The First Doctor is obviously a monumental figure for the show as he took the role as defined in it's early form and morphed with it as it moved more towards the show it later became. For this, William Hartnell is given a good deal of credit. Despite this, he is also one of the least popular Doctors due to the perceived "boring" nature of some of his stories. Given how many there were, I think it's impossible not to have some of them be duds as every Doctor has a dud story here and there.
For me personally, I like the First Doctor era, although it has it's slow periods. I think the thing to say about it more than anything else is consistency. When looking over my personal ratings for this era, I noticed that I only had a few stories that dropped into the dud range but I also only had a few stories that got into the high range as well. Most of the stories stayed pretty firmly in the more average range and that seems to fit with the First Doctor. He's competent and his stories are generally entertaining, but often there is nothing that jumps out at you as being particularly noteworthy or catching. Or if you have a story that does have some really good moments, it's tempered with some bad moments as well.
Black and White Doctor Who is a completely different animal than most people are used to. I had my own shock the first time I saw a First Doctor story. It takes a little time to get used to the slower pace and that much of the dynamic action is not done by the Doctor but by the male companion (Ian, Steven or Ben). Yet there is a quiet intelligence and dignity that also comes from the First Doctor that is enjoyable and some of the stories that were told were either entertaining in their own way or though provoking. I like how things progressed into putting the Doctor more front and center in the Second Doctor era, but nature of those stories did begin with the First Doctor, especially once he lost Ian and Barbara.
While I would not rate the First Doctor especially high, I think I like him and a number of his stories better than those of the later era. There is just something about his personality and his interaction with his companions that draws me in. Any problems that you can say about the First Doctor era could be applied in similar fashion to the later Doctor eras (with perhaps the exception of filming in a tiny studio). But the writing is usually good, the acting usually in good form and the limits of the technology can actually help things by covering some of the shortfalls in production. The First Doctor era might be considered a little slow by some but once a person understands the style they are getting in to, it can be a very enjoyable experiences and there is a lot of it to enjoy.
Highest Rated Story: The Time Meddler - 5.0
Lowest Rated Story: The Web Planet - 1.0
Average overall rating: 2.68
An Unearthly Child/100,000 B.C.
The Daleks
The Edge of Destruction
Marco Polo
The Keys of Marinus
The Aztecs
The Sensorites
The Reign of Terror
Planet of Giants
The Dalek Invasion of Earth
The Rescue
The Romans
The Web Planet
The Crusade
The Space Museum
The Chase
The Time Meddler
Galaxy 4
Mission to the Unknown
The Mythmakers
The Daleks' Master Plan: Ep. 1-6
The Daleks' Master Plan: Ep. 7
The Daleks' Master Plan: Ep. 8-12
The Massacre
The Ark
The Celestial Toymaker
The Gunfighters
The Savages
The War Machines
The Smugglers
The Tenth Planet
Thursday, September 28, 2017
Wednesday, September 27, 2017
The Aztecs
You can't change history, not one line!
The Aztecs is one of those stories that I set aside for special purpose. It was the second full story I ever saw after The Masque of Mandragora and it was quite jarring as I had only been exposed to pre-Romana Fourth Doctor stories at that point. You can imagine that going from those to the slow paced, full historical story where the Doctor takes a backseat to both Barbara and Ian was a real shock to the system. It didn't sit that well and I had a rather negative opinion of the story ever since. However, having gotten used to the style of the First Doctor stories, I wanted to give this one another chance and thought it fitting that I should close out the First Doctor with the first story of his that I ever saw.
Plot Summary
The TARDIS arrives in the tomb of an Aztec priest named Yetaxa. Susan examines the mummified body, takes a bracelet off and puts it on. Susan walks back to see the Doctor and Ian while Barbara passes through a hidden door. She is discovered by the priest Autloc who sees her bracelet and believes she is the manifestation of the goddess Yetaxa.
The Doctor, Susan and Ian find Barbara missing and go look for her. They pass through the same hidden door and find that it is a one way door, leaving them trapped outside the tomb and away from the TARDIS. They are also discovered by Autloc who takes them to Barbara. Autloc believes that Barbara has come to alleviate a drought that has plagued them and attends to her. His colleague, Tlotoxl, is more suspicious of them.
Barbara keeps Susan near her as a handmaiden while Ian the Doctor are free to go about the city. The Doctor is taken to the gardens where the older citizens relax and offer wisdom when asked. There the Doctor meets Cameca who knows the son of the man who built the tomb in which Yetaxa is buried. The Doctor asks to meet this man in hopes of finding an entrance back in.
Ian is taken and dressed as a warrior chief as he is the favored of Yetaxa. He is also introduced to Ixta, who will be his rival to decide who is to command the whole army. Tlotoxl informs both of them that they will hold down the man who is to be sacrificed to appease the rain god later that day. Ian then goes to the garden where he warns the Doctor of what is going to happen.
Concerned, the Doctor warns Ian to not interfere and then heads up to see Barbara and warn her to do the same. Horrified, Barbara decides to interfere in hopes that she can destroy this side of the Aztecs and keep their good qualities, potentially preserving them from destruction by the Spanish. She steps out and orders the sacrifice stopped before Tlotoxl can kill the man. Believing he has been dishonored, the sacrifice appeals to Tlotoxl who orders him to throw himself off the pyramid. As he does so, the rain begins to fall.
Angered at Susan's cry during the ceremony, Tlotoxl orders her punished. Barbara overrules him and orders Susan sent to be educated in the customs of the Aztecs. Tlotoxl then accuses Barbara of being a false goddess and vows to destroy her. The Doctor reproaches Barbara for her foolishness and then warns her to play Tlotoxl and Autloc off each other, which she does to buy time.
In the city below, Ian demonstrates cunning and superior knowledge by knocking out Ixta using only a pressure grip technique. Angered by this humiliation, Ixta and Tlotoxl plot revenge by having Ixta kill Ian in single combat. They arrange for the next man to be sacrificed to the gods to request the battle and his request cannot be refused by law. Ian agrees, thinking it will be a non-lethal fight.
Ixta, as the son of the man who built the tomb, is summoned by Cameca to speak with the Doctor. Having been warned by Tlotoxl, Ixta agrees to provide the Doctor with plans of the tomb after his fight. He warns the Doctor that if he loses, he will be shamed and not allowed to speak to anyone for days. The Doctor, unaware that the fight is against Ian, takes a cactus needle and punctures the stem of a plant with it. The sap coats the needle and the Doctor tells Ixta to simply poke his opponent with the needle in the wrist and he will become woozy, allowing Ixta to win easily.
The Doctor heads back to see Barbara, unaware that Tlotoxl had invoked solitude for Barbara during her godhood testing. Barbara warns the Doctor to leave but not before telling him that Ixta's fight is against Ian. The Doctor rushes to warn Ian but is arrested by Tlotoxl's men. Barbara appeals to Autloc who agrees to release him if he was ignorant.
Ian and Ixta begin their fight at sunset. Ian drops Ixta several times but he gets up to reengage. The Doctor is brought in by the guards and he shouts to Ian to warn him. Distracted, Ian lets his guard down, allowing Ixta to stab him with the tainted needle. Ixta gets the drop on a drugged Ian and prepares to kill him. Barbara enters and demands that the contest stop. Tlotoxl refuses and orders Ixta to kill Ian until Barbara takes a knife and holds it to Tlotoxl's throat. Barbara states that if Ian dies, so will Tlotoxl and he orders Ixta to relent.
Autloc orders the Doctor released and he and Barbara retire to the temple. Ixta crows over Ian as he wakes up and Ian reluctantly admits that Ixta's plan was cunning. Ixta claims Ian's friendship but also vows to ultimately kill him to claim mastery of the army. Ixta also informs Tlotoxl of his arrangement with the Doctor, which was a lie as his father left no plans of the temple. As Ixta and Ian walk away, Ian overhears Tlotoxl plotting with the master of herbs Tonila to test Barbara via poison as poison would not hurt a god. Ian gets away from Ixta and warns Barbara in the temple.
Ian hides as he is not supposed to be there when Tlotoxl and Tonila enter with a cup offering atonement and friendship. Ian signals silently for her not to drink it and she offers it to Tlotoxl first as a test of his loyalty to her. When he refuses, she tosses it aside and rebukes them. Tonila runs away but Tlotoxl cowers. Barbara then confesses to him that she is not Yetaxa but will continue to play so to protect herself and her friends. Tlotoxl flees and vows to get proof of her lack of divinity.
In the garden, the Doctor sees Cameca with some cocoa beans and offers to make them drinking chocolate. Cameca, pleased, agrees to his proposal. The Doctor returns with two cups of chocolate which they share. Cameca then thanks him for his proposal and the Doctor realizes that the act was that of a marriage proposal. Flustered by what he has accidentally done, the Doctor still manages to learn from Cameca that Ixta's father disappeared a number of years ago after finishing the temple. He later informs Ian that he believes that there is a secret passage from the garden to the tomb and has a guess as to where it is located. Ian agrees to come that night to investigate.
Knowing that Barbara is too cunning, Tlotoxl decides to use her friends against her. He takes the man who is to be sacrificed during the solar eclipse a couple of days from now and takes him to see Susan, who is being educated in the customs of the Aztecs. The sacrifice is impressed with her knowledge and beauty and agrees to take her as his wife for the next few days of his life. Susan balks and refuses. Offended, the sacrifice storms out and Susan is deemed guilty of breaking religious law and sentenced to be punished.
Tlotoxl and Tonila go to see Barbara where Barbara forgives Tonila of his attempt to poison her. They pose the question of punishment to her regarding one of Autloc's acolytes, not revealing that it is Susan. Horrified at the nature of the punishment, Barbara objects and orders the person brought to her during the sacrifice of the eclipse along with her three servants. Tlotoxl readily agrees. Afterwards, Barbara learns from Autloc that Susan is the guilty party and that her punishment is to be carried out before the sacrifice, thwarting her plan of showing that the sun will return after the eclipse without the sacrifice.
Ian slips out of the warrior's quarters at night to meet the Doctor. He is unaware that Ixta has also awoken and is following him. The Doctor shows Ian the panel and Ian manages to lift the stone, revealing a passage. Ian climbs in, taking the Doctor's penlight to explore the passage. Ixta surprises the Doctor and offers to help him replace the stone, which the Doctor claims to have discovered while out for a walk. Ixta informs him that the passage is a means to divert water and tunnel floods on occasion. As he replaces the stone, Ian notices the water rising in the tunnel.
Ian dislodges a stone with graffiti on it and climbs out of the rising water. He follows a passage and emerges from the bier in the tomb where the TARDIS has landed. He takes a thin decorative rope from the mummified body and ties it to the fulcrum of the trick door, allowing the door to be opened from the outside. He takes the other end of the rope and exits the tomb to meet Barbara and the Doctor, who is greatly relieved to see Ian alive.
Ian then sneaks down to the military quarters where Ixta is guarding Susan and boasting about killing Ian. Ian knocks him out and takes Susan back to Barbara. However, although Ian tied the rope well, it takes more strength than they have to lift it. The Doctor realizes they need a pulley but suggests that Ian just go back and reopen the tomb from the other side. He takes Susan as a lookout.
Ian and Susan reach the gardens but before they can move the stone, they find an unconscious Autloc having been attacked from behind with Ian's club. Ian and Susan are immediately arrested by Tlotoxl and Ixta, though Ixta actually attacked Autloc on Tlotoxl's orders, and Autloc proclaims Barbara a false goddess, giving Tlotoxl permission to have them punished before the eclipse ceremony.
Barbara appeals to Autloc once he has recovered, but his faith has been destroyed. He offers to try and save Susan but cannot do anything for Ian. He then goes to see Cameca, who has learned that the Doctor is planning to leave, though regretfully. She offers her help and Autloc gives her his badge of office and title to his possessions to help bribe the guard to free Susan. Autloc then leaves the city to wander in the wilderness to find his faith again.
On the day of the eclipse sacrifice Ian and Susan are taken to a waiting room. Cameca enters and offers the guard the badge to dismiss the guards which he does. She then informs him that she is to take Susan but Ian knocks the guard out while distracted. Susan and Cameca head up to the temple while Ian steals the guard's headdress and joins the sacrifice escort.
Cameca meets the Doctor in the temple where he is finishing a pulley he carved to open the door. He and Cameca say their goodbyes with the Doctor remaining stoic when Cameca asks if she could come with him. He and Susan hide when the guards come to escort Barbara for the sacrifice. Tlotoxl moves to kill Barbara but Ian comes from behind and pins Tlotoxl and his knife.
Tlotoxl calls for Ixta and he flees when Ian faces the new threat. Barbara retreats into the temple and the three of them use the pulley to start opening the door. Ian and Ixta fight with Ian eventually knocking Ixta off the temple, killing him. He then retreats through the door which the Doctor pulls shut, taking the pulley with them.
Tlotoxl moves to try and chase them but the eclipse reaches it's peak and he calls it off to perform the sacrifice, which he believes honors his victory over the false goddess. In the tomb, the Doctor comforts Barbara that the Aztec civilization must die as history says it did but that she did save Autloc from sharing that fate. They enter the TARDIS with the Doctor initially leaving the broach Cameca gave him but then changing his mind and taking it with him.
Analysis
The Aztecs was definitely much better a second time around, but it is still not without some issues. Some of those elements are just products of being a first season story (such as the city-scape backdrop), but there are a number of other things that are conscious choices by the actors or director and some of them just don't quite work.
One of the most basic things to discuss about this story is that it is one of the few stories where the bad guy wins. Tlotolx does not succeed in killing Barbara or Ian, but he does drive them away and Autloc retreats to the wilderness, leaving him free to replace Autloc with someone loyal to him. I think the villain of just about any story would be thrilled with that outcome. Of course, you also have to factor in that even though Tlotoxl is villainous in his actions, he is also right. He is right that Barbara is a false goddess and that she is wrong to try and change their culture via fiat. Distasteful as the Aztec practice of sacrifice may be to Barbara's modern sensibilities, it is still a vital component of their culture and to try and change it while leaving the other aspects alone will not work. If one changes, other changes will radiate outward. This might have been a touch more satisfying if Tlotoxl wasn't quite so sinister in his ways. If he merely moved to expose Barbara and preserve their culture, he would have been more understandable. But Tlotoxl does go out of his way to be as black a character as he can be.
Some of that comes from the take on Tlotoxl. I doubt he was fully written this way so there must have been some discussion between the director and the actor to turn him into Richard III. Tlotoxl even has a hump when none is ever called for so this was a clear choice made outside of the script. I'm of a mixed mind on it because while I enjoyed the performance for the most part, it did feed into one of my principle complaints about the overall story and that was it's treatment as a televised play.
