August 19: The Invisible Enemy Parts Three & Four

Erm.

It's not that these two episodes are bad, it's just that they're not particularly interested in telling the story that the first two seemed intent on telling.  The majority of part three is focused on the miniaturized Doctor and Leela clones wandering around the Doctor's brain, looking for the Nucleus of the Swarm that's taken up residence inside.  It's not an terrible idea, and the sets are suitably imaginative, but the endeavour is somewhat thwarted by all the jokey bits inside.  It doesn't feel tense; it feels like a casual stroll through the Doctor's brain, as he makes facetious comments and shows off to Leela -- and the fact that no effort is made to make the countdown even close to being in real time doesn't help this sedate feeling any.

It also feels rather padded; Marius is infected by the virus and clones and miniaturizes Lowe so that he can also be injected in the Doctor and stop our heroes' clones, but this ultimately feels like an excuse to use up the episode's allotted time, rather than any sort of serious threat.  Then the whole episode ends ludicrously; after the Doctor and Leela confront the Nucleus of the Swarm, the infected Professor Marius takes whatever escaped from the Doctor's tear duct and brings it to full size.  Only it's not the Doctor and Leela -- it's the Nucleus, which looks like a giant mutated shrimp.  And it's not a very terrifying shrimp either.

The Doctor chats with the Nucleus of the Swarm and its minions.
(The Invisible Enemy Part Four) ©BBC

Part four has some running around as the Nucleus heads back to Titan to spawn, while the Doctor works out how to stop it.  It turns out that, no, it actually was an antibody in Leela's blood that made her immune, and they're able to successfully cure Marius with it.  Then it's off to Titan to stop the Swarm from spreading.  The Doctor is going to use the antibodies, but when those are destroyed, he just blows the whole place up instead.  So, that was easy, I guess -- it certainly didn't look like a life-or-death struggle.

Then it's back to the Bi-Al Foundation to return K-9 to Professor Marius -- only Marius can't take K-9 back to Earth with him, so he offers the metal dog to the Doctor.  The Doctor doesn't seem terribly thrilled (and it's worth nothing that Tom Baker seems to have no idea how to talk to this prop -- he's significantly less certain when addressing K-9 than any of the actual actors), but Leela is very pleased, and the TARDIS departs while Marius makes an excruciating "joke" about K-9 being "TARDIS-trained".

There's some good potential in this story, and the first couple episodes are quite good, but once we enter the Doctor's brain things go downhill.  The brain sets are imaginative, yes, but they really need to be spectacular to pull this off, and they're just not up to the task -- and the lack of suspense in these scenes doesn't help any, as the show starts to stop taking itself seriously.  There's a sense of Bob Baker and Dave Martin throwing in scenes because they think they'd be cool, rather than for any logical reason (which includes basically all of part three).  And, perhaps more egregiously, the ultimate solution to the problem is just to blow it up, rather than to do anything clever or memorable.  The Invisible Enemy certainly tries, and there are some good moments, but it can't quite achieve what it wants to do.  "Ambitious" is a suitable word to describe this story; so is "silly".

August 18: The Invisible Enemy Parts One & Two

So the first effects shot (the one of the shuttle weaving up and down through the asteroids) is rather dodgy, but after that they get much better -- the shots of the shuttle landing on Titan and being taken underground are particularly good.  And while the space shuttle interior isn't terribly exciting (though it's certainly not bad), the interiors of the base on Titan are quite lovely -- the bits that look like they've been hewn from the rock being especially nice.  Oh, and look, we've back to the old-style white console room -- no more wooden paneling (for practical reasons, it turns out -- the panels had warped while in storage and thus were no longer usable).

The plot isn't too shabby here, either -- that shuttle flies through an organism that sort of looks like a thundercloud in space, complete with lightning, which ends up infecting the shuttle crew.  We can tell because they've got some interesting-looking white scales/fungus on their faces, and they all utter another Bob Baker/Dave Martin catchphrase: "Contact has been made."  But what's more exciting than that is that the TARDIS also passes through the organism, and the Doctor is also infected.  So not only do we get a possession story, but we get one in which the Doctor himself has been compromised.  Of course, it being the Doctor, he's able to resist it somewhat, but even he's not totally immune.  Thus as we see the Doctor and Leela exploring the Titan base in response to a mayday signal, we see him losing the struggle against the Nucleus of that space organism as he prepares to shoot down Leela...

