Most people just nip stationary from work.
I'm not that big into vampire stories. In fact, I'm not that big into much of any kind of horror monster so a sci-fi twist on historic vampires is not necessarily going to grab me. But I do like Rory and Amy and the Eleventh Doctor so I'm trying to go into this one with a more open mind. I recall it not grabbing me with any great gusto the first time but it's also sandwiched between two stories that I really, really like (Angel two-parter and Amy's Choice) so it may be more of a case of being lost in the shuffle.
Plot Summary
A man named Guido petitions the patron of the city of Venice, Rosanna Cavlierri, to accept his daughter Isabella into her school. Rosanna accepts and Guido is promptly thrown out while Isabella is sequestered with the other girls. Guido later tries to see her but he is rejected from entering and Isabella reacts with no recognition when he approaches her on the street.
Meanwhile, the Doctor crashes Rory's bachelor party, concerned when Amy tried to kiss him. He takes the two of them to Venice in 1580 for a romantic getaway. The Doctor is immediately put on his guard when the city magister informs them that the city is in quarantine due to plague outside the city, despite the Doctor knowing that the plague has receded in Italy by this time. He is even more intrigued when he sees Guido being rejected by the passing mass of girls coming from the school. He approaches Guido to learn his story.
Rory and Amy begin to walk through the streets and enjoy themselves when they hear a woman screaming. They rush to the scene and chase off Francesco, son of Rosanna who had attacked and bitten the neck of a flower selling girl. Rory gives chase but Francesco dives into the canals and Rory loses him. The two then go looking for the Doctor.
The Doctor has Guido distract the front gate guards while he slips in via a side gate. The Doctor makes his way down to a chamber where he becomes distracted by a fancy mirror. He is approached by several girls who do not reflect into the mirror. They are puzzled by him but give him the chance to flee as they have no orders concerning him, though they do bare long teeth at him as he lingers.
The Doctor reunites with Rory, Amy and Guido where Amy is excited about the possibility of vampires. They return to Guido's house and devise a plan where Rory will pretend Amy is his sister and he is asking for her to be admitted. Once she is in, she will let the Doctor and Guido in. Guido also notes his stockpile of gunpowder that he had amassed in order to blast his way in if left to no alternative.
Rory takes Amy in and she is accepted due to the psychic paper giving her reference from the King of Sweden. Rory is thrown out while Francesco takes Amy away. She is taken to the girl's room. Most of them slip out when called but Isabella hesitates, allowing Amy to talk to her and tell her about getting her out. Amy then slips down to the ground floor and unbolts the door leading to the cistern from which the Doctor and Rory are climbing.
Amy is grabbed by one of the servants and taken to a chamber. Rosanna was not fooled by the psychic paper and has Amy tied to a chair. She bites Amy's neck and drinks fluid from her. She tells her that others will do the same and her blood will be replaced by that of their kind, transforming her body into them. Amy angrily kicks Rosanna, hitting a perception filter on her body. Rosanna's form transforms briefly into a large fish creature before going back.
Before they can suck Amy again, they are alerted to the Doctor and Rory's presence. The Doctor and Rory work their way through, holding off the vampires with a large UV light. As they are chased, Isabella frees Amy and escorts all of them to an exit. Rosanna orders Francesco to seal the building. The Doctor, Amy and Rory rush through the door to Guido's waiting boat. Isabella comes to but shrinks away from the rising sunlight. This allows the others to grab her and drag her back in. The Doctor tries to follow and grab her but he is electrocuted and knocked out by the door security.
For refusing to fully obey, Isabella is knocked into the pool internal to the building where she is eaten by the brothers of Francesco, too immature to be brought and hidden by perception filters. Rosanna heads back to the throne room to find the Doctor. They interrogate each other and the Doctor learns not only that Isabella has been killed but that the aliens are from the planet Saturnyne and escaped through a crack, similar to that in Amy's bedroom, when their planet was destroyed. With no female survivors, she has transformed girls to repopulate the race after sinking Venice.
The Doctor vows to stop her but she sends the girls to kill him in Guido's house. The Doctor, Rory and Amy escape but Guido kills the lot by luring them in and exploding his store of gunpowder. Unaware of the girls' death, Rosanna activates a weather augmentation machine, designed to sink Venice. The Doctor sends Rory and Amy back to the TARDIS while he tries to stop the machine.
As Rory and Amy run past the Cavlierri palace, Francesco sees them and decides to finish them. He corners Amy but is lured into attacking Rory instead. Rory tries to hold him off but is eventually knocked down. As Francesco leaps on Rory, Amy catches a ray of sunlight in a mirror and shines it directly into Francesco's face. The concentrated sunlight causes his entire body to burst into flame, killing him. Amy and Rory then run back to the palace to help the Doctor.
The Doctor meets Rosanna where she gloats at him until he informs her that her girls are dead. She flees below to the pool where her other children are, leaving the Doctor alone. He uncovers the control mechanism in her throne. Rory and Amy enter and he tells them to destroy the chair, which will send control back to the generator. The Doctor follows the signal of the generator to a ball ornament on top of the bell tower. He deactivates it, causing the storms to stop immediately.
The Doctor finds Rosanna standing near the edge of the pool, having stripped down to her undergarment but also stuck showing her human form due to the damage done to the filer by Amy's kick. With no hope of continuing her race, she jumps into the water where she is eaten by her own children. The Doctor then recollects Amy and Rory where Amy insists that Rory travel with them for a few more adventures. Rory agrees and they depart in the TARDIS.
Analysis
Typically when I find a story that I give middling to low scores for, I can usually cite a number of things that just bothered me or mistakes that were made. In this particular case, I can't really do that except for a few minor niggles. However, this story just doesn't do much for me. I don't think it's the fault of anything particular with the story as much as it is that I'm really not into the gothic vampire genre. Aspects of it worked for me in State of Decay, but here it just came across as more boring than anything else.
What really annoys me about not being engaged with this story is that it's the start of the dynamic between Rory and the Doctor. I'm not much into the whole "Amy choosing between Rory and the Doctor" dynamic but it is a simple fact that the interaction between Rory and the Doctor was very funny and had a smoothness that I just loved in later stories. You can see it already forming in the quiet moments between the two, but the rest of the story just doesn't engage me and I found myself wishing they would ignore Amy and just go back to Rory and the Doctor.
As is the case for most of Series 5, the Eleventh Doctor is in top zany form. He is a nice mix of excitable and happy but also attentive to detail. You can also see a trace of that dark detail that was more prominent with the Tenth Doctor in that he opts to fully deal with Rosanna when she confirms that she didn't know Isabella's name, even after having her killed. He also offers little help when Rosanna opts to let herself be consumed by her children. Though the tone shifts here and there, he shifts and sways with it.
Rory and Amy are also quite good in this story. Rory does the man caught on his heels very well along with the jealous and slightly jilted lover. It gets a touch overplayed in other stories but given that this is his first exposure to it, it's understandable that this would be the driving emotion for him. He is bumbling but also fully committed, the way someone who is trying beyond his means would be.
Amy, by contrast, is acting more in the role of the established veteran. She is seasoned but still impressed by each new situation. She is also confident but still lets the Doctor drive nearly all the decisions. She did not set herself as bait until the Doctor agreed nor did she fight the Doctor about going back to the TARDIS, though she and Rory did go back to the citadel after the fight with Francesco. It's a nice balance for a companion who can be bold but also deferential to the experience of the Doctor.
The villains were very generic in terms of the vampire tropes and the only one I found even partially interesting was Rosanna. She at least had a planning mind and seemed like she could match wits with the Doctor for a time. But even she gave into trope after a while. It made no sense to send all of the girls after the Doctor, knowing there would be a risk of loss in the attack. Likewise, where did Rosanna go after the Doctor told her all the girls were dead and he made to stop the submersion of the city. She could have tried to stop him and nothing was preventing her from starting over once the Doctor had been dealt with. Of course, it made it easy for him to stop the thing without being attacked.
Speaking of attacks, I also didn't like the cop out fight between Francesco and Rory/Amy. It had it's funny moments, especially the makeshift cross of Rory's, but it had too simple a conclusion. We had been shown that the aliens, while they did not like sunlight, could shield themselves from it pretty much through veils and hats. The reflection of a mirror does not intensify sunlight into a concentrated beam but would just reflect the same light that they would have been exposed to if there were no clouds or Francesco was not wearing a hat. It could have easily driven him off but it should have not have caused him to burst into flames. It was a point that gave into the vampire lore a bit too much and was done for a cheap thrill.
The direction was fairly nice, especially with the use of a historical city to stand in for Venice. There was some unfortunately obvious blue screen work but it's at a moment of high action and doesn't detract too much. What detracts more is how it gets prolonged and the lack of other obsticles. Rather than have the Doctor fumble about because of the wind or the height, have him deal with an attack from one of the aliens. That would have probably required a bit too much CGI and been out of budget but it would have been an improvement.
This is not a bad story but if you're not a fan of gothic vampire stories it's not going to do too much for you as that is the only real hook. There is no real twist or surprise save the reality of what the "vampires" actually are. It has action and adventure as well as some comedy but it's pretty rote and can get boring in the middle. Even the ending is something of a let down as Amy and Guido are the only ones who take active steps to actually kill the aliens. It's fine for a mindless watch but the two stories on either side of this one are far better in my opinion.
Overall personal score: 2.5 out of 5
Monday, November 20, 2017
Thursday, November 16, 2017
The Crimson Horror
I'm going to go play with my grenades.
There was a great deal of talk in Series Six and Seven about a possible Paternoster Gang spin-off show. The Crimson Horror was in many ways, a closet pilot for this thought. I don't know how serious the idea was but the format of this particular episode is so markedly different than others in the series that I can't imagine that Mark Gatiss didn't write this up with an eye towards how the public would react to a story that featured the gang more front and center than had ever been seen before.
Plot Summary
A man named Edmund is fished out of a river in Yorkshire, his skin stained red. His brother collects his body and takes photographs of it to Madame Vastra, whom he hires to investigate his brother's death. Madame Vastra is especially intrigued when photographs of the eye of the dead man show an image of the Doctor.
The Paternoster Gang travel north and have Jenny slip enter a meeting hosted by a Mrs. Gillyflower. Mrs. Gillyflower rails against the evils of modern society and predicts its collapse. She offers sanctuary to the best people at a factory commune called Sweetwater, near where Edmund's body was fished out. Jenny travels with a group of new recruits to Sweetwater while Vastra examines a sample of the red coating recovered from the bodies fished out of the river. She recognizes it from something from the prehistoric era.
Once in the commune, Jenny slips away and discovers that the factory is an illusion. People are collected and dipped in vats of a red fluid which puts them in stasis. Any that don't adapt are killed by the fluid. Jenny further investigates and discovers the Doctor, having survived a dip into fluid, kept locked in a room by Mrs. Gillyflower's blind daughter Ada. The Doctor guides Jenny to a steam vent and puts himself inside. This washes the poison out of him and he returns to his normal self.
The Doctor and Clara had landed outside Sweetwater when another body was fished out. They met Edmund who was trying to investigate the factory and decided to help him. Posing as a married couple, they were accepted by Mrs. Gillyflower into the commune. They observed preserved people in giant bell jars, are grabbed and dipped into the same red liquid. Clara was put in stasis but the Doctor, not being human, rejected it and survived. Ada, recognizing that the Doctor was different, spirited him to a cell rather than throwing him in the river and kept him. Edmund eventually broke in to look for the Doctor when he failed to return and fell or was pushed into a concentrated form of the poison. He crawled out and made to the Doctor's cell before dying, hence the image of the Doctor on his eye.
Meanwhile, Ada discovers the Doctor's escape. While she is crying over his disappearance, Mrs. Gillyflower finds her and learns of what she has done. Fearful, she orders the acceleration of the plan. Ada appeals to her to let her come as well but Mrs. Gillyflower kicks her away, noting that only the perfect specimens will be taken.
The Doctor and Jenny discover Clara in a bell jar and break her out. They take her to the same steam vent as the Doctor for detox. While they are waiting, they are discovered by a group of Mrs. Gillyflower's attendants who are preparing the final plan. Jenny attacks them and knocks several of them out. They are joined by Vastra and Strax who disable or drive off the others. Clara comes to and is introduced to the group, much to their curiosity as the last time they had seen Clara (The Snowmen) she had died.
The group discovers that Mrs. Gillyflower is loading a rocket in the smokestack with a pure form of the venom. Vastra informs the Doctor that the venom comes from a creature called a red leech that was a plague to the Silurians back in the Mesozoic era. The Doctor leaves Jenny and Vastra to deal with the rocket while he and Clara go to take care of Mrs. Gillyflower. On their way, they discover Ada weeping in the hallway. The Doctor reveals himself to her and encourages her to come with them.
Mrs. Gillyflower uncovers a secret control panel and prepares to launch the rocket. The Doctor and Clara confront her and discover the red leech (Mr. Sweet) attached to her chest. She feeds him and he secrets the poison for her. The Doctor accuses her of blinding Ada with the leech's venom and she acknowledges that as true. She has preserved perfect specimens of humanity and will launch the rocket with the pure form of the venom. The explosion will spray it over the whole area, killing the townsfolk and letting her create a new "golden age" for her purified humans. Ada overhears all of this and attacks her mother in a rage. Clara, taking advantage of the opening, picks up a chair and smashes the rocket launch controls.
Mrs. Gillyflower grabs Ada, holds her hostage with a gun and slips through a door. They run back to the silo and find the two climbing the stairs. Mrs. Gillyflower shoves Ada down the stairs at the Doctor and launches the rocket with a secondary control panel. After it passes, Jenny and Vastra reveal themselves having removed the jug of venom from the rocket. Mrs. Gillyflower tuns the gun on them but Strax fires at her from the top of the silo, knocking her off the stairs to the floor below.
Mr. Sweet detaches himself from Mrs. Gillyflower and begins to crawl away. Ada approaches her mother and refuses to forgive her mother, much to Mrs. Gillyflower's amusement. She then dies and Ada uses her stick to smash the leech, killing it. Afterwards, Clara and the Doctor depart, the Doctor refusing to reveal the mystery of Clara to the Paternoster Gang. He drops her off at the house where she is confronted by Angie and Artie, who have discovered her time travelling antics, wanting to tag along on her next adventure.
Analysis
This is a story that benefits highly of either watching it a second time or going into it with the foreknowledge that it is meant to be an action-comedy in the vein of The Sarah Jane Adventures. Knowing that greatly increases the enjoyment of the episode rather than leaving folks annoyed as was the general case the first time around. In fact, isolating it and treating it like the pilot for a spin-off series does put it in a rather unique category for viewing and the viewer in a different mindset about it.
Because of the nature of the story and it's focus on the Paternoster Gang, the story is something of a Doctor-lite story. It's certainly a Clara-lite story. But even in that limited capacity, the Doctor is still very entertaining. He is manic and energetic but also still takes those moments of tenderness with Ada. He also has the good grace and sense to stand aside and let others take point, even if it means open killing. He does not reprimand Strax at any point, it is Vastra that calls him off from killing the people who attacked the Doctor and Jenny. Similarly, the Doctor offers no objection or remorse when both Mrs. Gillyflower and Mr. Sweet are killed. It's just something that happened and will stop things from continuing.