Nearly every aspect of this story put this into more of a play dynamic rather than a regular television story. Tlotoxl has a breaking the fourth wall moment at the end of Episode One, he hams it up the way you would expect in a performance of Richard III and even the staging reminded me strongly of scene i to scene ii transition. Again, the backdrop didn't help much either, but I expected that level of limitation. Of course, they were still finding their feet, but a television story that does little things to remind you that this is staged takes me out of the action far more than it draws me in.
Like most early stories, Ian is front and center in this one. He is "man of action" the whole way and much of the plots and plans require his central involvement. Of course, he also draws a lot of the drama to himself as well. Ixta is an asshole but Ian also goes out of his way to constantly bait him. I'm actually not even sure why Ian constantly does draw attention since he should be trying to deflect attention from himself and Barbara as much as possible. Yet he shows off the ability to disable a man using pressure point techniques (which I doubt the British Army taught to it's National Service members) and also spends far too much time toying with Ixta rather than dispatching him immediately. In the fight at the end of Episode Two, Ian manages to drop Ixta several times, always letting him up to try again until he manages to sting Ian with the cactus needle. Ian, for showing off that technique, should have held Ixta down the first time he flipped him and knocked him out, ending the fight in thirty seconds. Yet it goes on so we can get the cliffhanger. I like Ian and he is important but this is probably the most arrogant and silly we've seen him so far and that is a bit out of character.
Barbara is also somewhat out of character, though she is clearly meant to be shown as empathetic. Still, Barbara is smart enough to know that one can't just cancel out one aspect of a culture and expect the "good side" flourish in the absence of the "bad side." What's more, even if she had succeeded, did she still expect that a flourishing culture would have resisted Cortez's invasion? This is drama to create drama and I don't believe that Barbara would have made such foolish decisions in a vacuum. Nevertheless, her performance is quite good and it allows the further development of the respectful relationship she has with the Doctor. Ian and Susan might have been highly berated by him, but although he does lecture, he does show more empathy towards her and talks softly in how they may work to fix the problem. I do also enjoy the performance she gives when she is in complete control of the situation and not held to any standards that might have affected her earlier situations.
The Doctor is actually rather pleasant in this one. Susan is taken away for two episodes and even when she is around, she is in either Ian or Barbara's company, leaving the Doctor to do as he likes. Despite his ulterior motives in trying to get access to the tomb and back to the TARDIS, his affection for Cameca seems genuine. His comedic reactions when finding out he has actually proposed marriage are quite funny and add some much needed levity to the story as everyone else is very serious. But it is still one of his most pleasant performances and although his involvement is less than future Doctors (as what caught me off guard the first time I saw it) he is still very much involved in the whole plot.
Susan was again the weakest of the group. Carole Ann Ford was on holiday for Episodes Two and Three so her two short scenes were filmed inserts. While she showed herself as independent, expressing the modern idea of choosing a partner for herself, she still went to pieces when confronted with a minor bit of resistance. It makes her whiney and she does effectively nothing in the plan to get back into the tomb. She actually is a liability since it is her punishment for expressing the modern ideas that draw Barbara further into Tlotoxl's plans to destroy her. Once again, the story would have been better without her.
The direction was pretty decent although the lack of space in the studio becomes apparent in the fight scenes, especially the one at the end of Episode Two. But aside from the problem with the fight scene, the pace and manner of the direction was pretty good. Again, there were those play moments, such as the fourth wall break at the end of Episode One, but even with that in mind, there was nothing that I caught as being a problem.
Overall, I'd say this was pretty decent but with some small flaws. It is a bit slow to get started but once the plan to get back into the tomb is set in motion towards the end of Episode Two, the story rolls along and draws you in. Unlike other stories, the end doesn't feel rushed and that is appreciated. So it's only real limitations is the play-like aspect and the somewhat unsatisfying feeling of Tlotoxl winning. Even though it's necessary, Tlotoxl getting some level of comeuppance would have been satisfying. Yes Ixta's death felt satisfying, but a setback for Tlotoxl would have felt better. Perhaps if it were clearer that Cortez would be landing in a short span of time and that Tlotoxl would be destroyed through him, that would have sat better, but it's unfortunately vague on how soon it will be before the Spanish invade. So I think I can say that it's a decent story, but not fully satisfying at times.
Overall personal score: 3 out of 5
The Aztecs is one of those stories that I set aside for special purpose. It was the second full story I ever saw after The Masque of Mandragora and it was quite jarring as I had only been exposed to pre-Romana Fourth Doctor stories at that point. You can imagine that going from those to the slow paced, full historical story where the Doctor takes a backseat to both Barbara and Ian was a real shock to the system. It didn't sit that well and I had a rather negative opinion of the story ever since. However, having gotten used to the style of the First Doctor stories, I wanted to give this one another chance and thought it fitting that I should close out the First Doctor with the first story of his that I ever saw.
Plot Summary
The TARDIS arrives in the tomb of an Aztec priest named Yetaxa. Susan examines the mummified body, takes a bracelet off and puts it on. Susan walks back to see the Doctor and Ian while Barbara passes through a hidden door. She is discovered by the priest Autloc who sees her bracelet and believes she is the manifestation of the goddess Yetaxa.
The Doctor, Susan and Ian find Barbara missing and go look for her. They pass through the same hidden door and find that it is a one way door, leaving them trapped outside the tomb and away from the TARDIS. They are also discovered by Autloc who takes them to Barbara. Autloc believes that Barbara has come to alleviate a drought that has plagued them and attends to her. His colleague, Tlotoxl, is more suspicious of them.
Barbara keeps Susan near her as a handmaiden while Ian the Doctor are free to go about the city. The Doctor is taken to the gardens where the older citizens relax and offer wisdom when asked. There the Doctor meets Cameca who knows the son of the man who built the tomb in which Yetaxa is buried. The Doctor asks to meet this man in hopes of finding an entrance back in.
Ian is taken and dressed as a warrior chief as he is the favored of Yetaxa. He is also introduced to Ixta, who will be his rival to decide who is to command the whole army. Tlotoxl informs both of them that they will hold down the man who is to be sacrificed to appease the rain god later that day. Ian then goes to the garden where he warns the Doctor of what is going to happen.
Concerned, the Doctor warns Ian to not interfere and then heads up to see Barbara and warn her to do the same. Horrified, Barbara decides to interfere in hopes that she can destroy this side of the Aztecs and keep their good qualities, potentially preserving them from destruction by the Spanish. She steps out and orders the sacrifice stopped before Tlotoxl can kill the man. Believing he has been dishonored, the sacrifice appeals to Tlotoxl who orders him to throw himself off the pyramid. As he does so, the rain begins to fall.
Angered at Susan's cry during the ceremony, Tlotoxl orders her punished. Barbara overrules him and orders Susan sent to be educated in the customs of the Aztecs. Tlotoxl then accuses Barbara of being a false goddess and vows to destroy her. The Doctor reproaches Barbara for her foolishness and then warns her to play Tlotoxl and Autloc off each other, which she does to buy time.
In the city below, Ian demonstrates cunning and superior knowledge by knocking out Ixta using only a pressure grip technique. Angered by this humiliation, Ixta and Tlotoxl plot revenge by having Ixta kill Ian in single combat. They arrange for the next man to be sacrificed to the gods to request the battle and his request cannot be refused by law. Ian agrees, thinking it will be a non-lethal fight.
Ixta, as the son of the man who built the tomb, is summoned by Cameca to speak with the Doctor. Having been warned by Tlotoxl, Ixta agrees to provide the Doctor with plans of the tomb after his fight. He warns the Doctor that if he loses, he will be shamed and not allowed to speak to anyone for days. The Doctor, unaware that the fight is against Ian, takes a cactus needle and punctures the stem of a plant with it. The sap coats the needle and the Doctor tells Ixta to simply poke his opponent with the needle in the wrist and he will become woozy, allowing Ixta to win easily.
The Doctor heads back to see Barbara, unaware that Tlotoxl had invoked solitude for Barbara during her godhood testing. Barbara warns the Doctor to leave but not before telling him that Ixta's fight is against Ian. The Doctor rushes to warn Ian but is arrested by Tlotoxl's men. Barbara appeals to Autloc who agrees to release him if he was ignorant.
Ian and Ixta begin their fight at sunset. Ian drops Ixta several times but he gets up to reengage. The Doctor is brought in by the guards and he shouts to Ian to warn him. Distracted, Ian lets his guard down, allowing Ixta to stab him with the tainted needle. Ixta gets the drop on a drugged Ian and prepares to kill him. Barbara enters and demands that the contest stop. Tlotoxl refuses and orders Ixta to kill Ian until Barbara takes a knife and holds it to Tlotoxl's throat. Barbara states that if Ian dies, so will Tlotoxl and he orders Ixta to relent.
Autloc orders the Doctor released and he and Barbara retire to the temple. Ixta crows over Ian as he wakes up and Ian reluctantly admits that Ixta's plan was cunning. Ixta claims Ian's friendship but also vows to ultimately kill him to claim mastery of the army. Ixta also informs Tlotoxl of his arrangement with the Doctor, which was a lie as his father left no plans of the temple. As Ixta and Ian walk away, Ian overhears Tlotoxl plotting with the master of herbs Tonila to test Barbara via poison as poison would not hurt a god. Ian gets away from Ixta and warns Barbara in the temple.
Ian hides as he is not supposed to be there when Tlotoxl and Tonila enter with a cup offering atonement and friendship. Ian signals silently for her not to drink it and she offers it to Tlotoxl first as a test of his loyalty to her. When he refuses, she tosses it aside and rebukes them. Tonila runs away but Tlotoxl cowers. Barbara then confesses to him that she is not Yetaxa but will continue to play so to protect herself and her friends. Tlotoxl flees and vows to get proof of her lack of divinity.
In the garden, the Doctor sees Cameca with some cocoa beans and offers to make them drinking chocolate. Cameca, pleased, agrees to his proposal. The Doctor returns with two cups of chocolate which they share. Cameca then thanks him for his proposal and the Doctor realizes that the act was that of a marriage proposal. Flustered by what he has accidentally done, the Doctor still manages to learn from Cameca that Ixta's father disappeared a number of years ago after finishing the temple. He later informs Ian that he believes that there is a secret passage from the garden to the tomb and has a guess as to where it is located. Ian agrees to come that night to investigate.
Knowing that Barbara is too cunning, Tlotoxl decides to use her friends against her. He takes the man who is to be sacrificed during the solar eclipse a couple of days from now and takes him to see Susan, who is being educated in the customs of the Aztecs. The sacrifice is impressed with her knowledge and beauty and agrees to take her as his wife for the next few days of his life. Susan balks and refuses. Offended, the sacrifice storms out and Susan is deemed guilty of breaking religious law and sentenced to be punished.
Tlotoxl and Tonila go to see Barbara where Barbara forgives Tonila of his attempt to poison her. They pose the question of punishment to her regarding one of Autloc's acolytes, not revealing that it is Susan. Horrified at the nature of the punishment, Barbara objects and orders the person brought to her during the sacrifice of the eclipse along with her three servants. Tlotoxl readily agrees. Afterwards, Barbara learns from Autloc that Susan is the guilty party and that her punishment is to be carried out before the sacrifice, thwarting her plan of showing that the sun will return after the eclipse without the sacrifice.
Ian slips out of the warrior's quarters at night to meet the Doctor. He is unaware that Ixta has also awoken and is following him. The Doctor shows Ian the panel and Ian manages to lift the stone, revealing a passage. Ian climbs in, taking the Doctor's penlight to explore the passage. Ixta surprises the Doctor and offers to help him replace the stone, which the Doctor claims to have discovered while out for a walk. Ixta informs him that the passage is a means to divert water and tunnel floods on occasion. As he replaces the stone, Ian notices the water rising in the tunnel.
Ian dislodges a stone with graffiti on it and climbs out of the rising water. He follows a passage and emerges from the bier in the tomb where the TARDIS has landed. He takes a thin decorative rope from the mummified body and ties it to the fulcrum of the trick door, allowing the door to be opened from the outside. He takes the other end of the rope and exits the tomb to meet Barbara and the Doctor, who is greatly relieved to see Ian alive.
Ian then sneaks down to the military quarters where Ixta is guarding Susan and boasting about killing Ian. Ian knocks him out and takes Susan back to Barbara. However, although Ian tied the rope well, it takes more strength than they have to lift it. The Doctor realizes they need a pulley but suggests that Ian just go back and reopen the tomb from the other side. He takes Susan as a lookout.
Ian and Susan reach the gardens but before they can move the stone, they find an unconscious Autloc having been attacked from behind with Ian's club. Ian and Susan are immediately arrested by Tlotoxl and Ixta, though Ixta actually attacked Autloc on Tlotoxl's orders, and Autloc proclaims Barbara a false goddess, giving Tlotoxl permission to have them punished before the eclipse ceremony.
Barbara appeals to Autloc once he has recovered, but his faith has been destroyed. He offers to try and save Susan but cannot do anything for Ian. He then goes to see Cameca, who has learned that the Doctor is planning to leave, though regretfully. She offers her help and Autloc gives her his badge of office and title to his possessions to help bribe the guard to free Susan. Autloc then leaves the city to wander in the wilderness to find his faith again.
On the day of the eclipse sacrifice Ian and Susan are taken to a waiting room. Cameca enters and offers the guard the badge to dismiss the guards which he does. She then informs him that she is to take Susan but Ian knocks the guard out while distracted. Susan and Cameca head up to the temple while Ian steals the guard's headdress and joins the sacrifice escort.
Cameca meets the Doctor in the temple where he is finishing a pulley he carved to open the door. He and Cameca say their goodbyes with the Doctor remaining stoic when Cameca asks if she could come with him. He and Susan hide when the guards come to escort Barbara for the sacrifice. Tlotoxl moves to kill Barbara but Ian comes from behind and pins Tlotoxl and his knife.
Tlotoxl calls for Ixta and he flees when Ian faces the new threat. Barbara retreats into the temple and the three of them use the pulley to start opening the door. Ian and Ixta fight with Ian eventually knocking Ixta off the temple, killing him. He then retreats through the door which the Doctor pulls shut, taking the pulley with them.
Tlotoxl moves to try and chase them but the eclipse reaches it's peak and he calls it off to perform the sacrifice, which he believes honors his victory over the false goddess. In the tomb, the Doctor comforts Barbara that the Aztec civilization must die as history says it did but that she did save Autloc from sharing that fate. They enter the TARDIS with the Doctor initially leaving the broach Cameca gave him but then changing his mind and taking it with him.
Analysis
The Aztecs was definitely much better a second time around, but it is still not without some issues. Some of those elements are just products of being a first season story (such as the city-scape backdrop), but there are a number of other things that are conscious choices by the actors or director and some of them just don't quite work.
