February 11: "Four Hundred Dawns" / "Trap of Steel"

(Galaxy 4 episodes 1 & 2)

So Doctor Who is pretty lucky in that the majority of the episodes from the first two seasons exist (with only 11 out of 81 missing).  But now that we've reached season 3, the number of missing episodes increases sharply -- and there also aren't any more telesnaps until we reach Innes Lloyd's producership, starting with The Savages.  So I'll be listening to a lot of soundtracks for a while, with no pictures to help guide the process.  Ah well.

Of course, "Four Hundred Dawns" is a bit unusual, in that a 5 minute clip exists, which means that we can actually get some idea of what it looked like.  The clip's not the most exciting thing ever, being primarily exposition, but we do get a sense of what the Drahvin spaceship looked like, and what the Drahvins themselves looked like, as well as some shots of the Chumblies.  Before 2011 this was pretty exciting; now with the recovery of "Air Lock", this isn't quite as intriguing, but it's still nice to have a decent chunk of the episode to view.

As far as the actual story goes, though, season 3 opens rather mutedly.  We get a continuity reference back to The Space Museum, and that's about the most exciting thing to happen at the start.  I'll allow for the reasonable possibility that a lot of this was more visual, but still.  Once the Drahvins "rescue" the Doctor, Vicki, and Steven, we get a lot of backstory explaining what's going on, about how the Drahvins and the Rills both crashed on this planet four hundred dawns ago, and the Rills are vicious murderers, and also the planet is going to blow up in fourteen dawns.  And this is the part where people usually point out that the reputation this serial has for being about not judging by appearances is inaccurate, as it's clear from the outset that we're meant to mistrust the Drahvins and their story.  In fact, it's less clear how Galaxy 4 got this reputation in the first place, given just how clearly we're meant to be against the Drahvins.  I blame Peter Haining.

"Trap of Steel" continues the fun, with the Doctor (who previously learned that the planet only had two dawns left) returning to the Drahvins and inexplicably telling them that, yes, the planet's toast in fourteen dawns.  It doesn't even last that long, as Maaga, leader of the Drahvins, quickly cottons on that the Doctor's lying, and forces him and Vicki to go capture the Rills' ship.  There is a nice bit where Steven tries to convince one of the Drahvin soldiers to take Maaga's weapon to fight Chumblies, and he'll just look after her gun in the meantime, and Vicki gets to test her theory about the Chumblies ("I noted, observed, collated, concluded, and then I threw the rock").  And then there's some exploration of the Rills' ship and the structure built around it, which, again, probably looked more interesting than it currently sounds.  And, once again, that's it.  Not the most action-packed pair of episodes around, but they're not too bad.

February 10: "Checkmate" / Dr. Who and the Daleks

(The Time Meddler episode 4 & the first Peter Cushing film)

So by the end of "A Battle of Wits" we knew exactly what the Monk was planning, but the Doctor didn't, so consequently there's a recap where the Monk gleefully tells the Doctor of his plan to change history.  The Doctor is of course outraged, but the Monk rejects his arguments: "Doctor, it's more fun my way.  I can make things happen ahead of their time... For instance, do you really believe the ancient Britons could have built Stonehenge without the aid of my anti-gravitational lift?"  This is a great line, suggesting that the Monk has already changed history to what we "know" it to be, and he's clearly having a lot of fun.

The Monk discovers the Doctor has removed his TARDIS's
dimensional control. ("Checkmate") ©BBC

But the discovery of another TARDIS!  The suggestion before this has often been that the Doctor built the TARDIS himself, but this shows that's clearly not the case.  There are other TARDISes, and other members of the Doctor's race.  It's a bit difficult to convey how significant this is, given how blasé we are about such a thing nowadays, but it proves that there are more than just the Doctor and Susan out there in the universe.

Really though, the rest of the episode is just showing the results of the actions put into motion in the previous episodes.  The Saxons know the Vikings are planning an invasion and that the Monk (who previously requested that the villagers light beacon fires) isn't to be trusted.  The Vikings hiding in the monastery are routed and killed¹³ by the Saxons, and the Monk is chased out as well, foiling his attempt to meddle with history.  Except he still has his atomic cannon and its neutron mortars, but it seems like it's too late for him to carry out his plan.

