An Hour of Who a Day: August 2014

August 31: The Pirate Planet Parts One & Two

Hey, it's my friend Jason's birthday! Happy birthday, fellow Who enthusiast! There are certainly worse ways to celebrate than the first two parts of The Pirate Planet.

So there have been moments here and there, but in general the majority of stories recently have been more concerned with serious threats and dangerous situations, with bits of levity thrown in. But this story, much like The Ribos Operation right before it, is much more interested in being fun first and dangerous second.

Note that's "fun", not "funny". While there are some jokes and humorous situations scattered throughout (as one might expect from author Douglas Adams -- arguably the most famous writer to work on the show), the cast generally aren't treating this like a comedy. Well, Tom Baker might be, but as his performance here in indistinguishable from surrounding stories it's hard to tell (and as we'll see in part three, he does know when to let that carefree mask drop). But Bruce Purchase, as the Captain, doesn't seem to be, even if he is chewing up the scenery -- there's the scene where he talks tenderly to his parrot that suggests the bravado is a cover, and the Doctor notes in part two that he and Romana are in great danger from the Captain. "What, from the Captain?" Romana says. "Oh, he's just a terrible old bully. All that 'by the evil nose of the sky demon' nonsense is just bluster." "The Captain is a very clever and very dangerous man. He's playing with us," the Doctor replies seriously.

But nevertheless, fun is still the order of the day for these two episodes, and as a result we're presented with an hour of highly entertaining television. The stuff about how to fly the TARDIS is nice (and gives us an in-universe explanation for Tom Baker's mouth wound) and the way Romana can get the native Zanakians (Zanakans? Zanakese? Zanish?) to chat with her while the Doctor continually fails also brings a smile to the face. Plus the Doctor's entrance onto Zanak's bridge is great stuff. And while the Captain is full of bellowing bluster, it's still entertaining bluster, with many creative phrases. Yes, there are occasional missteps ("I'll never be cruel to an electron in a particle accelerator again", the Guard Captain waving goodbye to his departing aircar), but these are more than made up for by the surrounding material.

And beneath the layer of fun is a fabulous SF concept: as we learn at the end of part two, Zanak is a hollow planet that teleports across the galaxy around other planets and exploits all the mineral wealth and energy from the captive planet. "Romana," the Doctor says urgently, "we've stumbled on one of the most heinous crimes ever committed in this galaxy." It's an impressive and fascinating idea, and it will be interesting to see what the next two episodes do with it. Well, so long as our heroes can escape the clutches of the Mentiads...

August 30: The Ribos Operation Parts Three & Four

Part three certainly starts entertainingly, with the Doctor trying to restrain the Graff Vynda-K from striking Garron and receiving a slap across the face with the Graff's glove for his troubles -- which leads the Doctor to indignantly take the glove from the Graff and slap him across the face. Obviously this doesn't do anything to improve the Graff's mood, and the Doctor, Romana, and Garron are hauled off, to be questioned later.

The Doctor summons K-9 with his whistle while Garron and Romana
look on. (The Ribos Operation Part Three) ©BBC

The rest of this episode is largely complications, but there are some entertaining moments along the way: the scenes between Unstoffe and Binro the Heretic (who controversially believes that the lights in the sky are stars and not ice crystals, among other things) are justly lauded, particularly because of how Holmes allows the story enough time to insert this material. We could have just as easily gotten some scenes of the Graff's men searching for Unstoffe, but instead we get a quiet, beautiful moment. And the interaction between the Doctor and Garron is also a lot of fun, as Garron describes how he almost got away with selling Sydney Harbour to an Arab, only to be rumbled when the Arab complained to the government about how Garron refused to throw the Opera House into the bargain. "Doctor," Romana interrupts, "there are men out there planning to kill us, and you're just sitting here chattering!" "Please don't panic, Romana," the Doctor tells her. "...Listen, when you've faced death as often as I have, this is much more fun."

Then there's the odd inclusion of the Seeker, who seems slightly out of keeping with everything else -- while there's a medieval element obviously present, the sense we get is of a more urban environment that the Seeker doesn't quite fit into. But, more than that, there's also the manner that the off-worlders keep ridiculing the primitives on Ribos for their superstitious ways -- and yet all of the Seeker's predictions come true. It's an interesting touch.

Part four is concentrated in the catacombs beneath the city of Shur, as the Graff gets closer to tracking down Unstoffe (and thus his stolen gold, as well as the piece of jethryk). This is really more business as usual as far as Doctor Who goes -- complete with more Shrivenzales (those slightly-less-than-convincing creatures like we saw in part one) roaming the catacombs. The most notable part is how, after a cave-in kills most of the Graff's men (including his beloved friend Sholakh), the Graff goes mad and declares revenge on everyone on the planet -- leaving his remaining soldier with an armed grenade so that he can blow himself up. Then we as the audience hear what the Graff hears: the sounds of battle as he marches forth, clearly mad -- and unaware that the soldier (aka a disguised Doctor) has planted the grenade on him. The Graff's reign is over, and the Doctor has the jethryk -- in reality the first segment of the Key to Time. "Only five more to go," the Doctor says at the end.