One of the most basic things to discuss about this story is that it is one of the few stories where the bad guy wins. Tlotolx does not succeed in killing Barbara or Ian, but he does drive them away and Autloc retreats to the wilderness, leaving him free to replace Autloc with someone loyal to him. I think the villain of just about any story would be thrilled with that outcome. Of course, you also have to factor in that even though Tlotoxl is villainous in his actions, he is also right. He is right that Barbara is a false goddess and that she is wrong to try and change their culture via fiat. Distasteful as the Aztec practice of sacrifice may be to Barbara's modern sensibilities, it is still a vital component of their culture and to try and change it while leaving the other aspects alone will not work. If one changes, other changes will radiate outward. This might have been a touch more satisfying if Tlotoxl wasn't quite so sinister in his ways. If he merely moved to expose Barbara and preserve their culture, he would have been more understandable. But Tlotoxl does go out of his way to be as black a character as he can be.
Some of that comes from the take on Tlotoxl. I doubt he was fully written this way so there must have been some discussion between the director and the actor to turn him into Richard III. Tlotoxl even has a hump when none is ever called for so this was a clear choice made outside of the script. I'm of a mixed mind on it because while I enjoyed the performance for the most part, it did feed into one of my principle complaints about the overall story and that was it's treatment as a televised play.
Nearly every aspect of this story put this into more of a play dynamic rather than a regular television story. Tlotoxl has a breaking the fourth wall moment at the end of Episode One, he hams it up the way you would expect in a performance of Richard III and even the staging reminded me strongly of scene i to scene ii transition. Again, the backdrop didn't help much either, but I expected that level of limitation. Of course, they were still finding their feet, but a television story that does little things to remind you that this is staged takes me out of the action far more than it draws me in.
Like most early stories, Ian is front and center in this one. He is "man of action" the whole way and much of the plots and plans require his central involvement. Of course, he also draws a lot of the drama to himself as well. Ixta is an asshole but Ian also goes out of his way to constantly bait him. I'm actually not even sure why Ian constantly does draw attention since he should be trying to deflect attention from himself and Barbara as much as possible. Yet he shows off the ability to disable a man using pressure point techniques (which I doubt the British Army taught to it's National Service members) and also spends far too much time toying with Ixta rather than dispatching him immediately. In the fight at the end of Episode Two, Ian manages to drop Ixta several times, always letting him up to try again until he manages to sting Ian with the cactus needle. Ian, for showing off that technique, should have held Ixta down the first time he flipped him and knocked him out, ending the fight in thirty seconds. Yet it goes on so we can get the cliffhanger. I like Ian and he is important but this is probably the most arrogant and silly we've seen him so far and that is a bit out of character.
Barbara is also somewhat out of character, though she is clearly meant to be shown as empathetic. Still, Barbara is smart enough to know that one can't just cancel out one aspect of a culture and expect the "good side" flourish in the absence of the "bad side." What's more, even if she had succeeded, did she still expect that a flourishing culture would have resisted Cortez's invasion? This is drama to create drama and I don't believe that Barbara would have made such foolish decisions in a vacuum. Nevertheless, her performance is quite good and it allows the further development of the respectful relationship she has with the Doctor. Ian and Susan might have been highly berated by him, but although he does lecture, he does show more empathy towards her and talks softly in how they may work to fix the problem. I do also enjoy the performance she gives when she is in complete control of the situation and not held to any standards that might have affected her earlier situations.
The Doctor is actually rather pleasant in this one. Susan is taken away for two episodes and even when she is around, she is in either Ian or Barbara's company, leaving the Doctor to do as he likes. Despite his ulterior motives in trying to get access to the tomb and back to the TARDIS, his affection for Cameca seems genuine. His comedic reactions when finding out he has actually proposed marriage are quite funny and add some much needed levity to the story as everyone else is very serious. But it is still one of his most pleasant performances and although his involvement is less than future Doctors (as what caught me off guard the first time I saw it) he is still very much involved in the whole plot.
Susan was again the weakest of the group. Carole Ann Ford was on holiday for Episodes Two and Three so her two short scenes were filmed inserts. While she showed herself as independent, expressing the modern idea of choosing a partner for herself, she still went to pieces when confronted with a minor bit of resistance. It makes her whiney and she does effectively nothing in the plan to get back into the tomb. She actually is a liability since it is her punishment for expressing the modern ideas that draw Barbara further into Tlotoxl's plans to destroy her. Once again, the story would have been better without her.
The direction was pretty decent although the lack of space in the studio becomes apparent in the fight scenes, especially the one at the end of Episode Two. But aside from the problem with the fight scene, the pace and manner of the direction was pretty good. Again, there were those play moments, such as the fourth wall break at the end of Episode One, but even with that in mind, there was nothing that I caught as being a problem.
Overall, I'd say this was pretty decent but with some small flaws. It is a bit slow to get started but once the plan to get back into the tomb is set in motion towards the end of Episode Two, the story rolls along and draws you in. Unlike other stories, the end doesn't feel rushed and that is appreciated. So it's only real limitations is the play-like aspect and the somewhat unsatisfying feeling of Tlotoxl winning. Even though it's necessary, Tlotoxl getting some level of comeuppance would have been satisfying. Yes Ixta's death felt satisfying, but a setback for Tlotoxl would have felt better. Perhaps if it were clearer that Cortez would be landing in a short span of time and that Tlotoxl would be destroyed through him, that would have sat better, but it's unfortunately vague on how soon it will be before the Spanish invade. So I think I can say that it's a decent story, but not fully satisfying at times.
Overall personal score: 3 out of 5
Saturday, September 23, 2017
Fifth Doctor Summary
For a lot of the podcasts and other fan interactive media that I partake in, the Fifth Doctor has a very nostalgic following. As someone who does not have that nostalgia bent, I think I have to take the unpopular opinion that the Fifth Doctor era is near the bottom of my list. There are some good stories and good performances, but the era overall suffers from a myriad of problems and a number are just the type that you can't hand wave away.
Peter Davidson himself has a very interesting take on the Doctor. He is the least confident and least in control Doctor of all of them. He also seems to be the one that makes a wrong guess or make the situation worse in the short term most often. That is not a unique trait (after all, how many times did the Third Doctor muck things up due to his arrogance) but it did seem to happen more often than not to the Fifth Doctor where he spends so much time dealing with a situation that could have been nipped in the bud at the beginning of the story.
He also seems to be the most empathetic of the Doctors. The Second Doctor was also caring but in that kindly uncle way. The Fifth Doctor seemed more like someone you could sit down and just be consoled with. He was kind and always looking for a way to solve a conflict without resorting to violence. It is rather ironic that his era became one of the bloodiest and bleakest eras.
One of the most telling things about the Fifth Doctor era is how the producers of the show were aware of one its worst flaws, but took no steps to address it. That is the companions. The Fifth Doctor was shown over and over again to be at his best when paired with an older person. Either sex did fine but being paired with older women seemed like the normal solution. But until Peter Davidson was cast, the Doctor had always been an older man and there was this idea that he should be a mentor figure to younger people. Even Romana, who carried herself as older, was played by actresses who were nearly 15 years younger than Tom Baker.
As such, there seemed to be this idea that the Doctor always had to be older than his companions. For the thirty year old Davidson, this idea meant traveling around with a bunch of teenagers and early 20-somethings. They also had the maturity of that age (and younger) which gave the show the feeling that the Doctor was babysitting rather than going out to explore and have adventures. Any story where the companions were split off and the Doctor was paired with a more mature companion to whom he could talk normally instantly became that much better.
Another problem with the Fifth Doctor era was that camera technology was going through some very significant improvements but the understanding of this technology (along with the overall budget of the show) was not keeping up. As such, you have scenes where sets, costumes and monsters are used that would have been fine in earlier eras but have their flaws exposed in the current era. You also get studios that are over-lit, exposing even more rather than in the dark and gloomy settings that would have covered some of these flaws. Many of the stories that are celebrated in the Fifth Doctor era (Earthshock, The Caves of Androzani, etc.) do simple things such as this and it pays off significant dividends.
Probably the biggest problem of the Fifth Doctor era was that it was a period of significant change and the show had some major growing pains during this era. The later half of the Fourth Doctor era oscillated wildly in its effort to get away from the Philip Hinchcliff era. John Nathan-Turner tried very hard to pull the show into a more dynamic style that fit the 80's, often while getting heavy friction from the BBC brass who were starting to actively work to kill the show. In many ways, the show didn't really start to find it's feet again until around Season 25 and the second year of the Seventh Doctor era.
Though we might want to cut the show some slack, you still have to watch what is given. There are some really good stories in the Fifth Doctor era but from an overall standpoint, without the pull of nostalgia, this era just doesn't do much for me and I would have to put it near the bottom of my list for re-watch.
Highest Rated Story: Earthshock - 4.5
Lowest Rated Story: Time-Flight - 1.0
Average overall rating: 2.85
Castrovalva
Four to Doomsday
Kinda
The Visitation
Black Orchid
Earthshock
Time-Flight
Arc of Infinity
Snakedance
Mawdryn Undead
Terminus
Enlightenment
The King's Demons
The Five Doctors
Warriors of the Deep
The Awakening
Frontios
Resurrection of the Daleks
Planet of Fire
The Caves of Androzani
Peter Davidson himself has a very interesting take on the Doctor. He is the least confident and least in control Doctor of all of them. He also seems to be the one that makes a wrong guess or make the situation worse in the short term most often. That is not a unique trait (after all, how many times did the Third Doctor muck things up due to his arrogance) but it did seem to happen more often than not to the Fifth Doctor where he spends so much time dealing with a situation that could have been nipped in the bud at the beginning of the story.
He also seems to be the most empathetic of the Doctors. The Second Doctor was also caring but in that kindly uncle way. The Fifth Doctor seemed more like someone you could sit down and just be consoled with. He was kind and always looking for a way to solve a conflict without resorting to violence. It is rather ironic that his era became one of the bloodiest and bleakest eras.
One of the most telling things about the Fifth Doctor era is how the producers of the show were aware of one its worst flaws, but took no steps to address it. That is the companions. The Fifth Doctor was shown over and over again to be at his best when paired with an older person. Either sex did fine but being paired with older women seemed like the normal solution. But until Peter Davidson was cast, the Doctor had always been an older man and there was this idea that he should be a mentor figure to younger people. Even Romana, who carried herself as older, was played by actresses who were nearly 15 years younger than Tom Baker.
As such, there seemed to be this idea that the Doctor always had to be older than his companions. For the thirty year old Davidson, this idea meant traveling around with a bunch of teenagers and early 20-somethings. They also had the maturity of that age (and younger) which gave the show the feeling that the Doctor was babysitting rather than going out to explore and have adventures. Any story where the companions were split off and the Doctor was paired with a more mature companion to whom he could talk normally instantly became that much better.
Another problem with the Fifth Doctor era was that camera technology was going through some very significant improvements but the understanding of this technology (along with the overall budget of the show) was not keeping up. As such, you have scenes where sets, costumes and monsters are used that would have been fine in earlier eras but have their flaws exposed in the current era. You also get studios that are over-lit, exposing even more rather than in the dark and gloomy settings that would have covered some of these flaws. Many of the stories that are celebrated in the Fifth Doctor era (Earthshock, The Caves of Androzani, etc.) do simple things such as this and it pays off significant dividends.
Probably the biggest problem of the Fifth Doctor era was that it was a period of significant change and the show had some major growing pains during this era. The later half of the Fourth Doctor era oscillated wildly in its effort to get away from the Philip Hinchcliff era. John Nathan-Turner tried very hard to pull the show into a more dynamic style that fit the 80's, often while getting heavy friction from the BBC brass who were starting to actively work to kill the show. In many ways, the show didn't really start to find it's feet again until around Season 25 and the second year of the Seventh Doctor era.
Though we might want to cut the show some slack, you still have to watch what is given. There are some really good stories in the Fifth Doctor era but from an overall standpoint, without the pull of nostalgia, this era just doesn't do much for me and I would have to put it near the bottom of my list for re-watch.
Highest Rated Story: Earthshock - 4.5
Lowest Rated Story: Time-Flight - 1.0
Average overall rating: 2.85
Castrovalva
Four to Doomsday
Kinda
The Visitation
Black Orchid
Earthshock
Time-Flight
Arc of Infinity
Snakedance
Mawdryn Undead
Terminus
Enlightenment
The King's Demons
The Five Doctors
Warriors of the Deep
The Awakening
Frontios
Resurrection of the Daleks
Planet of Fire
The Caves of Androzani
Wednesday, September 20, 2017
The Caves of Androzani
You have the mouth of an itinerant jackanapes, but your eyes...
The Caves of Androzani won the #1 spot in the 2009 Doctor Who Magazine poll and finished #2 to The Day of the Doctor in the 2014 poll. By many it is easily considered to be the best story of the classic era. That's a rather high bar to clear and it does set expectations rather high. That it also has Peri, who is my least favorite companion, also gives me that feeling of a story's expectations being set too high. I have seen this once before but I was very distracted while watching it and didn't give it my full attention. We'll see if it holds me better a second time around.
Plot Summary
The Doctor and Peri land on the planet of Androzani Minor where the Doctor is surprised to find evidence of mechanical activity given that the planet is supposed to be uninhabited. He and Peri venture into a cave system where Peri stumbles into a nest of fungus. The Doctor helps her out, getting some of the fungus on him as well. They continue down the caves where they find a stash of weapons and are immediately arrested by soldiers believing them to be arms smugglers.
Taken to General Chellak, the Doctor learns that they are mining a substance called Spectrox which extends human life, but are fighting a guerrilla war against Sharaz Jek, a rebel with a talent for building androids. Summarily convicted by Chellak, he puts them in a holding cell while calling back to Androzani Major to report in.
Chellak contacts Morgus, the head of the company that owns the Spetrox mines and is a close confidant of the President. Morgus congratulates Chellak on his capture and orders the summary execution of Peri and the Doctor. Shortly after the call, the President informs Morgus that the government is considering parleying with Sharaz Jek as the price of Spectrox has gone up so much that the people are revolting.
At the same time, the real arms smugglers, led by a man named Stotz, lead a raid and kill one of Chellak's patrols. The patrols are working extra as several miners have been killed due to an attack by a creature living in the caves known as the Magma Beast. All of these instances are monitored by Sharaz Jek who uses them to create further destabilization in the mines.
The Doctor and Peri are brought out for execution by firing squad, although Chellak is starting to doubt that they are gun runners. They are draped in red cloaks, lined up and shot. After the soldiers are dismissed, Chellak looks at them and realizes they are actually android duplicates. The real Doctor and Peri were spirited away by Sharaz Jek.
In his lair, Jek informs them that he intends to keep them as company, Peri for her physical beauty and the Doctor for his stimulating mind. He also reveals that he has captured Chellak's aide Salateen and replaced him with an android as well as his plan to restrict the supply of Spectrox until Androzani Major agrees to give him Morgus, whom he blames for his mutilated state.
While imprisoned with Salateen, Salateen recognizes their symptoms and informs them that they will die of Spectrox Toxemia in a couple of days. The only antidote is the milk of a queen bat that lives deep in the minds where there is no oxygen. Motivated by the deadline, the Doctor elects to escape quickly.