The Time Meddler is a lovely little story.  It's about history, but really more about history itself: 1066 is little more than a backdrop to the Monk's machinations (albeit an event that really would lead to dramatic differences if it were altered), but they're the actions of someone amusing themselves rather than of a megalomaniac.  It's also a direct challenge to the premise set up in The Aztecs, of the immutability of history.  We've got Donald Tosh editing scripts now, but this is still clearly Dennis Spooner's domain.  It looks great (even if the prints themselves are a bit rough, with "A Battle of Wits" clearly in the worst shape), it's well directed and well acted -- with a superb guest turn from Peter Butterworth -- and it's a great script.  Really, what's not to love?

The Time Meddler is the last story of season 2.  If season 1 saw Doctor Who establishing the guidelines for the show, season 2 saw everyone trying to push the boundaries.  We get more humor, more abstract concepts (such as in The Space Museum), and more ambition.  It doesn't always pay off (stand up, The Web Planet), but there's always a sense of trying to go beyond what they've done before, and when they occasionally try to play it safe (such as with The Chase), the result falls a bit flat.  Season 2 demonstrates that there's still plenty of life left in the show -- it's survived the loss of all three original travelling companions, and it's done so with confidence.  Season 1 ends with a speech about the TARDIS crew finding their destiny in the stars.  Season 2 does one better by ending with the time travellers' faces actually out among the stars.  It's a fitting end.

The Daleks prepare to destroy all other life with a neutron
bomb. (Dr. Who and the Daleks) ©AARU Productions

But we're not quite done yet!  Between the end of season 2 and the start of season 3 came something monumental: that's right, it's time for Dr. Who and the Daleks, the first Peter Cushing film. Which means this is more like two hours of Who today, but never mind.

But Doctor Who, in color and with money thrown at it!  It looks pretty impressive, even if it doesn't always succeed -- full marks for the Daleks, somewhat less for their salmon-colored city.  But you have to admire a production that sticks lava lamps prominently in frame as a symbol of alienness.

This film is a relatively faithful adaption of the first Dalek serial.  Most of the big changes have to do with the main characters: Dr. Who is an eccentric inventor who lives with his granddaughters Barbara and Susie Who (yes, really), and who happens to have invented a time machine, which he keeps in a police box in his garden.  Ian Chesterton is Barbara's bumbling boyfriend.  Everything else is largely in keeping with the original: all the plot beats are there -- almost to the point where it feels mechanical, rather than organic.  Dr. Who wants to investigate the alien city, so he sabotages the fluid link (which is even the same error code on the fault locator).  The Daleks want to ambush the Thals, so they make Susie write a letter inviting them into the city.  Dr. Who needs the fluid link back, so a small party goes around the back of the city while the main force attacks the front.  (This is actually probably the most pointless plot beat to repeat, since Ian's small party doesn't seem to have any real effect on the outcome of events here.)  This is definitively a big color remake of the original story, but it hasn't stopped to consider why events in the original serial were there in the first place, content instead to just forge on ahead regardless.

Dr. and Susie Who are held captive by the Daleks. (Dr.
Who and the Daleks) ©AARU Productions

That's not to say things aren't entertaining -- they're just not as entertaining as they could be.  Peter Cushing steals the show as Dr. Who, playing a version of William Hartnell's character with all the irascibility removed.  He's a kindly old grandfather, and you can see Peter Cushing put the twinkle in Dr. Who's eye in almost every scene.  And although Ian Chesterton is portrayed as an idiot, Roy Castle puts enough sympathy in the role that you can't help but root for him by the end.  On the other hand, Roberta Tovey's Susie Who is one of those precocious child geniuses that film and television companies seem to think audiences will like for some reason, and although she tries, virtually every line of dialogue Tovey has to deliver makes her seem stuck up and unlikeable.  And Jennie Linden, sadly, is rather wasted, as Barbara's character fades primarily into the background.  Special mention, though, for the moment when she puts mud on the Dalek's eyestalk: "Dalek!" she yells.  "Yes?" the Dalek replies obligingly, whereupon Barbara slaps the mud on its eye: "Aaah!"

It's not perfect, and the attempts to artificially graft humor onto the proceedings typically fall flat (and nowhere worse than in the awful ending scene, showing Ian panic about Roman soldiers and start faffing about in Tardis¹⁴ like he's having a seizure), but there's still enough to enjoy here, especially if you can look past the salmon shower curtain walls.  It's not as good as the original, but it is as confident, and that carries things a long way.