It's a fun, fast-moving story -- yet it still has quieter moments of charm to help balance things out. It's not a "big" story, but it is an entertaining one. Robert Holmes has been given the chance to write a lighter script, and he's delivered in spades. It doesn't hurt that the cast all seem to be having a good time; the only person who seems slightly out of their depth is Mary Tamm, who occasionally sounds a bit stiff -- but this could just be characterization (since Romana is also meant to be rather austere and stiff). If the rest of the season is up to The Ribos Operation's standards, we'll be in for quite a good season indeed.

August 29: The Ribos Operation Parts One & Two

This season marks something of a bold experiment for the series: long before the BBC Wales version started having overarching themes, season 16 attempted to have an entire season with a single goal in mind. Each of these six stories deals with the Doctor's efforts to find a segment to the Key to Time, a powerful artifact that can stop everything.

This is all set up in the opening moments of the first story of the season, The Ribos Operation, and there are some great moments just in those first few minutes. The White Guardian is portrayed as a Southern gentleman, dressed in white and sipping a colorful drink while seated in a large wicker chair. He's the epitome of calm sophistication, as he describes the Key to the Doctor (who has a visible wound on his lip from an earlier off-screen encounter with a dog) and how he needs it to restore balance to the universe. "Ah!" the Doctor exclaims. "You want me to volunteer, isn't that it? ... And if I don't?" "Nothing," the White Guardian replies. "Nothing? You mean nothing will happen to me?" the Doctor presses. "Nothing at all. Ever," the White Guardian says pleasantly.

And so the Doctor is saddled with a quest and a new companion: Romanadvoratrelundar¹⁰⁴, a recent graduate from the Time Lord Academy. Mary Tamm plays her as naturally superior, and her initial back-and-forths with the Doctor are quite entertaining. "I may be inexperienced," she tells the Doctor, "but I did graduate from the Academy with a triple first." "I suppose you think we should be impressed by that, too?" the Doctor scoffs. "Well, it's better than scraping through with fifty-one percent at the second attempt," Romana replies haughtily. "That information is confidential!" the Doctor cries defensively.

Once all this initial Key to Time business is set up, it's time for the main story to get going, and Robert Holmes chooses not to give us an important tale but instead one about con men and deposed rulers. The main storyline of these two episodes is marvelously whimsical, being unconcerned with the usual threats of universal destruction/dominion. Instead we get Garron and Unstoffe, two off-world con men trying to sell Ribos to the Graff Vynda-K, the deposed ruler of Levithia, in the manner of those selling, say, the Brooklyn Bridge to unwitting tourists. Of course, the con men have attempted to sweeten the deal by making the Graff believe that the planet has an unusually high amount of jethryk, the rarest element in the universe. It's into this attempted con that the Doctor and Romana enter as they're looking for the first segment of the Key to Time, and they end up being the catalyst when the con seems to go wrong, at the end of part two, even though they're trying to stay out of the way and just get on with grabbing that first segment.

It should also be noted how well the world of Ribos is realized on screen. By choosing to make this an alien planet stuck in its own middle ages ("As yet, they haven't even discovered the telescope," Garron tells the Graff. "Many of the natives believe that the planet is flat and if they walked far enough they would fall off the edge"), it gives the set designers the ability to create an imaginary world that is nonetheless rooted in history, which leads to an opulence and beauty often missing from more futuristic worlds -- no gleaming bare white walls here. Someone (either Holmes or the designers -- or both) has also decided to give things a Russian flavor, which means that we also get some slightly unusual design elements that don't appear in more English medieval stories. The whole thing looks amazing -- and even the fake snow looks convincing for once.

So far we've got a fun, well-written story (of course it's well-written; it's Robert Holmes, isn't it?) that's a joy to look at, and we've got a cast that are taking things seriously, yet clearly having fun while they do so. These first two episodes are a joy that makes the viewer want to see more.

¹⁰⁴ Well, that's what we're always told it is, but Mary Tamm repeatedly pronounces it as "Romanadvoratnelundar".

August 28: The Invasion of Time Parts Five & Six

The Sontarans have invaded Gallifrey! Only a small force, but still! It's an interesting twist to this tale, turning the Vardans into just an opening salvo for the real threat. And what is going on with Castellan Kelner? He seems perfectly content to sell his people down the river to whatever force is willing to exert their dominance. Either he's unbelievably spineless, or he has it out for the Time Lords for some reason. Or he's that desperate to gain power.

It must be said that these two episodes, despite the presence of the Sontarans, don't have quite the same impact as the first four. There are some interesting plot elements moving along in part five (such as the Doctor's plan to patch the hole in Gallifrey's forcefield using his TARDIS), but because the Doctor is now the hero completely -- even more so than in parts three and four, where he still had to occasionally pretend to be evil -- Tom Baker slips back into his comfort zone, which just isn't quite as compelling. Of course, there are still some nice moments -- the confrontation between Borusa and the Doctor about the Great Key is very well done (although there seems to be an implication that, as no President knows where the Great Key is and the Chancellor does, no Chancellor can become President (unless they get a mindwipe or something)) -- but it's not as mesmerizing as those first two episodes were. Another good cliffhanger, though -- Tom Baker sounds pretty desperate as he yells, "We're being thrown into a black star!"

