The Ice Warriors

I never answer questions until I am addressed properly.

The Ice Warriors is a very standard Second Doctor story with a literal base-under-siege story and a hulking alien menace. In fact, as the New Series took off, the Ice Warriors themselves became something of a touchstone joke in that if they were brought back, it would be the end of the show as they were reverting to the stereotypical "man in rubber suit" monster. Given the Slytheen, I think that was a bit of a dumb joke to begin with and Cold War was an excellent revival of the Ice Warriors, killing the joke even further. As for the original story that spawned them...

Plot Summary

The Doctor, Jamie and Victoria materialize upside down in snow station. Entering the base, the Doctor assists the team in preventing the reactor from exploding. The team is in charge of using ionizing radiation to push back the spread of glaciers, threatening to overwhelm Earth. Director Clent thanks the Doctor for his help and then asks him to come talk to him while he rests.

Meanwhile, a survey team from the base discovers a body frozen in the glacier. They cut it out and bring it back to the base for study. One of the team is lost in an avalanche but the others survive. They are observed by two men who have gone feral, one of whom breaks his arm in the avalanche.

In Director Clent's room, the Doctor learns that the spread of the glaciers came about due to a major decrease in atmospheric carbon dioxide and that the team uses ionizing radiation to carefully melt the encroaching ice. He impresses Clent who asks the Doctor to stay on as the former chief scientist has disappeared (he is one of the feral men outside). The Doctor agrees to help.

The survey team arrives and the body begins to thaw. The team thinks it might be some early civilization but the Doctor is concerned as he observes futuristic elements on the body's armor. He follows Clent and the team out and as Jamie and Victoria chat, the Ice Warrior begins to wake up. He knocks Jamie down and drags Victoria out, questioning her as to the state of things.

The Doctor warns the station crew of what he has found when Jamie enters telling them that the creature has escaped. The scientist Arden and Jamie are dispatched to find both Victoria and the Ice Warrior's ship as the ionizer could cause it's engines to explode which could contaminate the whole region in radiation.

The rogue scientist Penley sets the arm of his companion Storr in a plant museum where they are hiding out. Penley decides to head back to Britannia Base to get medical supplies for Storr. Upon entering, he sees the Ice Warrior (named Varga) drag Victoria back to the medical bay. Victoria sees him but manages to avoid having him discovered. In the medical bay, Victoria and Varga find the electrical equipment which revived him. They are happened upon by Clent but Varga knocks him out and leaves, taking Victoria as a hostage.

Penley enters the medical bay and grabs the drugs he needs. He also grabs smelling salts to revive Clent when the Doctor enters. The Doctor takes the salts and works on Clent. He asks Penley to stay and help but Penley dismisses him, noting that Storr will die without his help. As Clent comes around, the technician Miss Garrett enters to inform them that the Varga and Victoria broke through the perimeter and are heading to the glacier. Clent elects to wait until morning to redirect Arden and Jamie due to the dangers of night travel.

Taking the equipment, Varga finds the location of his ship and his crew members. He uses the electrical equipment to begin to revive them. Once the crew is revived, Varga orders his men to make a tunnel in the ice to the ship and to lay a trap for the humans.

Penley and Storr are visited by Miss Garrett who tries to convince Penley to come back and help. Penley refuses, noting Clent's slavish routine to computers and his own desire to keep his humanity. After she leaves, Penley goes to investigate the Ice Warriors.

Arden and Jamie discover the cave the Ice Warriors have created and are gunned down. Arden is killed but Jamie is only wounded. The Warriors leave the bodies to see if any other humans come. Penley sees the attack and drags Jamie back to the plant museum. Storr is unhappy about it but Penley nurses Jamie who repeatedly tries to get up to rescue Victoria. He eventually passes out from the pain.

Back at the base, the Doctor successfully solves the ionizing problem with the help of some of Penley's notes. Clent is happy and tries to implement things immediately but the Doctor and Miss Garrett stop him as they still don't know where the Ice Warrior ship is. They try to raise Arden on the communicator but get no response from him. They do get a response from Victoria who has snuck out of the ship. She tells them that Arden was killed but she doesn't know about Jamie. The Ice Warriors watch her and prepare to kill her with the exterior gun.

Varga intercedes and orders them to keep her alive for information as they are out of fuel and will need more. He sends a warrior out to collect her but she runs into an ice tunnel. The tunnel dead ends and when the warrior catches her, she screams causing a small cave in. The warrior is buried but she only partially. However, she still is caught in his grip and calls out for help.

Back at the base the Doctor decides to go out to the ship himself, arming himself only with a radio and a vial of ammonium sulfate. At the same time, Storr elects to go to the Ice Warriors for help with Jamie, believing that they were provoked by the men at the base. Penley goes after him, convinced the Ice Warriors are hostile.

Storr hears Victoria's cries for help and goes down the passage to look for her. Penley does not and proceeds on to the ship entrance where he meets the Doctor. He tells him that they rescued Jamie and Penley and the Doctor head back to the plant museum. There the Doctor examines Jamie and asks Penley to take him back to the base for full treatment as he has to go back to the ship.

Storr frees Victoria but goes on with her to the ship where the Ice Warriors take her back inside. When they learn that Storr is only a Luddite local, they kill him as he brings them no value.

The Doctor arrives shortly after this and gains entry to the ship. The Ice Warriors take him prisoner and he is reunited with Victoria. The Doctor learns that there is risk if the Ice Warrior ship is hit by the ionizer but he also learns they are out of fuel. The Ice Warriors decide to attack the base with their sonic gun to force the humans to yield the fuel they need.

Penley drags Jamie across the ice in a sled. They are briefly impeded by a bear but make it to the base. Once inside, Jamie pleads for them to help the Doctor and Victoria while Penley confronts Cleff on his slavish devotion to the computer decrees. Cleff is paralyzed with indecision as the computer will not offer a solution to either using the ionizer and risking blowing up the Martian ship or standing down and letting the glacier crush the base. Penley and Jamie are stunned and taken to the medical bay.

The Doctor uses his ammonium sulfate to knock out the Ice Warrior guarding them but he still manages to fire the sonic gun, damaging the base. Oblivious to the Doctor's release, Varga leads his remaining men into the base to take the reactor fuel for their own engines. Cleff tries to stall for time, but cowers as the warriors take control.

The Doctor rewires the sonic gun to a higher pitch to use against the Ice Warriors. At the same time, Penley turns up the heat, disorienting the warriors. The Doctor fires, injuring the warriors and knocking the humans unconscious. He signals the base, making Varga aware of what happened. As Varga and his men retreat to the ship, the Doctor destroys the sonic gun and he and Victoria flee to the base.

With the glacier almost on top of them, the Doctor informs Cleff that they have no choice but to use the ionizer and take the risk that they won't set off a nuclear explosion. Cleff still demurs so Penley takes the controls and uses the ionizer. The Ice Warriors make the mistake that the heat signature is a small amount of remaining fuel powering the engine up. However the ionizer eventually melts the ice and the ship, killing the Ice Warriors inside. Because it was out of fuel, the explosion only releases a small amount of background radiation, easily absorbed by the atmosphere.

Cleff leaves Penley in command as he prepares to file a report on what happened. When the look to see if the Doctor will consult, they find he has gone along with Victoria and a recovered Jamie. The TARDIS subsequently disappears.

Analysis
I would say that The Ice Warriors has good points and bad points. Despite their clunky design, the Ice Warriors are a fairly menacing villain. They don't feel over the top evil, but cold and calculating with little regard for humans. What's more, there are almost no points where they seem dumb so that someone can get the drop on them. The Doctor knocking out the gunner is played for comedy and there is one point where Victoria should clearly have been seen when fleeing from the pursuing warrior, but these are small exceptions. I didn't particularly care for the constant hissing voice but it did seem less noticeable when the warriors were incorporated more fully into the scenes starting in Episode Four.

