It doesn't usually take me that long reverse the polarity; I must be rusty.
The Lazarus Experiment represents the turning point for Series Three. The first half of the series was a little too hung up on Martha's attraction to the Doctor and the Doctor's moping due to Rose's departure. As such, it's got a lot of issues, even with good stories like Smith and Jones and Gridlock. However, the second half of the series put the Doctor and Martha more on friends footing and more into normal adventuring mode and that helped the mood a great deal. Better writing also aided the cause.
Plot Summary
The Doctor returns Martha to her apartment the morning after he picked her up. He prepares to say goodbye, although both seem a bit reluctant to do so. In the midst of that, Martha's mother calls and leaves a message that her sister is on TV. Martha turns it on to see her sister Tish behind an old man named Richard Lazarus giving an announcement of findings that will change the shape of humanity. The Doctor, intrigued by the announcement, decides to stay a bit longer to investigate.
Martha and the Doctor head to Lazarus' lab where he is hosting a gala and demonstrating his research. After a brief speech he climbs into a machine and orders the technicians to activate it. The machine activates but appears to be going out of control. The Doctor leaps to the controls and manages to stop the machine. However, it has done it's job as Lazarus steps out, now appearing to be in his early-thirties.
The Doctor is concerned about this experiment and the possible side effects and he and Martha slip into one of the labs to learn more. There they learn that Lazarus is splicing his DNA and mutating it to produce it's age reversal. However, the DNA is still mutating and unlocking dormant and unused genes.
Lazarus heads back to his office with his chief financier, Lady Thaw. He begins to mutate into a spider-like creature and absorbs her life-force before returning to his normal appearance. Unsatisfied with this energy drain, Lazarus goes in search of more. He finds Tish, who is his head of PR, and invites her up on the roof. Flattered by this attention, she follows.
The Doctor and Martha emerge from the lab and learn that Tish has gone off with Lazarus. Martha's mother, Francine, is increasingly suspicious of the Doctor and tries to dissuade Martha from going with him. Her fears are further stoked as an aide to Harold Saxon, candidate for Parliament, whispers in her ear about previous exploits of the Doctor.
The Doctor and Martha head to Lazarus' office where they discover Lady Thaw's body. The Doctor locates an energy trace and uses it to find Lazarus and Tish on the roof. Lazarus begins to transform and Martha and Tish run off. The Doctor distracts Lazarus while he orders Martha to get everyone out of the building. The Doctor does distract Lazarus for a bit but he emerges in the lobby, killing one guest and sending the rest of the building into a panic.
The Doctor pulls Lazarus away while Martha uses the sonic screwdriver to unlock the doors, letting everyone else escape. Her mother pleads with her to come with them but she goes back into the building to help the Doctor. They reunite in the lobby and the Doctor pulls her into the machine to avoid Lazarus, knowing that he won't destroy it. Lazarus instead activates the machine but the Doctor reverses the polarity of the machine, sending a pulse of energy outward that appears to kill Lazarus.
An ambulance arrives to take Lazarus away and check on everyone else. However, Lazarus is not quite dead and he absorbs the life of the EMTs before fleeing into a neighboring church. The Doctor, Martha and Tish follow him and find Lazarus succumbing to the mutation in the church. Knowing that the experiments were based on sonic energy, the Doctor whispers to Martha that they need to get him into the bell tower. As Lazarus transforms, Martha and Tish lure him away.
The two women manage to get him into the bell tower and the Doctor begins to play the organ with his sonic screwdriver amplifying the sonic energy. The sound waves disrupt the mutation, causing Lazarus to fall from the tower and break his neck.
With the adventure over, the Doctor invites Martha to continue traveling with him. She agrees and they disappear in the TARDIS as Francine leaves a message on Martha's machine telling her she knows things about the Doctor from Harold Saxon and that she is in danger.
Analysis
The Lazarus Experiment is both enjoyable, but also rather unmemorable. As noted above, it starts a turn in the storytelling where Martha acts like a real friend and companion rather than a moon-eyed girl. The Doctor also seems to finally stop moaning over his lot in life and just go an investigate. All of this is great. But at the same time, there isn't much in the story to reach out and grab you, making you want to pull the story off the shelf and watch it again.
All of the acting was quite good in this story. The Doctor was on point with even a bit of his humor back. Martha also was enjoyable, actually stepping up as a true assistant in the analysis of Lazarus' DNA that probably hadn't been seen since the days of Liz Shaw. Their relationship got over the "maybe he likes me" point and it was nice to see them working together as two scientifically oriented minds and friends, even if Martha still had to do her fair share of screaming.
I thought Lazarus worked well as a villain. He was quite believable as a man so scared and arrogant about death that he would do anything to avoid it. His condescension towards others once his youth had been restored was well done and did quite a bit of shorthand in defining him as an unsympathetic bad guy. I thought it also an interesting bit that when he was an old man, Tish was repulsed by Lazarus kissing her hand but when he had become young, she admitted that she was willing to make out with him on the roof. It was an amusing bit of contrast in the shallowness of appearance and was one of the few things that softened Lazarus as not a truly evil person, just misguided and destroyed by his own fear.
The mutant creature was an interesting concept and reminded me of the Star Trek: TNG episode Genesis in that there was nothing alien about Lazarus, only rejected mutations. The realization of this creature was not quite up to par though. It was a good effort but the production team opted to try and map Mark Gatiss' face on to the creature and the effect is about what you would expect for 2007. It's not as primitive as what you saw in something like the Goldeneye video game, but it still wasn't up to the point where you would believe it to be real. Not something to punish them severely for, but it is a moment that takes you out of the reality of the story.
Martha's family was ok. Tish and her brother are pretty non-descript and even when she tags along, there is nothing really developed with Tish. The primary focus is on her mother and she does a pretty good job in making you dislike her off the bat. It's probably a bit too effective because she just takes an instant dislike to the Doctor for no reason and it feels a bit like those moms who try and make their children perfect and control their lives to make up for their own crappy ones. I say that because at no point do you feel sympathy with Francine when she worries about her daughter. Instead it just feels like mom trying to control Martha's life from a different angle. If she had been shown as a bit more sympathetic when first interacting with the Doctor and Martha, her concern over Martha's involvement with the Doctor given the information of Harold Saxon would have garnered more of the concerned parent angle and given us more reason to feel for her being duped since we know that the Doctor is good, even if we don't know who Harold Saxon actually is yet.
As far as the overall story, it's a bit interesting because it's so short. The Doctor and Martha actually defeat Lazarus initially in the first thirty minutes of the story. They then give him the fake death bit to allow the Doctor and Martha take him out a second time. However, in both instances, there is not much to really say. The monster chases them with Martha or the Doctor being bait and then the Doctor figures a solution. The intellectual aspect is over once they discover the still mutating DNA. I think it is for that reason that this story is both enjoyable but also forgettable. A generic monster run around with no major witty moments or hard decisions is fun but it just sort of sits there and is easily replaced once the story is done.
I think you could actually accuse this story of having padding as well. The Doctor is shown setting a couple of traps for Lazarus during the first chase through the lab. We are also shown Martha and Tish being in extra danger because the Doctor is not fully prepared to hit Lazarus once he is in the bell tower. These add up to artificial tension as well as a way to increase the run time. They also seem to hit various tropes, with Tish grabbing Martha by the arm before she falls off the edge being the most common.
Again, there is nothing bad about this story and it will entertain you well enough for 42 minutes. But it also will slip out of your mind just as quickly. I would think of this story as a small bag of potato chips, tasty but junk food. Easy to pull out and watch if you've nothing better to do, but not one that will be on anyone's first choice list.
Overall personal score: 2.5 out of 5
Monday, October 31, 2016
Friday, October 28, 2016
Full Circle
It has come full circle.
Part one of the E-Space trilogy and the introduction of Adric. I've heard good things about this, including the idea that Adric's introduction was also his best story. I can't speak to that, although I will admit that in the Adric stories I have seen, his acting is usually a bit subpar. Of course, he also has Nyssa who usually has less personality than a block of wood, to offset him, but that's a discussion for another time. Anyway, on to the story.
Plot Summary
The Doctor and Romana are returning to Gallifrey although Romana is unhappy about it. The TARDIS is suddenly caught in a bit of turbulence although no damage occurs. When it appears they have landed on Gallifrey, they find themselves on a totally different planet, the planet Alzarius. The Doctor and Romana begin to examine the TARDIS to figure out why they didn't materialize on Gallifrey.
Nearby a group of people are residing by a river. A small group of youths sneak from the underbrush and steal several river fruit that the people have gathered. Some of them give chase to the youths but they elude them and the youths gather in a nearby cave. They celebrate their theft, teasing Adric, the younger brother of Varsh, about his dreams of leaving in the starliner and his continual wearing of a badge for mathematical excellence he earned before leaving the society. Angered by this teasing, Adric vows to raid fruit by himself.
As Adric approaches the camp, the river and surrounded marsh begin to bubble and release large quantities of mist. First Decider Draith declares that mistfall is approaching and that everyone must follow established procedures. The people gather up their belongings and head back to a space craft where the other deciders and a scientist named Dexeter had been examining the river fruit, which have become infected with strange eggs.
Draith sees Adric stealing fruit and gives chase to him. Adric runs but trips, injuring his knee. Draith tries to grab him but Adric throws him off and Draith hits his head, stunning him. Draith begins to sink into the marsh. Adric tries to pull him out but an unseen force pulls harder and Draith is sucked into the river.
Injured and in shock, Adric stumbles away and discovers the TARDIS. He bangs on the doors and when Romana opens them, he collapses inside. She and the Doctor take him to a bed where Adric speaks of mistfall not being a legend as he had been told by his brother but true. The Doctor, beginning to suspect what has happened, heads out with K-9 to observe the mist. As he does so, a group of creatures begin to rise out of the water. The Doctor orders K-9 to follow the creatures while he heads off to investigate elsewhere.
Adric, fully healed from his injury, heads back to the cave where his brother and friends are. Romana has given him a homing device to find the TARDIS again should he need to. The others decide to hide in the TARDIS as they are locked out of the starliner. Adric feebly tries to stop them but fails. They enter the TARDIS as Romana had left the doors open and try to take control. Adric distracts his brother and Romana gets the drop on Tylos, although she returns his knife after holding it against his own throat as a measure of good faith. Their quarrels are put aside though when the Marshmen lift the TARDIS and drag it to the cave the youths were hiding in.
The Doctor discovers the starliner and enters using his sonic screwdriver. He is unaware that a Marshchild that he smiled at earlier is following him out of curiosity. Once inside, the Marshchild becomes agitated and scared. It attracts the attention of the people who threaten it. The Doctor also discovers it and tries to calm it down. However, the people in the ship knock the Doctor out and net the Marshchild. Both are taken before the Deciders. Second Decider Nefred has been promoted to First Decider and he and Decider Garif have asked a citizen named Login, who is also the father of one of the outliers (Kerea), to be the new Third Decider.
The Deciders elect to hold the Doctor while the Marshchild is given to Dexeter for examination. The Doctor is allowed to see Dexeter's work. The Marshchild has been put under anesthetic, allowing Dexeter to take tissue samples. The Doctor decries Dexeter's methods but does find the information interesting. He discloses to the Deciders that the marsh gasses aren't toxic, much to Login's surprise. Nefred admits that some lies are told to the people for their own protection. Login takes the Doctor aside and offers to help him get back to the TARDIS if he will help him find his daughter. The Doctor agrees.
The TARDIS is placed in a cave by the Marshmen who attempt to break in. K-9 enters the cave to observe but one of the Marshmen knocks his head off with a club. Romana and the outliers wait inside until they hear the thumping stop. Opening the door, she sees the Marshmen retreating from the cave as the river fruit have begun to burst open with spiders hatching from eggs. The outliers panic and run back into the TARDIS. Varsh closes the door, trapping Romana outside. Adric tries to open the door but accidently starts the TARDIS on coordinates preprogramed by Romana. Romana sees the TARDIS disappear. She tries to fend off the spiders with a riverfruit but it bursts open and a spider falls on to her face and bites her. She stumbles and passes out.
The TARDIS materializes inside the starliner just as the Doctor and Login were preparing to leave. The outliers exit and Login is delighted to see Kerea again. The Doctor grabs Adric and the two go back into the TARDIS to return to the cave. The other three are arrested and taken before the Deciders. The Doctor and Adric return to the cave and collect Romana and K-9's body (his head having been taken by the Marshmen as a new club). Romana is infected with a psychotropic toxin. She does not remember the Doctor but now has a mental link with the Marshmen.
The three return to the starliner and the Doctor heads back to see the Deciders while Adric waits with Romana. The Deciders have elected to give Dexeter permission to conduct experiments on the Marshchild and he prepares to slice into it's skull while awake. The Doctor, observing over a viewscreen, shouts at him to stop but Dexeter ignores him. As the blade bites, Romana gives a scream of pain and the Marshchild bursts from it's restraints. It kills Dexeter and begins to smash the lab. It sees the Doctor on the screen and remembers him as a friend. It tries to grab him but smashes through the screen and electrocutes itself.
Furious at their actions, the Doctor points out that they could have left at any time as the ship is ready. Login is stunned by this but Nefred admits that although the ship is ready, they don't know how to fly it. This surprises the Doctor and he heads up to the lab to check on a theory. Before he can validate it, Adric finds him and tells him that Romana has gone. They head back to the TARDIS to look for her but figure that she has left. Romana has snuck below to the emergency hatches and opens them to allow the Marshmen in. The Marshmen begin to attack the people and the ship.
The Deciders attempt to herd the people into secure locations within the ship while the Doctor is attacked by a Marshmen using K-9's head as a club. He disarms that Marshman but others come. They stop when Romana appears, acting like one of them. The Doctor manages to appeal to a small part of her old self by motioning towards the TARDIS, which distracts both her and them. He then heads back to the lab to develop a serum to cure Romana. The Deciders waffle on whether to try and take off but the Marshmen breach the book room and begin to attack. One smashes Nefred on the head and the other two Deciders carry him out. They find a new safe room where Nefred reveals to the other two that they cannot go back to their home planet because they were never from there to begin with. He dies shortly afterwards.
The Marshmen break into the lab just as the Doctor finishes developing the serum. Attempting to fend them off, he discovers that they cannot adapt to the atmosphere when large volumes of oxygen are released into it. Adric, Varsh and Kerea grab oxygen tanks and drive the Mashmen back. Romana, having followed them, collapses due to the atmospheric change and the Doctor gives her the serum. He then continues his studies of the cell structure of the Marshmen with Kerea helping him.
Adric and Varsh drive the Marshmen further away but their oxygen tanks begin to run out. Adric runs back to the lab to grab more while Varsh holds his ground. The Doctor goes with him and also finds Decider Login. He tells Login to flood the ship with oxygen as that will drive the Marshmen away. He does so, but before it takes effect, Varsh is overrun by the Marshmen. Adric tries to pull him out of the room and behind a closing door but he is unable and Varsh is killed. The Marshmen begin to flee out the emergency exits and they are resealed once they are gone.
In the aftermath, with Romana recovered, the Doctor informs Login and Garif that they are actually descendants of the Marshmen. The Marshmen evolved from the river fruit spiders and when the starliner crashed, a group of Marshmen got aboard. Cut off from their fellows and in a different atmosphere, they evolved into their current form, a secret contained within the files only given to the First Decider. The Doctor shows them how to launch the ship as Login and Garif have decided that they should leave as that is what they have been preparing for.
The Doctor and Romana return to the TARDIS with a repaired K-9. The Doctor discovers a new optical circuit that Adric had stolen and given to the Doctor. He installs it to see the starliner lift off. He also tells Romana that they passed through a CVE and are trapped in E-space, an area with a negative spacial dimension. They take off in an attempt to find another CVE that will allow them to return to normal space. They also are unaware that after returning the optical circuit, Adric stayed aboard.
Analysis
Taken as a whole, this is a good story. It does have some unfortunate flaws that keep it from being great, but it definitely better than average. I will admit that I think it was built up a little too much in my mind by some of the things I had heard about it and that left me a little underwhelmed.
The Doctor is very good in this. The Doctor is rather dour in Season 18 stories, in keeping with the mood of the season, but here that mood lifts a bit and you can see some of that old childish spirit come back. You can also see some of the outrage come back in his fury with both Dexeter and his methods as well as the Deciders for their deliberate deceptions. He is quite enjoyable and the only downside is how little he is actually seen, especially in Episode One.
The Deciders were all also very good. George Baker gets special attention as Decider Login since he is the most well known actor and had the largest part. But Draith and Nefred were also quite good. It is never explicitly stated, but there is a bit of a suggestion that Draith might be Adric and Varth's father. That gives his death scene a bit more poignancy and doubles the overall tragedy of Adric given that both his father and brother were dragged out of his hand to their deaths. Nefred was also quite good as a man who clearly had the weight of hard secrets on his shoulders. He was excellent at portraying a man who might be doing the wrong thing but always trying for the good of the society as a whole and I appreciate that level of performance.
Still, it is hard not to give great praise to George Baker as Decider Login. He was quite well done as a practical man thrust into leadership. He also functions very well as a pseudo-companion with his ignorance of the situation having just been promoted. He asks the questions that you would not expect from Romana and Adric is not around to ask. He didn't have to give a great deal of emotional range but he played off Tom Baker very well and the two made an excellent team.
The direction in this story was also excellent and made up for what could have been several deficiencies. It's always nice to see a story on film so there is a plus there. The filming of the Marshmen was always done with a bit of shadow in the right areas and it made them much more believable and scary. About the only part that didn't work were some of the close up shots of the Marshchild. Those were hard to avoid but it was much easier to see the edges of the mask in those cases. The spiders were another scene where the direction and film style made up for what could have been a very cheesy effect. The spiders were puppets and that couldn't be avoided. But the direction was such that they gave a real vibe and it would be easy to get creeped out by them if you have a genuine hang up about spiders.
The overall story was pretty good too. There was a nice bit of action, but the overall mystery of what the colonists actually were is what drove the story. I suspected that the people would be related to the Marshmen but I wasn't convinced enough that I was constantly interested in seeing what came next. You can't get a much better driver to a story than that. The dialogue was fairly whit-y and managed to avoid long expositional scenes. Even moments where Login (and the audience) was being brought up to speed, the dialogue flowed naturally and not in a grand info dump or "lets repeat things we already know" way. I thought it a well written and well paced story.
All that being said, the outliers nearly bring this story to a crashing halt. If there is a major drawback to this story, it is them. The actor who plays Varsh isn't too bad, but the other three are near dreadful. I had heard that some consider this Adric's best story and it might be from a character point of view, but it certainly not from the standpoint of his acting ability. Overall, I think Kerea was the worst, followed shortly by Tylos and then Adric. All three of them are stiff and remind me of school play acting. There are pauses in dialogue with no natural lead ins, emotional jumps from nowhere and yet they all still come across as boring.
The scene where they attempt to take over the TARDIS is particularly bad as they never can seem to get a handle on how to play it. It doesn't help that Romana, who isn't great in this story, still runs rings about them in acting ability. When she holds the knife on Tylos, you can see her express her meaning and menace in only how she moves and how she uses her eyes. Tylos meanwhile tries to express his fear but is so clearly overmatched that it just wastes her efforts in this scene. It's a real waste of a good effort by Romana and that is a shame.
Another moment in this story that underwhelmed me was Varsh's death. I had heard about it before, including his scream for Adric and I was expecting a bit more out of the scene. It plays fairly well but I had imagined Varsh screaming for Adric as the Marshmen actually attacked him in more of a plaintive wail rather than a yell down a hall to hurry and help him. His yell there made his near silence as he is dragged beneath the closing door a bit anti-climatic. I think it would have played better if he had screamed as he was pulled from Adric's grasp. I also think the scene played a bit odd in how fast he died. After losing his grip. Adric immediately jumps up and turns the wheel to open the door. We find the Marshmen gone and Varsh's body lying there. It happened so fast that it loses it's effect because it is less believable. If Adric had had more trouble opening the door or Varsh had been dragged down a shaft where they would have had to find him later, that would have given it more effect. Some of this is my own hang up because the imagination played it differently that what actually happened, but it does feel like a lost opportunity. Having Kerea come in with a very wooden giving of Varsh's belt to Adric as a memorium didn't help the situation either.