Stotz, determined to get paid even though he lost the arms to Chellak's men, signals Sharaz Jek and Jek agrees to meet with him in person in the caves. Knowing that the androids are programed to kill any human without a special modulator on their body, the Doctor exits the cell, hoping his non-human physiology will allow him to pass. He gets past the android guard and deactivates it, beckoning Peri and Salateen to follow. They are spotted by another guard who attacks them. Salateen destroys it with the gun taken from the deactivated android but the Doctor is knocked out by a stray bullet glancing off his head. Salateen pulls Peri along the passage, leaving the Doctor behind.
Jek meets with Stotz and his men and negotiates to pay them just under half of the original agreement. Jek leaves to get it but Stotz orders his men to follow Jek and steal the whole supply of Spectrox. As they enter, they are attacked by the Magma Beast who seems to be immune to their bullets. The Doctor wakes just as this beast attacks and takes cover behind a rock. The beast is driven off and the Doctor is captured by Stotz who takes him back to their ship on the surface after getting the Spectrox as negotiated.
Salateen brings Peri back to Chellak and fills him in on everything. Chellak decides to use the android Salateen to try and trick Jek into a trap. However, when briefing the android Salateen, it picks up the real Salateen and Peri's heat signatures and then reports this back to Jek. Jek orders Salateen to lead Chellak's men into a counter trap while he breaks into Chellak's base and re-kidnaps Peri.
Stotz flies the Doctor back to Androzani Major and communicates with Morgus on their next move. Morgus orders them to stay in orbit while he decides their next move. Morgus becomes convinced that the Doctor is a government plant and that the President is on to him. He kills the President, making it seems as though it was an accident and then flies in his own shuttle to Androzani Minor to take Jek's supplies of Spectrox.
While in holding orbit, the Doctor manages to take control of the ship and reroutes it to Androzani Minor. He crashes the ship and runs to the caves to try and rescue Peri. Stotz and his men give chase but they are forced off when a superheated mud burst occurs, forcing them to take shelter. The Doctor continues in to the caves.
Jek's androids, reprogrammed with information from Peri, attack Chellak's men, killing a number of them but they are overrun by sheer numbers. Chellak himself fights his way into Jek's hideout where he engages Jek. Jek fights him off but he loses his mask in the process. Chellak is thrown out of the bunker just as a mud burst occurs in the passage, killing Chellak. Peri herself sees Jek without his mask and her horrified reaction breaks him.
With the rest of Chellak's men dead or running to escape the mud bursts, the Doctor enters Jek's bunker unimpeded. He finds Jek with his mask back on but fretting about the dying Peri. He gives the Doctor an oxygen cylinder to help him as the Doctor heads deeper into the caves to get the milk of a queen bat. On the way he finds the Magma Beast which was also caught in the mud burst.
Morgus lands on Androzani Minor but upon contacting Major, he finds that his secretary, Timmin, has turned over evidence against him, getting him charged with treason and taking over as head of the corporation. With his assets seized, Morgus agrees to work with Stotz and split the Spectrox 50-50. Stotz's men refuse to help and Stotz kills them, leaving him and Morgus.
The two of them make their way into the caves and follow the trail of bodies to Jek's bunker. Seeing Morgus, Jek rips his mask off and attacks Morgus. Stotz, briefly thrown aside, shoots Jek but is in turn shot by the Salateen android. Jek kills Morgus by shoving him into an engine and then dies in Salateen's arms, who goes inactive with Jek's death.
The Doctor manages to make his way to a queen bat and gets two vials of milk from her. He makes his way back to Jek's base and grabs Peri. He carries her back to the TARDIS but as he reaches for the TARDIS key he drops one of the vials. He pulls Peri into the TARDIS and gives her the remaining vial. Peri recovers but with no cure, the Doctor feels the poison take effect. He sees a vision of his five previous companions as well as the Master who urges him to die. With that, he regenerates into the Sixth Doctor, shocking Peri.
Analysis
I will certainly not quibble with any fan who says that The Caves of Androzani is the best Fifth Doctor story. I think and argument could be made regarding Kinda or Earthshock, but The Caves of Androzani is unquestionably a top notch story. However, is it worthy of the #1 ranking in all the classic era? I would say no. I liked it a great deal, but the answer is still no.
As good as the writing and most of the acting is, the thing that truly sells this story is the direction. Graeme Harper went full stop and gave some wonderful scenes using unique angles, proper lighting and strong, intense performances from the actors. In lesser hands this story could easily have been middle of the road as it does not tread any new ground for Robert Holmes, but Harper is able to infuse it with a pathos that is lacking in many other stories.
Now, I must detract Harper as well because one of the few quibbles I had with this story is also due to Harper's direction. I hate it when the actors stare down camera and it happens multiple times. There's the big obvious one with the Sixth Doctor directly addressing the audience at the end and that was not good but I could have gotten past it. What I really didn't like was how it was used by Morgus. He looks directly down shortly after being introduced in Episode One but in Episode Three, he constantly looks away and down the camera while talking with Stotz. This is the sort of thing that I would expect in a Moliere play which is always tongue-in-cheek about it's own existence. This is trying to be serious and the constant asides to the audience, with a character offering commentary, takes you right out of the experience.
But since we're here, let's talk about Morgus. Morgus is probably the weakest performance of any of the main cast but it's still not bad. I mentioned before his asides and how off-putting they were, but he also had a rather flat delivery. I believe the intent was to make him colder, very much in the mold of an 80's industrialist but by sapping all his emotion, he became boring. He needed a bit more color, not enough to make him mustache twirl-y, but enough to show that he had depth. Smugness during his conversations with the President, anger at Stotz or a bit more open fear when he thinks the Doctor is a government agent would have fleshed him out and made Jek's revenge feel that much more satisfying. I still liked him but more would have been better.
Keeping with the villains, I liked Stotz a lot more. He was emotional but not stupid. He was a thug but one who could think and plan on his own and that made him so much more enjoyable than Morgus. When he's cutting through the bridge door and threatening to murder the Doctor at the end of Episode Three, you really believe him and it ups the peril you feel for the Doctor in the cliffhanger. It also feels that much more satisfying when the android Salateen shoots Stotz in the back. My only quibble with Stotz is that they gave him and his fellow gun runners Stormtrooper aim when the Doctor is running away. It makes the villain seem less potent when they have ample opportunity to kill the hero but don't because they can't shoot straight.
Going to the Doctor, this is an interesting performance because he is such a secondary character in the story. Had the Doctor not intervened, things would have remained in the status quo with Jek slowly infiltrating Chellak's men and eventually driving him to the point of parley. Instead, the Doctor galvanizes things by exposing Jek's mole and forcing a full confrontation between Chellak's and Jek's forces. He also draws in Morgus which brings everything to a head there. In it all, the Doctor mostly just stands by, offering a snappy comeback here and there. His only moments of actual action are in the escape attempt with Peri and Salateen and his rush back to rescue Peri. Everything else just swirls around him.
In a way, that seems rather fitting for the Fifth Doctor. More than any other iteration, he seemed to be always on his back foot and reacting as things unfolded around him. He tries to help but either comes up short or drives things to a conclusion that was probably going to happen anyway. The situation around him is interesting and I like the Doctor's wit in both dealing with what he can and also in still maintaining some level of humor about things. But he is truly not the central focus of this story, despite his name in the title.
If the Doctor didn't have much to do, Peri had even less. She does have a nice interchange with the Doctor before everything goes to pot and she seems to pair well with the Fifth Doctor. I also like how stoic she was in this story. In later stories with the Sixth Doctor, Peri would get snippy and rude in as much as the Doctor would. Here she just gives it the full "stiff upper lip" and accepts what she can. My personal favorite moment is at the end of Episode One when facing the firing squad. Even though she's an android double at that point, you believe it's Peri when she tells Chellak to just get on with it. That's the reaction and attitude that I enjoyed her having and she would have been a much better companion if that attitude had stayed a permanent part of her character. Some of her whininess does come through but you feel she has earned it a bit more given that she is dying and feels she has been abandoned by the Doctor at one point. So Peri works much better here than in other stories.
The unquestioned star of this story is Sharaz Jek. In many ways, he is nothing new. The maimed figure seeking revenge is very common (see most pre-Weber Phantom of the Opera adaptations for example) and Robert Holmes has even used this type of figure before in the full villain Magnus Greel. But, Sharaz Jek is given a number of pretentious and artistic lines that give him a veneer of being a more cultured monster than the rest of them. He is also so expertly performed by Christopher Gable, especially given that only his lips and one eye are available to him. It's almost all done with his voice and body language. Gable also makes sure to express that Jek, while a somewhat sympathetic figure, is still just as dark and malicious a character as Morgus or Stotz. He kills others without thought and shows no mercy or pity when it does not suit him. His ego, even after disfigurement, is almost as large as the Doctor's so he still is a very unpleasant individual.
In fact, it is this devotion to Jek's unpleasantness that exposes another small flaw in Episode Four. Jek is not stupid and you would think that he has seen the effects of Spectrox toxemia before. So why is he so broken up about Peri's impending death when the Doctor arrives? He should have been aware that Peri was dying the moment he recaptured her in Episode Three. I can only think that his exposure by Chellak and Peri's reaction to him broke something in his mind. He could not even delude himself at that point that she would learn to love the façade he presented, much less the real him. With this realization, the only hope he had for beauty was to keep her alive, even if it would be lost to him once again. But that does take a bit of intuition and head cannon. If not paying full attention, you might be lost at Jek's rather sudden tolerance for the Doctor, his desire to preserve Peri and his loss of focus on his revenge.
I enjoyed the writing of this one as I usually do for Robert Holmes. Of course, there is nothing new here. Nearly every aspect of the story has been used by Robert Holmes in a different story. But it doesn't feel recycled and that is the important thing. How much of that is due to Holmes and how much of that is due to the actors or the directing is up for debate, but ultimately the story does feel at least mostly new. Even if it does feel a bit familiar at points, you get peppered with proper Robert Holmes witticisms which are so enjoyable that you stop caring if the characters seem familiar or not.
There is one point of weakness in the writing of the story and I think that is how it was adapted to be the Fifth Doctor's final story. The Doctor retrieves the bat's milk near the end. I assume he cannot drink it himself immediately because he is holding his breath but once he makes it out of that portion of the cave, there is no reason he couldn't. He certainly could have drunk his and even forced Peri to drink hers before running out of Jek's lair. If he was concerned about speed, he still could have carried her while the milk took effect. The waiting and dropping of one vial just seems like a bit of idle chance that was thrown in because it was time for the Fifth Doctor to die. In the non-regeneration version, I'm betting they would have drunk the milk sooner or the Doctor would not have dropped it getting back in the TARDIS. A simple difference between regenerating and not regenerating.
I am relieved to say that I did enjoy this one greatly. Perhaps not quite as much as others but I would still consider it either the #1 or #2 story of the Fifth Doctor era (can't quite decide between this and Earthshock). Even with my concerns and the quibbles I found in it, it is still an excellent story and I'd happily recommend it to anyone curious about it. I will throw in the caveat that I would not place it as the #1 overall classic story. In fact, I doubt I'd even place it in the top 10, but with 159 stories to choose from, that's rather understandable I think.
Overall personal score: 4.5 out of 5
The Caves of Androzani won the #1 spot in the 2009 Doctor Who Magazine poll and finished #2 to The Day of the Doctor in the 2014 poll. By many it is easily considered to be the best story of the classic era. That's a rather high bar to clear and it does set expectations rather high. That it also has Peri, who is my least favorite companion, also gives me that feeling of a story's expectations being set too high. I have seen this once before but I was very distracted while watching it and didn't give it my full attention. We'll see if it holds me better a second time around.
Plot Summary
The Doctor and Peri land on the planet of Androzani Minor where the Doctor is surprised to find evidence of mechanical activity given that the planet is supposed to be uninhabited. He and Peri venture into a cave system where Peri stumbles into a nest of fungus. The Doctor helps her out, getting some of the fungus on him as well. They continue down the caves where they find a stash of weapons and are immediately arrested by soldiers believing them to be arms smugglers.
Taken to General Chellak, the Doctor learns that they are mining a substance called Spectrox which extends human life, but are fighting a guerrilla war against Sharaz Jek, a rebel with a talent for building androids. Summarily convicted by Chellak, he puts them in a holding cell while calling back to Androzani Major to report in.
Chellak contacts Morgus, the head of the company that owns the Spetrox mines and is a close confidant of the President. Morgus congratulates Chellak on his capture and orders the summary execution of Peri and the Doctor. Shortly after the call, the President informs Morgus that the government is considering parleying with Sharaz Jek as the price of Spectrox has gone up so much that the people are revolting.
At the same time, the real arms smugglers, led by a man named Stotz, lead a raid and kill one of Chellak's patrols. The patrols are working extra as several miners have been killed due to an attack by a creature living in the caves known as the Magma Beast. All of these instances are monitored by Sharaz Jek who uses them to create further destabilization in the mines.
The Doctor and Peri are brought out for execution by firing squad, although Chellak is starting to doubt that they are gun runners. They are draped in red cloaks, lined up and shot. After the soldiers are dismissed, Chellak looks at them and realizes they are actually android duplicates. The real Doctor and Peri were spirited away by Sharaz Jek.
In his lair, Jek informs them that he intends to keep them as company, Peri for her physical beauty and the Doctor for his stimulating mind. He also reveals that he has captured Chellak's aide Salateen and replaced him with an android as well as his plan to restrict the supply of Spectrox until Androzani Major agrees to give him Morgus, whom he blames for his mutilated state.
While imprisoned with Salateen, Salateen recognizes their symptoms and informs them that they will die of Spectrox Toxemia in a couple of days. The only antidote is the milk of a queen bat that lives deep in the minds where there is no oxygen. Motivated by the deadline, the Doctor elects to escape quickly.
Stotz, determined to get paid even though he lost the arms to Chellak's men, signals Sharaz Jek and Jek agrees to meet with him in person in the caves. Knowing that the androids are programed to kill any human without a special modulator on their body, the Doctor exits the cell, hoping his non-human physiology will allow him to pass. He gets past the android guard and deactivates it, beckoning Peri and Salateen to follow. They are spotted by another guard who attacks them. Salateen destroys it with the gun taken from the deactivated android but the Doctor is knocked out by a stray bullet glancing off his head. Salateen pulls Peri along the passage, leaving the Doctor behind.
Jek meets with Stotz and his men and negotiates to pay them just under half of the original agreement. Jek leaves to get it but Stotz orders his men to follow Jek and steal the whole supply of Spectrox. As they enter, they are attacked by the Magma Beast who seems to be immune to their bullets. The Doctor wakes just as this beast attacks and takes cover behind a rock. The beast is driven off and the Doctor is captured by Stotz who takes him back to their ship on the surface after getting the Spectrox as negotiated.
