Four to Doomsday

Conformity, the true freedom.

This is the first story filmed for the Fifth Doctor, though third shown. I've heard fairly mixed reviews on it with some people really loving it and others being rather meh on it. I do believe that it set the defining tone for how people remember the Fifth Doctor era, at least in the span with Adric if not also with Nyssa. Certainly the impression people have of Tegan and Adric as well seems to be heavily cultivated from this story.

Plot Summary

Attempting to get Tegan back to Heathrow, the TARDIS accidentally lands on a spaceship outside the solar system. Detecting a slightly toxic atmosphere, the Doctor grabs a breathing helmet and heads outside to explore, leaving the three companions in the TARDIS. Outside, he observes advanced laboratory equipment and a floating ball with a camera that tracks his moves.

The Doctor heads back into the TARDIS and gets the others out. Nyssa and Adric examine the equipment while the Doctor asks the floating eye if he can see the leader. A door opens and he and Tegan head down the corridor. At the end they meet three humanoid aliens: the leader, Monarch, and his two associates, a male called Persuasion and a female called Enlightenment. Monarch states that they are from a far planet and are heading to Earth for a visit. They ask the Doctor about his ship and his companions. Enlightenment specifically asks Tegan about the latest fashions of her time. A little surprised, Tegan takes paper from the Doctor and draws a man and woman in fancy dress.

After the talk, Monarch has the Doctor and Tegan taken away for some refreshment. Nyssa had already been taken away by a man in Athenian dress while Adric had followed a few minutes later. Reunited, the group sits down to fruit with their Athenian server, whose name is Bigon. As they eat, three other persons enter: an Australian Aborigine called Kirkutji, a mute Mayan princess named Villagra and a Chinese Mandarin named Lin Futu. The group is forbidden by Monarch to discuss why they are there so they sit and wait while the others eat. As they finish, two people walk in dressed and looking exactly like Tegan's drawing. They reintroduce themselves as Persuasion and Enlightenment.

Persuasion and Enlightenment tell the Doctor that they are from the planet Urbanka which was destroyed when it's sun went nova. Their ship in now on a journey to Earth with 3 billion survivors for resettlement. Adric is skeptical but the Doctor takes it in stride and they retire to their quarters with Monarch locking them in.

The Doctor blocks the camera with a hat and activates the sonic screwdriver to drown the microphones. He agrees with them that something odd is going on if for no other reason than the periods where the humans are from on the ship don't match with the Urbankan's story. He decides they should explore and unlocks the door with the screwdriver.

Monarch, aware of the Doctor's suspicions, attempts to find out more about the Doctor and Gallifrey but finds no information in his computer. He separates the Doctor and Tegan from Adric and Nyssa by closing a set of doors between them. The Doctor and Tegan enter a hall where the various humans put on cultural displays as entertainment for the others. Persuasion enters and keeps a close eye on them as they watch.

Adric and Nyssa enter other compartments and are forced to put on their breathing helmets as there is no air here. However, humans are seen working in the environment. The enter and leave several rooms, observing people performing tasks with both high technology, robotics and advanced biochemistry. In each room, they note the human workers have a silver disk on their hands.

Monarch calls Bigon in and warns him against telling the Doctor too much. Bigon protests as he has always told the truth but Monarch suggests he remain silent. Bigon goes to the Doctor and Tegan and arranges a meeting with them later. Shortly afterward, two Greeks have a sword fight with one of the Greeks seemingly killed in the duel. This upsets Tegan and she runs out, the Doctor close behind.

The "killed" Greek is brought into a chamber where Adric and Nyssa observe him placed in a bed with a dome and then healed of his wound. They also notices that although stabbed, he walked in and showed no blood coming from the wound. Monarch, aware of Adric and Nyssa's observations, orders them to be brought before him.

Tegan and the Doctor return to their quarters where Bigon is waiting for them. He calms Tegan down by demonstrating that the man was not killed as he and all the other humans on the ship are in fact androids. Bigon also reveals that Monarch actually destroyed Urbanka through overexploitation of it's resources and pollution and is planning to do the same to Earth. He notes that any android that has a silver disk on it's had is a slave while those that do not have free will so long as they do not cross Monarch.

Monarch admits to Nyssa and Adric of his conversion of humans and his people to android state. Nyssa is appalled but Adric is impressed and begins answering Monarch's questions about the Doctor and the TARDIS. Eventually, Monarch asks Adric to bring him the Doctor so that he might see the TARDIS. After he leaves, Monarch has Nyssa hypnotized by Enlightenment and then taken away to be converted.

Bigon and the Doctor leave the Doctor's quarters to destroy the poison supply that will kill the people of Earth and to free the people from Monarch's tyranny. Tegan meanwhile has become hysterical and wants nothing more but to go back to the TARDIS to warn the people of Earth. The Doctor manages to calm her down a bit but she gets amped back up when Adric comes to collect the Doctor. Angry at him, she shoves him aside where he bangs his head against the bed and is knocked out. Tegan storms back to the TARDIS and opens it with the TARDIS key. Inside, she begins to press random buttons, trying to get it to take off.

As they pass through each section, the Doctor disables the monitors in each room, allowing Bigon to speak freely. This does alert Monarch to their progress, though he initially dismisses it as Bigon giving the Doctor a tour. In the android room, Lin Futu, in the middle of processing Nyssa, overhears the Doctor and Bigon talking about overthrowing Monarch and leaves to warn him. They spot Nyssa and free her before the conversion is complete.

Adric awakes and stumbles up after the Doctor, eventually discovering them in the android room. He argues on Monarch's behalf until Persuasion enters with Greek guards. They restrain both Bigon and the Doctor and sentence him to death for attempting to overthrow Monarch. Adric tries to intervene but is restrained as well. The Greeks force the Doctor down, intending to cut off his head. Nyssa, who had borrowed the Doctor's sonic screwdriver and a pencil earlier, uses the combo to create a surge in the silver plates on the hands and short circuits the androids holding Adric and the Doctor. Persuasion then tries to shoot the Doctor but Adric leaps in front of him. Monarch, not wanting Adric killed, orders the lot be brought to him.

Tegan, after mashing a ton of buttons, manages to activate the TARDIS and dematerialize it off the ship. However, the magnetic field of the ship forces it to rematerialize just outside the ship and hover in space. Tegan then pulls out the manual, trying to figure out how to get the TARDIS to either return to the ship or get back to Earth.

The Doctor denies trying to overthrow Monarch, though Monarch is skeptical. He has Bigon's personality chip removed while Nyssa is taken away and sedated as a hostage for the Doctor's good behavior. Monarch himself spares the Doctor's life and allows him freedom to further convince Adric of his benevolence.

The Doctor and Adric head back to their quarters where the Doctor pretends to see Monarch's side, much to Adric's delight. They head to the entertainment area where the noise of the performance drowns out their speech and the Doctor rebukes Adric for his folly. He forces Adric to choose to be with him or Monarch and Adric reluctantly chooses the Doctor.

Feigning tiredness, the Doctor and Adric leave the entertainment but sneak down to the android repair section. The monitor has not yet been repaired from the Doctor's earlier disorienting of it and he further knocks it out with a bit of cobalt. He then convinces Lin Futu of Monarch's plan to subjugate and destroy the Earth. They recover Bigon's personality chip and Lin Futu sends out Chinese dancers to perform the Dragon Dance in the entertainment area.

The Doctor and Adric enter the entertainment area and sit next to Bigon's soulless body, which had been placed in the seats on the floor. Under the guise of the Dragon dancer's leaving, they sneak Bigon's body back to the repair room where Lin Futu reinstalls Bigon's chip. Lin Futu also speaks to the leaders of the other factions and convinces them to join the Doctor while the Doctor wakes Nyssa.

A restored Bigon activates an override circuit in the slave androids and they all come out to perform entertainment at once. Knowing he has to recover the TARDIS, the Doctor has Adric put on a life suit while he dons his breathing helmet. They head down to a launch bay where the Doctor propels himself out on a tether, knowing he only has six minutes before his body succumbs to the cold.

Monarch, now aware of the uprising, sends Persuasion to stop the Doctor. He attacks Adric but Adric knocks the gun out of his hand. Adric repeatedly fires at Persuasion, but the gun has no effect on his android body. He overpowers Adric but the Doctor pulls himself back on the tether and yanks out Persuasion's personality circuit and tosses it into space. Furious, Monarch sends Enlightenment to help. She walks past a still stunned Adric and unties the Doctor's tether before he can come back a second time. Adric rises and rips out her personality circuit as well.

The Doctor, stuck about halfway between the ship and the TARDIS, pulls a cricket ball out of his pocket and hurls it at the ship. It bounces off the hull and he catches it. Retaining it's momentum, the ball and the Doctor hurl towards the TARDIS where the Doctor manages to snag the door and let himself in. He ignores Tegan and pilots the ship back into the entertainment area.

Enraged, Monarch cuts the life support for the rest of the ship. The Doctor gives his helmet to Tegan while Lin Futu repairs another helmet and gives it to the Doctor. With all four of them able to breathe, the Doctor pulls Monarch's poison out, giving it to Adric for safekeeping.

With no other options, Monarch grabs a gun and heads down to the TARDIS to kill the Doctor himself. The Doctor however grabs the poison and smashes it on Monarch. The poison causes his flesh to sink in upon himself and he shrinks to only a fraction of his size. The Doctor reveals that he was still mostly flesh as his ideas about faster than light travel and his own godhood could only be the product of organic thinking. The Doctor traps the shrunken Monarch in the borrowed space helmet, Monarch having turned the life support back on when he left the control room.

Bigon thanks the Doctor and tells him that they intend to fly the ship to a new planet and establish themselves there rather than try to reintegrate with Earth. The Doctor and crew reenter the TARDIS and prepare to try and get to Heathrow again. However, as they take off, Nyssa collapses.

Analysis

I can see how some fans might like this story, especially if they saw it when they were younger. After the dourness of Logopolis and the slow pondering of Castrovalva, this story, especially in Episode Four, would have seemed faster paced and more exciting. Throw in the highly metaphorical Kinda as the chaser and a younger person would have easily glommed on to this story as something fun an exciting. However, watching it in isolation, I can't say that I liked this one very much.

Looking over things as a whole, I'm coming to the conclusion that I'm just not fond of the Fifth Doctor era that much. The Fifth Doctor himself isn't the problem for the most part. The problems tend to lie in production, storyline and especially, the companions.

I don't think it will be a shock to say that my antipathy for Tegan and Adric has never been higher than in this story. In others, the negative aspects of their personalities have either been mitigated by more positive elements, a balance of their character against something else, or a simple lack of screen time. In this story however, Adric and Tegan are very front and center and the worst aspects of their personalities are brought front and center.

Probably more so than any other story I can recall, the Doctor is playing babysitter. It doesn't help that Monarch repeatedly calls them children and Adric's obnoxious comment to Tegan indicates that he clearly still thinks of Nyssa as underdeveloped in her femininity. I find this ironic as Nyssa is easily the most mature acting of all of them. She is still stiff in her performance, but at least she shows gumption, is never taken in by Monarch and works with the Doctor to stop the situation. Her only real drawback is that because she is aware, she is sidelined as the hostage for most of the story.

Adric is a naïve prat through most of this story. He is openly insulting to Tegan and rather dismissive of Nyssa. He buys in to Monarch with almost no prompting, proving himself exceptionally gullible as well as hardheaded as he still wants to believe in Monarch, even after Monarch orders the Doctor's initial execution. The only positive aspect of his buying in wholesale to Monarch's schlock is that the Doctor is able to exploit it and hide his intentions from Monarch. But, to me, that reflects more poorly on Monarch than it does offer any positive aspect to Adric.