Malcolm Lockyer seems to think he's composing music for a Bond film, though.







¹³ Though not in the episode as it currently exists: "Checkmate" is missing 12 seconds of the Vikings being killed -- the result of overseas censor cuts; the audio of the missing segment, though, still exists and is on the DVD.
¹⁴ In an interesting reversal of the custom of the television show, in the entirety of Dr. Who and the Daleks the time machine is always called Tardis, with nary a definite article in sight.

February 9: "The Meddling Monk" / "A Battle of Wits"

(The Time Meddler episodes 2 & 3)

So William Hartnell's off for a week (other than some prerecorded lines), which means that it's the Monk's turn to take the spotlight.  And, having set up the mystery last time, the show proudly presents its anachronisms: the Monk uses a toaster and an electric griddle to make breakfast before perching on a cliff side, using binoculars to look for incoming ships (while trying to take a pinch of snuff).  It's clear the Monk isn't from 1066, and the question becomes, how is this possible?  And Peter Butterworth does a fantastic job as the Monk -- he doesn't seem to be particularly villainous, more just mischievous, which is far more interesting (and entertaining).

And Steven Taylor really shines as a new companion, doesn't he?  His continued skepticism starts to give way to the belief that they really are in 11th-century England ("I mean they'd hardly go to all this trouble for a fancy dress ball, now would they?" he remarks), but he doesn't let it worry him.  His somewhat shamefaced thanks to the Saxons is rather lovely, and his conversation with the Monk shows he has initiative -- even if it's not clear who's tricking who.  I think we're going to be all right with this new companion.

For much of the time, "The Meddling Monk" feels quite fun, which makes the moments with the Vikings more shocking -- there's a clear suggestion that they've raped the woman Edith, and the battle that ensues, although a bit more stagey than one might like, still is pretty intense, with Saxons brutally stabbing downward into what one presumes are fallen Vikings.  It's a somewhat striking juxtaposition, albeit one that the show has played with before (notably in Dennis Spooner's last contribution, The Romans), but it still works.

The Doctor gets the better of the Monk. ("A Battle of
Wits") ©BBC

"A Battle of Wits" features the return of William Hartnell, and we get to see the Doctor and the Monk engaged in a lovely little struggle as each tries to get the better of the other, with the Doctor usually coming out on top.  But we also learn the full extent of the Monk's plan: he's going to repel the Viking invasion at Stamford Bridge, thus leaving King Harold Godwinson fresh to repel William the Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings.  He is, in other words, going to change recorded history.  What's striking about this is how much of a sea change this represents for the programme: before it had been established that you couldn't rewrite history at all, and then that was stretched a little to suggest that time travellers could be the cause of established history (namely the Doctor giving Nero the idea for the Great Fire of Rome), but this seems to be a suggestion that history can in fact be altered -- the Monk's plan doesn't make any sense otherwise.  The history of Earth, it seems, is becoming no more inviolable than any other world.  And it's a great cliffhanger, too: the Monk has his own TARDIS!  Now that's a sea change.

February 8: "The Planet of Decision" / "The Watcher"

(The Chase episode 6 & The Time Meddler episode 1)

And so the Mechonoid takes them up into that big city we saw last time, and it turns out there's another person already there: Steven Taylor, an astronaut who crashed two years earlier and was taken prisoner by the Mechonoids.  Yes, it turns out that the TARDIS crew has escaped the Daleks only to be held captive by the Mechonoids.  Steven Taylor is, of course, played by Peter Purves, the same actor who played Morton Dill three episodes ago, but here he portrays such a different character that, other than appearance, you'd have no reason to believe they were the same actor.  He does a good job behaving as someone who's been without human contact for two years, yet he doesn't overplay the moment.  But that doesn't last before they've worked out a way to escape, by climbing down off the roof.  Meanwhile, the Daleks invade and attack in what's quite a well-shot battle (though the inclusion of the cartoony explosion graphics is a tad much), and the city burns.