Salateen brings Peri back to Chellak and fills him in on everything. Chellak decides to use the android Salateen to try and trick Jek into a trap. However, when briefing the android Salateen, it picks up the real Salateen and Peri's heat signatures and then reports this back to Jek. Jek orders Salateen to lead Chellak's men into a counter trap while he breaks into Chellak's base and re-kidnaps Peri.
Stotz flies the Doctor back to Androzani Major and communicates with Morgus on their next move. Morgus orders them to stay in orbit while he decides their next move. Morgus becomes convinced that the Doctor is a government plant and that the President is on to him. He kills the President, making it seems as though it was an accident and then flies in his own shuttle to Androzani Minor to take Jek's supplies of Spectrox.
While in holding orbit, the Doctor manages to take control of the ship and reroutes it to Androzani Minor. He crashes the ship and runs to the caves to try and rescue Peri. Stotz and his men give chase but they are forced off when a superheated mud burst occurs, forcing them to take shelter. The Doctor continues in to the caves.
Jek's androids, reprogrammed with information from Peri, attack Chellak's men, killing a number of them but they are overrun by sheer numbers. Chellak himself fights his way into Jek's hideout where he engages Jek. Jek fights him off but he loses his mask in the process. Chellak is thrown out of the bunker just as a mud burst occurs in the passage, killing Chellak. Peri herself sees Jek without his mask and her horrified reaction breaks him.
With the rest of Chellak's men dead or running to escape the mud bursts, the Doctor enters Jek's bunker unimpeded. He finds Jek with his mask back on but fretting about the dying Peri. He gives the Doctor an oxygen cylinder to help him as the Doctor heads deeper into the caves to get the milk of a queen bat. On the way he finds the Magma Beast which was also caught in the mud burst.
Morgus lands on Androzani Minor but upon contacting Major, he finds that his secretary, Timmin, has turned over evidence against him, getting him charged with treason and taking over as head of the corporation. With his assets seized, Morgus agrees to work with Stotz and split the Spectrox 50-50. Stotz's men refuse to help and Stotz kills them, leaving him and Morgus.
The two of them make their way into the caves and follow the trail of bodies to Jek's bunker. Seeing Morgus, Jek rips his mask off and attacks Morgus. Stotz, briefly thrown aside, shoots Jek but is in turn shot by the Salateen android. Jek kills Morgus by shoving him into an engine and then dies in Salateen's arms, who goes inactive with Jek's death.
The Doctor manages to make his way to a queen bat and gets two vials of milk from her. He makes his way back to Jek's base and grabs Peri. He carries her back to the TARDIS but as he reaches for the TARDIS key he drops one of the vials. He pulls Peri into the TARDIS and gives her the remaining vial. Peri recovers but with no cure, the Doctor feels the poison take effect. He sees a vision of his five previous companions as well as the Master who urges him to die. With that, he regenerates into the Sixth Doctor, shocking Peri.
Analysis
I will certainly not quibble with any fan who says that The Caves of Androzani is the best Fifth Doctor story. I think and argument could be made regarding Kinda or Earthshock, but The Caves of Androzani is unquestionably a top notch story. However, is it worthy of the #1 ranking in all the classic era? I would say no. I liked it a great deal, but the answer is still no.
As good as the writing and most of the acting is, the thing that truly sells this story is the direction. Graeme Harper went full stop and gave some wonderful scenes using unique angles, proper lighting and strong, intense performances from the actors. In lesser hands this story could easily have been middle of the road as it does not tread any new ground for Robert Holmes, but Harper is able to infuse it with a pathos that is lacking in many other stories.
Now, I must detract Harper as well because one of the few quibbles I had with this story is also due to Harper's direction. I hate it when the actors stare down camera and it happens multiple times. There's the big obvious one with the Sixth Doctor directly addressing the audience at the end and that was not good but I could have gotten past it. What I really didn't like was how it was used by Morgus. He looks directly down shortly after being introduced in Episode One but in Episode Three, he constantly looks away and down the camera while talking with Stotz. This is the sort of thing that I would expect in a Moliere play which is always tongue-in-cheek about it's own existence. This is trying to be serious and the constant asides to the audience, with a character offering commentary, takes you right out of the experience.
But since we're here, let's talk about Morgus. Morgus is probably the weakest performance of any of the main cast but it's still not bad. I mentioned before his asides and how off-putting they were, but he also had a rather flat delivery. I believe the intent was to make him colder, very much in the mold of an 80's industrialist but by sapping all his emotion, he became boring. He needed a bit more color, not enough to make him mustache twirl-y, but enough to show that he had depth. Smugness during his conversations with the President, anger at Stotz or a bit more open fear when he thinks the Doctor is a government agent would have fleshed him out and made Jek's revenge feel that much more satisfying. I still liked him but more would have been better.
Keeping with the villains, I liked Stotz a lot more. He was emotional but not stupid. He was a thug but one who could think and plan on his own and that made him so much more enjoyable than Morgus. When he's cutting through the bridge door and threatening to murder the Doctor at the end of Episode Three, you really believe him and it ups the peril you feel for the Doctor in the cliffhanger. It also feels that much more satisfying when the android Salateen shoots Stotz in the back. My only quibble with Stotz is that they gave him and his fellow gun runners Stormtrooper aim when the Doctor is running away. It makes the villain seem less potent when they have ample opportunity to kill the hero but don't because they can't shoot straight.
Going to the Doctor, this is an interesting performance because he is such a secondary character in the story. Had the Doctor not intervened, things would have remained in the status quo with Jek slowly infiltrating Chellak's men and eventually driving him to the point of parley. Instead, the Doctor galvanizes things by exposing Jek's mole and forcing a full confrontation between Chellak's and Jek's forces. He also draws in Morgus which brings everything to a head there. In it all, the Doctor mostly just stands by, offering a snappy comeback here and there. His only moments of actual action are in the escape attempt with Peri and Salateen and his rush back to rescue Peri. Everything else just swirls around him.
In a way, that seems rather fitting for the Fifth Doctor. More than any other iteration, he seemed to be always on his back foot and reacting as things unfolded around him. He tries to help but either comes up short or drives things to a conclusion that was probably going to happen anyway. The situation around him is interesting and I like the Doctor's wit in both dealing with what he can and also in still maintaining some level of humor about things. But he is truly not the central focus of this story, despite his name in the title.
If the Doctor didn't have much to do, Peri had even less. She does have a nice interchange with the Doctor before everything goes to pot and she seems to pair well with the Fifth Doctor. I also like how stoic she was in this story. In later stories with the Sixth Doctor, Peri would get snippy and rude in as much as the Doctor would. Here she just gives it the full "stiff upper lip" and accepts what she can. My personal favorite moment is at the end of Episode One when facing the firing squad. Even though she's an android double at that point, you believe it's Peri when she tells Chellak to just get on with it. That's the reaction and attitude that I enjoyed her having and she would have been a much better companion if that attitude had stayed a permanent part of her character. Some of her whininess does come through but you feel she has earned it a bit more given that she is dying and feels she has been abandoned by the Doctor at one point. So Peri works much better here than in other stories.
The unquestioned star of this story is Sharaz Jek. In many ways, he is nothing new. The maimed figure seeking revenge is very common (see most pre-Weber Phantom of the Opera adaptations for example) and Robert Holmes has even used this type of figure before in the full villain Magnus Greel. But, Sharaz Jek is given a number of pretentious and artistic lines that give him a veneer of being a more cultured monster than the rest of them. He is also so expertly performed by Christopher Gable, especially given that only his lips and one eye are available to him. It's almost all done with his voice and body language. Gable also makes sure to express that Jek, while a somewhat sympathetic figure, is still just as dark and malicious a character as Morgus or Stotz. He kills others without thought and shows no mercy or pity when it does not suit him. His ego, even after disfigurement, is almost as large as the Doctor's so he still is a very unpleasant individual.
In fact, it is this devotion to Jek's unpleasantness that exposes another small flaw in Episode Four. Jek is not stupid and you would think that he has seen the effects of Spectrox toxemia before. So why is he so broken up about Peri's impending death when the Doctor arrives? He should have been aware that Peri was dying the moment he recaptured her in Episode Three. I can only think that his exposure by Chellak and Peri's reaction to him broke something in his mind. He could not even delude himself at that point that she would learn to love the façade he presented, much less the real him. With this realization, the only hope he had for beauty was to keep her alive, even if it would be lost to him once again. But that does take a bit of intuition and head cannon. If not paying full attention, you might be lost at Jek's rather sudden tolerance for the Doctor, his desire to preserve Peri and his loss of focus on his revenge.
I enjoyed the writing of this one as I usually do for Robert Holmes. Of course, there is nothing new here. Nearly every aspect of the story has been used by Robert Holmes in a different story. But it doesn't feel recycled and that is the important thing. How much of that is due to Holmes and how much of that is due to the actors or the directing is up for debate, but ultimately the story does feel at least mostly new. Even if it does feel a bit familiar at points, you get peppered with proper Robert Holmes witticisms which are so enjoyable that you stop caring if the characters seem familiar or not.
There is one point of weakness in the writing of the story and I think that is how it was adapted to be the Fifth Doctor's final story. The Doctor retrieves the bat's milk near the end. I assume he cannot drink it himself immediately because he is holding his breath but once he makes it out of that portion of the cave, there is no reason he couldn't. He certainly could have drunk his and even forced Peri to drink hers before running out of Jek's lair. If he was concerned about speed, he still could have carried her while the milk took effect. The waiting and dropping of one vial just seems like a bit of idle chance that was thrown in because it was time for the Fifth Doctor to die. In the non-regeneration version, I'm betting they would have drunk the milk sooner or the Doctor would not have dropped it getting back in the TARDIS. A simple difference between regenerating and not regenerating.
I am relieved to say that I did enjoy this one greatly. Perhaps not quite as much as others but I would still consider it either the #1 or #2 story of the Fifth Doctor era (can't quite decide between this and Earthshock). Even with my concerns and the quibbles I found in it, it is still an excellent story and I'd happily recommend it to anyone curious about it. I will throw in the caveat that I would not place it as the #1 overall classic story. In fact, I doubt I'd even place it in the top 10, but with 159 stories to choose from, that's rather understandable I think.
Overall personal score: 4.5 out of 5
Wednesday, September 13, 2017
The Horns of Nimon
How is it where ever I go in the universe there are always people like you pointing guns or phasers or blasters... now don't do anything hasty, it's just a flying visit. Take me to your leader.
The Horns of Nimon was the unintentional end to Season 17 when Shada ended up being cancelled due to a technician strike. It has a reputation of being a prime representative of the Douglas Adams era with a lot of jokes but also a lot of unintentional silliness. The acting is said to be very over-the-top as well but with everyone doing it, it supposedly makes the whole thing feel like a farce. I'm nervous when it comes to farces so we shall see.
Plot Summary
A dilapidated warship from the Skonna Empire is carrying a group of youths from the plant Aneth. Desiring to make good time as this was to be the last tribute ship, the co-pilot overloads the engines, blowing them out and killing the pilot. The ship stalls in space and creates a gravity well.
On the TARDIS, the Doctor is attempting to make repairs but has taken a number of systems off-line, including the dematerialization circuit. It gets caught in the gravity well and crashes into the warship. The Doctor extends the shields to create an air tunnel through which he, Romana and K-9 pass through.
They find a set of high energy crystals along with the Aneth youth. The Doctor sends K-9 back to the TARDIS to assess the repairs needed while he and Romana continue. They are detected by the co-pilot, who takes them to the bridge when they offer to help repair the engines before they are sucked into a singularity.
On the planet Skonna, the leader, Soldeed, is overseeing the preparations for the arrival of the youth, who are tribute to be sacrificed to the Nimon, a powerful Minotaur creature living at the center of the city. Upon receiving word of the warship's disappearance, Soldeed ventures into the Nimon's lair to inform him where he is most displeased. He sends Soldeed out with instructions to fulfill the tribute one way or the other.
Romana and the Doctor manage to jury rig something using some spare equipment from the TARDIS. They supply power and tell the co-pilot to ready the ship but not to start until the Doctor has moved the TARDIS onboard the ship. But the co-pilot starts the ship before the Doctor is ready and leaves the TARDIS in the gravity well. The Doctor activates the visualizer and sees a small planet being dragged into the gravity well. The Doctor puts the TARDIS into a spin and uses the momentum of the incoming planetoid to slingshot the TARDIS out of the gravity well.
The co-pilot locks Romana away with the other tributes when she tries to take control of the ship. In with the tributes, she learns that their leader, Seth, has been selected to defeat the Nimon and free Aneth from tribute. Seth however confides in Romana that he was just a traveler and has no plan. It was simply a backstory to feed to the tributaries to give them hope.
The ship arrives on Skonna and when two of the high energy crystals are shown to be missing, the co-pilot tries to claim that he used them to repair the engines. Soldeed immediately sees through the lie, condemns the co-pilot to death and pushes him into the Nimon's maze. Soldeed then pushes both the tributes and Romana into the maze as well, convinced that this will finally fulfill the bargain and the Nimon will bestow them with the technology to rebuild their empire.
After making some repairs, the Doctor steers the TARDIS to Skonna and then lands in the central plaza. He is arrested and brought before Soldeed. The Doctor shows off his technological knowledge but with the reveal that he is connected to Romana, Soldeed orders him taken to the Nimon as well. The Doctor briefly escapes his guard but is recaptured and put into the maze. Once in, he attempts to leave markers to follow back, but the markers disappear and the walls both appear and disappear in random order.
The tributes find the Nimon's lair and find both a desiccated body as well as previous tributes stored in hibernation. Romana realizes that the Nimon feeds on the energy of the tributes and keeps them in hibernation until he has completely used up each one. The co-pilot jumps out with his gun, hoping to fool the Nimon that he was ordered to escort them into the maze. The Nimon, drawn by the noise, sees through this and kills the co-pilot.
The Doctor enters and distracts the Nimon, allowing Romana, Seth and another tribute, Teka, to escape into the tunnels. The remaining five tributes however are too scared to move and the Nimon sets them in hibernation while taking the power crystals they had brought.
The Doctor and his party sneak back into the lab and observe the Nimon powering his equipment. He inflates the black hole that the Skonnan ship and the TARDIS were trapped in and brings in a capsule containing two other Nimon. The Doctor realizes that the Nimon have exhausted the planet they are currently occupying and are colonizing other planets under the guise of bringing a technological revolution.
When the Nimon leave, the Doctor and his group work to see if they can reverse the flow. He summons K-9 from the TARDIS but K-9 is captured and damaged by Soldeed. Soldeed intends to take K-9 apart to see how he works but stops when he sees the Nimon's temple become activated. Convinced that Skonna's new age is about to begin, he enters the maze to converse with the Nimon.
The Doctor experiments with the controls and manages to reverse the direction of the capsule. However, Romana was in the capsule and was transported back with it. The Doctor attempts to bring it back but Soldeed interrupts and damages the equipment with a blast from his staff. He then threatens to kill the Doctor for interfering with the Nimon's plans but Seth stuns Soldeed. He then works to repair the damage done by Soldeed.