Leela, for some reason, is completely unaffected by this creature, and so she's able to help the Doctor, even as he continues to struggle against the Nucleus (he's able to stop himself from shooting down Leela, for instance).  His only help lies at the Bi-Al Foundation, on an asteroid in the main asteroid belt.  It's not as nice a set (being another one of those white "space" sets we tend to get in future stories), but it's still all right.  That said, the "reformed" English spelling on everything -- so, for example, the word 'exit' is realized as 'egsit' -- is not only rather poorly thought-out (such as with the letter 'i' representing two or three different sounds) but it's not even consistent -- Titan has an 'airloc', while Bi-Al has an 'airlok'.  So it's a nice idea but it hasn't been properly worked out, and thus the result is either just strange or simply awful (depending on your point of view).  Oh, and all the dialogue refers to things like "level X4", while the signs say '4X'.

Leela is told about K-9 by his owner, Professor Marius. (The
Invisible Enemy Part Two) ©BBC

However, Bi-Al is where we meet Professor Marius, Bi-Al's "specialist in extraterrestrial pathological endomorphisms", and his robot dog, K-9.  There's something slightly off about K-9's introduction, to be honest -- he's sort of presented as a fait accompli, a way for the effects people to say, "Look what we can do," and thus is a bit hard to take seriously.  It also doesn't help that this is Doctor Who's first "cute" robot since the Chumblies in 1965, and that at this point in the story K-9 doesn't have anything worthwhile to do.  There's a bit of action toward the end, as Marius sends him out to protect the lab with the Doctor in it from the attacking possessed humans (who are trying to save the Nucleus from being destroyed by Marius and his people), but in general K-9 just sits there being vaguely smug and irritating -- declaring he's smarter than Marius and yelling repeatedly at Leela (but not doing anything else) until Marius tells him to stop.

There's also some stuff about "circus" cloning tricks ("circus" because the clones don't last very long) and using this to make duplicates of the Doctor and Leela that can be shrunk down and injected into the Doctor to take the fight to the Nucleus; a bit of confusion about why Leela is immune (the Doctor thinks it's because Leela is all instinct, and the organism needs intellect to thrive, while Marius seems to believe it might be a simple antibody); and the possessed humans smashing a shuttle into the Bi-Al Foundation (yeah, that will keep the Nucleus safe).  It's decently exciting, even if not particularly inspired -- we'll have to see what happens in the last two episodes, to learn if they achieve or squander the potential that this set-up has.  That said, injecting the Doctor and Leela clones into the infected Doctor isn't the most encouraging sign...

August 17: Horror of Fang Rock Parts Three & Four

Well, they all heard a scream from Reuben, but nevertheless he seems to be alive (albeit not very talkative) as he heads straight for his room and locks himself in -- where it becomes clear that all is not right with him.

This episode is primarily meant to increase the feeling of claustrophobia and dread, as Terrance Dicks delivers an old-fashioned base-under-siege story designed to scare the audience -- and so Palmerdale is killed outside after trying to bribe Vince, the young lighthouse keeper, to send a telegram for him.  Palmerdale is still obsessed with gaining money and ruining Skinsale, and will do anything to make that money.  But of course it doesn't matter, as the alien kills him -- Adelaide thinks Skinsale did it to protect his reputation, but we know better.  Then after that, Reuben starts gleefully killing people off, starting with Harker at the end of part three.  "Oh no!" Adelaide screams upon seeing the body.  "Get her out of here!" the Doctor growls, as he and Leela make a dreadful discovery: Reuben's body in the coal bunker, dead for several hours.  The Doctor realizes they're dealing with a shapeshifter, as part three comes to an end. "Leela, I've made a terrible mistake.  I thought I'd locked the enemy out.  Instead, I've locked it in, with us," he says grimly.