Overall, I think the good fairly outweighs the bad on this one. It is not excellent, though it had that potential. But it is still good enough to go back and watch again. I think it would be even better if you didn't have the specter of Adric as a companion lingering over the story, but that's a minor quibble. I don't know if I would expressly seek this one out to watch again, but I certainly wouldn't mind if someone else put it on.
Overall personal score: 3.5 out of 5
Part one of the E-Space trilogy and the introduction of Adric. I've heard good things about this, including the idea that Adric's introduction was also his best story. I can't speak to that, although I will admit that in the Adric stories I have seen, his acting is usually a bit subpar. Of course, he also has Nyssa who usually has less personality than a block of wood, to offset him, but that's a discussion for another time. Anyway, on to the story.
Plot Summary
The Doctor and Romana are returning to Gallifrey although Romana is unhappy about it. The TARDIS is suddenly caught in a bit of turbulence although no damage occurs. When it appears they have landed on Gallifrey, they find themselves on a totally different planet, the planet Alzarius. The Doctor and Romana begin to examine the TARDIS to figure out why they didn't materialize on Gallifrey.
Nearby a group of people are residing by a river. A small group of youths sneak from the underbrush and steal several river fruit that the people have gathered. Some of them give chase to the youths but they elude them and the youths gather in a nearby cave. They celebrate their theft, teasing Adric, the younger brother of Varsh, about his dreams of leaving in the starliner and his continual wearing of a badge for mathematical excellence he earned before leaving the society. Angered by this teasing, Adric vows to raid fruit by himself.
As Adric approaches the camp, the river and surrounded marsh begin to bubble and release large quantities of mist. First Decider Draith declares that mistfall is approaching and that everyone must follow established procedures. The people gather up their belongings and head back to a space craft where the other deciders and a scientist named Dexeter had been examining the river fruit, which have become infected with strange eggs.
Draith sees Adric stealing fruit and gives chase to him. Adric runs but trips, injuring his knee. Draith tries to grab him but Adric throws him off and Draith hits his head, stunning him. Draith begins to sink into the marsh. Adric tries to pull him out but an unseen force pulls harder and Draith is sucked into the river.
Injured and in shock, Adric stumbles away and discovers the TARDIS. He bangs on the doors and when Romana opens them, he collapses inside. She and the Doctor take him to a bed where Adric speaks of mistfall not being a legend as he had been told by his brother but true. The Doctor, beginning to suspect what has happened, heads out with K-9 to observe the mist. As he does so, a group of creatures begin to rise out of the water. The Doctor orders K-9 to follow the creatures while he heads off to investigate elsewhere.
Adric, fully healed from his injury, heads back to the cave where his brother and friends are. Romana has given him a homing device to find the TARDIS again should he need to. The others decide to hide in the TARDIS as they are locked out of the starliner. Adric feebly tries to stop them but fails. They enter the TARDIS as Romana had left the doors open and try to take control. Adric distracts his brother and Romana gets the drop on Tylos, although she returns his knife after holding it against his own throat as a measure of good faith. Their quarrels are put aside though when the Marshmen lift the TARDIS and drag it to the cave the youths were hiding in.
The Doctor discovers the starliner and enters using his sonic screwdriver. He is unaware that a Marshchild that he smiled at earlier is following him out of curiosity. Once inside, the Marshchild becomes agitated and scared. It attracts the attention of the people who threaten it. The Doctor also discovers it and tries to calm it down. However, the people in the ship knock the Doctor out and net the Marshchild. Both are taken before the Deciders. Second Decider Nefred has been promoted to First Decider and he and Decider Garif have asked a citizen named Login, who is also the father of one of the outliers (Kerea), to be the new Third Decider.
The Deciders elect to hold the Doctor while the Marshchild is given to Dexeter for examination. The Doctor is allowed to see Dexeter's work. The Marshchild has been put under anesthetic, allowing Dexeter to take tissue samples. The Doctor decries Dexeter's methods but does find the information interesting. He discloses to the Deciders that the marsh gasses aren't toxic, much to Login's surprise. Nefred admits that some lies are told to the people for their own protection. Login takes the Doctor aside and offers to help him get back to the TARDIS if he will help him find his daughter. The Doctor agrees.
The TARDIS is placed in a cave by the Marshmen who attempt to break in. K-9 enters the cave to observe but one of the Marshmen knocks his head off with a club. Romana and the outliers wait inside until they hear the thumping stop. Opening the door, she sees the Marshmen retreating from the cave as the river fruit have begun to burst open with spiders hatching from eggs. The outliers panic and run back into the TARDIS. Varsh closes the door, trapping Romana outside. Adric tries to open the door but accidently starts the TARDIS on coordinates preprogramed by Romana. Romana sees the TARDIS disappear. She tries to fend off the spiders with a riverfruit but it bursts open and a spider falls on to her face and bites her. She stumbles and passes out.
The TARDIS materializes inside the starliner just as the Doctor and Login were preparing to leave. The outliers exit and Login is delighted to see Kerea again. The Doctor grabs Adric and the two go back into the TARDIS to return to the cave. The other three are arrested and taken before the Deciders. The Doctor and Adric return to the cave and collect Romana and K-9's body (his head having been taken by the Marshmen as a new club). Romana is infected with a psychotropic toxin. She does not remember the Doctor but now has a mental link with the Marshmen.
The three return to the starliner and the Doctor heads back to see the Deciders while Adric waits with Romana. The Deciders have elected to give Dexeter permission to conduct experiments on the Marshchild and he prepares to slice into it's skull while awake. The Doctor, observing over a viewscreen, shouts at him to stop but Dexeter ignores him. As the blade bites, Romana gives a scream of pain and the Marshchild bursts from it's restraints. It kills Dexeter and begins to smash the lab. It sees the Doctor on the screen and remembers him as a friend. It tries to grab him but smashes through the screen and electrocutes itself.
Furious at their actions, the Doctor points out that they could have left at any time as the ship is ready. Login is stunned by this but Nefred admits that although the ship is ready, they don't know how to fly it. This surprises the Doctor and he heads up to the lab to check on a theory. Before he can validate it, Adric finds him and tells him that Romana has gone. They head back to the TARDIS to look for her but figure that she has left. Romana has snuck below to the emergency hatches and opens them to allow the Marshmen in. The Marshmen begin to attack the people and the ship.
The Deciders attempt to herd the people into secure locations within the ship while the Doctor is attacked by a Marshmen using K-9's head as a club. He disarms that Marshman but others come. They stop when Romana appears, acting like one of them. The Doctor manages to appeal to a small part of her old self by motioning towards the TARDIS, which distracts both her and them. He then heads back to the lab to develop a serum to cure Romana. The Deciders waffle on whether to try and take off but the Marshmen breach the book room and begin to attack. One smashes Nefred on the head and the other two Deciders carry him out. They find a new safe room where Nefred reveals to the other two that they cannot go back to their home planet because they were never from there to begin with. He dies shortly afterwards.
The Marshmen break into the lab just as the Doctor finishes developing the serum. Attempting to fend them off, he discovers that they cannot adapt to the atmosphere when large volumes of oxygen are released into it. Adric, Varsh and Kerea grab oxygen tanks and drive the Mashmen back. Romana, having followed them, collapses due to the atmospheric change and the Doctor gives her the serum. He then continues his studies of the cell structure of the Marshmen with Kerea helping him.
Adric and Varsh drive the Marshmen further away but their oxygen tanks begin to run out. Adric runs back to the lab to grab more while Varsh holds his ground. The Doctor goes with him and also finds Decider Login. He tells Login to flood the ship with oxygen as that will drive the Marshmen away. He does so, but before it takes effect, Varsh is overrun by the Marshmen. Adric tries to pull him out of the room and behind a closing door but he is unable and Varsh is killed. The Marshmen begin to flee out the emergency exits and they are resealed once they are gone.
In the aftermath, with Romana recovered, the Doctor informs Login and Garif that they are actually descendants of the Marshmen. The Marshmen evolved from the river fruit spiders and when the starliner crashed, a group of Marshmen got aboard. Cut off from their fellows and in a different atmosphere, they evolved into their current form, a secret contained within the files only given to the First Decider. The Doctor shows them how to launch the ship as Login and Garif have decided that they should leave as that is what they have been preparing for.
The Doctor and Romana return to the TARDIS with a repaired K-9. The Doctor discovers a new optical circuit that Adric had stolen and given to the Doctor. He installs it to see the starliner lift off. He also tells Romana that they passed through a CVE and are trapped in E-space, an area with a negative spacial dimension. They take off in an attempt to find another CVE that will allow them to return to normal space. They also are unaware that after returning the optical circuit, Adric stayed aboard.
Analysis
Taken as a whole, this is a good story. It does have some unfortunate flaws that keep it from being great, but it definitely better than average. I will admit that I think it was built up a little too much in my mind by some of the things I had heard about it and that left me a little underwhelmed.
The Doctor is very good in this. The Doctor is rather dour in Season 18 stories, in keeping with the mood of the season, but here that mood lifts a bit and you can see some of that old childish spirit come back. You can also see some of the outrage come back in his fury with both Dexeter and his methods as well as the Deciders for their deliberate deceptions. He is quite enjoyable and the only downside is how little he is actually seen, especially in Episode One.
The Deciders were all also very good. George Baker gets special attention as Decider Login since he is the most well known actor and had the largest part. But Draith and Nefred were also quite good. It is never explicitly stated, but there is a bit of a suggestion that Draith might be Adric and Varth's father. That gives his death scene a bit more poignancy and doubles the overall tragedy of Adric given that both his father and brother were dragged out of his hand to their deaths. Nefred was also quite good as a man who clearly had the weight of hard secrets on his shoulders. He was excellent at portraying a man who might be doing the wrong thing but always trying for the good of the society as a whole and I appreciate that level of performance.
Still, it is hard not to give great praise to George Baker as Decider Login. He was quite well done as a practical man thrust into leadership. He also functions very well as a pseudo-companion with his ignorance of the situation having just been promoted. He asks the questions that you would not expect from Romana and Adric is not around to ask. He didn't have to give a great deal of emotional range but he played off Tom Baker very well and the two made an excellent team.
The direction in this story was also excellent and made up for what could have been several deficiencies. It's always nice to see a story on film so there is a plus there. The filming of the Marshmen was always done with a bit of shadow in the right areas and it made them much more believable and scary. About the only part that didn't work were some of the close up shots of the Marshchild. Those were hard to avoid but it was much easier to see the edges of the mask in those cases. The spiders were another scene where the direction and film style made up for what could have been a very cheesy effect. The spiders were puppets and that couldn't be avoided. But the direction was such that they gave a real vibe and it would be easy to get creeped out by them if you have a genuine hang up about spiders.
The overall story was pretty good too. There was a nice bit of action, but the overall mystery of what the colonists actually were is what drove the story. I suspected that the people would be related to the Marshmen but I wasn't convinced enough that I was constantly interested in seeing what came next. You can't get a much better driver to a story than that. The dialogue was fairly whit-y and managed to avoid long expositional scenes. Even moments where Login (and the audience) was being brought up to speed, the dialogue flowed naturally and not in a grand info dump or "lets repeat things we already know" way. I thought it a well written and well paced story.
All that being said, the outliers nearly bring this story to a crashing halt. If there is a major drawback to this story, it is them. The actor who plays Varsh isn't too bad, but the other three are near dreadful. I had heard that some consider this Adric's best story and it might be from a character point of view, but it certainly not from the standpoint of his acting ability. Overall, I think Kerea was the worst, followed shortly by Tylos and then Adric. All three of them are stiff and remind me of school play acting. There are pauses in dialogue with no natural lead ins, emotional jumps from nowhere and yet they all still come across as boring.
The scene where they attempt to take over the TARDIS is particularly bad as they never can seem to get a handle on how to play it. It doesn't help that Romana, who isn't great in this story, still runs rings about them in acting ability. When she holds the knife on Tylos, you can see her express her meaning and menace in only how she moves and how she uses her eyes. Tylos meanwhile tries to express his fear but is so clearly overmatched that it just wastes her efforts in this scene. It's a real waste of a good effort by Romana and that is a shame.
Another moment in this story that underwhelmed me was Varsh's death. I had heard about it before, including his scream for Adric and I was expecting a bit more out of the scene. It plays fairly well but I had imagined Varsh screaming for Adric as the Marshmen actually attacked him in more of a plaintive wail rather than a yell down a hall to hurry and help him. His yell there made his near silence as he is dragged beneath the closing door a bit anti-climatic. I think it would have played better if he had screamed as he was pulled from Adric's grasp. I also think the scene played a bit odd in how fast he died. After losing his grip. Adric immediately jumps up and turns the wheel to open the door. We find the Marshmen gone and Varsh's body lying there. It happened so fast that it loses it's effect because it is less believable. If Adric had had more trouble opening the door or Varsh had been dragged down a shaft where they would have had to find him later, that would have given it more effect. Some of this is my own hang up because the imagination played it differently that what actually happened, but it does feel like a lost opportunity. Having Kerea come in with a very wooden giving of Varsh's belt to Adric as a memorium didn't help the situation either.
Overall, I think the good fairly outweighs the bad on this one. It is not excellent, though it had that potential. But it is still good enough to go back and watch again. I think it would be even better if you didn't have the specter of Adric as a companion lingering over the story, but that's a minor quibble. I don't know if I would expressly seek this one out to watch again, but I certainly wouldn't mind if someone else put it on.
Overall personal score: 3.5 out of 5
Wednesday, October 26, 2016
The Invisible Enemy
Contact has been made.
Many of the things I have heard about The Invisible Enemy have been less than stellar. It also seems to take on a specific tint based on your feelings towards K-9, who is introduced in this story. I happen to like K-9, despite his overpowered abilities at times, so I've been somewhat curious about this story, even with it's flawed reputation. This story also happened to kick off the Graham Williams era. Horror at Fang Rock was the first story to air, but this story was the first to be shot, so it also is fair marker of what to expect in the non-holdover stories from the Philip Hinchcliff era.
Plot Summary
A trio of men from Earth is flying to Saturn's moon Titan to relieve the base crew there. They pass through a cloud and become infected with a virus which takes over their minds. They land on Titan and kill the base crew. The base manager, Lowe, becomes aware of the attack and sends out a distress signal.
The Doctor and Leela, traveling in the TARDIS, pick up the distress signal and head towards Titan to help. Leela is immediately on her guard as she senses great evil and danger. The Doctor dismisses this but while examining the console, becomes infected when the TARDIS passes through the cloud. He is able to resist complete mind control, but has space out moments.
They land on the base where they discover the dead crew. Lowe, resorting to guerilla tactics, has killed one infected crewman but was locked in an airlock. Leela frees him before he freezes to death. She is able to bring him back around but when the Doctor comes to examine him, Lowe is infected as well. After the Doctor leaves, Lowe warms himself for another moment before running down the corridor. Leela pursues him.
The Doctor, having been identified by the Swarm as the carrier of the nucleus for the clouds plan to propagate itself, is bent to the will of Swarm by the two remaining crewmen. He is then sent to kill Leela. He comes up behind her but manages to fight the control of the Swarm long enough to warn her to get out of the way of his shot. The Doctor then puts himself into a meditative state to preserve his mind.
Leela finds Lowe, who has hidden his eyes behind blast goggles to disguise his infection. He pretends to have been wounded in a firefight. Leela shows him the Doctor and Lowe suggests taking him to a medical base on an asteroid. Leela manages to coax the Doctor out of his state long enough to get the coordinates to this base so that the TARDIS can land there.
After landing, the medical team take the Doctor to be examined by Professor Marius and his diagnostic computer, K-9. Lowe, still faking eye injury, is sent to a different medical bay where he infects the duty doctor. Leela stays in the lobby for a bit before wandering down towards the bay where the Doctor is being examined.
Marius determines that the Doctor is suffering from a neurological virus that feeds off intellectual stimulation. The Doctor revives briefly to agree with this assessment and reasons that Leela, relying mostly on intuition and instinct, was rejected by the virus. The Doctor requests that clones be made of him and Leela. Marius agrees but notes that the clones will only last ten to twelve minutes due to their instability.
The Doctor dismisses this and requests that the clones be made. Sensing danger, the swarm orders Lowe to accelerate plans of taking over the station. He and the duty doctor infect two others and then push out more. The cloud meanwhile infects a shuttle and causes it's crew to hurtle toward the asteroid.
The clones are made and the Doctor clone leaves the room. The out of control shuttle forces Marius and his assistants to evacuate the bay leaving the real Doctor, Leela and her clone and K-9. The shuttle crashes into asteroid, destroying part of the corridor leading to the medical bay. With Marius temporarily out of the way, Lowe and his men attack but Leela fends them off. Leela fights them until her gun runs out of power and retreats into the room. K-9 takes up the fight and drives Lowe off.
The clearing allows Marius and his team back in along with the clone Doctor, who brings trans-dimensional equipment to shrink the Doctor and Leela clones. Marius does so and places them in a syringe. Lowe comes over the com and orders Marius to surrender or be destroyed. Marius ignores him and injects the Doctor and Leela clones into the real Doctor's head.
Lowe threatens to destroy the base but Marius agrees to surrender the Doctor. Once Lowe is off screen, Marius warns Leela and asks her to buy time. She and K-9 prepare a defense and fight off Lowe and the other infected personnel for a time. However, Lowe infects K-9 and K-9 stuns Leela before rebooting.
Lowe and his men enter the medical bay. They kill one doctor and infect Marius who informs them of the Doctor's plan. Lowe has a clone of himself made, shrunk and injected into the Doctor. Meanwhile, the nurse who had also been in the medical bay but hid by Marius, sneaks out. She finds K-9, who has purged himself of the virus by rebooting, reviving Leela and tells them what happened. Leela takes the nurse's outfit and makes up her face to make it appear she is infected as well.
In the Doctor's head, the Doctor and Leela clones make their way through his brain, following a trail of damage. Leela begins to sense danger and doubles back while the Doctor presses on. She discovers the Lowe clone following them. He wounds her with his gun but she damages the brain tissue around him, causing the Doctor's antibodies to attack and destroy him. Leela returns to the Doctor, who has discovered the sentient nucleus. The Doctor destroys it's outer covering but time expires and the Doctor and Leela clones die off and are absorbed by the Doctor. The unprotected nucleus flees to the Doctor's tear duct where it is collected by Marius and increased to humanoid size.
From the remains of Leela's clone, the Doctor absorbs her immunity factor and return to normal. The nucleus, now realized as a large crustacean, orders the return to Titan and to bring the Doctor with them as food for the new hatched enlarged swarm. Leela joins the party and quietly undoes the Doctor's straps. As they enter the lobby, they leap up and dash into the TARDIS, although it is unable to go anywhere with the dimensional modification unit in the lab.
As the nucleus leaves with Lowe and other infected parties, the Doctor and Leela slip out. They knock out Marius and tie him down while the Doctor examines blood samples from him and Leela. He is able to isolate her immunity factor that he has absorbed and injects it into Marius. Marius returns to normal and they use it to cure anyone else on the base that has been infected. Marius also cultures the factor to create a stronger serum for the Doctor to use against the nucleus.
Once the serum is ready, the Doctor and Leela prepare to leave in the TARDIS. They take K-9 with them with permission from Marius. On Titan, the nucleus is sealed in an isolation chamber and prepares to fertilize and hatch the next brood cycle of the Swarm. The Doctor and Leela land and shoot down the control room guard. Leela discovers that the Swarm is adapting to her gun and the power required from K-9 is draining his batteries.