Leela convinces Castellan Kelner to tell the Doctor where Stor
is. (The Invasion of Time Part Six) ©BBC

Part six is the weakest of the bunch; there's an awful lot of padding with wanderings inside the Doctor's TARDIS, and the whole thing ends when the Doctor shoots a big powerful gun at the lead Sontaran, Stor. All this and Leela's afterthought leaving scene. It feels a little bit like a cheat, and the fact that they've shot portions of the interiors on film leads to a visual discontinuity -- particularly as this is all supposed to be in the same place.¹⁰³ Still, the omnipresent TARDIS hum does help with this a bit, but it could have been much better. And Stor's mask does look a lot better on film than on video.

Of course, given that the whole production was under a lot of pressure (between a strike and the initial script set to end the season (Killers of the Dark by David Weir) being far too expensive to film), it's somewhat impressive that The Invasion of Time works as well as it does. Sustaining a story over six weeks is no easy task in the best of circumstances, and the fact that things don't start to fall apart until the end is a testament to everyone involved. The only major complaints are the severe underuse of the Sontarans (they show up and then basically stand around until they're dispatched) and the disappointing farewell that Leela gets. Apparently she loves Andred? Well then. It's not quite on the level of Dodo's goodbye, but it still feels like a textbook example of how not to write a main character out of a show. But everything else is quite well done -- though one wonders how things would have gone without Tom Baker in the central role. He's the glue that holds The Invasion of Time together, and this is really the shift where he begins to completely dominate the show.

It hasn't always been the most successful of seasons, but season 15 manages to provide some good stories and point out a new direction for Doctor Who. There's a definite shift by the end of the season to go in a more "big concept" SF direction, and while it doesn't always work, there's still enough that does to keep things worth watching. In some ways it's a welcome return to the philosophy that governed the show during season 3, rather than the more visceral threats of monsters and retold horror stories -- only this time, they have the dominant personality of Tom Baker as the main actor. How these two things interact will determine the outcome of the next two seasons.

¹⁰³ It's even odder when you consider that some of this stuff was in fact shot on location on video -- all of the stuff in the President's office, for instance, is shot on Outside Broadcast video (they ended up building sets on location, due to a strike), and the scenes in the TARDIS workshop are clearly on OB video. So why didn't they do the whole thing this way -- was it that much cheaper to shoot material on film? Or did the idea simply never occur to director Gerald Blake?

August 27: The Invasion of Time Parts Three & Four

So right after that great cliffhanger we finally get some clue as to what's actually going on, as the Doctor orders Borusa into the newly-redecorated Presidential office: redecorated with lots of gears everywhere -- and everything cast in lead. The Doctor is finally isolated from the Vardans (the shimmering invaders), and thus can reveal his plan to Borusa.

So if the first two episodes spent all their time making us question the Doctor's motives, these two see him squarely back as the hero of the piece, as he plots against the Vardans, who he sees as a tremendous threat to Gallifrey (it seems to be the case that they've invaded the Matrix before all this "taking over Gallifrey" stuff, but this isn't as clear as it probably should be). The only downside to this is that once we know the Doctor is indeed still a hero, Tom Baker never quite gives the same caliber of performance as he did in the first two episodes. Which isn't to say he's bad; just that he's not as fascinating to watch here, once he's being conventionally "good". Of course, a lot of the other characters don't know that, so Andred's trying to organize a revolution, while Castellan Kelner is being obsequious to his new masters.

I have to say, in their semi-materialized form, I don't really mind the Vardans. They may be sheets of aluminum foil, but I still find them quite effective, and the idea that they travel along any wavelength is a neat one. It's only when they're fully materialized that they become a disappointment. And what a disappointment; is there a greater letdown in the whole show than the ultimate reveal of the Vardans? Even the Doctor comments on it: "Disappointing, aren't they?"

The Doctor hushes everyone as K-9 tracks down the Vardan
homeworld. (The Invasion of Time Part Four) ©BBC

And yes, there's some stuff with Leela and her new friend Rodan out in the wilderness of Gallifrey, where they meet up with some drop-out Time Lords already living out there. But other than to show that Rodan is spectacularly unsuited to roughing it, this feels more like simply getting Leela out of the way while the main plot happens elsewhere; she certainly doesn't seem to contribute much to the direct resolution of events. No, our attention is on the Doctor, as he works out how to lull the Vardans into a false enough sense of security to be able to locate their homeworld. He finally manages it by part four, even if he has to make a giant hole in the quantum forcefield that protects Gallifrey. And then he wins; the Vardans are defeated and it seems like everything is wrapping up -- which leads to another great cliffhanger: as the Doctor gives a congratulatory speech, he realizes no one is listening, and turns around to see a squad of Sontarans behind him. It seems the invasion isn't over yet...