The Doctor and the supporting cast were all pretty good as well. The weakest link was Victoria who was absolutely useless in this story. She was whiney and shriek-y for the entire story. I know she was the damsel-in-distress for pretty much the whole story, but the intonation of her voice and her constant speech as though on the verge of tears was just tiresome to listen to.

I actually would have liked more development with Cleff and his love affair with the computer. I get that his deferment to the computer to make decisions was a driving factor in why Penley was on the outside and against him, but I feel like the story would have benefited with a bit more development along this line. I get the feeling that there was commentary being made of society at the time, especially with mid-level manager types, like Cleff, who are useless administrators unless someone or something clearly gives them orders to do so. There is a kernel of an interesting idea with Cleff so dependent on technology that he ceases to function mentally without it. I would have liked more of that.

I will say that this story is rather padded. It is six episodes with Episodes Two and Three only available in recon (or animation). But there is a recon that combines Episode Two and Three into one 15 minute episode. The fact that the BBC could do that demonstrates how much filler there is. I think this story could easily have been cut to four episodes and still had time to develop the situation with Cleff's dependency.

I was actually comparing this story to The Sensorites in my mind, having just watched it recently. The Sensorites is also six episodes and it can be argued that it too has filler in the middle. But in The Sensorites I felt a natural flow from one crisis to another as they worked to resolve the overall story. There wasn't a whole lot of doubling back and giving characters a run around just for the sake of filling time. In The Ice Warriors, you get a bit of that. There is no point in Victoria's escape except to ensure that Penley runs into the Doctor by himself. Storr would have been killed by the Ice Warriors either way and Victoria ends up a prisoner again at the end of it. It was just a way to give an action sequence as well as a cliff hanger that filled additional time.

Taking a more positive tack, the writing was fairly sharp I thought. The interaction between the characters was witty and there weren't a lot of scenes where characters would just talk for the purposes of exposition. There were the occasional clunkers with Penley and Storr's conversation in the plant museum or Miss Garrett and her rather fawning ways over both Cleff and the computer, but these are exceptions. My own favorite moment was when the Doctor was preparing to head to the Ice Warrior ship but talked about how urgently he needed something from the chemical producer and it ended up being a glass of water. It was a good moment of levity and well played by the actors both building tension and then defusing it with a dry joke.

As far as an overall recommendation, I'm a bit torn. There is a lot of positivity to the story and I never felt like it was bad when I watched it. However, the padding and the problems I had with the sound made watching it a bit of a struggle at times as I found myself starting to lose interest at a couple of points. Unfortunately, I think I need to go on the lower end of the scale, especially as I found Victoria just so unappealing in this story. Again, it's not bad and I wouldn't object to watching it again, but there are so many better Second Doctor stories to choose from, even with 2/3s of this story existing.

Overall personal score: 2.5 out of 5

Paradise Towers

Build high for happiness

The Seventh Doctor era is defined by more divisiveness than just about any other era. With previous Doctors, most people agree that certain stories are good and others are bad with a few people making exceptions. But even when they make those exceptions, they don't really argue heavily, they just acknowledge that they like that story and move on. This is not the case with the Seventh Doctor. Fans get in heated debates over whether certain stories are terrible or if they are brilliant and they defend their positions strongly.

Paradise Towers is a story where I've seen one of the most stringent debates. I'd have to give the winner of the contest to Ghost Light but an argument could be made that Paradise Towers earns the second spot in the most heated debate forum. One side proclaims it drivel while the other proclaims it black comedy satirical genius. As it seems with all the other Seventh Doctor stories I've seen, I'm somewhere in the middle. I get the sense that there is a satirical element running through this story, but I'm missing what it truly is and it just comes across as a very strange, but interesting story.

Plot Summary

Mel and the Doctor arrive at Paradise Towers, hoping to enjoy a swim as the TARDIS pool was jettisoned. Rather than a futuristic villa, they find the place filled with garbage and the walls covered in graffiti. They are captured by an all-female gang called the Red Kangs who seem to like the Doctor but not Mel.

Meanwhile one of the security guards, called Caretakers, is patrolling a section when he is killed by a roving machine called a Cleaner. The Doctor learns from the Red Kangs that the towers are divided between the Red Kangs, the Blue Kangs and the Yellow Kangs, although the yellows are nearly extinct. There are also the Caretakers and the Rezzies, the actual residents of the towers. The Red Kangs try to take the Doctor and Mel back to their lair but a group of Caretakers attack and the gang flees.

Mel is offered shelter in one of the apartments where two older women named Tilda and Tabby reside. They offer her refreshment and the opportunity to stay. After a bit of tea, a man named Pex breaks into the old ladies apartment, for the third time to their great annoyance. He offers to be Mel's guide as she tries to find both the Doctor and the pool.

The Doctor is taken by the Caretakers. They are attacked by one of the robotic cleaners but they elude it by fleeing to an elevator. He is then taken to the Chief Caretaker who believes he is the Great Architect and orders his men to kill the Doctor. However before they can, he is called away due to the death of another Caretaker. The Chief Caretaker goes to see a creature who appears to have reprogrammed the Cleaners to kill anyone in the halls for food rather than just Kangs and Rezzies. He promises to bring the creature more food.

The Doctor tricks the guards and escapes but runs into two Cleaners. In escaping them, the Doctor falls back in with the Red Kangs in their hideout. He gains their trust just before a squad of Caretakers begins to cut through the door of their hideout. The Doctor orders them to flee and he surrenders himself to the Caretakers who take him back to the Chief Caretaker's office.

Mel and Pex return to the atrium where they run into a squad of Blue Kangs. Mel learns from them that Pex hid when the men and boys of age were drafted away. They refuse to let him go but Mel is released. Mel meets Tilda and Tabby who shelter her once more. However, they attack her inside the apartment as they have turned to cannibalism and plan to eat her.

As the two women prepare in the kitchen for Mel, a Cleaner arm reaches through the garbage chute and pulls Tabby down into it. Tilda attempts to kill Mel in her rage but Pex comes bursting through the door again. Tilda throws her knife at him but misses. She goes for a second knife but is also pulled into the garbage chute by the Cleaner. Pex frees Mel and they run off into the elevator to escape a pursuing Cleaner.

The Doctor questions the Chief Caretaker and begins to understand that things are falling apart. The Chief Caretaker is notified about the Cleaner attack of Tilda and Tabby and leaves to investigate, leaving the Doctor in the care of his deputy. The Doctor is rescued by the Red Kangs and taken back to their lair.

In the lair, the Doctor studies an info disk he took from the Chief Caretaker's office. From it he realizes that Paradise Towers were made by a man called Kroagnon, a brilliant engineer but who hated people and tried to keep everyone out. The Doctor theorizes that a trap was created for him in Paradise Towers and that he is likely responsible for the Cleaner deaths. He decides to head to the basement with several Red Kangs to help. Before they leave, a squad of Blue Kangs enter, declaring themselves winners of the game as they found the Red Kang's lair. The Doctor tells them of the situation and the leader of the Blue Kang's agrees to come and help as well.

Mel and Pex, after a few misadventures in the elevator, find the top floor and the swimming pool. Mel opts to relax and wait for the Doctor as originally agreed. Pex is nervous and a robotic creature surfaces briefly before hiding below the surface of the water again.

The Chief Caretaker is captured by the Cleaners and taken to the creature he spoke to before. It reveals itself as the trapped Kroagnon who then proceeds to take over the body of the Chief Caretaker. The Doctor observes this but is grabbed by a Cleaner before he can do anything. The Kangs free him and they run off. Kroagnon then orders the Cleaners to purge Paradise Towers.

On the roof, Mel swims with Pex sitting skittishly. The robotic creature in the pool attacks her. She manages to free herself and Pex tosses her his gun. She shoots the creature, destroying it.

