Doctor Who Story Number 032: The Underwater Menace

 

STORY 032: 

THE UNDERWATER MENACE

Author's Note: I had previously reviewed The Underwater Menace when only one episode was known to exist. After a second episode was rediscovered in 2011 the story was rereleased with photographic stills filling in the still-missing Episodes 1 and 4. This review will replace the original.

The Underwater Menace is a good idea for a Doctor Who story. We have a new Companion in Highlander Jamie McCrimmon and the rich setting of Atlantis. As such, the question is "What went wrong?" as The Underwater Menace is a muddled slog despite some good efforts.

The Doctor (Patrick Troughton) along with his Companions Ben (Michael Craze), Polly (Anneke Wills) and Jaime (Frazer Hines) find themselves in the city of Atlantis. As the Atlanteans begin preparing to rise from the ocean's depths, there is danger afoot. That danger comes from the crazed mad scientist Zaroff (Joseph First). He has promised to raise the continent to the surface, but to do that he has to destroy the Earth itself.

Polly is forever trying not to be turned into a Fish Person, another product of Zaroff's who serve as de facto slaves. They are needed to harvest the food as Zaroff has never found a proper preservation method, so the Atlanteans food spoils quickly and requires quick harvesting. Jaime and Ben, meanwhile, have to work in the mines but plan to escape along fellow lost travelers Sean (P.G. Stevens) and Jacko (Paul Anil).

It is up to the Doctor and his Companions to stop the crazed Zaroff from destroying the world and Atlantis, with help from Ramo (Tom Watson), a temple priest who believes their story. Will the Doctor manage to save them all?

Given that half of The Underwater Menace is currently lost, perhaps we can cut it some slack. The fact that the BBC as a cost-cutting measure opted to have still pictures versus animated reconstructions also dampen the overall feel of the story. However, the lack of footage (and poor way the BBC went about reconstructing the story) are easy ways to excuse how bad The Underwater Menace ended up being.

At the top of The Underwater Menace's failure is in our villain. Furst's Zaroff does not chew the scenery or even devour the scenery. He demolishes it wholesale in a performance that really fits to the "needs to be seen to be believed" cliche. Coming across like a crazed Paul Lukas his wild overacting is simply astonishing but not in a good way. His intense declaration of "NOTHING IN THE WORLD CAN STOP ME NOW!" at the end of Episode Three is so unhinged as to transcend parody. It's a sad element that this is the last known surviving footage in The Underwater Menace: a crazed, wild-eyed loon screaming at the top of his lungs.

To be fair, that is how Furst played Zaroff from the get-go. Say what you will about his bonkers mad scientist (and no, that isn't a repetition in terms), Furst goes into the role with unhinged abandon. It isn't until Episode Four where he finally sounds slightly less insane. If The Underwater Menace is to be believed, Zaroff was perfectly aware that the Earth's surface was going to be destroyed if he was successful.

He really lived out the REM song It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine). He insists that all scientists really aim to destroy the world, opening up the logic of knowing he was OK was dying to blow it all up. That makes his pleas to be saved at the end of Episode Four all the more bizarre. If he has a death wish that has no explanation other than "because I can", why is he so terrified of dying when the waters come rushing in?

There's a great deal in The Underwater Menace that either does not make sense or just flounders (no pun intended). Exactly how does The Doctor know it is Zaroff that has made the Atlantean food? Where and what work of Zaroff does the Doctor know? Why is he dressed up like a Gypsy in an Atlantean market? How is there an Atlantean market?

Add to that what The Underwater Menace did to poor Polly. Forever screaming, she was nearly turned into a Fish Person, abducted, held prisoner and did some more screaming. I think Wills did the best she could but it must have been rather difficult to be relegated and shunted off in such a fashion.

Again, at least to a degree Polly's shoddy treatment is not writer Geoffrey Orme or director Julia Smith's fault. Hines' character of Jamie was added after The Underwater Menace had already been written, so he was hastily added in. That meant relegating the other Companions a bit to the sidelines. It also meant giving Hines lines that probably would have been spoken by either Wills or Craze. None of the actors are to blame for all this, but the end result is sad and jumbled.

Troughton, for his part, does appear to come into his own even in the gaudy outfits. He becomes a mix of wizard and schemer, attempting to stop a crazed man while bringing a touch of lightness to things. In Episode Four he says, "I have a plan. It might even work," making the line simultaneously amusing and serious. Troughton does well in this story, balancing the serious and silly very well.

However, he too could not save a script that had so many wheels spinning. The subplot about the Fish People, the miners and the worshipers of the Atlantean god Almo came and went. Important characters like Atlantean maiden Ara (Catherine Howe) came and went to where you forgot about them until they reappeared.

It is curious that despite seeing the wires the Fish People sequence is still on the whole fascinating. I give credit to The Underwater Menace for trying for something unique and visually arresting. The sets, especially at Almo's Temple are also quite impressive even if they reminded me of the First Doctor story The Aztecs.

Ultimately though, silly costumes and especially the theatrical acting push The Underwater Menace down. A lot of potential was lost along with Episodes One and Four. The Underwater Menace is a story that simply did not rise above its negatives. 

3/10

Next Story: The Moonbase

Doctor Who Story 034: The Macra Terror

STORY 034: THE MACRA TERROR

As of this writing no complete surviving episodes from the Second Doctor story The Macra Terror are known to exist. As such, we have the animated reconstruction of the four-part Doctor Who story and while it is unlikely that The Macra Terror will ever be found, the animated version does show that at heart, Doctor Who had a very inventive premise. The Macra Terror opted not to stick with a "pure" reconstruction to make it look as it would have when first broadcast, but instead opened it up to a more creative adaptation that elevates it.

The Doctor (Patrick Troughton) and his Companions Polly (Anneke Wills), Ben (Michael Craze) and Jamie (Frazer Hines) arrive in a seemingly happy and content Colony. The workers are not only happy but are encouraged in their happiness by their Controller, whom they see only via large-screen. Underneath this happy land full of content workers who know The Colony is always right, something sinister lies.

One of the formerly content, Medok (Terence Lodge) insists that there is an evil thing controlling all: The Macra, a name that is verboten in The Colony. The Doctor is the only one of the strangers to think Medok is not either insane or dangerous. His digging for the truth uncovers a shocking terror under the literal bowels of this world, but Ben has fallen under the Controller's control and turns informant and traitor.

As the Doctor, Polly and Jamie keep searching for the truth, with only the ruling Pilot (Peter Jeffrey) as a semi-ally, they must both find the truth while stopping the Security Chief Ola (Gertan Klauber) from stopping them. They discover the truth of what lies beneath: the Macra Terror.

As we have no surviving episodes and only a few clips from The Macra Terror, it is hard to say how good or bad the performances are given that we have only their voices. However, judging from the voices I would argue that Wills was the weakest, forever whimpering and screaming. I cannot fault Wills alone in all this given that Ian Stuart Black's script gave her nothing to do but whimper and scream.

Much better were Craze and Hines. Craze unfortunately disappears for long stretches but when he is on screen struggling between his subconsciously-induced loyalty to The Colony and his loyalty to the Doctor and his fellow Companions he makes the most of it. Hines is made the action hero, particularly in Episode Three and Four where he must go in the "forbidden area" to find where the mines go down to. Hines is even allowed a brief moment of humor when he has to break out into an impromptu dance to try and get out of something.

One can question why in such a serious moment we had our Highlander break out into a jig but there it is.

Troughton fully owns the part, for his Doctor is a man full of confidence in his own abilities and not afraid of question authority. Despite being the oldest of the cast his character is closest to the feels of the late 1960's, forever making jokes at the leadership's expense. Whether it's answering Polly's inquiry with "Confusion is best left to the experts" or insisting "Bad laws were made to be broken", his Doctor is a rebel.

As he almost merrily destroys the method the Colony uses to subconsciously control the Colony workers, the Doctor tells everyone within earshot, "Better some damage than the loss of willpower".

The Macra Terror it appears draws heavily from H.G. Wells' The Time Machine and L. Frank Baum's The Wizard of Oz in its story of monstrous creatures secretly controlling a seemingly pleasant and benevolent society. The giant face of the Controller whom we find is really a broken old man terrorized into submission by the Macra can be seen as a "Wizard of Oz" type figure. The underground Macra essentially feeding off the controlled Colonists are similar if not exact to the Morlocks in Wells' story.

