in Episode Two when a Dalek is told to get backup and he doesn't move, Dalek One turns back and tells him, "Well, get to it". 

Maybe it was a way to lighten the Daleks up, and in retrospect, given how evil they were to become, these funny bits come off as a bit peculiar.  It isn't so much that they end up looking like a joke, but it doesn't really flow naturally from the story or from the limited Dalek mythos already established from earlier stories.  I think that in retrospect, where the comedy comes into The Chase, the story actually suffers.  The arrival of the travellers and the Daleks at the Empire State building feels as if the story is being stretched out.

In fact, part of the problem within The Chase is that, like most long stories, it feels rather stretched out.  Looking at it now, I can't help think that Episodes Three, Four, and Five could have been either collapsed into one episode or cut altogether.  This is especially true in Episode Four, especially when we are given the resolution of how the Frankenstein monster and Dracula and a banshee are all appearing out of nowhere.  When we discover the real reason, it is an eye-rolling moment. 

In short, Episode Four is not merely the weakest of the six-part story, but also the most patently idiotic.  Terry Nation's script for this episode had great promise: what if they had somehow truly ended up within a world of dreams?  Think of the possibilities, of how real people (and Daleks) could enter and escape a world of unreality.  Instead, we are given the BBC version of The Haunted Mansion, and it's such a blatant disappointment.

Now, there are also a couple of other problems within The Chase.  Chief among them, the Mechanoids themselves.  For those who think the Daleks are pretty useless monsters, what with their inability to go up the stairs, well, get a load of the Mechanoids (perhaps we should call them Make-A-Noise or Make-Annoys).  This rotund robots with thin pincers for arms appear even less mobile than Daleks, and while the battle between the Mechanoids and the Daleks is shot beautifully, as full-formed monsters they fall flat. 

Another problem is with the False Doctor (which to my mind is reminiscent of the False Maria from Metropolis).  Even from the wide shot it is obvious that the False Doctor looks nothing like William Hartnell, and having the real Doctor give the chilling last line in Episode Four fails to mask the technical aspects.  On the contrary, they only serve to enhance them.  Granted, given the limitations of technology at the time, one extends a bit of generosity to them and appreciates that they tried the best they could. 

Of course, one can't throw out the baby with the bathwater, and The Chase has some wonderful moments.  The rising of the Dalek at the end of Episode One (while reminiscent of The Dalek Invasion of Earth) is still shot beautifully by director Richard Martin.  The scenes aboard the Mary Celeste are also filmed quite well and do give as probable a solution to the mystery as any other.  The early scenes in Episode One, where they see the Gettysburg Address and Shakespeare summoned to an audience with Queen Elizabeth I are extremely clever and well-filmed (although if one looks carefully, Pennsylvania has a rather desert look...not unlike Arius, but again, a minor glitch).  Side note: sadly, The Beatles' performance of Ticket to Ride, which is the 'classical music' Vicki requested to see in the Time & Space Visualiser, could not be included in the DVD release of The Chase, and more bizarrely, it is the ONLY surviving footage of the Beatles performance of the song for the BBC's Top of the Pops.  The Beatles had wanted to make a cameo appearance as older versions of themselves but the idea was vetoed by their manager Brian Epstein. Of course, no one in 1966 could have contemplated the fate of John Lennon. 

There are wonderful performances all around.  Purves has to be singled out.  First, he had to play TWO characters (the Alabama hick and the British astronaut), and he had to do one of them with a foreign accent.  Second, he has to make it believable that a sensible astronaut would go back for a teddy bear (!).  Granted, when we last see him, he looks slightly crazed and appears to be chastising the bear...which comes off unintentionally comedic, but that's a minor point.  Side note: I figure it's a curiosity that the bear is named Hi-Fi--if The Chase had been made today, he would have probably be named Wi-Fi, but I digress.   His dual performances rightly earn praise--both as the innocent and naive hillbilly and the brooding and intense (albeit a bit daft) space traveller.  Purves had to be comedic and dramatic, and that he handled both well is a sign of why he was brought back.  (Of course, it's curious that the travellers never question why Steven Taylor looks a lot like Morton Dill...).  O'Sullivan's Vicki maintains a balance between the youthful enthusiasm for adventure and fear of a young girl.  Her best moment is in Episode Six, where she calmly tells the furious Doctor that in the end, the decision to stay or go is not his to make. 