The Doctor and the Kangs come up to the pool, having decided that it is the safest place to rendezvous. They are quickly joined by a group of Rezzies and the Deputy Chief Caretaker, all fleeing the Cleaners. The Deputy informs them that there is a supply of explosives on one floor and the Doctor uses all the groups to form a plan. The Rezzies distract and blind the cleaners with linens while the Kangs use the explosives to destroy them. To distract Kroagnon, the Doctor offers himself up as bait for a trap. Pex volunteers to lead Kroagnon into the trap.

The plan unfolds as desired but Pex panics in the middle and leads Kroagnon to the trap before the Doctor is ready. He attempts to push Kroagnon down a shaft but Kroagnon fends him off. Ashamed of his cowardice, Pex tackles Kroagnon and the two of them tumble down the shaft. As they fall, the explosives Pex was holding detonate, killing both of them. With all sides now unified, the Doctor and Mel leave as the residents of Paradise Towers eulogize Pex for his sacrifice.

Analysis

I have to say, I was genuinely surprised at how much I enjoyed this story. Season 24 of Doctor Who is generally considered the worst due to how slap dash it ended up having to be and despite the fact that there are a number of people who defend this story, I was generally expecting it to be sub-par.

It does scream 1980's but it was not as surreal as I was expecting. It was strange and there was a strong current of satire being played that I know I was not fully realizing, but it held my interest and I found the overall story both well-paced and engaging. It fell apart towards the end a bit in Episode Four and that was slightly disappointing but the rest of it was actually quite good.

One of my biggest hang-ups about the Seventh Doctor era has been that there always seems to be more story than is told. This is very obvious in The Curse of Fenric where an extended edition was released with all the cut-for-time footage and in Ghost Light where the book is required to fill in the rest of the story. Even The Greatest Show in the Galaxy left the Doctor's knowledge of the Gods of Ragnarok unexplained and that bugged me. This is the first Seventh Doctor story where I didn't feel that. The Doctor had knowledge about Kroagnon, but he explained it to the Kangs so his use of that prior knowledge made sense. There was also untold backstory, in the form of the war, but it wasn't important to the plot. It would have been something interesting to explore, but there was never a sense that this story suffered as a result of not having that information.

I did have a few quibbles. The biggest weak link was Mel. In contrast to the Doctor's subtlety, Mel was direct and over-the-top. It wasn't bad when she was with Tabby and Tilda as it played well with their slight over-the-top and intentionally comedic performances. But when she was with Pex and his more serious demeanor, it just didn't work. The pool scene especially just seemed very odd and a bit cheap looking as well.

On that note, there was an element of cheapness to this one. They did disguise it fairly well, but the Cleaners and the Pool Robot just weren't that scary and obviously hard to realize. The Cleaners actually reminded me a lot of the War Machines and given that twenty years separated those stories, that's not exactly a compliment towards the Cleaners. They weren't story breaking, but it was good that they were not shown to be successfully attacking people too often as when it did, it just looked a bit silly.

There were two other things that I think I would have changed if I were running this story. I think the Kangs should have been a little bit younger. They spoke like five-year olds but looked like they were all in their mid-twenties. I get that there was a Beyond Thunderdome element going on, but the contrast in appearance to Pex wasn't significant enough. I think the Kangs and their childish behavior would have been more believable if they were mostly teenagers with even a few pre-teens tossed in for mix. I get why that couldn't have happened, but I think it would have made it more appealing to me.

The second element I would have changed would have been the performance of Kroagnon. The Chief Caretaker is a very enjoyable character and there is a lot of subtle humor in how he conducts himself. However, when he changes to Kroagnon, he becomes this single-note and literally stiff villain. I get that his body is essentially dead with a new mind now working it, but it just lost so much in the performance. I think a more dynamic performance might have made Kroagnon more threatening and a better villain than the shuffling zombie trope he turned out to be.

As I said earlier, it was a pretty good story up until the end. After Episode Three, I was in the 4 rating range and was debating with myself about whether Mel's performance was annoying enough to keep it out of the 4.5 range. However, Episode Four really brought it down for me and I think I have to ding it a bit more. It is a good story and engaging and I think that's what makes the shoddy resolution that much more disappointing. I'd watch this again without any problem, although I might have to grouse a bit once the final episode rolled around. But that's just par for the course with me.

Overall personal score: 3.5 out of 5

Best and Worst at the Halfway

In the most recent episode of Radio Free Skaro (#538), a question was posited asking the hosts to name the worst stories for each Doctor. I thought that a rather interesting question especially in light of my most recent review in The Sensorites which did make the list for some of them. Of course, a number of stories they cited were ones that I haven't gotten to yet so I thought it would be interesting as a slight detour to look at my own best and worst stories that I've reviewed so far.

By my count, I've reviewed 143 stories so far out of 269 stories available (when you combine New Series two-parters into single stories). So I'm a little better than halfway through. Now, I've actually seen much more than this. I've seen all the New Series episodes and a number of Classic Series episodes that I've not gotten around to rewatching and reviewing. But, for continuity purposes, I'm going to restrict myself solely to stories that I have actually reviewed. I'll revisit this list as I approach completion and it'll be fun to see what has changed.

First Doctor

Best Story: The Time Meddler - The only 5 I've given in the William Hartnell era. It is interesting, funny, well-directed, and well acted.

Worst Story: The Romans - Perhaps a victim of overhype, but I found the contrast between farce and seriousness highly disjointing and nearly all the jokes failed to land with me.

Second Doctor

Best Story: The War Games - The War Games is just about everyone's default best story of the Troughton era, but it really is so good. The fact that it keeps you entertained for ten solid episodes, many of which have the back and forth that grows tiresome in other stories, just speaks to it's quality.

Worst Story: The Dominators - Again, the common answer. The Dominators is pretty boiler plate and it's supporting cast is not that engaging. It's decent enough to watch, but of what I've seen, it's at the bottom of the Troughton list.

Third Doctor

Best Story: Inferno - The Pertwee era is where my lack of reviews starts to show up as I have a much smaller list to work with. Inferno is pretty good but I recall there being a few flaws that stuck out in my mind. I'm going to be very curious to see if another story supplants it as I get more of the Third Doctor under my belt.

Worst Story: Death to the Daleks - This story felt cheap to me. I don't recall there being anything overly terrible about the story, although it was very standard Terry Nation with a slight twist, but it just looked like the money was gone.

Fourth Doctor

Best Story: The Seeds of Doom - There is so much to like about this story that it takes the top spot easily. I would be a bit surprised if any story manages to top it when I finish with the Tom Baker era.

Worst Story: The Invasion of Time - Four episodes of middling to bad chased by two episodes of dreck. It also has an absolutely terrible dismissal of a pretty good companion.

Fifth Doctor

Best Story: Black Orchid - While I have seen The Caves of Androzani, I have not officially reviewed it so expect this to change in the future. Still, this is a good story and it is one of the few stories with the three primary companions that actually makes good use of all of them.

Worst Story: The Visitation - I have actually not seen Time Flight yet so this also is likely to change. But The Visitation was awash in mediocrity and it set the template for the primary problem of the Davidson era where the three main companions would be sidelined in their incompetence for an actual interesting companion. That the villain in this story was pretty cheesy too didn't help.

Sixth Doctor

Best Story: The Trial of a Time Lord: The Mysterious Planet - The story where they finally got the Doctor and Peri's relationship right. It also had an entertaining story and some whit in the side dialogue. Easily one of the best Colin Baker ones.

Worst Story: The Trial of a Time Lord: The Ultimate Foe - I've not seen The Twin Dilemma yet so again, potential change. This story suffers from the writers being in the dark when they were forced to slap something together in haste. It was also a sorry end to what had been a pretty good set up.