Romana emerges from the capsule and finds herself on the planet Crinoth. She is pursued by other Nimon but they are stunned by Sezom, the last survivor of Crinoth and who held a position similar to Soldeed. Having seen how the Nimon consume the resources of the planet without fulfilling their promises, he works only to spare others from the Nimon. He has modified his staff with a mineral to amplify it's power to a level that will actually stun the Nimon. He helps Romana get back to the capsule, overcome the Nimon guards and climb into it, awaiting it's recall by the Doctor.
While the Doctor is repairing the machine, Soldeed awakens and runs off. Seth and Teka run after him but become separated in the maze. Teka is captured by Soldeed who turns her over to the Nimon, though he is shocked to see three take her. Seth returns to the Doctor just as he has finished the repairs.
Meanwhile, the captain of the guard, Sorak, experiments on K-9 trying to figure out how he works. K-9 is reanimated and after shocking Sorak, enters the maze to fulfill the Doctor's call.
The Nimon reenter the control room capturing the Doctor. The Nimon reactivate the device pulling the capsule with Romana to them. Sezom was killed in his defense of the capsule. The Nimon attack Romana and Seth as he reenters the room. Romana gives him the mineral from Crinoth and he places it in the staff. He stuns two of the Nimon while a third is taken down by K-9.
The Doctor and K-9 set about running the calculations to reverse the pull of the black hole while Seth and Romana go to rescue Teka. They find her in suspended animation along with the other Anothians. They start to revive her when Soldeed attacks them. He has gone mad in his refusal to accept that the Nimon deceived him. He runs to the power room and jams the overload switch before Seth shoots him down. With the switch jammed, they have no choice but to flee.
With everyone revived, they are joined by the Doctor and K-9 and K-9 leads them out of the maze. The Nimon also revive and chase after them. The Doctor's group emerges from the maze and orders everyone to take cover as the whole complex explodes, taking the three Nimon with it.
With Soldeed dead, Sorak takes over and sends the Anothians back in a spare ship with Seth in command. The Doctor, Romana and K-9 reenter the TARDIS to continue their repairs and as they take off, they observe a distant explosion. The Nimon trapped on Crinoth had tried to convert the planet to energy to reopen the portal to Skonna but with the receiver destroyed, it backfired and destroyed Crinoth with them still on it. The group then leaves the system to pursue adventures elsewhere.
Analysis
The Horns of Nimon is very similar to Underworld in that you have a potentially interesting story with a science fiction spin on a Greek myth, only to have it undone by production values and poor acting. I think The Horns of Nimon did it better than Underworld but it's still a case of looking at what could have been versus what is actually there.
One of the most frustrating things is that the potential of this story shines through. The tale of the Minotaur is a wonderfully dark story and a number of the people in this story do a good job of playing the tale straight, giving it a slightly creepy edge. That even works with the Douglas Adams style one-liners that intercut the story, giving it a gallows humor edge. But there are three characters that take all that potential and squander it. If a minor character is off, that can be overlooked, but in this case it's the Doctor and Soldeed that throw the tone off and never get it back on track.
By Season 17, it's obvious that Tom Baker has decided that the Doctor should be light-hearted and funny. He adds a serious tone here and there when required but he still feels that this is a show for children and that if the Doctor doesn't show fear, the kids won't be scared either. This can work in stories like Nightmare of Eden but the Doctor usually has to be balanced out by some gravitas on the other side. Here, the actor playing Soldeed has dialed it up to eleven in the idea that this story is a complete farce. Tom Baker either goes along with that or decides that he will not be upstaged by anyone and also dials it way up so that his performance is just as over-the-top and silly. He controls it better than Soldeed but when contrasted with the tone of everything else, it just doesn't fly.
I would love to know what the actor playing Soldeed was either thinking or got in terms of direction because his performance is absolutely terrible. You might think the character was already completely crazy or stoned out of his gourd based on the way he reacts to everyone around him. There is no moment of quiet or dialing it back. It's just up at eleven all the time. He has a moment when with the Doctor towards the end of Episode Two where he comes back a touch but that moment is so fleeting. Then you have his final scene in Episode Four where goes another notch up and the performance is almost painful to watch. Having already seen as crazy, trying to go extra crazy just makes the performance go to pieces.
The third character who is a bit of a loss is Teka. As a minor character that is mostly just an annoyance. She does absolutely nothing other than talk incessantly how Seth is going to be this great hero and save them all. Even when tasked to do something she ends up doing effectively nothing. I don't mind a bit of play up about the hero but a little balance would have been nice. Heck, showing her competent at anything other that verbally fellating Seth would have been an improvement.
Now that we've addressed the bad, let's hit the good. Romana is excellent in this story. She is competent, daring and even gets a few sharp barbs in here and there. The Doctor does very little in this story other than get himself captured and repair the Nimon's equipment. Romana is the one running about, trying to keep the Anothians alive and free. It is she that brings back the weapon to hold off the Nimon when they rise up. She also seems to actually care about the people around her. The Doctor seems to only care about Romana until the end of things.
Seth was pretty good too. In many ways, he was a less cocky version of Adric. I wouldn't be surprised if the interaction Seth had with Romana and the Doctor broached the idea of having a teenage boy as a companion. Unlike Adric, he is grounded in the limits of his abilities, clearly worried about not being able to perform what has been set before him. Yet he doesn't whine about it. He confides in Romana and puts Teka off a lot, but you don't see him curling up in a corner going "woe is me" as we so often have in fake heroes. Instead, he works as best he can and does step up when forced to do so. It actually makes for a nice arc for him.
Probably the best performance in the whole story lasted only five minutes and that was Sezom. He is in the same role as Soldeed but unlike that over-the-top performance, Sezom is reflective and quiet. He says more in a quiet look of despondence than Soldeed does with any of his ravings. Sezom's story is more tragic as well given that his planet was not interested in conquest but instead looked for peace and knowledge. His compromise of allowing a small evil (the tributes) led only to great evil rather than the peace and comfort that they wanted. It's an excellent performance and wonderfully underplayed. I'm glad that it was with Romana as well, who played off that well rather than going for an easy joke as the Doctor might have.
I like the idea of the Nimon a bit more than their execution. A minotaur race that act like locusts but that have real technological abilities is interesting. I even thought the costumes weren't that bad though the constant need for the actors to walk on tip-toe to simulate a hoof was probably jarring. What I didn't like about them was the constant arm movement. It was always like they were doing a free expression dance while simply walking around. I also would have liked some padding on arms. The loincloth covered the legs well enough, but the arms looked so skinny compared to the head and torso that it drew me out of the story. It was much easier to see it as a man in a costume rather than a creature. Padding would have added the illusion of musculature which also would have made the Nimon just that much more threatening.
I also enjoyed the sets for the most part. The clanking grates outside the maze were not good, but within the maze and the lab itself, I thought they did a good job. I could easily imagine that the hibernation chamber was recycled from The Ark in Space set while the computer equipment was probably gotten off some salvage yard. Both gave extra touches of realism when the budget would probably not have allowed that. I also appreciated the dim lighting. It hid what would have been imperfections in the set and costume and added an air of creepiness that might have otherwise been lost.
One small thing that was a bit odd was the pacing. The story had a slow start with a lot of hijinks in Episode One. It moved fairly steady after that, though it did slow down a bit in Episode Three. Then you have things all over the map in Episode Four. Many plot elements are stuffed in giving it a very crammed feeling, yet at the same time, there is a long segment of the Doctor's party following K-9 down various corridors with the Nimon doing the same. It kills several minutes that could have been used elsewhere. You then have a very hasty summary where three different storylines are summarily ended in a TARDIS coda that feels tacked on. It's very odd pacing with fast and slow elements throughout the whole story.
As stated earlier, this story is more of a reflection of what could have been. It has a number of good elements and even having dark or silly humor here and there are not a problem. The problems come from the contrast in performances and the up and down pacing. It's not quite the same but it's easy to see how the second attempt at this story in the form of The God Complex worked much better if only due to a consistent tone throughout. This story is not bad to sit through but there are going to be several roll your eye moments. If you can set those aside, it can be enjoyed just fine, but I doubt I will make much of an effort to come back to this one.
Overall personal score: 2 out of 5
The Horns of Nimon was the unintentional end to Season 17 when Shada ended up being cancelled due to a technician strike. It has a reputation of being a prime representative of the Douglas Adams era with a lot of jokes but also a lot of unintentional silliness. The acting is said to be very over-the-top as well but with everyone doing it, it supposedly makes the whole thing feel like a farce. I'm nervous when it comes to farces so we shall see.
Plot Summary
A dilapidated warship from the Skonna Empire is carrying a group of youths from the plant Aneth. Desiring to make good time as this was to be the last tribute ship, the co-pilot overloads the engines, blowing them out and killing the pilot. The ship stalls in space and creates a gravity well.
On the TARDIS, the Doctor is attempting to make repairs but has taken a number of systems off-line, including the dematerialization circuit. It gets caught in the gravity well and crashes into the warship. The Doctor extends the shields to create an air tunnel through which he, Romana and K-9 pass through.
They find a set of high energy crystals along with the Aneth youth. The Doctor sends K-9 back to the TARDIS to assess the repairs needed while he and Romana continue. They are detected by the co-pilot, who takes them to the bridge when they offer to help repair the engines before they are sucked into a singularity.
On the planet Skonna, the leader, Soldeed, is overseeing the preparations for the arrival of the youth, who are tribute to be sacrificed to the Nimon, a powerful Minotaur creature living at the center of the city. Upon receiving word of the warship's disappearance, Soldeed ventures into the Nimon's lair to inform him where he is most displeased. He sends Soldeed out with instructions to fulfill the tribute one way or the other.
Romana and the Doctor manage to jury rig something using some spare equipment from the TARDIS. They supply power and tell the co-pilot to ready the ship but not to start until the Doctor has moved the TARDIS onboard the ship. But the co-pilot starts the ship before the Doctor is ready and leaves the TARDIS in the gravity well. The Doctor activates the visualizer and sees a small planet being dragged into the gravity well. The Doctor puts the TARDIS into a spin and uses the momentum of the incoming planetoid to slingshot the TARDIS out of the gravity well.
The co-pilot locks Romana away with the other tributes when she tries to take control of the ship. In with the tributes, she learns that their leader, Seth, has been selected to defeat the Nimon and free Aneth from tribute. Seth however confides in Romana that he was just a traveler and has no plan. It was simply a backstory to feed to the tributaries to give them hope.
The ship arrives on Skonna and when two of the high energy crystals are shown to be missing, the co-pilot tries to claim that he used them to repair the engines. Soldeed immediately sees through the lie, condemns the co-pilot to death and pushes him into the Nimon's maze. Soldeed then pushes both the tributes and Romana into the maze as well, convinced that this will finally fulfill the bargain and the Nimon will bestow them with the technology to rebuild their empire.
After making some repairs, the Doctor steers the TARDIS to Skonna and then lands in the central plaza. He is arrested and brought before Soldeed. The Doctor shows off his technological knowledge but with the reveal that he is connected to Romana, Soldeed orders him taken to the Nimon as well. The Doctor briefly escapes his guard but is recaptured and put into the maze. Once in, he attempts to leave markers to follow back, but the markers disappear and the walls both appear and disappear in random order.
The tributes find the Nimon's lair and find both a desiccated body as well as previous tributes stored in hibernation. Romana realizes that the Nimon feeds on the energy of the tributes and keeps them in hibernation until he has completely used up each one. The co-pilot jumps out with his gun, hoping to fool the Nimon that he was ordered to escort them into the maze. The Nimon, drawn by the noise, sees through this and kills the co-pilot.
The Doctor enters and distracts the Nimon, allowing Romana, Seth and another tribute, Teka, to escape into the tunnels. The remaining five tributes however are too scared to move and the Nimon sets them in hibernation while taking the power crystals they had brought.
The Doctor and his party sneak back into the lab and observe the Nimon powering his equipment. He inflates the black hole that the Skonnan ship and the TARDIS were trapped in and brings in a capsule containing two other Nimon. The Doctor realizes that the Nimon have exhausted the planet they are currently occupying and are colonizing other planets under the guise of bringing a technological revolution.
When the Nimon leave, the Doctor and his group work to see if they can reverse the flow. He summons K-9 from the TARDIS but K-9 is captured and damaged by Soldeed. Soldeed intends to take K-9 apart to see how he works but stops when he sees the Nimon's temple become activated. Convinced that Skonna's new age is about to begin, he enters the maze to converse with the Nimon.
The Doctor experiments with the controls and manages to reverse the direction of the capsule. However, Romana was in the capsule and was transported back with it. The Doctor attempts to bring it back but Soldeed interrupts and damages the equipment with a blast from his staff. He then threatens to kill the Doctor for interfering with the Nimon's plans but Seth stuns Soldeed. He then works to repair the damage done by Soldeed.
Romana emerges from the capsule and finds herself on the planet Crinoth. She is pursued by other Nimon but they are stunned by Sezom, the last survivor of Crinoth and who held a position similar to Soldeed. Having seen how the Nimon consume the resources of the planet without fulfilling their promises, he works only to spare others from the Nimon. He has modified his staff with a mineral to amplify it's power to a level that will actually stun the Nimon. He helps Romana get back to the capsule, overcome the Nimon guards and climb into it, awaiting it's recall by the Doctor.
While the Doctor is repairing the machine, Soldeed awakens and runs off. Seth and Teka run after him but become separated in the maze. Teka is captured by Soldeed who turns her over to the Nimon, though he is shocked to see three take her. Seth returns to the Doctor just as he has finished the repairs.
Meanwhile, the captain of the guard, Sorak, experiments on K-9 trying to figure out how he works. K-9 is reanimated and after shocking Sorak, enters the maze to fulfill the Doctor's call.
The Nimon reenter the control room capturing the Doctor. The Nimon reactivate the device pulling the capsule with Romana to them. Sezom was killed in his defense of the capsule. The Nimon attack Romana and Seth as he reenters the room. Romana gives him the mineral from Crinoth and he places it in the staff. He stuns two of the Nimon while a third is taken down by K-9.
The Doctor and K-9 set about running the calculations to reverse the pull of the black hole while Seth and Romana go to rescue Teka. They find her in suspended animation along with the other Anothians. They start to revive her when Soldeed attacks them. He has gone mad in his refusal to accept that the Nimon deceived him. He runs to the power room and jams the overload switch before Seth shoots him down. With the switch jammed, they have no choice but to flee.
With everyone revived, they are joined by the Doctor and K-9 and K-9 leads them out of the maze. The Nimon also revive and chase after them. The Doctor's group emerges from the maze and orders everyone to take cover as the whole complex explodes, taking the three Nimon with it.