The Doctor takes K-9 and neutralizes another guard while Leela heads off to find others. The Doctor attempts to release the serum into the system but is stopped by Lowe. K-9 uses the last of his reserves to take down Lowe and the Doctor seals him in the chamber. With the serum lost, he finds Leela who had just killed another guard with her knife. He has her take K-9 back to the TARDIS while he searches for the nucleus.
The Doctor finds the nucleus in the chamber and jambs the release mechanism to seal it in. He then disables the piping and begins to pump pure oxygen into the air. He also releases vents, allowing unfiltered atmosphere into the base. He runs back to the TARDIS, nearly leaving Leela and K-9 behind. The nucleus, sensing danger, attempts to escape but is trapped in the chamber. The oxygen and methane begin to mix and when the nucleus forces the chamber door, it sets off the trigger of Leela's gun, which the Doctor had booby trapped and ignites the mixture, causing the whole base to incinerate.
With the destruction of the nucleus, the rest of the Swarm dies. The Doctor and Leela return to the asteroid base to take K-9 back. However, Marius informs them that he is scheduled to return to Earth soon and will not be permitted to take K-9 back due to his weight. He offers to let K-9 go with the Doctor and the Doctor agrees, although much less enthusiastically than Leela.
Analysis
So this is Doctor Who does Fantastic Voyage long before Into the Dalek. It was a real up and down story for me. It started on a bit of a wrong foot for me but improved as the virus development continued. It reached a high point during the segments where the Doctor and Leela clones were searching the Doctor's brain to find the nucleus. However, once the nucleus was extracted, it became a regular monster fight and it fell off rapidly at the end.
First the positives. I enjoyed the Doctor in this one. It's always interesting when you see the Doctor at a disadvantage and having him taken down so that he's really only his old self in Episode Four is enjoyable. There was a little bit with the clone Doctor in Episode Three but those scenes were a bit limited so you don't get a full Doctor experience until the following episode.
Unlike a few fans out there, I like K-9 and enjoyed him in this story. Of course, it also exposes one of the primary complaints about him in that while the Doctor won't use a gun, he has K-9 to gun down anyone who opposes him. Of course, you could say that about Leela too given that she stabs one infected man in the neck with her knife, so I don't buy that as a reason to dislike K-9 overtly. He is also much more computer-like in this story and I thought that a better read on his personality than the friendly servant persona he takes on later.
I also enjoyed the set up for this story. It's very easy to do a monster or aggressive alien story but trying to fight a virus is a bit more of a challenge. I enjoyed Fantastic Voyage and for Doctor Who to do their own spin on it is an interesting idea. Throwing in a little traditional outside action with infected crewmen was also entertaining if not overly stimulating. That the virus fed off intellectual activity and could also pass through computers was an interesting addition that gave the Swarm just that much more potency.
Now the less than good. I was almost immediately put off on how this story characterized Leela. The idea that Leela would either cower in fear at any point is contrary to the development of Leela in her previous stories. I also strongly disliked the fact that she is characterized as being intellectually inferior, to the point of having a less developed brain. This is also contrary to the Leela we have seen in other stories where she is shown to be highly intelligent but simply ignorant of the universe outside her planet. The story actually switches in the middle, suggesting first that she is immune to the swarm because of a psychological reliance on instinct rather than intellect to an actual biological factor that keeps her immune. It would have been better storytelling and less insulting in general to keep her intellect as had been developed previously and explain away her immunity by exposure to other contagions on her home planet, producing an inherited immunity.
Despite all the problems with Leela, I was more or less enjoying the story up until Episode Four; then things deteriorated. While it was good to have the Doctor back to his normal self, the nucleus of the Swarm was not an overly impressive monster. It had no intellect and needed help moving around due to the limits of the costume. All it did was rant megalomaniacally and act like any other generic villain. In a way, the enlarged nucleus reminded me of Mestor the giant slug from The Twin Dilemma and all the limitations seen there.
I also didn't care for how easily the infected crewmen were dispatched when back on Titan. One goes so far as to back out of the control room to allow the TARDIS to land, giving up a proper defensive position against the Doctor and Leela coming out of the TARDIS. All three guards were taken out badly in my option. The first backed out of the room, allowing K-9 and Leela to shoot him coming through the door. The second chased after K-9 when he drove by, allowing the Doctor to drop him from behind. The third is stabbed by Leela, after fending her off briefly, despite her having the drop on him when he should have seen her. All three were lazy writing and lazy directing.
Nearly as annoying was the overall resolution. Leela suggests several times that they simply blow up the base but the Doctor overrides her for a more intellectual answer. He fails there and ends up blowing up the base. Similarly, after dispatching the first guard and they are showing more resistance to the guns, the Doctor states they will have use their intellect more. But they never do. It's more gun fights and brawls with the only intellectual activity being how the Doctor sets up the bomb on the base and even that is pretty simple chemistry.
I don't mind a good shoot-em-up here and there, but generally I expect the Doctor to have to think his way out of situations more often than not. This goes double when the Doctor and his companion's militant actions are shown to be less effective and the Doctor emphasizes the need to outthink the enemy. But in this case, there was very little outthinking. The closest we had to that was when Leela disguised herself to rescue the Doctor. The rest was a standard brute force approach that just left things a bit wanting.
It's a bit of a mixed bag on production. On one hand, the story is on film and that always makes things look a bit better. It has a nice feel in the view. On the other hand, there are a number of things that look very cheap and not all of them are due to the limitations of the time period. I suspect that Graham Williams was almost immediately feeling the budget pinch after the fallout of The Talons of Weng-Chiang and that forced the production team to cut corners.
The sets were minimal but that didn't bother me, although the TARDIS control room didn't look right as it had a small, cramped feel. The sets of the Doctor's brain looked pretty good, even if you could tell they were cheating in a few places, when they used real sets. The moments where CSO was used did not look so good. There were also a few other dodgy moments. There is a point where K-9 blasts a wall to produce a barrier and you can see the points where the base was chiseled away to make it fall. This is more than just a precut outline, it actually had parts of the wall missing making it look very cheap. There were also a couple of points where laser effects were not added. You would hear the noise, the actor would double over, but there was never the added red line that you saw in other shots. Again, it gave the effect of a story that had run out of money at the end.
Finally there is the design of the Swarm nucleus itself. What bothered me most about this was that the Swarm was supposed to exist and breed like a virus, infecting a host and multiplying that way. However the nucleus, especially once grown, acted more like a bacterial infection where all was based on the power of the central life form. Without the nucleus, the rest of the Swarm died off where a true virus would be able to recreate itself if most of it were destroyed. I also had mixed emotions on the nucleus' appearance. It had many aspects of a microscopic organism and I appreciated that. But it did bother me that it had bulbous eyes. Why would a microscopic organism have eyes to begin with. It made it look more shrimp-like in appearance and less threatening in a way.
Overall, I'd have to say this was a less than middling story. It's not bad as there are good elements to it and good moments as well, especially in concept. But a lame conclusion, lazy writing and production shortfalls drag this story below the average. At four episodes, it zips along fairly well but the disappointing ending leaves a bad taste in the mouth. I could watch it again but I wouldn't go out of my way to.
Overall personal score: 2 out of 5
Many of the things I have heard about The Invisible Enemy have been less than stellar. It also seems to take on a specific tint based on your feelings towards K-9, who is introduced in this story. I happen to like K-9, despite his overpowered abilities at times, so I've been somewhat curious about this story, even with it's flawed reputation. This story also happened to kick off the Graham Williams era. Horror at Fang Rock was the first story to air, but this story was the first to be shot, so it also is fair marker of what to expect in the non-holdover stories from the Philip Hinchcliff era.
Plot Summary
A trio of men from Earth is flying to Saturn's moon Titan to relieve the base crew there. They pass through a cloud and become infected with a virus which takes over their minds. They land on Titan and kill the base crew. The base manager, Lowe, becomes aware of the attack and sends out a distress signal.
The Doctor and Leela, traveling in the TARDIS, pick up the distress signal and head towards Titan to help. Leela is immediately on her guard as she senses great evil and danger. The Doctor dismisses this but while examining the console, becomes infected when the TARDIS passes through the cloud. He is able to resist complete mind control, but has space out moments.
They land on the base where they discover the dead crew. Lowe, resorting to guerilla tactics, has killed one infected crewman but was locked in an airlock. Leela frees him before he freezes to death. She is able to bring him back around but when the Doctor comes to examine him, Lowe is infected as well. After the Doctor leaves, Lowe warms himself for another moment before running down the corridor. Leela pursues him.
The Doctor, having been identified by the Swarm as the carrier of the nucleus for the clouds plan to propagate itself, is bent to the will of Swarm by the two remaining crewmen. He is then sent to kill Leela. He comes up behind her but manages to fight the control of the Swarm long enough to warn her to get out of the way of his shot. The Doctor then puts himself into a meditative state to preserve his mind.
Leela finds Lowe, who has hidden his eyes behind blast goggles to disguise his infection. He pretends to have been wounded in a firefight. Leela shows him the Doctor and Lowe suggests taking him to a medical base on an asteroid. Leela manages to coax the Doctor out of his state long enough to get the coordinates to this base so that the TARDIS can land there.
After landing, the medical team take the Doctor to be examined by Professor Marius and his diagnostic computer, K-9. Lowe, still faking eye injury, is sent to a different medical bay where he infects the duty doctor. Leela stays in the lobby for a bit before wandering down towards the bay where the Doctor is being examined.
Marius determines that the Doctor is suffering from a neurological virus that feeds off intellectual stimulation. The Doctor revives briefly to agree with this assessment and reasons that Leela, relying mostly on intuition and instinct, was rejected by the virus. The Doctor requests that clones be made of him and Leela. Marius agrees but notes that the clones will only last ten to twelve minutes due to their instability.
The Doctor dismisses this and requests that the clones be made. Sensing danger, the swarm orders Lowe to accelerate plans of taking over the station. He and the duty doctor infect two others and then push out more. The cloud meanwhile infects a shuttle and causes it's crew to hurtle toward the asteroid.
The clones are made and the Doctor clone leaves the room. The out of control shuttle forces Marius and his assistants to evacuate the bay leaving the real Doctor, Leela and her clone and K-9. The shuttle crashes into asteroid, destroying part of the corridor leading to the medical bay. With Marius temporarily out of the way, Lowe and his men attack but Leela fends them off. Leela fights them until her gun runs out of power and retreats into the room. K-9 takes up the fight and drives Lowe off.
The clearing allows Marius and his team back in along with the clone Doctor, who brings trans-dimensional equipment to shrink the Doctor and Leela clones. Marius does so and places them in a syringe. Lowe comes over the com and orders Marius to surrender or be destroyed. Marius ignores him and injects the Doctor and Leela clones into the real Doctor's head.
Lowe threatens to destroy the base but Marius agrees to surrender the Doctor. Once Lowe is off screen, Marius warns Leela and asks her to buy time. She and K-9 prepare a defense and fight off Lowe and the other infected personnel for a time. However, Lowe infects K-9 and K-9 stuns Leela before rebooting.
Lowe and his men enter the medical bay. They kill one doctor and infect Marius who informs them of the Doctor's plan. Lowe has a clone of himself made, shrunk and injected into the Doctor. Meanwhile, the nurse who had also been in the medical bay but hid by Marius, sneaks out. She finds K-9, who has purged himself of the virus by rebooting, reviving Leela and tells them what happened. Leela takes the nurse's outfit and makes up her face to make it appear she is infected as well.
In the Doctor's head, the Doctor and Leela clones make their way through his brain, following a trail of damage. Leela begins to sense danger and doubles back while the Doctor presses on. She discovers the Lowe clone following them. He wounds her with his gun but she damages the brain tissue around him, causing the Doctor's antibodies to attack and destroy him. Leela returns to the Doctor, who has discovered the sentient nucleus. The Doctor destroys it's outer covering but time expires and the Doctor and Leela clones die off and are absorbed by the Doctor. The unprotected nucleus flees to the Doctor's tear duct where it is collected by Marius and increased to humanoid size.
From the remains of Leela's clone, the Doctor absorbs her immunity factor and return to normal. The nucleus, now realized as a large crustacean, orders the return to Titan and to bring the Doctor with them as food for the new hatched enlarged swarm. Leela joins the party and quietly undoes the Doctor's straps. As they enter the lobby, they leap up and dash into the TARDIS, although it is unable to go anywhere with the dimensional modification unit in the lab.
As the nucleus leaves with Lowe and other infected parties, the Doctor and Leela slip out. They knock out Marius and tie him down while the Doctor examines blood samples from him and Leela. He is able to isolate her immunity factor that he has absorbed and injects it into Marius. Marius returns to normal and they use it to cure anyone else on the base that has been infected. Marius also cultures the factor to create a stronger serum for the Doctor to use against the nucleus.
Once the serum is ready, the Doctor and Leela prepare to leave in the TARDIS. They take K-9 with them with permission from Marius. On Titan, the nucleus is sealed in an isolation chamber and prepares to fertilize and hatch the next brood cycle of the Swarm. The Doctor and Leela land and shoot down the control room guard. Leela discovers that the Swarm is adapting to her gun and the power required from K-9 is draining his batteries.
The Doctor takes K-9 and neutralizes another guard while Leela heads off to find others. The Doctor attempts to release the serum into the system but is stopped by Lowe. K-9 uses the last of his reserves to take down Lowe and the Doctor seals him in the chamber. With the serum lost, he finds Leela who had just killed another guard with her knife. He has her take K-9 back to the TARDIS while he searches for the nucleus.
The Doctor finds the nucleus in the chamber and jambs the release mechanism to seal it in. He then disables the piping and begins to pump pure oxygen into the air. He also releases vents, allowing unfiltered atmosphere into the base. He runs back to the TARDIS, nearly leaving Leela and K-9 behind. The nucleus, sensing danger, attempts to escape but is trapped in the chamber. The oxygen and methane begin to mix and when the nucleus forces the chamber door, it sets off the trigger of Leela's gun, which the Doctor had booby trapped and ignites the mixture, causing the whole base to incinerate.
With the destruction of the nucleus, the rest of the Swarm dies. The Doctor and Leela return to the asteroid base to take K-9 back. However, Marius informs them that he is scheduled to return to Earth soon and will not be permitted to take K-9 back due to his weight. He offers to let K-9 go with the Doctor and the Doctor agrees, although much less enthusiastically than Leela.
Analysis
So this is Doctor Who does Fantastic Voyage long before Into the Dalek. It was a real up and down story for me. It started on a bit of a wrong foot for me but improved as the virus development continued. It reached a high point during the segments where the Doctor and Leela clones were searching the Doctor's brain to find the nucleus. However, once the nucleus was extracted, it became a regular monster fight and it fell off rapidly at the end.
First the positives. I enjoyed the Doctor in this one. It's always interesting when you see the Doctor at a disadvantage and having him taken down so that he's really only his old self in Episode Four is enjoyable. There was a little bit with the clone Doctor in Episode Three but those scenes were a bit limited so you don't get a full Doctor experience until the following episode.
Unlike a few fans out there, I like K-9 and enjoyed him in this story. Of course, it also exposes one of the primary complaints about him in that while the Doctor won't use a gun, he has K-9 to gun down anyone who opposes him. Of course, you could say that about Leela too given that she stabs one infected man in the neck with her knife, so I don't buy that as a reason to dislike K-9 overtly. He is also much more computer-like in this story and I thought that a better read on his personality than the friendly servant persona he takes on later.
I also enjoyed the set up for this story. It's very easy to do a monster or aggressive alien story but trying to fight a virus is a bit more of a challenge. I enjoyed Fantastic Voyage and for Doctor Who to do their own spin on it is an interesting idea. Throwing in a little traditional outside action with infected crewmen was also entertaining if not overly stimulating. That the virus fed off intellectual activity and could also pass through computers was an interesting addition that gave the Swarm just that much more potency.
Now the less than good. I was almost immediately put off on how this story characterized Leela. The idea that Leela would either cower in fear at any point is contrary to the development of Leela in her previous stories. I also strongly disliked the fact that she is characterized as being intellectually inferior, to the point of having a less developed brain. This is also contrary to the Leela we have seen in other stories where she is shown to be highly intelligent but simply ignorant of the universe outside her planet. The story actually switches in the middle, suggesting first that she is immune to the swarm because of a psychological reliance on instinct rather than intellect to an actual biological factor that keeps her immune. It would have been better storytelling and less insulting in general to keep her intellect as had been developed previously and explain away her immunity by exposure to other contagions on her home planet, producing an inherited immunity.
Despite all the problems with Leela, I was more or less enjoying the story up until Episode Four; then things deteriorated. While it was good to have the Doctor back to his normal self, the nucleus of the Swarm was not an overly impressive monster. It had no intellect and needed help moving around due to the limits of the costume. All it did was rant megalomaniacally and act like any other generic villain. In a way, the enlarged nucleus reminded me of Mestor the giant slug from The Twin Dilemma and all the limitations seen there.
I also didn't care for how easily the infected crewmen were dispatched when back on Titan. One goes so far as to back out of the control room to allow the TARDIS to land, giving up a proper defensive position against the Doctor and Leela coming out of the TARDIS. All three guards were taken out badly in my option. The first backed out of the room, allowing K-9 and Leela to shoot him coming through the door. The second chased after K-9 when he drove by, allowing the Doctor to drop him from behind. The third is stabbed by Leela, after fending her off briefly, despite her having the drop on him when he should have seen her. All three were lazy writing and lazy directing.
Nearly as annoying was the overall resolution. Leela suggests several times that they simply blow up the base but the Doctor overrides her for a more intellectual answer. He fails there and ends up blowing up the base. Similarly, after dispatching the first guard and they are showing more resistance to the guns, the Doctor states they will have use their intellect more. But they never do. It's more gun fights and brawls with the only intellectual activity being how the Doctor sets up the bomb on the base and even that is pretty simple chemistry.
I don't mind a good shoot-em-up here and there, but generally I expect the Doctor to have to think his way out of situations more often than not. This goes double when the Doctor and his companion's militant actions are shown to be less effective and the Doctor emphasizes the need to outthink the enemy. But in this case, there was very little outthinking. The closest we had to that was when Leela disguised herself to rescue the Doctor. The rest was a standard brute force approach that just left things a bit wanting.
It's a bit of a mixed bag on production. On one hand, the story is on film and that always makes things look a bit better. It has a nice feel in the view. On the other hand, there are a number of things that look very cheap and not all of them are due to the limitations of the time period. I suspect that Graham Williams was almost immediately feeling the budget pinch after the fallout of The Talons of Weng-Chiang and that forced the production team to cut corners.
The sets were minimal but that didn't bother me, although the TARDIS control room didn't look right as it had a small, cramped feel. The sets of the Doctor's brain looked pretty good, even if you could tell they were cheating in a few places, when they used real sets. The moments where CSO was used did not look so good. There were also a few other dodgy moments. There is a point where K-9 blasts a wall to produce a barrier and you can see the points where the base was chiseled away to make it fall. This is more than just a precut outline, it actually had parts of the wall missing making it look very cheap. There were also a couple of points where laser effects were not added. You would hear the noise, the actor would double over, but there was never the added red line that you saw in other shots. Again, it gave the effect of a story that had run out of money at the end.
Finally there is the design of the Swarm nucleus itself. What bothered me most about this was that the Swarm was supposed to exist and breed like a virus, infecting a host and multiplying that way. However the nucleus, especially once grown, acted more like a bacterial infection where all was based on the power of the central life form. Without the nucleus, the rest of the Swarm died off where a true virus would be able to recreate itself if most of it were destroyed. I also had mixed emotions on the nucleus' appearance. It had many aspects of a microscopic organism and I appreciated that. But it did bother me that it had bulbous eyes. Why would a microscopic organism have eyes to begin with. It made it look more shrimp-like in appearance and less threatening in a way.