Tegan, I felt like slapping for a good portion of the story. She is single-mindedly obsessed with getting back to Heathrow. Fine, we get it. She doesn't appreciate the opportunity in front of her and I can get past that. But the volume of whining she does about it does get annoying. On top of that, nothing she does is useful. In fact, she is the opposite of useful the entire story. She gets hysterical upon learning of Monarch's plan; a trait I hate in any character who displays it. Then she goes and mucks things up royally by actually moving the TARDIS. If she had fled to the TARDIS for a good cry and some isolation, she would have been far more useful. Instead she becomes so obsessed in her own hysteria that she abandons the three people she has traveled with, all of whom have some degree of expertise in piloting the TARDIS, and plops the TARDIS in a location where she can't move it and nearly gets the Doctor and Adric killed trying to recover it. I believe the Doctor would have been well within his rights to leave Tegan on the ship and leave it up to Bigon's benevolence to simply get her back to Earth, let alone get her to Heathrow.

Speaking of Bigon, he's a bit of a problem in this story as well. He is so eager to help the Doctor and overthrow Monarch that I can't understand why Monarch has permitted his existence to continue. Yes, Bigon was punished by being kept in isolation for one hundred years, but that didn't seem to take so why not destroy Bigon. If Monarch is as brutal a dictator as we are meant to think he is, why not fully crush all opposition? The man on the inside who makes the rebellion work, has too much power available to him. This makes Monarch seem naïve and incompetent.

In a similar vein, Lin Futu is a bit too easily convinced for my taste. Granted, he might have already been suspicious of Monarch, but he does rat out the Doctor very quickly when he frees Nyssa. He's been working for Monarch for thousands of years so why should he buy the Doctor's hasty argument that Monarch is mad and will destroy them all upon reaching Earth? It would be one thing if Bigon had mentioned that unrest had been growing but they were too scared to move against Monarch. But Bigon instead says that Lin Futu and Villagra are loyal to Monarch because of his promise to make them rulers of their people. I found it to be rather lazy and frustrating writing.

Now the villains. Enlightenment is fine, albeit a bit bland. She is at least good at her job. Persuasion is also not bad, although I would have expected a bit more competence from him in monitoring the Doctor. But you could argue that after thousands of years of docility, he got a bit lax with regard to a sharp mind like the Doctor.

As for Monarch, I'm so torn as I can't help but like Monarch. I think he is well acted and he sits high and mighty as you would expect a dictator to be. He is pompous and convinced of his own infallibility, which I suppose leaves him vulnerable. But he is too benevolent to match the description of crazy given by Bigon. He grants the Doctor too much freedom and he puts far too much trust in both Bigon and Adric. A ruler who makes those kind of shoddy decisions should have been overthrown long ago. Several times, Monarch could have easily stopped and/or destroyed the Doctor but he turns a blind eye, believing in their belief in him rather than with the keener eye of someone at the top for as long as he has been. Perhaps it is a function of his own belief in his deity, but it looks more like the combination of plot contrivance and dictatorial naivety.

Circling back around, the other primary performance I enjoyed was the Doctor. He is quiet, controlled and clearly using his head to try and get out of the situation they are in. He even goes so far as to call Adric the idiot he is in order to get him back around to thinking properly. He has a clear respect for Nyssa and far more patience with Tegan than she deserves. In fact, the limitations of the Doctor are generally through his companions. Left to his own devices or perhaps only with Nyssa, Bigon and the Doctor could have overthrown Monarch with relatively few complications. Instead, he wastes time acting as a babysitter to at least two people acting like brats. That the companions personalities improved a bit in other stories helps a little, but the fact that the Fifth Doctor is so much better when paired with older pseudo-companions in stories like The Visitation, Kinda, or The Awakening, speaks to how limited the Fifth Doctor is by these shackles.

Episode Four was something of an improvement for the story as it got away from the set up of ideas and actually got some action going. Once there was action, the story buzzed along. The fight and effects may not have been that great, but the Doctor's battle with Persuasion and Enlightenment as well as his cricket ball physics are the clear highlights of the story. Even people who enjoy this story cite that scene first when talking about it. Aside from the action, I think one of the main reasons it works so well is that it puts all the focus on the Doctor. Tegan is absent in the TARDIS, Nyssa is with the androids and coming out of her sedation and Adric can't say anything in his space suit. So the Doctor and his actions drive all the story at that point and that is where things shine. The Doctor should be the focus as much as possible. When stories don't, they tend to fall apart.

As far as the production, I don't know that I can say much. I thought the direction and effects were decent. Certainly the floating cameras were a pretty good effect for the day. I won't say that I thought there was anything groundbreaking or especially drawing on the production side, but it did well for what it was an what was available to them.

I feel a little bad dumping so hard on a story that I think is generally well regarded (or at least given indifference to), but I can't that I was bored or irritated by most of the story through the first three episodes. It had a slight pick up in Episode Two after a lackluster start but sank badly in Episode Three. Episode Four worked reasonably well but still had significant plot holes that just sat wrong with me. I think a younger audience would enjoy this story more. But the volume of bad simply outweighs the good for me in this one.

Overall personal score: 1.5 out of 5

Smile

It speaks emoji!

Steven Moffat has admitted that for this season, he is going back to the old RTD model of companion introduction in a contemporary setting for story one, a jump to the future for story two and then a trip to the past for story three. That makes this the future story, written by the same fellow, Frank Cottrell Boyce, as who wrote In the Forest of the Night. One can only hope this is an improvement on that work, though I will admit that the direction and visuals of that story were pretty good. But that also made the end result that much more disappointing.

Plot Summary

After taking Bill aboard the TARDIS, Nardole enters to chide him about not traveling. The Doctor however, shoos him off and then takes Bill away on an adventure, intending to land the TARDIS back in his office a few seconds after that moment. He lets Bill choose and she opts to go into the future.

On a planet 20 light years from Earth, a group of human colonists are working to establish a settlement. One woman is walking around the city, checking on the wheat crop, followed by a swarm of microbots. She is summoned back by a fellow colonist, informing her that her mother has died, along with a number of other people. She urges her to keep smiling as she tells her. The first colonist, becomes upset, not knowing what is going on. An interface drone registers their sadness and the microbots swarm down, stripping everything except the bones. The second colonist attempts to keep smiling but she is consumed as well.

The Doctor and Bill land outside the city some time after this and walk in to explore. An interface drone hands them buttons which display their mood in the form of an emoji face, not visible to themselves. They are confused by the lack of people and the Doctor theorizes that this is an advanced set up by a robot team and the rest of the colonists will arrive later. He drops that theory when they enter the garden and see interface drones fertilizing the plants with a calcium carbonate mixture. Knowing that there should have been a small team of humans to go with the robots as a set up team, he opens the fertilizer storage units and finds the bleached bones from before being crushed to make the fertilizer.

The Doctor and Bill attempt to leave the city but are cornered by several interface drones. The Doctor urges Bill to smile, lifting their mood slightly and sending the drones into a state of confusion. They want people to be happy and only attack when registering negative emotions. Somewhat alieved by their change in mood, the drones allow the Doctor and Bill to pass. However, the Doctor and Bill's mood shifts closer to fear upon reaching the outskirts of the city and a portion of the city breaks off into a swarm of microbots. The swarm breaks off as the Doctor and Bill leave the city.

Fearing for the lives of the future colonists, the Doctor decides to head back and destroy the city. He tries to leave Bill in the TARDIS but she follows him soon after leaving. Meeting back up and keeping themselves continuously smiling, he shows her that the entire city is made of the microbots, which he calls the Vardy. They go deeper into the city, looking for the initial colony ship which the city would be built around. They find the door and enter, though this sets off alarms for the Vardy, who dispatch interface drones against them.

The Doctor and Bill find a map and the Doctor goes on ahead, telling Bill to guide him via the map. Bill however soon cottons on to the fact that the Doctor already memorized the map and is just trying to keep her safe. She goes after him but discovers the body of an old woman lying in state, a tablet containing the history of Earth and the colony at her feet. Meanwhile, the Doctor manages to set up a feedback loop that will destroy the ship and the city but can't seem to override the failsafe. He is attacked by one of the drones but manages to knock it into the chasm over which the reactor sits.

Leaving the room of the woman, Bill meets a young boy who is confused and asking of they've arrived. She takes him to the Doctor, who has just manages to override the failsafe. Shocked, the Doctor has the boy take him to where he came from and finds a room of cryogenically frozen people. He runs back and resets the power source back to normal. He then heads back to the room, finding that a medical tech has awoken and is beginning to awaken others. The Doctor orders them to stay put informing them that something has gone wrong and he will update them shortly. Bill then takes the Doctor to see the dead woman.

Looking through the history, the Doctor realizes that this woman died of natural causes and was the first death recorded by the colony. He death created grief among the colonists to which the Vardy did not understand. Thinking it a plague, they sought to neutralize it by consuming the organic matter. However, this spread grief and fear throughout, resulting in the Vardy murdering all those who had been awoken early to help establish the colony. Finding the boy missing, the Doctor tells the awoken colonists what has happened and how they need to work together to solve the issue. The colonists however react by grabbing guns and going to attack the robots.

The boy wanders out into the city looking for his mother, who was awoken early. He is presented with an emotion badge just as the colonists enter the atrium. The boy reacts in fear and growing sadness that his mother might be dead. The drones register this and the Vardy begin to swarm to eliminate the threat. The colonists then destroy one of the drones and begin shooting at the swarm. The Vardy react by counterattacking the colonists and the Doctor notes a reaction on the other drone similar to anger. Realizing the Vardy have become sentient he finds a control switch in the destroyed drone and uses his sonic screwdriver on it.

An electrical surge passes through the Vardy and they reset, wiping their knowledge of the humans. The Doctor then informs the colonists that as the Vardy have forgotten the humans, they are now the native inhabitants of the planet and they humans will have to negotiate terms of co-existence. The Doctor speaks with the Vardy and sets up terms for the humans to stay, then he and Bill depart in the TARDIS. The Doctor lands, thinking they have arrived in his office just a few seconds after they left but find themselves on the frozen Thames with an elephant walking outside.

Analysis

I am torn on this story. Visually, it's very nice. I also think the set up and the interplay between the Doctor and Bill works very nicely. But it also feels derivative and the second half falls apart for me. I was left with the feeling that the story was inspired by seeing a robot talk in emoji and it just spinning out from there.

I think one of the earliest mistakes of this story was in not stringing out the horror element longer. Some rework was already done as the opening scene of Bill and the Doctor in the TARDIS was placed before the scene of the Vardy attack. I'm sure that as written, the Vardy attack was supposed to be the cold open X-Files style. However, I think it would have worked even better not to have that scene at all. Cold open with Bill and the Doctor on the TARDIS and go to credits after they land and just as the Doctor is about to open the door. This would leave the viewer in the dark about what exactly happened and preserve the suspense aspect. Knowing that the people were consumed by the microbots, horrific as they made it look, still took away an element of tension as we know it's only a matter of time before discovering the details.

I also think a little more time could have been spent discovering the result of the Vardy attack. As it happens, the death of the colonists is found out only a quarter of a way in and they make their escape all the way back to the TARDIS by the halfway point of the story. That could easily have been truncated into making the discovery longer and then finding and hiding in the ship rather than getting all the way back to the TARDIS. I think holding the tension longer would have improved things a bit more as I felt like the center portion of the story sagged a bit.