The Daleks prepare to attack the Mechonoids. ("The Planet
of Decision") ©BBC

This only takes about half the episode, leaving the remainder to deal with the almost unthinkable: Ian and Barbara's departure. It starts with an argument, when Ian and Barbara realize they can use the Daleks' time machine to get back home and the Doctor thinks it's too dangerous ("I will not aid and abet suicide!" he says angrily).  But this almost seems more bluster than genuine worry, and Vicki talks him around into helping them.  When they do make it back to London 1965, we're treated to a photo montage of Ian and Barbara frolicking around some of the landmarks and having a good time -- and then we pull back to see that the Doctor and Vicki have been watching them on the Time and Space Visualizer.  "They made it!" Vicki exclaims, and the Doctor agrees, but he looks so crestfallen: "I shall miss them.  Yes, I shall miss them, silly old fusspots," he says, and you're not sure if it's the Doctor speaking or William Hartnell, but either way I teared up a little -- and they say Doctor Who wasn't emotional until the 21st century.  What rubbish.

This concludes The Chase, and it's probably the best thing about it.  You get the impression that the production team don't really know what to do with the Daleks anymore, so they've gotten Terry Nation to do up The Keys of Marinus with Daleks in it and hired Richard Martin to shoot it because he always does Dalek stories, and let them turn it into a romp -- rather missing the point of having the Daleks, but there you go.  It has its moments here and there, but The Chase is ultimately somewhat less than the sum of its parts.

But the show is always moving on, and "The Watcher" is no different.  We get a very sweet opening scene, though, as the Doctor talks gently to Vicki in the wake of Ian and Barbara's departure: "Their decision certainly surprised me, although it shouldn't, I know.  But it was quite obvious they intended to take the first opportunity of going back home."  He then asks Vicki if she wants to go home too, but Vicki refuses -- and any further discussion is curtailed by a sound coming from the living quarters.  It's Steven Taylor, last seen wandering the jungle on Mechanus.  Apparently he made it on board the TARDIS but is still a little confused about where he is, and he doesn't really believe them when they tell him the TARDIS is a time machine.  "Look, Doctor," he says, "I've seen some spaceships in my time...admittedly nothing like this.  What does this do?"  "That," the Doctor replies wonderfully, "is the dematerialising control and that, over yonder, is the horizontal hold.  Up there is the scanner, those are the doors, that is a chair with a panda on it.  Sheer poetry, dear boy.  Now please stop bothering me."

Steven takes some convincing that they've arrived in the past, on what appears to be the coast of England in the 11th century, and Peter Purves does a great job of portraying skepticism.  The Doctor goes off on his own and works out that it's 1066, shortly before the Norman invasion.  But something's not quite right, as he hears the chanting from the monastery slow down, like a gramophone unwinding, before speeding back up to normal.  Meanwhile, Steven finds a wristwatch that definitely not from 1066: "You still say this is tenth century England?" he asks Vicki, holding the watch up.  There's a definite mystery going on, and it seems related to the monk who eavesdrops on the travellers and lives in the monastery, yet doesn't seem surprised by the TARDIS's arrival or its appearance.  The episode is set up quite skillfully, setting up an historical time period with a few pieces that don't fit, leaving the viewers wondering what's going on, and the performances of everyone involved help sell the mystery.  It's an intriguing episode, to be sure.

February 7: "Journey Into Terror" / "The Death of Doctor Who"

(The Chase episodes 4 & 5)

"Journey Into Terror" is primarily set in some sort of haunted house, it seems.  Truth be told, I found the whole sequence very uninvolving, and although I generally try to see things from the point of view of a first time viewer, this time I couldn't view it without knowing the twist at the end, and so the Doctor's theories about where they've landed fall flat.  It's also really poorly structured; there's some effort toward building tension and mystery, but that all goes out the window once the Daleks show up, and it's just a mad dash back to the TARDIS.  This means that Vicki's disappearance and Barbara's vanishing into the wall are never dealt with: they're just suddenly back in the main room and ready to leave.  And there's also the odd moment where, when the Dalek first appears, it demands to know where the time travellers are, as if it doesn't recognize two of them standing right in front of it, and then when Ian slams a metal grating down it tells them not to move instead of just exterminating them through the grating. 