Overall, I'd have to say this was a less than middling story. It's not bad as there are good elements to it and good moments as well, especially in concept. But a lame conclusion, lazy writing and production shortfalls drag this story below the average. At four episodes, it zips along fairly well but the disappointing ending leaves a bad taste in the mouth. I could watch it again but I wouldn't go out of my way to.
Overall personal score: 2 out of 5
Monday, October 24, 2016
The Bells of St. John
Yes, I'm an alien who travels in a blue box that's bigger on the inside. I'm over a thousand years old and I don't know how to fly a plane.
The Bells of St. John kicked off Series 7B (as it was known) and introduced Clara as full time companion after teasing her twice before. Series 7B is generally not regarded very highly by the fans outside of The Name of the Doctor but I think that's a little harsh. It is a more light-hearted series and I think the mixture of silliness with a tinge of dark first brought forth here sets the mood fairly well. I generally enjoyed it, but I also wasn't going in expecting the answers that people were getting antsy for.
Plot Summary
The story opens with a man giving a warning about a strange script appearing on Wi-Fi access screens. He warns that if it is clicked on, the person is found and their mind pulled into the cloud and their body left to die. He knows this because he is lost in the cloud, along with many others.
The Doctor is in seclusion in a 13th century monastery, attempting to discover the secret of Clara, when a monk comes to him to tell him that the bells of St. John are ringing. He walks with the monk to a cave where the TARDIS is hid and answers the ringing TARDIS phone. On the other end is Clara who had called the number thinking it a tech support line, given to her by a woman in the shop where she bought her computer. He walks her through setting up Wi-Fi but becomes excited when her mnemonic for the Wi-Fi password is the same phrase her two previous iterations told him.
His excitement causes her to mistype the password and when she reconnects, she clicks on the trap script, alerting a nerve center to her presence. The Doctor travels in the TARDIS to her location but she has no knowledge of who the Doctor is and is unnerved by him, locking him out. Thinking it's his clothing, he goes back to the TARDIS to change.
While he is distracted, a girl from a book Clara had recommended to one of the children Clara watches appears from upstairs. The girl's head turns around to reveal electronics which begins to suck up her mind. The Doctor overhears Clara's lost cries from over the intercom and bursts in. He uses his sonic and her computer to reverse the process, to the surprise of the workers in the nerve center. The Doctor takes Clara upstairs to rest in her bed and heads outside to keep watch.
She wakes several hours later and comes down to investigate, still unsure of the Doctor. While out, they are spotted by a robot and the nerve center group turn up the lights in the neighborhood and turn off the lights around them. They then knock out the crew and passengers of a plan and guide it to crash in the lit area. The Doctor and Clara hop aboard the TARDIS which the Doctor lands on the plane. He pulls the plane out of the dive and disconnects the Wi-Fi, allowing the crew and passengers to wake.
The Doctor and Clara reappear at a café the following morning. They have discovered that Clara's near upload to the cloud affected her brain, leaving her with a new ability to manipulate computers. She hacks in and discovers the nerve center of the activity is taking place on an upper floor of the Shard.
The Doctor heads in to the café to get coffee and is distracted by taunts from the director of the activity, Miss Kizlet, who is using the Wi-Fi to temporarily take over people. Whilst doing that, another robot, taking the form of the Doctor, uploads Clara into the cloud.
The Doctor discovers this and reprograms the robot to work for him. The robot takes the Doctor's motorcycle and using an anti-gravity adaptation, drives up the Shard and into Miss Kizlet's office. The robot uploads Miss Kizlet into the cloud where she screams to be let out. Her primary assistant, Mahler, hesitates but the Doctor robot is ordered by the Doctor to increase Mahler's obedience and he releases all captured minds out of the cloud.
The Doctor directs UNIT to the nerve center and they move in. Back in her body, Miss Kizlet informs the Great Intelligence of what is happening and he orders a complete shut down. She deactivates the system, releasing all the workers who had been brainwashed. Miss Kizlet herself reverts to her normal mind, that of a very young girl who was waiting for her parents.
Clara revives and returns to the house where she finds the Doctor waiting. He offers her the chance to travel but she tells him to return tomorrow, preferring to go on her own terms. The Doctor then departs, determined to unearth Clara's secrets.
Analysis
It is difficult not to enjoy this one even if it gets a touch silly with the Doctor driving up the Shard. I also have to admit that I prefer "Impossible Girl" Clara to the regular Clara she is with the Twelfth Doctor so this story already gets a bit of a boost in my book. It's not perfect by any stretch but it is a fun little story with some good humor, fun references, and a dark edge behind the curtain.
The Eleventh Doctor is highly entertaining in this story and quite enjoyable. He drops the sullenness from The Snowmen and gets back to his more spritely self. That being said, he still seems to retain a darker edge. Not the dark edge that the Tenth Doctor had or that was attempted badly in The Beast Below, but an undercurrent indicating that the Eleventh Doctor is less naïve than he would occasionally come across as in earlier iterations. Even beyond the escaping his own death, this is a Doctor who has experienced loss and it makes his character richer for it.
Clara, as already noted, is also enjoyable in this one. She is the more hesitant version of herself. You can see elements of the brashness that would eventually come to define her with the Twelfth Doctor, but there is still a hint of uncertainty. Her controlling tendencies come across as more cautious as when she forces the Doctor to accept travelling on her terms. Granted, she doesn't do a whole lot and gets captured by the Spoonheads twice but we can mitigate that with the idea that she is unfamiliar with the Doctor's world and would be more susceptible to capture as happened with a great many of the Doctor's companions at the beginning of their tenure.
The enemies were pretty good in this too. I liked the idea of using Wi-Fi as an agent against people, though their ability to hack random people seemed odd. If they had that power, why couldn't they just hack Clara directly to attack the Doctor. What's more, why not make further attacks on the Doctor? Once he's in a known locations, send every person in the café against him at once like the Agent Smith clones at the beginning of Matrix: Reloaded. I never like it when the villains decide to be sporting.
I liked the Spoonheads as well, although I think they would have been more effective if they had been a bit faster. The slow spin is a bit too dramatic and it makes you wonder why the person simply cannot run away while the spinning in happening. A quick dissolve of the face to the receptor plate would make more sense and you wouldn't have the question of seeing a person walk by with a glowing plate of metal instead of the back of the head. I'd also like to know how the Spoonhead got into Clara's house while the Doctor was outside. I can see the Spoonheads being distributed throughout London and other areas, but did it magically jump through a window to get around the Doctor outside? It's a bit of a plot hole for me.
There was an interesting twist with the idea that none of the workers was actually of their right mind. It does make you wonder how the Great Intelligence got a hold of Miss Kizlet all those years ago but it feels especially tragic to have her mind wiped and you hear the mind of a three to five year old child coming out. It also seems slightly callous of the Doctor that once he has returned everyone (most to death) that he doesn't bother with any follow up because he is so focused on Clara. It sets up the return of the Great Intelligence, but it seems a bit uncharacteristic of this Doctor.
I also couldn't help myself wondering if Miss Kizlet was taken around the time that the Great Intelligence was driven away in The Web of Fear. She could have been taken earlier as an experiment in the mind absorption technique and then held on to when Jamie destroyed the machine, preventing the Second Doctor from destroying the Great Intelligence outright.
If I had any problem with this story, it was the slightly silly tone that it took at times. Driving up the Shard looked neat in the forward shot, but the profile shot reminded me of Adam West and Burt Ward climbing a building in the 60's Batman. Most of the jokes landed (the demon-woman one from the beginning was particularly funny) but every once in a while there was a bit of a groaner.
The references were fun as well. The book being written by Amelia Williams with a cover suggesting her, Rory and the Doctor was pretty good, although I could have done without the overt "Eleven is the best" reference from Clara. I'm sure this wasn't a reference since it's a common location but I enjoyed the Doctor and Clara driving over the bridge outside Parliament. In my mind, I could see the line of Daleks coming from the other directions as seen in The Dalek Invasion of Earth. I know they were downplaying the Great Intelligence connection, but I do wish there had been some little connection to the Great Intelligence of the past, like if the Doctor pulled a control sphere out of the Spoonhead while waiting for Clara to wake. That would have been a fun little tease.
Overall, I'd say this was an enjoyable story and one worth going back to. It doesn't flow quite as well if you haven't seen The Snowmen so that is one drawback to it. I think you can get by without Asylum of the Daleks but given that Clara is the best part of that story, I would indulge in that one as well. But knowing the whole story, this one is perfectly good to sit down and enjoy without prerequisites. Not great, but a solid little adventure.
Overall personal score: 4 out of 5
The Bells of St. John kicked off Series 7B (as it was known) and introduced Clara as full time companion after teasing her twice before. Series 7B is generally not regarded very highly by the fans outside of The Name of the Doctor but I think that's a little harsh. It is a more light-hearted series and I think the mixture of silliness with a tinge of dark first brought forth here sets the mood fairly well. I generally enjoyed it, but I also wasn't going in expecting the answers that people were getting antsy for.
Plot Summary
The story opens with a man giving a warning about a strange script appearing on Wi-Fi access screens. He warns that if it is clicked on, the person is found and their mind pulled into the cloud and their body left to die. He knows this because he is lost in the cloud, along with many others.
The Doctor is in seclusion in a 13th century monastery, attempting to discover the secret of Clara, when a monk comes to him to tell him that the bells of St. John are ringing. He walks with the monk to a cave where the TARDIS is hid and answers the ringing TARDIS phone. On the other end is Clara who had called the number thinking it a tech support line, given to her by a woman in the shop where she bought her computer. He walks her through setting up Wi-Fi but becomes excited when her mnemonic for the Wi-Fi password is the same phrase her two previous iterations told him.
His excitement causes her to mistype the password and when she reconnects, she clicks on the trap script, alerting a nerve center to her presence. The Doctor travels in the TARDIS to her location but she has no knowledge of who the Doctor is and is unnerved by him, locking him out. Thinking it's his clothing, he goes back to the TARDIS to change.
While he is distracted, a girl from a book Clara had recommended to one of the children Clara watches appears from upstairs. The girl's head turns around to reveal electronics which begins to suck up her mind. The Doctor overhears Clara's lost cries from over the intercom and bursts in. He uses his sonic and her computer to reverse the process, to the surprise of the workers in the nerve center. The Doctor takes Clara upstairs to rest in her bed and heads outside to keep watch.
She wakes several hours later and comes down to investigate, still unsure of the Doctor. While out, they are spotted by a robot and the nerve center group turn up the lights in the neighborhood and turn off the lights around them. They then knock out the crew and passengers of a plan and guide it to crash in the lit area. The Doctor and Clara hop aboard the TARDIS which the Doctor lands on the plane. He pulls the plane out of the dive and disconnects the Wi-Fi, allowing the crew and passengers to wake.
The Doctor and Clara reappear at a café the following morning. They have discovered that Clara's near upload to the cloud affected her brain, leaving her with a new ability to manipulate computers. She hacks in and discovers the nerve center of the activity is taking place on an upper floor of the Shard.
The Doctor heads in to the café to get coffee and is distracted by taunts from the director of the activity, Miss Kizlet, who is using the Wi-Fi to temporarily take over people. Whilst doing that, another robot, taking the form of the Doctor, uploads Clara into the cloud.
The Doctor discovers this and reprograms the robot to work for him. The robot takes the Doctor's motorcycle and using an anti-gravity adaptation, drives up the Shard and into Miss Kizlet's office. The robot uploads Miss Kizlet into the cloud where she screams to be let out. Her primary assistant, Mahler, hesitates but the Doctor robot is ordered by the Doctor to increase Mahler's obedience and he releases all captured minds out of the cloud.
The Doctor directs UNIT to the nerve center and they move in. Back in her body, Miss Kizlet informs the Great Intelligence of what is happening and he orders a complete shut down. She deactivates the system, releasing all the workers who had been brainwashed. Miss Kizlet herself reverts to her normal mind, that of a very young girl who was waiting for her parents.
Clara revives and returns to the house where she finds the Doctor waiting. He offers her the chance to travel but she tells him to return tomorrow, preferring to go on her own terms. The Doctor then departs, determined to unearth Clara's secrets.
Analysis
It is difficult not to enjoy this one even if it gets a touch silly with the Doctor driving up the Shard. I also have to admit that I prefer "Impossible Girl" Clara to the regular Clara she is with the Twelfth Doctor so this story already gets a bit of a boost in my book. It's not perfect by any stretch but it is a fun little story with some good humor, fun references, and a dark edge behind the curtain.
The Eleventh Doctor is highly entertaining in this story and quite enjoyable. He drops the sullenness from The Snowmen and gets back to his more spritely self. That being said, he still seems to retain a darker edge. Not the dark edge that the Tenth Doctor had or that was attempted badly in The Beast Below, but an undercurrent indicating that the Eleventh Doctor is less naïve than he would occasionally come across as in earlier iterations. Even beyond the escaping his own death, this is a Doctor who has experienced loss and it makes his character richer for it.
Clara, as already noted, is also enjoyable in this one. She is the more hesitant version of herself. You can see elements of the brashness that would eventually come to define her with the Twelfth Doctor, but there is still a hint of uncertainty. Her controlling tendencies come across as more cautious as when she forces the Doctor to accept travelling on her terms. Granted, she doesn't do a whole lot and gets captured by the Spoonheads twice but we can mitigate that with the idea that she is unfamiliar with the Doctor's world and would be more susceptible to capture as happened with a great many of the Doctor's companions at the beginning of their tenure.
The enemies were pretty good in this too. I liked the idea of using Wi-Fi as an agent against people, though their ability to hack random people seemed odd. If they had that power, why couldn't they just hack Clara directly to attack the Doctor. What's more, why not make further attacks on the Doctor? Once he's in a known locations, send every person in the café against him at once like the Agent Smith clones at the beginning of Matrix: Reloaded. I never like it when the villains decide to be sporting.
I liked the Spoonheads as well, although I think they would have been more effective if they had been a bit faster. The slow spin is a bit too dramatic and it makes you wonder why the person simply cannot run away while the spinning in happening. A quick dissolve of the face to the receptor plate would make more sense and you wouldn't have the question of seeing a person walk by with a glowing plate of metal instead of the back of the head. I'd also like to know how the Spoonhead got into Clara's house while the Doctor was outside. I can see the Spoonheads being distributed throughout London and other areas, but did it magically jump through a window to get around the Doctor outside? It's a bit of a plot hole for me.
There was an interesting twist with the idea that none of the workers was actually of their right mind. It does make you wonder how the Great Intelligence got a hold of Miss Kizlet all those years ago but it feels especially tragic to have her mind wiped and you hear the mind of a three to five year old child coming out. It also seems slightly callous of the Doctor that once he has returned everyone (most to death) that he doesn't bother with any follow up because he is so focused on Clara. It sets up the return of the Great Intelligence, but it seems a bit uncharacteristic of this Doctor.
I also couldn't help myself wondering if Miss Kizlet was taken around the time that the Great Intelligence was driven away in The Web of Fear. She could have been taken earlier as an experiment in the mind absorption technique and then held on to when Jamie destroyed the machine, preventing the Second Doctor from destroying the Great Intelligence outright.
If I had any problem with this story, it was the slightly silly tone that it took at times. Driving up the Shard looked neat in the forward shot, but the profile shot reminded me of Adam West and Burt Ward climbing a building in the 60's Batman. Most of the jokes landed (the demon-woman one from the beginning was particularly funny) but every once in a while there was a bit of a groaner.
The references were fun as well. The book being written by Amelia Williams with a cover suggesting her, Rory and the Doctor was pretty good, although I could have done without the overt "Eleven is the best" reference from Clara. I'm sure this wasn't a reference since it's a common location but I enjoyed the Doctor and Clara driving over the bridge outside Parliament. In my mind, I could see the line of Daleks coming from the other directions as seen in The Dalek Invasion of Earth. I know they were downplaying the Great Intelligence connection, but I do wish there had been some little connection to the Great Intelligence of the past, like if the Doctor pulled a control sphere out of the Spoonhead while waiting for Clara to wake. That would have been a fun little tease.
Overall, I'd say this was an enjoyable story and one worth going back to. It doesn't flow quite as well if you haven't seen The Snowmen so that is one drawback to it. I think you can get by without Asylum of the Daleks but given that Clara is the best part of that story, I would indulge in that one as well. But knowing the whole story, this one is perfectly good to sit down and enjoy without prerequisites. Not great, but a solid little adventure.
Overall personal score: 4 out of 5
Friday, October 21, 2016
The Space Museum
I believe we have skipped a time track.
The Space Museum is a story I've heard mixed reviews over. Nearly everyone I've heard talks about Episode One and what an interesting concept the story set up is, but that it devolves into less than the sum of it's parts. I have no frame of reference here having never even seen a clip from this story. So I'm going into this one nearly completely untainted. I shall be very curious to see if the follow up episodes are the disappointment that others suggest they are.
Plot Summary
The Doctor and his companions materialize on an alien planet but appear to come out of a trance. They find that their 13th century clothes have been taken off and hung up and they are now wearing their regular clothes. While the Doctor looks at the scanner, Vicki goes to get him a glass of water. She accidentally drops it, breaking the glass. A second later, it reassembles itself and pops back into her hand, unbroken. She tells the Doctor what happened but he offers no solution. He instead speculates that they've landed outside some sort of space museum and suggests they go investigate.
As they approach the building, all are unnerved by the eerie quiet. Ian also notices that despite the ground being covered in dust and sand, they are leaving no footprints. The doors open and two men walk out. The time team ducks to the side where Vicki inadvertently sneezes, but the two men do not hear her.
They enter the building where they find space relics of the past, including a Dalek. Two other men enter the room and despite them having a conversation, the group cannot hear them. Walking into another part of the museum, another group has a conversation and even walks by them, but they do not register that they even exist. Vicki tries to touch one of the exhibits but her hand passes right through it.
They proceed onward and find the TARDIS in the museum. The Doctor steps up to it and passes right through. Across the room they see themselves, preserved in glass cases, dressed exactly as they are now. The Doctor theorizes they when they landed, the TARDIS skipped a time track, landing them out of phase with current time. Seeing the TARDIS and themselves preserved in the museum is a possible future outcome. The Doctor also theorizes that they will soon catch up with time and phase back into present time, which will cause the glass case versions of themselves and the preserved TARDIS to disappear.
This does happen as the two men who walked out of the museum initially discover the TARDIS. There is a frozen moment and the team comes to themselves again with the interior TARDIS and the glass cases having vanished. The Doctor and his companions sit indecisively at first, unsure of how to avoid a future in the cases but the Doctor proposes that they act and try to make their way back to the TARDIS. They set off down the corridors, unsure exactly how to get back.
The two guards report back to the planetary governor of their find and he orders one squad to watch the TARDIS while another looks for the visitors. They are Moroks, a race who conquered the planet and use it as a museum now. The other group the time team saw was a group of natives, the Xerons, who are attempting to rebel against Morok rule. The Xerons, observing the Doctor and his companions, decide to try and get them on their side, believing they can get weapons from them.
The Xerons capture the Doctor when he lags behind to look at an exhibit. He pretends to faint but overpowers his guard when left alone with him and hides. Unfortunately, he is almost immediately captured by a Morok patrol when he emerges from his hiding spot. He is taken to the governor, who learns of the Doctor's companions via a machine that produces an image based on the Doctor's thoughts. Seeing this, the Doctor manipulates the image to prevent the governor from learning any more. Frustrated, the governor orders the Doctor to be processed for display.
Realizing they have lost the Doctor, Ian decides that it would be better to find the TARDIS first before going to look for him. He unravels Barbara's sweater to use as a thread to ensure they don't get lost. They successfully find the entrance to the museum but find the TARDIS guarded. The Xerons also find the thread and follow the group to the entrance.