All the gang is enjoyable in this story with an interesting balance between Jenny and Strax. Strax gets all the full blown jokes, even the groaners like the bit with Thomas Thomas, while Jenny takes point in all the proper investigating and most of the action. Vastra only has a couple of scenes where she is figuring things out but most of her work is done off-screen. I don't have a problem with this, although I would have liked Jenny to have a bit more personality. Whenever she was on-screen, it was too easy for another character to steal the scene. Even the scene where she was in line and talking with the woman with the bad teeth, Jenny is the straight woman while the other infuses all the comedy.
I liked Ada a great deal with her blend of loyalty, desperation for love and eventual anger at those who wronged her. Mrs. Gillyflower on the other hand, I thought was a bit overplayed. I enjoy Diana Rigg as an actress but she works best in a more subdued manner. The manic and hammy villain she played here got a bit grating in large doses. She worked best as more of a background presence of evil but when in the foreground, the role got a bit mustache twirl-y. That might have been somewhat unavoidable as she was clearly supposed to be insane, but I still found her grating and a little too cartoonish for my taste. I also think the Mr. Sweet puppet was a bit silly, but again, closet pilot for a younger audience show.
One small thing that I wish they had found a way to do away with was the launching of the rocket from inside the silo. The simple fact of the matter is that there is no way that everything inside that silo would not have been instantly incinerated when that rocket was launched. The story was written with Mrs. Gillyflower on the tower so that the heroes could avoid the liability of actually killing her (Disney style) but it should have been done on a platform outside the silo because it's just dumb to have them all watch as a plume of rocket exhaust goes by.
I did enjoy the very stylized set, direction and camera work used here. There was a near constant state of mist that lended to the heavy Victorian vibe of the story. I know some fans didn't care for the old film style of the Doctor's flashback but I thought it worked within the playful context of the story. The whole thing just had a playful tone, even while being set in a Victorian thriller novel with a heavy dose of comedy.
Overall, I liked this story. You do have to go into it with a certain mindset, much as you do with something like The Chase. If you can start with that and let it play out as the comedy it was meant to be, it is a fun ride. There are some bumps within that fun ride that would probably be overlooked by the true target demographic of the story but take an older person like myself out of the story just a bit. Still, it's an easy one to go back to just to have some fun.
Overall personal score: 4 out of 5
There was a great deal of talk in Series Six and Seven about a possible Paternoster Gang spin-off show. The Crimson Horror was in many ways, a closet pilot for this thought. I don't know how serious the idea was but the format of this particular episode is so markedly different than others in the series that I can't imagine that Mark Gatiss didn't write this up with an eye towards how the public would react to a story that featured the gang more front and center than had ever been seen before.
Plot Summary
A man named Edmund is fished out of a river in Yorkshire, his skin stained red. His brother collects his body and takes photographs of it to Madame Vastra, whom he hires to investigate his brother's death. Madame Vastra is especially intrigued when photographs of the eye of the dead man show an image of the Doctor.
The Paternoster Gang travel north and have Jenny slip enter a meeting hosted by a Mrs. Gillyflower. Mrs. Gillyflower rails against the evils of modern society and predicts its collapse. She offers sanctuary to the best people at a factory commune called Sweetwater, near where Edmund's body was fished out. Jenny travels with a group of new recruits to Sweetwater while Vastra examines a sample of the red coating recovered from the bodies fished out of the river. She recognizes it from something from the prehistoric era.
Once in the commune, Jenny slips away and discovers that the factory is an illusion. People are collected and dipped in vats of a red fluid which puts them in stasis. Any that don't adapt are killed by the fluid. Jenny further investigates and discovers the Doctor, having survived a dip into fluid, kept locked in a room by Mrs. Gillyflower's blind daughter Ada. The Doctor guides Jenny to a steam vent and puts himself inside. This washes the poison out of him and he returns to his normal self.
The Doctor and Clara had landed outside Sweetwater when another body was fished out. They met Edmund who was trying to investigate the factory and decided to help him. Posing as a married couple, they were accepted by Mrs. Gillyflower into the commune. They observed preserved people in giant bell jars, are grabbed and dipped into the same red liquid. Clara was put in stasis but the Doctor, not being human, rejected it and survived. Ada, recognizing that the Doctor was different, spirited him to a cell rather than throwing him in the river and kept him. Edmund eventually broke in to look for the Doctor when he failed to return and fell or was pushed into a concentrated form of the poison. He crawled out and made to the Doctor's cell before dying, hence the image of the Doctor on his eye.
Meanwhile, Ada discovers the Doctor's escape. While she is crying over his disappearance, Mrs. Gillyflower finds her and learns of what she has done. Fearful, she orders the acceleration of the plan. Ada appeals to her to let her come as well but Mrs. Gillyflower kicks her away, noting that only the perfect specimens will be taken.
The Doctor and Jenny discover Clara in a bell jar and break her out. They take her to the same steam vent as the Doctor for detox. While they are waiting, they are discovered by a group of Mrs. Gillyflower's attendants who are preparing the final plan. Jenny attacks them and knocks several of them out. They are joined by Vastra and Strax who disable or drive off the others. Clara comes to and is introduced to the group, much to their curiosity as the last time they had seen Clara (The Snowmen) she had died.
The group discovers that Mrs. Gillyflower is loading a rocket in the smokestack with a pure form of the venom. Vastra informs the Doctor that the venom comes from a creature called a red leech that was a plague to the Silurians back in the Mesozoic era. The Doctor leaves Jenny and Vastra to deal with the rocket while he and Clara go to take care of Mrs. Gillyflower. On their way, they discover Ada weeping in the hallway. The Doctor reveals himself to her and encourages her to come with them.
Mrs. Gillyflower uncovers a secret control panel and prepares to launch the rocket. The Doctor and Clara confront her and discover the red leech (Mr. Sweet) attached to her chest. She feeds him and he secrets the poison for her. The Doctor accuses her of blinding Ada with the leech's venom and she acknowledges that as true. She has preserved perfect specimens of humanity and will launch the rocket with the pure form of the venom. The explosion will spray it over the whole area, killing the townsfolk and letting her create a new "golden age" for her purified humans. Ada overhears all of this and attacks her mother in a rage. Clara, taking advantage of the opening, picks up a chair and smashes the rocket launch controls.
Mrs. Gillyflower grabs Ada, holds her hostage with a gun and slips through a door. They run back to the silo and find the two climbing the stairs. Mrs. Gillyflower shoves Ada down the stairs at the Doctor and launches the rocket with a secondary control panel. After it passes, Jenny and Vastra reveal themselves having removed the jug of venom from the rocket. Mrs. Gillyflower tuns the gun on them but Strax fires at her from the top of the silo, knocking her off the stairs to the floor below.
Mr. Sweet detaches himself from Mrs. Gillyflower and begins to crawl away. Ada approaches her mother and refuses to forgive her mother, much to Mrs. Gillyflower's amusement. She then dies and Ada uses her stick to smash the leech, killing it. Afterwards, Clara and the Doctor depart, the Doctor refusing to reveal the mystery of Clara to the Paternoster Gang. He drops her off at the house where she is confronted by Angie and Artie, who have discovered her time travelling antics, wanting to tag along on her next adventure.
Analysis
This is a story that benefits highly of either watching it a second time or going into it with the foreknowledge that it is meant to be an action-comedy in the vein of The Sarah Jane Adventures. Knowing that greatly increases the enjoyment of the episode rather than leaving folks annoyed as was the general case the first time around. In fact, isolating it and treating it like the pilot for a spin-off series does put it in a rather unique category for viewing and the viewer in a different mindset about it.
Because of the nature of the story and it's focus on the Paternoster Gang, the story is something of a Doctor-lite story. It's certainly a Clara-lite story. But even in that limited capacity, the Doctor is still very entertaining. He is manic and energetic but also still takes those moments of tenderness with Ada. He also has the good grace and sense to stand aside and let others take point, even if it means open killing. He does not reprimand Strax at any point, it is Vastra that calls him off from killing the people who attacked the Doctor and Jenny. Similarly, the Doctor offers no objection or remorse when both Mrs. Gillyflower and Mr. Sweet are killed. It's just something that happened and will stop things from continuing.
All the gang is enjoyable in this story with an interesting balance between Jenny and Strax. Strax gets all the full blown jokes, even the groaners like the bit with Thomas Thomas, while Jenny takes point in all the proper investigating and most of the action. Vastra only has a couple of scenes where she is figuring things out but most of her work is done off-screen. I don't have a problem with this, although I would have liked Jenny to have a bit more personality. Whenever she was on-screen, it was too easy for another character to steal the scene. Even the scene where she was in line and talking with the woman with the bad teeth, Jenny is the straight woman while the other infuses all the comedy.
I liked Ada a great deal with her blend of loyalty, desperation for love and eventual anger at those who wronged her. Mrs. Gillyflower on the other hand, I thought was a bit overplayed. I enjoy Diana Rigg as an actress but she works best in a more subdued manner. The manic and hammy villain she played here got a bit grating in large doses. She worked best as more of a background presence of evil but when in the foreground, the role got a bit mustache twirl-y. That might have been somewhat unavoidable as she was clearly supposed to be insane, but I still found her grating and a little too cartoonish for my taste. I also think the Mr. Sweet puppet was a bit silly, but again, closet pilot for a younger audience show.
One small thing that I wish they had found a way to do away with was the launching of the rocket from inside the silo. The simple fact of the matter is that there is no way that everything inside that silo would not have been instantly incinerated when that rocket was launched. The story was written with Mrs. Gillyflower on the tower so that the heroes could avoid the liability of actually killing her (Disney style) but it should have been done on a platform outside the silo because it's just dumb to have them all watch as a plume of rocket exhaust goes by.
I did enjoy the very stylized set, direction and camera work used here. There was a near constant state of mist that lended to the heavy Victorian vibe of the story. I know some fans didn't care for the old film style of the Doctor's flashback but I thought it worked within the playful context of the story. The whole thing just had a playful tone, even while being set in a Victorian thriller novel with a heavy dose of comedy.
Overall, I liked this story. You do have to go into it with a certain mindset, much as you do with something like The Chase. If you can start with that and let it play out as the comedy it was meant to be, it is a fun ride. There are some bumps within that fun ride that would probably be overlooked by the true target demographic of the story but take an older person like myself out of the story just a bit. Still, it's an easy one to go back to just to have some fun.
Overall personal score: 4 out of 5
Tuesday, November 14, 2017
The Zygon Invasion/The Zygon Inversion
I'm Doctor Funkenstein
Before Heaven Sent aired, The Zygon Inversion was probably one the highest regarded episode in terms of Peter Capaldi's performance. Just about everything else that happened both in that episode and part one became completely secondary to that scene. I include myself in remembering what a great scene that was, though I don't recall it clouding my judgment regarding the rest of the story which had it's ups and downs.
Plot Summary
Following events from The Day of the Doctor, 20 million Zygons were allowed to settle on Earth, dispersed around the globe and blending in like any other human. However, a splinter group has emerged, desiring to take over and live in their natural form. This group kidnaps Osgood, the scientist assistant at UNIT who had developed a bond with a Zygon double of hers, causing them to lose track of which one was which. One was killed by Missy in Death in Heaven but the other manages to get a distress signal to the Doctor before being taken.
The Doctor receives the message and returns to Earth. He meets with Kate Stewart to learn about the situation. He also tries to contact Clara but keeps getting her answering machine. The Doctor seeks out the Zygon high command, disguised as two small girls. They dismiss the splinter group as something they can handle but the group attacks, kidnaping the high command and later executing them.
Clara arrives back at home having been out most of the day. She starts listening to her messages but is distracted by a neighbor boy crying about his parents being missing. Clara heads into their apartment to look for them. She is surprised as they suddenly appear and then drag the boy in, who is resisting. Clara emerges from the apartment and calls the Doctor back who summons her to UNIT HQ.
Reviewing all the information they have and gleaning a little more at the Zygon high command center, the group splits into threes. Kate Stewart heads to Truth or Consequences, New Mexico where they believe was Osgood's location when kidnaped, the Doctor heads to Turkmezistan where they believe the Zygon splinter group has set up headquarters and Clara stays in England with the rest of UNIT to monitor the situation there. As the first two depart, Clara tells Jac, Stewart's assistant, that she needs to pick up some things from her apartment.
As the two leave Clara's flat, they observe the two parents from earlier carrying a bundle into the elevator. After taking a little longer than normal, it opens and is empty. The two enter the elevator where they find a Zygon control mechanism behind the panel. Activating it, they descend to an underground lair where the Zygons have set up a control center with a number of pods. The two retreat back to UNIT HQ to get backup.
In New Mexico, Kate arrives to find the town nearly deserted but with the splinter group's symbols scattered about. She is confronted by Sherriff Norlander who tells her of this group of British people the tried to integrate but were so strange that things got out of hand. She shows Kate bins where the remains of the Zygon victims are being held. She also verifies that Osgood was here and was likely kidnaped from there. While going over records, Norlander confirms that Kate is alone, transforms into a Zygon and attacks her.
In Turkmezistan, UNIT is prepared to destroy the town where the Zygons are training. The Doctor tries to order the bombing to stop but Colonel Walsh ignores him. However, the drone commander refuses to fire as the Zygons take the form of her family, forcing Walsh to go in with ground troops. Learning that the church is their headquarters, Walsh and the Doctor head to the rear to sneak in while her squad lures the Zygons out the front. As they call for the Zygons to surrender, they emerge as members of their family. Manipulating the soldiers into thinking they are hostages, they lure them into the church. Furious, Walsh storms in the back to find her men all killed and the Zygons gone.
Furious, Walsh leaves and orders an airstrike on the town. The Doctor stays, desperately looking for Osgood. He finds a trap door in the floor and finds her tied up below. A Zygon guard attacks them but the airstrike begins and there is a partial cave in, knocking the Zygon out. The Doctor and Osgood pull him out and take him back to the Doctor's plane for interrogation.
Clara and Jac check elevator security footage and discover the Zygons have been smuggling things into the underground caves all over London. They gather a security force and head down into the caves to confront them. They discover a series of pods containing people, including Clara. Jac realizes that Clara was actually captured when she entered the boy's apartment and that the Clara she knows is an imposter. The fake Clara, calling herself Bonnie, springs the trap and a group of Zygons emerge, killing Jac and the other soldiers.
Bonnie heads back to UNIT HQ and calls New Mexico. Kate picks up the communicator and reports that UNIT has been neutralized there. Satisfied, Bonnie takes a rocket launcher and charts the progress of the Doctor's plane. She then drives out to Dover where she calls the Doctor. The Doctor and Osgood were interrogating the captured Zygon, who taunted them with the information that London had already been infiltrated and that they would be killed. Reaching the Doctor, Bonnie informs him that his compatriots are all dead and that he is next. She then fires the shoulder rocket at the plane.
Just prior to Bonnie firing the rocket, the real Clara stirs in her pod and her mind becomes active. Aware of Bonnie's activities through the mental link, Clara deflects Bonnie's arm just enough that the first rocket misses. She tries to stop her firing a second but Bonnie does manage to get it off and destroy the play. However, the delay bought the Doctor and Osgood enough time to parachute out before it exploded.