However, for my mind, The Macra Terror is closer to allegory, or perhaps this is what I got out of it. The benevolent society where "The Colony" and "The Controller" were never questioned, which were seen as the source of all good, where happy music piped in to cheer the joys of working for The Colony seems to be what a state like North Korea or the then-Soviet Union want/wanted their people to think. Like Communist states, the Colony appeared to be a place of joy and bounty when in reality it was a prison.

Those who spoke the name "Macra" were routinely sent to hospital for "correction" and if that failed, off to the pits. Even after Ben clearly sees the Macra and saves Polly from them, he later insists there was nothing there. This is close to a fascist police state with the veneer of happiness.

Granted, I may be drawing too much from the story, but it's hard not to imagine that The Macra Terror may not at least work as allegory on the evils of a seemingly idyllic but in reality a totalitarian state.

In terms of animation The Macra Terror outdoes the live-action surviving footage. For example, in the few surviving clips, Polly's ankle is what is attacked by the Macra. The chance for animation allows for a greater and more intense sequence where Polly is literally hanging upside down from the Macra's claws, screaming for her life. There are visually impressive feats, such as when we see through a clear chalkboard as the Doctor works out his calculations.

There are probably one or two questions The Macra Terror does not answer. How do these crab-like creatures communicate? How does Ben's mind control ease off so quickly. It almost feels as if the end came about rather quickly. However, all these are minor points.

I found The Macra Terror quite intelligent and well-animated, with an engaging story that works quite well. Some of the acting was not the best but on the whole there isn't much to be crabby about The Macra Terror.

9/10

Next Story: The Faceless Ones

Doctor Who Story 030: The Power of The Daleks

STORY 030: THE POWER OF 

THE DALEKS

The Power of the Daleks is not known to have any existing prints as of this writing, which is a great tragedy as it is the first story of Patrick Troughton's Second Doctor.  This is perhaps one of the most important stories in Doctor Who, as it would allow for that transition between actors that would be later known as 'regeneration'.  Now we have the animated reconstruction of The Power of The Daleks, and we see that it is a brilliant debut story, if perhaps at six episodes, a bit long.

Ben Jackson (Michael Craze) and Polly (Anneke Wills) are shocked to find a strange new man in front of them.  Polly is convinced this new man whom they saw change before their eyes is 'The Doctor', but Ben is not.  The Doctor (Troughton) is acting strangely, wearing funny hats and playing a recorder.  He also insists on going to explore where they've landed, and soon they find themselves thrust into a murder mystery.

The Doctor finds a dead body, whom he finds is 'The Examiner', sent to examine something.  He has no problem removing the dead man's badge, and is soon struck from behind.  Guards pick up Ben and Polly, and the three are taken to meet with Governor Hensell (Peter Bathurst).  The travelers discover they are on Vulcan, probably named for the high amount of high heat activity going on, and everyone on Vulcan is supposed to give the Examiner complete access.

However, one person is not eager for interruptions: Lesterson (Robert James), conducting his very careful experiments.  It isn't long until The Doctor discovers what Lesterson's experiments are for.  It is to revive strange objects he has found in a lost spaceship.

The Doctor introduces Ben and Polly to the Daleks.

The Doctor pleads with everyone on Vulcan to destroy these creatures, but Lesterson is convinced they will help in the mining on Vulcan.  He is especially convinced of that since he 'gave them life' and because the primary Dalek says to them, "I Am Your Servant".

If all that wasn't enough, there is revolution and coups going on around Vulcan.  Deputy Governor Quinn (Nicholas Hawtrey) is suspected of murder and attempted murder, but the travelers don't believe it.  Polly is abducted to try and keep her quiet, and Ben is later taken when Lesterson's assistant Janley (Pamela Ann Davey) is discovered to be majorly involved with the rebels.

The rebels, however, are being manipulated by acting Deputy Governor Bragen (Bernard Archer), who is playing both sides in an effort to take total control of Vulcan.  Lesterson is oblivious to all this, but his focus on reviving the Daleks is causing greater danger.  He agrees to give the Daleks all the materiel they want, ostensibly to help revive them but really to help create more Daleks.

With this new Dalek army arising, they will let the humans fight each other and then take Vulcan, exterminating all the surviving humans foolish enough to think they could either use the Daleks or think they would ally with them.

The Doctor now desperately tries to destroy the Daleks and save his Companions.  He gets help from an unlikely source: Lesterson, who has discovered the Daleks' duplicity which has driven him mad.  Hensell is assassinated by Bragen and the 'revolution' has begun.  Bragen's plan was to use the revolution to seize power, then eliminate the rebels once their usefulness ended.  The Daleks were a last-minute addition to his plan, but the Daleks in turn took the opportunity to play both sides against the other.

The Doctor manages to destroy the Daleks by overloading their power source, with help from Valmar (Richard Kane). a rebel mole who sees how they've all been played.  With the traitors killed and the Daleks apparently exterminated themselves, the Doctor and his Companions leave before they are seen.

There is one Dalek, however, who appears to have survived.

The Power of the Daleks was an incredibly intelligent way to begin the Second Doctor's tenure as it attract viewers to perhaps the show's greatest villains.  Who else but The Doctor could face off against the Daleks, making their first appearance since The Daleks' Master Plan?

The fact that the Daleks appear to recognize the Second Doctor as THE Doctor helps.

The animated reconstruction I think also helps to show how epic this story was.  At the end of Episode Four, where we see the massive number of Daleks appearing and their assembly line-like creation, it is both chilling and a sign of how the production values at the time could be expanded.

In the surviving clips from The Power of the Daleks, we can clearly see that most of 'the Daleks' were really cutouts or toys, but the animation allows for a larger scope.  Even the sight of a Dalek outside its metal casing is still quite effective.

It's a bit hard to judge performances given the circumstances, but the audio suggests that Troughton was indeed a very worthy successor to William Hartnell, whom he was replacing.  He was still sort of feeling his way around the role, his incessant recorder playing and goofy hat sometimes diminishing his stature.  However, he also was very strong and authoritative when he was pursuing his own goals.

Troughton showed the deviousness and intelligence of this apparent clown, such as when he keeps trying to make his glass of water 'ring' while locked up.  This is driving his next-cellmate Quinn crazy, but it is clear why the Doctor is doing it: he realizes the locks are triggered by a specific decibel, and the water is his way of trying to find the exact level to free themselves.


Craze and Wills had a slightly harder time, as they as the audience identification had to work to make their shock and eventual acceptance of this new figure as The Doctor as smooth as possible.  David Whitaker's script was wise in having them essentially play two sides of this debate.  Polly is more readily accepting that this new man is The Doctor, while Ben holds out for a longer period of time.

I do think that it was a mistake to have Troughton's Doctor refer to himself in the third person.  In the beginning, he says things like 'where does The Doctor keep his diary?' and things like that where he says 'The Doctor' rather than "I".  Eventually this was dropped and perhaps it was to make this all more mysterious but it made things a bit bumpy in accepting him when he didn't appear to accept himself.

Moreover, there was never a definitive moment when the Doctor just said "I Am The Doctor", and I think perhaps we could have had a scene where the Companion's doubts, especially Ben's, were addressed.  Granted, all this was new in 1966, so we do cut them some slack.

The other performances were quite good.  Of particular note is James as Lesterson, who goes from crazy about the Daleks to just plain crazy.  His shift from seeing himself as the 'resurrector' of the Daleks to seeing them as the new order that would wipe out the humans is in turns frightening and sad.  Archer's power-mad Bragin is also quite strong, a man who is unmasked as evil.

Hawtrey's Quinn may have been a bit more noble than I would have liked, but it is still a good performance, as was Davy's Janley.  Maybe it's a sign of the times, but I would have cast Davy as maybe Lesterson or Bragin, to see what a woman could do with a role that wasn't an 'assistant'.

Whitaker's script also did something that might not have been intentional.  The Daleks are a variation on Nazi ideology: their will to power, their plans for 'extermination' and belief in their total superiority and the destruction of their 'inferiors'.  What was new here is that Bragin and his troops had on very fascist-looking uniforms.  I don't know if they meant to echo collaborators who surrender to the Nazi/Daleks, but it was a smart move.

As for the animation itself, it mostly worked.  Whenever they were animating non-humans, it was astonishing and beautiful.

I should note I saw the black-and-white version, not color.

As stated, the sight of the Daleks, or when we see shadows and the various rooms, is so well-rendered.  The transitions from the Dalek eye to a round window in Episode Four is also extremely effective.