While trying to decide what to do, a Morok discovers the companions and the alarm is raised. Vicki and Barbara dash back into the museum. Ian manages to fight off two Moroks who grabbed him and hides near the TARDIS. Barbara ducks into a storage closet to hide. Her pursuers miss her but she ends up locked in.
Vicki is grabbed by the Xerons who take her back to their hideout. They fill her in on their history, including their attempt to capture the Doctor. One of their number is sent to find Barbara while Vicki convinces the other two to help her break into the armory and steal guns for the Xerons.
Following the failure to recapture the companions, the governor orders his men to evacuate the museum. They will then flood the museum with gas to knock out and paralyze those hiding inside.
The Xenon Dako, discovers Barbara in her hiding space and convinces her to come with him. As they leave, the discover the museum filling with gas. They attempt to cover their faces and fight their way through it. Dako is eventually overcome and passes out. Barbara, attempting to pull Dako through also succumbs to the gas.
Vicki and her two guides, Tor and Sita, enter the armory and examine the computer lock. The lock is designed to stay shut unless the questioner answers the questions both truthfully and correctly. After learning the questions, Vicki rewires the computer so that it will accept answers as long as they are truthful. She opens the vault and Tor and Sita grab as many guns as they can to give to their people.
Ian manages to disarm a lone guard and forces him to take him back to the governor's office. Pretending to have captured him, they are admitted but Ian pulls the gun on the governor. The governor informs him that the Doctor was capture and is being processed. He takes Ian to the room where the Doctor is being held. Seeing the Doctor in the middle of a procedure to lower his body temperature, Ian orders the governor to reverse the process. He does so and the Doctor begins to recover, although he states that only his body was chilled but his mind was fully functional. Ian prepares to leave with the Doctor, but a squad of guard arrive and knock Ian out. The governor locks Ian and the Doctor back into the room, electing to wait until the others have been captured before restarting the procedure.
Vicki tells Tor that she is heading back the museum to find Barbara and Dako. Tor tries to dissuade her but failing there, he has Sita go with her.
Barbara manages to rouse herself once more and helps Dako out of the gas. They emerge from the museum where they are captured by the guard in front of the TARDIS. However, Sita and Vicki arrive and shoot the guards down. Sita tells Dako of the revolution while Vicki and Barbara suggest they head to the governor's office to look for Ian and the Doctor. Other guard arrive though and shoot down Sita and Dako. Vicki and Barbara are taken to the governor's office where they are locked up with Ian and the Doctor.
The governor learns from the guards and Vicki of the revolution. He is unable to raise the barracks on the radio and when another guard heads to the armory, he confirms that the weapons cache has been raided before he too is shot down.
Tor and his men storm the museum, overrunning the guards and learning from a wounded Sita that Vicki and Barbara were taken to the governor's office. The governor and the guard commander prepare to escape in a private ship but the governor decides to kill the Doctor and his companions first. Before they can shoot them though, Tor enters and kills both men.
With the Moroks defeated, Tor wishes the Doctor and his companions goodbye. The Doctor also points out to Ian a faulty switch which was responsible for pushing the companions forward in time before properly arriving. Tor allows the Doctor to take something from the museum, a time-space visualizer, to which the Doctor believes he can repair. As they leave, the scene fades to the planet Skaro where a Dalek speaks of perfecting their own time-space machine.
Analysis
I can understand why a number of fans don't like this story. It is a very simple, even thin, story that's only three episodes long. However, to get it to four episodes, they added an interesting teaser concept of trying to avoid a possible future that results in your death. Episode One draws you in with a meta concept but it is more or less abandoned in the rest of the story except to spur a bit of dialogue or give the heroes a moment's hesitation before choosing what action to take.
All that being said, I kind of liked this story. It is a little slow and the competence level of everyone, including the production staff, is sub-par, but both the Doctor and his companions are engaging enough to buoy this story fairly well. If it had been any longer, I think the sag might have killed it badly, but as is, it's okay.
There are two primary flaws and I think they are closely related. The first is that I believe this story was written with the intent of being a more farcical comedy but that no one really realized that. Outside of the Doctor, everyone plays their lines pretty straight and the direction attempts to give an atmosphere that is more serious that intended. That creates a disconnect that you aren't necessarily aware of but just tickles the back of your brain.
The second flaw is closely tied to the first in the form of Episode One. I believe that the production staff was thrown off because of the nature of Episode One. It is a meta concept and foreknowledge of your possible death lends itself to a much more serious tone than might have been originally intended. I think the production staff read through Episode One, decided that this was a high concept action story and worked with that rather than taking the more comedic bent. So as much as we might praise Episode One for that concept, the faults of the other three episodes are somewhat rooted there.
I think the only person who understood that this story was intended as more of a comedy was William Hartnell. He is unquestionably the best thing about this story. He is serious with some good dialogue in Episode One but funny to a point of playfulness in the rest of the story. The clip of him hiding in the Dalek from Episode Two is fairly well known and typically appalls hard-core fans. I found it very funny. The Doctor does play much up for comic relief, laughing at the governor during his interrogation. Interestingly, although he played up the comedy, the lack of seriousness the Doctor has during the interrogation also has the ability to make the Doctor seem that much more powerful. He gives a sense of almost toying with the governor and it is one of the best in the whole story.
The companions weren't bad, although I think Ian and Barbara were a bit lost in this story. Vicki got a well defined role and she played it with a good level of spunk. Her forthrightness and energy played well when shaming Tor and his band of pathetics into action. Ian is the typical man of action, but I think the director confused him on how to play. There are a couple of scenes where his dialogue is playful and you can sense that they are meant for laughs, but he is playing more for tension and the whole thing doesn't really work. Barbara unfortunately isn't given much to do so her scenes are more or less forgettable.
The guest actors in this story were okay for the most part. I didn't think any of them did a bad job, although I'm not sure of the actor who played the Morok commander. He was a bit stunted in his delivery, sounding like a stuffy, British William Shatner. I did not care for the design of the Xerons. The Moroks were fine but the Xeron's odd unibrow just looked dumb. It wasn't substantial enough to make them look alien. Worse, it didn't even look real. The wigs the Moroks wore at least were believable and gave them a slightly different appearance. A drawn unibrow still looks like a drawing and took you out of the story because it looked too fake to be believable.
The direction in this story is not particularly good. There are random zooms and tight shots when a larger group shot would be better, resulting in a lot of panning of the camera. There are a number of scenes where the switch from one camera to another is just a half second late and an entrance of a character into a scene looks a bit wrong. The final battle between the Xerons and the Moroks is very weirdly shot and paced and is far closer to what you might see on a stage. Even then, I think stage play fighting might come across as more realistic. It just doesn't look that good.
One thing I did like was the music. It was more of the stock type that gets reused in several stories, but it was underplayed and had a general eerie quality that I enjoyed. I never got a sense of the music overpowering any of the scenes and they provided a reasonable ambiance to the scenes. I also didn't mind the sets. They weren't expansive and you can tell about the backdrop, but it never looked particularly shoddy and I could give that a certain suspension of disbelief.
One last point is realizing just how thin this story is overall. As interesting a concept as Episode One presents, it is essentially a filler episode as the plot barely starts. The other episodes progress, including one (Episode Three) where the Doctor is absent but the story ends with a good five minutes left in Episode Four. This leads to the long goodbye, the explanation for the time skip and the teaser for The Chase. It's almost shocking when you realize how tightly this story is compressed. I think the modern series could grab this story and remake it in one 42-minute episode with no problems.
Overall, I would say that this story is slightly below average. Episode One is an interesting set up but it doesn't really substantively go anywhere after that. I think the rest of the story is enjoyable, but it is easy to see where it could have been improved with a touch more skill and dedication. At four episodes, it's a quick watch and something you can pull down any time, but it's definitely not going to be on the immediate rewatch list.
Overall personal score: 2 out of 5
The Space Museum is a story I've heard mixed reviews over. Nearly everyone I've heard talks about Episode One and what an interesting concept the story set up is, but that it devolves into less than the sum of it's parts. I have no frame of reference here having never even seen a clip from this story. So I'm going into this one nearly completely untainted. I shall be very curious to see if the follow up episodes are the disappointment that others suggest they are.
Plot Summary
The Doctor and his companions materialize on an alien planet but appear to come out of a trance. They find that their 13th century clothes have been taken off and hung up and they are now wearing their regular clothes. While the Doctor looks at the scanner, Vicki goes to get him a glass of water. She accidentally drops it, breaking the glass. A second later, it reassembles itself and pops back into her hand, unbroken. She tells the Doctor what happened but he offers no solution. He instead speculates that they've landed outside some sort of space museum and suggests they go investigate.
As they approach the building, all are unnerved by the eerie quiet. Ian also notices that despite the ground being covered in dust and sand, they are leaving no footprints. The doors open and two men walk out. The time team ducks to the side where Vicki inadvertently sneezes, but the two men do not hear her.
They enter the building where they find space relics of the past, including a Dalek. Two other men enter the room and despite them having a conversation, the group cannot hear them. Walking into another part of the museum, another group has a conversation and even walks by them, but they do not register that they even exist. Vicki tries to touch one of the exhibits but her hand passes right through it.
They proceed onward and find the TARDIS in the museum. The Doctor steps up to it and passes right through. Across the room they see themselves, preserved in glass cases, dressed exactly as they are now. The Doctor theorizes they when they landed, the TARDIS skipped a time track, landing them out of phase with current time. Seeing the TARDIS and themselves preserved in the museum is a possible future outcome. The Doctor also theorizes that they will soon catch up with time and phase back into present time, which will cause the glass case versions of themselves and the preserved TARDIS to disappear.
This does happen as the two men who walked out of the museum initially discover the TARDIS. There is a frozen moment and the team comes to themselves again with the interior TARDIS and the glass cases having vanished. The Doctor and his companions sit indecisively at first, unsure of how to avoid a future in the cases but the Doctor proposes that they act and try to make their way back to the TARDIS. They set off down the corridors, unsure exactly how to get back.
The two guards report back to the planetary governor of their find and he orders one squad to watch the TARDIS while another looks for the visitors. They are Moroks, a race who conquered the planet and use it as a museum now. The other group the time team saw was a group of natives, the Xerons, who are attempting to rebel against Morok rule. The Xerons, observing the Doctor and his companions, decide to try and get them on their side, believing they can get weapons from them.
The Xerons capture the Doctor when he lags behind to look at an exhibit. He pretends to faint but overpowers his guard when left alone with him and hides. Unfortunately, he is almost immediately captured by a Morok patrol when he emerges from his hiding spot. He is taken to the governor, who learns of the Doctor's companions via a machine that produces an image based on the Doctor's thoughts. Seeing this, the Doctor manipulates the image to prevent the governor from learning any more. Frustrated, the governor orders the Doctor to be processed for display.
Realizing they have lost the Doctor, Ian decides that it would be better to find the TARDIS first before going to look for him. He unravels Barbara's sweater to use as a thread to ensure they don't get lost. They successfully find the entrance to the museum but find the TARDIS guarded. The Xerons also find the thread and follow the group to the entrance.
While trying to decide what to do, a Morok discovers the companions and the alarm is raised. Vicki and Barbara dash back into the museum. Ian manages to fight off two Moroks who grabbed him and hides near the TARDIS. Barbara ducks into a storage closet to hide. Her pursuers miss her but she ends up locked in.
Vicki is grabbed by the Xerons who take her back to their hideout. They fill her in on their history, including their attempt to capture the Doctor. One of their number is sent to find Barbara while Vicki convinces the other two to help her break into the armory and steal guns for the Xerons.
Following the failure to recapture the companions, the governor orders his men to evacuate the museum. They will then flood the museum with gas to knock out and paralyze those hiding inside.
The Xenon Dako, discovers Barbara in her hiding space and convinces her to come with him. As they leave, the discover the museum filling with gas. They attempt to cover their faces and fight their way through it. Dako is eventually overcome and passes out. Barbara, attempting to pull Dako through also succumbs to the gas.
Vicki and her two guides, Tor and Sita, enter the armory and examine the computer lock. The lock is designed to stay shut unless the questioner answers the questions both truthfully and correctly. After learning the questions, Vicki rewires the computer so that it will accept answers as long as they are truthful. She opens the vault and Tor and Sita grab as many guns as they can to give to their people.
Ian manages to disarm a lone guard and forces him to take him back to the governor's office. Pretending to have captured him, they are admitted but Ian pulls the gun on the governor. The governor informs him that the Doctor was capture and is being processed. He takes Ian to the room where the Doctor is being held. Seeing the Doctor in the middle of a procedure to lower his body temperature, Ian orders the governor to reverse the process. He does so and the Doctor begins to recover, although he states that only his body was chilled but his mind was fully functional. Ian prepares to leave with the Doctor, but a squad of guard arrive and knock Ian out. The governor locks Ian and the Doctor back into the room, electing to wait until the others have been captured before restarting the procedure.
Vicki tells Tor that she is heading back the museum to find Barbara and Dako. Tor tries to dissuade her but failing there, he has Sita go with her.
Barbara manages to rouse herself once more and helps Dako out of the gas. They emerge from the museum where they are captured by the guard in front of the TARDIS. However, Sita and Vicki arrive and shoot the guards down. Sita tells Dako of the revolution while Vicki and Barbara suggest they head to the governor's office to look for Ian and the Doctor. Other guard arrive though and shoot down Sita and Dako. Vicki and Barbara are taken to the governor's office where they are locked up with Ian and the Doctor.
The governor learns from the guards and Vicki of the revolution. He is unable to raise the barracks on the radio and when another guard heads to the armory, he confirms that the weapons cache has been raided before he too is shot down.
Tor and his men storm the museum, overrunning the guards and learning from a wounded Sita that Vicki and Barbara were taken to the governor's office. The governor and the guard commander prepare to escape in a private ship but the governor decides to kill the Doctor and his companions first. Before they can shoot them though, Tor enters and kills both men.
With the Moroks defeated, Tor wishes the Doctor and his companions goodbye. The Doctor also points out to Ian a faulty switch which was responsible for pushing the companions forward in time before properly arriving. Tor allows the Doctor to take something from the museum, a time-space visualizer, to which the Doctor believes he can repair. As they leave, the scene fades to the planet Skaro where a Dalek speaks of perfecting their own time-space machine.
Analysis
I can understand why a number of fans don't like this story. It is a very simple, even thin, story that's only three episodes long. However, to get it to four episodes, they added an interesting teaser concept of trying to avoid a possible future that results in your death. Episode One draws you in with a meta concept but it is more or less abandoned in the rest of the story except to spur a bit of dialogue or give the heroes a moment's hesitation before choosing what action to take.
All that being said, I kind of liked this story. It is a little slow and the competence level of everyone, including the production staff, is sub-par, but both the Doctor and his companions are engaging enough to buoy this story fairly well. If it had been any longer, I think the sag might have killed it badly, but as is, it's okay.
There are two primary flaws and I think they are closely related. The first is that I believe this story was written with the intent of being a more farcical comedy but that no one really realized that. Outside of the Doctor, everyone plays their lines pretty straight and the direction attempts to give an atmosphere that is more serious that intended. That creates a disconnect that you aren't necessarily aware of but just tickles the back of your brain.
The second flaw is closely tied to the first in the form of Episode One. I believe that the production staff was thrown off because of the nature of Episode One. It is a meta concept and foreknowledge of your possible death lends itself to a much more serious tone than might have been originally intended. I think the production staff read through Episode One, decided that this was a high concept action story and worked with that rather than taking the more comedic bent. So as much as we might praise Episode One for that concept, the faults of the other three episodes are somewhat rooted there.
I think the only person who understood that this story was intended as more of a comedy was William Hartnell. He is unquestionably the best thing about this story. He is serious with some good dialogue in Episode One but funny to a point of playfulness in the rest of the story. The clip of him hiding in the Dalek from Episode Two is fairly well known and typically appalls hard-core fans. I found it very funny. The Doctor does play much up for comic relief, laughing at the governor during his interrogation. Interestingly, although he played up the comedy, the lack of seriousness the Doctor has during the interrogation also has the ability to make the Doctor seem that much more powerful. He gives a sense of almost toying with the governor and it is one of the best in the whole story.
The companions weren't bad, although I think Ian and Barbara were a bit lost in this story. Vicki got a well defined role and she played it with a good level of spunk. Her forthrightness and energy played well when shaming Tor and his band of pathetics into action. Ian is the typical man of action, but I think the director confused him on how to play. There are a couple of scenes where his dialogue is playful and you can sense that they are meant for laughs, but he is playing more for tension and the whole thing doesn't really work. Barbara unfortunately isn't given much to do so her scenes are more or less forgettable.
The guest actors in this story were okay for the most part. I didn't think any of them did a bad job, although I'm not sure of the actor who played the Morok commander. He was a bit stunted in his delivery, sounding like a stuffy, British William Shatner. I did not care for the design of the Xerons. The Moroks were fine but the Xeron's odd unibrow just looked dumb. It wasn't substantial enough to make them look alien. Worse, it didn't even look real. The wigs the Moroks wore at least were believable and gave them a slightly different appearance. A drawn unibrow still looks like a drawing and took you out of the story because it looked too fake to be believable.
The direction in this story is not particularly good. There are random zooms and tight shots when a larger group shot would be better, resulting in a lot of panning of the camera. There are a number of scenes where the switch from one camera to another is just a half second late and an entrance of a character into a scene looks a bit wrong. The final battle between the Xerons and the Moroks is very weirdly shot and paced and is far closer to what you might see on a stage. Even then, I think stage play fighting might come across as more realistic. It just doesn't look that good.
One thing I did like was the music. It was more of the stock type that gets reused in several stories, but it was underplayed and had a general eerie quality that I enjoyed. I never got a sense of the music overpowering any of the scenes and they provided a reasonable ambiance to the scenes. I also didn't mind the sets. They weren't expansive and you can tell about the backdrop, but it never looked particularly shoddy and I could give that a certain suspension of disbelief.
One last point is realizing just how thin this story is overall. As interesting a concept as Episode One presents, it is essentially a filler episode as the plot barely starts. The other episodes progress, including one (Episode Three) where the Doctor is absent but the story ends with a good five minutes left in Episode Four. This leads to the long goodbye, the explanation for the time skip and the teaser for The Chase. It's almost shocking when you realize how tightly this story is compressed. I think the modern series could grab this story and remake it in one 42-minute episode with no problems.
Overall, I would say that this story is slightly below average. Episode One is an interesting set up but it doesn't really substantively go anywhere after that. I think the rest of the story is enjoyable, but it is easy to see where it could have been improved with a touch more skill and dedication. At four episodes, it's a quick watch and something you can pull down any time, but it's definitely not going to be on the immediate rewatch list.
Overall personal score: 2 out of 5
Monday, October 17, 2016
The Dæmons
Top of the Class Jo. Top of the class.
The Daemons closed out the season of the Master with a dive into the supernatural. This story is both hailed by the folks that made it as the prototypical Third Doctor story but also is somewhat overlooked by fandom. Whenever people talk about the Third Doctor era, there a number of stories that come up as either good or great as well as a few that are derided as terrible. This one almost never makes it into either list so unlike some other stories, I went into this one with only the vaguest of impressions about it.
Plot Summary
The Doctor is working on Bessie and lightly chastising Jo for indulging in supernatural thought while she talks of the "Age of Aquarius." Captain Yates comes to collect Jo as a television program they wanted to watch is about to come on. The Doctor becomes concerned when he learns it is about something in the town of Devil's End and comes with them.
On TV, a reporter interviews Professor Horner, an archeologist who is digging in a local mound called the Devil's Hump. He intends to open it at midnight as that will coincide with the pagan festival of Beltane. The report is interrupted by a local woman, Ms. Hawthorne, a white witch who believes that opening the mound will unleash great evil. She believes this already afoot as a local man died the previous night of a heart attack she believes was induced by fear. The BBC crew shoos her off.