It is in the last episode that the original crew's performances really rise to new levels.  Both Hill and Russell in Episode Six capture the need for stability and the desire to go home with the tinge of regret for leaving.  They communicate that they are not so much tired of the adventures but desire to be back in their own time, in their own world.  Hartnell is also wonderful: when he's railing against their idea it doesn't appear so much a fear that using the Dalek's machine will kill them, but that he is personally wounded by their desire to leave HIM.  It doesn't come off as egocentric because at the end, we see in his face a genuine sorrow to see them leave...happy they made it safe, but sadness that they will no longer be with him.  It is curious that Hartnell is best when he plays the Doctor not as a daring adventurer but as a caring, grandfather-type figure.  However cantankerous he may have been (especially with O'Sullivan) the best acting scenes are always whenever the Doctor shows his tender side with Vicki and previously Susan. 

The technical aspects have some excellent work too.  Raymond Cusick and John Woods' set designs cover a vast spectrum, from the deserts and underworld city of Aridus and the Mary Celeste to the organic architecture of Mechanus.  Daphne Dare's costumes, especially for the Aridians, are beautiful.  I would question Dudley Simpson's score, which struck me as rather jazzy for the story.  A Gershwin-type score works when they arrive in New York, but the music was curiously upbeat for a story like The Chase. 

The Chase is, unfortunately, a bit too long for the story it told.  The midsection of the story falters and appears to stretch the story (both the Empire State Building scene and almost all of Episode Four especially so).  The comedy with the Daleks doesn't work (and in retrospect, is bizarre), and one almost has to resist the temptation to laugh at the Aridians (beautiful-looking costumes can't hide acting that draws from the Menoptra in The Web Planet).  Still, the story is lifted by some wonderful acting, especially the final part of the story between Barbara, Ian, the Doctor, and Vicki, as well as both Barbara and Ian/the Doctor and Vicki. 

Adieu, Miss Wright and Mr. Chesterton...

6/10

Next Story: The Time Meddler

*Episode Five of The Chase, The Death of Doctor Who, is one of only two times the actual term Doctor Who is used in a title.  The only other time I can think of is the Jon Pertwee story Doctor Who & The Silurians, which might have actually been a mistake.  In fact, overall, again with few exceptions, the Doctor himself is never referred to or refers to himself as Doctor Who, so this is a curious bit of trivia.

Editor's Note

STORY 166: THE LONG GAME

It seems a most curious thing to my mind, that Russell T Davies, a man who has made his fame and fortune on television, should turn around and be highly critical of the power and influence television has on the masses. Perhaps, to use a Vulcan expression, only Nixon can go to China. It is good for us to examine what a force the telly has on our lives. Given that, The Long Game could have been a sharp critique of the industry. However, Davies appears to be unable to control himself in introducing certain running motifs in his Doctor Who scripts, one that push this story down.
The Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) along with his regular Companion, Rose Tyler (Billie Piper) and newbie Adam Mitchell (Bruno Langley) arrive on Satellite Five in the year 200,000 (why a Conan O'Brien skit comes to mind, I don't know) during the Fourth Great & Bountiful Human Empire. The station broadcasts all the news there is to the galaxies in the great beyond (talk about Sky Television--perhaps a sly jab from the BBC?) and while Rose and Adam marvel at it all, the Doctor senses something is wrong. The heat on Satellite Five, the lack of non-humans, there is something off.