Seventh Doctor

Best Story: The Greatest Show in the Galaxy - This story still suffers from not telling the audience enough, but it does well in it's innovative sets and atmosphere. The in-jokes are also highly amusing and hint at the level of satire desired.

Worst Story: Silver Nemesis - I don't hold this story in the contempt that others do, but that doesn't make it a good one. The action is fun but the acting and story are pretty off with many of the worst aspects of the McCoy era showing forth in this story.

Eighth Doctor
I'm intentionally skipping Paul McGann as I have only seen Night of the Doctor. Without the movie or Big Finish, I don't have anything to rate.

Ninth Doctor

Best Story: The Unquiet Dead - I need to watch the two two-parters again to see if I want to change my mind, but this is a pretty good story and one of the best of the celebrity historicals.

Worst Story: Aliens of London/World War Three - The second episode was actually worse than the first but very little about this story worked. It was childish in it's humor and at times painfully drawn out. Easily the worst of the one series Eccleston run.

Tenth Doctor

Best Story: The Waters of Mars - A good villain, a good companion, and David Tennant at both his most sensitive and his most angry. I love the dark Doctor and this story brings it all in spades.

Worst Story: The Shakespeare Code - I debated with several stories here but while I roll my eyes at most of them, only this one genuinely annoyed me. It took everything I liked about Shakespeare and paired it with dumb story and bad acting. It is just painful for me to watch.

Eleventh Doctor

Best Story: The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone - I thought very long about whether to go with this two-parter or Amy's Choice but it's so hard not to enjoy an Angel story, even if the second part is not quite as good as the first part. It's still a great story on the whole and one of the defining ones of the Matt Smith era.

Worst Story: Nightmare in Silver - This is another story that genuinely annoys me to watch. In addition to most of the characters being annoying, it feels like such a waste of potential with good actors, a decent writer and some potentially genuinely scary Cybermen. But it just falls so flat.

Twelfth Doctor

Best Story: Heaven Sent - Unquestionably my favorite Capaldi story and possibly my favorite of the New Series. It's just such a tour de force of acting and storytelling.

Worst Story: In the Forest of the Night - This one just annoyed me. Visually impressive but I can't say much beyond that. It's a story where I don't like any of the characters and felt both bored and annoyed while watching.

I look forward to revisiting this list and others like it when I've gone through the full catalogue. Until then though, on with the reviews.

The Sensorites

I do not make threats. But I do keep promises.

The Sensorites is story where I can see why it is generally looked down upon by the fans, but I myself greatly enjoyed. It is not an action story, nor is it a tense cloak and dagger one. It is instead, a paranoid Cold War drama. In fact, if you replaced the Sensorites with the Chinese and made the appropriate setting changes, you'd never know this was a science fiction story. Others may find that boring, but I find it quite entertaining and rather dramatic in it's own 1960's way. I can't imagine that it was a big hit with kids though. Not enough stuff blowing up.

Plot Summary

The TARDIS crew materialize on a space ship but the scanner is jammed, preventing them from seeing. They leave the TARDIS and find two crew members who appear dead. They are in fact in a deep sleep and begin to rouse. The team helps them come around and Captain Maitland and Carol relate how they have been held by an alien race called the Sensorites. They control their minds and put them into deep sleeps, preventing them from leaving the orbit of the planet known as the Sense-sphere.

A Sensorite sneaks aboard and steals the lock on the TARDIS door, trapping the crew on the ship. The Sensorites then try to scare the crew into submission by guiding the ship towards the planet. The Doctor helps them steer away and ease their minds. As they recover, Barbara and Susan venture into other parts of the ship looking for water. They end up locked out and trapped with the third member of the crew, John, who was quickly controlled by the Sensorites and has been reduced to a more fearful animalistic state. He has also locked them out of the bridge.

Ian and Maitland try to cut through the door to get to Susan and Barbara but the Sensorites arrive and paralyze Maitland and Carol. They try to manipulate John into subduing Susan and Barbara but their kindness towards him allows him to resist in his mind as he reduces things to good and evil. Ian and the Doctor bring the other two around and they are able to get to Barbara and Susan. John is sedated to ease the strain on his mind.

Ian and Barbara venture into the rear of the ship looking for the Sensorite boarding party. They find each other with each side fearful. Ian holds them off with a threat of violence while also resisting their attempts to subdue him with mind manipulation. At an impasse, the Sensorites tap into Susan's mind as she is more attuned to their mind communication. The two side agree to talk, the Sensorites insisting that the Earth team come down to the planet to be held in exile and the Doctor demanding the return of the TARDIS lock.

The Sensorites attempt to hold Susan as a hostage for further negotiations but the Doctor discerns that the Sensorites are very sensitive to darkness and orders Ian to cut the lights. Paralyzed by fear, the Sensorites are disarmed but the Doctor then orders the lights back up and continues to negotiate in good faith. To continue, the group is invited down to the planet. The Sensorites will help cure John as a measure of good faith while the Earth party behaves and helps them.

The Doctor agrees when he learns that the Sensorites were visited by a party from Earth ten years ago. They were hospitable but the Earth men quarreled with each other and when half the party attempted to leave, their ship blew up in the sky. Shortly after, the Sensorites began to die from a plague infecting their central city. The Doctor agrees to help find a cure for the plague. Barbara stays behind on the ship along with Captain Maitland and one Sensorite to monitor things from above.

The group is invited to the palace of the First Elder. His adviser, the Second Elder is skeptical but agrees to try and talk with the humans. The City Administrator however, is openly hostile and order a disintegration ray be prepared to kill the visitors. The Second Elder orders his assistant to stand down and takes away the arming key to ensure no harm comes to the party.

John and Carol are taken to the sick room to be attended to. John is the mineralogist and had discovered the Sense-sphere was rich in minerals. This opened his mind in a similar way to the Earth party ten years ago that the Sensorites saw danger in his thoughts and used their own powers to neutralize him. They will now close his mind to bring him back to his normal self.

The First Elder offers the others refreshment. He notices that they are offered water from the municipal source and orders that they be upgraded to the higher quality spring water reserved for the Elders. Ian, thirsty from the journey, drinks his municipal water before it is taken away. He quickly begins to fall ill, showing the same signs as Sensorite plague victims. The Doctor believes he is actually suffering from poisoning and demands access to a lab to try and find a cure.

Working with the Sensorites, the Doctor learns that while the municipal water comes from a single source, it is distributed in ten different locations. He has the Sensorites bring samples from each distribution point and in one he finds evidence of Atropine. He further learns that the Sensorites had tested the water before and never found it, leading the Doctor to realize that the poison was shifting around to different distribution points. He creates an antidote, first for Ian, and then to be distributed to the city as a whole.

Meanwhile, the City Administrator is growing increasingly paranoid that the humans are trying to take over. Acting on a chance remark by Carol, he kidnaps the Second Elder and poses as him, using the badge of office to cover his deception. He believes that Ian is faking and that the Doctor means to poison the city. He destroys the dose meant for Ian to see if he does in fact die or is jut faking.

The Doctor receives permission to head down to the aqueduct distribution. He is left alone as his Sensorite escort is terrified of the dark and of the creatures said to live in the tunnels. Other teams had been down and many had not returned, fueling the legends. The Doctor discovers Belladonna near one of the pipes, however he is attacked shortly afterward.

Susan, discovering that Ian's medication had not been delivered, goes and gets a new dose for him. Ian begins to recover and they soon learn that the Doctor has not yet returned from the aqueduct. The two go after him and drive off his attacker. The Doctor is mostly unharmed, although his coat is badly torn, leading the Doctor to suspect that the creatures and poison are connected.