Her fears are partially validated as windy presence manifests itself and a local constable picks up a rock to brain her with it. However, she utters an incantation and the wind dies down with the constable coming to his senses. She heads over to see the vicar. She tries to see the old vicar but the assistant vicar reminds her that he recently left. The new vicar shows up, revealed to be the Master. He downplays her fears and even tries to hypnotize her into believing that everything is fine, but she is able to shake him off and leaves in a huff.
The Doctor is growing worried about the confluence of events and, taking Jo, drives towards Devil's End in Bessie. However the same windy presence blows the signs around, getting the Doctor and Jo lost. They arrive at a nearby pub to ask for directions shortly before midnight. They receive them, but one of the patrons slips out and informs the Master of the Doctor's presence. The Master then orders the man to gather the group and they begin a ritual to awaken Azal.
The Doctor and Jo are forced to continue the last bit on foot and they arrive at the mound just as Professor Horner opens the mound. The opening triggers an earthquake and the tunnel into the mound partially collapses due to a cave in and a huge blast of icy air hits the Doctor and Professor Horner. Jo and the camera crew dig them out to find that Professor Horner has been frozen to death and that the Doctor is also heavily frozen, but still alive.
The Master ends his ritual, having seen the statue of a gargoyle in the crypt come to life. He dismisses those involved in the ritual and waits for the appearance of Azal.
Yates and Benton, having seen the cave in on television, attempt to get in contact with authorities but have very little luck. They finally hear from Jo who calls them after having seen the Doctor off to a warm bed to recover. The two procure the Brigadier's private helicopter and fly to Devil's End. While in the air, they observe large hoof prints as if made by a creature nearly 30 ft tall.
Benton and Yates arrive and are met by Jo. Yates follows Jo to check on the Doctor but Benton leaves to investigate the hoof prints. While out, he hears cries for help and heads into the church to find Ms. Hawthorne tied up and stored in a box. He frees her but they are forced to head into the crypt to hide from her abductor, one of the Master's acolytes. They are discovered by this man and Benton attacks him. During the fight, Benton accidently steps on a painted stone in the floor and he is overcome with psychic energy. The man orders Ms. Hawthorne to help him out of the church. Once outside, they are seen by some giant creature. Benton and Ms. Hawthorne run off but the man fires his gun at it. The creature in turn burns him with a searing blast of heat.
The heat blast finishes the unfreezing of the Doctor and he jolts awake. He comes downstairs and tends to Benton, having just been brought in by Ms. Hawthorne. Ms. Hawthorne tells them that they were attacked by the Devil. The Doctor, although having been in agreement with Ms. Hawthorne prior to this, scoffs at this, though he is less dismissive of the idea of a large horned creature attacking their captor. He also discovers that Master has placed himself in the role of the Vicar. The owner of the pub slips out and calls the Master to inform him of the Doctor's discovery.
Outside the town a wall of heat goes up to create a dome around the town. The Brigadier, having learned of the situation as well as Benton and Yates' use of his helicopter, arrives outside of town to see a motorist stranded when his van caught fire. He observes the heat dome and tries to find another route but all avenues to the town are cut off by this dome. He radios Yates, informing him of being trapped outside. Yates also informs the Brigadier that the Master is behind these events.
The Doctor and Jo head back up to the mound. Entering the chamber, they discover spaceship characteristics. But before the Doctor can explain, they are attacked by the gargoyle that had gone missing from the crypt. The Doctor fends him with a piece of iron that the gargoyle (named Bok) thinks is enchanted. He flees despite the Master urging him on telepathically.
The Doctor and Jo return to the pub where he explains to Jo, Yates, Benton and Ms. Hawthorne that the creature they have seen is not the Devil but an alien from the planet Dæmos who landed 100,000 years ago and set forth experiments to aid the humans in defeating the Neanderthals. Echoes of memory of this creature are reflected by the use of the horns of power associated with many ancient gods. The Doctor also explains that the large blasts of heat and cold are caused by the alien increasing and decreasing his mass and size when interacting with humanity.
The Brigadier radios through informing those in the pub that town is encased in a heat dome ten miles wide and one mile tall. He is preparing to attempt to blast through, but the Doctor dissuades him and instead offers to come to the edge and tell his men how to build a machine to create a hole in the dome. Jo comes with him while the other three wait at the pub.
The Master is informed of the Doctor's actions and he dispatches one of his acolytes to take care of him. Meanwhile the Master attempts to sway first the sexton and then the town as a whole to come to his side. They are skeptical and he begins to lose them but he summons Bok who vaporizes the sexton. The other townsfolk then submit to the Master.
The Master's acolyte steals the UNIT helicopter. Yates attempts to stop him but is knocked down. Yates then grabs a motorcycle and heads out after him, warning the Doctor of the helicopter's approach. The helicopter dives after the Doctor and Jo in Bessie, attempting to either kill them outright or drive them into the heat barrier. The Doctor drives towards the barrier at full speed, luring the helicopter after him. He then turns sharply just in front of the barrier. The helicopter fails to turn in time and crashes into the barrier. Jo is thrown from Bessie in the turn and the Doctor orders Yates to take her back to the pub in Bessie to recover from her concussion while he talks the UNIT men through the build. Yates returns with Jo and the town doctor sedates her as the concussion is causing her to talk and thrash in a semi-lucid state.
The Master returns to the crypt and summons Azal a second time, triggering an intense blast of heat through the town along with a small earthquake. Azal notes the Master is different from the humans but warns him that he is on the verge of destroying humanity as a failed experiment. He tells the Master that he wants to see the other member of his race and that he would only tolerate being summoned one more time. The Master agrees, but muses to himself afterward that he must have the full sect with him, believing that that will allow him to control Azal.
The heat blast rouses Jo who slips out into the town. Yates, coming up to check on her, finds her missing and goes after her. She slips into the crypt where Yates discovers her. However before they can leave, someone comes down and they are forced to hide in the shadows.
The Master orders another town member to kill the Doctor and he tries to shoot him as he rides back from helping UNIT on the motorcycle Yates took originally. However, he misses and the Doctor ducks into the woods on foot. Knowing that the Doctor will be coming back to the town, the Master orders the villagers to put on the May Day festival, acting as lookouts for the Doctor.
The Doctor arrives and when he attempts to pass through the dancers, he is grabbed and tied to the maypole. The dance leader accuses the Doctor of being a witch and the build a pyre around the maypole to burn him. Another dancer bursts into the pub and attacks Sargent Benton who was getting ready to help the Doctor, but Ms. Hawthorne knocks him out with a blow to the head. She then runs out, declaring the Doctor to be a great wizard.
As a demonstration of his power, the Doctor causes a lamp to burst and a weathervane to spin around. This throws the villagers, despite the fact that it is the result of Benton shooting the objects with a silenced pistol. The head dancer still tries to light the pyre but the Doctor summons Bessie using his remote control, although claiming to be calling it by a familiar spirit. Bessie runs into the head man and Benton pins him down with his gun. Ms. Hawthorne then unties the Doctor. The Doctor in turn, comes clean with the people, demonstrating that nothing is by magic but only through science, turning the people against the Master.
In the crypt, the Master reunites with the full sect and summons Azal one more time. Jo rushes out of the shadows to try and stop him, but she is too late and Azal emerges once more. The Master has Jo taken away to be offered as a sacrifice while Yates is stunned, tied up and tossed out of the crypt. But Yates comes to and runs out to warn the Doctor about Jo. The people want to run in to help, but Bok appears, forcing everyone to stay back. The head dancer runs forward to be with the Master, but Bok kills him.
The Doctor radios the Brigadier and the Brigadier orders his sergeant to start the machine. It creates a hole in the dome, allowing the trucks to drive through. It also disrupts Azal's power and both he and Bok begin to thrash about. However, the machine overheats once through the dome and blows up. Knowing that it is no longer available as a weapon, the Doctor runs past the still disoriented Bok and into the crypt. Bok recovers, preventing anyone else from entering. As the Brigadier arrives, he and the other UNIT soldiers begin to fire on Bok, but with no effect.
In the crypt, the Doctor arrives to stop the sacrifice of Jo. Azal admits he has to decide whether to grant someone power over humanity or to chuck the whole thing by destroying humanity. He is impressed by the Doctor and his pleas for humanity and prepares to give the Doctor his power, but the Doctor refuses. Azal is stunned by this and the Master steps in, requesting the power instead, as he had asked several times previously. Azal agrees and decides to destroy the Doctor for refusing his gift. However, Jo steps in front of the Doctor, telling Azal to kill her instead. This creates a logical feedback loop for Azal and his power begins to rebound on himself. The whole group flees the crypt as the feedback causes Azal and the whole church to be destroyed. With Azal's power gone, Bok reverts to an inanimate stone gargoyle and Azal's ship in the burial mound also explodes.
Once outside, UNIT arrests the Master and takes him away under guard. The people, including the Doctor and Jo, celebrate with a maypole dance, although the Brigadier and Yates retreat to the pub for a pint.
Analysis
I can't say that enjoyed this one that much. It wasn't overtly bad but there also wasn't anything that really grabbed me either. I think it was about as standard a Third Doctor story as you could imagine which limped to a rather bored conclusion. The production team apparently speaks of how this story is signature of the Third Doctor era. To test this, I decided to put together a list of some of the most common tropes that run across the board of the Third Doctor era and check each one off as they came up. The overall results were rather impressive.
Third Doctor era checklist:
An alien race is threatening Earth...........................check
A powerful computer is part of the scheme The Master is involved.......................................check
The Doctor is condescending to his assistant.................check
Hypnosis is used.............................................check
UNIT is involved.............................................check
The Brigadier tries to shoot something/blow it up............check
There is a peace conference The Doctor drives Bessie.....................................check
The Doctor drives another vehicle besides Bessie.............check
The Doctor is knocked out for part of an episode.............check
The Doctor is imprisoned/captured............................check
The assistant is captured/imprisoned.........................check
A person speaks information while unconscious................check
The Doctor builds a special gadget...........................check
The Doctor says "reverse the polarity".......................check
The Doctor fights in hand to hand combat The Doctor uses science/wits to get out of a situation.......check
The Time Lords give the Doctor a mission The Doctor either eats/drinks or talks of food...............check
Color Separation Overlay is used.............................check
I'm not going to say that hitting all of these tropes is either good or bad, but I think it does validate the production team's claim. It also underscores the sense of blandness that this story gave off.
I think one of the things that hit me the most was how much I didn't care about any of the performances. I won't say that any of them were bad, but it didn't feel like there was any real passion behind any of them. I would also say that it didn't help that I openly didn't like the way many of the characters were acting. The Doctor was overly smug and condescending to Jo in this. The scene where she agrees with the Doctor about the Brigadier's penchant for violence and the Doctor verbally slapping her was particularly rude. There is also an odd disconnect between the Doctor's words and actions in this story. He is very smug about science over magic, but never really explains the science that Azal is using. He races to Devil's End expecting trouble and chastises people for not listening to Ms. Hawthorne, but he also puts down Ms. Hawthorne for basing all her beliefs on magic, despite being nominally correct, given the people can't understand Azal's science yet.
Jo wasn't great either in this story. Granted, being put down by the Doctor all the time didn't help, but she mostly stood around. The few times she did try to get involved, she got knocked out or captured. Still, her performance was consistent which is better than some others. Any fault with her lies in the script.
Likewise, the Master was okay but he seemed like the wrong villain for this story. Delving into the realm of magic just didn't seem right for the Master. I got the impression that Roger Delgado was also a bit unsure of his role her as well. He played with the same relish as always, but there wasn't much conspiracy for him here and the normal subterfuge of the Master was squandered. Even his pseudonym was so obvious, the Doctor knew it was the Master without even seeing him until the very end.
The main secondary characters were all fairly non-descript. Yates and Benton were fine as was the Brigadier, but they didn't have anything outside their normal duties. None of the townsfolk were particularly memorable, although I didn't feel they did poorly either. Ms. Hawthorne I found a bit annoying, but I think that was just her voice. There was nothing in her character or it's portrayal that I found problematic, I just didn't care for her voice and it's cadence.
I had some problems with the dæmons as well. Bok wasn't bad, although I kept wanted to reach through the screen to push his tongue back into his mouth. But as a henchman, he worked fairly well. My problem was more with Azal. His costume and design were ok for the most part, although I think the makeup for his face wasn't great. It looked a bit too painted rather than the menacing they were going for. But my problem was more in his voice portrayal. There is no subtlety in it. It is just loud and echo-y with an almost over-the-top malice in it. If Azal is supposed to be this imparter of knowledge, why isn't there any level of understanding in his voice. Even when he wants to hear the Doctor out, he just shouts and sounds angry. Nor is ever explained as to how as a logical being, Azal is supposed to be held, controlled or impressed by the shedding of blood whether chicken or Jo's. Azal just seemed like a rather poorly though out and poorly portrayed villain.
Perhaps most frustrating is how the story began and it's descent to it's end. In the first episode, there is some interesting set up and tension as the Doctor races to the town while mystical forces seem to conspire against them. The Master is there in his wily and manipulative ways to also add to the tension. The next two episodes are also interesting as they raise the stakes and create barriers for the heroes. There are also some fun little action sequences, although they don't put Yates or Benton in the best light. Still, by this point I was thinking the story was a decent middle of the road story and could be convinced that it might be worthy of a higher rank if things picked up in the last two episodes.
But they didn't. Things officially went down the tubes when the dancers came on the screen. I actually liked the dancers themselves, but the Doctor was captured so easily without a fight and the townsfolk seemed so disinterested. Making matters worse, the resolution to free the Doctor just felt like a total farce. There was never any real threat of danger and the townsfolk are convinced by a such a simple trick. It doesn't help that Benton, who hadn't been shown to be able to hit the broad side of a barn, is now an expert marksman with a silencer so efficient, that no one hears the hiss or sees any bit of muzzle flash. I also find it hard to believe that there wouldn't be a resounding bit of noise by shooting the weathercock that might have triggered their suspicions. If Benton had somehow had the Doctor's sonic screwdriver, that would have made a lot more sense. It also would have validated what he was saying after he was freed about how something that appeared to be magic was actually advanced science in action.
The overall ending was also a big letdown. Azal's motivations and orientation of his actions are never particularly clear but then to have everything go to pot because Jo offered herself just makes no sense. His power was set in a feedback loop of illogic because of self-sacrifice? What's more, there is no other failsafe out of that? Humans have been willing to be self-sacrificing for a long time. Azal should have been well aware of this phenomena and had some sort of guard against it. Instead, he blows up because it's time for the story to end. It is woefully unsatisfying and the joke about the Doctor recapturing the Master when he tries to steal Bessie is just another odd bit that took all the seriousness out of this story that it alluded to in the first couple of episodes. I just found it overly disappointing.
There are some nice visuals in this one and the stunts are pretty good. That's about all I can really say on the positive side. I just didn't find anything to really like about this story and a whole lot to underscore my disappointment with it. It probably would be a fun little story for younger kids, although they might be a bit freaked out by a thirty-foot devil, but unless you've got a nostalgia bent for this one, I can't see any reason to revisit it. Not horribly awful, but not worth spending time on either.
Overall personal score: 1.5 out of 5
The Daemons closed out the season of the Master with a dive into the supernatural. This story is both hailed by the folks that made it as the prototypical Third Doctor story but also is somewhat overlooked by fandom. Whenever people talk about the Third Doctor era, there a number of stories that come up as either good or great as well as a few that are derided as terrible. This one almost never makes it into either list so unlike some other stories, I went into this one with only the vaguest of impressions about it.
Plot Summary
The Doctor is working on Bessie and lightly chastising Jo for indulging in supernatural thought while she talks of the "Age of Aquarius." Captain Yates comes to collect Jo as a television program they wanted to watch is about to come on. The Doctor becomes concerned when he learns it is about something in the town of Devil's End and comes with them.
On TV, a reporter interviews Professor Horner, an archeologist who is digging in a local mound called the Devil's Hump. He intends to open it at midnight as that will coincide with the pagan festival of Beltane. The report is interrupted by a local woman, Ms. Hawthorne, a white witch who believes that opening the mound will unleash great evil. She believes this already afoot as a local man died the previous night of a heart attack she believes was induced by fear. The BBC crew shoos her off.
Her fears are partially validated as windy presence manifests itself and a local constable picks up a rock to brain her with it. However, she utters an incantation and the wind dies down with the constable coming to his senses. She heads over to see the vicar. She tries to see the old vicar but the assistant vicar reminds her that he recently left. The new vicar shows up, revealed to be the Master. He downplays her fears and even tries to hypnotize her into believing that everything is fine, but she is able to shake him off and leaves in a huff.
The Doctor is growing worried about the confluence of events and, taking Jo, drives towards Devil's End in Bessie. However the same windy presence blows the signs around, getting the Doctor and Jo lost. They arrive at a nearby pub to ask for directions shortly before midnight. They receive them, but one of the patrons slips out and informs the Master of the Doctor's presence. The Master then orders the man to gather the group and they begin a ritual to awaken Azal.
The Doctor and Jo are forced to continue the last bit on foot and they arrive at the mound just as Professor Horner opens the mound. The opening triggers an earthquake and the tunnel into the mound partially collapses due to a cave in and a huge blast of icy air hits the Doctor and Professor Horner. Jo and the camera crew dig them out to find that Professor Horner has been frozen to death and that the Doctor is also heavily frozen, but still alive.
The Master ends his ritual, having seen the statue of a gargoyle in the crypt come to life. He dismisses those involved in the ritual and waits for the appearance of Azal.
Yates and Benton, having seen the cave in on television, attempt to get in contact with authorities but have very little luck. They finally hear from Jo who calls them after having seen the Doctor off to a warm bed to recover. The two procure the Brigadier's private helicopter and fly to Devil's End. While in the air, they observe large hoof prints as if made by a creature nearly 30 ft tall.
Benton and Yates arrive and are met by Jo. Yates follows Jo to check on the Doctor but Benton leaves to investigate the hoof prints. While out, he hears cries for help and heads into the church to find Ms. Hawthorne tied up and stored in a box. He frees her but they are forced to head into the crypt to hide from her abductor, one of the Master's acolytes. They are discovered by this man and Benton attacks him. During the fight, Benton accidently steps on a painted stone in the floor and he is overcome with psychic energy. The man orders Ms. Hawthorne to help him out of the church. Once outside, they are seen by some giant creature. Benton and Ms. Hawthorne run off but the man fires his gun at it. The creature in turn burns him with a searing blast of heat.
The heat blast finishes the unfreezing of the Doctor and he jolts awake. He comes downstairs and tends to Benton, having just been brought in by Ms. Hawthorne. Ms. Hawthorne tells them that they were attacked by the Devil. The Doctor, although having been in agreement with Ms. Hawthorne prior to this, scoffs at this, though he is less dismissive of the idea of a large horned creature attacking their captor. He also discovers that Master has placed himself in the role of the Vicar. The owner of the pub slips out and calls the Master to inform him of the Doctor's discovery.
Outside the town a wall of heat goes up to create a dome around the town. The Brigadier, having learned of the situation as well as Benton and Yates' use of his helicopter, arrives outside of town to see a motorist stranded when his van caught fire. He observes the heat dome and tries to find another route but all avenues to the town are cut off by this dome. He radios Yates, informing him of being trapped outside. Yates also informs the Brigadier that the Master is behind these events.
The Doctor and Jo head back up to the mound. Entering the chamber, they discover spaceship characteristics. But before the Doctor can explain, they are attacked by the gargoyle that had gone missing from the crypt. The Doctor fends him with a piece of iron that the gargoyle (named Bok) thinks is enchanted. He flees despite the Master urging him on telepathically.
The Doctor and Jo return to the pub where he explains to Jo, Yates, Benton and Ms. Hawthorne that the creature they have seen is not the Devil but an alien from the planet Dæmos who landed 100,000 years ago and set forth experiments to aid the humans in defeating the Neanderthals. Echoes of memory of this creature are reflected by the use of the horns of power associated with many ancient gods. The Doctor also explains that the large blasts of heat and cold are caused by the alien increasing and decreasing his mass and size when interacting with humanity.