It is when we see the humans that we see the work is almost ghastly.  Of particular note is the animation for Michael Craze's Ben.  His chin is massive and it looks nothing like Craze.  Craze's face looks almost ghoulish.  Wills' illustration was slightly better, as was Troughton's.  However, for the most part the animated faces had little expression, giving the odd effect of looking as if they were not reacting.

Moreover, the movements were more in line with paper cutouts than of anything truly animated.  The animation for another Troughton story, The Invasion, was more realistic with the human characters.  Yet I digress.

In terms of the overall story, I still think The Power of the Daleks was an episode too long, especially given that the Dalek attack was one to two episodes when I would have liked to have seen more.  I think Episodes One and Two could have been compiled into one, but I confess never being a fan of stories that over four episodes with a few exceptions such as Inferno or The Daemons.  Still, The Power of the Daleks is one of the best debuts for any Doctor, and a fine way to begin the Second Doctor's tenure.

In Episode Five, a Dalek asks Bragin after he's killed the Governor, 'Why do human beings kill human beings?'  It's sad that Daleks appear to have more sense in not destroying their own than we do*.

9/10

Next Available Story: The Underwater Menace

*Unless there is an animation reconstruction of The Highlanders in the future, where we meet future Companion Jamie McCrimmon, we move on to the earliest Second Doctor story to have a complete episode. Note that the linked review for The Underwater Menace was before a second episode was rediscovered in 2011.  A review for the reconstructed The Underwater Menace is forthcoming.

The Enemy of the World No Longer in A Web of Fear

In the 1998 documentary Doctor Who: The Missing Years, Ian Levine, the massive Doctor Who fan (in every way) stated for a fact that it is COMPLETE impossible to believe that ANY missing Doctor Who episodes (let alone whole stories) would turn up after all these years.  "If they were going to turn up they would have turned up.  We would have found them.  I don't think there's anything else left to find.  Please prove me wrong, but I think there will always be 110 missing episodes."  

Challenge made, challenge met.

Since the documentary's broadcast, there have been a total of four formerly missing episodes recovered: Episode One of The Crusades (The Lion), Episode Two of The Daleks' Master Plan (Day of Armageddon), Episode Four of Galaxy Four (Air Lock), and Episode Two of The Underwater Menace. 

Still, there were rumors of more episodes being found.  It would be a pleasant gift on Doctor Who's 50th Anniversary to have more lost episodes rediscovered.  However, would this be a case of mere wishful thinking, or could a serendipitous turn of events befall the Doctor's half-century mark?

Well, miracles, do happen.

On October 10, we learned of what can be rightly called a Doctor Who missing episodes mother-load.  The BBC announced that nine episodes previously missing have been recovered from Nigeria.  Technically, a total of eleven episodes were rediscovered, but two of those episodes were already in the BBC archives.  The episodes found were five of the six missing episodes of The Web of Fear (Episode Three still missing), and ALL SIX episodes of its previous story, The Enemy of the World.   



Doctor, we meet at last!

As a result, we now have two Second Doctor stories virtually intact and restored, bringing the total loss now down to 97 episodes.

Any recovery of long-lost Doctor Who stories is a source of celebration.  I have reviewed both The Web of Fear and Enemy of the World based on the episodes then known to exist.  The episodes indicated two good stories (I thought Web of Fear, the second Yeti story, was much better than their debut story The Abominable Snowmen).   Now we have an almost complete Yeti story, and for those keeping score, The Web of Fear is also the only nearly-complete story that features The Great Intelligence (who has reappeared as a major figure in Season Seven of NuWho).  I'm not a believer in coincidences, but it IS a most strange twist that my bête noire, Steven Moffat, would pick such an obscure villain from the bowels of Who mythology to be such a central figure in NuWho just before a story featuring said villain would resurface after going missing nearly forty-five years. 

The Web of Fear's rediscovery also means that the debut story featuring the character of Colonel (later, Brigadier) Lethbridge-Stewart is now virtually before us. That in itself should be a source of great rejoicing among Doctor Who fans.

What, however, does this mean for those stubborn 97 missing episodes still lost in time?  We already have had reconstructions of other missing stories (The Tenth Planet, The Invasion, The Ice Warriors, The Reign of Terror).  Those have only a few episodes missing, so they can be restored via animation reconstruction. 

What, however, of those that have no footage whatsoever (Mission to the Unknown or The Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Eve) or have only a few clips (Fury From the Deep, The Power of the Daleks)?  Could they still be found?  Possibly.  Could they be animated with the surviving audio tracks?  Possibly. 

Hope still lives.

I however, hope that despite the years we may still have wonderful news as the news we have received today.  I look forward to both The Web of Fear and The Enemy of the World being fully restored, released, and more importantly, preserved.  While they are available as of today via iTunes, I will stick with the eventual DVD releases when they become available. 

I also look forward to hearing the phrase, "A previously missing Doctor Who episode..." emphasis on the word 'previously'.

I HAVE RETURNED!

     

Doctor Who Story 050: The War Games

STORY 050: THE WAR GAMES

The Longest War...

If it weren't for the fact that the twelve-part The Daleks' Master Plan has several episodes missing, The War Games would be the SECOND-longest Doctor Who story in existence, coming in at a whopping TEN episodes.  Since The War Games is complete, it means that this story is about four hours and fifteen minutes long if one were to watch it in its entirety from beginning to end.  Some epic films like Lawrence of Arabia and Ben-Hur aren't that long.  The War Games isn't just famous for being the longest surviving story in Doctor Who history.  It also is the first story to mention the Doctor's own people (The Time Lords), the last black-and-white Doctor Who story ever made and the farewell performance of Patrick Troughton as the Doctor himself.

The War Games is a massive tale, but it really isn't until Episode Eight that exhaustion finally sets in, which is to its credit.  Oftentimes some past (and future) Doctor Who stories would wear out their welcome long before the story ends, and The War Games doesn't escape the "maybe it's TOO long" problem that plagued the series until a four-part story became the norm for Classic Who.  Fortunately, writers Terrance Dicks and Malcolm Hulke managed to not make The War Games feel as padded out as it ultimately became, and did manage to overcome some problems not of their making.  The end result is a remarkably fast-paced, well-acted story that added new ingredients to the Doctor Who mythos that would be important in the stories to come.

The Doctor, along with his Companions Zoe (Wendy Padbury) and Jamie (Frazer Hines) find themselves in the trenches ofWorld War I.  Soon, they are taken prisoner by the British.  General Smythe (Noel Coleman) believes Jamie is a Scottish deserter and Zoe and the Doctor spies.  Lady Jane (Jane Sherwin) and Lieutenant Carstairs (David Savile) do not believe it. 

However, strange things are going on.  Smythe is able to hypnotize everyone under him, and he is reporting via advanced technology to a mysterious group.  Furthermore, Lady Jane and Carstairs always get the sense that something is blocking their memory, and there is the case of a literal fog that has some power over everyone.

The Doctor and his Companions manage to escape, but then to their utter amazement find they have run straight into a Roman battalion, then to an American Civil War battle.  They soon discover that they are not in World War I.  In fact, we're not even on Earth.

We find out beings from another world have been kidnapping humans out of their own time to form a super-army.  The War Chief (Edward Brayshaw) has given them the power of time travel.  Reason being he is of the Doctor's own race, whom we discover are the Time Lords.  Some of the kidnapped warriors have discovered they are being used, and form a resistance that so far has been only a minor nuisance, but with the Doctor's help they soon all link up, bringing the aliens, especially their leader the War Lord (Phillip Madoc) to the brink of being defeated.

After ten episodes the War Chief is defeated (killed by the very aliens he had been aiding) but victory for the Doctor comes at a high price.  All this time the Doctor had been basically avoiding detection from the Time Lords, but because he could not take all the abducted back to their own time he needed to call upon the Time Lords for help.   Now that he's been found at last, the Time Lords do manage to return everyone to their right place, but because he has interfered with matters on other worlds (the equivalent to Star Trek's Prime Directive), he is to be punished.  His two Companions are returned to their own time, remembering nothing of their adventures with the Doctor save their first (even Time Lords can't erase all history) and the Doctor himself will be both exiled to 20th Century Earth and be forced to change his appearance.