Returning to the courtyard the group sees the City Administrator, still posing as the Second Elder receive the disintegration gun arming key from the Captain of the Guards. The Doctor tries to talk to him but he runs off. In the control room, the City Administrator tries to rearm the gun but the real Second Elder fights off his guard and destroys the key. He is then struck down and killed. The City Administrator orders the guard to accuse the Doctor of the crime and use the Captain to validate his story.

The First Elder, pleased at the Doctor's discoveries, offers the Doctor a long cloak to replace his damaged jacket. The guard then enters with the Captain and the City Administrator to accuse the Doctor. The First Elder is concerned but Ian finds a flaw in the story as the Doctor was not wearing either a jacket nor the cloak at the time of the attack and the guard is led away under suspicion of being the murderer (which he is). The City Administrator absolves himself and, with a suggestion from the Doctor and Ian, is promoted by the First Elder to the rank of Second Elder.

The Doctor and Ian propose to return to the aqueduct to find the source of the poisoning. They also request that Barbara be allowed to come down from the ship to help Susan, whom they do not want to know that they are returning to danger. The First Elder agrees and supplies them with weapons to help them. They do not know that the weapons are sabotaged by the new Second Elder and the guard, whom he has released from his cell.

As the Doctor and Ian go down, Carol goes looking for them to tell them that John is now fully recovered. She is kidnapped by the guard and forced to write a note indicating that she has returned from the ship. However, Susan knows this is a ruse as Barbara has just arrived from the ship. They show this to the First Elder who is concerned. They learn from him that the only unused location in the palace is the old disintegrator gun control room. John heads down there and rescues Carol, subduing the guard in the process who is taken back to prison. John also remembers that it was the City Administrator whom he sensed evil from while he was still undergoing treatment.

Susan and Barbara are concerned when they learn that the Doctor and Ian have gone back to the tunnels. Barbara and John head down and Barbara uses a Sensorite mental communicator to contact Susan who has a master plan of the aqueduct in front of her to help guide them.

In the tunnels, the Doctor and Ian discover three members of the human crew. They have been infecting the aqueduct with Belladonna, believing they are war with the Sensorites. They are also responsible for the deliberate sabotage of their own ship to kill the crew members who tried to escape when they realized the Captain and two others had gone mad. Barbara and John discover the group and trick the crew into thinking the war is over and they are a rescue party. Upon emerging, they are subdued by the Sensorite guards and taken to the Earth ship under arrest.

With the evidence presented by the Doctor, the new Second Elder is exiled from the city. The First Elder thanks the Doctor and returns the lock to the TARDIS. The Earth ship leaves orbit and the Doctor and his party also depart. Ian makes an off-hand remark that offends the Doctor and in a fit of pique, states that he will order them off the ship as soon as they return to Earth.

Analysis

As noted above, this is quite a good dramatic story. It has it's faults and those will be discussed, but this is not a story that should be dismissed out of hand as "one of the bad ones."

Again, this is really a Cold War story. Travelers in a foreign land that is fearful due to the previous actions of a similar race. A villain acting on paranoia for the purpose of defending his own race. Honestly, if you colorized this story and shifted things to include a car chase, this could be a Third Doctor story and people would probably love it. As I was watching the machinations of the City Administrator, I could help but be reminded of General Carrington from The Ambassadors of Death. The actions of the City Administrator where not much different from Carrington's. In fact, Carrington allowed the death of several people in his pursuits. The City Administrator's only victim was the Second Elder and that was not intentional.

I have to praise the acting of the Sensorites. I noticed a couple instances of line flubs but aside from that, I thought they did an excellent job, especially as they had to convey all expression using only their voice and body movements due to the limitations of the masks. In fact, I thought the acting of the Sensorites was superior to the Earth folks. John was pretty good, but Maitland and Carol had moments that were rather over-the-top and hammy. I know they were supposed to be agitated by fear but there was no subtly. John at least had some subtly, even if he was supposed to be more deranged than his compatriots.

Another thing I enjoyed about this story that actually surprised me was the lack of it feeling bloated. Often when watching stories that are over four episodes long (and sometimes even then) I can feel moments where there is obvious padding. Characters go back and forth to the same location or the exposition fairy sits down to have a cup of tea and instead of getting a quick info dump, the process takes half an episode. Here, there is a move to each plot element with relatively little extra information. What's more, each plot element introduced feels like it has a purpose in the overall narrative. The kidnapping at the end of Episode Five is a bit forced and slightly out of place, but even it has an ultimate purpose that does contribute.

If anything, I think this story could have stretched to seven episodes without a significant loss of cohesion. I thought the various story points in Episode Six were a bit rushed. The humans are introduced a third of the way through and then wrapped up after only about ten minutes. Likewise, the fate of the City Administrator is dealt with in a couple of lines of dialogue at the end. For a character who was the primary villain for four episodes, it seemed like he should have gotten a meatier send off rather than just a casual dismissal. But I've made the complaint about rushed endings before. Still, it is nice to note that without throwing in the additional complaint about how it could have been pulled forward and dismissing some of the running through corridors.

One of the areas that is interesting from a hindsight point of view is the somewhat casual racism of the story. A certain level of racism makes sense in the story. It is a common trope in sci-fi for one race to dismiss the other as looking all alike. I would have expected that. What I didn't care for was how the City Administrator easily embraced that idea. There is a somewhat valid point to his idea. President Calvin Coolidge made a point of walking around Washington D.C. without secret service and he was unaccosted as people were unaware of who he was, despite having his picture in the paper somewhat often. So the idea that the Sensorite plebs would not know the City Administrator from the Second Elder is not unbelievable.

However, we are not dealing with regular plebs in this story. The story is contained within the First Elder's palace. One can imagine that all the folks living and working there would be fairly familiar with the appearance of the Second Elder. This is where the casual racism seeps in. The writer makes the assumption that because we (from a Western perspective) think the Sensorites all look similar to us, they too would see themselves as looking the same. This is rather dismissive as the Sensorites should actually have been more sensitive to subtle differences that would have been overlooked by the Earth folk. To me, it speaks of the attitude of the writer and to the assumptions of the audience of the time.

While on the subject of the Sensorite's sameness, that is one of the areas where I can see a downside of this story. Doctor Who has a bit of a reputation for the use of rubber suited monsters which sometimes look pretty fake. The Sensorites is actually only the third story to feature an alien race (The Daleks and The Keys of Marinus being the other two) and it is probably the first one where the fake alien really rears it's head. It is very obvious from the get go that the Sensorites are men in rubber masks, some of which don't fit that well. The City Administrator at one point turns to the camera and you can clearly see the hole of his mouth moving independently of the flap of the mask around his mouth. The Sensorite beards do a little to hide things like this, but the contortion of the cheeks whenever one speaks just makes it so obvious that it is a mask. It didn't really bother me, but I have been known to be rather forgiving of 1960's effects, both in Doctor Who and other shows. I can see how it might have bothered others.

Another point that I should note is how much the character of Susan improved in this story. In many of the stories where she appears, Susan is shriek-y and timid. She still has these qualities in the first episode, but she begins to assert herself by the end of Episode Two and she is a fully functional member of the team with a real role and abilities through the rest of the story. It does help that Barbara is absent from the second half of Episode Three to the beginning of Episode Six. This promotes Susan into the role that might normally have been occupied by Barbara with Susan's normal outsider role being taken up by Carol. Still, it is a nice change for Susan and one that I had wished they been able to stick with rather than reverting her back to her mostly helpless self in The Reign of Terror.

One final thing that surprised me was how important this story is to the overall canon of Doctor Who given it's general dismissal by the fans. Susan's throw away line in Episode Six about the Gallifreian sky became lore that has been in every story set on Gallifrey. Likewise, the Doctor has several lines that have become iconic in the course of the series including the opening statement about how they are now embarking on a great spirit of adventure and his admonishment to the Sensorites that he keeps promises rather than making threats. The Tenth Doctor even makes a reference to the story in Planet of the Ood when he mentions that the Ood-sphere is in the same region as the Sense-sphere, creating a link between the Sensorites and the similarly designed Ood.