With Soldeed dead, Sorak takes over and sends the Anothians back in a spare ship with Seth in command. The Doctor, Romana and K-9 reenter the TARDIS to continue their repairs and as they take off, they observe a distant explosion. The Nimon trapped on Crinoth had tried to convert the planet to energy to reopen the portal to Skonna but with the receiver destroyed, it backfired and destroyed Crinoth with them still on it. The group then leaves the system to pursue adventures elsewhere.
Analysis
The Horns of Nimon is very similar to Underworld in that you have a potentially interesting story with a science fiction spin on a Greek myth, only to have it undone by production values and poor acting. I think The Horns of Nimon did it better than Underworld but it's still a case of looking at what could have been versus what is actually there.
One of the most frustrating things is that the potential of this story shines through. The tale of the Minotaur is a wonderfully dark story and a number of the people in this story do a good job of playing the tale straight, giving it a slightly creepy edge. That even works with the Douglas Adams style one-liners that intercut the story, giving it a gallows humor edge. But there are three characters that take all that potential and squander it. If a minor character is off, that can be overlooked, but in this case it's the Doctor and Soldeed that throw the tone off and never get it back on track.
By Season 17, it's obvious that Tom Baker has decided that the Doctor should be light-hearted and funny. He adds a serious tone here and there when required but he still feels that this is a show for children and that if the Doctor doesn't show fear, the kids won't be scared either. This can work in stories like Nightmare of Eden but the Doctor usually has to be balanced out by some gravitas on the other side. Here, the actor playing Soldeed has dialed it up to eleven in the idea that this story is a complete farce. Tom Baker either goes along with that or decides that he will not be upstaged by anyone and also dials it way up so that his performance is just as over-the-top and silly. He controls it better than Soldeed but when contrasted with the tone of everything else, it just doesn't fly.
I would love to know what the actor playing Soldeed was either thinking or got in terms of direction because his performance is absolutely terrible. You might think the character was already completely crazy or stoned out of his gourd based on the way he reacts to everyone around him. There is no moment of quiet or dialing it back. It's just up at eleven all the time. He has a moment when with the Doctor towards the end of Episode Two where he comes back a touch but that moment is so fleeting. Then you have his final scene in Episode Four where goes another notch up and the performance is almost painful to watch. Having already seen as crazy, trying to go extra crazy just makes the performance go to pieces.
The third character who is a bit of a loss is Teka. As a minor character that is mostly just an annoyance. She does absolutely nothing other than talk incessantly how Seth is going to be this great hero and save them all. Even when tasked to do something she ends up doing effectively nothing. I don't mind a bit of play up about the hero but a little balance would have been nice. Heck, showing her competent at anything other that verbally fellating Seth would have been an improvement.
Now that we've addressed the bad, let's hit the good. Romana is excellent in this story. She is competent, daring and even gets a few sharp barbs in here and there. The Doctor does very little in this story other than get himself captured and repair the Nimon's equipment. Romana is the one running about, trying to keep the Anothians alive and free. It is she that brings back the weapon to hold off the Nimon when they rise up. She also seems to actually care about the people around her. The Doctor seems to only care about Romana until the end of things.
Seth was pretty good too. In many ways, he was a less cocky version of Adric. I wouldn't be surprised if the interaction Seth had with Romana and the Doctor broached the idea of having a teenage boy as a companion. Unlike Adric, he is grounded in the limits of his abilities, clearly worried about not being able to perform what has been set before him. Yet he doesn't whine about it. He confides in Romana and puts Teka off a lot, but you don't see him curling up in a corner going "woe is me" as we so often have in fake heroes. Instead, he works as best he can and does step up when forced to do so. It actually makes for a nice arc for him.
Probably the best performance in the whole story lasted only five minutes and that was Sezom. He is in the same role as Soldeed but unlike that over-the-top performance, Sezom is reflective and quiet. He says more in a quiet look of despondence than Soldeed does with any of his ravings. Sezom's story is more tragic as well given that his planet was not interested in conquest but instead looked for peace and knowledge. His compromise of allowing a small evil (the tributes) led only to great evil rather than the peace and comfort that they wanted. It's an excellent performance and wonderfully underplayed. I'm glad that it was with Romana as well, who played off that well rather than going for an easy joke as the Doctor might have.
I like the idea of the Nimon a bit more than their execution. A minotaur race that act like locusts but that have real technological abilities is interesting. I even thought the costumes weren't that bad though the constant need for the actors to walk on tip-toe to simulate a hoof was probably jarring. What I didn't like about them was the constant arm movement. It was always like they were doing a free expression dance while simply walking around. I also would have liked some padding on arms. The loincloth covered the legs well enough, but the arms looked so skinny compared to the head and torso that it drew me out of the story. It was much easier to see it as a man in a costume rather than a creature. Padding would have added the illusion of musculature which also would have made the Nimon just that much more threatening.
I also enjoyed the sets for the most part. The clanking grates outside the maze were not good, but within the maze and the lab itself, I thought they did a good job. I could easily imagine that the hibernation chamber was recycled from The Ark in Space set while the computer equipment was probably gotten off some salvage yard. Both gave extra touches of realism when the budget would probably not have allowed that. I also appreciated the dim lighting. It hid what would have been imperfections in the set and costume and added an air of creepiness that might have otherwise been lost.
One small thing that was a bit odd was the pacing. The story had a slow start with a lot of hijinks in Episode One. It moved fairly steady after that, though it did slow down a bit in Episode Three. Then you have things all over the map in Episode Four. Many plot elements are stuffed in giving it a very crammed feeling, yet at the same time, there is a long segment of the Doctor's party following K-9 down various corridors with the Nimon doing the same. It kills several minutes that could have been used elsewhere. You then have a very hasty summary where three different storylines are summarily ended in a TARDIS coda that feels tacked on. It's very odd pacing with fast and slow elements throughout the whole story.
As stated earlier, this story is more of a reflection of what could have been. It has a number of good elements and even having dark or silly humor here and there are not a problem. The problems come from the contrast in performances and the up and down pacing. It's not quite the same but it's easy to see how the second attempt at this story in the form of The God Complex worked much better if only due to a consistent tone throughout. This story is not bad to sit through but there are going to be several roll your eye moments. If you can set those aside, it can be enjoyed just fine, but I doubt I will make much of an effort to come back to this one.
Overall personal score: 2 out of 5
Monday, September 11, 2017
Spearhead From Space
Smith. Doctor John Smith.
I'd been holding off on this one for a while, not because of any misperception regarding this story, but because it is the last Liz Shaw story to review. Taking things as a whole, Liz Shaw might be my favorite companion in how she is a strong, intelligent woman who works with the Doctor very much as an equal, which is something you just don't get in any other companion. But this her introduction as well as the introduction of UNIT as regular set piece and not just the one off force as shown in The Invasion.
Plot Summary
On Earth, UNIT tracks a group of meteorites that crash down in Essex in a tight formation. A poacher, Sam Seeley, spies one of the orbs that crashes and is surprised to see it pulsating and giving off a signal. He pops it into his poacher's bag.
Nearby, the TARDIS appears and a freshly regenerated Third Doctor falls out. He is discovered by UNIT soldiers sent to find the meteorites and taken the local hospital. The UNIT second-in-command, Captain Munro, alerts Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, who is in the process of recruiting a scientist named Liz Shaw to assist them. The two head over upon hearing that the man was discovered near a police box.
At the hospital, the doctors are confused by the patient's physiology. This causes the janitor to alert the media, hoping for a payment for the story. The Brigadier arrives and blows off the media, making them only more suspicious. He is disappointed when he doesn't recognize the Doctor although the Doctor recognizes him. He asks for a mirror and takes himself in for the first time. He also manages to get the TARDIS key out of his shoe and slips it into his palm.
After the Brigadier leaves, two men enter the hospital and knock out Dr. Henderson, the attending physician, and kidnap the Doctor. The Doctor manages to break loose and roll away on his wheelchair, away from the ambulance that was going to take him away. The Doctor ditches the wheelchair and runs toward the TARDIS where he is shot by a UNIT patrol guarding it. The bullet only grazes him but he places himself in a coma to protect himself. The UNIT soldiers carry him back to the hospital.
Shortly afterwards, the Doctor pulls himself out of his coma and sneaks out of bed. He steals the clothes of one of the Doctor's and the traveling out fit of another who had come to examine him. He then steals the car of the consultant and races towards UNIT headquarters.
UNIT personnel recover another one of the meteorites, just as Sam had. Sam now has his in a trunk in his tool shed and is hiding it from his wife. The transfer did alert an Auton, which was in the woods trying to find the missing spheres. It changes course to go after the UNIT men who recovered the second sphere. It is placed in a truck for transport but it runs off the road when the Auton steps in it's path. The Auton takes the sphere out of the truck and heads back to it's headquarters.
The headquarters is a plastic factory making toy dolls. The disgruntled co-creator of the toy line, Ransome, comes in to complain about being pushed out. The director, Hibbert, is sympathetic and tries to warn him off until the same man who organized the attempted kidnapping of the Doctor, Channing, enters. Hibbert then becomes passive and Ransome leaves, although suspicious.
Hibbert and Channing are visited shortly afterwards by General Scobie, the liaison between UNIT and the regular British Army. He stopped by after visiting with the Brigadier about the meteors. Scobie is shown a semi-completed plastic replica of him that the plastic company is doing, claiming that they are modeling current important British figures for an exhibition and required a few more measurements from him to ensure it looks right.
The Doctor arrives at UNIT headquarters, drawn by a homing device on his watch to the TARDIS. The Brigadier begins to accept that this is in fact the Doctor but refuses to return the TARDIS key, recovered after being shot, until he helps out with the meteorites. The Doctor meets Liz and the two work together in examining the plastic casing that held the sphere that was stolen.
Ransome returns to the plastic factory to investigate what happened to his office and what is going on. He breaks into a room with a lot of scientific equipment and a row of plastic mannequins. One of the mannequins begins to walk towards him. It tries to kill him with a gun built into its hand but Ransome is able to get away. He escapes into the woods where he is picked up by UNIT forces and treated for shock.
Ransome is then brought to UNIT HQ to talk to the Brigadier. Liz enters and while the Brigadier is distracted, she steals the TARDIS key from off his desk. The Doctor claimed to have equipment they can use in the TARDIS and Liz had intended just to ask the Brigadier for it. The Doctor takes the key and tries to leave in the TARDIS but it has been disabled by the Time Lords. Both Liz and the Brigadier are annoyed with his deception but with no means of escape, the Doctor comes with them to talk with the other soldiers in the woods.
UNIT brings in Sam Seeley for questioning and while he is away, his wife breaks open the trunk where the sphere is being hidden. Exposed, Channing and Hibbert pick up it's signal again and dispatch an Auton to the house. The Auton searches the premises but can't find it. Mrs. Seeley discovers the Auton and shoots it with the shotgun but with no effect. The Auton knocks her out and begins to search the shed.
Informed about the sphere by Seeley, the Brigadier, Capt. Munro, the Doctor and Liz head to the house to find the Auton searching it. The Brigadier and Munro attack it and Channing orders it to retreat as he doesn't want to engage in full combat yet. The Doctor discovers the sphere and they take it back to the lab while Mrs. Seeley is taken to the hospital.
The retreating Auton enters the UNIT camp and finds Ransome. It kills him and vaporizes the body before disappearing back into the woods. The Brigadier arrives and finds Ransome gone with the Doctor pointing out that something cut its way into the tent to attack Ransome. The Doctor suggests investigating the plastics factory while he and Liz investigate the sphere. Agreeing, the Brigadier calls General Scobie who authorizes an investigation. However, as he hangs up the phone, a plastic duplicate of himself appears at the door and attacks him.
The fake Scobie calls the Brigadier back and orders him to call off any investigation. The Brigadier leaves to go directly to the Ministry to get permission while the Doctor and Liz travel to Madame Tussauds to examine the replicas there. They find one of General Scobie but the Doctor determines that it is actually General Scobie, suspended in a hypnotizing, plastic mold.
The Doctor and Liz hide until the museum closes and then examine the figures in detail. The Doctor determines that Scobie is the only real person but that the aliens behind this plan to replace the government officials with replicas to allow quicker takeover. They hide when Channing and Hibbert enter to examine the figures and take them away. The Doctor confronts Hibbert while alone and plants an idea to fight the control of the aliens.
While everyone is out, the fake General Scobie goes to UNIT headquarters and takes the sphere the Doctor and Liz were working on. They had determined that it was a part of a higher consciousness that when combined with the others would create a central intelligence. When it is taken to the plastic factory, Channing does that and orders that the attack begin at dawn. Hibbert, fighting the control of the aliens, tries to sabotage the machine where the consciousness, called the Nestene, is housed. He is discovered and killed by Channing.
Finding the sphere gone, the Doctor and Liz work through the night and build a machine that will attack the wavelength the intelligence works on. As they finish, the Brigadier receives word of shop window dummies coming to life all over Britain, attacking and killing patrons. With the machine ready, the Brigadier organizes his headquarters staff and the group attacks the plastic factory.
Before they attack, they meet a squad of regular army led by General Scobie who orders the Brigadier to stand down. The Doctor intervenes and test his weapon on Scobie, who drops as an inanimate plastic dummy. The Brigadier takes command and attacks while the Doctor and Liz slip inside. Channing orders Autons to attack and the UNIT and army forces try to hold them off.
The Doctor enters the control room and tries to activate his machine but it malfunctions. Channing ups the power and flees, allowing the Nestene brain to reach out with tentacles and attack the Doctor. From behind cover, Liz repairs the machine and activates it. The Doctor directs it at the Nestene brain and it effectively kills it. Once dead, all Autons, including Channing himself, collapse.
The group returns to UNIT headquarters where the Doctor, as he is trapped on Earth, agrees to help UNIT in exchange for a laboratory, a place to work on the TARDIS and the use of Liz as his assistant. He also strongly hints that he would like his own car in the 1920's roadster model.
Analysis
Spearhead From Space is an excellent way to kick off a new Doctor as it is a visual treat. It's not perfect, but it is very good and an easy and enjoyable watch. The funny thing is that it came about mostly due to a strike which forced Barry Letts to take the whole thing on the road and film it on location, which admittedly was probably a pain, but gave it a real sense of depth that is lost in studio shooting.
This might my favorite portrayal of the Third Doctor. Because he's coming off regeneration crisis, he's not fully into the pomposity that could make him unlikeable at times. He also immediately develops a nice rapport with both the Brigadier and Liz, seeing them as friends and allies. His relationship with Liz would stay that way but his interactions with the Brigadier would become more hostile as the era wore on. Here they are clearly on the same side the whole way. The Doctor also throws in some humor here and there and that is something that gets steadily left behind over as the era wears on. Perhaps the humor and even the style of speech are similar to the Second Doctor, which would be normal given that he is still in regeneration crisis, and that is one of the things that I find a bit more endearing. In fact in many ways, Spearhead From Space plays a lot like a later Second Doctor story and the roots from The Invasion are fairly visible.