Oh, and, happily, we get to hear the middle eight section of the theme tune in the end credits of both of these episodes; it's been a while.

August 26: The Invasion of Time Parts One & Two

The first thing that strikes you about The Invasion of Time is how fast it moves. (Well, all right, maybe not the first thing, but close.) This story flies in comparison to Underworld: we move from the Doctor forming an unholy alliance of some sort to being inaugurated as President in the space of 24 minutes.

That alliance is also particularly intriguing, as it seems to set up the Doctor as the villain of the piece. "You promised complete control over the Time Lords," he says to the mysterious party he's meeting with. "... I'm honoured to be allowed to serve your glorious cause." And from this moment on, the Doctor is behaving distinctly erratically, with sudden mood swings from friendly to near-apoplectic to deadly calm. He refuses to let anyone know what's going on, preferring instead to boss everyone around as he demands to be installed as the President of the Supreme Council of the Time Lords (being, at the end of The Deadly Assassin, the only viable candidate remaining). It's a fascinating approach -- we know the Doctor must be up to something (right?), we just don't have any idea what. It certainly looks like he's planning to betray the Time Lords...

The Invasion of Time is one of those rare things in early Doctor Who: a loose sequel to an earlier story (The Deadly Assassin -- but you already knew that). Of course, other than using events from The Deadly Assassin as a jumping-off point, there's not too much overt sequelness on display: some of the sets look similar (even if they're lit significantly differently), and Borusa is back (albeit as a different actor), and there's some reference to the Matrix. And that's about it. It's slightly surprising that they didn't try to get any of the actors from the earlier story back (well, they apparently did try to get Angus Mackay back as Borusa, but he was busy), as it might have made the connections stronger.

But that's okay. These first two episodes are ultimately Tom Baker's, and while there is the occasional misstep (such as the infamous "even the sonic screwdriver won't get me out of this one" line, which Baker delivers to the audience), for the most part he excels, continually wrongfooting the audience as to his motives and holding us entranced with his performance. That uncertainty as to his motives also keeps things moving, and moments such as the one where he discusses with K-9 the probability of his plan succeeding, which almost look like it could go either way as to his loyalties, go a long way in maintaining interest.

Plus, episode two features one of the all-time best cliffhangers (and my personal favorite) in the entire series: after K-9 destroys the barriers that keep Gallifrey isolated from the universe, the Doctor calls a meeting of the High Council. "Gentlemen, this is no ordinary meeting," he declares. "I'm privileged to introduce to you your new masters." And as odd-looking shimmering shapes appear, we see the Doctor laughing evilly, and we really start to wonder just what is going on. Has the Doctor really become a villain? You really want to tune in next time to find out.

August 25: Underworld Parts Three & Four

The Doctor and Leela listen to Idas's plight. (Underworld
Part Three) ©BBC

Part three might be the best episode of the bunch -- it certainly seems to have the most going on, with the Doctor, Leela, and a local Trog called Idas breaking into the Tree at the End of the World at the center of the planet (which has a convenient shaft that they're able to gently float down (due to the low gravity), complete with incredibly inappropriate elevator-style incidental music) while the Minyans try to make their way to the race banks in the P7E. This means there are some acceptable battles, such as Herrick's defense of the retreating Minyans, and the scene where the Doctor gets everyone out of the control room of the P7E and then rallies them together to figure out how to get back inside the P7E to the race banks gives one a glimpse of how epic this story wants to be (despite being on another CSO backdrop -- but again, none of them are that bad here, and in fact the "can't tell which tunnel is which" problem has gone away). The interrogation of Herrick is also a nice touch, and the revelation that the servants of the Oracle are robots is a good one.

Unfortunately, part four spoils it rather by solving things too early, giving Herrick the race banks without a fight. Of course, this turns out to be a ruse, but it means that there's a lot of doubling back with the real race banks and the false race banks (actually fission grenades) that feel more like padding than genuine incident or peril. This does mean that this last episode therefore drags a bit, even if it does mean that the Doctor is able to rescue all the Trogs before the P7E is destroyed. Nice planet explosion though. But yes, everyone is saved, and in case not everyone's worked out what's going on, the Doctor points out the similarities between this story and that of Jason and the Argonauts.

And maybe that's the main problem with this story. The Hinchcliffe years took older Gothic horror tales (Frankenstein, mummies, those sorts of things) and similar stories and used them as jumping-off points to tell their own stuff. Underworld wants to do the same type of thing with an older, more epic story, but unfortunately it doesn't really have anything to add to the original. If this is indeed supposed to be the Argonautica or a related story, it has an odd way of going about it -- we see almost nothing of the problems encountered by the Argonauts on the journey to and from Colchis, and the Golden Fleece has been reduced to a couple small cylinders. It's also a rather jumbled version -- it's not clear what Persephone and the underworld have to do with Jason's quest, and a lot of it just feels like a hodgepodge of Greek myths just for the hell of it. There's no sense of import to events here; it's as if they've decided that taking an ancient Greek story and chucking SF elements in it is good enough. It isn't.