Bonnie heads to a nearby center where she corners a disguised Zygon and causes him to revert back into his normal Zygon shape. He stumbles away while she records a video and posts it on-line. Bonnie then heads back to UNIT HQ to find the Osgood box but only finds a recorded message from the Osgoods. But while Bonnie was walking, Clara tapped into her mind just enough to send a text message to the Doctor informing him that she was awake.
Noticing activity on her phone, Bonnie calls the Doctor, demanding to know where the Osgood box is. While she was talking, Bonnie begins winking involuntarily, another signal from Clara. The Doctor manages to finagle out of Bonnie/Clara the location of her recent attack and possible location of Clara's pod. He also implants the idea to Bonnie that the connection is a two-way street with Bonnie being able to tap into Clara's mind as well.
Bonnie heads to pod storage area and engages Clara. Clara pushes back against Bonnie's mind but Bonnie is able to figure a way to discern if Clara is lying. From her she learns that the Osgood box is located in the Black Archive and that in addition to the Osgoods, both the Doctor and Clara have access. Bonnie prepares to leave but Clara warns her that something will come up that will cause her to come back.
The Doctor and Osgood arrive at the location of Bonnie's attack and where the video she posted was shot. They enter the center and find the remains of several Zygon attacks. The Zygon who was forcibly changed is discovered trying to hide and unable to control his discharges of energy. He didn't want any of this but when he accidently attacks the Doctor, he turns his energy on himself and kills himself.
As the Doctor and Osgood examine things, Kate arrives with two troopers having been sent by Bonnie. She offers to take them to the cavern where Clara is. They agree but once there, the two soldiers morph into Zygons and advance on the Doctor and Clara. Bonnie meanwhile arrives at the Black Archive and finds two boxes. One will force every Zygon out of hiding, the other will kill all the Zygons. Bonnie threatens to kill Clara, whom she has brought with her, if the Doctor doesn't tell her which box. He tells her the blue one but when she opens it, there are two buttons.
Kate, who is actually the real Kate, pulls her gun and kills both Zygons. The three of them head to the Black Archive where they find Bonnie, her two Zygon guards and Clara. Kate prepares to activate the red box while the Doctor appeals to Bonnie, using his own war experience and logic to appeal to her. Slowly she comes around until finally agreeing to stand down. The Doctor then wipes the memories of Kate and the two Zygon guards, leaving Bonnie's memory but also letting on that this was the sixteenth iteration of their negotiation.
Bonnie leaves the Black Archive and orders all rebels to stand down. High command is transferred back to other Zygons and things resume as they were. Bonnie then takes the form of Osgood, reestablishing the join of two Osgoods to oversee the peace. This does force the first Osgood to turn down the Doctor's offer to travel in the TARDIS. He and Clara then depart for a new adventure.
Analysis
I think I have been well on record on how a memorable scene towards the end of a story can strongly influence my overall feelings towards that story, whether for good or for ill. This two-parter actually has it both ways as a rather stupid scene clouds my feelings towards The Zygon Invasion while the great Doctor speech consumes all other feelings about The Zygon Inversion. It makes it rather difficult to give these stories a fair score given that they should be looked at as a whole.
I think I'm more annoyed by the scene in The Zygon Invasion because the set up for this story is pretty well balanced the whole way through. You have Bonnie's take-over of Clara which is a nifty little secret until the end, you have three-way division of the team, each with a story that could have been expanded upon and made more compelling if time had allowed and you have the amusing performance of the Doctor who is still trying to use humor to put on bravado. But the flaws cannot be ignored.
The two little ones are fairly easy to let go of in that I didn't care much for the performances of Jac or Sherriff Norlander. Norlander was a bit stiff and I think, much like Peri, was focusing too hard on trying to maintain an American sounding accent. Jac was of a similar vein but unlike an accent problem, hers was more of an emoting problem. She was trying to be nervous and concerned while also a bit scared and the whole thing just made her feel a bit stiff. Her limited dialogue didn't help either as it felt she was being set up from the get go to be a red shirt (which she was).
But the real garbage moment was the soldiers preparing to storm the church. Someone comes out as the platoon leader's mom and fails to answer any personal questions. Not only is the acting melodramatic and rather poorly delivered but there is no reason why the whole squad would have dropped their weapons and walked into such an obvious trap. Even if the squad commander hesitated, his deputy should have dropped her in two seconds. What's more, the commander should have known that even a scared mother could have offered a string of information to convince her son of her identity. As soon as she claimed that she couldn't remember things, that should have been enough. It's a dumb scene to just wipe out the squad.
What's more, it was unnecessary. Storming the church and killing the Zygon rebels would have consolidated power with Bonnie as she would have been the primary leader left. The Doctor could have still found Osgood and one Zygon could have been taken alive to give the exposition on the plane. It just made no sense from any perspective and I find it annoying that while the Zygons kill multiple people, the only person who kills a Zygon is Kate Stewart. I think the Doctor's scene in pat two would have been even more impactful if both sides came in with blood on their hands and Kate's killing of three Zygons is not enough to counter Bonnie's.
In The Zygon Inversion we run into the reverse situation. The first half is a bit of a cop out. Rather than dealing with a splinter group with many viewpoints and jockeying for position, all power and decision making is concentrated with Bonnie. She starts this random plan of unveiling one Zygon but then does nothing else except post a video (which would probably be decried as a fake by most people). She then goes after the doomsday weapon but with all the rebels concentrated around London, what good will that do? Are they going to take command of millions of scared Zygons and thousands of heavily armed humans who will attack them? This gets into the Doctor's point in his speech but it allows for an easy set up to victory by concentrating power in one individual as opposed to multiple members of leadership. This is where actually killing all the Zygons in the church would have allowed this scenario to flow a bit more naturally.
Also, was all of UNIT killed in that one tunnel attack at the end of The Zygon Invasion? Bonnie seems to have complete run of all UNIT buildings and no trouble bring the Zygon pod containing Clara into the Black Archive, which you would think would be better protected. I also question how Kate Stewart so easily pulled the magic words to fool Bonnie into thinking she was the Zygon agent in New Mexico. It's not like that Zygon tapped into her mind and gave her information. It's an exceptional bluff on Kate's part and bit too informed to be fully believed.
But despite all those problems, the episode takes a huge leap forward with the scene of the boxes and the Doctor. I've never actually watched Let's Make a Deal but I assume that the Doctor's over-the-top American moments was him doing a Monty Hall impression and despite it's wackiness, it was a good draw as it got deeper. What you get overall out of that scene is the depth of feeling from the Doctor. There are times where the show has tried to push away the atrocities that the Doctor did during the Time War and even if he didn't use the Moment to destroy Gallifrey, he did commit other actions which resulted in the deaths of presumably millions. To have Capaldi channel that is just compelling to watch. Bonnie interjects now and again but her arguments are rational and the type you might expect from a terrorist.
I also deeply appreciate that as well as things wrapped up at the end, the Doctor acknowledged that his arguments didn't work the first fifteen times. Bonnie or Kate pushed the button to initiate the war and found out that the boxes were empty, forcing a restart each time. What I like most about this is that it makes sense that someone that committed to a cause would not be persuaded that easily, even as compelling as the arguments of the Doctor are. You can almost imagine that each time the Doctor had to reset the argument, a small piece of what he previously said stayed with Bonnie and Kate so as to allow him to get that much further in his convincing. But it still took that many iterations just to take the veil from her eyes and see the reality and pointlessness of dying for a stupid gripe.
I also like to imagine that Bonnie took up the position of the new second Osgood not just to ensure the peace but as a means of protecting herself from anyone in the splinter group that might come after her for a perceived betrayal of the cause.
I think it goes without saying that the Doctor's performance is impeccable in this story so I'll focus on Clara instead. Clara herself doesn't do much since Bonnie takes over fairly early in The Zygon Invasion aside from the interaction in her suspended state. But Jenna Coleman does do quite a lot and I enjoyed her performance. I actually liked her better when the mask was dropped and she was allowed to be Bonnie fully. Her threats could have had some more menace to them but it was still a fairly good act. My only real complaint is nothing against the actress but against the make-up team. Her make-up was on way too thick and it had that trowel look of a woman trying to hide something rather than a more natural look. It was a bit off-putting and I wish had been toned down a touch.
I always enjoy Kate Stewart and although I griped about the holes in the storytelling for her in The Zygon Inversion, I still enjoyed her performance. I'm sure the die-hard fans got a kick out of her "five rounds rapid" line as that was oft used by the Brigadier, though I think the director made too hard a push on that line. Something a bit more subtle would have worked better than the dramatic zoom on her face. I also enjoyed Osgood who did a good stand-in job for the companion in these two episodes. It was a good way to bring back a character, even if it made the loss of Missy killing Osgood feel like a little bit of a cheat.
I don't recall feeling that there was much special about the direction. It was more serviceable but nothing that overly caught the eye. It had the look of someone trying to give a sweeping scale (such as seen in The Day of the Doctor) but with a more limited scope. What I wish had been done more was the horror movie feel. The points of quiet and intimate shots that reminded you of a horror movie such as Kate arriving in New Mexico or the Doctor and Osgood walking through the red-lit halls looking for the forcibly converted Zygon were some of the best in terms of mood and direction. I think if things were kept more like that, it would have improved the feel of both the direction in general and the overall story as a whole.
Despite my griping, this really is a decent story. I just think that there are some holes in the overall story done for writing convenience mostly. I also think that both episodes are heavily defined by scenes towards the end that stand in contrast to the rest of the episode. In Invasion, that pulls it down but in Inversion it pulls it up. I think both stories still stand above middling but on Capaldi's performance alone, the second half is discernibly better, even if the set up for first half is better thought out.
Overall personal score: The Zygon Invasion - 3 out of 5; The Zygon Inversion - 4 out of 5
Before Heaven Sent aired, The Zygon Inversion was probably one the highest regarded episode in terms of Peter Capaldi's performance. Just about everything else that happened both in that episode and part one became completely secondary to that scene. I include myself in remembering what a great scene that was, though I don't recall it clouding my judgment regarding the rest of the story which had it's ups and downs.
Plot Summary
Following events from The Day of the Doctor, 20 million Zygons were allowed to settle on Earth, dispersed around the globe and blending in like any other human. However, a splinter group has emerged, desiring to take over and live in their natural form. This group kidnaps Osgood, the scientist assistant at UNIT who had developed a bond with a Zygon double of hers, causing them to lose track of which one was which. One was killed by Missy in Death in Heaven but the other manages to get a distress signal to the Doctor before being taken.
The Doctor receives the message and returns to Earth. He meets with Kate Stewart to learn about the situation. He also tries to contact Clara but keeps getting her answering machine. The Doctor seeks out the Zygon high command, disguised as two small girls. They dismiss the splinter group as something they can handle but the group attacks, kidnaping the high command and later executing them.
Clara arrives back at home having been out most of the day. She starts listening to her messages but is distracted by a neighbor boy crying about his parents being missing. Clara heads into their apartment to look for them. She is surprised as they suddenly appear and then drag the boy in, who is resisting. Clara emerges from the apartment and calls the Doctor back who summons her to UNIT HQ.
Reviewing all the information they have and gleaning a little more at the Zygon high command center, the group splits into threes. Kate Stewart heads to Truth or Consequences, New Mexico where they believe was Osgood's location when kidnaped, the Doctor heads to Turkmezistan where they believe the Zygon splinter group has set up headquarters and Clara stays in England with the rest of UNIT to monitor the situation there. As the first two depart, Clara tells Jac, Stewart's assistant, that she needs to pick up some things from her apartment.
As the two leave Clara's flat, they observe the two parents from earlier carrying a bundle into the elevator. After taking a little longer than normal, it opens and is empty. The two enter the elevator where they find a Zygon control mechanism behind the panel. Activating it, they descend to an underground lair where the Zygons have set up a control center with a number of pods. The two retreat back to UNIT HQ to get backup.
In New Mexico, Kate arrives to find the town nearly deserted but with the splinter group's symbols scattered about. She is confronted by Sherriff Norlander who tells her of this group of British people the tried to integrate but were so strange that things got out of hand. She shows Kate bins where the remains of the Zygon victims are being held. She also verifies that Osgood was here and was likely kidnaped from there. While going over records, Norlander confirms that Kate is alone, transforms into a Zygon and attacks her.
In Turkmezistan, UNIT is prepared to destroy the town where the Zygons are training. The Doctor tries to order the bombing to stop but Colonel Walsh ignores him. However, the drone commander refuses to fire as the Zygons take the form of her family, forcing Walsh to go in with ground troops. Learning that the church is their headquarters, Walsh and the Doctor head to the rear to sneak in while her squad lures the Zygons out the front. As they call for the Zygons to surrender, they emerge as members of their family. Manipulating the soldiers into thinking they are hostages, they lure them into the church. Furious, Walsh storms in the back to find her men all killed and the Zygons gone.
Furious, Walsh leaves and orders an airstrike on the town. The Doctor stays, desperately looking for Osgood. He finds a trap door in the floor and finds her tied up below. A Zygon guard attacks them but the airstrike begins and there is a partial cave in, knocking the Zygon out. The Doctor and Osgood pull him out and take him back to the Doctor's plane for interrogation.
Clara and Jac check elevator security footage and discover the Zygons have been smuggling things into the underground caves all over London. They gather a security force and head down into the caves to confront them. They discover a series of pods containing people, including Clara. Jac realizes that Clara was actually captured when she entered the boy's apartment and that the Clara she knows is an imposter. The fake Clara, calling herself Bonnie, springs the trap and a group of Zygons emerge, killing Jac and the other soldiers.
Bonnie heads back to UNIT HQ and calls New Mexico. Kate picks up the communicator and reports that UNIT has been neutralized there. Satisfied, Bonnie takes a rocket launcher and charts the progress of the Doctor's plane. She then drives out to Dover where she calls the Doctor. The Doctor and Osgood were interrogating the captured Zygon, who taunted them with the information that London had already been infiltrated and that they would be killed. Reaching the Doctor, Bonnie informs him that his compatriots are all dead and that he is next. She then fires the shoulder rocket at the plane.
Just prior to Bonnie firing the rocket, the real Clara stirs in her pod and her mind becomes active. Aware of Bonnie's activities through the mental link, Clara deflects Bonnie's arm just enough that the first rocket misses. She tries to stop her firing a second but Bonnie does manage to get it off and destroy the play. However, the delay bought the Doctor and Osgood enough time to parachute out before it exploded.
Bonnie heads to a nearby center where she corners a disguised Zygon and causes him to revert back into his normal Zygon shape. He stumbles away while she records a video and posts it on-line. Bonnie then heads back to UNIT HQ to find the Osgood box but only finds a recorded message from the Osgoods. But while Bonnie was walking, Clara tapped into her mind just enough to send a text message to the Doctor informing him that she was awake.
Noticing activity on her phone, Bonnie calls the Doctor, demanding to know where the Osgood box is. While she was talking, Bonnie begins winking involuntarily, another signal from Clara. The Doctor manages to finagle out of Bonnie/Clara the location of her recent attack and possible location of Clara's pod. He also implants the idea to Bonnie that the connection is a two-way street with Bonnie being able to tap into Clara's mind as well.