Once the haunted house is left behind, things get marginally more interesting as Ian, Barbara, and the Doctor realize that they've left Vicki back at the haunted house, and they resolve to fight and defeat the Daleks at their next stop so that they can capture their time machine and go back for Vicki.  This means the battle will be fought on the planet Mechanus.  "Just look at that vegetation!" Barbara exclaims.  "Yes, just as though it were alive," replies Ian the science teacher.  Vicki, meanwhile, has stowed away with the Daleks.  She might not hear the reappearance of the slow comedy Dalek ("Er...er...in Earth time...er...four minutes..."), but she is present when they unveil their latest scheme: a robot double of the Doctor, with a resemblance so "uncanny" that you wonder if the Daleks can actually see things the way humans do.  Of course, then the close-up is of William Hartnell rather than Hartnell not-really-a-lookalike-at-all Edmund Warwick, which ultimately ends up just being mildly disconcerting than threatening, even when the robot announces he will "infiltrate and kill."  The next episode is called "The Death of Doctor Who" -- wonder how that one will turn out?

The city of the Mechonoids. ("The Death of Doctor Who")
©BBC

And really, when you're naming episodes you'd think you'd know not to give hostile critics titles like that, but no, this is "The Death of Doctor Who" (spoiler alert: it's not).  It's not a bad episode, but it does feel a bit like marking time: the Doctor, Ian, and Barbara spend most of the time holed up in a cave waiting for the right moment to strike.  The battle with the robot Doctor is quite entertaining, even if it's even more apparent that Edmund Warwick looks almost nothing like William Hartnell.  And Vicki is reunited with the others!  But meanwhile, the jungle set, while reasonably good (except for the obvious studio floors, but there's not much you can do there when you're dealing with Daleks), means that we have lots of gaps through the set in which you can see things.  Including a BBC camera in virtually full view for an awfully long time.  But at least the Fungoids are a good design and reasonably menacing.  And that final part with the Mechonoid is pretty good, even if it takes a couple listens to work out what it's saying.

February 6: "The Death of Time" / "Flight Through Eternity"

(The Chase episodes 2 & 3)

"The Death of Time" is one of those episode titles that sounds good until you start to think about what it actually means.  Why is this the death of time?  Is it because the Daleks have a time machine?  You'd think that would mean the Daleks are rampaging through time killing everything, but instead they're chasing after the Doctor and friends and not really doing a great job there.  You'd think the Daleks would just go through and exterminate everyone, but instead they make a deal with the native Aridians to capture the travellers, while also using them as slave labor to dig up the TARDIS, which you'd think would be the last thing they would want to do since it gives their enemies easy access to their ship.  I mean, they do try to destroy it with their guns, but really, it would have been better to leave the thing buried.

The more interesting part of the episode is the gesture of examination of the Aridians' plight, as Terry Nation gives us a look at collaborators.  It's not dwelled on, of course, but it's interesting how the Doctor doesn't condemn their decision to hand them over to the Daleks, and in fact they only escape because a Mire Beast happens to knock down a wall and distract everyone long enough for the TARDIS crew to leave.  Which they do.

Morton Dill isn't taking the Daleks very seriously.
("Flight Through Eternity") ©BBC

"Flight From Eternity" gives us a couple locations this time around: New York 1966 and on board a ship 1872.  But first it starts out with a scene inside the Dalek time machine, with another use of a photographic blowup but also some motionless Dalek props (they're the ones without the base or the vertical "solar panel" slats).  For once the photograph isn't shot from an angle that reveals it to be a photo, but there's an extremely misjudged moment with what appears to be a Dalek reading to itself out loud before giving its report: "Er...one...er...forty...er..." it mumbles to itself.  This has to be considered an attempt at comedy, but it falls woefully flat.

The scene on top of the Empire State Building, on the other hand, is much more entertaining.  There are some subtle moments with the tour group at the beginning: I love the way the big tourist knocks that young woman out of the way just so he can get to the front, and as the tour guide talks about gazing "out across the panorama", he appears to be checking out said young woman (it's difficult to tell for certain, since unfortunately they've put a piece of stock footage in the middle of this line, but when we cut back he's plainly staring at her chest and has to bring himself back and start his sentence over again).  And then we're introduced to Morton Dill, who's portrayed as a stereotypical hick from Alabama.  He's consequently the only person to see either the TARDIS and its occupants or the Dalek time machine with a Dalek.  I know Morton Dill bothers some people, but for me he fits into the tone of the scene and his belief that it's all a Hollywood trick is quite lovely.  And at one time I probably would have thought he was overacting, but that was before I met a guy who laughed and moved almost exactly the same way, so now Peter Purves' performance just reminds me of him instead.  I was quite pleased with the whole scene.