Aboard Satellite Five is Cathica (Christine Adams) and Suki (Anna Maxwell-Martin), journalists aboard the station who mistake the trio for Senior Management. Deciding to show them just how good they are at their jobs, Cathica locks her mind into the master computer while a group of men, women, multisexuals, undecideds, and robots use the chips in their own minds to show how they can link up and get information into Cathica's mind. Observing all this is The Editor (Simon Pegg) who suspects something is amiss...but it isn't the three new people. Instead, he zeroes in on Suki, who gets "Promoted" to Floor 500, much to Cathica's irritation. When Suki goes up to Floor 500, she does not find walls of gold but a frozen level. Coming upon the Editor, she is unmasked as the last of the Freedom Fifteen, which I figure is trying to bring down Satellite Five. Suki attempts to kill the Editor, but the Editor-In-Chief takes care of her.

Adam goes off on his own, allegedly to recover from the shock of seeing the future, but really to get at future information so as to profit for when he gets back to his own time (apparently like in Back to the Future II). He goes and has the chip (along with the outlet to connect into the mainframe) inserted into his own brain so as to get all the information he wishes. Cathica now sees that something is off with The Doctor and Rose, and so does the Editor. The latter two go up to Floor 500 and discover who the Editor-In-Chief is. Unbeknownst to them, Cathica secretly follows them to Floor 500; meanwhile, Adam is starting to get all the information he desires, calling his parents via Rose's supercell phone and leaving a message on their answering machine.

We discover that The Doctor's suspicions are correct: Satellite Five has been controlling the information given to the Fourth Great & Bountiful Human Empire, manipulating the news to keep the humans in check. This is done at the bidding of the...get ready for it...The Mighty Jagrafess of the Holy Hadrojassic Maxarodenfoe (Max for short), a giant monster who emits so much heat that he has to be kept in a cold environment (hence, the heat in all the lower floors). The Doctor sees Cathica, and subtly gives her clues to help them, while he and Rose see to their horror that Adam, instead of receiving information from Satellite Five, is giving information to the Editor and Editor-in-Chief (aka Max). Cathica locks into the system, bringing the information she has about Satellite Five to the universe. This allows the three travellers to escape and raise the temperature of the Satellite. The Editor attempts to escape, but Suki (who I should point out is technically dead but whose chip is still being used to get information) grabs his leg and forces him to remain underneath the collapsing Max.

The Doctor, furious with Adam's duplicity, takes him to his parent's home, destroys the answering machine, and exiles him from the TARDIS. Unfortunately for Adam, he still has this outlet inside of his head, which can be opened by the mere snapping of fingers. The Doctor and Rose leave him there, just as his mom is coming back from apparently a shopping trip. She is thrilled to see her son back, and comments how long it's been: six months, which flash by like that...

It may be just my imagination since I've no way of reading Davies' mind (I have no outlet to connect my brain to), but I sense a certain series of motifs and themes running in anything he writes for Doctor Who. There is a penchant for strange and excessively long names (the Moxx of Balhoon from The End of the World, the planet Raxacoricofallapatorious from Aliens of London Parts I & II, now the Mighty....). There is the motive for all the mayhem: whenever evil is done, be sure Money (and by extension, the evil of profits) is involved (making money off the deaths or enslavement of beings being the motives in The End of the World, Aliens of London Parts I & II, and now The Long Game, since the Editor represents in his own words, "a consortium of banks"). I think I see yet a third motif within Davies' scripts: namely, his utter hatred and fury about the Iraq Intervention. This one I'll grant is the one I have the least evidence for and is purely speculation, but think a moment. Aliens of London Parts I & II was in subtext about how the government (in this case the more evil than Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, those bloodthirsty tyrants George W. Bush and his poodle Tony Blair) lied to the public in order to enter into an illegal and immoral war against a thoroughly benevolent foreign government that loved its people. While it is only speculation, The Long Game may be Davies' response to how the press also lied to the public, manipulating the news to keep the people docile.

I don't think it's so far out of the realm of possibility to speculate that this is a subtext of The Long Game.

