September 3: The Stones of Blood Parts Three & Four

Part three, it must be noted, is a somewhat awkward blend of horror and "space" (for lack of a better term describing the more futuristic, gleaming white walls approach).  While the script still wants to throw in some scares here and there (most memorably with the Ogri killing the two campers, which is a very effective moment), the production itself seems more comfortable dealing with the SF aspects: they certainly seem far more confident and self-assured when screwing around making a hyperspace portal device and discussing Einstein's theory of special relativity than they did talking about Celtic goddesses and Druid sacrifices.  Meanwhile, the actual hyperspace ship itself is also a nice model, and it's kind of fun to see a couple old monster costumes in the cells.¹⁰⁶  The cliffhanger is incredibly lame, though: oh no, the Doctor and Romana are trapped on the hyperspace ship.

Romana and Professor Rumford prepare the repaired hyperspace
projector while K-9 stands guard. (The Stones of Blood Part Four)
©BBC

Part four is probably the most entertaining episode: it certainly seems to be the one where Tom Baker perks up.  Donning a barrister's wig, he seems to be in his element as he defends himself against the Megara, the justice machines that he set free in the last episode who now want to execute him for releasing them without authorization.  The Megara, as an effect, are nicely realized, and the concept of a completely unyielding sense of justice is frustrating and scary in its own way, seeing how it taps into that sense we all have of no one listening to the important things we have to say.  And there are some comic moments too: "I am Vivien Fay of Rose Cottage, Boscawen," says the silver-skinned woman on the hyperspace ship.  "Ask anyone in Boscawen, they will identify me."  It takes some trickery to get the Megara to finally scan Miss Fay and verify that she is in fact a criminal who's been posing as a Celtic goddess for the last 4000 years, but they get there in the end -- thanks to the Doctor grabbing Miss Fay's hand at the moment of his execution, thus preventing the Megara from using the full strength of the deadly beam (I think; it's a bit confused what's going on) and then needing to scan her brain to make sure she's all right.  Of course, this means that Romana is too late with her own evidence proving Miss Fay isn't human: "Stop! I have new evidence," Romana cries.  "Too late. I've just been executed," the Doctor replies.

And so sentence is carried out on Vivian Fay (in reality Cessair of Diplos), as she's turned to stone -- though not before the Doctor grabs the Great Seal of Diplos (aka the third segment) from around her neck.  With Cessair taken care of and the Megara sent back to their hyperspace ship before they can successfully execute the Doctor, our heroes are free to continue their quest for the Key to Time.

It's only been a season since the show was content to scare the viewers with tales of horror and death, but Doctor Who has now become completely uninterested in trying to make terrifying monsters and dark, brooding situations.  There's been a growing sense for a little while now that Tom Baker is more interested in romping across the screen and having a good time than he is in scaring the kiddies, and this is the story where it becomes clear that the production team agrees with him.  The difference in quality and commitment between the two styles The Stones of Blood tries to pull off is rather striking.  This is thus the crossroads between the Gothic horror of Hinchcliffe's producership and the whimsical SF of Williams's: from here on out, the rest of the 70s are going to see the programme move further and further into the "light entertainment" category of television shows.







¹⁰⁶ Entertainingly/bizarrely (delete according to preference), the half-second shot of a dead Wirrn is enough for Wikipedia to count this as a "Wirrn story" in their template at the bottom of this story's entry.  No love for the Kraal android, though.

September 2: The Stones of Blood Parts One & Two

It's the 100th story for Doctor Who, as well as being broadcast near the show's fifteenth anniversary.  That's quite the milestone to reach, but nevertheless it's business as usual for everyone here.¹⁰⁵  And so these two episodes present the last stab at horror for 70s Doctor Who -- this time with Druids and Druid sacrifices.

The only problem is that the show has already run into problems with showing things that have deemed too scary for younger viewers, and so this is a horror story that's had all the terror taken out of it.  It's about as spooky as a dirty tea cup, and whether it's by accident or by design, the cast seem much more invested in the fun aspects of these episodes than the scary ones.  Witness, for example, the (admittedly rather wonderful) discussion between the Doctor and Leonard de Vries of the three missing paintings, where they regard each blank space where a painting used to be in turn, talking about the subjects that were portrayed in each.  Tom Baker and Nicholas McArdle seem far more engaged in this scene than in the one where de Vries is preparing to sacrifice the Doctor to the Cailleach, which feels like it's being played more for laughs than with any serious intent (at least from Tom Baker's point-of-view).  And even the idea of the Cailleach posing as the Doctor in order to try and kill Romana has been softened to avoid upsetting viewers -- so now we just get an off-screen voice and Romana telling us about it afterwards (once she's decided to trust the Doctor again).