Bonnie heads to pod storage area and engages Clara. Clara pushes back against Bonnie's mind but Bonnie is able to figure a way to discern if Clara is lying. From her she learns that the Osgood box is located in the Black Archive and that in addition to the Osgoods, both the Doctor and Clara have access. Bonnie prepares to leave but Clara warns her that something will come up that will cause her to come back.
The Doctor and Osgood arrive at the location of Bonnie's attack and where the video she posted was shot. They enter the center and find the remains of several Zygon attacks. The Zygon who was forcibly changed is discovered trying to hide and unable to control his discharges of energy. He didn't want any of this but when he accidently attacks the Doctor, he turns his energy on himself and kills himself.
As the Doctor and Osgood examine things, Kate arrives with two troopers having been sent by Bonnie. She offers to take them to the cavern where Clara is. They agree but once there, the two soldiers morph into Zygons and advance on the Doctor and Clara. Bonnie meanwhile arrives at the Black Archive and finds two boxes. One will force every Zygon out of hiding, the other will kill all the Zygons. Bonnie threatens to kill Clara, whom she has brought with her, if the Doctor doesn't tell her which box. He tells her the blue one but when she opens it, there are two buttons.
Kate, who is actually the real Kate, pulls her gun and kills both Zygons. The three of them head to the Black Archive where they find Bonnie, her two Zygon guards and Clara. Kate prepares to activate the red box while the Doctor appeals to Bonnie, using his own war experience and logic to appeal to her. Slowly she comes around until finally agreeing to stand down. The Doctor then wipes the memories of Kate and the two Zygon guards, leaving Bonnie's memory but also letting on that this was the sixteenth iteration of their negotiation.
Bonnie leaves the Black Archive and orders all rebels to stand down. High command is transferred back to other Zygons and things resume as they were. Bonnie then takes the form of Osgood, reestablishing the join of two Osgoods to oversee the peace. This does force the first Osgood to turn down the Doctor's offer to travel in the TARDIS. He and Clara then depart for a new adventure.
Analysis
I think I have been well on record on how a memorable scene towards the end of a story can strongly influence my overall feelings towards that story, whether for good or for ill. This two-parter actually has it both ways as a rather stupid scene clouds my feelings towards The Zygon Invasion while the great Doctor speech consumes all other feelings about The Zygon Inversion. It makes it rather difficult to give these stories a fair score given that they should be looked at as a whole.
I think I'm more annoyed by the scene in The Zygon Invasion because the set up for this story is pretty well balanced the whole way through. You have Bonnie's take-over of Clara which is a nifty little secret until the end, you have three-way division of the team, each with a story that could have been expanded upon and made more compelling if time had allowed and you have the amusing performance of the Doctor who is still trying to use humor to put on bravado. But the flaws cannot be ignored.
The two little ones are fairly easy to let go of in that I didn't care much for the performances of Jac or Sherriff Norlander. Norlander was a bit stiff and I think, much like Peri, was focusing too hard on trying to maintain an American sounding accent. Jac was of a similar vein but unlike an accent problem, hers was more of an emoting problem. She was trying to be nervous and concerned while also a bit scared and the whole thing just made her feel a bit stiff. Her limited dialogue didn't help either as it felt she was being set up from the get go to be a red shirt (which she was).
But the real garbage moment was the soldiers preparing to storm the church. Someone comes out as the platoon leader's mom and fails to answer any personal questions. Not only is the acting melodramatic and rather poorly delivered but there is no reason why the whole squad would have dropped their weapons and walked into such an obvious trap. Even if the squad commander hesitated, his deputy should have dropped her in two seconds. What's more, the commander should have known that even a scared mother could have offered a string of information to convince her son of her identity. As soon as she claimed that she couldn't remember things, that should have been enough. It's a dumb scene to just wipe out the squad.
What's more, it was unnecessary. Storming the church and killing the Zygon rebels would have consolidated power with Bonnie as she would have been the primary leader left. The Doctor could have still found Osgood and one Zygon could have been taken alive to give the exposition on the plane. It just made no sense from any perspective and I find it annoying that while the Zygons kill multiple people, the only person who kills a Zygon is Kate Stewart. I think the Doctor's scene in pat two would have been even more impactful if both sides came in with blood on their hands and Kate's killing of three Zygons is not enough to counter Bonnie's.
In The Zygon Inversion we run into the reverse situation. The first half is a bit of a cop out. Rather than dealing with a splinter group with many viewpoints and jockeying for position, all power and decision making is concentrated with Bonnie. She starts this random plan of unveiling one Zygon but then does nothing else except post a video (which would probably be decried as a fake by most people). She then goes after the doomsday weapon but with all the rebels concentrated around London, what good will that do? Are they going to take command of millions of scared Zygons and thousands of heavily armed humans who will attack them? This gets into the Doctor's point in his speech but it allows for an easy set up to victory by concentrating power in one individual as opposed to multiple members of leadership. This is where actually killing all the Zygons in the church would have allowed this scenario to flow a bit more naturally.
Also, was all of UNIT killed in that one tunnel attack at the end of The Zygon Invasion? Bonnie seems to have complete run of all UNIT buildings and no trouble bring the Zygon pod containing Clara into the Black Archive, which you would think would be better protected. I also question how Kate Stewart so easily pulled the magic words to fool Bonnie into thinking she was the Zygon agent in New Mexico. It's not like that Zygon tapped into her mind and gave her information. It's an exceptional bluff on Kate's part and bit too informed to be fully believed.
But despite all those problems, the episode takes a huge leap forward with the scene of the boxes and the Doctor. I've never actually watched Let's Make a Deal but I assume that the Doctor's over-the-top American moments was him doing a Monty Hall impression and despite it's wackiness, it was a good draw as it got deeper. What you get overall out of that scene is the depth of feeling from the Doctor. There are times where the show has tried to push away the atrocities that the Doctor did during the Time War and even if he didn't use the Moment to destroy Gallifrey, he did commit other actions which resulted in the deaths of presumably millions. To have Capaldi channel that is just compelling to watch. Bonnie interjects now and again but her arguments are rational and the type you might expect from a terrorist.
I also deeply appreciate that as well as things wrapped up at the end, the Doctor acknowledged that his arguments didn't work the first fifteen times. Bonnie or Kate pushed the button to initiate the war and found out that the boxes were empty, forcing a restart each time. What I like most about this is that it makes sense that someone that committed to a cause would not be persuaded that easily, even as compelling as the arguments of the Doctor are. You can almost imagine that each time the Doctor had to reset the argument, a small piece of what he previously said stayed with Bonnie and Kate so as to allow him to get that much further in his convincing. But it still took that many iterations just to take the veil from her eyes and see the reality and pointlessness of dying for a stupid gripe.
I also like to imagine that Bonnie took up the position of the new second Osgood not just to ensure the peace but as a means of protecting herself from anyone in the splinter group that might come after her for a perceived betrayal of the cause.
I think it goes without saying that the Doctor's performance is impeccable in this story so I'll focus on Clara instead. Clara herself doesn't do much since Bonnie takes over fairly early in The Zygon Invasion aside from the interaction in her suspended state. But Jenna Coleman does do quite a lot and I enjoyed her performance. I actually liked her better when the mask was dropped and she was allowed to be Bonnie fully. Her threats could have had some more menace to them but it was still a fairly good act. My only real complaint is nothing against the actress but against the make-up team. Her make-up was on way too thick and it had that trowel look of a woman trying to hide something rather than a more natural look. It was a bit off-putting and I wish had been toned down a touch.
I always enjoy Kate Stewart and although I griped about the holes in the storytelling for her in The Zygon Inversion, I still enjoyed her performance. I'm sure the die-hard fans got a kick out of her "five rounds rapid" line as that was oft used by the Brigadier, though I think the director made too hard a push on that line. Something a bit more subtle would have worked better than the dramatic zoom on her face. I also enjoyed Osgood who did a good stand-in job for the companion in these two episodes. It was a good way to bring back a character, even if it made the loss of Missy killing Osgood feel like a little bit of a cheat.
I don't recall feeling that there was much special about the direction. It was more serviceable but nothing that overly caught the eye. It had the look of someone trying to give a sweeping scale (such as seen in The Day of the Doctor) but with a more limited scope. What I wish had been done more was the horror movie feel. The points of quiet and intimate shots that reminded you of a horror movie such as Kate arriving in New Mexico or the Doctor and Osgood walking through the red-lit halls looking for the forcibly converted Zygon were some of the best in terms of mood and direction. I think if things were kept more like that, it would have improved the feel of both the direction in general and the overall story as a whole.
Despite my griping, this really is a decent story. I just think that there are some holes in the overall story done for writing convenience mostly. I also think that both episodes are heavily defined by scenes towards the end that stand in contrast to the rest of the episode. In Invasion, that pulls it down but in Inversion it pulls it up. I think both stories still stand above middling but on Capaldi's performance alone, the second half is discernibly better, even if the set up for first half is better thought out.
Overall personal score: The Zygon Invasion - 3 out of 5; The Zygon Inversion - 4 out of 5
Wednesday, November 8, 2017
New Earth
I'm a Chav!
The true kick-off story for the Tenth Doctor and Rose as the Doctor was out for so much of The Christmas Invasion. I recall this one not sitting well with me and I think it was more than just my general distaste for Rose in her early adventures with the Tenth Doctor. But when I went back and rewatched Tooth and Claw, it wasn't quite as bad as I remembered so maybe this one won't be as bad either.
Plot Summary
The Doctor and Rose land on New Earth, a colony planet established after Earth is destroyed. The Doctor has received a note via his psychic paper requesting his presence at a nearby hospital. As they walk there, they are spotted by a probe operated by Cassandra, the woman who was seemingly killed after the destruction of the original Earth. She orders her cloned servant Chip to bring Rose to her.
When they arrive at the hospital, Rose and the Doctor are split into separate elevators. The Doctor is taken up to the ward where he finds the Face of Bo who is dying. Rose on the other hand is taken under the hospital where she is lured into Cassandra's hideout by Chip. Rose is trapped and Cassandra transfers her mind into Rose's body, destroying her own body in the process. Summoned by the Doctor, she heads up to the ward.
As Cassandra arrives, the Doctor is confused by the fact that the sisterhood who runs the hospital has been able to supply cures to diseases that shouldn't be cured for centuries. Cassandra had observed the same thing and works with the Doctor to uncover a secret storage facility where thousands of cloned humans are infected with all known diseases to work out cures. The Doctor is outraged and confronts Novice Hame who had followed them while looking after the Face of Bo. Hame runs off to alert her superiors and Cassandra knocks the Doctor out when he notes that he knows that she is not Rose.
Cassandra places the Doctor in a spare cell, intending him to be infected by the various diseases pumped in to the cells. She is interrupted by Matron Casp and Sister Jatt. Cassandra attempts to blackmail them to keep their secret but when they refuse, she opens the cell doors on that block, allowing the people out. This inadvertently lets the Doctor out as well. One of the freed humans short circuits a control mechanism, killing himself but opening all the doors, freeing everyone. The Doctor, Cassandra and Chip all flee as the horde, begging for help, overrun and infect Sister Jatt, killing her.
The trio runs and hides in Cassandra's lair, although Chip is separated and forced to barricade himself in one of the cells. Most of the horde burst into the hospital, infecting visitors and patients alike. Matron Casp does manage to initiate quarantine, sealing the hospital. In the lair, the Doctor orders Cassandra out of Rose, which she does by taking over his mind.
They find a ladder leading up the elevator shaft and begin to climb it. They are pursued both by the horde and by Matron Casp. Casp catches up to them but she is caught by the horde and infected. She loses her grip on the ladder and plunges to her death. Cassandra and Rose reach the top of the shaft and Rose orders Cassandra to leave the Doctor so he can get them out using the sonic screwdriver. Cassandra jumps into Rose but the Doctor refuses to open the door as long as Cassandra is in Rose. She jumps back to the Doctor but is in the same predicament. With no other choice, Cassandra jumps into the lead infected person. The Doctor then opens the door and he and Rose hop through it. He closes it behind them but not before Cassandra jumps back into Rose.
Cassandra is momentarily overwhelmed by the loneliness she experienced in the infected woman's body, but the Doctor drags her into the main ward, which is where the high priority patients are. The Doctor has everyone grab the IV cocktails used to cure them while he rigs a repelling device. Gathering all the cocktails on his body, the Doctor reopens the elevator shaft. Convincing Cassandra to help him, they slide down to the stalled elevator on the ground floor.
The Doctor pours all the IVs into the decontamination bath tank on the roof of the elevator and orders Cassandra to hold elevator lever to keep it in place. He then jumps into the elevator and invites the infected horde in with him. As they enter, he activates the decontamination system and the horde in bathed in the curing cocktail. They begin to heal from their diseases and walk out of the elevator. The Doctor orders them to touch the others, passing the cure on to others. Deprived of human contact in their cells, the cured people eagerly hug and touch the others, spreading the cure throughout the hospital.
The quarantine is lifted and the authorities come and arrest most of the staff. The cured are gathered up to be integrated into society while the Doctor heads back up to see the Face of Bo. The Face of Bo tells the Doctor that he has a message for him but will wait until their third and final meeting to impart it. He then teleports elsewhere.
The Doctor then orders Cassandra to exit Rose's body for either trial by the authorities or death. Cassandra balks but goes into Chip's body when he is revealed to have survived. However, Chip, as a half clone is already dying. But Cassandra decides to accept death in exchange for one favor. The Doctor and Rose take her into the TARDIS and transport her back to a party she mentioned earlier. Cassandra comes up to herself, cloaked to hide the clone markers, and tells herself how beautiful she is. The past Cassandra is touched and calls for help as the future Cassandra collapses and dies. The Doctor and Rose quietly slip away in the TARDIS.
Analysis
I can see why I didn't care for this one the first time around, yet my memory was cheating on me a bit as again, it was not as bad as I remembered. There are a number of flaws in this story and if you are not quite into zombie stories, the action will not excite you. But to say that it is actively bad would be an exaggeration.
First, let's hit some of the positives. Most of the acting was pretty good in this. It is rather funny to watch this story with the whole rest of his run to see how many of the Tenth Doctor tropes formulated in this story. His "I'm so, so sorry" line, the exuberance at the mundane, the fundamental pleasure of seeing people delivered from certain death scenarios and the almost instantaneous rage at enforced suffering. If you want the Tenth Doctor in a nearly pure form, you will get it here. Of course, that includes some of his more annoying traits as well but we'll get to those.
Probably more than any other story in her regular run, this was the story that Billie Piper got to show herself as a decent actress. The distance between Rose and Cassandra was probably not that big but there was a change in how the characters carried themselves and I could appreciate the effort there. It probably speaks more to my opinion of Rose that I preferred the Cassandra personification more than the Rose. Of course, I'm a sucker for a good sarcastic wit as well as a bit of rogue demeanor so I thought she simply sparked more when she was Cassandra rather than Rose.