And, perhaps most frustratingly, Bob Baker & Dave Martin miss a huge trick in the relation between the Doctor and the Minyans. The Time Lords are the Minyans' gods! That means that one of their gods is walking among them, assisting them and chatting with them, and yet none of them react as if this is in any way unusual or awe-inspiring. No, instead it's just business as normal as the Doctor wanders around some tunnels and eventually saves the Minyans and their future. Not once does anyone bow down in worship, or treat the Doctor as special in any way. If they'd gone this path, even a little, it might have lent the story the epic quality it's lacking.

But look, there's not really anything wrong with Underworld. There are some dodgy effects shots, and it's occasionally clear that most people are uncomfortable acting against plain blue backcloths. Plus the script is often frustratingly unambitious at times. But it's not the worst thing ever, and there are some nice moments scattered throughout to keep you interested. Part three is actually pretty good, and Baker & Martin's knack for catchphrases appears here as well ("the quest is the quest"). And Alan Lake is clearly having a good time. Yes, it's a bit silly and a bit dull at times, but what's perhaps more surprising is how well it works in places (the sacrifice scene in the P7E is nicely atmospheric, and the Doctor and Leela's cliffhanger at the start of part four is far better than it has any right to be). It'll never top any polls, but Underworld is better than its reputation would have you believe.

August 24: Underworld Parts One & Two

Boy, Underworld sure takes a beating from fans, doesn't it? It's one of those stories that seems to be almost universally reviled for some reason. But, at least on the basis of these two episodes, it's a bit hard to see why. Surely everyone can't be offended by the bad science?

Of course, the science is definitely...odd, to put it mildly. You can just about swallow the idea of planets forming by all the rocky bits being attracted to pieces with more mass, thus causing more gravitational pull. Almost. A bit. However, the fact that planets form on the edge of the cosmos when matter spews out of the nothing beyond the edge is rather harder to swallow. The whole thing's like this too, but you quickly reach a point where you just have to suspend all disbelief and let it wash past you, so it seems unlikely that that's the reason so many people are cool toward this story.

It could be all the CSO that starts in episode two, but honestly, it's not really that bad (even allowing for the fact that the DVD has been cleaned up by the Restoration Team to lessen the fringing). The main problems with it are that it's rather apparent that they're not really in cave sets, as the lighting's not quite right between the actors and the CSO backgrounds (although, to be fair, this is a problem that still crops up from time to time even today -- yesterday's episode "Deep Breath" having a couple examples of this), and that they only seem to have a handful of backgrounds to drop in, which occasionally makes it difficult to work out the geography of the place. But that's about it, and if you can accept the other occasional questionable effects on Doctor Who then surely you can accept that?

Of course, none of this is to say that the episode is perfect. There's a brilliant idea at the beginning of part one, where the Doctor reveals that the Minyans (the people crewing the ship the TARDIS has landed in) were affected by the arrival of the Time Lords. "Well, the Minyans thought of [the Time Lords] as gods, you see, which was all very flattering and we were new at space-time explorations, so we thought we could help. We gave them medical and scientific aid, better communications, better weapons," the Doctor says. "What happened?" Leela asks. "Kicked us out at gunpoint," the Doctor replies. "Then they went to war with each other, learnt how to split the atom, discovered the toothbrush and finally split the planet." That's such a good idea that they should have made the whole story about that, but instead it's used to give the Minyans some regeneration technology so that they can have plausibly lived for a hundred thousand years. And this might be fine, except James Maxwell, as the ship's captain Jackson, has to tell the Doctor about how long they've been searching, and while it's intended to sound rather futile, Jackson sounds so intensely bored that it's hard to be interested in his story. And, sadly, this seems to be the speed that all the guest characters are operating at -- with the exception of Alan Lake as Herrick, who's just about the best thing on display in Underworld thus far. Well, that and the Doctor telling K-9 to shut up. Not that I mind K-9 that much (despite his initial introduction in The Invisible Enemy), but it's an entertaining moment.

But come on, being a bit dull and squandering some potential aren't the worst of sins. I suppose Underworld could take a hard turn for the worse in parts three and four, but as of right now its greatest problem is it's not as exciting as it needs to be. And if that's the biggest problem you've got (and we're still leagues ahead of The Web Planet here), seems to me you're doing okay.

August 23: The Sun Makers Parts Three & Four

Today's Saturday, and while Peter Capaldi is making his debut tonight as the twelfth Doctor, I'm finishing up The Sun Makers.