All that said, there are some good moments here.  The use of the crows is really good, and the screen lights up any time Beatrix Lehmann is on it as Professor Amelia Rumford -- while Susan Engel also does a good job as Vivien Fay and is a good choice as the true villain of the piece (even if those three separate paintings of her are clearly all painted by the same artist).  And you can't help but wonder what the relationship between de Vries and Martha is: how close were they?  Did they go to school together?  Has she been supporting him all these years, perhaps out of a sense of love?  Oh, and the decision to shoot everything on video also lends the proceedings a welcome sense of visual uniformity.  And I don't even mind the moving killer stones that much (even if there's no way they left those indentations in the ground near the TARDIS).

But despite the good moments, this simply isn't engaging enough to maintain interest.  The neutering of any real threat in these two episodes leaves them without anything substantial to fill the void, and the net result feels like an hour of running around, rather than anything of note.  It's an entertaining enough run-around, but it's also a lightweight one.







¹⁰⁵ Actually, the cast and crew realized at some point that this was going to be the show's 100th story, so a scene was inserted where Romana and K-9 present the Doctor with a surprise birthday cake and a new scarf for his 751st birthday; however, producer Graham Williams nixed this scene on the (sensible) grounds that it was too self-indulgent.

September 1: The Pirate Planet Parts Three & Four

Of course, the Mentiads are on the Doctor's side, so it turns out he wasn't in any real danger.  This means we get a chance to get a bunch of exposition about what's going on: why the Mentiads grow in strength every time Zanak plunders another world, and who Queen Xanxia was and why the Captain was able to take over so easily (basically, Xanxia left Zanak in ruins and easy to conquer).  And there's the memorable scene inside the Captain's trophy room, as he explains to the Doctor how he's created a feat of gravitational perfection by having all the superdense remains balanced against each other, so that they don't immediately collapse into a black hole.

DOCTOR: ...it's the most brilliant piece of astro-gravitational engineering I've ever seen.  The concept is simply staggering.  Pointless, but staggering.
CAPTAIN: I'm gratified that you appreciate it.
DOCTOR: Appreciate it?  Appreciate it?!  What, you commit mass destruction and murder on a scale that's almost inconceivable and you ask me to appreciate it?  Just because you happen to have made a brilliantly conceived toy out of the mummified remains of planets–
CAPTAIN: Devil storms, Doctor!  It is not a toy!
DOCTOR: Then what's it for?!  Huh?  What are you doing?  What could possibly be worth all this?

(from The Doctor Who Transcripts - The Pirate Planet)

It's a fabulous performance from Tom Baker, who usually portrays the Doctor as in command of the situation and largely unaffected by events around him (see, for instance, his behavior not long before this scene, where he's chained up to a pillar but still manages to be in complete control: "You don't want to take over the universe, do you?  No.  You wouldn't know what to do with it.  Beyond shout at it") but here, his sheer horror at the situation bubbles over into the shocked outrage we see here.

The Nurse, the Captain, and Mr. Fibuli look as the Doctor produces
the destroyed Polyphase Avatron. (The Pirate Planet Part Three) ©BBC

And part three also features the fight between K-9 and the Captain's Polyphase Avatron (aka robot parrot), in a bizarre yet entertaining fight.  K-9 keeps blasting up while the Avatron flies around pooping death on everything.  Of course K-9 wins, but it's still entertaining to watch.  Plus it leads to the discovery by the Doctor and Kimus of Queen Xanxia, trapped in her last few seconds of life while giant time dams have been constructed to prolong those seconds as long as possible.

But as good as part three is, it's really the cliffhanger that shines, both in its execution and in its resolution in part four, as we learn that the Doctor has not actually walked the plank to his death, but rather a projection.  This little bit of trickery changes what we thought we knew about the motivations: we thought the Captain was power-mad for some reason, but it's actually his nurse (who didn't even appear in part one) who's been pulling the strings: she's a projection of Queen Xanxia, attempting to rule Zanak forever.  Everything after this just involves trying to stop her -- entertaining to watch (and touching too, in the case of the Captain's reaction to Mr. Fibuli's death), but there are no new twists in the tale.  The Doctor is able to stop Zanak from moving on and Xanxia is defeated.  Oh, and it turns out that the entire planet of Calufrax was the second segment of the Key to Time, which they apparently recover from the vortex.

It's an immensely clever tale, with quite a lot of plot running through these four episodes.  This does occasionally mean that The Pirate Planet has exposition scenes where the Doctor and Romana have to explain the plot to the Mentiads/Kimus/Mula/each other, but honestly it's difficult to mind much.  The inventiveness on display, combined with the coating of fun that these episodes have, makes The Pirate Planet a very satisfying story to watch.

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?