I did very much the interaction between Bill and the Doctor in this. In fact, most of the story is very good solely due to their reactions. Bill is wonderfully inquisitive and asks questions that are perfectly natural but generally haven't come up before. The Doctor is clearly enjoying being adventuring and being a teacher again as well. He is more protective of Bill and clearly does not trust her in a Clara sort of way yet. Or perhaps he does remember Clara and the nature of her death and wants to avoid a similar fate for someone he is becoming fond of.

One other thing I enjoyed was how the Doctor kept jumping to conclusions and having them be wrong. It rather reminded me of the Eleventh Doctor and how he would jump to the wrong conclusion and then correcting himself, though that was played more for laughs. Here we simply have the Doctor asserting his superior mind and forming ideas before finding all the evidence. It's a small thing but one of the few moments of comedy in this story.

Despite my misgivings about the way the tension was played, I was generally enjoying the episode until the discovery of the boy. Then things spun out of control. First off, why did the boy wake? Since that is the point that halts the Doctor's attempts to blow up the city, it would have been nice to see why he just randomly emerges. Was he unfrozen through an automatic trigger they made? Why did he get up and move around before the medical technician who should have been the first one out (as per The Ark in Space). It's such a crucial point in the story that to just have him hanging out bugs me.

I also dislike the instant human reaction to just run out and kill the robots. If they were going to do so, why wouldn't they wake all the colonists up first and have a huge army ready to go? Or if they lack the weapons to march en masse, why not think of a way to overpower them through outthinking them. The robots may have supposed to have been their servants but they should also know that the robots outnumber them billions to one. Frontal assaults are wiped out in seconds through that method. It's an irrational response that seems so out of place with the rest of the story.

My third point of annoyance is the backhanded "Deus Ex Machina" ending though turning it off and turning it back on. A simple act of the screwdriver erases the core memory of the humans and they're overall point of existence. Now they simply are, having achieved sentience. If that was the answer, why didn't the Doctor do it before. Reprogramming a machine is a lot easier than blowing it up. He could have easily captured a drone near the edge of the city, reworked it in the TARDIS and then sent it back out to pulse wipe the memory. With that done, they could have explored the city in safety. I really dislike quick fix endings like that as they undermine so much of the earlier story.

I was strongly reminded of a few things while watching this story. The monitoring of emotions and manifesting displeasure at it reminded me of the Smilers in The Beast Below while the idea of keeping a smile and happy thoughts reminded me of the Bart segment of Treehouse of Horror II, which itself is a parody of The Twilight Zone episode, It's a Good Life. I'm still not sure if I find that clever or tired since it's an idea I've been aware of for a long time. I also got an I, Robot vibe from the idea of robots killing humans in the act of trying to serve their best interests.

I will say that the direction was quite good and the visuals were very, very impressive. I believe I heard that this was filmed in Spain and the overall look of it was quite stunning. They even used a specific bit of filtering to give the exteriors a "not quite Earth" look to things which was a very nice touch. Whatever other problems it story had, it was nice on the eyes.

I was also intrigued by the idea of using a somewhat serialized format. The opening scene of Bill and the Doctor in the TARDIS is clearly meant to take place right after the Doctor has invited her in at the end of The Pilot. Likewise, the story ends with them stepping out on to the frozen Thames, leading directly into the next story, Thin Ice. I rather like that, even if it doesn't leave the large gaps that Moffat clearly likes for the insertion of either books or Big Finish stories.

Overall, I'd say that positive outweighs the negative for me on this story but just barely. The visuals, the interplay between the Doctor and Bill and the tension filled story up to the point where Bill finds the dead older woman are good, even with my minor objections. But the latter portion is a fairly steep decline for me. The storyline and the acting the of all the characters others than the Doctor and Bill just gave me a bad feeling, like brushing a cat's fur the wrong way. While much better than his initial offering, I think this story could have used another rewrite to work out all the kinks.

Overall personal score: 2.5 out of 5

Revenge of the Cybermen

Harry Sullivan is an imbecile!

I had a hankering to watch a story with Harry Sullivan in it for some reason and was a bit disappointed to find that I've written my reactions on most of his stories already. I'm saving The Sontaran Experiment for when I want a quick one so that left Terror of the Zygons and this one. I wasn't quite feeling Zygons so I opted to go for this one, which I think is a little better than it usually gets credit for. If you've seen the documentary short about it, it's probably definitely better than Philip Hinchcliff thinks it is.

Plot Summary

The Doctor, Harry and Sarah arrive back on Nerva Beacon thousands of years after they left, when it was being used as an actual satellite beacon for passing spacecraft. They arrive before the TARDIS has materialized in their time and head out to explore the beacon while they wait. As they open the doors to the transmat room, a dead body falls through the open door. Harry estimates that he has been dead for over a week although putrification has not set in. The find the corridor littered with bodies in a similar fashion.

Elsewhere on the beacon the communications man, Warner, warns off several approaching ship with a notice of plague quarantine. Base Commander Stevenson has orders from Earth to warn off all other ships until aid arrives from Earth. Aside from him and Warner, the only two others on the beacon are the second-in-command Lester, and a civilian professor named Kellman. Stevenson and Lester detect a warning signal as the Doctor and his companions break through the quarantine door and they head out to investigate.
Kellman walks into the control room and they discuss an asteroid that has recently passed into the system and has seemingly been caught in the orbit of Jupiter. Warner is pretty sure he has just received an aborted transmission from the asteroid, but Kellman tells him to ignore it as he has taken a study of the asteroid and found nothing of interest. Shortly afterward, Warner is attacked by a metallic snake-like object while Kellman watches. After Warner is down, Kellman steals the tape recording of the transmission.

On the asteroid, which is actually the planetoid Voga, were the inhabitants live in caves below the surface, a transmission was made but the caller was killed before anything else came through. The authorization to kill came from Vorus, a young military minded man. He is in league with an elder named Magrik and together are hatching a plan to be able to return to the surface and have formed a league with the Cybermen and have a human agent on the beacon.

Steven and Lester confront the Doctor and his companions. Before they can explain, Kellman comes up and claims that Warner is a victim of the plague. The Doctor then poses themselves as a medical team from Earth and go to examine him. Harry, Sarah and Lester take Warner back to the crew quarters while Stevenson and the Doctor stay in the communications room. The Doctor notes the metallic scratches on the wall and the stolen tape. He points these out to Stevenson who is dumbstruck.

The Doctor then asks about Kellman and Stevenson informs him that he is studying the planetoid he named Voga which was captured by Jupiter about fifty years ago. The Doctor recognizes the name and immediately suspects the Cybermen as they were involved in a war with Voga years ago. He then dashes out to examine Warner. Warner has just died with Harry unable to help him. The Doctor examines his neck and finds small puncture wounds and tells Harry he has been poisoned.

All this is observed by Kellman via a special camera system hidden in his quarters. He then pulls a device out and sends a coded signal to a Cyber scout ship holding in space. He leaves the room and the Doctor breaks in to examine it. He finds the communicator and the monitoring equipment. Kellman comes back and the Doctor hides under the bed. Seeing the disturbed room, Kellman electrifies the floor, leaves and locks the door. The Doctor steps out and the shock causes him to jump on to the bed and also starts a fire. He crawls over to the counter using the closet door and unlocks the door using his sonic screwdriver to escape.

Left alone in the crew quarters, Sarah watches a news feed from Earth, unaware that a snake-like Cybermat is approaching. She turns off the feed just as the Cybermat leaps at her. She grabs it and tries to hold it off as it tries to sting her. It does sting her just as the Doctor arrives and shuts it down with his sonic. He carries her into the transmat room as Harry, Stevenson and Lester arrive, drawn by Sarah's screams.

The Doctor gives Sarah to Harry and prepares to transmat them down to Voga as the transport will distillate the poison from Sarah's system. He finds the control mechanism sabotaged with one piece missing. He informs Stevenson and Lester that Kellman is in league with the Cybermen and has done it. He manages to hotwire the controls to send Harry and Sarah down but without the device, cannot bring them back.

In the caves of Voga, Sarah comes back to full health but they are arrested by a Vogan patrol. They are taken to Vorus but he is interrupted in his interrogation by Tyrum, the head of the ruling council, who summons him back to the city. Harry and Sarah are then chained up for further interrogation.

Stevenson and Lester manage to get the drop on Kellman and arrest him. They threaten him with execution Kellman continues to deny everything. The Doctor however manages to get one of the Cybermat control devices and threatens to attack him with it. Kellman panics and gives up the missing component, allowing the Doctor to repair the transmat.

Tyrum informs Vorus that has become aware of his flouting of the law of secrecy and is dispatching militia to take over for Vorus' forces. They will fight if Vorus resists. Vorus becomes angry at the threat to his plans and heads back. He orders Magrik to send a patrol to kill the humans so as to avoid evidence of his plans falling into Tyrum's hands.

Harry, having noticed the chains are made of gold, manages to get him and Sarah free of them just before Magrik's squad arrives. They run through the tunnels but are eventually cornered by the squad. But the squad itself is surrounded by Tyrum's militia and they surrender, taking Harry and Sarah to see Tyrum. Harry and Sarah tell Tryum all the know while Vorus and his men have retreated to a hall and entrenched themselves. Tryum elects to wait and allow Vorus to remain where he is.

On the station, the Doctor fixes the transmat but notices that Harry and Sarah have gone out of range. His investigations are interrupted by an approaching ship that ignores their warnings to stay away. The Doctor realizes that it's the Cybermen. He tries to manually jam the door but they force it open. Stevenson and Lester fire on the Cybermen but are shot down by them. The Doctor also tries to run but he is shot by the Cybermen as well. Kellman emerges and asks the Cybermen not to kill them as they may be useful. The Cyberleader agrees.

The Cybermen bring aboard bombs that they will strap on to the Doctor, Stevenson and Lester. They will then walk to the center of Voga where the bombs will detonate, destroying the planet. Kellman requests to go on ahead and scout and the Cyberleader agrees. The Doctor breaks free for a moment but is quickly recaptured.

Kellman transmats down and is captured by Tyrum's militia while trying to see Vorus. He informs Tyrum, Sarah and Harry about Vorus' plan to lure the Cybermen aboard Nerva Beacon and then destroy it with a missile. Tyrum heads up to the mines with the three humans to interrogate Vorus about the missile. On the way, Sarah manages to sneak away, intending to warn the Doctor about the missile.

The Doctor, Stevenson and Lester are equipped with bombs with the buckles booby trapped to ensure they cannot remove them. Two Cybermen are sent with them to monitor their progress and fulfill the mission if they fail. After transmating down, the Cybermen are pulled into battle with Tyrum's militia while the Doctor, Stevenson and Lester make their way down towards the center of the planet on their own, the Doctor attempting to think of a way out of their situation.

Tyrum and Vorus make a truce and their forces combine to fight the Cybermen, attempting to buy time for the missile launch, which is being equipped with the warhead. Tyrum recalls a service tunnel that would allow them to get ahead of the Doctor's party and stop them.

Sarah manages to get behind the Cybermen, who are engaged with the Vogan in battle and transmats herself back to the station, unaware that the Doctor is already on Voga. She sneaks away and listens as the Cyberleader monitors the battle and the Doctor's party's progress to the center of Voga.

Harry and Kellman find the service shaft and crawl down but find their way partially blocked by a cave in. They start to shift the rock, unaware that the Doctor is on the other side, also trying to clear the rock while Stevenson and Lester rest. Their combined efforts cause the loose rock to collapse. Harry is thrown backwards but Kellman is crushed to death. The Doctor is also knocked out. Harry sees him and after checking his vitals, tries to remove the bomb but Lester stops him.