Having established this society and its woes in the first two episodes, Robert Holmes sets about engineering a revolution via the Doctor and his new friends. Of course, it's not just for altruistic, "humanity should be free" reasons: the Company has captured Leela (in a sequence that highlights the problems with shooting interiors on location on film, as it makes them obviously locations and thus there's less of a sense of being inside a building, at least according to the visual grammar of the show in this era) and prepared to execute her publicly via steaming, a particularly gruesome, non-fantastical-sounding death. And that's largely it for this episode. Part three also gives us some nice moments with the Doctor and his friends taking over Main Control (where the anxiety-inducing drug PCM is pumped through to all the work areas) and quickly convincing the two technicians working there to join the revolution, and there's also a subtle effort to make the people living in the Undercity more sympathetic and less nasty, so that we'll be more inclined to be on their side by the end. Plus, this episode gives us a lot more of the Collector, as he gleefully looks forward to Leela's death ("This is the moment I get a real feeling of job satisfaction. Are the microphones wired in?" the Collector asks. "All round the condenser, most Merciful. We're looking forward to excellent duodecaphonic sound," Gatherer Hade replies, making, it seems an oblique reference to then-popular Quadraphonic sound (an early form of surround sound). "Then we shall hear within a few seconds," the Collector responds happily) and slyly arranges for the Doctor's capture via an incentive of 5000 talmars paid to anyone who has information about him -- 5000 talmars out of Hade's account, which Hade seems none too pleased about. Nasty cliffhanger, though, as Leela looks about to be killed by the steaming.

The Doctor confronts the Collector. (The Sun Makers Part
Four) ©BBC

Fortunately, she survives and heads back to Main Control with the Doctor (which includes, near the end of the sequence, an utterly bizarre moment where everyone calls out for K-9 for roughly thirty seconds before he reappears), and the revolution begins in earnest, as the PCM wears off and the workers start to go on strike. This does lead to a genuinely unpleasant moment, though, as the workers grab Gatherer Hade and throw him off the roof to his death. This might have worked better if Hade had been genuinely unpleasant, but we just see him act a bit like a buffoon and not really doing anything evil (beyond the excessive taxation). It's thus a shock to see him killed so unpleasantly.

Meanwhile, the Doctor heads off to the Collector's palace and sabotages things before having a nice long chat with the Collector about things, and so we get a nice info-dump as a result: "Tell me, how did you get control of humanity?" the Doctor asks. "A normal business operation," the Collector replies. "The Company was looking for property in this sector, Earth was running down, its people dying. We made a deal. ... We moved them all to Mars, after our engineers had made that planet habitable for their species." "And then taxed the life out of them," the Doctor says reasonably. "I mean, to recover your capital costs." "Quite so, quite so. Then, when the resources of Mars were exhausted in their turn, we created a new environment for them here on Pluto," the Collector says. It's too late for the Collector, though; the Doctor had already fed into the system a "two percent growth tax into the computers; index linked," which ruins the economy and sends the Collector into such a shock that he dissolves in his chair and down into the workings inside; as a Usurian, see, the Collector is a type of poisonous fungi that looks "sea kale with eyes", and his human form was an affectation. Still, humanity is no longer under the Company's thumb, and they can get on with resettling the Earth. A petty moment in the TARDIS later (where the Doctor causes a tremendous lurch inside, causing the chess game he was losing against K-9 to topple over) and it's off to the next adventure.

It's not a terrible story by any means, but the tone of The Sun Makers is definitely uncertain. The cast is starting to latch on to the jokes (and this is by no means the witty tax satire you've been led to believe -- other than a few moments in part one and the occasional reference here or there, the whole thing unfolds more or less the way one would expect a typical Who story to), and while it's not quite at the expense of everything else yet, it does lead to some odd and wholly unnecessary moments (such as the aforementioned K-9 "joke"). The problem is that, under that humorous surface material, there's a much darker story lurking. The idea of being taxed to death (and beyond) is a new one for Doctor Who, and a lot of mileage could have been derived from exploring this further. But because there's been an edict from above to make the show less scary, and because the design looks frankly rather cheap, the impact of this has been minimized, and what we're left with is a fairly well-written but ultimately generic story.

August 22: The Sun Makers Parts One & Two

There's a school of thought that says that The Sun Makers is a political satire about taxation. There are some jokes and references on the surface, sure, but at its heart (at least based on these first two episodes) it's about an oppressed society, like a number of other stories: the only difference here is that the main tool of oppression appears to be heavy taxation, rather than just troops with big guns stationed everywhere.

This is in many ways a bleak couple of episodes. Citizen Cordo would rather commit suicide than be in debt to the Company, and there's some indication of how much disparity exists: Cordo is completely unable to come up with the outstanding balance of 31 talmars to pay for his father's death, while Gatherer Hade is willing to give the Doctor 1000 talmars in order to sustain an illusion of mistaken identity long enough for the Doctor to reveal the location of the other rebel leaders (Hade believes). Meanwhile, the rebels living in the Undercity are just as despicable (if not more so), with the leaders more interested in self-preservation at any cost than in any more noble acts against the Company. Only Goudry (as played by Michael Keating, soon to become rather more well-known as Vila in Blake's 7) has any sort of redeeming qualities, and he's just as concerned about not drawing attention to himself as anyone else. The only honorable people we meet are Cordo and Bisham, the man being held in the Correction Centre with the Doctor.

The problem, however, is that that surface layer of jokes has led to a much lighter feel for this story than might have been intended. Now obviously some scenes (including basically anything with Gatherer Hade) are meant to be lighter. But one never really gets the sense that the people living underground are in any danger, and the Doctor and Leela never really feel like they're in danger either (not even in either cliffhanger). And so we get a sense of a society that we're told is bleak and being controlled by drugs in the air, but we never really get to see any of the effects.