Looking over the story as a whole, I think this story is somewhat unjustly maligned. I will openly admit that it is not a story that everyone will enjoy and I can imagine that it was not popular with the kids when broadcast. However, I enjoyed it and anyone who enjoys a more political drama will enjoy it as well. I would easily be comfortable watching it a second time around if anyone else was interested.

Overall personal score: 4 out of 5

The Mark of the Rani

The Doctor won't look kindly on you interfering with his favorite planet.

The Mark of the Rani introduced Pip and Jane Baker as writers on Doctor Who. They have been looked down on by collective fan wisdom as the years have gone by and I don't think that's fully justified. I liked Terror of the Vervoids and I'm willing to give them a pass on The Ultimate Foe as they were taking over from Robert Holmes blind. I've not yet seen Tme and the Rani but even if it is as terrible as I am anticipating it to be, it was a slapdash rush job and I'm guessing blame will need to be spread everywhere, not just the writers. As for The Mark of the Rani, I rather enjoyed it.

Plot Summary

Three miners leave their shift in a small town in the early 19th century. They enter a bathhouse to clean up but are gassed upon entering. When they wake, they begin attacking any evidence of machinery, heading out of town as they do so.

The Doctor and Peri land outside the town with the Doctor detecting a time distortion from a time machine, suggesting either Time Lords or Daleks are in the area. He and Peri observe the three men attacking a cart with some machinery on it. The Doctor and Peri help drive the attackers off, noting a curious mark on one of the men. The cart driver gives them a lift in to town where he is delivering equipment to the engineer George Stephenson.

The Doctor and Peri are followed by the Master, who had been posing as a scarecrow out in the fields. The Doctor and Peri enter Stephenson's compound to wait for him, growing more concerned when they learn a meeting of the Industrial Revolution greats is going to take place in two days. The Master kills a dog and guard to allow access to the place. He then sends in the three miners who had been gassed earlier to attack the Doctor and Peri, who have left the office and are looking around for Mr. Stephenson.

The Doctor is rescued from being cast down the coal mine chute by Lord Ravensworth, owner of the mine. He takes the Doctor back to his office to determine who is he is. The Doctor convinces him that he is an interested scientist and here to help in the face of the violent Luddite attacks. The Doctor further inquires about the attacks and the men who have disappeared from the mine. Two of the women of the town arrive and mention that their men have disappeared as well. Peri wants to leave but the Doctor stays, knowing that there is something beyond just the Luddites.

The Master sneaks into the wash house where he observes two more miners being gassed and then taken into a secret room where they are hooked up to some equipment by the old woman running the house. The Master confronts her and she reveals herself as the Rani, a fellow Time Lord. He offers his services but the Rani dismisses him. He then kills one of her helpers and threatens to expose her unless she helps him with the Doctor.

The Rani is extracting a chemical from human brains and the violent, anti-technology reactions are side effects of her work, not the purpose. Again, she attempts to dismiss the Master, but he steals her collection of extracted chemicals and blackmails her into helping him.

The Master sneaks off to agitate a group of Luddites to attack the Doctor. The Rani has one of her brainwashed servants try to take him down but when the element of surprise is lost, she calls him off for fear of breaking the vial.

Using the information gleaned from the townsfolk, the Doctor heads to the bath house where he is captured along with two other miners. The Rani recognizes him and wakes him. Peri is also captured by the returning Master. The Doctor deduces what the Rani is doing and tricks the Master into thinking the Rani has double crossed him. He wheels the Doctor outside bound to a stretcher. Once the Doctor is outside, he kicks the Master's weapon away. Peri accidentally pushes him downhill where he is grabbed by the Luddites the Master had agitated earlier. They try to drop him down the mine shaft but he is rescued and the mob dispersed by George Stephenson.

Stephenson takes the Doctor and Peri back to his workshop. The Doctor urges him to cancel the meeting with other famous men but the messenger, Luke, is apprehended by the Master and hypnotized to thinking that he delivered it and to attack anyone who tries to stop the meeting. The Master shows the letter to the Rani and convinces her to help him, allowing her to exploit the planet openly as she desires. She agrees and the two leave to implement a plan.

The Doctor and Peri return to the bath house and after setting off a booby trap, they find the Rani's TARDIS. Whilst inside, the Rani activates a recall device. Peri leaves but the Doctor stays behind and hides in the TARDIS as the Rani and the Master enter and grab equipment they will use against him.

The Doctor reunites with Peri but split up again with the Doctor looking for George Stephenson and Peri going with Luke to find herbs to create a sleeping agent to help the men affected by the Rani's experiments. The Doctor finds Stephenson who was preparing to walk into a trap set by the Master via Luke.

The Doctor talks him out of going and goes himself, walking around the booby traps set by the Master and the Rani. He gets the drop on them and holds the Master's weapon against them. As he does so, Peri and Luke wander into the minefield set by the Rani. Luke step on a mine and is transformed into a tree. He retains enough sentience to stop Peri from also stepping on a mine. The Doctor forces the Rani to lead Peri out. She does but the approach of some Luddites forces them to split up. Peri takes the Master and the Rani back to the mines while the Doctor tries to stop the Luddites.

The Doctor is overpowered and tied to a pole. He is carried to the minefield where his two carriers are also transformed. The explosion frightens off the others. The Doctor slips his bonds and runs to the mine. There he finds Peri who was tricked and knocked out by the Rani. The Rani had tried to flee but the Master forced her to stay. He fires at the Doctor, destroying a support pillar and triggering a cave in. The Master and the Rani flee to her TARDIS while the Doctor and Peri flee to the exit.

The Rani takes off but the Doctor had sabotaged her TARDIS and she and the Master are sent out to the far reaches of the universe. The Doctor had also taken the brain fluid from the Master and he has Peri give it to Lord Ravensworth to give to the men. The Doctor had also asked George Stephenson to haul the TARDIS out of the mine and he finds it in Stephenson's lab. The Doctor and Peri then leave prior to the arrival of the other great minded men.

Analysis

I enjoyed this story and unquestionably the primary reason was the Rani. In many ways, she acted as a voice of the audience, criticizing the Master on his hare-brained schemes as well as dressing down the Doctor occasionally. Her interplay with the Master was entertaining and her deadpan actually helped undercut the Master's cheesy-ness which made him a slightly more credible villain. It was nice to see a villain with both real intelligence and pragmatism. She had no desire to do anything other than exploit what she needed from the humans. She ruled a planet and that was enough for her. It is only the Master's blackmail and his offer of unlimited access to Earth that convince her to aid him. She even calculates that retreat is the better option at the end and does not give in to the bravado the Master does in facing down the Doctor a second time.

The Doctor is enjoyable too, although it's hard to shake the feeling that he is playing second fiddle in this story. His banter with Peri is a bit less mean-spirited and you can see the beginnings of where they will end up in The Trial of a Time Lord: The Mysterious Planet with their much more playful jabs at each other. There are even fun little bits that come out as he is clearly giddy at meeting like scientific minds (a trait continued in the subsequent The Two Doctors) as well as propensity for bad puns. He also demonstrates a clear concern for the people exploited by the Rani, trying to help them, although not overly successfully.

Unfortunately, it is Peri that is hard to deal with here. Lord Ravensworth and George Stephenson act more the companion here, getting involved and working with the Doctor to solve the problem, though neither has a large amount of screen time. Peri spends all her time whining about they should leave and her tone in this whining is especially annoying. She comes across as especially dumb in her ignorance of Luke's fate, missing several similar mines due to dumb luck, and in how she is easily taken in and subdued by the Rani while guarding them in the mine shaft. Her positive contribution in this story is effectively zero as the one or two times she does something positive is easily cancelled out by her overwhelming hindrance.