The Brigadier radios through informing those in the pub that town is encased in a heat dome ten miles wide and one mile tall. He is preparing to attempt to blast through, but the Doctor dissuades him and instead offers to come to the edge and tell his men how to build a machine to create a hole in the dome. Jo comes with him while the other three wait at the pub.
The Master is informed of the Doctor's actions and he dispatches one of his acolytes to take care of him. Meanwhile the Master attempts to sway first the sexton and then the town as a whole to come to his side. They are skeptical and he begins to lose them but he summons Bok who vaporizes the sexton. The other townsfolk then submit to the Master.
The Master's acolyte steals the UNIT helicopter. Yates attempts to stop him but is knocked down. Yates then grabs a motorcycle and heads out after him, warning the Doctor of the helicopter's approach. The helicopter dives after the Doctor and Jo in Bessie, attempting to either kill them outright or drive them into the heat barrier. The Doctor drives towards the barrier at full speed, luring the helicopter after him. He then turns sharply just in front of the barrier. The helicopter fails to turn in time and crashes into the barrier. Jo is thrown from Bessie in the turn and the Doctor orders Yates to take her back to the pub in Bessie to recover from her concussion while he talks the UNIT men through the build. Yates returns with Jo and the town doctor sedates her as the concussion is causing her to talk and thrash in a semi-lucid state.
The Master returns to the crypt and summons Azal a second time, triggering an intense blast of heat through the town along with a small earthquake. Azal notes the Master is different from the humans but warns him that he is on the verge of destroying humanity as a failed experiment. He tells the Master that he wants to see the other member of his race and that he would only tolerate being summoned one more time. The Master agrees, but muses to himself afterward that he must have the full sect with him, believing that that will allow him to control Azal.
The heat blast rouses Jo who slips out into the town. Yates, coming up to check on her, finds her missing and goes after her. She slips into the crypt where Yates discovers her. However before they can leave, someone comes down and they are forced to hide in the shadows.
The Master orders another town member to kill the Doctor and he tries to shoot him as he rides back from helping UNIT on the motorcycle Yates took originally. However, he misses and the Doctor ducks into the woods on foot. Knowing that the Doctor will be coming back to the town, the Master orders the villagers to put on the May Day festival, acting as lookouts for the Doctor.
The Doctor arrives and when he attempts to pass through the dancers, he is grabbed and tied to the maypole. The dance leader accuses the Doctor of being a witch and the build a pyre around the maypole to burn him. Another dancer bursts into the pub and attacks Sargent Benton who was getting ready to help the Doctor, but Ms. Hawthorne knocks him out with a blow to the head. She then runs out, declaring the Doctor to be a great wizard.
As a demonstration of his power, the Doctor causes a lamp to burst and a weathervane to spin around. This throws the villagers, despite the fact that it is the result of Benton shooting the objects with a silenced pistol. The head dancer still tries to light the pyre but the Doctor summons Bessie using his remote control, although claiming to be calling it by a familiar spirit. Bessie runs into the head man and Benton pins him down with his gun. Ms. Hawthorne then unties the Doctor. The Doctor in turn, comes clean with the people, demonstrating that nothing is by magic but only through science, turning the people against the Master.
In the crypt, the Master reunites with the full sect and summons Azal one more time. Jo rushes out of the shadows to try and stop him, but she is too late and Azal emerges once more. The Master has Jo taken away to be offered as a sacrifice while Yates is stunned, tied up and tossed out of the crypt. But Yates comes to and runs out to warn the Doctor about Jo. The people want to run in to help, but Bok appears, forcing everyone to stay back. The head dancer runs forward to be with the Master, but Bok kills him.
The Doctor radios the Brigadier and the Brigadier orders his sergeant to start the machine. It creates a hole in the dome, allowing the trucks to drive through. It also disrupts Azal's power and both he and Bok begin to thrash about. However, the machine overheats once through the dome and blows up. Knowing that it is no longer available as a weapon, the Doctor runs past the still disoriented Bok and into the crypt. Bok recovers, preventing anyone else from entering. As the Brigadier arrives, he and the other UNIT soldiers begin to fire on Bok, but with no effect.
In the crypt, the Doctor arrives to stop the sacrifice of Jo. Azal admits he has to decide whether to grant someone power over humanity or to chuck the whole thing by destroying humanity. He is impressed by the Doctor and his pleas for humanity and prepares to give the Doctor his power, but the Doctor refuses. Azal is stunned by this and the Master steps in, requesting the power instead, as he had asked several times previously. Azal agrees and decides to destroy the Doctor for refusing his gift. However, Jo steps in front of the Doctor, telling Azal to kill her instead. This creates a logical feedback loop for Azal and his power begins to rebound on himself. The whole group flees the crypt as the feedback causes Azal and the whole church to be destroyed. With Azal's power gone, Bok reverts to an inanimate stone gargoyle and Azal's ship in the burial mound also explodes.
Once outside, UNIT arrests the Master and takes him away under guard. The people, including the Doctor and Jo, celebrate with a maypole dance, although the Brigadier and Yates retreat to the pub for a pint.
Analysis
I can't say that enjoyed this one that much. It wasn't overtly bad but there also wasn't anything that really grabbed me either. I think it was about as standard a Third Doctor story as you could imagine which limped to a rather bored conclusion. The production team apparently speaks of how this story is signature of the Third Doctor era. To test this, I decided to put together a list of some of the most common tropes that run across the board of the Third Doctor era and check each one off as they came up. The overall results were rather impressive.
Third Doctor era checklist:
An alien race is threatening Earth...........................check
A powerful computer is part of the scheme The Master is involved.......................................check
The Doctor is condescending to his assistant.................check
Hypnosis is used.............................................check
UNIT is involved.............................................check
The Brigadier tries to shoot something/blow it up............check
There is a peace conference The Doctor drives Bessie.....................................check
The Doctor drives another vehicle besides Bessie.............check
The Doctor is knocked out for part of an episode.............check
The Doctor is imprisoned/captured............................check
The assistant is captured/imprisoned.........................check
A person speaks information while unconscious................check
The Doctor builds a special gadget...........................check
The Doctor says "reverse the polarity".......................check
The Doctor fights in hand to hand combat The Doctor uses science/wits to get out of a situation.......check
The Time Lords give the Doctor a mission The Doctor either eats/drinks or talks of food...............check
Color Separation Overlay is used.............................check
I'm not going to say that hitting all of these tropes is either good or bad, but I think it does validate the production team's claim. It also underscores the sense of blandness that this story gave off.
I think one of the things that hit me the most was how much I didn't care about any of the performances. I won't say that any of them were bad, but it didn't feel like there was any real passion behind any of them. I would also say that it didn't help that I openly didn't like the way many of the characters were acting. The Doctor was overly smug and condescending to Jo in this. The scene where she agrees with the Doctor about the Brigadier's penchant for violence and the Doctor verbally slapping her was particularly rude. There is also an odd disconnect between the Doctor's words and actions in this story. He is very smug about science over magic, but never really explains the science that Azal is using. He races to Devil's End expecting trouble and chastises people for not listening to Ms. Hawthorne, but he also puts down Ms. Hawthorne for basing all her beliefs on magic, despite being nominally correct, given the people can't understand Azal's science yet.
Jo wasn't great either in this story. Granted, being put down by the Doctor all the time didn't help, but she mostly stood around. The few times she did try to get involved, she got knocked out or captured. Still, her performance was consistent which is better than some others. Any fault with her lies in the script.
Likewise, the Master was okay but he seemed like the wrong villain for this story. Delving into the realm of magic just didn't seem right for the Master. I got the impression that Roger Delgado was also a bit unsure of his role her as well. He played with the same relish as always, but there wasn't much conspiracy for him here and the normal subterfuge of the Master was squandered. Even his pseudonym was so obvious, the Doctor knew it was the Master without even seeing him until the very end.
The main secondary characters were all fairly non-descript. Yates and Benton were fine as was the Brigadier, but they didn't have anything outside their normal duties. None of the townsfolk were particularly memorable, although I didn't feel they did poorly either. Ms. Hawthorne I found a bit annoying, but I think that was just her voice. There was nothing in her character or it's portrayal that I found problematic, I just didn't care for her voice and it's cadence.
I had some problems with the dæmons as well. Bok wasn't bad, although I kept wanted to reach through the screen to push his tongue back into his mouth. But as a henchman, he worked fairly well. My problem was more with Azal. His costume and design were ok for the most part, although I think the makeup for his face wasn't great. It looked a bit too painted rather than the menacing they were going for. But my problem was more in his voice portrayal. There is no subtlety in it. It is just loud and echo-y with an almost over-the-top malice in it. If Azal is supposed to be this imparter of knowledge, why isn't there any level of understanding in his voice. Even when he wants to hear the Doctor out, he just shouts and sounds angry. Nor is ever explained as to how as a logical being, Azal is supposed to be held, controlled or impressed by the shedding of blood whether chicken or Jo's. Azal just seemed like a rather poorly though out and poorly portrayed villain.
Perhaps most frustrating is how the story began and it's descent to it's end. In the first episode, there is some interesting set up and tension as the Doctor races to the town while mystical forces seem to conspire against them. The Master is there in his wily and manipulative ways to also add to the tension. The next two episodes are also interesting as they raise the stakes and create barriers for the heroes. There are also some fun little action sequences, although they don't put Yates or Benton in the best light. Still, by this point I was thinking the story was a decent middle of the road story and could be convinced that it might be worthy of a higher rank if things picked up in the last two episodes.
But they didn't. Things officially went down the tubes when the dancers came on the screen. I actually liked the dancers themselves, but the Doctor was captured so easily without a fight and the townsfolk seemed so disinterested. Making matters worse, the resolution to free the Doctor just felt like a total farce. There was never any real threat of danger and the townsfolk are convinced by a such a simple trick. It doesn't help that Benton, who hadn't been shown to be able to hit the broad side of a barn, is now an expert marksman with a silencer so efficient, that no one hears the hiss or sees any bit of muzzle flash. I also find it hard to believe that there wouldn't be a resounding bit of noise by shooting the weathercock that might have triggered their suspicions. If Benton had somehow had the Doctor's sonic screwdriver, that would have made a lot more sense. It also would have validated what he was saying after he was freed about how something that appeared to be magic was actually advanced science in action.
The overall ending was also a big letdown. Azal's motivations and orientation of his actions are never particularly clear but then to have everything go to pot because Jo offered herself just makes no sense. His power was set in a feedback loop of illogic because of self-sacrifice? What's more, there is no other failsafe out of that? Humans have been willing to be self-sacrificing for a long time. Azal should have been well aware of this phenomena and had some sort of guard against it. Instead, he blows up because it's time for the story to end. It is woefully unsatisfying and the joke about the Doctor recapturing the Master when he tries to steal Bessie is just another odd bit that took all the seriousness out of this story that it alluded to in the first couple of episodes. I just found it overly disappointing.
There are some nice visuals in this one and the stunts are pretty good. That's about all I can really say on the positive side. I just didn't find anything to really like about this story and a whole lot to underscore my disappointment with it. It probably would be a fun little story for younger kids, although they might be a bit freaked out by a thirty-foot devil, but unless you've got a nostalgia bent for this one, I can't see any reason to revisit it. Not horribly awful, but not worth spending time on either.
Overall personal score: 1.5 out of 5
Thursday, October 13, 2016
The Doctor Who Movie
WHO AM I?
I'm going to go out and say that it doesn't bode well for a story when I take active steps to avoid watching it. One of my major weaknesses when it comes to television and movies is over-the-top melodramatic acting and you don't pack much more of that than into 1990's Sci-Fi and Fantasy. Attempting to watch something like Hercules, Xena, or even Buffy the Vampire Slayer makes me feel physically ill. I have found that even going back to old episodes of The X-Files makes me pause as some of these episodes are no where near as good as I remembered them. But opportunity presented itself again and I thought it only fair to give the Eighth Doctor his moment on the state other than Night of the Doctor. Would it be as bad as I feared or was I overreacting?
Plot Summary
The Doctor recounts how the Master was captured and tried for crimes by the Daleks on Skaro. The Seventh Doctor agrees to come and collect his remains and bring them back to Gallifrey. However while in transit, the Master is able to coalesce his essence into a plasmatic snake and escapes from his box. He sabotages the TARDIS and the Doctor makes an emergency landing in San Francisco on the evening of December 30, 1999.
The TARDIS materializes in front of a young man named Chang Lee who was engaged in a gang shootout. The Doctor emerges from the TARDIS and is shot by several members of the rival gang before they flee the scene. The Doctor observes the Master essence oozing out of the TARDIS keyhole and tries to warn Lee but passes out. Lee waits as an ambulance arrives and goes with the Doctor to the hosipital, pretending to be a friend of his.
The Doctor is taken to surgery where the bullets are removed but the doctors mistake his dual heartbeat for being in fibrillation and call in the cardiologist, Dr. Grace Holloway who had been attending the opera with her boyfriend. They begin surgery but the procedure punctures the Doctor's second heart and he dies on the operating table.
The Doctor is wheeled to the morgue where an autopsy is planned for the morning. In the storage unit, the Doctor regenerates into the Eighth Doctor, the process delayed by the anesthetic applied during the surgery. He breaks out of the unit and wanders to a part of the hospital closed off due to a ruptured ceiling pipe, fighting to regain his memories from his post-regeneration crisis.
Chang Lee is informed of the Doctor's death and is given his things. He states that he will inform the Doctor's next of kin but Grace gets suspicious of him. When confronted, Lee bolts out of the hospital with the Doctor's sonic screwdriver and TARDIS key.
The Master's essence slips into the jacket of the ambulance driver and later that night, it slips out again and lodges itself in the body of the driver. He rises in the morning, aware that the Doctor has regenerated and after killing the driver's wife, sets off to the hospital to find him.
Grace is informed of the Doctor's escape but when she raises it to the hospital director, he destroys the X-ray showing the double heart, which all the doctors had assumed was a double exposure. Angered by the director's actions, Grace resigns. As she leaves, she is confronted by the Doctor in his confused state. She initially doesn't believe him but upon seeing him remove the medical device that broke off from the failed procedure, she takes him back to her house.
The Master arrives at the hospital where he learns of all that happened. Learning that the Doctor's things were taken by Lee, he drives back to the TARDIS. Lee enters the TARDIS using the key and the Master confronts him inside. He tricks Lee into thinking that he is the wronged party and that the Doctor stole his body. He breaks into the Doctor's stash of gold dust (for fighting Cybermen) and offers it to him as reward for helping him.
The two men enter the cloister room and the Master uses Lee's human eye to open the Eye of Harmony, the source of power for the TARDIS. He uses the eye to observe the Doctor's new body and tap into his senses, learning of the Doctor's plans.
The Doctor recovers his memories while with Grace but also becomes aware of the Master opening the Eye of Harmony. Grace believes him mad when he begins to talk of the TARDIS and the Master's plans and runs away from him. The Doctor demonstrates that the opening of the Eye is altering the molecular structure of the planet and that he must get to the science center where they are debuting a new atomic clock.
Grace calls for an ambulance to take the Doctor to a psychiatric hospital and the Master and Lee arrive in one. Then end up caught in traffic and in the lull, the Doctor realizes the EMT is actually the Master. He attacks Grace, spewing slime on her hand but the Doctor beats him off using a fire extinguisher. The two commandeer a police motorcycle to go around the traffic. The Master and Lee pursue, using the ambulance siren to go around traffic.
Both parties arrive at the science center and the Doctor and Grace sneak up to the clock where the Doctor takes the atomic power cell. Seeing the Master and Lee looking for them, they pull the fire alarm and drive away in the confusion.
The arrive at the TARDIS and the Doctor enters using the spare key hidden up top. They close the Eye of Harmony but discover the power drained from the TARDIS and they cannot change the effects of the Eye being opened without operating it. The Doctor slips the atomic power source into the TARDIS and begins to hotwire it. However Grace, her mind taken over by the Master's slime attack, knocks out the Doctor to stop him.
The Doctor is tied up and secured to a position to allow the Master to absorb his remaining regenerations. The Doctor convinces Lee that the Master is lying but when he tries to stop the Master, the Master breaks his neck. He then removes Grace's possession and forces the Eye of Harmony back open using her eye.
The Master begins to absorb the remaining regenerations and the Doctor yells to the recovering Grace to remember. She runs back to the console and manages to jump the power back to the TARDIS. The TARDIS lifts off and enters a temporal orbit, reversing the absorption of the Doctor's regenerations.
Grace heads back to the cloister room and partially frees the Doctor, but the Master comes up on her and throws her off ledge, killing her. The Doctor manages to free himself from his remaining restraints and battles the Master around the Eye of Harmony. He manages to knock the Master off balance so that he falls into the Eye of Harmony.
The Doctor pulls Grace and Lee's bodies away but a temporal discharge emits from the Eye of Harmony just before it closes and brings both Grace and Lee back to life. The Doctor lands TARDIS outside Grace's home just as midnight hits. Lee returns the Doctor's things, including the sonic screwdriver but the Doctor tells him to keep the gold dust. Delighted, Lee leaves.
The Doctor invites Grace to travel with him but she declines, suggesting the Doctor stay here with her instead. He also declines although not without some reluctance. He then takes off, the TARDIS disappearing into the night.
Analysis
The movie was both as bad and better than I was expecting. Some areas were just as I feared they would be, but other areas I found surprisingly good. I was also surprised at how my own personal opinions didn't quite jive with certain aspects of fan opinion.
First the Doctor. I was rather disappointed in how the Seventh Doctor was portrayed in this story. Some fans complain that the Seventh Doctor is a bit too omniscient in the stories of his era but if that was a concern for the writers here, they went way overboard. The Seventh Doctor is a bit too dottering and easily deceived. It is very strange to see him being surprised by the Master and his death at the hand of blatantly incompetent physicians is unsatisfying.
The Eighth Doctor was pretty good, especially once he started to get over his regeneration crisis. I didn't like the big "Who am I" moment as that was just over the top and rather forced. But once he began to recover, I enjoyed his performance with it's nice blend of underplay and seriousness. I can understand why the Big Finish plays with the Eighth Doctor became so popular and I certainly would not have objected to seeing more of his Doctor.
The Master is generally derided by fans for an over-the-top hammy performance but I have to disagree there. Granted, his "I always dress for the occasion" line is pretty bad, but it's also meant to be funny in that painful 90's homosexual way (see Will & Grace). Problems with his voice acting in later scenes I can't really chalk up to Eric Roberts as he was clearly being overdubbed to sound more bestial, which I didn't quite get. I also didn't get the eye thing, although I'm guessing that was supposed to be a residual effect of reforming his essence into a snake. Still on the whole, I wouldn't call his performance any more campy than that of the Anthony Ainley Master. If anything, his lack of mustache twirling laughter felt less campy, even if he was clearly adding a gay dynamic that Ainley would never of dreamed of.
Grace did fairly well as a companion, although I'm not sure the writing did her any favors. Her dialogue resorted to cliché a number of times and she was very inconsistently written. She is a great cardiovascular surgeon but doesn't both to check the X-rays just because someone tells her they are double exposed. She believes the Doctor is crazy, becomes convinced that he's ok and then goes back to believing him to be crazy after inviting him into her home. Then she decides that he is her special man right out of nowhere. She also shows complete ignorance of non-medical science at one point but makes an observation about transcendental physics upon entering the TARDIS.
Daphne Ashbrook does a pretty good job with Grace. I think you can see an obvious Dana Scully influence with her, but she is portrayed much softer and with a stronger sense of humor and femininity. She does go a great deal with her eyes and had the show been picked up with Grace as a series regular, I think there would have been a few memes made with her eyes in full bug out mode. But I liked her portrayal, even if her lines weren't that great.