You wouldn't have thought that Cassandra would be a repeat villain but she is and she makes for a rather decent one. In The End of the World, she is just the annoying socialite who happens to be the dinner guest that ends up being the murderer (very Agatha Christie). Here she has a bit more depth and personality. She also gets to add nuances that come from being in different bodies and given a different spin by the actors. Though her motivation is still just money and youth, there is a brief moment where you get caught up in her helping the Doctor with his investigations and rather enjoying her extra take on things.
The sets and direction were also nice. You could tell that the budget was a concern due both to the tightness of a number of shots as well as the fact that only three of the cat nurses showed their faces. All others wore full veils, eliminating the need for the expensive and time consuming makeup. But for what it was, I thought it was a decent job in trying to convey a sense of largeness while also trying to get that sense of intimacy.
Now on to the less than stellar bits. I mentioned the good things and the tropes of the Tenth Doctor that cropped up. But that also includes some over-the-top moments. His celebration at having cured the people was a bit much. I can understand joy at the situation but there was an excessiveness that seemed unbecoming of the Doctor. I thought his instantaneous anger at the cat nurses was also a bit much. There should have been a slightly slower build to his rage. It wasn't bad but I thought it was too quick a turn into making the nurses the villains of the story.
Staying with the solution, I thought the fix for this was a bit too pat. Yes the cat nurses had developed cures to various diseases using these people as lab rats but if a cure had been developed, why keep the rat that still has that disease? Were they keeping them for synthesis purposes? Also, didn't some of these people have diseases for which a cure had not yet been developed? Those would have been unaffected by the cocktail and they still would have infectious. Also, if the cures were delivered intravenously, why does mixing them in a steam bath produce a cure and how is that cure able to be transmitted simply by surface contact? It is a very slap dash solution and it seems hokey even while watching.
Another small problem with this story is that the special effects look a bit cheap. Of course we're not expecting absolute magic, but usually there's a bit better work done rather than just a straight CGI effect that cannot possibly compete with Hollywood effects. But in this case, there were several shots where the camera just trained on the person and CGI was expected to tell the tale. It just had the unfortunate effect of making the story look cheap.
So overall, there is a bit to like in this story but it does fail on a number of levels as well. Yet the parts that don't work aren't so bad to cause the story to completely fall apart and they never detract from the fun ride. It feels more like what it is: an early story where kinks are being worked out. It can be fun and if you don't think about it too hard, it is serviceable enough. Decidedly middling seems about right.
Overall personal score: 2.5 out of 5
The true kick-off story for the Tenth Doctor and Rose as the Doctor was out for so much of The Christmas Invasion. I recall this one not sitting well with me and I think it was more than just my general distaste for Rose in her early adventures with the Tenth Doctor. But when I went back and rewatched Tooth and Claw, it wasn't quite as bad as I remembered so maybe this one won't be as bad either.
Plot Summary
The Doctor and Rose land on New Earth, a colony planet established after Earth is destroyed. The Doctor has received a note via his psychic paper requesting his presence at a nearby hospital. As they walk there, they are spotted by a probe operated by Cassandra, the woman who was seemingly killed after the destruction of the original Earth. She orders her cloned servant Chip to bring Rose to her.
When they arrive at the hospital, Rose and the Doctor are split into separate elevators. The Doctor is taken up to the ward where he finds the Face of Bo who is dying. Rose on the other hand is taken under the hospital where she is lured into Cassandra's hideout by Chip. Rose is trapped and Cassandra transfers her mind into Rose's body, destroying her own body in the process. Summoned by the Doctor, she heads up to the ward.
As Cassandra arrives, the Doctor is confused by the fact that the sisterhood who runs the hospital has been able to supply cures to diseases that shouldn't be cured for centuries. Cassandra had observed the same thing and works with the Doctor to uncover a secret storage facility where thousands of cloned humans are infected with all known diseases to work out cures. The Doctor is outraged and confronts Novice Hame who had followed them while looking after the Face of Bo. Hame runs off to alert her superiors and Cassandra knocks the Doctor out when he notes that he knows that she is not Rose.
Cassandra places the Doctor in a spare cell, intending him to be infected by the various diseases pumped in to the cells. She is interrupted by Matron Casp and Sister Jatt. Cassandra attempts to blackmail them to keep their secret but when they refuse, she opens the cell doors on that block, allowing the people out. This inadvertently lets the Doctor out as well. One of the freed humans short circuits a control mechanism, killing himself but opening all the doors, freeing everyone. The Doctor, Cassandra and Chip all flee as the horde, begging for help, overrun and infect Sister Jatt, killing her.
The trio runs and hides in Cassandra's lair, although Chip is separated and forced to barricade himself in one of the cells. Most of the horde burst into the hospital, infecting visitors and patients alike. Matron Casp does manage to initiate quarantine, sealing the hospital. In the lair, the Doctor orders Cassandra out of Rose, which she does by taking over his mind.
They find a ladder leading up the elevator shaft and begin to climb it. They are pursued both by the horde and by Matron Casp. Casp catches up to them but she is caught by the horde and infected. She loses her grip on the ladder and plunges to her death. Cassandra and Rose reach the top of the shaft and Rose orders Cassandra to leave the Doctor so he can get them out using the sonic screwdriver. Cassandra jumps into Rose but the Doctor refuses to open the door as long as Cassandra is in Rose. She jumps back to the Doctor but is in the same predicament. With no other choice, Cassandra jumps into the lead infected person. The Doctor then opens the door and he and Rose hop through it. He closes it behind them but not before Cassandra jumps back into Rose.
Cassandra is momentarily overwhelmed by the loneliness she experienced in the infected woman's body, but the Doctor drags her into the main ward, which is where the high priority patients are. The Doctor has everyone grab the IV cocktails used to cure them while he rigs a repelling device. Gathering all the cocktails on his body, the Doctor reopens the elevator shaft. Convincing Cassandra to help him, they slide down to the stalled elevator on the ground floor.
The Doctor pours all the IVs into the decontamination bath tank on the roof of the elevator and orders Cassandra to hold elevator lever to keep it in place. He then jumps into the elevator and invites the infected horde in with him. As they enter, he activates the decontamination system and the horde in bathed in the curing cocktail. They begin to heal from their diseases and walk out of the elevator. The Doctor orders them to touch the others, passing the cure on to others. Deprived of human contact in their cells, the cured people eagerly hug and touch the others, spreading the cure throughout the hospital.
The quarantine is lifted and the authorities come and arrest most of the staff. The cured are gathered up to be integrated into society while the Doctor heads back up to see the Face of Bo. The Face of Bo tells the Doctor that he has a message for him but will wait until their third and final meeting to impart it. He then teleports elsewhere.
The Doctor then orders Cassandra to exit Rose's body for either trial by the authorities or death. Cassandra balks but goes into Chip's body when he is revealed to have survived. However, Chip, as a half clone is already dying. But Cassandra decides to accept death in exchange for one favor. The Doctor and Rose take her into the TARDIS and transport her back to a party she mentioned earlier. Cassandra comes up to herself, cloaked to hide the clone markers, and tells herself how beautiful she is. The past Cassandra is touched and calls for help as the future Cassandra collapses and dies. The Doctor and Rose quietly slip away in the TARDIS.
Analysis
I can see why I didn't care for this one the first time around, yet my memory was cheating on me a bit as again, it was not as bad as I remembered. There are a number of flaws in this story and if you are not quite into zombie stories, the action will not excite you. But to say that it is actively bad would be an exaggeration.
First, let's hit some of the positives. Most of the acting was pretty good in this. It is rather funny to watch this story with the whole rest of his run to see how many of the Tenth Doctor tropes formulated in this story. His "I'm so, so sorry" line, the exuberance at the mundane, the fundamental pleasure of seeing people delivered from certain death scenarios and the almost instantaneous rage at enforced suffering. If you want the Tenth Doctor in a nearly pure form, you will get it here. Of course, that includes some of his more annoying traits as well but we'll get to those.
Probably more than any other story in her regular run, this was the story that Billie Piper got to show herself as a decent actress. The distance between Rose and Cassandra was probably not that big but there was a change in how the characters carried themselves and I could appreciate the effort there. It probably speaks more to my opinion of Rose that I preferred the Cassandra personification more than the Rose. Of course, I'm a sucker for a good sarcastic wit as well as a bit of rogue demeanor so I thought she simply sparked more when she was Cassandra rather than Rose.
You wouldn't have thought that Cassandra would be a repeat villain but she is and she makes for a rather decent one. In The End of the World, she is just the annoying socialite who happens to be the dinner guest that ends up being the murderer (very Agatha Christie). Here she has a bit more depth and personality. She also gets to add nuances that come from being in different bodies and given a different spin by the actors. Though her motivation is still just money and youth, there is a brief moment where you get caught up in her helping the Doctor with his investigations and rather enjoying her extra take on things.
The sets and direction were also nice. You could tell that the budget was a concern due both to the tightness of a number of shots as well as the fact that only three of the cat nurses showed their faces. All others wore full veils, eliminating the need for the expensive and time consuming makeup. But for what it was, I thought it was a decent job in trying to convey a sense of largeness while also trying to get that sense of intimacy.
Now on to the less than stellar bits. I mentioned the good things and the tropes of the Tenth Doctor that cropped up. But that also includes some over-the-top moments. His celebration at having cured the people was a bit much. I can understand joy at the situation but there was an excessiveness that seemed unbecoming of the Doctor. I thought his instantaneous anger at the cat nurses was also a bit much. There should have been a slightly slower build to his rage. It wasn't bad but I thought it was too quick a turn into making the nurses the villains of the story.
Staying with the solution, I thought the fix for this was a bit too pat. Yes the cat nurses had developed cures to various diseases using these people as lab rats but if a cure had been developed, why keep the rat that still has that disease? Were they keeping them for synthesis purposes? Also, didn't some of these people have diseases for which a cure had not yet been developed? Those would have been unaffected by the cocktail and they still would have infectious. Also, if the cures were delivered intravenously, why does mixing them in a steam bath produce a cure and how is that cure able to be transmitted simply by surface contact? It is a very slap dash solution and it seems hokey even while watching.
Another small problem with this story is that the special effects look a bit cheap. Of course we're not expecting absolute magic, but usually there's a bit better work done rather than just a straight CGI effect that cannot possibly compete with Hollywood effects. But in this case, there were several shots where the camera just trained on the person and CGI was expected to tell the tale. It just had the unfortunate effect of making the story look cheap.
So overall, there is a bit to like in this story but it does fail on a number of levels as well. Yet the parts that don't work aren't so bad to cause the story to completely fall apart and they never detract from the fun ride. It feels more like what it is: an early story where kinks are being worked out. It can be fun and if you don't think about it too hard, it is serviceable enough. Decidedly middling seems about right.
Overall personal score: 2.5 out of 5
Monday, November 6, 2017
Fourth Doctor Summary
Of my generation and especially amongst Americans, before the New Series began, Tom Baker was the Doctor. If you ever find jokes about Doctor Who, especially in shows like The Simpsons or Futurama, you will always see a tall man with curly brown hair and a long scarf. For us, Tom Baker is the Doctor and I think that even with the New Series, Tom Baker remains the most recognizable Doctor.
I think this is a deserved honor because there is something that stands out about his era. Unquestionably the show hit it's classic era peak during the first half of his tenure in the Philip Hinchcliff era. Stories from that era are still generally regarded as some of the best of all time. Even as the show began it's slide as the 80's approached (due mostly to monetary issues) you still had Tom Baker giving pretty strong performances to carry the stories.
That is not to say that he didn't have his faults. The Graham Williams era is pretty notorious for Tom Baker imposing his own will on the production and some things just started to go over the top. It didn't help that Douglas Adams, script editor for Season 17, shared Tom Baker's absurdist sense of humor and that produced the weakest of all the seven seasons, in my opinion. This in turn gave way to the whiplash reaction of Christopher H. Bidmead who was overly zealous in removing all humor from Season 18. As such, the Tom Baker era ends much as Season 18 with an inevitable collapse in entropy rather than in some sort of heroic resurgence as was shared by many other iterations of the Doctor.
As good as Tom Baker is (and despite his own occasional opinion on the matter), he would have been hard pressed to produce as good of an era as he did without strong companions. Sarah Jane takes most of the limelight as she and Tom Baker are generally regarded as the apex of the show. She did well with the Third Doctor but there was such a natural chemistry between herself and the Fourth Doctor. That they took it upon themselves to write Sarah's exit and then have it be one of the best regarded scenes in the show speaks highly of the level of chemistry they had together.
But we should not shortchange the other companions. Leela was an excellent companion, even though her true nature and scope was lost early in Season 15. Romana I had excellent interplay with the Doctor and offered sharp wit throughout the whole of Season 16. Similarly Romana II played well but in a different way. Her intelligence was more subtle and worked more around a quiet determinism to get things done rather that just show up the Doctor. Even Adric worked relatively well as the older and more forceful Fourth Doctor offered a stronger foil as well as a check. With the more tolerant and softer Fifth Doctor, Adric asserted himself too much and got annoying.
We must also look at the team behind camera as well. Building on the lessons learned from the Barry Letts ear, Philip Hinchcliff built a strong show, relying on gothic horror in space and with a cadre of experienced writers and directors to assist. There also remained a relatively decent budget that helped the show look good which made the stories that much more convincing.
Budget cuts, rising inflation, strikes and a significant talent drain unfortunately mark the Graham Williams era. There were good stories and a number of them were well done from a production standpoint. But there were also some experiments that failed (Underworld) and stories where the kernel of a good story was lost in the shoddy production. Others would probably disagree with me but I personally feel that having Douglas Adams as script editor did the show no favors either.
The JNT era set forth things that would become hallmarks of the 80's. Many of them are very stereotypically 80's so they appeal in a nostalgic way but you also have the continued problems of budget and the shoddy look that started to come on to the show. Christopher Bidmead had some good ideas and made some decent changes but the total excise of humor was a mistake as many of the stories of Season 18 would have improved immensely if they could have simply had a little levity added to them.
Overall, I think it's impossible to not think of the Fourth Doctor era as the apex of the show. I enjoy many of the other Doctors and I would still rate the Second Doctor as my personal favorite, but it is hard to argue that the Fourth Doctor era, particularly the early Fourth Doctor era is of a type that can be popped into the DVD player and just enjoyed at any time. It is that factor alone that will keep it as the showcase time of the classic era.
Highest Rated Story: The Talons of Weng Chiang - 5.0
Lowest Rated Story: The Invasion of Time - 1.0
Average overall rating: 3.34
Robot
The Ark in Space
The Sontaran Experiment
Genesis of the Daleks
Revenge of the Cybermen
Terror of the Zygons
Planet of Evil
Pyramids of Mars
The Android Invasion
The Brain of Morbius
The Seeds of Doom
The Masque of Mandragora
The Hand of Fear
The Deadly Assassin
The Face of Evil
The Robots of Death
The Talons of Weng Chiang
Horror of Fang Rock
The Invisible Enemy
Image of the Fendahl
The Sun Makers
Underworld
The Invasion of Time
The Ribos Operation
The Pirate Planet
The Stones of Blood
The Androids of Tara
The Power of Kroll
The Armageddon Factor
Destiny of the Daleks
City of Death
The Creature From the Pit
Nightmare of Eden
The Horns of Nimon
The Leisure Hive
Meglos
Full Circle
State of Decay
Warrior's Gate
The Keeper of Traken
Logopolis
I think this is a deserved honor because there is something that stands out about his era. Unquestionably the show hit it's classic era peak during the first half of his tenure in the Philip Hinchcliff era. Stories from that era are still generally regarded as some of the best of all time. Even as the show began it's slide as the 80's approached (due mostly to monetary issues) you still had Tom Baker giving pretty strong performances to carry the stories.