The War Games is an epic in terms of its length, but the great success of The War Games as a story that holds together goes primarily to its two writers: Terrance Dicks and Malcolm Hulke.  Originally a six-part story, the story following it for some reason was not made.  The orders came from above: make it now ten episodes long.  That Dicks and Hulke managed (for the most part) to make the added War Games episodes seem to be part of the story is a credit to their collaboration and talent.

I say 'for the most part' because it is only when we get to Episode Eight that not only do we get a sense of exhaustion (both in viewing and story-wise) but the introduction of a new character, one Arturo Villar (Michael Napier-Brown), a stereotypical Mexican bandido.  Throwing him into the mix just seems to be a way to add a new dimension to a story that is slowly running out.  I can largely overlook the cliched way Napier-Brown played Villar (not a lot of British people can play Mexicans convincingly, even when they lay on a 'Mexican' accent).  However, I am reminded of that old Cousin Oliver Syndrome: the adding of a cute kid to give a series new life.  While this isn't the same thing, it is in a similar vein: adding a new character to give a story new life.  That was a flaw.

Another flaw is in the entire idea that the War Lord, not the War Chief, was the real brains of the operation.   As good as Dicks and Hulke were in crafting the story, I can't get the notion that again, we had a lost opportunity with the antagonist.  The main conflict was always between the War Chief and the Security Chief (James Bree), with the War Lord playing only a minimal role in the hijinks.   

However, some parts of The War Games are quite effective, even chilling.  In particular the end of the story; the Doctor has lost his two Companions, who sadly will barely remember him or all their adventures.  He then is forced to 'change his appearance' (the term 'regeneration' having yet to be invented), and the final few moments, with a at turns defiant and frightened Doctor desperately trying to stop the changes as he slips further into the void, is downright chilling. 

I also think that The War Games has a subliminal message about the foolishness of war, in particular how these 'masters of war' manipulate the troops.  I don't think it was a coincidence that the ones who communicated with the aliens were the Generals while their subordinates were almost completely unaware of how they were being used as cannon fodder to then be used to conquer the galaxy.  The heroes are 'the Resistance', those soldiers who are refusing to play these 'war games'.   

Leaving aside the political aspects of The War Games (which can be read into the story but which if existent are mercifully subtle and don't interfere with a good science-fiction concept), let's focus on some extraordinary bits within this massive story.  Chris Hayden's editing was seamless, especially in Episodes 2, 9, and 10 when we get thrilling and genuinely shocking twists: the World War I group rushes straight for a Roman legion! the Time Lords slow down time itself! the Doctor is sent into the void!  Complimenting Hayden is Dudley Simpson's score, which enhances the tension and twists in all these moments.  

The performances from the guest stars are equally well-crafted.  In NuWho, Castairs would have been considered a Companion (one with a spin-off attached as all NuWho guest characters are inexplicably tagged with spin-off fever).  However, Savile gives Carstairs a full range, from the decent-chap style of British drama to that of a man fighting for his life and sanity.  Jane Sherwin's Lady Jane Buckingham is equally strong as the woman who does her best to outwit these aliens.  Truth be told, I don't know if we saw enough of her (especially after Arturo Villar popped into the picture) but given both the length of The War Games and the fact that women tend to be demoted it isn't a surprise she was left to 'nursing'.   While Bree's Security Chief was excellent in his clipped and haughty manner, I'd argue that Breyshaw's War Chief was a bit over-the-top (neither the Fu Manchu mustache or the Nehru jacket helped, by the way).  Despite this, David Maloney directed both his guest stars and the regular characters in a near-spotless way to where on screen they almost never lagged or looked as if they didn't belong.

Maloney put both the acting and technical elements together so well that one rarely notices that The War Games is extremely long.

Finally, I think that we did have a bit of a lost opportunity to expand on the Doctor Who world when we gave the Time Lords themselves only one episode.  Granted, it's later that we get all that Gallifreyan machination and conspiracies that we all love, but they did come across as these remarkably boring quasi-deities.  Anyone would have run away from them.

I can't say that The War Games is too long because through its four-hour running time it held my interest and managed to hold up under its massive weight.  Very few stories can last six episodes or more and stay interesting (almost all Dalek stories and perhaps The Invasion or The Seeds of Death, maybe The Ice Warriors being exceptions up to this point in Doctor Who's history).  While I can't say The War Games is too long I will say that it is a bit stretched out.  That's not a particularly bad thing: The War Games does hold your interest for most of the story but one wonders whether we had some lost opportunities by not delving into the Doctor's home world or putting more focus on the conflict between the War Chief and the Doctor.  Minor things, perhaps, but still things to consider.

Still, on the whole The War Games is an intelligent and clever story with great twists and shows that a long story can work, even if at times it veers close to breaking.

Trust me, compared to other Doctors,
this look is pretty sane...

9/10

Next Story: Spearhead From Space

Doctor Who Story 049: The Space Pirates

STORY 049: THE SPACE PIRATES

Pirate Copies...

There is something almost perverse in that the only surviving episode of The Space Pirates exists in two places. One is a 35mm film print, which was preserved only because it was the first BBC program ever placed on film (which explains why said episode, Episode 2, is the only one surviving).  Then there is a rare instance of a video recorder being used on The Space Pirates.  Would you believe it...it is the EXACT same episode!  That means out of the six episode story, only Episode 2 remains for us to enjoy.  Enjoy, however, may be too grand a term for it, because even in that one episode, The Space Pirates looks like a slow and dull adventure made slower and duller by its length.

The Space Pirates lives up to its billing: it's about pirates in space.  That in itself is a bright idea, and Robert Holmes, in his second Doctor Who screenplay, at least presents the notion as instructed.  However, The Space Pirates is more a 'Western in Space' than a pirate story, complete with crazed prospector.  These touches, along with others, sinks The Space Pirates to mediocrity.

The TARDIS materialises in Earth's future on a space beacon just before it is attacked by pirates. The Doctor (Patrick Troughton) and his Companions, Jamie (Frazer Hines) and Zoe (Wendy Padbury) find themselves trapped in a sealed section of the beacon. It is blown apart and flown to where the pirates will plunder it of the precious mineral argonite. They witness a conflict between the pirates and the Interstellar Space Corps, led by General Hermack (Jay Mack) and Major Warne (Donald Gee).

The ISC are convinced that the pirates' mastermind is an innocent yet eccentric space mining pioneer named Milo Clancey (Gordon Gostelow), while their true leader is a man named Caven (Dudley Foster). Caven has a secret base on the planet Ta. He is assisted by Madeleine Issigri (Lisa Daniely), daughter of Clancey's ex-partner Dom, who - unknown to her - is now his captive.

When Madeleine discovers Caven's full treachery she helps to bring him to justice. The time travellers are given a lift back to the TARDIS by Clancey in his rickety old ship, the LIZ 79. *

Even in the surviving Episode 2 we see what makes The Space Pirates a weak Doctor Who story.  Namely, the Doctor and his Companions are basically irrelevant to the story.  Minus the Doctor's efforts to bring the broken-off section of the spaceship closer to the piece where the TARDIS is (which given the length of the story, he obviously was going to get wrong) they played no part in the episode itself.  In fact, if you cut their scenes, you would have had a whole new story that might have worked as a separate series. 

The NuWho fans are fond of demanding spin-offs for every Tom, Dick, and River that appears as a guest star/character  (getting their wish with the Captain Jack Harkness spin-off Torchwood).  The Space Pirates gives us a roundabout vision of what a potential Doctor Who spin-off might have looked like.  For all the length of The Space Pirates, one could easily have written the travellers out of the story without being part of anything. 

Granted, it's pretty difficult to make that argument without being able to see the other episodes, but the synopsis is pretty Doctor-lite.   I'd argue that if you removed the main characters you don't affect the overall flow of the story.  That being the case, it makes it hard to imagine that a story where the Doctor is almost irrelevant would be a good to great Doctor Who story.

Even that perhaps could be forgiven (although intensely difficult to do so).  The Space Pirates unfortunately suffers from other factors.  The decision by director Michael Hart to ask his characters to appear as if they were in a Western (particularly with Gostelow's "hillbilly in space" Milo, which makes him look a pickax and dance short of Walter Huston in Treasure of the Sierra Madre) turns this almost into farce.  Another space crew member, Technician Penn (George Layton), was allowed to have shaggy hair and a mustache that made him look like a lost Beatle.