Chang Lee is the first major flaw in this story. He is both inconsistent in his character portrayal (fault of the writers) and his acting is very weak in my opinion. He is initially shown as a gang banger, complete with a gun, yet he stays behind to ensure the Doctor gets proper medical care? That makes no sense as any character of this type would have simply run off into the night. Likewise he buy into the Master with no proof other than his own greed. He stays consistent to the Master throughout the Master letting his mask slip and then turns on a dime over a simple conversation. That the Master kills him almost immediately afterward just demonstrates that his character needed to be removed for dramatic purposes.
The acting of Chang Lee is rather deadpan. He doesn't seem to demonstrate much emotion and when he does, it is very quick and strong and then off again quickly, like a faucet. It comes across as very insincere and not at all believable. Of the four principle characters, his was clearly the weakest.
The secondary cast was also a bit weak. Nearly all of them gave somewhat stilted performances that just didn't grab you as believable. There were odd halts in line delivery, odd and over-the-top facial reactions, and weird quirks that I think were supposed to be in lieu of character personality. Some you can just dismiss, but others, such as the motorcycle police officer, really punted the viewer out of the story. I get that that scene was supposed to be played for comedy, but a cop acting that ineptly took the scene from comedy to outright farce.
Which leads us to the tone problem of the movie. Unlike the classic series, there is very little in the story that is intended as scary. The Master snake and the killing of the wife are probably the only moments that drift near that territory. The rest is meant to be a bit more action-drama with comedy sprinkled in to relieve tension. The problem is that the comedy is way too over the top. It doesn't relieve tension, it dispels it all together. We are also left confused as to whether we should take any of this story seriously or treat it with the same attitude we might a Bugs Bunny cartoon.
A good example of this is when the Doctor and Grace reach the TARDIS. There is drama because they are racing against the clock, but they cut it with a light scene involving finding the spare TARDIS key and that works fine. Then, just as you are awaiting the "bigger on the inside" moment, a random police motorcycle comes barreling through with the brakes having failed on the bike. The motorcycle dives into the TARDIS, you hear it fade Doppler-style and then race back out the TARDIS. It totally kills the mood of the scene in a WTF! moment. This is such a shame because the Doctor and Grace had been building their scenes together well. I actually laughed out loud when she and the Doctor made a sly small penis joke, which was well underplayed. But to have things like that cut with heavy slapstick just ruins the slow build of mood.
Another major flaw of the movie for me was the cinematography. This is very, very 90's and could easily be passed off as episode of Buffy. There are action scenes where the footage seems to speed up slightly, just to get through it. There are odd jump cuts and random slow motion cuts in the action scenes. There are also dramatic flashes of light, whether through lightening or just a random strobe effect to add to the scene. All of it is just so strange and works so hard to create a sense of action. Yet at the same time, the footage is shot with such a crispness that it makes the scenes and sets look cheap. It is very heavily influenced by American television and especially the pulp sci-fi action shows of the time and it just makes it look awful.
Then there is the fan controversies. This story was working overtime to try and placate the old Doctor Who fans with cute references and throwbacks, but at the same time, it totally missed the boat and created things for fans to froth at the mouth over. The Dalek execution of the Master makes no sense and certainly the Daleks would never have consented to return the Master's remains to Gallifrey. It also doesn't help that the Daleks (you can't see them) don't even sound like Daleks in their cries of "Exterminate!" So you start off on the wrong foot.
The two other big moments are the Doctor kissing Grace and the Doctor being half-human. I don't have any real issue with either. The Doctor kisses Grace while coming out of his post-regeneration crisis so I don't imagine the producers would have made that a truly regular thing. What's more, I don't have a problem with the Doctor being a sexual being. He's been married four times in the show's run and the whole series started off with him as a grandfather so clearly the man has seen action before. I only get bothered when things get overblown like with the Tenth Doctor pining over Rose. That is where I want to just shut things down and be done with it.
I also don't have any problem with the Doctor being half-human. He clearly has an affinity towards Earth and to give him a familiar connection is a fair pretense for this. I personally have a feeling that many of the fans who object to this idea are deep into the backstory espoused by Lungbarrow and decry anything that might go against that. While this was hinted at in the unfulfilled Cartmel Master Plan, none of that was ever filled in within the context of the show itself so I see no inconsistency in pushing the envelope in the Doctor's backstory.
My only confusion is whether the key to opening the Eye of Harmony being a human eye was set up by the Doctor or not. Because if it wasn't, that's a very odd security feature for the Time Lord's to have set up. But if the Doctor set it up, it is understandable since no other Time Lord would be able to override that feature without bringing a human aboard. So it's more a case of head cannon being required.
While the subject of the Eye of Harmony, I have to say that I didn't really care for the new TARDIS design. The medieval castle look just didn't quite work for me in the cloister room as it reminded me too much of the pretend TARDIS sets in The Invasion of Time. I preferred the small intimate garden cloister room seen in Logopolis. I also thought the main console room was too large. I get that it was supposed to be living quarters as well and I did enjoy the ceiling celestial viewer, but even that was a bit washed out due to the size of the room. I just think a smaller, more intimate setting would have felt better. Again, to me it smacked of Buffy and trying to get that 90's faux gothic look.
In the end, I'd have to say that the movie wasn't as bad overall as I was expecting. I'm not going to call it good, but it has good aspects to it. Most of those being directly tied to the performances of the Doctor and Grace. Still, it would be foolish to acknowledge the debt that the new series owes to the movie as it laid out fully what can be done and what should be avoided when the series relaunched with Rose. It has it's importance and should be recognized for it. But that also doesn't mean that I'm going to go out of my way to watch it again. I've seen it once and I can get the context when other people talk about it, but I didn't enjoy it enough to warrant revisiting it anytime in the near future.
Overall personal score: 2 out of 5
Link: Night of the Doctor
I'm going to go out and say that it doesn't bode well for a story when I take active steps to avoid watching it. One of my major weaknesses when it comes to television and movies is over-the-top melodramatic acting and you don't pack much more of that than into 1990's Sci-Fi and Fantasy. Attempting to watch something like Hercules, Xena, or even Buffy the Vampire Slayer makes me feel physically ill. I have found that even going back to old episodes of The X-Files makes me pause as some of these episodes are no where near as good as I remembered them. But opportunity presented itself again and I thought it only fair to give the Eighth Doctor his moment on the state other than Night of the Doctor. Would it be as bad as I feared or was I overreacting?
Plot Summary
The Doctor recounts how the Master was captured and tried for crimes by the Daleks on Skaro. The Seventh Doctor agrees to come and collect his remains and bring them back to Gallifrey. However while in transit, the Master is able to coalesce his essence into a plasmatic snake and escapes from his box. He sabotages the TARDIS and the Doctor makes an emergency landing in San Francisco on the evening of December 30, 1999.
The TARDIS materializes in front of a young man named Chang Lee who was engaged in a gang shootout. The Doctor emerges from the TARDIS and is shot by several members of the rival gang before they flee the scene. The Doctor observes the Master essence oozing out of the TARDIS keyhole and tries to warn Lee but passes out. Lee waits as an ambulance arrives and goes with the Doctor to the hosipital, pretending to be a friend of his.
The Doctor is taken to surgery where the bullets are removed but the doctors mistake his dual heartbeat for being in fibrillation and call in the cardiologist, Dr. Grace Holloway who had been attending the opera with her boyfriend. They begin surgery but the procedure punctures the Doctor's second heart and he dies on the operating table.
The Doctor is wheeled to the morgue where an autopsy is planned for the morning. In the storage unit, the Doctor regenerates into the Eighth Doctor, the process delayed by the anesthetic applied during the surgery. He breaks out of the unit and wanders to a part of the hospital closed off due to a ruptured ceiling pipe, fighting to regain his memories from his post-regeneration crisis.
Chang Lee is informed of the Doctor's death and is given his things. He states that he will inform the Doctor's next of kin but Grace gets suspicious of him. When confronted, Lee bolts out of the hospital with the Doctor's sonic screwdriver and TARDIS key.
The Master's essence slips into the jacket of the ambulance driver and later that night, it slips out again and lodges itself in the body of the driver. He rises in the morning, aware that the Doctor has regenerated and after killing the driver's wife, sets off to the hospital to find him.
Grace is informed of the Doctor's escape but when she raises it to the hospital director, he destroys the X-ray showing the double heart, which all the doctors had assumed was a double exposure. Angered by the director's actions, Grace resigns. As she leaves, she is confronted by the Doctor in his confused state. She initially doesn't believe him but upon seeing him remove the medical device that broke off from the failed procedure, she takes him back to her house.
The Master arrives at the hospital where he learns of all that happened. Learning that the Doctor's things were taken by Lee, he drives back to the TARDIS. Lee enters the TARDIS using the key and the Master confronts him inside. He tricks Lee into thinking that he is the wronged party and that the Doctor stole his body. He breaks into the Doctor's stash of gold dust (for fighting Cybermen) and offers it to him as reward for helping him.
The two men enter the cloister room and the Master uses Lee's human eye to open the Eye of Harmony, the source of power for the TARDIS. He uses the eye to observe the Doctor's new body and tap into his senses, learning of the Doctor's plans.
The Doctor recovers his memories while with Grace but also becomes aware of the Master opening the Eye of Harmony. Grace believes him mad when he begins to talk of the TARDIS and the Master's plans and runs away from him. The Doctor demonstrates that the opening of the Eye is altering the molecular structure of the planet and that he must get to the science center where they are debuting a new atomic clock.
Grace calls for an ambulance to take the Doctor to a psychiatric hospital and the Master and Lee arrive in one. Then end up caught in traffic and in the lull, the Doctor realizes the EMT is actually the Master. He attacks Grace, spewing slime on her hand but the Doctor beats him off using a fire extinguisher. The two commandeer a police motorcycle to go around the traffic. The Master and Lee pursue, using the ambulance siren to go around traffic.
Both parties arrive at the science center and the Doctor and Grace sneak up to the clock where the Doctor takes the atomic power cell. Seeing the Master and Lee looking for them, they pull the fire alarm and drive away in the confusion.
The arrive at the TARDIS and the Doctor enters using the spare key hidden up top. They close the Eye of Harmony but discover the power drained from the TARDIS and they cannot change the effects of the Eye being opened without operating it. The Doctor slips the atomic power source into the TARDIS and begins to hotwire it. However Grace, her mind taken over by the Master's slime attack, knocks out the Doctor to stop him.
The Doctor is tied up and secured to a position to allow the Master to absorb his remaining regenerations. The Doctor convinces Lee that the Master is lying but when he tries to stop the Master, the Master breaks his neck. He then removes Grace's possession and forces the Eye of Harmony back open using her eye.
The Master begins to absorb the remaining regenerations and the Doctor yells to the recovering Grace to remember. She runs back to the console and manages to jump the power back to the TARDIS. The TARDIS lifts off and enters a temporal orbit, reversing the absorption of the Doctor's regenerations.
Grace heads back to the cloister room and partially frees the Doctor, but the Master comes up on her and throws her off ledge, killing her. The Doctor manages to free himself from his remaining restraints and battles the Master around the Eye of Harmony. He manages to knock the Master off balance so that he falls into the Eye of Harmony.
The Doctor pulls Grace and Lee's bodies away but a temporal discharge emits from the Eye of Harmony just before it closes and brings both Grace and Lee back to life. The Doctor lands TARDIS outside Grace's home just as midnight hits. Lee returns the Doctor's things, including the sonic screwdriver but the Doctor tells him to keep the gold dust. Delighted, Lee leaves.
The Doctor invites Grace to travel with him but she declines, suggesting the Doctor stay here with her instead. He also declines although not without some reluctance. He then takes off, the TARDIS disappearing into the night.
Analysis
The movie was both as bad and better than I was expecting. Some areas were just as I feared they would be, but other areas I found surprisingly good. I was also surprised at how my own personal opinions didn't quite jive with certain aspects of fan opinion.
First the Doctor. I was rather disappointed in how the Seventh Doctor was portrayed in this story. Some fans complain that the Seventh Doctor is a bit too omniscient in the stories of his era but if that was a concern for the writers here, they went way overboard. The Seventh Doctor is a bit too dottering and easily deceived. It is very strange to see him being surprised by the Master and his death at the hand of blatantly incompetent physicians is unsatisfying.
The Eighth Doctor was pretty good, especially once he started to get over his regeneration crisis. I didn't like the big "Who am I" moment as that was just over the top and rather forced. But once he began to recover, I enjoyed his performance with it's nice blend of underplay and seriousness. I can understand why the Big Finish plays with the Eighth Doctor became so popular and I certainly would not have objected to seeing more of his Doctor.
The Master is generally derided by fans for an over-the-top hammy performance but I have to disagree there. Granted, his "I always dress for the occasion" line is pretty bad, but it's also meant to be funny in that painful 90's homosexual way (see Will & Grace). Problems with his voice acting in later scenes I can't really chalk up to Eric Roberts as he was clearly being overdubbed to sound more bestial, which I didn't quite get. I also didn't get the eye thing, although I'm guessing that was supposed to be a residual effect of reforming his essence into a snake. Still on the whole, I wouldn't call his performance any more campy than that of the Anthony Ainley Master. If anything, his lack of mustache twirling laughter felt less campy, even if he was clearly adding a gay dynamic that Ainley would never of dreamed of.
Grace did fairly well as a companion, although I'm not sure the writing did her any favors. Her dialogue resorted to cliché a number of times and she was very inconsistently written. She is a great cardiovascular surgeon but doesn't both to check the X-rays just because someone tells her they are double exposed. She believes the Doctor is crazy, becomes convinced that he's ok and then goes back to believing him to be crazy after inviting him into her home. Then she decides that he is her special man right out of nowhere. She also shows complete ignorance of non-medical science at one point but makes an observation about transcendental physics upon entering the TARDIS.
Daphne Ashbrook does a pretty good job with Grace. I think you can see an obvious Dana Scully influence with her, but she is portrayed much softer and with a stronger sense of humor and femininity. She does go a great deal with her eyes and had the show been picked up with Grace as a series regular, I think there would have been a few memes made with her eyes in full bug out mode. But I liked her portrayal, even if her lines weren't that great.
Chang Lee is the first major flaw in this story. He is both inconsistent in his character portrayal (fault of the writers) and his acting is very weak in my opinion. He is initially shown as a gang banger, complete with a gun, yet he stays behind to ensure the Doctor gets proper medical care? That makes no sense as any character of this type would have simply run off into the night. Likewise he buy into the Master with no proof other than his own greed. He stays consistent to the Master throughout the Master letting his mask slip and then turns on a dime over a simple conversation. That the Master kills him almost immediately afterward just demonstrates that his character needed to be removed for dramatic purposes.
The acting of Chang Lee is rather deadpan. He doesn't seem to demonstrate much emotion and when he does, it is very quick and strong and then off again quickly, like a faucet. It comes across as very insincere and not at all believable. Of the four principle characters, his was clearly the weakest.
The secondary cast was also a bit weak. Nearly all of them gave somewhat stilted performances that just didn't grab you as believable. There were odd halts in line delivery, odd and over-the-top facial reactions, and weird quirks that I think were supposed to be in lieu of character personality. Some you can just dismiss, but others, such as the motorcycle police officer, really punted the viewer out of the story. I get that that scene was supposed to be played for comedy, but a cop acting that ineptly took the scene from comedy to outright farce.
Which leads us to the tone problem of the movie. Unlike the classic series, there is very little in the story that is intended as scary. The Master snake and the killing of the wife are probably the only moments that drift near that territory. The rest is meant to be a bit more action-drama with comedy sprinkled in to relieve tension. The problem is that the comedy is way too over the top. It doesn't relieve tension, it dispels it all together. We are also left confused as to whether we should take any of this story seriously or treat it with the same attitude we might a Bugs Bunny cartoon.
A good example of this is when the Doctor and Grace reach the TARDIS. There is drama because they are racing against the clock, but they cut it with a light scene involving finding the spare TARDIS key and that works fine. Then, just as you are awaiting the "bigger on the inside" moment, a random police motorcycle comes barreling through with the brakes having failed on the bike. The motorcycle dives into the TARDIS, you hear it fade Doppler-style and then race back out the TARDIS. It totally kills the mood of the scene in a WTF! moment. This is such a shame because the Doctor and Grace had been building their scenes together well. I actually laughed out loud when she and the Doctor made a sly small penis joke, which was well underplayed. But to have things like that cut with heavy slapstick just ruins the slow build of mood.
Another major flaw of the movie for me was the cinematography. This is very, very 90's and could easily be passed off as episode of Buffy. There are action scenes where the footage seems to speed up slightly, just to get through it. There are odd jump cuts and random slow motion cuts in the action scenes. There are also dramatic flashes of light, whether through lightening or just a random strobe effect to add to the scene. All of it is just so strange and works so hard to create a sense of action. Yet at the same time, the footage is shot with such a crispness that it makes the scenes and sets look cheap. It is very heavily influenced by American television and especially the pulp sci-fi action shows of the time and it just makes it look awful.
Then there is the fan controversies. This story was working overtime to try and placate the old Doctor Who fans with cute references and throwbacks, but at the same time, it totally missed the boat and created things for fans to froth at the mouth over. The Dalek execution of the Master makes no sense and certainly the Daleks would never have consented to return the Master's remains to Gallifrey. It also doesn't help that the Daleks (you can't see them) don't even sound like Daleks in their cries of "Exterminate!" So you start off on the wrong foot.
The two other big moments are the Doctor kissing Grace and the Doctor being half-human. I don't have any real issue with either. The Doctor kisses Grace while coming out of his post-regeneration crisis so I don't imagine the producers would have made that a truly regular thing. What's more, I don't have a problem with the Doctor being a sexual being. He's been married four times in the show's run and the whole series started off with him as a grandfather so clearly the man has seen action before. I only get bothered when things get overblown like with the Tenth Doctor pining over Rose. That is where I want to just shut things down and be done with it.
I also don't have any problem with the Doctor being half-human. He clearly has an affinity towards Earth and to give him a familiar connection is a fair pretense for this. I personally have a feeling that many of the fans who object to this idea are deep into the backstory espoused by Lungbarrow and decry anything that might go against that. While this was hinted at in the unfulfilled Cartmel Master Plan, none of that was ever filled in within the context of the show itself so I see no inconsistency in pushing the envelope in the Doctor's backstory.
My only confusion is whether the key to opening the Eye of Harmony being a human eye was set up by the Doctor or not. Because if it wasn't, that's a very odd security feature for the Time Lord's to have set up. But if the Doctor set it up, it is understandable since no other Time Lord would be able to override that feature without bringing a human aboard. So it's more a case of head cannon being required.
While the subject of the Eye of Harmony, I have to say that I didn't really care for the new TARDIS design. The medieval castle look just didn't quite work for me in the cloister room as it reminded me too much of the pretend TARDIS sets in The Invasion of Time. I preferred the small intimate garden cloister room seen in Logopolis. I also thought the main console room was too large. I get that it was supposed to be living quarters as well and I did enjoy the ceiling celestial viewer, but even that was a bit washed out due to the size of the room. I just think a smaller, more intimate setting would have felt better. Again, to me it smacked of Buffy and trying to get that 90's faux gothic look.
In the end, I'd have to say that the movie wasn't as bad overall as I was expecting. I'm not going to call it good, but it has good aspects to it. Most of those being directly tied to the performances of the Doctor and Grace. Still, it would be foolish to acknowledge the debt that the new series owes to the movie as it laid out fully what can be done and what should be avoided when the series relaunched with Rose. It has it's importance and should be recognized for it. But that also doesn't mean that I'm going to go out of my way to watch it again. I've seen it once and I can get the context when other people talk about it, but I didn't enjoy it enough to warrant revisiting it anytime in the near future.
Overall personal score: 2 out of 5
Link: Night of the Doctor
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