The Rutan Scout in the lighthouse stairwell. (Horror of Fang
Rock Part Four) ©BBC

Part four shows the alien in Reuben's form killing off the rest of the survivors: first Vince, then Adelaide.  The Doctor comes up with a desperate plan which requires him to delay the alien while Skinsale and Leela do what they need to do.  This is the point where we learn that the alien is in fact a Rutan, the enemy of the Sontarans and a rare case (at this point in the show's life, at least) of taking a throwaway detail from a previous story and incorporating it into the current storyline.  This Rutan is a scout, "specially trained in the new metamorphosis techniques", and it's going to use Earth as a launching point in their assault against the Sontarans.  Leela manages to kill it (though not before it kills Skinsale, who's stopped to pick up some diamonds that the Doctor has tossed aside -- killed by his own greed, in a way) and then, in what's an impressive but slightly uncomfortable scene to watch, she heads down to gloat over the death of her enemy.  But the Doctor manages to destroy, thanks to the main lighthouse lamp and a diamond, the main Rutan ship that's preparing to land -- although the flash turns Leela's eyes from brown to blue (so that Louise Jameson doesn't have to keep wearing contact lenses to change her eye color).  With everyone in the lighthouse dead, the Doctor and Leela depart, the Doctor quoting one of the sources of the story: "The Ballad of Flanagan Isle".

There's no larger purpose behind Horror of Fang Rock: it's simply there to provide effective moments of terror and fear, and as such is one of the closest times Doctor Who has come to making an old-style suspenseful horror movie (as opposed to the more modern gorefests we now associate the term "horror movie" with).  It's not ambitious, but it is well-scripted, well-directed and acted (there are some fabulous moments from the cast), and very well-designed as well (right down to the filthy handprints on the well-used curved door to the crew room).  It's suspenseful, it's scary, and it never lets the side down: Horror of Fang Rock doesn't have the scope of other stories, but it's extremely successful in what it sets out to do.

August 16: Horror of Fang Rock Parts One & Two

It's a new season and a new producer, but it doesn't really feel that different from season 14.  Horror of Fang Rock feels like a holdover from the previous season, which makes its late replacement status for another Terrance Dicks story (The Witch Lords/The Vampire Mutation¹⁰⁰) all the more surprising -- particularly if you know the direction the show is heading in.  But, as these two episodes make clear, the pressures of the script (combined with the unfamiliarity of working in the different location of Pebble Mill Studios in Birmingham -- Horror of Fang Rock is the only 20th century story not to be made in London) have led to an intense, effective tale.

The first part consists almost entirely of building up the atmosphere of fear that pervades the story.  After a brief glimpse of a "fireball" in the sky, everything else consists of a heavy fog rolling in out of nowhere and an effort to work out what actually killed Ben, one of the three lighthouse keepers stationed on Fang Rock in the early 20th century (judging from the newfangled electricity and comments in part two about when the Beast of Fang Rock appeared previously).  There's a feeling of dread that always present, as the Doctor tries to figure out what's happening, while the audience knows (thanks to some first-person shots) that some sort of alien is also on Fang Rock.

Interestingly, the first cliffhanger involves a ship breaking up on the rocks, which means that part two introduces four more characters into the mix: two politicians, a secretary, and a crewman from the doomed ship.  The younger politician, Lord Palmerdale, is desperate to get to London before daybreak for financial reasons, which means he couldn't care less about the problems of anyone else -- all he wants is money and (it seems) the chance to ruin the older politician, Skinsale.

Of course, while these new arrivals are bickering, the alien is still roaming the island.  The Doctor and Leela (dressed in a Barbara Wright-esque outfit this time around) are trying to track the thing down, while Reuben (the elder keeper) tells them about the Beast of Fang Rock.  The Doctor knows that, while there's no such thing as the Beast of Fang Rock, nevertheless something is out there that wants in -- it's already killed Ben and performed a post mortem on him, and the Doctor believes the people in the lighthouse are next.  "Gentlemen, I've got news for you," the Doctor tells the shipwreck survivors happily.  "This lighthouse is under attack, and by morning we might all be dead.  Anyone interested?" he adds with a grin.  It's a decidedly odd choice, but that's what makes it so brilliant, as it establishes the Doctor as being just as alien as the thing outside.