One poor decision was in the costumes, which in terms are grand and almost comical (the space helmets themselves being a source of unintended laughter).  Dudley Simpson's score was on the plus ambitious, but curiously the vocalization that opens each episode of The Space Pirates makes it sound far too grand for the story its telling.  One thing that is in retrospect amusing is that The Space Pirates with that vocalization predated Murray Gold's NuWho score which similarly echoes a female vocal in space.

One final note: Robert Holmes' script makes mention of a 'mind probe', and I have no way of knowing whether Terrance Dicks subconsciously drew from The Space Pirates or Holmes himself when he turned 'the mind probe' in The Five Doctors into one of the most famous (or infamous) lines in Who history...but we'll cross that bridge when we get there.

One complaint I continuously make is that with the possible exception of Dalek stories, long Doctor Who stories (those that are longer than four episodes) simply can't maintain the stamina or interest of an audience.  The Space Pirates at six episodes appears to be another case of the story being far too long for the tale that it's telling.  Even if it were to be rediscovered I doubt The Space Pirates would be all that popular.  Still, it would be nice to have more lost episodes found, even if it were something as weak as The Space Pirates.

* My thanks to TARDIS Wikia for the plot synopsis. 

3/10

Next story: The War Games

Doctor Who Story 048: The Seeds of Death

STORY 048: THE SEEDS OF DEATH

Ice Warriors Capades...

The Ice Warriors are not familiar to many Doctor Who fans. I imagine perhaps even those who followed the Classic series may not have seen the stories that featured our literal 'beings from Mars'.  They only appeared in four Who stories (The Ice Warriors, The Seeds of Death, and the two Peladon stories: The Curse of Peladon and its sequel, The Monster of Peladon...the latter being a rare sequel in Classic Who).  Since then, the Ice Warriors have been absent from Doctor Who and have yet to appear in the NuWho.  That is a real shame, because the Ice Warriors were quite effective in the fright department, and their second story, The Seeds of Death, is a simply brilliant story: cinematic in scope, with great performances, climatic cliffhangers, and an intelligent script.

The Earth has come to rely on T-Mat, a method of sending people and materials virtually instantaneously from one point to another by using the Moon as a relay point.  You could send food or yourself from New York to Canberra within seconds.  However, there is something evil afoot: the Moonbase (not to be confused with an earlier Second Doctor story called The Moonbase) is now been taken over by a mysterious force, and it isn't until near the end of Episode One that we discover it is the Ice Warriors.

Meanwhile, back on Earth, T-Mat's inexplicable failure is frustrating its engineers, in particular the T-Mat Controller and second-in-command Gia Kelly (Louise Pajo), who is both extremely efficient and extremely irritated that anything could have gone wrong.  However, no one could foresee that the Moonbase was now in enemy hands.  The Ice Warrior's leader Slaar (Alan Bennion) has either killed or forced the crew to do his work.  One, Phipps (Christopher Coll) has managed to escape the Ice Warriors, while Fewshan (Terry Scully) has become their terrified accomplice in betraying the planet.

Due to T-Mat's popularity with governments, there is no alternative method of reaching the Moonbase as the crisis grows, that is except for one.  Old Professor Eldred (Phillip Ray), who now runs a private Space Museum, is the only one who has both the knowledge and the machinery to launch a rocket (which by this time is seen as obsolete).  The professor, who is bitter over having his rockets replaced by T-Mat, at first refuses to help, but is persuaded to do so, thanks to three people who happened to have entered his museum.

The Doctor (Patrick Troughton) and his Companions Zoe (Wendy Padbury) and Jamie (Frazer Hines) soon undertake the dangerous mission to the Moon to both find what's going on.  While they're in space, Fewsham has repaired T-Mat, but it's just a way to lure Controller Kelly to the Moon.  Now the nefarious plot thickens.

The Ice Warriors have decided to launch an invasion of Earth using T-Mat to transport their seeds to the planet.  These seeds will have two effects: it will reduce the oxygen levels (killing off the humans) and make the planet hospitable for their own species (they cannot stand heat being from the cold planet).  The Doctor, after recovering from an exploding seed of death, manages to return to Earth.  Unfortunately, so has an Ice Warrior, who is now on the rampage, with the seeds killing everything that comes their way.  The Doctor discovers a way to defeat the seeds, and the invasion is misdirected to approach the Sun (killing the invasion fleet).  With Slaar the only survivor of the Ice Warriors' invasion force, the heat on the Moonbase kills him, and the travellers escape unnoticed.

As I watched The Seeds of Death, I could not help marvelling at what a well-paced, well-acted, and beautifully-photographed story it was.  I have found that very few four-episode plus stories work.  They tend, with the exception of Dalek stories, to feel stretched out.  Even the previous story, while brilliant, felt one episode too long.  Not so The Seeds of Death.  At six episodes the story never felt either rushed or padded.  This is due to two factors: the script and the directing.

In regards to the latter, extraordinary credit should be given to Michael Ferguson.  The visual style of Seeds of Death is extraordinary.  He created a look that was almost cinematic and that stand up against almost anything NuWho has come up with.  There is a great visual flair in the story, starting from Episode One when we get the point-of-view (or POV) of the monsters.  The decision to withhold the reveal of the villains until the end of the episode was a brilliant one.  Again and again Seeds of Death has a great visual style that reflects an ambition that pushes the story to new heights, in particular in the Second Doctor's era.  Each episode has an arresting moment of beauty, from overhead shots of the Ice Warrior looking through a storage room for Phipps to when Slaar confronts Fewsham before a lighted screen to when Zoe and Jamie are avoiding another Ice Warrior at the Weather Control Center.  Rarely has a Doctor Who story been so cinematically shot to where it would be beautiful just to look at.     

However, The Seeds of Death also has brilliant performances.  Pajo is brilliant as the ever-efficient, ever-professional Kelly, someone who wants to be appreciated for her accomplishments, not dismissed for being a woman.  It's a credit to her acting talent that before the end of Episode One she is not thought of as a beautiful and bright woman but as a bright, even strong person.  I'm glad the story suggests the sexism she must endure (in Episode One her superior compliments her on her talent and beauty, which she chooses to simply ignore).  Scully's Fewsham is equally brilliant as this frightened and cowardly man who might not want to work for the Ice Warriors but who is too scared of dying to fight them.  That doesn't mean that when he does finally have a moment of courage and sacrifice himself for the planet, it doesn't move one emotionally.  Despite all the evil he did, I empathized with him and felt genuine sadness at his end.

In a smaller role, Coll's Phipps played his part beautifully: a bright but frightened man, doing what he can to survive but knowing he is great peril.  Same goes for Ray's Professor Eldred, who is both bitter and pleased that his rockets are now being embraced rather than dismissed.  None of the guest stars faltered in their characters, whether courageous or cowardly, whether fearful or forceful. 

Going on to the leads, I don't think the leads have had a finer hour acting-wise.  Troughton shows his Doctor to be both serious and comical (who wouldn't at least smile as he flusters his way out of the attacking foam) and Hines' Jamie also shows that he is fiercely loyal and protective for him and Zoe.  However, it is Padbury that clearly runs away with it.  She never makes Zoe's superior intelligence something to dislike in her because she always mixes her smarts with a sweetness that shows she's not being bossy, just brainy.  However, the cliffhanger at Episode Five is where Padbury excels. 

She has been caught by the Ice Warrior in front of the screen after she manages to start raising the temperature and is facing certain death, with only Fewsham in any position to help her.  She screams in total terror for him to help her, this man she doesn't really know and whom we know has never helped anyone else save their lives.  The abject horror and terror she displays (even as her face is partially obscured by the lights, with only her voice to project the emotions) is a chilling and terrifying moment. 

In regards to the second thing that makes The Seeds of Death simply brilliant, while the credit is given to Brian Hayles,  script editor Terrance Dicks also wrote part of the story (uncredited).  Whoever ultimately put Seeds of Death together, each episode ended brilliantly.  Besides the aforementioned Episode Five cliffhanger (truly one of the best in the series, perhaps in all of Doctor Who--Classic and NuWho), each cliffhanger does make one wonder, 'what's going to happen next?'  Even the opening to each episode, with the beautiful shots of the Earth and the Moon accompanied by Dudley Simpson's incidental music, had us in suspense (and again were beautifully photographed and edited).

I also think that the special effects still hold up remarkably well given the story is pushing fifty years.  Granted they might look not as sharp as things today, but whenever the Ice Warriors kill someone the visuals and music are shocking and so excellently put together.