The Doctor wakes and tells Stevenson to head to the center while he, Harry and Lester take out the two Cybermen on Voga with gold dust. The three of them crawl on to a ledge and when the Cybermen walk beneath them they leap down, attempting to push the gold dust into their chest vent units. The Cybermen however knock them backwards and they drop the dust. They run away and then Lester jumps down next to the Cybermen and undoes his harness, activating the booby trap. The explosion kills him and the two Cybermen but does not destroy the bomb control. The Doctor takes the control and deactivates the control for the bombs and the booby trap, allowing him to take off the harness.

On the beacon, the Cyberleader sees the deactivation of the radar scope. He attempts to manually activate the bombs. Sarah rushes out to stop him but is restrained by other Cybermen. The Cyberleader activates the bombs but the Doctor has already deactivated them. The Cyberleader then interrogates Sarah, learning about the planned rocket launch. The Cyberleader surmises that as the rocket has not yet fired, it must be malfunctioning and plans to load Nerva Beacon with explosives and then crash it at a high rate of speed into a fissure on Voga. The explosion should rip the planet apart per his calculations.

The Doctor learns of the rocket as it is now ready for launch and Sarah's attempt to rescue him on the beacon. He tells Vorus to give him fifteen minutes to try and rescue Sarah and then to fire the rocket. Vorus reluctantly agrees and the Doctor transmats back up the beacon. He arrives to find Sarah alone in the control room as the Cybermen are retrieving explosives from their ship. He unties her and then finds one of the deactivated Cybermats. He swaps out the toxin for gold dust and sics it on a Cyberman, who collapses. He tries to do it again in the control room and does manage to kill another Cyberman but they are captured by other Cybermen. They are tied up in the control room while the Cyberleader activates the controls propelling the beacon toward Voga. The Cybermen then leave for their ship.

Impatient, Vorus paces angrily. As the timer nears zero, they observe the station moving towards them. Vorus orders Magrik to fire the rocket but Tyrus shoots him before he can activate it. Vorus then steps in. Stevenson tries to stop him but Vorus knocks him down. Tyrus shoots him as well, but Vorus is able to fire the rocket before he dies.

Seeing the rocket launch, the Doctor and Sarah manage to slip out of their bonds. However the Doctor finds the controls are jammed. He calls over the radio and walks Stevenson through the controls of the rocket. Stevenson manages to redirect the rocket away from the beacon just before impact. The swerve takes it in line with the Cyberman ship and destroys it.

With the immediate danger past, the Doctor finds the manual control and uses it to override the lock on the guidance system. He manages to pull the beacon out of it's descent just before crashing on Voga and stabilizes it's orbit once again.

As the beacon rises, the TARDIS materializes in the control room. The Doctor immediately enters and checks the systems. Harry transmats back to the beacon to congratulate the Doctor and Sarah. The Doctor emerges and informs them that he's been called back by the Brigadier and is leaving. Stunned by the suddenness of it, Sarah and Harry run into the TARDIS just as the Doctor is activating the controls.

Analysis

There are some flaws in this story with regard to production and acting, but for the most part, it actually hangs together for the first three episodes. It's when Episode Four comes up that most of the stuff in this story goes to pot and I think most of that blame goes to too many people giving input and then realizing they've written themselves into a corner. As such, characters suddenly start acting differently and making choices you wouldn't expect after the first three episodes.

About the only character who is consistent through the story is the Doctor. This is the Fourth Doctor very much in The Ark and Space vein where he is very alien and odd, but without the anger that crops up in Season 13 stories. The Doctor cares for those around him but at the same time has a casual indifference about him as well. About the only dire action you ever seem him take is to try and keep the Cybermen from boarding Nerva Beacon at the end of Episode Two and then his direct attack on the Cybermen early in Episode Four. Still, he has a nice balance. He has a serious to convey the threat but still cracks jokes here and there. But there is also enough restraint so that the jokes don't go too over the top and are, in fact, a way of getting under the enemy's skin a bit.

Speaking of getting under skin, one of the primary criticisms of this story is that in their previous stories, the Cybermen had been very emotionless yet the Cyberleader is very emotional. Almost every word he says is dripping with anger or relish. At no point does he ever sound like the emotionless drones he has around him. Instead he seems to take sadistic enjoyment from how his plan is progressing. He also seems to express frustration when something doesn't go according to plan.

I generally don't mind this as one of the limitations of the Cybermen was the lack of a leader figure that could banter with the Doctor the way Davros came to for the Daleks. That the leader would retain emotions also doesn't bother me as I could see that as a functional adaptation for leadership. Where it does bother me is when it becomes a plot convenience in Episode Four. After Sarah has been captured and she has told them about the rocket, there is no reason to keep her alive and the Cybermen should have dispensed with her. Instead, the Cyberleader goes into Bond villain mode, going so far as to crack a joke about Sarah getting a good view of Voga when the station crashes. He does this again when he leaves the Doctor and Sarah tied up after the bombs have been planted. This was the line that was too far for me because it went against even what a Cyberleader should have seen as the logic course of action. This was taking pleasure in torture for the sake of the pleasure.

Also on the subject of things taking a left turn in Episode Four we have Sarah and Harry. Both Harry and Sarah do fairly well for themselves, although with not that much to do in the first couple of episodes. Sarah gets bit at the end of Episode One so she and Harry go down to Voga where they are made prisoners. But there you have Harry showing initiative in getting out of the gold chains, getting a bit of fun little banter between him and Sarah as well. Similarly you have Sarah taking the reins and heading back to Nerva Beacon to try and save the Doctor in Episode Three. It's not much to do but you see the people we've come to know over the course of Season 12.

Then you have Episode Four. Sarah goes from being a strong willed, if slightly overmatched, go getter to being this emotional wuss. She runs out screaming no when the Cyberleader is about to detonate the bombs, knowing that it will only result in her death or capture and do nothing to stop him. She then sits and is sad as a bound damsel in distress until the Doctor shows up to rescue her. In both instances she does absolutely nothing to try and think her way out of the situation. Even if the situation hadn't worked and rescue by the Doctor was her only hope, she should have at least been shown trying to think of a way out or shown actively trying to escape. Instead she becomes generic damsel companion and that just stinks.

Similarly, Harry goes from being a helpful man of action to being a dumb form of comic relief in Episode Four. The cave in, the killing of Kellman and near explosion of the Doctor are played as though he's a moron who should have been aware of all the potential repercussions despite being that making no sense. He then sounds like a total moron when filling the Doctor in on everything that has happened, going so far as pass over Kellman's death as though mentioning that it rained yesterday. Later he plays captain obvious with Sarah about the beacon crashing into Voga in what I think is supposed to be a funny moment. No where to be found is the reliable and hard working person found in earlier stories. Instead we are given an inept clown that is completely unaware and uncaring about the surroundings. They went so overboard in an attempt for comic relief that it just made him into a shell of his former character.

Kellman wasn't too bad as a fake-out villain for the first two episodes. He had a bad moment when threatened by the Cybermat as his acting took a major swing downward. I don't know who gave him lessons in fear acting, but his style was not good. But aside from that, he worked fairly well. His motivations were always a bit unclear though. I guess he was offered a large payment of gold by the Vogan or he either had strong feelings about destroying the Cybermen. Neither is explained very well. In fact a better explanation is given of his story that is fed to the Cybermen. I would have liked a bit more backstory with Kellman rather than his random killing off in Episode Three. In fact, that seems cheap and unearned. He should have had some role in the final confrontation and to be left out after being crushed in a rockslide is a bit unsatisfying.

I didn't have a problem with the Vogans for the most part. Yes their masks were a bit cheap looking and the acting got a little Shakespearean over-the-top but they worked for the most part. What got me was that they spent nearly an episode and a half getting slaughtered by two Cybermen and not changing their tactics. You would think they might have had some sort of explosives, grenades or the like, to use against the Cybermen. Lester proved a simple explosion could take them out so there is no reason to believe the Vogans shouldn't have been able to toss a grenade barrage and take them out. Or if they didn't have high explosives, why didn't they have any of the "glitter guns" leftover from the previous Cyberman war? Are we to believe they supplied volumes of gold to humans in their war against the Cybermen and didn't take any anti-Cyberman weapons for themselves? It just doesn't make any sense. The Cybermen should have cut through the Vogan's initial defensive line but someone should have run back for advanced weapons and taken the Cybermen out in a secondary attack. It's a logical flaw that just bugged me, despite how impressive the battle scenes looked.

The action direction was fairly decent as it did a fairly good job of disguising the fact that the same actors and locations were being used over and over again. It still made it look as though the Cybermen were driving further into Voga and killing many Vogans while doing it. The non-action scenes were a bit flatter and some of the effects were just downright bad. I think my biggest dislike was actually the Cybermats with the long snake-like bodies. I think the Cybermats were more effective and creepy when they were the small, mouse-like objects seen in The Tomb of the Cybermen. Making them bigger actually made them seem less likely to move unobtrusively through Nerva Beacon. I also made their leap ups on to the neck and chests of their victims look that much more fake.

Overall, I don't think this is terrible as many others put it, but it's not especially good either. It starts off well enough and I think for about two and half to three episodes, I can hang with it but Episode Four is just a real let down given what it does. It's also a bit of a crash as far as the season goes, coming down from the highs of The Ark in Space and Genesis of the Daleks but that's a larger scope view which I try to avoid. I think if you showed this story to anyone under the age of twelve, they would really like it as it is right up the alley of that age group, but for anyone else, the flaws will stick out and just be a bit of a come down. Watchable in a pinch, but probably last on the list of choices for it's season.

Overall personal score: 2 out of 5

The Pilot

I can’t just call you Doctor. Doctor what?

We are now officially back. Its only been four months since The Return of Doctor Mysterio but with the year prior to that, it's been exceptionally slow going with regard to the new series in general. But now we have the final year of the Twelfth Doctor and of Steven Moffat. We continue with Nardole and are introduced to Bill Potts, who may or may not last through the transition to the Chibnall era. But let's introduce her first and get her first adventure going before we dabble in the realm of speculation.

Plot Summary

Bill Potts, a worker in the St. Luke’s University student cafeteria, is called into the office of the Doctor, who is working as a lecturer. He is intrigued by her as she has been sneaking into his lectures, though she is not a student, and has shown an interest in his subjects beyond the regular students. Further intrigued by her answers to his questions, he sets up private tutoring sessions with her.

As their sessions progress, Bill becomes more and more suspicious that the Doctor is not what he seems. He sneaks a shoebox of pictures of her mother into her apartment as a Christmas present after learning she didn’t have any. She discovers it was him by noticing his reflection taking the picture in a mirror.

In Spring Bill notices the Doctor and Nardole heading down a stair and follows them. She observes them checking on an electronic vault but is forced to run back up the stairs after knocking a loose pipe. Outside, she sees Heather, a girl she has had a crush on, moping on a bench. She makes conversation and Heather invites her to see something odd.

The two women walk to an alleyway outside campus where Heather shows her a puddle of water, though it hadn’t rained in a week. She has Bill look into the puddle and try and figure what is wrong with her reflection. Bill feels something is wrong but can’t place what. Heather smirks and walks away.

Several weeks later, Bill walks by the puddle and sees Heather staring at it. Heather asks her if she has figured it out yet. Bill offers to come over and look again if Heather promises not to run off again. She does so, but when Bill comes around the fence, she finds Heather has disappeared. Frustrated, Bill walks off, not noticing Heather disappearing below the surface of the puddle.