The next bit isn't as great though.  The TARDIS materializes on a sailing ship, Barbara gets accosted, and then they leave before the Daleks show up, at which point the entire crew abandons ship.  This might have more impact if the words "Mary Celeste" weren't plainly visible at the start, but then they insist on slow panning across the empty vessel (and showing the name plate again) before finally doing a slow zoom in on the name.  All right, maybe the words wouldn't have been as obvious on a '60s 405-line resolution television until the final zoom in (although I'm not convinced of this).  But then the next scene has Ian mention it in the dialogue, just in case you missed that!  And an ancient mystery is solved.  And the cliffhanger shows the Daleks still chasing the TARDIS through time and space -- not the most exciting cliffhanger by any means.

February 5: "The Final Phase" / "The Executioners"

(The Space Museum episode 4 & The Chase episode 1)

(Not two days after my DVD player died, the hard disk in my laptop decided to fail.  Apparently this is a bad week for me and technology...)

One does get the sense, watching "The Final Phase", that the production team has tried to tie the events of the past two episodes in with the travellers' attempt to change their future.  I particularly like how it seems like they're going to make it out intact, as Ian rescues the Doctor and Vicki rescues Barbara, before each group is captured and taken to the freezing room.   "Were all the things that happened planned out for us?" Barbara wonders.  "Four separate journeys.  Four choices, that led all the time closer to here."  It's quite a nice little introspective moment.  But the Doctor is a bit more optimistic: "My dear Barbara, you must try and remember, the short time we’ve been on this planet, we’ve met people, spoken to them and who knows, we might have even influenced them."  And of course he's right -- Vicki's actions with the Xerons, helping them gain access to the Moroks' weapons, have led to a revolution which defeats the Moroks, leading to an altered future with no more space museum, and therefore no more time travellers in exhibits.

The Space Museum is a bit of an odd beast.  It's been said that the initial scripts had more humor in them before it was edited out, to make a contrast from the following story.  It sort of shows: there are a number of witty moments, but there are also some dead serious moments, and anything involving the very earnest Xerons, that tend to jar a bit, and sometimes you don't know if what you're watching is the result of a joke that wasn't completely removed or just a particularly bad piece of writing/acting.  It's not a terrible story by any means, but I think you have to be in the right, undemanding frame of mind to really get the proper effect -- otherwise it's just a runaround in a museum with some interesting ideas floating around.  Great cliffhanger into the next story though.

"The Executioners" starts by recapping the cliffhanger from last time, which means this story starts with a Dalek!  But after that we're shown near-domesticity in the TARDIS: the Doctor is tinkering with his new toy, Ian's reading a trashy sci-fi book, Barbara's making a dress, and Vicki's feeling useless.  But soon the Doctor gets his gadget working, and the travellers can watch some time television: Abraham Lincoln delivers the Gettysburg Address (in an oddly desolate-looking Pennsylvania), Shakespeare gets the idea for Hamlet, and the Beatles play "Ticket to Ride" (this last bit, by the way, is missing from the Region 1 copies of The Chase as they couldn't clear the clip for foreign markets -- hence my purchase of the uncut Region 2 version).  It's all a bit larking about before the TARDIS lands, after which point they go larking about in a desert instead.  There are a couple good moments, like when the Time and Space Visualizer starts making a high-pitched noise while the Doctor and Barbara are relaxing.  "What's that awful noise?" Barbara asks.  "I beg your pardon?" the Doctor misunderstands her.  "Awful noise?  That's no way to talk about my singing!" To which Barbara replies, "No, Doctor, not that awful noise, the other one!"  That's when they learn that the Daleks have a time machine, which they're going to use to pursue the TARDIS and exterminate the Doctor and his friends.  This is when the real story begins, you'd think, except that nothing much happens after this: Ian and Vicki get trapped underground by a monster, while a sandstorm blows up and covers the Doctor and Barbara, changing the landscape and burying the TARDIS in the process.  It's a bit worrying, but then the episode reveals, in its final moments, that the Daleks have already arrived on the planet (and were buried by the sandstorm too, but it doesn't seem to bother them too much).  Which means that we have to wait until next time for things to really get going.