And then, in another interesting cliffhanger, Reuben goes down to stoke the boilers, and then we cut to Skinsale and Palmerdale's secretary, Adelaide, as they hear a blood-curdling scream from below...







¹⁰⁰ This was a take on vampire stories, but the BBC had a high-profile adaptation of Dracula coming out around the same time and didn't want Doctor Who to upstage/satirize that, so The Witch Lords was scrapped -- at least until 1980, when they made it as State of Decay.

August 15: The Talons of Weng-Chiang Parts Five & Six

There's a moment during the cliffhanger for part five where Leela is struggling against Weng-Chiang (who's trying to knock her out with ether or chloroform or some such chemical on a soaked rag) and inadvertently pulls Weng-Chiang's mask off, revealing the twisted and deformed features underneath.  At least, that's presumably how it's scripted, but what we actually get is Louise Jameson slowly and deliberately reaching for the point where the bottom part of the mask is Velcro-ed on, without thinking to struggle too much.

I bring this up because it's just about the only point in the entire story that lets things down in any way, the only moment which causes the audience to have to stretch their suspension of disbelief (well, unless you're one of those people who can't stand the giant rat -- and honestly, what is it with fandom and disparaging the reasonable-looking monsters in all the best stories?).  Everything else in these six episodes moves so effortlessly that you could (once again) be forgiven for thinking that they just took a camera on location to the 19th century and filmed the events as they happened.

These last two episodes, by the way, are the ones that finally lay all the background details out before us, with the Doctor's descriptions of the Peking Homunculus (aka Mr. Sin) and the failed zygma experiments in time travel in part five, and Weng-Chiang's conversation with the Doctor in part six, where he reveals himself to be Magnus Greel, "the infamous Minister of Justice.  The Butcher of Brisbane," as the Doctor puts it.  These are full of tantalizing hints about the 51st century, with the Peking Homunculus almost starting World War VI and the Doctor being with the Filipino Army "at the final advance on Reykjavik."  We've sort of had an understanding up to this point, but now we know more of the details and why Greel is so desperate to get his talons (sorry) on the time cabinet.

Litefoot and Jago at the mercy of Weng-Chiang. (The Talons
of Weng-Chiang Part Five) ©BBC

These are also the two episodes that finally see Jago and Litefoot teamed up in the way everyone remembers, with Jago full of bluster but ultimately a coward while Litefoot is much quieter but also much more steely.  The pairing of these two characters is so good that it's little wonder they're so fondly remembered as the quintessential Robert Holmes "double act".  And if that's not enough, we also get a final death scene from Li H'Sen Chang, mutilated by giant rats and doped up on opium, as he curses Weng-Chiang for bringing him to this state of being. "Next month, the Great Chang would have performed before the Queen Empress at Buckingham Palace," Chang says.  "I, the son of a peasant."

Part six gives us the confrontation we've been waiting for between the Doctor and Magnus Greel, and it doesn't disappoint, both with the Doctor's maneuverings and conversations with Greel, and with the final battle inside the House of the Dragon.  Of course, they only got to this point because Greel's henchmen forgot to bring along the all-important key to the time cabinet when they moved from the Palace Theatre to the House of the Dragon.  Clearly, if you want something done right you have to do it yourself.  But yes, a final showdown between Greel and Mr. Sin, and the Doctor and his friends, complete with a dragon statue that shoots lasers from its eyes.  And, interestingly, this appears to be a story where the Doctor wins because he talks sense into one of the villain's henchmen -- in this case, Mr. Sin, who has no desire to be caught up in an implosion when Greel operates the time cabinet again.  Not that that stops Mr. Sin from going homicidal afterwards, but that, it seems, is easily dealt with.

But as I said at the beginning, this is one of those rare stories where everything works: the acting, the direction, the script, the sets and costuming...  Everything is working in this story's favor (so much so that it feels slightly churlish to point out that this trait has become a hallmark of this season) to create a stunning piece of television.  The script Robert Holmes gives us is full of unexplored nooks and crannies -- much like the shadows and alleys we see on screen -- which leaves the viewer wanting to know more, like all the best stories.  It's little wonder this story regularly turns up as one of the all-time favorites of the entire series.