Bill heads to the Doctor’s office and vents her frustration with Heather at him. The Doctor however, keys in on a couple of details and runs off. She follows him to the puddle where he notices scorch marks in the pavement around the puddle. He takes a sample of the water and then shoos Bill away, attempting to get her to forget it.

Bill heads back to her apartment and gets a call from her roommate about being out. This unnerves Bill as the shower is running. She walks in to find both the shower and bathtub wet. She looks in to the drain and sees a star-corneaed eye looking back at her, just like Heather’s. She runs out and towards the Doctor’s office where she sees him walking. Before entering though, Heather rises from a puddle of water under a tree and begins to repeat Bill’s words to her. Bill, thinking Heather dead, runs up and barricades herself in the Doctor’s office, much to his surprise. The water seeps under the door and begins to take Heather’s shape again. The Doctor ushers Bill into the TARDIS where he then transports it outside the vault. The water follows and the Doctor then jumps to Sydney, Australia. The water follows again and the Doctor jumps once again to a planet on the far side of the universe and twenty million years in the future.

Bill steadily tries to take it in with both the Doctor and Nardole trying to fill her in. Bill walks away to a puddle nearby where Heather then reaches out and grabs Bill. The Doctor and Nardole pull her back and into the TARDIS once more.

The Doctor decides to pull the alien into a hot zone to try and push it off that way. He lands in the middle of a battle between the Daleks and the Movellans. Nardole, with an old sonic screwdriver of the Doctor’s, runs through and isolates the Daleks from the area of the base they are in. One Daleks pursues them but is distracted by Heather forming out of the water nearby.

The water takes over the Dalek’s form and follows Bill and the Doctor, having just met back up with Nardole. The Doctor recognizes that it is not a Dalek and it returns to the Heather form. He bids it be off but then realizes that it is pursuing Bill. Bill clues in that the water selected Heather as its pilot as she had given a strong desire to leave. Bill also realizes that Heather’s last thought before being taken over was her promise not to leave Bill.

Heather steps forward and touches Bill’s hand, showing her worlds and stars far away, inviting her to come with her. Bill however, encouraged by the Doctor, breaks away and releases Heather from her promise. The water dissipates and disappears, leaving a tear on Bill’s cheek.

Back in the Doctor’s office, fearing what he has done, tries to wipe Bill’s memory. She initially refuses but then accepts, although appealing to him to imagine what it must be like. Recalling Clara’s mindwipe of him, allows her to keep the memories. He watches her leave and tries to resist the pull, remembering a promise he has made. He abandons that though and materializes the TARDIS in front of Bill as she is walking across the grounds, inviting her to travel with him.

Analysis

This story reminds me a lot of Rose where the main thrust of the plot is told from the companion’s point of view and not a lot of detail given about the Doctor. Of course, we are a lot more familiar at this point with the Twelfth Doctor as opposed to the Ninth Doctor. There is also a lot of bling and recall back to earlier stories, both new and classic, which help disguise the fact that there is not a lot of actual story here.

I think it will be very easy to like Bill. She is peppy, upbeat, intelligent, and with her being gay, will keep the “no hanky-panky in the TARDIS” rule. I personally think the lesbian aspect of Bill’s character was a bit overplayed. Some of this, I think, comes from Steven Moffat’s romantic nature and deciding he can write a gay romance just as well as a straight one. I perhaps might not have thought it so painfully obvious if it hadn’t been for the fact that Bill’s sexuality and her being the first openly gay companion was made such a big deal in the British and fan media. I personally don’t care outside of the fact that an unfulfillable romantic crush is a little weak sauce for a central plot and I think the fact that it was between two women was used to try and paper over the cracks. That aside, I’m looking forward to what Bill might bring to the table.

The Doctor and Nardole will good as usual. I have a feeling that Nardole will eventually get a proper story to feature him as he again is kept largely in the background. He does get a few good one-liners and I enjoy the comic timing between him and the Doctor. I’m just frustrated that I can’t see more of it.

Similarly, the Doctor stays in the shadows a lot in this story. I suspect the vault introduced in this story will be a running theme and will eventually be revealed toward the end. But as for this episode, the Doctor is shadowy and mysterious with strong traces of humor built in. My own favorite moment is when he dismisses Bill and then tells the pictures of Susan and River to shut up, feeling the sting of his own conscious. It, and the others, are enjoyable moments, but again, this is Bill’s story and the Doctor just isn’t given that much to do, lest he outshine her as he probably would.

The Easter eggs were nice touches. Including the Movellans as those warring against the Daleks was an amusing touch. I also wouldn’t have minded seeing the Daleks fighting the Draconians, but this way only the Terry Nation estate had to be paid rather than having to pay the Nation and the Hulke estates for the use of the Draconians. I also liked seeing the coffee cup of old sonic screwdrivers. It was either the Third or the Fourth Doctor’s screwdriver he tossed to Nardole when they landed in the middle of the war. I’m also appreciative of any callback to the Beethoven introduction of Before the Flood and liked that. I actually wish Bill hadn’t interrupted so soon into the rift so he could have gone further.

All that appreciation aside, it cannot disguise what was mentioned earlier and that this is actually a bit of a weak story plot-wise. The crush between Bill and Heather is not particularly well developed before Heather becomes the pilot so it feels like rather a weak out that all they have to do is have Bill break off the promise to get the water to leave her alone. I also didn’t care for the fact that the water can move across time and space with ease. It made the entity a bit too powerful as well as turning the second half of the storyline into a slightly tenser version of The Chase. There is just a lot of build-up and then the payoff feels less than what you were expecting. To be fair, this is a problem I’ve had with Moffat scripts in the past so this is not overly surprising and was somewhat built in for me.

I thought the overall direction and effects were pretty good, although nothing spectacular. No major shots stood out to me as being great, but I also didn’t recoil at any either. For the most part, the Heather and water effects were pretty good, although there was one shot where the CGI was a little too obvious. It wasn’t strong enough to ruin the shot or the mood so it’s easily passed over.

Overall, I’d say this was a good first start, but like Rose, it will never be anyone’s go-to story for something to watch. It serves a purpose which is to introduce Bill and lay out things for Series Ten. Enjoyment beyond that is up to the viewer. I would watch it again and enjoy it, but again in the same way as Rose. It's a good middle of the road story and not much more than that.

Overall personal score: 3 out of 5

The Mind Robber

Oh no, I got it all wrong!

The Mind Robber was the first Second Doctor story I ever saw and I'm not sure I could have picked an odder story to expose myself to Second Doctor. It's completely unlike any of the standard "base under siege" or monster-type stories that litter the era. In fact, the story is more reminiscent of something from either The Twilight Zone or a significant drug trip. I actually would not discount the idea that Peter Ling might have been tripping when he wrote this one, although the most out there stuff (Episode One) was actually written by script editor Derrick Sherwin. Of course, he could have been spaced out then as well.

Plot Summary

With the Dominator's bomb having just set off the volcano, the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe rush back to the TARDIS to escape the lava flow. They attempt to take off but the fluid link malfunctions and the Doctor is forced to shut down to ensure the TARDIS isn't flooded with mercury vapor. Worried about the lava destroying the TARDIS, Jamie and Zoe urge the Doctor to activate the emergency relay which will displace the TARDIS out of all time and space. Reluctantly, the Doctor agrees.

The TARDIS dematerializes and then reemerges in a void of nothingness. The Doctor sets about repairing the TARDIS but Jamie and Zoe are mesmerized by images of their respective homes on the scanner. Curiosity gets the better of Zoe and she opens the doors, despite the Doctor's warnings not to and wanders into the mist. Concerned for her, Jamie runs out after her. The Doctor calls out for them to stop but is forced to focus himself on resisting a powerful mind coming against him.

In the mist, Jamie and Zoe are reunited. They wander about looking for the TARDIS but are again distracted by images of their homes. They each manage to snap the other one out of their trances and continue their search. As they do so, they are surrounded by robots who use hypnotic beams against them, forcing them to see themselves disappearing into the mist.

The Doctor manages to fight off the force and leaves the TARDIS just enough to summon Jamie and Zoe through the mist. Though they are partially under the alien force's control, the Doctor wills them along and back into the TARDIS where they snap back to their normal selves.

The Doctor tries to take off again but the alien force attacks again, forcing the Doctor to focus his mind once again. Power is drained from the TARDIS and it appears to burst apart. Jamie and Zoe cling to the console while the Doctor remains in his chair and both drift away into the misty void.
Jamie stumbles out of the mist where he runs into a redcoat. He attacks the soldier who fires at him,turning him into a paper figure. Zoe also wanders through the mist, getting hemmed in by thorn bushes. She walks through a door and falls forward into a pit.

The Doctor wakes to the sound of Jamie and Zoe's cries for help. He walks through a forest and finds Lemuel Gulliver. Gulliver briefly threatens the Doctor but walks away upon finding him of a sharp mind. The Doctor is then met with a group of children who pepper him with riddles. When he successfully solves them, they run off, leaving him with a dictionary.

The Doctor turns a corner to find the paper Jamie and several objects. The Doctor solves the message and finds Jamie's face missing. He replaces Jamie's face but gets the details wrong. Jamie returns but with a different face. He is still Jamie though and together they find Zoe trapped in a jar disguised as a door in a wall. The quickly free her and set off into the forest to find their way out.

Getting tired, they stop to rest. Jamie climbs to the top of the tree to find a way out of the forest and discovers that the tress are in fact letters. They make up common proverbs. He does spot what he thinks is the way out and climbs down. They continue their walk but run into Gulliver again. He is confused by their description of robots attacking them and cannot see a squad of tin soldiers who come and herd the trio into a cave. In the cave they see a unicorn about to charge them, much like in a dream Jamie had while they were back in the TARDIS. The Doctor urges Jamie and Zoe to declare that it doesn't exist and when they do, the unicorn freezes into a paper cutout.

They exit the cave and come across a cottage with the redcoat Jamie had met earlier. Jamie again charges him and again is turned into a paper cutout. This time, with Zoe's help, the Doctor reconstructs his face properly and Jamie is returned to normal.

They pass through the door and find themselves in another cave with a ball of twine nearby. The Doctor recognizes it as a maze and order Jamie to tie one end to the door so they can find their way out again. They continue along until the string runs out. Leaving Jamie with the string, the Doctor and Zoe walk forward into the center of the maze. In the center, the Doctor and Zoe find the Minotaur where they again stop it by denying its existence.

A tin soldier tries to capture the waiting Jamie but he escapes. He exits the maze, chased by the soldiers. He climbs partway up and reaches a ledge where a coil of hair extends down. He climbs up to meet Rapunzel on the other end. Although he is not a prince, she reluctantly agrees to let him into the palace where she promptly disappears. Jamie discovers the palace is instead a futuristic building. He discovers a ticker-tape machine printing out words describing the Doctor and Zoe's adventure.

Finding Jamie gone, the Doctor and Zoe turn back into the main part of the cave where a stone statue of Medusa appears. The statue begins to come to life and advances on them. The Doctor again tries to get Zoe to deny it's existence but she cannot. A sword appears at the Doctor's feet but rather than fighting Medusa, he pulls out a mirror. Zoe looks at Medusa in the mirror and Medusa reverts to her statue form.

They walk out and into the same valley Jamie was in earlier. There, they are confronted by the Karkus, a character from comic strips of Zoe's youth. He engages them but Zoe is able to fight him off. Beaten, the Karkus submits to their will and Zoe orders him to take them to the citadel on the hill. There, they dismiss the Karkus and the Doctor disguises his voice as the Karkus to gain entry into the castle.