The other odd thing about this story is how we're on Pluto in the far future, surrounded by six artificial suns, and yet this becomes a background element almost immediately. It obviously didn't help that it was miserably overcast on the days they shot outside, but there's a story in the mix about how even the light is something the citizens have to pay for, but it's never brought up. All this and the haphazard set design (though, to be fair to designer Tony Snoaden, the design thought processes seem to have been changed halfway through the design stage, which leads to some odd juxtaposition of elements -- Aztec faces, giant fake-looking animal rib cages, and blown up circuitry (from AMD, you may have noticed) all fight for screen prominence, with little rhyme or reason) make this a story that seems like it's been put together in a rush. Hopefully things improve in the last two episodes, but right now this feels like a story that's hoping that the tax jokes will distract people from the fact that this is a roughly-sketched-out oppressed society with no real threat or danger behind it.

August 21: Image of the Fendahl Parts Three & Four

The Doctor is saved by Leela, and off they go to regroup at Ma Tyler's cottage. After establishing both that Ma Tyler is all right and that she has precognition (which the Doctor puts down to living near a time fissure -- "it's a weakness in the fabric of space and time. Every haunted place has one, doesn't it? That's why they're haunted. It's a time distortion" -- and thus gives the viewers an offhand, pseudo-scientific explanation for ghosts), it's off to the fifth planet for some reason (padding, most likely -- we learn almost nothing from this side trip). The bit in the cottage is still nice though. "How do 'ee know so much?" Ma Tyler asks him. "I read a lot," the Doctor replies.

The bits back at the Priory are much more interesting. Max Stael seems to think that, by using Thea as a medium and bringing along some of the locals to help him, he'll be able to "conjure and control the supreme power of the ancients." He noticed that the sonic time scanner woke up the power and Thea seems drawn to it, so he's all set. And obviously he's not going to let anyone get in his way, so Adam Colby and Dr. Fendelman are taken down to the cellar at gunpoint and tied up to some columns. Colby responds, rather wonderfully, by being more sarcastic than usual, while Fendelman seems more despondent -- possibly because he realizes what's going to happen -- particularly when he sees that Stael is using the ancient skull (with a pentagram in the crown -- another offhand explanation for something) as a power source. "You don't understand," he tells Stael urgently. "I see now what will happen. ... The Doctor asked if my name was real. Fendelman. Man of the Fendahl. Don't you see? Only for this have the generations of my fathers lived. I have been used! You are being used! Mankind has been used!" (And never mind that Fendelman doesn't seem to have been around for any of the explanations about what the Fendahl is, it's still a good, well-delivered speech.) This is where the story really starts to get into Quatermass and the Pit territory, with the implication that mankind's development has been influenced by this ancient skull in order to turn us into something for its own purpose. Stael won't listen, though -- he shoots Fendelman in the head (off-screen, but there's a trickle of blood on Fendelman's temple when we cut back) and gets ready to claim the ancient power.

The Fendahl core and a Fendahleen. (Image of the Fendahl
Part Four) ©BBC

It all goes horribly wrong, though; Thea turns into a glowing golden figure, and a number of slug-like creatures called Fendahleen appear. The Doctor and Leela are able to rescue Colby, but when it comes to Stael, it's too late -- he can't move, and he begs for a gun so he can end his life. It should be a horrific moment, but it's played in such a way as to lessen the impact of what's happening: Tom Baker in particular seems incredibly unaffected by the gravity of the situation as he gives the gun to Scott Fredericks, but one wonders if that was to downplay this element for the audience (after all, The Deadly Assassin incident was only last year and new producer Graham Williams has been specifically told from above to tone things down). Still, you can definitely see what Chris Boucher was getting at when he wrote it.

We finally get some answers from the Doctor as to what's happening in his conversation with Colby, as he rewires the time scanner to cause an implosion. We learn that twelve million years ago, the Fendahl evolved on the fifth planet as a creature that fed on all forms of life, and the Time Lords tried to stop it by destroying and/or time-looping the fifth planet (it's not exactly clear which) -- only one of them escaped and made its way to Earth:

COLBY: Then it got itself buried, but not killed.
DOCTOR: The Fendahl is death. How do you kill death? No, what happened was this. The energy amassed by the Fendahl was stored in the skull and dissipated slowly as a biological transmutation field. Now, any appropriate lifeform that came within the field was altered so that it ultimately evolved into something suitable for the Fendahl to use.
COLBY: Are you saying that skull created man?
DOCTOR: No, I'm saying it may have affected his evolution. ... That would explain the dark side of man's nature. But it's just a theory. ... Oh, if you want an alternative explanation, the Fendahl fed into the RNA of certain individuals the instincts and compulsions necessary to recreate. These were fed through the generations till they reached Fendelman and people like him.
COLBY: Well, that's possibly more plausible.
DOCTOR: Or on the other hand, it could all be just a coincidence.