That is not to say that he didn't have his faults. The Graham Williams era is pretty notorious for Tom Baker imposing his own will on the production and some things just started to go over the top. It didn't help that Douglas Adams, script editor for Season 17, shared Tom Baker's absurdist sense of humor and that produced the weakest of all the seven seasons, in my opinion. This in turn gave way to the whiplash reaction of Christopher H. Bidmead who was overly zealous in removing all humor from Season 18. As such, the Tom Baker era ends much as Season 18 with an inevitable collapse in entropy rather than in some sort of heroic resurgence as was shared by many other iterations of the Doctor.
As good as Tom Baker is (and despite his own occasional opinion on the matter), he would have been hard pressed to produce as good of an era as he did without strong companions. Sarah Jane takes most of the limelight as she and Tom Baker are generally regarded as the apex of the show. She did well with the Third Doctor but there was such a natural chemistry between herself and the Fourth Doctor. That they took it upon themselves to write Sarah's exit and then have it be one of the best regarded scenes in the show speaks highly of the level of chemistry they had together.
But we should not shortchange the other companions. Leela was an excellent companion, even though her true nature and scope was lost early in Season 15. Romana I had excellent interplay with the Doctor and offered sharp wit throughout the whole of Season 16. Similarly Romana II played well but in a different way. Her intelligence was more subtle and worked more around a quiet determinism to get things done rather that just show up the Doctor. Even Adric worked relatively well as the older and more forceful Fourth Doctor offered a stronger foil as well as a check. With the more tolerant and softer Fifth Doctor, Adric asserted himself too much and got annoying.
We must also look at the team behind camera as well. Building on the lessons learned from the Barry Letts ear, Philip Hinchcliff built a strong show, relying on gothic horror in space and with a cadre of experienced writers and directors to assist. There also remained a relatively decent budget that helped the show look good which made the stories that much more convincing.
Budget cuts, rising inflation, strikes and a significant talent drain unfortunately mark the Graham Williams era. There were good stories and a number of them were well done from a production standpoint. But there were also some experiments that failed (Underworld) and stories where the kernel of a good story was lost in the shoddy production. Others would probably disagree with me but I personally feel that having Douglas Adams as script editor did the show no favors either.
The JNT era set forth things that would become hallmarks of the 80's. Many of them are very stereotypically 80's so they appeal in a nostalgic way but you also have the continued problems of budget and the shoddy look that started to come on to the show. Christopher Bidmead had some good ideas and made some decent changes but the total excise of humor was a mistake as many of the stories of Season 18 would have improved immensely if they could have simply had a little levity added to them.
Overall, I think it's impossible to not think of the Fourth Doctor era as the apex of the show. I enjoy many of the other Doctors and I would still rate the Second Doctor as my personal favorite, but it is hard to argue that the Fourth Doctor era, particularly the early Fourth Doctor era is of a type that can be popped into the DVD player and just enjoyed at any time. It is that factor alone that will keep it as the showcase time of the classic era.
Highest Rated Story: The Talons of Weng Chiang - 5.0
Lowest Rated Story: The Invasion of Time - 1.0
Average overall rating: 3.34
Robot
The Ark in Space
The Sontaran Experiment
Genesis of the Daleks
Revenge of the Cybermen
Terror of the Zygons
Planet of Evil
Pyramids of Mars
The Android Invasion
The Brain of Morbius
The Seeds of Doom
The Masque of Mandragora
The Hand of Fear
The Deadly Assassin
The Face of Evil
The Robots of Death
The Talons of Weng Chiang
Horror of Fang Rock
The Invisible Enemy
Image of the Fendahl
The Sun Makers
Underworld
The Invasion of Time
The Ribos Operation
The Pirate Planet
The Stones of Blood
The Androids of Tara
The Power of Kroll
The Armageddon Factor
Destiny of the Daleks
City of Death
The Creature From the Pit
Nightmare of Eden
The Horns of Nimon
The Leisure Hive
Meglos
Full Circle
State of Decay
Warrior's Gate
The Keeper of Traken
Logopolis
Thursday, November 2, 2017
The Hand of Fear
Eldrad must live.
We now come to the last of the classic era stories for me to review. I still have some new series stuff to go through and as long as the show is on, we'll have new content, but this marks a type of end for me. My original thought when starting this was that I would be able to arrange for Survival to be the end, but that came and went a while ago. So I decided that The Hand of Fear, Sarah Jane's leaving story, would make an adequate substitute.
This story is generally divided. Everyone acknowledges that the last five minutes where Sarah leaves is damn near perfect. It's just the rest of the story that causes debate. I recall feeling that it wasn't quite as bad as it's reputation but still a rather mundane story for such an important companion to go out on. Of course you could say the same for Ian and Barbara going out in The Chase so it's not like there isn't a history of it. Perhaps it makes the goodbyes more memorable if the stories people leave in aren't that stellar overall. We shall see.
Plot Summary
On an alien planet, a group of hooded figures are overseeing the exile and destruction of a ship with a figure named Eldrad on it. However, the atmosphere is deteriorating and the hooded figures are forced to detonate the ship before it reaches it's maximum destructive potential. Once it is destroyed, the figures are dragged back inside their protective dome.
On Earth, the Doctor and Sarah land in a quarry, unaware that a segment is about to be exploded. They are caught in the blast, though they manage to avoid the worst of it. Sarah is partially pinned under some rock and as she reaches for the hole, she touches a petrified hand with a ring on it. She screams and that alerts the Doctor and the workers to her location. They find her unconscious, along with the petrified hand. She and the Doctor are then taken to a local hospital.
The Doctor is examined and cleared. Sarah is found to be ok but is still unconscious. They also find that her arm is very tense and her fist cannot be unclenched. Believing that it was the stress of nearly being buried alive, they leave her to rest. The Doctor instead heads down to the lab where one Dr. Carter is examining the petrified hand. The Doctor is quite interested in the initial reading of the hand and arranges for an electron microscope to be brought into the lab to examine it better. He leaves Carter to study a small sample of the hand while he heads back to the quarry to examine the layer of rock where it was found.
As the Doctor leaves, Sarah wakes up under the control of the mind embodied in the hand and the ring, which is hidden in her fist. She sneaks down to the lab and knocks Carter out with a blast of energy from the ring. She then takes the hand in a plastic box and slips out of the hospital. Carter comes to an hour later and reports her missing.
Shortly after the report is made, the Doctor returns to find Sarah gone. He becomes concerned and even more so when he sees the scan of the rock sample of the hand. The Doctor reveals that he found nothing in the rock pile which was from Jurassic strata. This means that the hand came down from space by itself 150 million years ago. The Doctor reasons that the sample is drawing regenerative energy from the radiation produced by the microscope. He then has Carter take him to the nearest nuclear reactor, a testing complex a few miles away.
Sarah arrives at the test complex and knocks the guard out with a blast from the ring. She then makes her way through the complex, stunning any worker who crosses her path. The Doctor and Carter arrive but are stopped by guards who have found the stunned guard. Sarah meanwhile makes her way into the reactor core where the hand begins to absorb the radiation and move on its own. As it gains more control, Sarah gets up and jams the door. She attempts to open the door but does not know the security code to open the inner door.
When Sarah opened the outer door to the core, the alarms initiated in the complex. In the chaos of workers running to their emergency positions, the Doctor and Carter slip away from their guards and make their way to the control room. They find the control room run by Professor Watson, giving orders to his people and trying to extricate Sarah from the room. Upon finding the door is jammed, Watson orders all staff out of the facility. The Doctor manages to make contact with Sarah over the security feed but is confused by her repeated statement of "Eldrad must live."
The Doctor runs to the roof to slip down the vent shaft. Unknown to him, Carter has also been taken over by the Eldrad consciousness and he follows the Doctor. He attacks him on the stairs but slips off when the Doctor dodges the blow, killing himself. The Doctor continues up the stairs and launches himself down the shaft. He bursts into the core and knocks Sarah out with a quick nerve pinch. As he carries her out of the core, the ring slips off her finger.
With Sarah out, the core returns to normal and Watson returns everyone to their stations. The Doctor examines Sarah and finds no radiation on her at all and her having no memory of anything after grabbing the hand in the quarry. The Doctor shows Watson the video feed of the hand and the radiation results, demonstrating it's alien nature. Watson orders a technician named Driscoll to collect the hand. He does so and seals it back in the box Sarah brought. He also grabs the ring, which takes over his mind.
Driscoll takes the hand and places it in the decontamination room. He denies finding the ring but the Doctor asks him to look a second time. The Doctor then puts Sarah under hypnosis to learn about Eldrad. Sarah is only able to tell the Doctor of Eldrad and his planet of Kastria. He then brings her back to herself, telling her to forget about Eldrad.
Driscoll again denies finding the ring and the Doctor suspects that he has found it and is now under it's control. This is further confirmed when another technician reports a knocking from the decontamination room, where the hand has absorbed more radiation. Driscoll knocks out this technician, grabs the hand and takes it back to the core. Watson again orders the evacuation of the facility and the Doctor chases after Driscoll, only to see him unlock the inner door of the core and walk inside. This triggers a core explosion, causing much of the computer equipment in the control room to explode.
The Doctor and Sarah head into the core room where the Doctor reseals the door. Watson comes down shocked to find that all the radiation from the core explosion had been absorbed. He calls the military who decide to airstrike the reactor with nuclear missiles. The three exit the facility as Eldrad begins to burn through the door.
From a distance away, they observe two fighters launching missiles at the facility but, much as the Doctor expected, they fall inert, their energy having been absorbed by Eldrad. The Doctor and Sarah head back in where they meet Eldrad, who has reconstituted in a feminine form. She probes the mind of the Doctor to find that he is telling the truth about what happened and that he is a Time Lord. She asks for his help to return to Kastria from which she was exiled after her people turned against her, she claims, following an alien invasion. The Doctor agrees but only that he will take her to Kastria in the present time and not shortly after she was exiled 150 million years ago. She accepts his terms.
As the three make their way out of the core, Watson attacks Eldrad with a pistol. His shots have no effect and she chases him as he retreats to the control room to get more ammunition. She catches him in an energy beam and threatens to kill him but the Doctor stops her by declaring their deal void if he dies. She releases him and once they are sure he is ok, they leave the facility for the TARDIS.
The Doctor, Sarah and Eldrad travel via the TARDIS to Katria, a windswept wasteland. They make their way into the main complex where Eldrad reactivates the power. With the defenses she built shut down, the solar winds destroyed the surface. Eldrad reasons that her people have retreated into a network of caves far below the surface. She opens a door to head down there when she is stabbed by a poisoned spear, a booby trap left behind.
Eldrad tells them that her only chance is to go to the regeneration chamber below. The Doctor and Sarah take her down, avoiding several other booby traps along the way and passing over a deep abyss, which Sarah almost falls into. Upon reaching the chamber, Eldrad is laid out on the slab and the Doctor initiates the process. Eldrad's body is crushed and vaporized but the essence is reconstituted in his original masculine form. Eldrad emerges from the chamber, vowing to become king and take his full revenge on Kastria.
The Doctor and Sarah learn from Eldrad that there was no alien invasion and that the barriers protecting the planet were destroyed by him when the people of Kastria rose against him. As Eldrad finishes, King Rokon appears on the monitor telling Eldrad to come take his kingdom from him. Eldrad goes into the throne room but when he confronts Rokon, he finds only a dead body that crumbles to dust. Undeterred, Eldrad enters a chamber that held the genetic information of his people, from which he can regenerate the Kastrian race. But he finds that chamber empty as well.
An image of Rokon appears on the screen informing Eldrad that rather than attempt to scratch out a miserable existence, the Kastrian people opted for obliteration. They also destroyed their genetic repository so that no one could revive their race to serve as slaves to their will. Eldrad briefly breaks down, robbed of his revenge and dreams of power. He collects himself and then decides that he will become the ruler of Earth and use them to conquer the galaxy. The Doctor however refuses to take him back or to give him back his ring, which the Doctor had taken earlier to avoid another booby trap.
The Doctor makes it appear that he tosses the ring aside, distracting Eldrad. Eldrad lunges for it but realizes it was not the ring. He then runs after the Doctor and Sarah. The two reach the narrow bridge that spans the chasm and hide behind two rocks, stretching the Doctor's scarf between them. As Eldrad runs to the bridge, they raise the scarf, tripping him and causing him to fall into the abyss. The Doctor then takes the ring and tosses it into a different part of the abyss.
The Doctor and Sarah head back to the TARDIS and take off. The TARDIS lurches oddly, affected by the cold and the Doctor begins to work on it. But out by the stress of the adventure and the fact that the Doctor isn't even listening to her concerns. Sarah leaves the control room to gather her things, making a show of leaving. While she is gone, the Doctor receives a psychic message from Gallifrey, ordering him to return. When Sarah reenters as part of her show, the Doctor informs her of his call and how he must leave her behind. She protests but Doctor insists. He lands the TARDIS and they share a quiet goodbye as she leaves. She stops to watch the TARDIS disappear before realizing that the Doctor had once again miscalculated and dropped her off nowhere near her home in South Croydon. Undeterred, she walks off whistling.
Analysis
Aside from the resolution to how to deal with Eldrad, I can't really understand why this story is regarded as middling at best. It has it's problems, but when looked at as a whole, it really does fairly well and I thoroughly enjoyed watching it a second time through.
Aside from a little bit of uncharacterized wimpy-ness from her in Episode Four, this is an excellent story for Sarah Jane and one that features her range nicely. You have her chummy relationship with the Doctor and her noble concern for those around her to say nothing of when she is possessed by Eldrad. Those scenes of her in that state in Episodes One and Two are a very strong performance punctuated with little personality quirks that take it from generic possession to Sarah Jane being controlled. It's a rich delivery from a strong character.
This doesn't even take into account her performance in the leaving scene. The bit of pique that sets up the scene is right within the normal teasing and jostling that goes in between the Doctor and Sarah but then it drops immediately into sincerity. There are no tears, no begging aside from that lone appeal at the beginning but there is that wistful moment of saying goodbye and trying to draw it out to preserve the moment. Once the TARDIS lands, you have the Doctor trying to lie as though it's a simple "I'll see you later" with Sarah going along with it. But she has this reserve in her eyes that lets you know that her travels with the Doctor are over. But once that moment's gone, its a reflection on the good times again. Playing with the dog and laughing that the Doctor dropped her in the wrong location then whistling as she walks down the road. I think I would have preferred a fade out as she walked off in the distance with her back to the camera rather than the freeze frame, but it still worked very well as a goodbye.
As far as the Doctor, he was very engaging. He had his aloof and funny moments but his deep concern for Sarah drives all the action in the first two episodes. It is after that, once Sarah is out of danger than the aloofness returns to the fore and his almost mocking of the situation disarms Eldrad of her power while on Earth, hiding the true danger of Eldrad while she is on Earth. I would even go so far as to suspect that he doesn't trust Eldrad's story but still goes along with it both to return Eldrad to Kastria as well as try to save her life on the hope that some good can still come of the situation. The change and yet consistency within character draws one in to the Doctor's performance and makes him enjoyable through the whole story.