Inside, they find Jamie, who had been forced to hide due to accidentally setting off an internal alarm. The Doctor notes that they will have to see the ruler of this land of fiction, whom Gulliver had referred to as the Master, in order to reclaim the TARDIS. Zoe sets off the alarm and the Doctor surrenders to the robots who take the group to see the Master.

In the control room, they find a man who had been a writer of boy's adventure stories hooked up to a central computer. The human side of the writer is friendly and jovial, inviting the Doctor to take his place as he is getting old, having been taken by the alien power in 1926. Every once in a while, the computer interposes its will and the writer becomes dark and threatening. The Doctor distracts him, though constantly refusing his offer while Jamie and Zoe try to find an escape. The writer however is aware of their escape attempt and sends several robots who encase Jamie and Zoe in a book, rendering them into works of fiction.

Unable to help Jamie and Zoe at the moment, the Doctor dashes up bookcase and up on to the roof as the robots return for him. On the roof, he spots a typewriter through a skylight, controlling the master tape. He summons the Karkus who, with the help of Rapunzel, lowers him down into the room. The Doctor starts to write a different ending but stops, realizing that it's a trap as writing anything about himself will turn him into a work of fiction. He returns to the roof where he is met by Gulliver and the children from earlier.

The writer gives Jamie and Zoe new feelings toward the Doctor and they set a trap for him. He makes what appears to be the TARDIS reappear and Jamie and Zoe step out. Happy at it's return, the Doctor steps inside, only to discover himself trapped in a glass box. The box disappears and the Doctor finds himself back in the control room, this time fully integrated with the computer.

Due to his full integration, the Doctor realizes he can now make fiction reality as well and he summons forth Jamie and Zoe, urging them to escape their book. Jamie and Zoe then manage to extricate themselves from the book and cease to be works of fiction. The writer attempts to stop the Doctor by summoning the toy soldiers to seize Jamie and Zoe as they cross the roof. The Doctor counters by summoning the Karkus to shoot them down the soldiers. The writer attempts to step in and have the Karkus shoot them but the Doctor depletes his gun, rendering him useless. The writer calls forth Cyrano de Bergerac to attack them with a sword but the Doctor counters with D'Artagnan and the two characters fight on the roof, allowing Jamie and Zoe to run past. The writer changes Cyrano to Blackbeard and the Doctor changes D'Artagnan to Lancelot, each countering the other.

Fearing that the central brain will be overloaded, the writer ceases his attacks and instead summons the robots. The Doctor realizes he can't counter about himself as it would again turn him into a work of fiction. The robots pull the Doctor out of the machine and prepare to kill him. Jamie and Zoe rush in and activate every switch on the control board. The surge of power and information begins to overwhelm the computer and the robots are momentarily distracted. The Doctor rushes to the writer and pulls his harness off, freeing him of the control of the computer. With no new input, the robots obey their final instruction and begin to destroy everything in the control room, including the central brain of the computer.

The group flees just outside the castle where the TARDIS then reforms around the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe. The writer also disappears back into his own time.
Analysis

I really like this story, but I can also easily see how others would not. If The Macra Terror was a toe dip and lifting of ideas from The Prisoner, this story is a full on plunge into the world of surrealism. Of course, for all its surrealism, it still maintains a grounding in the form of a recognizable plotline and well written dialogue.

Granted you don't have a lot of choices with the Second Doctor, but I think this story could be one of the best ones to demonstrate what the Second Doctor is like. He is his usual blustery, slightly over-the-top self who is a bit back on his heels most of the time. But he is also the thinking and conniving Doctor. He understands a bit more that he ever lets on, especially after he really starts to guess the rules of the game in Episode Two. At no point when you are with the Doctor do you feel like nothing interesting is going on. He's just fun to be with on multiple levels in this story.

Jamie and Zoe are also good in this story, although I feel like Jamie stands out a bit more. This story is rather famous for having a replacement Jamie for Episode Two due to Frazer Hines contracting chicken pox from his nephews. But Hamish Wilson does a fine job as a stand-in Jamie and what's more, the mechanics of how the replacement Jamie came about is very creative and adds to the surrealistic atmosphere of the story. Jamie goes one further by getting a portion of the story to himself, climbing up Rapunzel's hair and having a few moments with Gulliver in avoiding the robots. It develops Jamie nicely in the story.

Zoe does well but does not get a stand out moment in this story like she does in say The Krotons. This sort of makes sense as Zoe is highly conditioned with logic and logic is probably the absolute last thing that is going to help in a story like this. So she ends up being more of either a comic foil or the Doctor's sounding board to explain the particulars of the plot. She also gets to scream a lot at the various traps she falls in to. She does at least get to defeat the Karkus with some nice judo moves which played nicely on screen, despite Wendy Padbury being unhappy with that take.

Of course, she also gets the take away point of the whole story as the other thing besides the replacement Jamie that people remember from this story is Zoe laying on the TARDIS console in a sparkling cat-suit with her derriere framed nicely for viewing. Apparently the zipper had busted on the front of her suit as well so she's leaning forward to make sure she didn't expose herself in the front and ruin the take.

All the various secondary characters did well but I think special attention to be played to the writer (or Master as he is credited). I personally try to avoid using "the Master" as it has a very different connotation now. Anyway, this part was played and written very well. You could see the glee and enthusiasm for writing that the writer had and how he was fundamentally a good person. But you could also see the dark, sinister side when the computer mind took over and the contrast portrayed between the two was quite impressive. I also loved the fact that the villain never got up but acted through surrogates to the point that it became a literal battle of the minds. It was a villain that emphasized that the Doctor had to think his way out of the problem rather than rely on some aspect of force to solve the problem.

Before going into the set and direction of the rest of the story, I think special attention must be paid to Episode One. This came about because the powers that be decided to cut down The Dominators from six to five episodes (with good reason). However, The Mind Robber as written did not lend itself to the kind of padding normally used (which is partially why the flow of the narrative is so good in my opinion). So they lifted the barest bit of the introduction and set about to expand that, while having no additional budget for sets. That forced the action to be confined to the TARDIS and a white soundstage with robots they had intended to use later in the story. It is very weird but it works in its offputting way. In many ways, it reminds me a bit of Episode One of The Edge of Destruction where you have stuff happening that makes no sense whatsoever but has a bit of an edge that is both creepy and enjoyable. It does stick out a bit because there is such a contrast of style between Episode One and the rest but at the same time, it also works within the context. It really is an excellent bit of improvisation.

If there is a complaint to be made about this story other than the "out there"-ness of the storyline, it is the limitations to the set and costumes. If you're used to that sixties, trying but still looks fake effect, this story won't bother you. But it would be remiss not to mention it. The forest of letters does look like a sound stage, Medusa is clearly a stop-motion effect and the Karkus is clearing wearing a rubber muscle suit. The robots and tin soldiers are also of the large, clunky costumed men-in-suits that are hallmarks of the Second Doctor era. Still, for me, I don't see anything that I'm not used to and some of the effects are actually pretty good with what was available at the time. I also find that for whatever reason, I have a higher tolerance and more forgiveness for these type of practical effects attempts than I do for things in the Eighties. I think that has to do with the quality of the cameras which make things too obvious in their fakery whereas the Sixties cameras hid the limitations better.

I am not an overwhelming literary personality, but I do love the intricacy of puzzles and "what is reality" stories. This storyline, whether fueled by "additional substances" or not, hits all the right spots for my enjoyment. It is weird but not so weird as to be unintelligible. It is well acted and fairly well directed. The sets and costumes, while limited, do their job well enough not to detract from the overall story. I can understand that some people wouldn't like this story and it might go over the head of younger viewers, but this is just a grand bit of entertainment for me and I'd happily pull this off the shelf to watch a third or fourth time if given the chance.

Overall personal score: 5 out of 5

The Creature From The Pit

Adrasta: We call it "The Pit"
Doctor: Ah, you have such a way with words.

I've heard very little about this story other than the creature is supposed to be one of the casualties of the lowering of the budget. I've also heard that one of the by-products of this shortfall is that one of the results of this is that a certain portion of the creature ends up looking a bit "naughty" and that the mind can get rather dirty with this one. I know it's not generally regarded well but at the same time, it's not openly derided the way some others are, so I'm curious to see how this one falls.

Plot Summary

Romana is cleaning out some of the storage areas of the TARDIS and comes across a distress beacon receiver. The Doctor had removed it as it was used by the Time Lords to summon him back too often for his taste. Romana reinstalls it and the TARDIS lurches forward and lands in the middle of a jungle.

They step out to explore and come across a living, metallic structure. The Doctor determines that it is the source of the distress signal and that it is likely the shell of an egg. While examining it, the Doctor is attacked by rolling plants called wolfweeds. They are called off but the Doctor and Romana are taken captive by the caravan escorting Karela, minister to Lady Adrasta, the ruler of the land.

While in route to Adrasta's palace, they are ambushed by bandits who steal several metal objects and take Romana captive. Karela orders the caravan onward while the huntsman sends the wolfweeds out to track the bandits. The bandits take Romana back to their lair where they have a vote on whether to kill her or not. Romana however imposes her will on the bandits, making them untie her and summoning K-9 with a dog whistle. K-9 arrives stuns the head bandit, Torvin. Romana then leaves with K-9 while the others watch her go.

The Doctor and the caravan arrive at the palace where Adrasta welcomes the Doctor. She hears his theories about the structure and then introduces him to two of her own scientists, Tollund and Doran. Interrogating the Doctor about his thoughts, she then turns on Doran for not reaching conclusions like the Doctor. She orders him arrested and then the whole group heads into the jungle.

They arrive at a pit and Doran is thrown in where he is attacked by a glowing creature. Adrasta threatens to throw the Doctor in if he does not tell her everything he knows. Before he can answer, Romana and K-9 appear. Adrasta orders a guard to seize her but K-9 stuns him, causing him to fall into the pit. The wolfweeds attack K-9. He destroys a couple of them but they swarm him, rendering him inert. Another guard seizes Romana and she becomes Adrasta's new bargaining chip. Caught in the situation, the Doctor grabs the bucket rope and leaps down into the pit.

The Doctor grabs a ledge just below the surface, intending to climb out once Adrasta has left. Adrasta seizes Romana and orders her and K-9 to be taken back to the palace. She then kicks dirt into the pit which gets in the Doctor's eyes. He loses his balance and falls into the pit. At the bottom, he finds Doran and the guard who was stunned by K-9 dead. The Doctor then explores the tunnels, seeing a glowing green tendril extend down one passage.

The Doctor is grabbed and hushed by a man named Organon who leads him back to his cave. Organon reveals that he was an astrologer who made a prediction that Adrasta didn't like. He managed to avoid the creature and has hidden himself away. The conversation between the two attracts the attention of the creature and it sticks a tendril in the cave. Organon and the Doctor press themselves against a wall and Organon holds a candle under the tendril and the creature retreats from the flame. Curious, the Doctor follows.

Back at the palace, Adrasta interrogates Romana about both the egg shell and the TARDIS. Upon learning about the TARDIS, she plans to take it and make herself more powerful. Romana convinces Adrasta that K-9 is the only one who can operate the TARDIS and she is the only one who can control K-9, making themselves useful to her. Romana cleans K-9 and tries to use him to escape, managing to stun several guards. However, another guard seizes Romana and threatens to kill her unless K-9 stops.