Back on the plus side, the episode is filmed almost entirely on location and it looks good. There is a real grit to the town's appearance and it's nostalgically nice seeing that grainy film quality throughout rather than bouncing between it and video tape. It's also nice to see a full use of the surrounding area. In a studio shoot, the mine field in the forest would have probably looked very fake. Here though, there is an authenticity, even if they still stayed too tight in their focus of the area.

One thing that did bug me though was the unaddressed mine field. Mine fields were a big political issue in the 80's so I'm not surprised to see it used here. However, no mention is made of clearing it once the Doctor and Peri have delivered the brain fluid to Lord Ravensworth. In fact, the fact that Stephenson only just managed to retrieve the TARDIS makes it seem as though the Doctor and Peri have just come from the collapsed mine, leaving the Rani's mine field untouched to transform others wandering through. I don't need all loose threads resolved, but given the significant nature of this threat, a passing line about neutralizing the Rani's mines would have been a rather important thing. It's a small thing but that really bugs me.

Overall, I'd give this one a decent grade. It would be better if Peri weren't so annoying and there is a little too much running around without much point in the middle, but it still is probably the best of the Season 22 Sixth Doctor that I've seen. I wouldn't mind pulling it out to watch a second time, but I freely admit that it would be for the Rani rather than the Doctor.

Overall personal score: 3.5 out of 5

Into the Dalek

I am not a good Dalek. You are a good Dalek.

It's funny going back to watch Series Eight when the Doctor has short hair. It just feels wrong. The larger hair of late Eight and Series Nine fits so much more. Or maybe I've just watched a bit too much Heaven Sent. Anyway, Into the Dalek introduces Danny Pink and gets a better handle of the dark and rude Doctor that characterizes most of Series Eight.

Plot Summary

The Doctor rescues a soldier named Journey Blue and in returning her to base, learns of a plan to enter a damaged Dalek through miniaturization and heal it. The Dalek is bent on destroying the Daleks, which intrigues the Doctor.

At Coal Hill School, Clara is introduced to the new Math teacher, Danny Pink, who is also a bit sensitive about his former soldiering career. After inviting him out for a drink, Clara is met by the Doctor who invites her along. Reappearing on the ship, they are shrunk along with Journey and two other soldiers and enter though the Dalek eye stalk.

In the Dalek, one of the soldiers attempts to repel down but triggers the system defenses. The soldier is killed and the group flees to the Dalek feeding tank to escape. After eluding the anti-bodies, they find the source of the injury, a ruptured fuel cell which is bathing the Dalek in radiation. The Doctor repairs the crack and the dalek, whom the Doctor calls Rusty, reverts to his normal self. He breaks free, kills the human guards and signals the Dalek control ship to invade.

The Doctor is a bit smug about being right about there not being a good Dalek but Clara slaps it out of him. He devises a plan where the group will reintroduce the suppressed memory that turned Rusty against the Daleks originally and he will add new ones. The other soldier, Gretchen, sacrifices herself to get Journey and Clara up to the memory banks. There, Clara activates the suppressed memory banks.

When the suppressed memories come flooding back, the Doctor inserts his own mind into Rusty's. He sees the beauty that the Doctor has seen but also sees his hatred of the Daleks. He turns again on the Daleks, who have come aboard the ship and are pushing back the humans. Rusty catches them by surprise and destroys the entire boarding party.

With the battle over, the group returns to normal size. Rusty leaves to destroy the remaining Daleks on the ship and the Doctor and Clara also leave. Journey asks to come with them but the Doctor refuses due to her soldier training. He returns Clara to just after she left with him and she leaves school for the day with Danny.

Analysis

This is Doctor Who meets Fantastic Voyage and it works pretty well. The action inside Rusty works fairly well, although it took my third watch of this episode to fully understand what was to be accomplished. I don't think it was explained particularly well that the humans thought Rusty had turned against the Daleks independent of his injury and that the repair of the injury returned him to his natural Dalek state. Aside from that though, the journey and actions inside Rusty flow rather well.

Another thing that was done well was the battle with the Daleks. Journey's flight was some impressive model work and the Daleks overrunning the human positions at the climax was also a good fight, although both sides had moments of making stormtroopers look like crack shots. But the real fun came with Rusty's conversion and his short bursts from the side that blew up the Dalek invasion force. Even more impressive was that it wasn't just a random blow up of the Daleks, which would have been fun, but you saw actual targeted fighting. It emphasized that Rusty knew exactly where to shoot to kill the Dalek mutant and that blowing up the full battle tank was inefficient. It was an actual smart battle and not just explode-y for the sake of visual thrills.

There were also some less than stellar moments with this episode. The worst part was how ham fisted some of the exposition was. Near the beginning you have the random kid in Danny's class ask if he killed anyone or if he killed anyone who wasn't an enemy. No kid would randomly ask that like that. Likewise, a teacher would shut that crap down immediately as it undermines his position of authority for the class to deviate from the topic like that. He certainly isn't going to be so sensitive as to shed an expositional tear for the class. It just feels so forced.

Contrast that to the very next scene where Clara makes a pass at Danny and the scene is told by him speaking what he wanted to say in hindsight cutting back to what he did say. That is both funny and a clever way of expressing Danny's thoughts without being overly ham fisted. It works well, but it does have the effect of further highlighting the errors of the previous scene.

The other bit of ham fistedness that just doesn't work is at the end of the episode where Journey asks to come with the Doctor. The sole reason for this scene is to express the Twelfth Doctor's disdain for soldiers and it feels like it. At no point in their entire time together do you get a sense of chemistry or trust between Journey and the Doctor. Her request to come with him, to abandon the fight with the Daleks, comes out of nowhere and it just doesn't make sense given the way they have interacted at this point. What's more, we've seen no evidence that she is aware of what kind of travelling the Doctor does at this point. How does she know what the Doctor does and where he goes and that is something she wants to experience? It just comes out of no where and makes the follow up statement about soldiers just very out of place.

However, in balance, the few points of ham fisted dialogue do not outweigh the fun adventure. The Doctor's personality is still in flux and his interaction with Clara is different than others. Actually, I rather wish his relationship with Clara had stayed like this as I liked Clara more when she was opinionated but still deferential do the Doctor, except when she had to call him out. It was in her assertiveness and independence in spite of the Doctor that she began to annoy me.

That aside, it is a fun story and worth the watch. You might just want to jump straight to the team going into Rusty as that is where the fun really begins.

Overall personal score: 3.5 out of 5

Castrovalva

With my eyes, no; but with my philosophy.

Castrovalva, in addition to being the first Fifth Doctor story, was the culmination of the trilogy chronicling the return of the Master. It also sets up what will be an unfortunate theme in the Fifth Doctor era. The Doctor is interesting, his companions are not (and poorly acted) and the story only gets interesting when others are brought in to interact with the Doctor.

Plot Summary

After regenerating at the end of Logopolis, the Doctor is helped toward the TARDIS by Adric, Nyssa and Tegan while being pursued by facility security. The guards catch the group and prepare to arrest them. They also bring up an ambulance for the Doctor. While Adric distracts the guards, Tegan and Nyssa steal the ambulance and get the Doctor back into the TARDIS.

Securing themselves inside, the two girls try to figure how to get Adric when the Master's TARDIS appears. He unleashes an electrical blast which knocks the guards out. It then disappears leaving Adric. The girls grab Adric and pull him inside. Adric goes to the controls and launches the TARDIS.

Nyssa and Tegan stay in the control room trying to figure out how to fly the TARDIS while Adric goes looking for the Doctor. The Doctor has wandered deeper into the TARDIS looking for the Zero Room, a place of neutral energy that will help stabilize his regeneration. Not trusting his judgment, he is leaving a trail of yarn that used to be his scarf. He also begins to channel previous regeneration's personalities, getting weaker as he approaches the zero room.