(from The Doctor Who Transcripts - Image of the Fendahl)

Thea's transformation into the Fendahl core (the Fendahl being a gestalt entity composed of a core and twelve Fendahleen) is pretty impressive; the large eyes painted on her eyelids works surprisingly well, particularly at a distance -- it's only in close-up shots that the effect is spoiled somewhat. It's also an interesting choice to make something that's pure death look so beautiful and almost god-like, and it's one of the decisions that makes this story so compelling.

Fortunately, the Doctor is on hand to save the day, by taking the Fendahl skull and putting in it a lead-lined case and then rigging a gigantic implosion in the Priory to take care of the Fendahleen that exist -- the Fendahl being unable to gain full strength since two of the people needed to turn into Fendahleen were killed. The universe is safe.

Image of the Fendahl is just about the last stab at Gothic horror in this era of the show, but it's a very effective piece of television. The decision to make so much of this look like a high-quality science-fiction teleplay (as opposed to a typical episode of Doctor Who) elevates this, and the comparisons with Nigel Kneale's works are intended as a compliment. It's so good, in fact, that you could take the Doctor out of things completely and still have a good story that would be almost unchanged until the final episode. It's an intelligent script and a good production; it's not as wonderful as The Face of Evil, but this is another unfairly neglected story that's well worth your time.

August 20: Image of the Fendahl Parts One & Two

This first episode feels very unusual for Doctor Who. The Doctor and Leela are barely in it, and the times when they are present, they're essentially divorced from the main plotline. That plotline feels more like a Nigel Kneale piece (and the ancient, impossible skull has obvious parallels with Quatermass and the Pit), and all the characters involved feel fully formed, as opposed to foils for the Doctor to react against. They're scientists who've discovered a homo sapiens skull buried in 12-million-year-old volcanic ash, and they're trying to work out why it was there. Meanwhile, the body of a dead hiker has been found in the grounds nearby ("What sort of corpse?" asks the group's leader, Dr. Fendelman. "A dead one. What other sort is there?" replies Adam Colby¹⁰¹, the one who found the hiker), which Dr. Fendelman wants to keep hushed up for some reason -- as if they're doing something so terrible at the Priory that they don't want anyone to associate the death of a hiker with archaeology. It's an odd position to take, is what I'm getting at.

This first episode is really all about establishing the mood. We know there's a seemingly impossible skull, we know that Fendelman is working on a device that will let him see images of the past (due to a "sonic shadow"), and it seems that when the device is operating, the ancient skull reacts -- and seems to affect fellow researcher Thea Ransome (Wanda Ventham's second role on the show, and apparently her first since the birth of her son Benedict Cumberbatch) in strange ways. There's an uneasy feeling about all this, and the lack of music actually heightens this feeling -- other than the titles, there's no incidental music at all in the first episode, and only a small amount in the second part. But where that's been a hindrance in other stories (The Web Planet springs to mind), here it adds a feeling of verisimilitude that leads to that aforementioned sense of unease -- it's ever so slightly harder, given what we see, to dismiss this as simple fiction.

Weird cliffhanger, though: the skull is superimposed over Thea's face while she turns on Dr. Fendelman's machine, Leela is shot at with a shotgun, and the Doctor stands motionless in a field. And the resolution is even stranger: the Doctor talks his legs into moving and he's able to run off. Oh, and Leela dodges the shotgun blast.

The Doctor is forced to grip the glowing ancient skull.
(Image of the Fendahl Part Two) ©BBC

The second part sees the Doctor and Leela more integrated into the action (and, as a random aside, Leela's hairstyle in this isn't very flattering -- allegedly the stylist took too much off and they had to put Louise Jameson's hair up to cover this), although it's Leela who seems to be doing better, as she's got a whole subplot with some locals and something about a coven or some such to deal with. The Doctor seems to know a lot more about what's going on (note the way he instantly knows not to touch Thea, that Mitchell died the same way as someone else, and that the weird slug-like creatures that appear on Thea's fallen body look like embryo Fendahleen, "a creature from my own mythology"), but it doesn't really help, as he's quickly locked up in a storeroom and isolated from the rest of the house, with no way of getting out. Well... except, in one of the great mysteries of Doctor Who, the door is unlocked and opened, without any indication whatsoever as to who did it. (Although now we know it must have been Clara, as she traveled through the Doctor's timeline.)

Things aren't exactly going well in the meantime: Thea seems drawn to both the skull and Fendelman's machine, and Max Stael (the final researcher in the group) appears to be a member of that coven whose members were giving Leela trouble in the episode. Interesting cliffhanger, though: after Thea switches the machine on, Thea is knocked out by Max and the machine is left on -- which means that the Doctor, who's been examining the skull¹⁰², suddenly feels compelled to grip it: an action which causes him some pain...

¹⁰¹ The second character on the show to bear the name Adam. Well, I care.
¹⁰² As far as I can tell, this marks the first instance of the Doctor asking, "Would you like a jelly baby?" (in this case, facetiously to the skull) while actually offering a liquorice allsort.

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'.

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.

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.

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.