But then, this sense of style and excellence has been the case for the majority of Philip Hinchcliffe's time as a producer.  There's been a concerted effort to make the series a lot darker and a lot less safe than it was under Barry Letts's tenure, and Hinchcliffe and script editor Robert Holmes have delighted in pushing the boundaries, in presenting stories that are scary and macabre.  It doesn't hurt that they've been aided in this by Tom Baker, who, in this stage of the show, is possibly the best actor to ever play the role of the Doctor.  The deadly intent with which he's been playing the role (with flashes of charm to remind us that this is still the Doctor, make no mistake) has elevated all the material, making even dodgier stories like The Android Invasion still worth watching.  Season 14 is something of a high-water mark for this, and after this point things are going to shift as Tom Baker gains more and more control over things, but here and now it's something wonderful.  Season 14 is in some ways the end of an era, as the next few seasons will see a deliberate attempt to be less scary and more humorous, but what a way to go out: a season that just got better and better and better, resulting in quite possibly the strongest season Doctor Who has ever had.

August 14: The Talons of Weng-Chiang Parts Three & Four

So part two ended with a shot of Mr. Sin, Chang's creepy-looking ventriloquist's doll, moving of its own accord and menacing Leela with a large knife in Professor Litefoot's home.  The pig-like snorting coming from Mr. Sin is memorably bizarre, and the cliffhanger resolution in part three isn't a cheat, as Leela launches herself through the window to (relative) safety.

Part three is primarily Leela's time to shine, as she follows Chang and Sin back from Litefoot's to their hideout, substitutes herself for one of the girls Chang abducts for his master, and even gets in an attempt to take care of Weng-Chiang by throttling him -- only to be foiled in this by the fact that Weng-Chiang is touting an anachronistic laser gun.  And we should stop for a moment and recognize just how good Louise Jameson is as Leela; her approach to the material she's given never feels relaxed or lazy, but rather as someone who's constantly thinking through the implications of what things would mean to the character -- which she nevertheless makes look effortless as she does everything the scripts ask her to do.  Most of it is subtle and nuanced, which helps everything be that much more believable.  It's a great performance.

Chang is told by Weng-Chiang to bring more girls for his "god" to
feed upon. (The Talons of Weng-Chiang Part Three) ©BBC

But yes, while Leela is on the trail of Weng-Chiang, the Doctor is working out more of the plot with Litefoot.  There was a bit of exposition in the first two episodes, with Chang on the villain's side as girls are abducted, but here the Doctor decides to do something about it.  He knows that Weng-Chiang has his lair in the sewers near the Palace Theatre and so he takes a Chinese fowling piece into the sewers to find his way there, only to find Leela in the sewers as well, being attacked by a giant rat...

Honestly, I don't think the rats are that bad.  They're not really any worse than any other effects seen on the show in the last two seasons -- the fur's too clean, but at least David Maloney has shot the thing as best as he can.  Really, the worst shot is that one of the giant rat "scurrying" toward the camera, which doesn't quite come off the way it's intended to, but even that's not that bad.  And besides, it's not a big part of the story anyway -- what's the big deal?

In any event, part four gives us a good deal more backstory than we had previously.  We learned in part three that Weng-Chiang has a special machine that sucks the life from people -- "Sounds like an organic distillation," the Doctor remarks -- and that he's fixated on recovering the cabinet in Litefoot's home, which he calls a "time cabinet" and which the Doctor establishes is from Earth, but in the future.  And near the end, Chang tells the Doctor about how he encountered Weng-Chiang:

DOCTOR: Li H'sen, you know he's not a god, don't you?
CHANG: He came like a god.  He appeared in a blazing cabinet of fire.  I saw him and helped him.  He was tired from his journey. ... He was ill for many months.  I was but a humble peasant, but I gave him sanctuary while the soldiers searched.  I nursed him.
DOCTOR: The cabinet.  What happened to the cabinet?
CHANG: Soldiers of T'ung-Chi⁹⁹ took it.  Ever since, we have searched for the great cabinet of Weng-Chiang.  The god will not be made whole until it is recovered.