With the potential power of the TARDIS in her grasp, Adrasta decides to destroy the creature in the pit as it will no longer be needed. Adrasta has had a heavily secured door put into the palace that connects it to the mine where the creature lives. Romana, under guard, goes first along with K-9, while she and Karela bring up the rear.

In the cave, the Doctor and Organon find the creature and the Doctor goes up to try and communicate with it. The creature extends a tendril, nearly smothering the Doctor. Two of Adrasta's guards rush in, startling the creature and it knocks the guards back, along with Organon, through the tunnel opening and seals it with a strange material.

The Doctor gets up and follows the creature, finding it hiding in a further recess. He attempts to communicate with it and show that he is friendly. The creature seems to accept the Doctor and also tries to communicate by drawing a picture of a piece of metal with a symbol similar to one hanging in Adrasta's throne room. He also sees the symbol on bits of metal left behind by the creature. He promises to try and get the object from Adrasta's throne room and slips back up the tunnel.

The thieves become convinced that with Romana's depature, Adrasta will be sending out her guard to find them. Torvin suggests they raid Adrasta's palace for metal since most of the guards are out. They do find most guards gone, but they are down in the mines, not looking for the bandits. They kill two guards and raid the throne room of metal, including the object the creature wanted, which has now started to glow. An alarm is sounded and more guards come, causing the bandits to retreat into the mines.

Adrasta comes upon Organon and her two guards trying to open the passage. She orders K-9 to shoot through the barrier. He fires on the blockage but is unable to cut through as the material regenerates itself when damaged. They ponder how to break through when the Doctor knocks the barrier down with an easy push, owing to the creature letting him go. Adrasta immediately seizes him and orders guards down the passage to find the creature.

In the tunnels, the bandits examine their haul. Torvin is especially drawn to the large object which is starting to glow once more. It glows stronger and he and another bandit named Edu become entranced. They pick the disk up and carry it through the mines towards the creature.

The guards return, having been unable to find the creature. She prepares to send them back and is intent on having K-9 kill the creature. To conserve power, Romana has picked up K-9, allowing him to recharge. The Doctor slips out a shiny pieces of metal he took from the creature's cave and orders K-9 to shoot. K-9's laser reflects off the metal, knocking out a guard. He shoots down two others, leaving Adrasta alone. The creature then comes down the passage, seeming to be in a fury. She grabs a knife and holds it to the Doctor's neck, ordering Romana to have K-9 shoot it.

Before Romana can react, Torvin and Edu arrive, carrying the glowing disk, which they give to the creature. Distracted, the Doctor disarms Adrasta and then approaches the creature. By touching the disk, the creature can communicate using the holder's voice. It reveals that it's name is Erato and it came to Cloros fifteen years ago as an ambassador for the Typhonians, offering to trade metal for chlorophyll, which the Typhonians feed upon. Adrasta trapped Erato into the pit to keep her monopoly on metal.

Adrasta denies the story but her guards don't believe her. They force her hand on the plate and Erato confirms the story using Adrasta's voice. Angered, the head of the guard sics the wolfweeds on Adrasta. Erato then lurches forward and eats the wolfweeds, it's first real meal in fifteen years, but also crushes Adrasta in the process. The Doctor orders the head of the guard to get the engineers and hoist Erato out of the pit.

Back at the palace, the Doctor reveals to Romana that he suspects Erato of concealing something and has stolen the drive system of his ship to ensure his cooperation. Erato comes to the palace and confirms that because of his distress call, his people have assumed that Cloros has declared war. In response, they have launched a neutron star at the sun of Cloros that will destroy the it and the planet. The Doctor discovers that Erato can weave aluminum with it's body, as that is how it intends to rebuild his ship and the Doctor convinces Erato to help move the neutron star on a different path.

The Doctor goes to recover the photon drive, which he left with Organon, but finds Organon knocked out and the drive stolen. The drive was stolen by Torvin and his men to ensure their wealth. However, Torvin is killed by Karela and she moves to take over the band, having hidden the drive. The Doctor arrives and has K-9 destroy the collected metal. With the wealth gone, Karela give the drive back.

With Erato's ship rebuilt, the Doctor, Romana and K-9 follow it out to the neutron star in the TARDIS. The Doctor extends a gravity field around the star while Erato weaves an aluminum shell around it. The shell allows the Doctor's gravity field to get proper conductance on the star to move it, but the console fuses and the gravity beam pulls the star directly at the TARDIS. The Doctor dematerializes, disengaging the beam and the neutron star heads away from the Clorosian sun.

Erato continues back to Typhon and the Doctor returns to Cloros with a full trade treaty. He gives it to the head guardsman who has become the new administrator with Organon as his advisor. The Doctor and Romana then disappear in the TARDIS.

Analysis

I think disappointing is the best way to describe this story. Episode One kicks off with a high joke density, some nice repartee between the Doctor, Romana and other characters, and also some nice camera work. Unfortunately, it goes downhill from there. The budget limitations start to show and the script loses it's comedic edge. The acting also starts to decline, especially from Adrasta, who goes from having a villainous edge to just beyond over-the-top. This does not even factor in the complete and totally random filler that is Episode Four.

Both the Doctor and Romana aren't too bad in this, although the heavy hand of Douglas Adams is very evident, especially in Episode One where there are a lot of puny jokes being tossed back and forth between them. But those jokes go away pretty much after the Doctor hops into the pit. Instead you get the Doctor being a bit silly with Organon, although they do have a nice play between them and then a few jokes between him and Romana in Episode Four when they are reunited. But nothing really stands out in between that. This story is clearly meant to be a comedy, but the comedy seems to go away after Episode One and what is left doesn't elicit much laughter.

Organon is an unfortunate waste of a character. I looked up the actor and found out that he had actually been offered the role of the Doctor at one point and I think he would have made a decent one. Organon keeps up a bit of the comedy and he has a nice relationship with the Doctor. In fact, I think you could easily have made a buddy story involving the two of them and it probably would have been more entertaining than this story. It's such a shame that after about halfway through Episode Two, Organon is sidelined and is nothing more than a random interjection here and there.

Adrasta is also such a terrible waste of a villain. She starts off well and while she is just a hair shy of mustache twirling, she is still enjoyable as a villain up until Episode Three. After that, she loses her wit and starts becoming just bossy and angry. It all really falls apart at the Episode Three cliffhanger where she goes wayyyyyy over the top in her hysterical screaming about Erato going to kill her, for which is actually right. But why is the fate of the villain given to the cliffhanger? That makes no sense as we would actually want the villain to be in peril and eventually defeated.

But for all the problems of the first three episodes, they do make a somewhat passible story. I get can get by some of the bad acting and shoddy effects (including those that have slight sexual overtones) because there are good moments and it runs fairly smoothly in terms of pacing and character development. Where the poop really hits the fan is in Episode Four which is nothing but nearly twenty minutes of nonsensical filler.

As poor a turn as she took at the end of Episode Three, Adrasta was clearly an engaging villain. However, she is killed off in the first five minutes of Episode Four leaving nearly a full episode where a random peril has to be raised. Thus we are given the new problem of Erato's people deciding to destroy the planet and a runaround to repair Erato's ship so the problem can be dealt with. This is the sort of extra conflict that would have popped up in the First Doctor era, but there it would have placed in a six-part story where extra conflict would have been needed. Here, it's blatantly bad padding.

What makes this padding even worse is how little sense it makes. Erato's ship has been sending a distress signal for fifteen years. So rather than investigate it, his people automatically assume that war has been declared? What's more, how does Erato know this? He either senses it or has been in contact with his people and found they have launched an unstoppable attack. That's rather stupid given that one of their own people is still on the planet. They are needless condemning one of their own to death over a distress signal.

Even worse is the nature of attack. Erato states that they are running out of food on Typhon. So why are they launching an attack that will completely destroy the planet which has more food than they could want? If they believe that Cloros has declared war, why not send an invasion fleet. They know that without metal the Clorosians have no advanced technology and could be beaten easily in a fight. They could have conquered and colonized the planet without much of a second thought, getting revenge and assuring themselves of abundant food. Instead, they are going to burn the lot? Even within the story this makes no sense.

Even the Doctor and Romana's attempts at banter in Episode Four fall flat. While they came off as playful and easy in Episode One, they seem forced and out of place in Episode Four. It's like they are trying to return the story to a proper comedy but know it's a hopeless cause. In a way, their banter makes things worse because playing it straight would have at least added to the dramatic tension (miniscule as it was).

In so many ways, this story was such a let down. I think I could have actually forgiven it some if it had been bad from the start. But you are given some real potential in Episode One and even into Episode Two with fairly interesting characters, decent atmosphere and some proper wit between the Doctor, Romana and the rest of the cast. But it goes downhill so fast and then to have the turd that is Episode Four to round it out just leaves a bad taste in the mouth. Episode One would be interesting to watch it isolation as it makes for an interesting set up and is worth a look at. But I would not recommend the rest of the story to anyone. It's just not good and such a follow on disappointment.

Overall personal score: 1 out of 5

Carnival of Monsters

Jo: Do you ever admit that you are wrong?
Doctor: No, that would be impossible too.

If you were to stack the six stories Robert Holmes wrote prior to his becoming script editor, Carnival of Monsters would be neck and neck with Spearhead from Space as the fan favorite. When I first ran through a bunch of classic episodes that were available on Netflix, I think this was the first one that really grabbed my attention in that fun sciency-action sort of way. Going back a second time gives a better insight into the wit of the story that can easily be missed the first time around.

Plot Summary

On the planet Inter Minor, a spacecraft lands and is unloaded by the local workers, called functionaries. Their work is overseen by officials, Orem and Kalik, who also oversee the approval of visitation visas. Getting off the ship are two entertainers, Vorg and his assistant Shirna and a piece of equipment called a miniscope. As they set up, preparing to entertain the workers, a fault light lights up on the miniscope.

Meanwhile, the Doctor and Jo, attempting to head to Metebelis 3, land in the hold of a cargo ship. Jo is convinced the Doctor has made a goof and they've gone into the past. The Doctor, believing himself to be better than that, is convinced that something else is going on. They sneak around the ship and eventually spot two passengers, Major Daly and his daughter Claire. Claire is taken for a walk around the deck by the second officer, Lt. Andrews, while the Major attempts to read a book, but dozes off instead.

Jo swipes the Major's newspaper to find that it is 1926 but the Doctor still suspects something odd. They are about to leave the room when a plesiosaur surfaces, causing Andrews and Claire to retreat into the cabin and the crew to arm themselves. Andrews runs out to help while the Major comforts Claire. The Doctor and Jo try to sneak out but are spotted. They try to pass themselves as passengers but Andrews returns and notes them as stowaways.

Andrews takes the Doctor and Jo below deck to lock them in Major Daly's cabin while he consults with the captain. In the hall just outside Daly's cabin, the Doctor spots a metal plate that is out of place. He asks Andrews about it but Andrews insists there is nothing there. He locks them in the cabin where the Doctor notes the name of the ship, the SS Bernice, and the date on a calendar Daly has been marking off.

Back on Inter Minor, the two officials are joined by a third, Pletrac, bringing word of new laws being considered by President Zarb. He observes Vorg and Shirna setting up and is taken aback by them revealing themselves as entertainers. Entertainment is forbidden on Inter Minor as a waste of resources but has received word that Zarb is considering overturning that law. The three officials vote but decide 2-1 to deny visas. Vorg appeals, claiming to have license from Zarb, although a completely different Zarb. Pletrac takes the credentials to consider the matter.