I will be a bit nit picky by pointing out one or two things that didn't quite hold.  I wondered exactly how it was possible that the Ice Warriors didn't notice the rocket landing at the Moonbase.  We also have a bit of running down corridors, something that would soon become, excuse the pun, a running gag on Doctor Who.  In fact, I wondered whether that whole concept started in The Seeds of Death. 

Finally, let me address one of the most notorious moments in Seeds of Death.  When the Doctor manages to escape into the Weather Center he slips from all the foam.   Poor Wendy Padbury plainly starts laughing and while she continues the scene to its conclusion one can clearly see the smile on her face and the desperate efforts to control her laughter.  In this case, I'm cutting Padbury some slack since I doubt anyone would have been able to control themselves, and actually Padbury did better because she didn't draw attention to her reaction. 

Overall I found The Seeds of Death far more thrilling than I thought I would.  The pacing is brilliant, the acting is superb, the story holds your interest, the monsters effective, the visuals are stunning.  Given that there are only two stories left in the Second Doctor's tenure, it is hard to believe that they could come close to topping The Seeds of Death.

I'd be excited if they were to return to Doctor Who, but then I remember they'd be coming back to this...

Now, WHICH one's the lead and WHICH one's the guest star again?

10/10

Next Story: The Space Pirates

Doctor Who Story 047: The Krotons

STORY 047: THE KROTONS

Something to Kroton About...

The Krotons is not held in high regard by Doctor Who fans, primarily because of the title characters themselves, who are seen as terrible monsters/robots.  However, after watching The Krotons for the first time, I think that this is a case of failing to see the forest for the trees.  The Krotons is the first Doctor Who story written by Robert Holmes, who was to become a true Who Icon, creating some of the most legendary Doctor Who stories of all time.  I'll grant that the actual Krotons themselves were pretty weak, but the story itself is overflowing with innovative ideas that should merit reexamination and reevaluation. 

The Doctor (Patrick Troughton) and his Companions Jamie (Frazer Hines) and Zoe (Wendy Padbury) have landed on an unknown planet.  No sooner have they landed than they find themselves involved in the affairs of the planet itself.  The Gonds, the humanoids on the planet, have for a thousand years given their brightest young people to "join the Krotons", their benevolent dictators.  No one has ever seen the Krotons themselves, and the young people given to join them are never seen or heard from again.  To join the Krotons is seen as a great honor, but one of the Gonds, Thara (Gilbert Wynne), angrily questions why they have to go.  His motives are more personal: his beloved Vana (Madeliene Mills) has been selected.  He urges revolution, but the Gonds won't rebel.

Of course, we already know what happens to 'the chosen ones': the emerge onto the wasteland and are promptly evaporated.  The space travellers, having landed on the wasteland, find that a man has already been vaporized and that fate awaits Vana.  She is rescued in time but her mind is terribly affected. 

Now with Thara outraged, there are rumblings of revolution, then outright attacks on the Learning Hall.  Here, the machines the Krotons provided long ago have not only given them what little knowledge they have, but have allowed the Krotons to find the Gonds' best and brightest.  This mini-Gond Spring raises the ire of the Krotons, who demand they stop.  The Doctor and Zoe, geniuses both, soon become the Krotons' ultimate targets.  Zoe, due to naivete, takes to the machines and is selected.  The Doctor then must take the tests and be selected himself.

They are submitted to the tests but manage to escape.  A concerned Jamie goes after them, but the Krotons quickly realize he is not a "high-mind".  Soon, the Gonds are split: some like Eelek (Philip Madoc) are for full revolution, while their leader and Thara's father Selris (James Copeland) urge that they must acquire knowledge if they are to defeat the Krotons. 

We discover that the Krotons nefarious plans: they need the Gonds' intelligence to keep them functioning.  Once they take their intelligence, the selected Gonds are eliminated.  With the Doctor and Zoe, they now have the ultimate ability to leave the planet.  Eelek (Philip Madoc) who has lead a virtual coup, cuts a deal with them: in exchange for leaving the planet, he will hand over the two "high-brains".   The Doctor is able to deduce that the Krotons can be destroyed with sulphuric acid.  The Krotons are defeated and the Travellers slip silently away, off to a new adventure.

   

There is no getting around it: the actual Krotons are junk.  Terrance Dicks (a Doctor Who legend himself who served as the script editor) always commented that while the Krotons looked menacing they couldn't do anything: not walk, not attack, not really useful.  Frazer Hines himself said that the Krotons were probably the worst or weakest monsters in his tenure.  There's no doubt that the Krotons themselves appear to be the poor cousins of the Daleks, closer to the Quarks from The Dominators than anything else.  HOWEVER, this is not Holmes' fault, or even that of director David Maloney. 

As hard as it may be, I would ask people to ignore the actual Krotons of The Krotons and instead focus on the story itself, which is both inventive and a throwback to other legendary tales.  While watching the first few minutes (which focus on the selecting of the two youngsters to join the Krotons), I couldn't help but think on H.G. Wells' The Time Machine with the Eloi willingly going to serve the Morlocks.  I also had a quick flashback to The Hunger Games, where we again face a situation where a society must send two people (apparently but not specifically a male and female) to be sacrificed as payment for a failed war. 

The more things change...

I was expecting a disaster while watching The Krotons given its relatively poor reputation, but what I found on the whole was an exciting and well-thought story that mostly overcomes the titular monster's weakness.  Maloney's pacing is incredible: moving quickly from one point to another while at times being almost experimental.  The scene where Zoe and the Doctor are being tortured with brain drain, visually speaking, is almost psychedelic.  The themes of free will vs. predestination expressed by Selris' desire to keep things as they are conflicting with Thara's questioning of the status quo can be seen as symbolic of how often things stay stagnant because 'that's the way they've always been'.  Youth, however, is both being sacrificed to maintain the old order (any hints of Vietnam?) and also the ones that finally rebel against the system.

Yes, I may be reading too much into things, but I think that Holmes' story is deeper, richer, and smarter than it has been credited.  Selris comments when learning of Eelek's plan to attack the Krotons head-on,

"It is not patriotism to lead people into a war they cannot win."

I find that line to be remarkably insightful into modern conflicts, from Hitler's mad idea that he could fight a war on two fronts to Syria's Bashar Assad's determination to remain in power even if it means wiping his own people out of existence.

Holmes, along with Maloney and the leads, deserve credit for also putting in moments of comedy in The Krotons and throwing in some surprises.  A surprise in The Krotons is when the Doctor asks ZOE rather than Jamie to accompany him to the Learning Hall.  The subtle message is clear: it's going to be brains, not brawn, that will defeat the Krotons.  This decision also allows Padbury and Troughton to work as a double-act, something that previous Who stories have not allowed given the wonderful chemistry between Hines and Troughton.   We have comic moments in especially tense situations, as when Zoe and the Doctor appear to argue as to who stands where just before their brains are to be absorbed by the Krotons or when the Doctor finds the Learning Machine more difficult than Zoe did.

The interaction between Padbury and Troughton is brilliant, and high praise goes to the former.  In other hands Zoe's high intelligence could have come off as bratty or arrogant, but she manages to make Zoe more innocent about how her high intelligence might be off-putting.  As far as she knows, she just is intelligent, but her nature isn't one that lords it over everyone, even someone like the simple Highlander Jamie.

Of course, that isn't to say Hines and Troughton still can't get in some funny bits between themselves.  For example, when Jamie is caught beneath the door and the Doctor and Zoe are pulling him out before they can be vaporized, the Doctor can be heard shouting, "Jamie, you're getting fat!" Take a look at this exchange between Jamie and the Doctor when Jamie emerges from the Krotons' cell:

The Doctor: How do you feel?
Jamie: Well...
The Doctor: Good.

     
The Krotons has suffered because the actual Krotons are terrible. However, this is a case of throwing out the baby with the bathwater.  Apart from the actual Krotons themselves, The Krotons is a much more complex and richer story than its been given credit for.  I for one am starting a reevaluation of the story, focusing on the acting and story as opposed to weak monsters.  If one turns away from the Krotons, one finds much to appreciate in The Krotons.

8/10

Next Story: The Seeds of Death

Doctor Who Story 046: The Invasion

STORY 046: THE INVASION

Who Knew Cybermen Were So Animated?