(from The Doctor Who Transcripts - The Talons of Weng-Chiang)

So we learn that the cabinet is important, and that, coupled with all the other clues, suggests that the person calling himself "Weng-Chiang" is in fact from Earth's future.  We still don't know why he wants the cabinet though, other than some references to not being whole without it.

All this and there's still time for an extended sequence in the theatre, as we watch Chang perform his act (with the assistance of the Doctor).  It goes on for quite some time, but it's entertaining nonetheless.  Plus it performs a plot function, as it leads to Chang's downfall -- thanks to Weng-Chiang, who has dismissed Chang from his service and ends up discrediting him on stage by placing a dead body in Chang's magic cabinet for the audience to see.

And finally, this episode ends on one of the most downbeat cliffhangers yet: Weng-Chiang has packed up everything in his lair -- which means he can start all over again somewhere new -- and we see him with the time cabinet, riding away from Litefoot's house and laughing triumphantly with Mr. Sin.  It seems that Weng-Chiang has everything he needs; nothing can stop him now.







⁹⁹ Presumably this is the Wade-Giles system of romanizing Chinese; the modern Pinyin equivalent is Tongzhi.  In any case, unlike Weng-Chiang, this is genuine: the Tongzhi Emperor ruled from 1861 to 1875.

August 13: The Talons of Weng-Chiang Parts One & Two

Standard and special edition DVDs

For a start, these two episodes look gorgeous.  Through a combination of great locations, impressive sets, and marvelous costuming, the first two parts of The Talons of Weng-Chiang boast some of the finest visuals ever seen on Doctor Who.  This, in many ways, is the most immersive story yet, making us almost believe the production crew simply went back to the end of the 19th century and filmed the story there.  (It probably didn't hurt that Philip Hinchcliffe, in his last story for the show, decided not to worry too much about going over budget.)

And into this environment Robert Holmes has inserted the Doctor and Leela, in a story about Chinese gangs in Victorian London and a strange masked figure lurking underneath the Palace Theatre.  It's a clear pastiché of the late 19th-/early 20th-century literature, with the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sax Rohmer, and Gaston Leroux all getting the treatment.  This is a world of fogs and alleys, and a world into which the Doctor has been inserted to distort everything around him.  Thus we get giant rats in the sewers, holograms masquerading as ghosts, and masked figures worrying about "time agents".  This last one is apparently the Chinese god Weng-Chiang (not a genuine god), who the magician Li H'Sen Chang is working for by kidnapping young women to serve as sustenance for his god.

And into this mix we also get the delightful characters of Henry Gordon Jago, the Palace Theatre owner, and Professor George Litefoot, the local coroner.   Each one has time interacting with the Doctor and Leela that is quite wonderful to behold.  Jago threatens to be a pompous, overbearing character (given to extravagant language use and turns of phrase that would make Pip & Jane Baker blush), but in the hands of Christopher Benjamin, the character is instead a likeable fellow with, it would seem, a heart of gold.  Meanwhile, Trevor Baxter's Litefoot is the soul of a gentleman, despite his profession -- watch how he mimics Leela's style of eating so as not to make her feel self-conscious (although, charmingly, he draws the line at letting her use the tablecloth as a napkin).  They're both wonderful characters, and their interactions with the Doctor snap both pairs of characters into sharp relief.

It's not perfect, of course; there is some racism on display which I don't feel qualified to comment on⁹⁸, other than to note that Chang (as played by non-Asian actor John Bennett) turns his r's into stereotypical l's only on stage, which is a nice touch.  And there's the frankly odd moment where the Doctor quells his own irritation at Leela's use of a janis thorn (as seen in The Face of Evil) after Leela informs him that "He was trying to kill you," which does feel rather off.  But small quibbles aside, these first two episodes, which seem primarily designed to build and populate the world of the story (Weng-Chiang isn't even introduced until part two), do an excellent job of building things up and making you want to see more.







⁹⁸ Interested parties might want to start by looking at Andrew Cartmel's "Weng-Chiang and the Yellow Peril (and Rats)" in Outside In.  Not that he's necessarily any more qualified to discuss it, but I think it works as a reasonable (albeit slightly facetious) starting point.