Even the side characters are interesting and well performed. Though there is little action with him prior to Eldrad taking control Dr. Carter is interesting and you feel bad for him when he is killed trying to kill the Doctor. Similarly, Professor Watson is also engaging, with the little character moments of saying goodbye to his family when he thinks he might die and also not being the typical obstinate bureaucrat and actually believing the Doctor the first time around when the Doctor theorizes about the nature of Eldrad. Watson does go a little off script with his pistol attack on Eldrad, especially given that Eldrad had just absorbed the equivalent of three nuclear explosions worth of energy, just to add a little action and reinforce the fact to the audience that Eldrad is not who she claims to be. But it still works out and it's nice to have secondary characters that draw you in so well.
Eldrad her/himself is probably the weakest thing in the story. Eldrad is abstract in Episodes One and Two which is far scarier than being fully realized. The female Eldrad is not bad in her performance though she does go through the pantomime shtick of being the victim. I think it would have played better to make Eldrad appear more sincere in these situations, which would have made the trick of the Doctor and Sarah more believable, rather than the obvious wink to the camera that she was lying to the Doctor about her nature. I also didn't like the direct address to the camera after realizing her new form but that's more on the director.
The male Eldrad is where it really goes to pot though. Female Eldrad had some depth and could have played the deception better depending on the script or direction. The male Eldrad simply goes to eleven and stays there. It's all rage fueled revenge and even the moment of brokenness feels like it should have been more shattering than it was. Eldrad recoups rather quickly and decides to just move on to Earth without much more than a passing glance at Kastria. Had Eldrad not started at eleven but been a bit more reserved, perhaps even sly, his breakdown at being denied revenge and rule over Kastria would have felt deeper. He then could have gone to eleven when talking about taking over Earth. That would have felt like a man who has fallen into a desperate madness and clawing at anything that would give him purpose. Instead, it becomes just another monster and one who is dispatched in a very ignoble fashion.
The dispatching of Eldrad is a failure on multiple fronts. It is a failure of writing as such a crude trick should never have been employed in the first place. It is a failure of direction as it was neither set up nor shot in a way to make it even semi-believable. It is also a failure of performance as Eldrad does not even properly trip over the scarf. He actually more steps on it and then effectively jumps into the chasm rather than properly falling. I'm sure moving around in the suit was difficult but it was the most kiddy and stage-y moment in the whole story. As such, Eldrad went from the creepy, legitimately scary force, to a bumbling monster that would be at home in a Bugs Bunny cartoon.
I thought the overall direction was pretty good along with the visual effects as well. The hand moving independently worked very well and everything else was all within normal. I also enjoyed the large use of different shooting angles when maneuvering around the plant on film. Not only did you get the nice look of film, but it better captured the scope of the facility Sarah and the Doctor were moving through. It was much nicer than just looking at corridors the whole time. I think the only point where things erred is when the missiles were fired at the plant. They weren't supposed to go off but it felt like just a static shot of the plant. An indicator that the missile had at least fallen to the ground near it would have looked good.
Overall, I think this story gets a bit shortchanged by fans. Is it a brilliant masterpiece for Sarah to go out on? No. But it is a good and entertaining story to enjoy in one sitting, which puts it at least one above The Chase. Sarah's leaving scene also has the advantage of clearing out the bad taste that the disappointing ending can leave and that does wonders for improving the overall feel of the story. Not one to start with, but I'm happy to have ended on this one.
Overall personal score: 4 out of 5
We now come to the last of the classic era stories for me to review. I still have some new series stuff to go through and as long as the show is on, we'll have new content, but this marks a type of end for me. My original thought when starting this was that I would be able to arrange for Survival to be the end, but that came and went a while ago. So I decided that The Hand of Fear, Sarah Jane's leaving story, would make an adequate substitute.
This story is generally divided. Everyone acknowledges that the last five minutes where Sarah leaves is damn near perfect. It's just the rest of the story that causes debate. I recall feeling that it wasn't quite as bad as it's reputation but still a rather mundane story for such an important companion to go out on. Of course you could say the same for Ian and Barbara going out in The Chase so it's not like there isn't a history of it. Perhaps it makes the goodbyes more memorable if the stories people leave in aren't that stellar overall. We shall see.
Plot Summary
On an alien planet, a group of hooded figures are overseeing the exile and destruction of a ship with a figure named Eldrad on it. However, the atmosphere is deteriorating and the hooded figures are forced to detonate the ship before it reaches it's maximum destructive potential. Once it is destroyed, the figures are dragged back inside their protective dome.
On Earth, the Doctor and Sarah land in a quarry, unaware that a segment is about to be exploded. They are caught in the blast, though they manage to avoid the worst of it. Sarah is partially pinned under some rock and as she reaches for the hole, she touches a petrified hand with a ring on it. She screams and that alerts the Doctor and the workers to her location. They find her unconscious, along with the petrified hand. She and the Doctor are then taken to a local hospital.
The Doctor is examined and cleared. Sarah is found to be ok but is still unconscious. They also find that her arm is very tense and her fist cannot be unclenched. Believing that it was the stress of nearly being buried alive, they leave her to rest. The Doctor instead heads down to the lab where one Dr. Carter is examining the petrified hand. The Doctor is quite interested in the initial reading of the hand and arranges for an electron microscope to be brought into the lab to examine it better. He leaves Carter to study a small sample of the hand while he heads back to the quarry to examine the layer of rock where it was found.
As the Doctor leaves, Sarah wakes up under the control of the mind embodied in the hand and the ring, which is hidden in her fist. She sneaks down to the lab and knocks Carter out with a blast of energy from the ring. She then takes the hand in a plastic box and slips out of the hospital. Carter comes to an hour later and reports her missing.
Shortly after the report is made, the Doctor returns to find Sarah gone. He becomes concerned and even more so when he sees the scan of the rock sample of the hand. The Doctor reveals that he found nothing in the rock pile which was from Jurassic strata. This means that the hand came down from space by itself 150 million years ago. The Doctor reasons that the sample is drawing regenerative energy from the radiation produced by the microscope. He then has Carter take him to the nearest nuclear reactor, a testing complex a few miles away.
Sarah arrives at the test complex and knocks the guard out with a blast from the ring. She then makes her way through the complex, stunning any worker who crosses her path. The Doctor and Carter arrive but are stopped by guards who have found the stunned guard. Sarah meanwhile makes her way into the reactor core where the hand begins to absorb the radiation and move on its own. As it gains more control, Sarah gets up and jams the door. She attempts to open the door but does not know the security code to open the inner door.
When Sarah opened the outer door to the core, the alarms initiated in the complex. In the chaos of workers running to their emergency positions, the Doctor and Carter slip away from their guards and make their way to the control room. They find the control room run by Professor Watson, giving orders to his people and trying to extricate Sarah from the room. Upon finding the door is jammed, Watson orders all staff out of the facility. The Doctor manages to make contact with Sarah over the security feed but is confused by her repeated statement of "Eldrad must live."
The Doctor runs to the roof to slip down the vent shaft. Unknown to him, Carter has also been taken over by the Eldrad consciousness and he follows the Doctor. He attacks him on the stairs but slips off when the Doctor dodges the blow, killing himself. The Doctor continues up the stairs and launches himself down the shaft. He bursts into the core and knocks Sarah out with a quick nerve pinch. As he carries her out of the core, the ring slips off her finger.
With Sarah out, the core returns to normal and Watson returns everyone to their stations. The Doctor examines Sarah and finds no radiation on her at all and her having no memory of anything after grabbing the hand in the quarry. The Doctor shows Watson the video feed of the hand and the radiation results, demonstrating it's alien nature. Watson orders a technician named Driscoll to collect the hand. He does so and seals it back in the box Sarah brought. He also grabs the ring, which takes over his mind.
Driscoll takes the hand and places it in the decontamination room. He denies finding the ring but the Doctor asks him to look a second time. The Doctor then puts Sarah under hypnosis to learn about Eldrad. Sarah is only able to tell the Doctor of Eldrad and his planet of Kastria. He then brings her back to herself, telling her to forget about Eldrad.
Driscoll again denies finding the ring and the Doctor suspects that he has found it and is now under it's control. This is further confirmed when another technician reports a knocking from the decontamination room, where the hand has absorbed more radiation. Driscoll knocks out this technician, grabs the hand and takes it back to the core. Watson again orders the evacuation of the facility and the Doctor chases after Driscoll, only to see him unlock the inner door of the core and walk inside. This triggers a core explosion, causing much of the computer equipment in the control room to explode.
The Doctor and Sarah head into the core room where the Doctor reseals the door. Watson comes down shocked to find that all the radiation from the core explosion had been absorbed. He calls the military who decide to airstrike the reactor with nuclear missiles. The three exit the facility as Eldrad begins to burn through the door.
From a distance away, they observe two fighters launching missiles at the facility but, much as the Doctor expected, they fall inert, their energy having been absorbed by Eldrad. The Doctor and Sarah head back in where they meet Eldrad, who has reconstituted in a feminine form. She probes the mind of the Doctor to find that he is telling the truth about what happened and that he is a Time Lord. She asks for his help to return to Kastria from which she was exiled after her people turned against her, she claims, following an alien invasion. The Doctor agrees but only that he will take her to Kastria in the present time and not shortly after she was exiled 150 million years ago. She accepts his terms.
As the three make their way out of the core, Watson attacks Eldrad with a pistol. His shots have no effect and she chases him as he retreats to the control room to get more ammunition. She catches him in an energy beam and threatens to kill him but the Doctor stops her by declaring their deal void if he dies. She releases him and once they are sure he is ok, they leave the facility for the TARDIS.
The Doctor, Sarah and Eldrad travel via the TARDIS to Katria, a windswept wasteland. They make their way into the main complex where Eldrad reactivates the power. With the defenses she built shut down, the solar winds destroyed the surface. Eldrad reasons that her people have retreated into a network of caves far below the surface. She opens a door to head down there when she is stabbed by a poisoned spear, a booby trap left behind.
Eldrad tells them that her only chance is to go to the regeneration chamber below. The Doctor and Sarah take her down, avoiding several other booby traps along the way and passing over a deep abyss, which Sarah almost falls into. Upon reaching the chamber, Eldrad is laid out on the slab and the Doctor initiates the process. Eldrad's body is crushed and vaporized but the essence is reconstituted in his original masculine form. Eldrad emerges from the chamber, vowing to become king and take his full revenge on Kastria.
The Doctor and Sarah learn from Eldrad that there was no alien invasion and that the barriers protecting the planet were destroyed by him when the people of Kastria rose against him. As Eldrad finishes, King Rokon appears on the monitor telling Eldrad to come take his kingdom from him. Eldrad goes into the throne room but when he confronts Rokon, he finds only a dead body that crumbles to dust. Undeterred, Eldrad enters a chamber that held the genetic information of his people, from which he can regenerate the Kastrian race. But he finds that chamber empty as well.
An image of Rokon appears on the screen informing Eldrad that rather than attempt to scratch out a miserable existence, the Kastrian people opted for obliteration. They also destroyed their genetic repository so that no one could revive their race to serve as slaves to their will. Eldrad briefly breaks down, robbed of his revenge and dreams of power. He collects himself and then decides that he will become the ruler of Earth and use them to conquer the galaxy. The Doctor however refuses to take him back or to give him back his ring, which the Doctor had taken earlier to avoid another booby trap.
The Doctor makes it appear that he tosses the ring aside, distracting Eldrad. Eldrad lunges for it but realizes it was not the ring. He then runs after the Doctor and Sarah. The two reach the narrow bridge that spans the chasm and hide behind two rocks, stretching the Doctor's scarf between them. As Eldrad runs to the bridge, they raise the scarf, tripping him and causing him to fall into the abyss. The Doctor then takes the ring and tosses it into a different part of the abyss.
The Doctor and Sarah head back to the TARDIS and take off. The TARDIS lurches oddly, affected by the cold and the Doctor begins to work on it. But out by the stress of the adventure and the fact that the Doctor isn't even listening to her concerns. Sarah leaves the control room to gather her things, making a show of leaving. While she is gone, the Doctor receives a psychic message from Gallifrey, ordering him to return. When Sarah reenters as part of her show, the Doctor informs her of his call and how he must leave her behind. She protests but Doctor insists. He lands the TARDIS and they share a quiet goodbye as she leaves. She stops to watch the TARDIS disappear before realizing that the Doctor had once again miscalculated and dropped her off nowhere near her home in South Croydon. Undeterred, she walks off whistling.
Analysis
Aside from the resolution to how to deal with Eldrad, I can't really understand why this story is regarded as middling at best. It has it's problems, but when looked at as a whole, it really does fairly well and I thoroughly enjoyed watching it a second time through.
Aside from a little bit of uncharacterized wimpy-ness from her in Episode Four, this is an excellent story for Sarah Jane and one that features her range nicely. You have her chummy relationship with the Doctor and her noble concern for those around her to say nothing of when she is possessed by Eldrad. Those scenes of her in that state in Episodes One and Two are a very strong performance punctuated with little personality quirks that take it from generic possession to Sarah Jane being controlled. It's a rich delivery from a strong character.
This doesn't even take into account her performance in the leaving scene. The bit of pique that sets up the scene is right within the normal teasing and jostling that goes in between the Doctor and Sarah but then it drops immediately into sincerity. There are no tears, no begging aside from that lone appeal at the beginning but there is that wistful moment of saying goodbye and trying to draw it out to preserve the moment. Once the TARDIS lands, you have the Doctor trying to lie as though it's a simple "I'll see you later" with Sarah going along with it. But she has this reserve in her eyes that lets you know that her travels with the Doctor are over. But once that moment's gone, its a reflection on the good times again. Playing with the dog and laughing that the Doctor dropped her in the wrong location then whistling as she walks down the road. I think I would have preferred a fade out as she walked off in the distance with her back to the camera rather than the freeze frame, but it still worked very well as a goodbye.
As far as the Doctor, he was very engaging. He had his aloof and funny moments but his deep concern for Sarah drives all the action in the first two episodes. It is after that, once Sarah is out of danger than the aloofness returns to the fore and his almost mocking of the situation disarms Eldrad of her power while on Earth, hiding the true danger of Eldrad while she is on Earth. I would even go so far as to suspect that he doesn't trust Eldrad's story but still goes along with it both to return Eldrad to Kastria as well as try to save her life on the hope that some good can still come of the situation. The change and yet consistency within character draws one in to the Doctor's performance and makes him enjoyable through the whole story.
Even the side characters are interesting and well performed. Though there is little action with him prior to Eldrad taking control Dr. Carter is interesting and you feel bad for him when he is killed trying to kill the Doctor. Similarly, Professor Watson is also engaging, with the little character moments of saying goodbye to his family when he thinks he might die and also not being the typical obstinate bureaucrat and actually believing the Doctor the first time around when the Doctor theorizes about the nature of Eldrad. Watson does go a little off script with his pistol attack on Eldrad, especially given that Eldrad had just absorbed the equivalent of three nuclear explosions worth of energy, just to add a little action and reinforce the fact to the audience that Eldrad is not who she claims to be. But it still works out and it's nice to have secondary characters that draw you in so well.