No one will stop you because you've bred a human race which doesn't ask questions...believing every lie

The Doctor shouts at the Editor and Editor-in-Chief. Davies is a smart man, so would it really be a far-out idea that he would include his private views on the press' complicity in the Mass Deception around the Iraq Intervention?

I think it is possible that I'm reading far too much into the story, so I digress. The Long Game, as I've stated, could have been a far richer story, not necessarily about the manipulation of the press on an unsuspecting public, but on how we instinctively trust what we see and what we're told. One only needs to look at the quiz show scandals of the 1950s to see the public can be hoodwinked by this medium called television. The Long Game could have tackled how the search for truth and knowledge can have a high cost and what power those who control the information have, whether it's the BBC or MSNBC or FOX News or the New York Times. However, this theme was done in by other outside factors.

For example, it is hard to take any monster seriously when you give him such a silly, almost unpronounceable name (apparently, guest star Pegg had such a hard time with the name that Max's roar had to cover up part of the line so as to not show how hard it was to actually say). Second, director Brian Grant used the trick of seeing things from the monsters point of view until near the end (which perhaps may have been unavoidable), but once we see the actual brains behind the operation, it is such a disappointment. The Editor-in-Chief is really just a giant slug. When he meets his fiery end, all that crossed my mind was, "I'm melting, MELTING!"

Second, we have the character of Suki to consider. She was fine until we discover she's really not this sweet and bumbling girl, but a fierce revolutionary. It isn't so much this twist that causes problems in The Long Game, it's the fact that if you take it at face value she certainly isn't a smart revolutionary. If this had been a story from the classic era, over two or three episodes we could have been given a hint of her true identity, but because it's only a forty-odd minute show, she just is...and in an ironic twist on a story about accepting everything we're given, we HAVE to accept that she is a revolutionary, who apparently never thought that once on Floor 500 she would have to face the actual source of the evil she was fighting against.

As a sublet to Suki's problem, it strikes me as a convenient deus ex machina that once we're told she is dead (but the chip inside her is still working), she suddenly comes alive in a roundabout way to stop the Editor from fleeing. How does a corpse (which is what she basically is) know to grab hold of her adversary's leg? It is just a little TOO convenient.

Langley and Adams give good performances, mainly because The Long Game is really about them, not about the Doctor, or Rose, or even the Editor or Editor-in-Chief. Adams' frustration as Cathica is relate-able, for most people feel the irritation of being passed over for promotion they have worked long for. In an odd way, so is Adam's fall into the temptation of profiting from future knowledge. He does falter slightly when he tries to have comedic moments prior to the operation, I think because there appears an attempt to make these moments lighter. They don't work.

Pegg is unrecognizable as the Editor, with great makeup work by Supervisor Davy Jones. He appears to be relishing a chance to be a bit over-the-top, but since the Editor is really just a stooge for a more powerful force, we can accept that. Eccleston and Tyler, unfortunately, don't seem to be a major part of The Long Game. In fact, it's Cathica, not the Doctor, who saves the day in the end.

As for kicking Adam out of the TARDIS, I don't see this as controversial in any way. Rather, I see this as the only logical thing to do. Adam has proven himself not just untrustworthy, but downright dangerous. If he were to go on another adventure (say, into the past), what is to stop him from trying to change history and profitting from it? His greed (perhaps not for money, but for inside information) shows him to be a weak man, and a weak man is the last thing the Doctor needs. As a side note, there are a couple of good moments in The Long Game: when the Doctor comments to Rose, "You and your boyfriends" (referring to Adam and Mickey), he shows an unexpected light side that adds a touch of true levity to the story.

I can't get over the feeling that The Long Game was really a lost opportunity; what could have been a sharp commentary on the power of the visual medium are human's reliance and unquestioning acceptance on the news we're given gave way to a second-rate monster and a less-than-thrilling story. Granted, it may tie in to another future story, but the title never really fits into the story itself. We don't have an idea as to what the long game actually is. In the end, The Long Game is not a story that will stop the presses.

4/10

Next Story: Father's Day