Tegan and Nyssa find the TARDIS instructional system an it informs them they are heading to Event 1. Not knowing what this is, they follow the yarn trail after the Doctor. They find the Doctor just outside the zero room but no trace of Adric. They help him inside and the Doctor immediately begins to behave normally. He instructs each of them, including Adric. As the Doctor slips deeper into a trance, a vision of Adric appears in a cell. He was captured by the Master and only a project of him entered the TARDIS, setting the route.

Nyssa heads back to the control room, noting the temperature rising. Sensing something wrong, Tegan follows. The Doctor tries to come to but is too weak outside the zero room. Returning to the control room, Nyssa informs Tegan that Event 1 is the explosion that began the universe and they are about to be caught in it.

The turbulence in the TARDIS causes a medical kit to be jarred loose, which also produces a wheelchair for the Doctor. He rolls into the TARDIS control room with the surge of adrenaline from the peril keeping him lucid. He has Nyssa turn the TARDIS to manual override and then instructs Tegan on deleting a quarter of the TARDIS rooms, using the mass shift to propel them out of the event. The plan works, much to the chagrin of the Master, who had been using Adric's mind to observe the TARDIS.

Looking through the computer, Tegan and Nyssa learn that the Doctor might recover in the city of Castrovalva. Tegan uses the computer to fly the TARDIS there while Nyssa tries to get the Doctor back to the zero room, only to learn that it was deleted in the Event 1 escape. The Doctor however instructs Nyssa on how to build a zero cabinet from the leftover doors.

After landing, the girls carry the cabinet with the Doctor in it towards the city, which is set on a rock outcropping. They are followed by two native warriors. Leaving the cabinet briefly, they look for a way up but cannot find one. They return to the cabinet to find it empty and a small patch of blood on the grass. The girls search for the Doctor but run away to avoid being captured by natives. The two spy the Doctor climbing the rocks where he is captured and taken into the city. The girls proceed to climb the wall to get in.

The Doctor is taken into the city and introduced to the natives who are very civil and learned. The healer, Margrave, offers him a drink which allows him to sleep and recover while the rest hold a small feast. He also meets the senior administrator, the Portreeve, who observes the feast from the balcony. As he sleeps, Nyssa and Tegan enter and are captured by guards. They are shown the Doctor resting and then escorted to quarters to rest themselves.

In the morning, Nyssa is confronted by an image of Adric who tells her that the Doctor must not leave Castrovalva until the regeneration is complete. Nyssa and Tegan head to the library to research while the Doctor continues to recover. He cannot recall Adric, although he knows there is a third companion. Talking with a young girl helps him remember and he grabs Tegan and Nyssa and moves to leave Castrovalva to find him. However, as they try to leave, they find themselves repeating the same location. The Doctor also weakens and they realize the city is a space-time trap.

They head back to the Doctor's room to get him back in the zero cabinet but find it gone. The Doctor stays to rest while the girls go looking for the cabinet. They find it being used to sort laundry by a group of women and bring it back. The Doctor, meanwhile has steadied himself and finds a clue to the city being off in a history book, hidden by the librarian Shardovan.

Margrave returns along with the head of security and the Doctor begins to show them the illusion they are under. When Nyssa and Tegan return, they decide to take the Doctor to see the Portreeve in the zero cabinet. However, the Doctor replaces himself with books and finds Shardovan. Shardovan is aware that something is off as the history books appear hundreds of years old but tell the story of Castrovalva to the present. Together they sneak into the Portreeve's house.

Unaware of the ruse, the Portreeve reveals himself to be the Master and breaks into the zero cabinet to find the Doctor missing. The Doctor confronts the Master and finds Adric hidden behind a tapestry. The Master used Adric's mind to create Castrovalva. Shardovan swings on the chandelier, breaking Adric's cell, although dying in the process. The Doctor grabs Adric and they try to leave the city, which is beginning to fold in on itself. The Master also tries to escape but his TARDIS is trapped within the city.

Adric is able to find the way out and the Doctor tries to bring Margrave with him. Margrave and the rest of the people hold back and attack the Master, trapping him within the city as it disappears. Fully recovered, the Doctor and his companions walk back to the TARDIS and prepare to leave.

Analysis

Castrovalva is a frustrating story. The elements of a really interesting story are there but you don't get there until Episode Three. It would have been helped greatly if the crisis began in Episode One was reduced greatly and Episode Two saw the TARDIS crew begin their adventures in Castrovalva. Cutting down the back and forth between Nyssa and Tegan would also have been nice as neither actress does a good job in my opinion. As hammy as he is, the Master is the best part of the first two episodes, although I did enjoy the moments where the Doctor was doing impressions of his first and second incarnations.

Focusing on the later half of the story, both the idea and execution are quite good. A false reality is created as a trap for the Doctor but the reality begins to take on a life of it's own and works to circumvent it's own existence as a trap. That is a genuinely interesting idea and I recall similar ideas of figments acting outside their original programing in Star Trek: TNG and to a lesser degree in Inception. The personalities of the Castrovalvans are also interesting and they help draw in you deeper.

It is rather amusing that through the series in the past, many times Episode Three was the stalling episode and suffered in relation to the others. Here however, Episode Three is the most interesting. Episode Four is decent as well, but the Master goes way over the top and that spoils some of the effect. Hamminess is fine when done in small doses and with a certain level of "mustache twirling." It becomes painful when overdoses and without any humor. It also doesn't help that it feels like the Castrovalvans are doing everything while the Doctor, Nyssa and Tegan stand around not doing much. Adric at least has the excuse of being imprisoned for his inaction.

Another thing that is a bit disappointing is that Castrovalva does not appear to be a singular issue. I think the Fifth Doctor is quite good and I enjoy him personally. However, the producers and writers seem to think the asset of him being a younger Doctor is actually a detriment. As such, he is surrounded by young companions to give him the impression of being the older and more responsible one. However, even in the very first story, we see that this dynamic doesn't really work. The companions are whiny, bored and stiff actors.

The Doctor functions best when he is paired with people his own age or older. The scenes of the Doctor with Shardovan and Margrave flow nicely and there is a nice dynamic between them and the Doctor. There is very little flow between the Doctor, Tegan and Nyssa. In Episode One when they reach the Zero Room, the Doctor turns into the tolerant schoolmaster who has to instruct the children on how to act. This dynamic is not fun. It has no real flow and takes away from the vitality of the youthful Doctor. It's just another contrast that jumps out at you and doesn't entirely give you the warm fuzzies for the unseen stories of this crew.

I will praise the set design and camera work of this story. The TARDIS is a bit mundane but that's to be expected. But it looked like the TARDIS the whole way through as opposed to something like The Invasion of Time where it was so obviously a location and not the interior of the TARDIS. Castrovalva on the other hand looked very nice. The exterior location was quite pretty and the sets of the city were well done. The story complimented the overuse of the same sets which saved them money but even then, different angles were used which added a measure of variety that was much appreciated. The effect of the city bending in on itself through the Doctor's window at the end of Episode Three was limited by 1980's technology but it probably looked pretty good at the time and it gets the message across even if it is dated by today's standards.

So the recommendation and rating. It's a tale of two halves for me. The first two episodes are not good but the latter two are. If you could get a five minute brief on the first two episodes and then just watch the latter two, I think that would be best. But you do have to sit through the whole thing to get the full measure of what is happening. In the grand scheme of things, I think my enjoyment of Episode Three outweighs my boredom with Episode One. Episodes Two and Four are more balanced with bits of good and bad on both sides. It's not something I would pick for myself, but if someone new wanted to watch, I'd power through Episode One and then enjoy the rest without much comment. Better than The Visitation, not as good as Mawdryn Undead would be a fair summation I think.

Overall personal score: 2.5 out of 5