In The Invasion, we have a bit of a conundrum.  Episodes One and Four of the eight-part story are currently missing.  However, it has been released on DVD intact.  How is this possible?  Animation my friends, and what animation we have.  Somehow, the animated episodes not only work well within the story, they actually enhance it, making it more brilliant.  However, more on that later.  The Invasion brings back the Cybermen in perhaps one of their biggest stories of the Classic Era.   While the length of The Invasion may be a bit too much for the story to hold, on the whole The Invasion pushes Doctor Who to a higher level in almost all departments.

After having the TARDIS restored at the end of The Mind Robber, the Doctor (Patrick Troughton) and his Companions Jamie (Frazer Hines) and Zoe (Wendy Padbury) narrowly escape a rocket launched at them from the Dark Side of the Moon.  They find they have materialized on present (read 1960s) Earth.  Quickly the three are wrapped in a mystery: there's shady and nefarious goings-on involving International Electromatics, a giant conglomerate headed up by the mysterious Tobias Vaughn (Kevin Stoney). 

Soon, we learn Vaughn's scheme: to help the Cybermen invade and conquer Earth!

However, Vaughn has a few tricks up his sleeve.  Ostensibly helping the Cybermen, he really will use them to become sole ruler of Earth.  He has forced scientist Professor Watkins (Edward Burham) to modify a device the good Professor had created.  Originally to help enhance education, Vaughn has it altered to enduce emotion, which would render the Cybermen powerless to him. 

While the Doctor eventually uncovers both Vaughn's scheme and the Cybermen connection, he gets help from an old friend.  Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart (Nicholas Courtney) from The Web of Fear, now upgraded to Brigadier, has also been investigating International Electromatics, heading up a new organization called UNIT: United Nations International Taskforce.

Eventually, the Cybermen do invade, and with the combined efforts of UNIT and the Doctor & Friends (including Professor Watkins' niece Isabel, played by Sally Faulker), they and their ally Vaughn (who when learning the Cybermen will not make him Earth's ruler turns against them, giving his life in the struggle), they Cybermen are defeated.

Again, I should point out that The Invasion at eight episodes is a very long story, and I think an episode too long.  At Episode Eight we are introduced to some sort of Doomsday Bomb that will destroy Earth should the actual invasion be a bust.  Perhaps I was distracted but I don't remember that ever coming up in the discussions, and to my mind it seemed like Derrick Sherwin had to throw in one last thing to justify there being at least one more hurdle to overcome.

To my mind it seems once the Cybermen are actually defeated, throwing in this last-minute danger from almost out of nowhere is almost superfluous.

However, this last-minute action is only a slight flaw in a brilliant story.  The Invasion is an important Doctor Who story in many ways.  First, it introduces a long-standing group that will be vital as the series continues: UNIT.  As the show would expand, UNIT's role would also grow.  The Invasion therefore is the first to feature not just UNIT, but the character of The Brigadier, who would go on to become a true Doctor Who Icon (as opposed to that horrid rammed-in character of River Song).

Speaking of River, The Invasion is a textbook example of how to integrate characters from other stories right.  In the school of 'everything old is new again', we see that Classic Who, at least during the first six seasons, did what NuWho is doing now: it has characters making return appearances.  Take Professor Travers, who appeared in The Abominable Snowmen and The Web of Fear (the two Yeti stories).  He was scheduled to return again in The Invasion, but Jack Watling proved unavailable, hence the new character of Professor Watkins (although it's clear that Professor Travers was suppose to appear, given the Doctor & Companions went looking for him).   The Invasion also brings back Lethbridge-Stewart from The Web of Fear.

Note that in each case, there was a logical reason to bring back the characters.  Travers/Watkins were scientists who had expertise in the plot, and Lethbridge-Stewart provided the military muscle to take on the threats.  NuWho unfortunately gets wrapped up in its own newly-created mythology by bringing back characters (like Winston Churchill and especially River) and throwing them into the story whether their appearance makes sense or not or are even necessary.  It also wraps the episodes together, rather than have the individual stories tie in with a character or two.  The Invasion has characters we've already seen, but it stands on its own.  In other words, one doesn't have to have seen The Web of Fear to follow The Invasion. 

This can't be said of NuWho, where if you watch The Angels Take Manhattan first you might be puzzled as to who the central character is or River's relationship with anything involving the plot.  If you next watch River's Secret Parts 1 & 2 (A Good Man Goes to War/Let's Kill Hitler), it becomes more confusing, let alone if you catch any other River-centric episodes (of which I'd argue there are far too many).  Classic Who had references and characters from previous stories, but they were integrated into the new stories and didn't have to have watched the first story because it was independent from the second.  NuWho at times becomes one long story with several episodes rather than various independent stories that it becomes convoluted.

Yet I digress.  The Invasion is brilliantly acted, in particular by Stoney's Vaughn, who keeps a mostly calm and chilling portrayal of a brilliant and evil genius. Stoney had a delightfully wicked manner to him, in particular whenever he said, "Packer" (Peter Halliday) when calling his dim-witted muscle or taking him to task whenever Packer bumbles his tasks (which is quite often, so much so one wonders why Vaughn didn't just shoot him).  When Stoney does rage, it becomes more terrifying because he keeps so calm, almost delightful, in his manner that when he does break it becomes full-on fury.

Even when he changes sides to help the Doctor, it wasn't any appeal to his humanity (given he was part-Cyberman himself, a brilliant and shocking turn), but because of his own megalomaniac motives.  It was a bright idea to not make Vaughn a sympathetic character but to keep him basically evil but who joins the Doctor's fight in the last minute for logical reasons.

Faulkner's Isobel is a great guest star, and it's nice to see Zoe get a girlfriend with whom to interact.  Isobel is not a damsel in distress (most of the time), and in fact she too earns points for being the first woman to tell the Brigadier he is a male chauvinist pig (which he was).  However, she also brought some well-needed lightness to her fun-loving Swingin' Sixties Girl, in particular with her flirtations with Captain Turner (Robert Sideway), whom she called Jimmy.

The Invasion is probably one of Troughton and Hines' finest hours as the perfect Double-Act of Doctor and Companion.  Individually they were great (Troughton's comic moments seemed perfect for his Doctor, while Hines' more man of action fit in with the story), but together they had a great rhythm to where they created moments of adventure and comedy throughout the story.  Padbury's Zoe was one who knew she was brighter than everyone around but she wasn't arrogant, but rather endearing, even childishly determined (as when she would not be defeated by a computer). 

One thing that needs commenting on is Don Harper's score.  At times, the music is quite cinematic, almost sounding like a gangster-film score enhancing the tension.  The cinematography is likewise brilliant.  Douglas Camfield put all these elements together in a masterful way to where The Invasion plays like a feature film. 

In particular are the actual scenes of invasion.  The quick cutting of the population coming across the Cyber Army and the scenes of the Cybermen marching in front of St. Paul's Cathedral is terrifying and brilliant.

Finally, let's move on to the animated Episodes One and Four.  Truth be told, The Invasion is so good that one doesn't even notice when it goes to an animated form.  The animated episodes themselves are so well rendered that the revelation of the Cybermen in Episode Four is actually more terrifying in the reconstruction than in the recap in Episode Five.  The animation is beautifully rendered and makes one wonder whether the other lost stories like The Evil of the Daleks or The Myth Makers couldn't be brought back with animation.

If it weren't for the Doomsday Bomb at the last minute The Invasion would probably be perfect.  Still, the fast pacing, the brilliant acting, the moments of comedy (such as when the Doctor stops to pose for Isobel's picture while everyone else goes after the Cyber Army) and the smooth integration of UNIT and the Brigadier into the Doctor Who mythos: it all works; this is one of the best Second Doctor stories available, even with the missing episodes that with the animation isn't incomplete anymore.    

9/10

Next Story: The Krotons

Doctor Who Story 045: The Mind Robber

STORY 045 : THE MIND ROBBER

A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Lose...

Isn't that a beautiful sight? I think it's the most beautiful sight in the history of Doctor Who. It comes at the end of Episode One of The Mind Robber, which I believe is one of the most inventive and surreal episodes in the entire history of Doctor Who (classic and NuWho), certainly the most surreal out of the five-part story. The story itself is quite clever, inventive, and unique of the entire run of the show, and The Mind Robber is if nothing else, the most surreal Doctor Who stories to come down the pipe in a long time.  I think I'm being too subtle: The Mind Robber may be the weirdest Doctor Who story ever, and certainly Episode One is the single most bizarre episode the series has ever had.   In short, The Mind Robber is just flat-out weird, but it's in its inventiveness, particularly in how it managed to incorporate production problems, that oddly lift The Mind Robber to being one of the trippiest stories in the Who canon.