Liz is of course, Liz. She is introduced simply and is a mix of intellectual curiosity, bemusement, and annoyed cynicism. She is skeptical of the Doctor but grows to appreciate him quickly, to the point of having him try to take advantage of that trust. But what works best for both of them is that there is an almost instant mutual respect. The Doctor sizes her up and acknowledges her intelligence quickly. She does the same and you can see both friendship and a solid partnership forming very rapidly. While I like Jo, the disdain and mistreatment the Doctor gives her in his paternalistic style can get tiresome. Nothing ever really matches the relationship the Doctor has with Liz and it sets itself up so easily almost instantly.
This is a good story for the Brigadier as well. As his third story, he doesn't really need to properly introduced but you still get the feeling that he will be playing a more prominent role right off the bat. He is immediately affable with a dry sense of humor. More importantly, he is shown to be quite intelligent which is sometimes lost in later stories. The Brigadier can be shown to be a shoot first buffoon at times but here he is thoughtful, hard working and smart enough to be well worthy of both his position and the Doctor's trust. He also is not shown to be trigger happy in this story. One of his men is but the Brigadier himself doesn't engage until after being fired upon by the Autons. Nor does he ever provoke the Doctor's ire by immediately suggesting the area be "cleansed." This version of the Brigadier is not afraid to use force but also not one to assume that force is the obvious solution and that is another sign of his intelligence showing through.
I also like the Autons (or Nestene if you prefer) as the villains. To be honest, I like the Nestene as villains in all three stories they appear in. It's usually some other aspect of the story that lets it down. Here they are quite good. The Autons themselves are quite scary, especially in their infiltration tactics and emerging from the shop windows. Only a slightly different framing and a slightly different style of music and it could have easily been something that John Carpenter put out. My only niggle on the Nestene and the Autons was the retreat from Sam's house before capturing the remaining sphere. That Auton could easily have overpowered or outgunned the Brigadier and Captain Munro but retreating preserved the important actors and gave the Doctor his clues in how to beat the Nestene so it was a writer's out to a plot hole.
The visuals were quite excellent with the shooting on location and on film. Unfortunately, the same emergency that forced this type of shooting did not allow for the needed set up with the audio. There are a number of scenes where it sounds like everyone is speaking in a large, echo-y room (because they are) and that is a bit distracting. It gets bad enough at a couple of points that it becomes very hard to hear what people are saying. Not impossible but it is probably the largest single flaw of the story.
One other flaw that I would be remiss to point out is that there are a few points of overacting and a bit of silliness. The close ups of Ransome's face are a bit much with him doing his look of horror directly into the camera. I also can't help but snigger at the tentacles that are attacking the Doctor at the end of Episode Four. Jon Pertwee is trying his best but it's so obvious that he is holding the tentacle against himself and trying to make it look like he's being strangled. It's a bit silly looking no matter how hard he tries.
Despite these little set backs, I enjoy this story immensely. It's a great story to introduce someone to the Third Doctor to, especially since it's only four episodes and zips along with minimal padding. Obviously the filmed on location stuff wasn't going to stick around but I think I would enjoy the Third Doctor era more if the stories were this tightly paced more often. Definitely worth a watch any time the opportunity arises.
Overall personal score: 4.5 out of 5
I'd been holding off on this one for a while, not because of any misperception regarding this story, but because it is the last Liz Shaw story to review. Taking things as a whole, Liz Shaw might be my favorite companion in how she is a strong, intelligent woman who works with the Doctor very much as an equal, which is something you just don't get in any other companion. But this her introduction as well as the introduction of UNIT as regular set piece and not just the one off force as shown in The Invasion.
Plot Summary
On Earth, UNIT tracks a group of meteorites that crash down in Essex in a tight formation. A poacher, Sam Seeley, spies one of the orbs that crashes and is surprised to see it pulsating and giving off a signal. He pops it into his poacher's bag.
Nearby, the TARDIS appears and a freshly regenerated Third Doctor falls out. He is discovered by UNIT soldiers sent to find the meteorites and taken the local hospital. The UNIT second-in-command, Captain Munro, alerts Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, who is in the process of recruiting a scientist named Liz Shaw to assist them. The two head over upon hearing that the man was discovered near a police box.
At the hospital, the doctors are confused by the patient's physiology. This causes the janitor to alert the media, hoping for a payment for the story. The Brigadier arrives and blows off the media, making them only more suspicious. He is disappointed when he doesn't recognize the Doctor although the Doctor recognizes him. He asks for a mirror and takes himself in for the first time. He also manages to get the TARDIS key out of his shoe and slips it into his palm.
After the Brigadier leaves, two men enter the hospital and knock out Dr. Henderson, the attending physician, and kidnap the Doctor. The Doctor manages to break loose and roll away on his wheelchair, away from the ambulance that was going to take him away. The Doctor ditches the wheelchair and runs toward the TARDIS where he is shot by a UNIT patrol guarding it. The bullet only grazes him but he places himself in a coma to protect himself. The UNIT soldiers carry him back to the hospital.
Shortly afterwards, the Doctor pulls himself out of his coma and sneaks out of bed. He steals the clothes of one of the Doctor's and the traveling out fit of another who had come to examine him. He then steals the car of the consultant and races towards UNIT headquarters.
UNIT personnel recover another one of the meteorites, just as Sam had. Sam now has his in a trunk in his tool shed and is hiding it from his wife. The transfer did alert an Auton, which was in the woods trying to find the missing spheres. It changes course to go after the UNIT men who recovered the second sphere. It is placed in a truck for transport but it runs off the road when the Auton steps in it's path. The Auton takes the sphere out of the truck and heads back to it's headquarters.
The headquarters is a plastic factory making toy dolls. The disgruntled co-creator of the toy line, Ransome, comes in to complain about being pushed out. The director, Hibbert, is sympathetic and tries to warn him off until the same man who organized the attempted kidnapping of the Doctor, Channing, enters. Hibbert then becomes passive and Ransome leaves, although suspicious.
Hibbert and Channing are visited shortly afterwards by General Scobie, the liaison between UNIT and the regular British Army. He stopped by after visiting with the Brigadier about the meteors. Scobie is shown a semi-completed plastic replica of him that the plastic company is doing, claiming that they are modeling current important British figures for an exhibition and required a few more measurements from him to ensure it looks right.
The Doctor arrives at UNIT headquarters, drawn by a homing device on his watch to the TARDIS. The Brigadier begins to accept that this is in fact the Doctor but refuses to return the TARDIS key, recovered after being shot, until he helps out with the meteorites. The Doctor meets Liz and the two work together in examining the plastic casing that held the sphere that was stolen.
Ransome returns to the plastic factory to investigate what happened to his office and what is going on. He breaks into a room with a lot of scientific equipment and a row of plastic mannequins. One of the mannequins begins to walk towards him. It tries to kill him with a gun built into its hand but Ransome is able to get away. He escapes into the woods where he is picked up by UNIT forces and treated for shock.
Ransome is then brought to UNIT HQ to talk to the Brigadier. Liz enters and while the Brigadier is distracted, she steals the TARDIS key from off his desk. The Doctor claimed to have equipment they can use in the TARDIS and Liz had intended just to ask the Brigadier for it. The Doctor takes the key and tries to leave in the TARDIS but it has been disabled by the Time Lords. Both Liz and the Brigadier are annoyed with his deception but with no means of escape, the Doctor comes with them to talk with the other soldiers in the woods.
UNIT brings in Sam Seeley for questioning and while he is away, his wife breaks open the trunk where the sphere is being hidden. Exposed, Channing and Hibbert pick up it's signal again and dispatch an Auton to the house. The Auton searches the premises but can't find it. Mrs. Seeley discovers the Auton and shoots it with the shotgun but with no effect. The Auton knocks her out and begins to search the shed.
Informed about the sphere by Seeley, the Brigadier, Capt. Munro, the Doctor and Liz head to the house to find the Auton searching it. The Brigadier and Munro attack it and Channing orders it to retreat as he doesn't want to engage in full combat yet. The Doctor discovers the sphere and they take it back to the lab while Mrs. Seeley is taken to the hospital.
The retreating Auton enters the UNIT camp and finds Ransome. It kills him and vaporizes the body before disappearing back into the woods. The Brigadier arrives and finds Ransome gone with the Doctor pointing out that something cut its way into the tent to attack Ransome. The Doctor suggests investigating the plastics factory while he and Liz investigate the sphere. Agreeing, the Brigadier calls General Scobie who authorizes an investigation. However, as he hangs up the phone, a plastic duplicate of himself appears at the door and attacks him.
The fake Scobie calls the Brigadier back and orders him to call off any investigation. The Brigadier leaves to go directly to the Ministry to get permission while the Doctor and Liz travel to Madame Tussauds to examine the replicas there. They find one of General Scobie but the Doctor determines that it is actually General Scobie, suspended in a hypnotizing, plastic mold.
The Doctor and Liz hide until the museum closes and then examine the figures in detail. The Doctor determines that Scobie is the only real person but that the aliens behind this plan to replace the government officials with replicas to allow quicker takeover. They hide when Channing and Hibbert enter to examine the figures and take them away. The Doctor confronts Hibbert while alone and plants an idea to fight the control of the aliens.
While everyone is out, the fake General Scobie goes to UNIT headquarters and takes the sphere the Doctor and Liz were working on. They had determined that it was a part of a higher consciousness that when combined with the others would create a central intelligence. When it is taken to the plastic factory, Channing does that and orders that the attack begin at dawn. Hibbert, fighting the control of the aliens, tries to sabotage the machine where the consciousness, called the Nestene, is housed. He is discovered and killed by Channing.
Finding the sphere gone, the Doctor and Liz work through the night and build a machine that will attack the wavelength the intelligence works on. As they finish, the Brigadier receives word of shop window dummies coming to life all over Britain, attacking and killing patrons. With the machine ready, the Brigadier organizes his headquarters staff and the group attacks the plastic factory.
Before they attack, they meet a squad of regular army led by General Scobie who orders the Brigadier to stand down. The Doctor intervenes and test his weapon on Scobie, who drops as an inanimate plastic dummy. The Brigadier takes command and attacks while the Doctor and Liz slip inside. Channing orders Autons to attack and the UNIT and army forces try to hold them off.
The Doctor enters the control room and tries to activate his machine but it malfunctions. Channing ups the power and flees, allowing the Nestene brain to reach out with tentacles and attack the Doctor. From behind cover, Liz repairs the machine and activates it. The Doctor directs it at the Nestene brain and it effectively kills it. Once dead, all Autons, including Channing himself, collapse.
The group returns to UNIT headquarters where the Doctor, as he is trapped on Earth, agrees to help UNIT in exchange for a laboratory, a place to work on the TARDIS and the use of Liz as his assistant. He also strongly hints that he would like his own car in the 1920's roadster model.
Analysis
Spearhead From Space is an excellent way to kick off a new Doctor as it is a visual treat. It's not perfect, but it is very good and an easy and enjoyable watch. The funny thing is that it came about mostly due to a strike which forced Barry Letts to take the whole thing on the road and film it on location, which admittedly was probably a pain, but gave it a real sense of depth that is lost in studio shooting.
This might my favorite portrayal of the Third Doctor. Because he's coming off regeneration crisis, he's not fully into the pomposity that could make him unlikeable at times. He also immediately develops a nice rapport with both the Brigadier and Liz, seeing them as friends and allies. His relationship with Liz would stay that way but his interactions with the Brigadier would become more hostile as the era wore on. Here they are clearly on the same side the whole way. The Doctor also throws in some humor here and there and that is something that gets steadily left behind over as the era wears on. Perhaps the humor and even the style of speech are similar to the Second Doctor, which would be normal given that he is still in regeneration crisis, and that is one of the things that I find a bit more endearing. In fact in many ways, Spearhead From Space plays a lot like a later Second Doctor story and the roots from The Invasion are fairly visible.
Liz is of course, Liz. She is introduced simply and is a mix of intellectual curiosity, bemusement, and annoyed cynicism. She is skeptical of the Doctor but grows to appreciate him quickly, to the point of having him try to take advantage of that trust. But what works best for both of them is that there is an almost instant mutual respect. The Doctor sizes her up and acknowledges her intelligence quickly. She does the same and you can see both friendship and a solid partnership forming very rapidly. While I like Jo, the disdain and mistreatment the Doctor gives her in his paternalistic style can get tiresome. Nothing ever really matches the relationship the Doctor has with Liz and it sets itself up so easily almost instantly.
This is a good story for the Brigadier as well. As his third story, he doesn't really need to properly introduced but you still get the feeling that he will be playing a more prominent role right off the bat. He is immediately affable with a dry sense of humor. More importantly, he is shown to be quite intelligent which is sometimes lost in later stories. The Brigadier can be shown to be a shoot first buffoon at times but here he is thoughtful, hard working and smart enough to be well worthy of both his position and the Doctor's trust. He also is not shown to be trigger happy in this story. One of his men is but the Brigadier himself doesn't engage until after being fired upon by the Autons. Nor does he ever provoke the Doctor's ire by immediately suggesting the area be "cleansed." This version of the Brigadier is not afraid to use force but also not one to assume that force is the obvious solution and that is another sign of his intelligence showing through.
I also like the Autons (or Nestene if you prefer) as the villains. To be honest, I like the Nestene as villains in all three stories they appear in. It's usually some other aspect of the story that lets it down. Here they are quite good. The Autons themselves are quite scary, especially in their infiltration tactics and emerging from the shop windows. Only a slightly different framing and a slightly different style of music and it could have easily been something that John Carpenter put out. My only niggle on the Nestene and the Autons was the retreat from Sam's house before capturing the remaining sphere. That Auton could easily have overpowered or outgunned the Brigadier and Captain Munro but retreating preserved the important actors and gave the Doctor his clues in how to beat the Nestene so it was a writer's out to a plot hole.
The visuals were quite excellent with the shooting on location and on film. Unfortunately, the same emergency that forced this type of shooting did not allow for the needed set up with the audio. There are a number of scenes where it sounds like everyone is speaking in a large, echo-y room (because they are) and that is a bit distracting. It gets bad enough at a couple of points that it becomes very hard to hear what people are saying. Not impossible but it is probably the largest single flaw of the story.
One other flaw that I would be remiss to point out is that there are a few points of overacting and a bit of silliness. The close ups of Ransome's face are a bit much with him doing his look of horror directly into the camera. I also can't help but snigger at the tentacles that are attacking the Doctor at the end of Episode Four. Jon Pertwee is trying his best but it's so obvious that he is holding the tentacle against himself and trying to make it look like he's being strangled. It's a bit silly looking no matter how hard he tries.
Despite these little set backs, I enjoy this story immensely. It's a great story to introduce someone to the Third Doctor to, especially since it's only four episodes and zips along with minimal padding. Obviously the filmed on location stuff wasn't going to stick around but I think I would enjoy the Third Doctor era more if the stories were this tightly paced more often. Definitely worth a watch any time the opportunity arises.
Overall personal score: 4.5 out of 5
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