The Doctor reveals to Jo that the Bernice went missing on that particular day marked on Daly's calendar. Jo also notes that the clocks have jumped backwards so that something strange is definitely happening. Jo produces a set of skeleton keys and they escape the cabin. The Doctor examines the plate which is made of an alien metal and secured with high technology. He needs equipment from the TARDIS to open it.

The Doctor and Jo sneak back to the lounge where Major Daly, Claire and Andrews are repeating the events from earlier. They wait for the plesiosaur to surface and Andrews to lead the men after it, then slip away when Claire and the Major are not looking. They get back to the TARDIS where the Doctor heads in to gather the equipment. Jo cries out and the Doctor exits to see what is the matter. As he does so, a giant hand reaches in and pulls the TARDIS out of the cabin. The Doctor and Jo head back above deck to try and get to the access plate.

Vorg pulls the miniaturized TARDIS out and sets it in a storage cubby within the machine. His actions peak the curiosity of Orem and Kalik and Vorg gives them a demonstration. He flashes through the different areas of the machine showing humans (whom he calls Tellurians), Ogrons and Drashigs. He comes back to the boat just as the plesiosaur attacks. The Doctor and Jo duck back into the lounge and are spotted by Major Daly. The Doctor tests him and finds that Major Daly has no memory of their earlier encounter, even when the Doctor uses the same excuses.

Vorg gives an extra demonstration by turning up the aggression levels. This causes Lt. Andrews to fight the Doctor though the Doctor is able to knock him down. He and Jo run off and Andrews fires his rifle at them. As the Doctor and Jo run back below, Andrews gathers the crew and chases after them. He catches them as the Doctor has nearly unsealed the plate. Vorg then turns the aggression down and Andrews and his men withdraw. The Doctor and Jo finish undoing the plate and drop down into the circuits of the miniscope.

Pletrac returns informing Vorg that his papers are fraudulent. After hearing about the creatures in the miniscope, the officials decide to have the scope destroyed and bring in an eradicator ray. Despite Vorg's protests, they fire at the machine. The machine smokes and heats up, cooking the Doctor and Jo a bit, but remains undamaged. Vorg goes over to inspect the machine and nearly spears the Doctor when trying to repair the visualizer.

The officials panic over the failure of their weapons and fear that Vorg and Shirna may be spies with superior technology. They threaten Vorg and look over the machine, pulling out the TARDIS. Once free of the compression field, the TARDIS expands to it's normal size. Shirna correctly guesses that the TARDIS is the transport for the Doctor and Jo, the two humans she recognizes as new to the habitat.

A fault light comes on and when Vorg investigates, he finds the Doctor and Jo have gotten into the Drashig habitat. The Doctor and Jo explore, looking for a way out when a Drashig appears up out of the ground. It initially misses their scent, but it picks it up as they head back towards the cave. Jo gets stuck in the mire and the Doctor buys a short amount of time by igniting the marsh gas. The Drashig's get their scent and advance as he tries to pull her out. Watching, Kalik suggest Vorg intervene and he reluctantly sticks his hand, distracting the Drashigs long enough for Jo and the Doctor to get back through the cave and into the guts of the machine.

Unfortunately, the Drashigs keep on their scent and burst through the containment walls of their pen. They chase the Doctor and Jo through the guts of the miniscope but the Doctor buys time by cutting through passages too narrow for the Drashigs. They come upon a deep shaft that looks like the way out but they decide they need rope to get down. As they have come back near the Earth container, they sneak back in there to find rope.

Pletrac heads back to see President Zaab to get permission to send everything off planet rather than just Vorg and Shirna as regulation demands. Kalik informs Orem that he is hoping that the Drashigs escape and attack the city. The resulting damage will weaken support for Zaab's policies of bringing in entertainments to quell the functionary uprisings and he, as Zaab's brother, will move to replace him as president.

The Doctor and Jo find rope in the hold but are forced to hide when Andrews and Major Daly enter, having heard the Drashig's roar. Jo is spotted and taken up to the lounge. After they leave, a Drashig bursts through the wall and nearly eats the Doctor. But it only knocks him down to a place it can't get to. It pulls through and bursts up through the hull of the ship. Andrews and the crew grab rifles while Major Daly takes a tommy gun. The bullets drive it back down while Andrews goes back to the hold for dynamite.

The Doctor comes too as Andrews finds and ignites the dynamite. He hurls it through the hole and it explodes, killing the Drashig. It also damages the scope and power begins to fail throughout the device. Believing Jo safe, the Doctor hurries through the hole and rappels down the shaft he and Jo found earlier.

Back on the boat, Jo is astonished that not ten minutes after the Drashig attack, everyone has gone back to their normal routine. They don't even notice her sitting in the lounge until she speaks up. However, her prompting seems to jog vague memories in Claire.

Pletrac returns with permission to expel all things, including the TARDIS. However, as they approach the Doctor emerges from a panel at the base of the miniscope. Pletrac believes the Doctor should be eradicated but Kalik and Orem outvote him. The Doctor interrupts their discussions with questions about where he is and who owns the miniscope. Pletrac is flustered and blames Vorg. Vorg in turn downplays it, admitting that he won the machine while gambling.

Their arguing over responsibility is cut short by Shrina reminding them that the power is failing. The Doctor steps in and decides to hook the miniscope up to the TARDIS. That would provide sufficient power to keep the machine going a bit longer and, when a secondary circuit is activated, would send all the creatures within back to their points of origin.

While Pletrac is distracted, Kalik has Orem remove a vital part from the eradicator gun. Orem places it in Vorg's bag to ensure they will not be blamed if something goes wrong. Kalik notices that one of the panels is bulging as the Drashigs try to get through. He sends Orem to keep Pletrac distracted while he loosens the panel to let the Drashigs out.

On the ship, Jo is captured once again while trying to get down into the hold. Andrews takes her to the Major's cabin and locks her in for a second time. She then pulls out her keys and unlocks the door and resneaks back to the hold.

Fishing for some of the miniscope parts, Vorg finds the missing piece of the eradicator, very much like the gun he used while in the army. He pockets it as the Doctor give instructions. He activates the first circuit which transports the Doctor back into the miniscope to get Jo. After a few minutes Vorg is to activate the second circuit which will return everyone to their origins. The Doctor activates the circuit and disappears. Pletrac, not understanding what is happening, thinks something sinister is afoot and fires his stun gun, damaging the Doctor's machine. Shrina stops him and Vorg immediately tries to repair the damage.

Vorg makes some progress, but before he can finish, Kalik succeeds in loosing the panel and two Drashigs pop out. They grow to their normal size and immediately attack. Kalik, caught off guard by their size and ferocity is attacked and eaten while Orem runs away. Pletrac tries to fire the eradicator but finds it won't work and also runs. Vorg seizes the gun and installs the missing component. He shoots down one Drashig and then kills a second that had cornered Pletrac.

In the miniscope, the Doctor finds Jo climbing out of the hold through the hold the Drashigs made. They make their way back but collapse, as do all the creatures in their various circuits, as the life support systems in the miniscope begin to fail.

With the Drashigs killed, Vorg returns to the machine and activates the second circuit before the power fails completely. The machine activates and all the creatures disappear, with Jo and the Doctor appearing just outside the miniscope. This includes the S.S. Bernice returning to the Indian Ocean where Major Daly finishes his book and marking the day as complete, with his daughter having a vague feeling of much time passing.

With the miniscope destroyed, Vorg sets about recouping some money by challenging Pletrac to a shell game, which Pletrac easily falls for. Amused, the Doctor and Jo depart, determined to get to Metebelis 3.

Analysis

I think the only people that don't like this story are those folks who get hung up on the limitations of production due to lack of money or technology. Admittedly, there are some limitations in that regard. But overall, this is an excellent story and a fun one to go along with.

The Doctor is enjoyable as always in his pompous way, but what really stands out well in this story is his interaction with Jo. There is no real condescension their interaction and she gives just as good as he does. Both depend on each other and they each bring different perspectives to help solve the ultimate problem of where they are and how to resolve it. About the only instance where Jo falls into the "needing saving" role is when she gets stuck in the mire with the Drashigs. But that is counterbalanced by her supplying the keys that allow them to escape the ship, which she does both with the Doctor and without. Also, unlike the Doctor, she takes an active role in trying to awaken the ship's passengers to the nature of their plight. Even if it doesn't work, it displays more practical compassion than the Doctor does for all his lobbying to ban miniscopes.

As enjoyable as the Doctor and Jo are, the true strength of this story is in the secondary cast. The Doctor and Jo do effectively nothing in Episode Two other than wander around and get attacked by the Drashigs. So the driving interest in the plot is taken up by team of Vorg and Shrina and the three-way between Kalik, Orem and Pletrac. All are quite good though I think I find Pletrac the most amusing as he is the most stereotypical of all the bureaucrats. I can't help but be amused that Kalik, the plotting one, is played by the same actor who would go on to play the original Davros. It is rather fitting. But the interaction between him and Orem and their tag team efforts against Pletrac to try and gain power is also quite amusing.

Vorg himself is also quite amusing. Shrina is a little bland but a showman's assistant would be expected to be more about the visuals than the substance. Still, she is the most compassionate of all of them, taking the time to actually notice the appearance of the Doctor and Jo and petitioning Vorg in help them out when threatened by the Drashigs. Vorg is that loveable rogue where you know that he is a conman and a thief but you can't help but like him. It helps that despite his protestations of cowardice and self interest, he does go out of his way to help the Doctor as well as actively working to stop the Drashigs rather than just running in terror. You can easily tell how he is living in a bit of nostalgia about his army days when using the eradicator gun against the Drashigs and that just makes him more interesting and relatable.

Speaking of the Drashigs, you will get a bit of a mixed opinion of them amongst fans. Some deride them as obvious hand puppets while others laud them as some of the scariest monsters that have ever appeared on the show. I'm not sure if they are the scariest monsters I've ever seen but I would lean more towards scary than silly. For what they are, they do a good job of displaying menace and both the Doctor and Jo's reaction to them does a good job in expressing that. My only real caveat about them is that they seem somewhat selective about what they can and cannot break through. We are shown several times where they burst through metal walls without difficulty. However, the Doctor and Jo are able to get distance between themselves and them due to taking smaller passageways which the Drashigs opt not to burst through, despite their obvious ability to do so. Also, how did the Doctor make his way out of a panel in the base of the miniscope if the Drashigs couldn't burst their way through and needed the help of Kalik to get out?

The crew of the ship was pretty good as well, doing a decent job of people either in a time loop or in a goldfish bowl. Even though there is limited time and they are constantly repeating the same actions, you get a sense of who these people are and are interested in their welfare. Enough so that it is highly amusing to see Major Daly taking on a Drashig with a Tommy gun and also satisfying to see Daly and Claire finally advance out of that day once they are returned to Earth.

I thought the production of this story was pretty good as well. There are a few blatant CSO moments, especially with the Drashigs but those are in line with the times and not so bad as to distract from the action. The makeup on the bureaucrats is a little shoddy, but again, not so bad as to be distracting. I actually found Vorg and Shrina's costumes to be amusing and fitting with that crazy showman style that you might expect from a couple of hucksters. All of these are things that you sort of expect given the knowledge of the budget and the limits of 70's technology.

Overall, I think this is a very good story. It's well written, fairly well directed and well acted. More importantly, it zips along and even though the Doctor and Jo are not really in the story for lengthy stretches, you get invested enough in the secondary characters that you still enjoy the story. This is an easy story to go back to and watch multiple times and would also make for a pretty good story to introduce someone to the Third Doctor to, if not Doctor Who in general.

Overall personal score: 4.5 out of 5