Having barely escaped Dulkis, the Doctor (Patrick Troughton), and his Companions Jamie (Frazer Hines) and Zoe (Wendy Padbury) are taken out of reality itself.  They are being menaced by some unknown force that tempts them outside into nothingness.  Episode One culminates into the unthinkable: the TARDIS is destroyed, and the passengers scattered: the Doctor whisked away while a horrified Jamie and Zoe hold on to dear life to the TARDIS console.

After that, the group is separated.  The world they are in is a bizarre world, one filled with wordplay and puns.  A stranger comes across the Doctor, speaking curious phrases.  A group of children then harass the Doctor, at one point asking him what can one make out of a sword.  The Doctor figures,"S-W-O-R-D, you can make WORDS", and the children instantly cheer and out comes a dictionary.

However, not all is going so well.  As part of this mysterious world, Jamie's face has been altered to be a puzzle.  The Doctor attempts to put it together but gets it wrong, coming up with a new Jamie (Hamish Wilson).  The Doctor and Jamie II continue searching for Zoe, who had fallen after entering a castle.  To get her out, the Doctor and Jamie are presented a riddle of sorts.  They come up to the same door Zoe had walked across, but find that it's painted.

A puzzled Jamie asks how this is possible.  "When is a door not a door?" he says.  The Doctor quickly figures...a door is not a door when it's a-jar, and instantly we see Zoe is trapped within a jar, but is equally confused to find Jamie II rather than her Jamie.  This world, they discover, is one where words are literally all around them: they are trapped within a forest of proverbs (a literal Book of Proverbs, so to speak).

Eventually, the Doctor, Zoe, and Jamies II and I (the Doctor getting another crack at putting him together and getting it right) find that this world with characters like Gulliver (Bernard Horsfall), Rapunzel (Christine Pirie) and toy soldiers is ruled over by The Master of The Land of Fiction (Emrys Jones).  He is a writer from Earth who was spirited away to this world, where he has continued to create.  However, he won't last forever, and believes the Doctor will make a perfect replacement.  The Doctor refuses, and Jamie and Zoe binds them in a book...literally.

Using his wits, some characters of his own, including one from Zoe's youth, the comic strip character the Karkus (Christopher Robbie), the Doctor is able to overwhelm the computer, free the writer, and we end The Mind Robber with the TARDIS restored but unsure of whether everyone would be.

As I rewatched The Mind Robber, I was continuously amazed at not just how well the story holds up or even at how clever and creative it was (although I was by all that).  What really impressed me was that The Mind Robber's production crew managed to incorporate every difficulty they faced and seamless place it in the story.

Gratuitous Shot...

The first problem The Mind Robber faced was the addition of a fifth episode.  The previous story was intended to have six episodes, but it was becoming so muddled and boring that a whole episode was cut.  That left a gap that had to be filled in.  Derrick Sherwin, the script editor, was basically forced to put an episode together at the last minute, but given the overall weird nature of The Mind Robber, the viewer never notices that Episode One was never part of the overall serial.

The inclusion of a fifth episode also forced the production crew to keep things as low-cost as possible.  Again, The Mind Robber accomplishes great work: the bizarre goings-on, coupled with great acting by the three principals (and great screaming from Padbury) heightens the weirdness and surrealism of Episode One.  The culmination of that episode is seeing the TARDIS broken up and the crew holding on for dear life, and everything building up to this shocking cliffhanger (one of the best in Who's history) flows brilliantly from what came before.

Once we get into Peter Ling's story proper, it becomes a witty satire of the difficulties of continuously writing stories and commentary on how literary creations, once off the page, do literally take on a life of their own.  As I stated earlier, The Mind Robber has a great deal of wit with the use of puns and fictional characters and continuous bits of wit and whimsy (such as having a forest made out of letters). 

However, Ling has to be given enormous credit in how he is able to tie in all the unexplained weirdness into a logical story.  Almost every part of The Mind Robber works and makes sense, even when it might not have.

One of the best things to help The Mind Robber is when Frazer Hines was suddenly taken with chickenpox and forced to withdraw for a week.  How could one explain Jamie's disappearance from an episode when it had been written months earlier to include him?  Characters disappearing from Doctor Who was nothing new (whenever one of the cast was scheduled to take a holiday they had simply been written out of that particular episode) but in this case, Jamie HAD to be involved. 

Ling and director David Maloney (who was making his Who directing debut but would go on to helm other stories, among them some that are considered the best of the series) came up with another great idea.  Since this mysterious universe was one of puzzles and puns, why not have Jamie disintegrate and the Doctor forced to put him together again?  This concept not only blended in brilliantly but allowed for a quick recasting of Jamie without interrupting the flow.

Hamish Wilson obviously did not look or sound like Frazer Hines, but the story works so well, and Wilson is so good, that we soon forget that while we're not watching the traditional Jamie we are watching THE Jamie.  In fact, when Hines returns in Episode Three, it did make me sad to see Jamie II go.  I wonder what would have happened if Wilson had been allowed to stay on, not permanently in the role of Jamie, but at least for one or two more episodes.  No disrespect to Hines, but Wilson did a marvelous job filling in, and it seems almost a shame to see him go. 

It is understandable that Hines would return as soon as he was well, but Wilson was brilliant in his one episode to where we were not bothered or even took great notice that the regular Jamie wasn't there.  As far as the viewer was concerned, given the bizarre nature of The Mind Robber, for all intents and purposes Jamie was very much with us. 

Troughton and Padbury are equally in fine form, the Doctor mixing his trademark humor with moments of calm and fear.  As far as Padbury, her Zoe is bright but now we are allowed moments where she is genuinely frightened, and also she does have one of the best screams of a Who Girl, especially in this scene...

It's Iconic...

Jones' performance of The Master (not to be confused with the Time Lord known as The Master...he comes much later) was in turn comic and menacing, but appropriately so.  We saw that he wasn't evil, but as much trapped in the machine as its owner. 

Side note: has anyone else gotten the sense that The Mind Robber had elements which would later appear in The Matrix (the idea of a giant machine controlling people's minds for domination)?  Just a thought.

The special effects don't look dated and are actually still a bit frightening, in particular when Medusa comes to life in Episode Three.  Her snakes and her coming towards Zoe and the Doctor is still remarkably effective and beautifully shot, as are the scenes in Episode One when we see all the weird happenings to Zoe and Jamie.

One might have noticed I wrote that almost every part of The Mind Robber works, but some things, if one thinks about them logically, don't make sense.  For example, how could this Master of the Land possibly know about a cartoon strip written long after his time (unless the computer controlling him fed him information from all time)?  Also, the actual source of the writer's control was very vague and its idea of using the writer and the Doctor's mind to conquer Earth seemed almost to be put there to give a touch of science-fiction to a story that didn't need it.  The Computer seems almost shoehorned in to give a reason for the mayhem.

Now, while I found the Karkus a bit exaggerated (with the inexplicable German accent not helping matters), I never felt the story dragged and didn't notice that the episodes were growing shorter (Episode Five clocks in at 18 minutes, the shortest in Doctor Who's history...would that Closing Time have been as short or shorter, but I digress).  The overall story flows so well that I never noticed issues of length, and the cliffhanger into the next story similarly flows so well that it does want us to know what happens next.

Padbury has expressed discontent over the fight sequence between her and the Karkus, and while it's not the best fight scene I've seen it hardly is as bad as Padbury believes.

Finally, a little issue I had with The Master is that the habit of his voice shifting from pleasant to harsh is far too reminiscent of The Abominable Snowmen: how Padmasambhava (the disguise for the Great Intelligence) similarly shifted from kindly to evil at the turn of a dime.  I doubt it was intentional, but it is similar.

Minus those little bits,  The Mind Robber is one of the wittiest Doctor Who stories, one that delved into the surreal possibilities of a show that was not bound to a particular time or place (or even reality itself).  It was a great experiment that succeeded, but which alas they rarely if ever went back to.  The series post-Mind Robber has pretty much stayed in science-fiction with occasional jabs at historic or history-based stories.  I don't think it has gone and dealt with the fantasy elements the show lends itself too.  All more the pity, as even now the possibilities that The Mind Robber explored and accomplished are not being explored.  Still, fortunately for us The Mind Robber still exists in its entirety, so some great things did survive.       

This would be the perfect time and place to mark the best end to a Doctor Who review...

10/10

Next Story: The Invasion