Eldrad her/himself is probably the weakest thing in the story. Eldrad is abstract in Episodes One and Two which is far scarier than being fully realized. The female Eldrad is not bad in her performance though she does go through the pantomime shtick of being the victim. I think it would have played better to make Eldrad appear more sincere in these situations, which would have made the trick of the Doctor and Sarah more believable, rather than the obvious wink to the camera that she was lying to the Doctor about her nature. I also didn't like the direct address to the camera after realizing her new form but that's more on the director.
The male Eldrad is where it really goes to pot though. Female Eldrad had some depth and could have played the deception better depending on the script or direction. The male Eldrad simply goes to eleven and stays there. It's all rage fueled revenge and even the moment of brokenness feels like it should have been more shattering than it was. Eldrad recoups rather quickly and decides to just move on to Earth without much more than a passing glance at Kastria. Had Eldrad not started at eleven but been a bit more reserved, perhaps even sly, his breakdown at being denied revenge and rule over Kastria would have felt deeper. He then could have gone to eleven when talking about taking over Earth. That would have felt like a man who has fallen into a desperate madness and clawing at anything that would give him purpose. Instead, it becomes just another monster and one who is dispatched in a very ignoble fashion.
The dispatching of Eldrad is a failure on multiple fronts. It is a failure of writing as such a crude trick should never have been employed in the first place. It is a failure of direction as it was neither set up nor shot in a way to make it even semi-believable. It is also a failure of performance as Eldrad does not even properly trip over the scarf. He actually more steps on it and then effectively jumps into the chasm rather than properly falling. I'm sure moving around in the suit was difficult but it was the most kiddy and stage-y moment in the whole story. As such, Eldrad went from the creepy, legitimately scary force, to a bumbling monster that would be at home in a Bugs Bunny cartoon.
I thought the overall direction was pretty good along with the visual effects as well. The hand moving independently worked very well and everything else was all within normal. I also enjoyed the large use of different shooting angles when maneuvering around the plant on film. Not only did you get the nice look of film, but it better captured the scope of the facility Sarah and the Doctor were moving through. It was much nicer than just looking at corridors the whole time. I think the only point where things erred is when the missiles were fired at the plant. They weren't supposed to go off but it felt like just a static shot of the plant. An indicator that the missile had at least fallen to the ground near it would have looked good.
Overall, I think this story gets a bit shortchanged by fans. Is it a brilliant masterpiece for Sarah to go out on? No. But it is a good and entertaining story to enjoy in one sitting, which puts it at least one above The Chase. Sarah's leaving scene also has the advantage of clearing out the bad taste that the disappointing ending can leave and that does wonders for improving the overall feel of the story. Not one to start with, but I'm happy to have ended on this one.
Overall personal score: 4 out of 5
Wednesday, November 1, 2017
The Wedding of River Song
Doctor who? Doctor who? Doctor WHO?
The Wedding of River Song is the final episode of the Series Six arc regarding the murder of the Doctor at Lake Silencio. Reaction to the resolution seemed to be rather mixed from a fan point of view as it didn't provide a lot of answers to the overarching questions, though it did address the immediate points of the series arc. I recall not having too many problems with it but still thought it a less than satisfying ending to a pretty good set up.
Plot Summary
In a reality where all time has merged into a single moment, Caesar Winston Churchill summons the soothsayer from prison to explain the lack of movement of time. The Soothsayer is the Doctor and he tells Churchill of how things happened.
After his adventure with Craig in Closing Time, the Doctor pursues various leads to help him track why the Silence are so intent on killing him. The trail leads him to the head of Dorium Maldovar, stored in the vaults of the Headless Monks. Dorium reveals that a prophecy was given regarding the oldest question in the universe and the fields of Trenzalore. Upon learning both the prophecy and the question, the Doctor takes Dorium in the TARDIS and begins to set a plan in motion.
The Doctor contacts the team of the Teselecta (Let's Kill Hitler) and has them send the four invitations to his death as seen in The Impossible Astronaut. All things proceed as expected until he meets River in the space suit coming out of the lake. She resists and discharges her weapon without killing the Doctor. However, as this is a fixed point in time, all things are enveloped in white.
The Doctor ends his tale to Churchill as they have come out of his office and into the main hall. They discover they have been fighting off the Silence, who are hanging from the ceiling in large numbers. The Silence are neutralized by a group of soldiers, led by Amy who is wearing an eye patch identical to that of Madame Kovarian. She stuns the Doctor and takes him to a private train for transport to Cairo.
On the train, Amy demonstrates that she remembers the Doctor but not Rory. Rory is serving as an Army Captain in her personal guard. The Doctor tries to make small jogs to her memory regarding Rory but nothing comes of it. Upon arriving at the pyramids in Cairo, they are taken into an American base where the Silence have been stored upon capture in tanks of fluid, though still sentient. Amy also reveals that the eye patches are actually computer drives that store the image of the Silence, allowing people to remember they are there.
At the base, the Doctor finds River with a captured Madame Kovarian. The two flirt a little while the Doctor tries to touch her and resume time. River resists, knowing that she would be forced to kill him if time resumed. They are interrupted by the Silence breaking out of their tanks and attacking the force. In addition to front attacks, they send pulses through the eye drives either killing the wearers or inflicting them with sharp pain.
River takes the Doctor to the roof, beckoning Amy to follow. Rory opts to stay behind but as the Silence break through, Amy returns and gun down those that attack him. She removes his eye drive but reattaches Madame Kovarian's, killing her.
They meet River and the Doctor on the roof where River shows the Doctor a distress signal asking for help for the Doctor throughout time and space. Embarrassed, the Doctor still insists that they must restart time but River still refuses. With no alternative, the Doctor performs a quick marriage ceremony between himself and River. He whispers into River's ear and then they kiss. The contact reestablishes the flow of time and everyone is transported back to Lake Silencio as in The Impossible Astronaut.
Afterwards River, fresh from teleporting from the Byzantium, meets Amy in her back yard. Amy is mourning the Doctor but River tells Amy that when the Doctor whispered in her ear, she looked into his eye and saw that the body of the Doctor was in fact the teselecta and that the Doctor was inside. Thus the "body" that was killed on the lakeshore was not the true Doctor and he has slipped away.
A disguised Doctor returns the head of Dorium to the vault, revealing himself to him. Dorium promises to keep the Doctor's secret but warns him that both the prophecy and the initial question are waiting for him.
Analysis
As a series ending story, this one is only okay. As an episode in and of itself, it's a bit better but still has it's flaws. Of course, it is nearly impossible to watch this one without having familiarity with at least the Eleventh Doctor era. There are all the points of Series Six that are addressed but there are also several other callbacks to prior stories which make the story flow a bit better if you know them.
In a way, I was reminded of Victory of the Daleks in this story in that it started well and was pretty engaging but then it lagged and resolved in an unsatisfying way. River refusing to shoot the Doctor and setting up the fusion of time into a single moment was interesting and gave some rather nice visuals, as well as some amusing throwbacks. Winston Churchill talking about downloads and Charles Dickens doing a modern media tour were particularly amusing. Where it started to go downhill for me is about the time they got to the pyramid. Not only did the narrative bog down but the circumstances of the Doctor's plan just seemed slapped together. Why have the marriage ceremony? The Doctor could have had a quiet moment with River and ordered her to look into his eye at any time without going through the ceremony. I don't mind that he married River but the circumstances of it seemed very forced.
I also didn't care for the slapdash nature of the Doctor's plan. He goes through this elaborate set up of saying goodbye to people he cares about, goes on a long chase to get answers, gets them, seems to resign himself to his fate but then changes his mind at the last minute at a chance offer of the captain of the teselecta. I think it would have worked better if they didn't include that quick seen where the Doctor comes back into the bar after the captain made his offer. If it had just shown the Doctor in the teselecta that would have been enough and we would have known that he took it from the captain eventually but would have been left to ourselves to determine when he entered and when he devised the plan to trick everyone. This is just a bit too much for me.
For the most part all the actors did well. The dialogue for River at the end got a bit saccharine and that led to some melodrama in the delivery but it wasn't too bad. Madame Kovarian's plea for mercy at the end was also a bit melodramatic for my taste but I think that was to be expected. What probably increased the melodrama was that the end felt a bit rushed. The Doctor's tale to Churchill was well paced and built the interest in what was happening. But the scenes at the pyramid took on a feel of hurry up and get this done which meant that the emotional resonance both between the Doctor and River and between Amy and Rory had to be crammed into about fifteen minutes. Emotional development usually takes a bit more time and while this was building on existing canon, it still felt rushed and undeserved. Especially as it did not require River and the Doctor to get married just for her to look into his eye. For the marriage, there should have been a deeper and less melodramatic scene between them so that the marriage was a natural outgrowth and letting River in on the Doctor's secret was secondary.
Even the scenery had it's let downs at points. The team travelled to Utah to film the lake scenes there but apparently the close ups between the Doctor and River didn't come out so they reshot them with a rather poor looking blue screen behind them. It was a decent effort but the contrast was just so sharp as to be very noticeable. Similarly, while the scenes in the pyramid worked well with that claustrophobic sense, the scene at the top looked like a basic set with a blue screen in the background. It was just another little addition that made the final scene between River and the Doctor feel rushed and somewhat poorly prepared. Other direction, such as in the great hall with the Silence by contrast, was quite well done and set up the scenes quite well.
Overall I'd say the fundamental story is sound and the actors did reasonable jobs, but there were little misses here and there. The ending needed either a couple more rewrites or another couple of minutes to breathe. There needed to be extra motivation to drive the conclusion as it felt unearned. Good performances from earlier in the story were undercut by lesser performances much as with shortfalls in the production. It is not bad, but it does feel like a truly satisfying conclusion that one might have hoped for given the scope of the series arc.
Overall personal score: 3 out of 5
The Wedding of River Song is the final episode of the Series Six arc regarding the murder of the Doctor at Lake Silencio. Reaction to the resolution seemed to be rather mixed from a fan point of view as it didn't provide a lot of answers to the overarching questions, though it did address the immediate points of the series arc. I recall not having too many problems with it but still thought it a less than satisfying ending to a pretty good set up.
Plot Summary
In a reality where all time has merged into a single moment, Caesar Winston Churchill summons the soothsayer from prison to explain the lack of movement of time. The Soothsayer is the Doctor and he tells Churchill of how things happened.
After his adventure with Craig in Closing Time, the Doctor pursues various leads to help him track why the Silence are so intent on killing him. The trail leads him to the head of Dorium Maldovar, stored in the vaults of the Headless Monks. Dorium reveals that a prophecy was given regarding the oldest question in the universe and the fields of Trenzalore. Upon learning both the prophecy and the question, the Doctor takes Dorium in the TARDIS and begins to set a plan in motion.
The Doctor contacts the team of the Teselecta (Let's Kill Hitler) and has them send the four invitations to his death as seen in The Impossible Astronaut. All things proceed as expected until he meets River in the space suit coming out of the lake. She resists and discharges her weapon without killing the Doctor. However, as this is a fixed point in time, all things are enveloped in white.
The Doctor ends his tale to Churchill as they have come out of his office and into the main hall. They discover they have been fighting off the Silence, who are hanging from the ceiling in large numbers. The Silence are neutralized by a group of soldiers, led by Amy who is wearing an eye patch identical to that of Madame Kovarian. She stuns the Doctor and takes him to a private train for transport to Cairo.
On the train, Amy demonstrates that she remembers the Doctor but not Rory. Rory is serving as an Army Captain in her personal guard. The Doctor tries to make small jogs to her memory regarding Rory but nothing comes of it. Upon arriving at the pyramids in Cairo, they are taken into an American base where the Silence have been stored upon capture in tanks of fluid, though still sentient. Amy also reveals that the eye patches are actually computer drives that store the image of the Silence, allowing people to remember they are there.
At the base, the Doctor finds River with a captured Madame Kovarian. The two flirt a little while the Doctor tries to touch her and resume time. River resists, knowing that she would be forced to kill him if time resumed. They are interrupted by the Silence breaking out of their tanks and attacking the force. In addition to front attacks, they send pulses through the eye drives either killing the wearers or inflicting them with sharp pain.
River takes the Doctor to the roof, beckoning Amy to follow. Rory opts to stay behind but as the Silence break through, Amy returns and gun down those that attack him. She removes his eye drive but reattaches Madame Kovarian's, killing her.
They meet River and the Doctor on the roof where River shows the Doctor a distress signal asking for help for the Doctor throughout time and space. Embarrassed, the Doctor still insists that they must restart time but River still refuses. With no alternative, the Doctor performs a quick marriage ceremony between himself and River. He whispers into River's ear and then they kiss. The contact reestablishes the flow of time and everyone is transported back to Lake Silencio as in The Impossible Astronaut.
Afterwards River, fresh from teleporting from the Byzantium, meets Amy in her back yard. Amy is mourning the Doctor but River tells Amy that when the Doctor whispered in her ear, she looked into his eye and saw that the body of the Doctor was in fact the teselecta and that the Doctor was inside. Thus the "body" that was killed on the lakeshore was not the true Doctor and he has slipped away.
A disguised Doctor returns the head of Dorium to the vault, revealing himself to him. Dorium promises to keep the Doctor's secret but warns him that both the prophecy and the initial question are waiting for him.
Analysis
As a series ending story, this one is only okay. As an episode in and of itself, it's a bit better but still has it's flaws. Of course, it is nearly impossible to watch this one without having familiarity with at least the Eleventh Doctor era. There are all the points of Series Six that are addressed but there are also several other callbacks to prior stories which make the story flow a bit better if you know them.
In a way, I was reminded of Victory of the Daleks in this story in that it started well and was pretty engaging but then it lagged and resolved in an unsatisfying way. River refusing to shoot the Doctor and setting up the fusion of time into a single moment was interesting and gave some rather nice visuals, as well as some amusing throwbacks. Winston Churchill talking about downloads and Charles Dickens doing a modern media tour were particularly amusing. Where it started to go downhill for me is about the time they got to the pyramid. Not only did the narrative bog down but the circumstances of the Doctor's plan just seemed slapped together. Why have the marriage ceremony? The Doctor could have had a quiet moment with River and ordered her to look into his eye at any time without going through the ceremony. I don't mind that he married River but the circumstances of it seemed very forced.
I also didn't care for the slapdash nature of the Doctor's plan. He goes through this elaborate set up of saying goodbye to people he cares about, goes on a long chase to get answers, gets them, seems to resign himself to his fate but then changes his mind at the last minute at a chance offer of the captain of the teselecta. I think it would have worked better if they didn't include that quick seen where the Doctor comes back into the bar after the captain made his offer. If it had just shown the Doctor in the teselecta that would have been enough and we would have known that he took it from the captain eventually but would have been left to ourselves to determine when he entered and when he devised the plan to trick everyone. This is just a bit too much for me.
For the most part all the actors did well. The dialogue for River at the end got a bit saccharine and that led to some melodrama in the delivery but it wasn't too bad. Madame Kovarian's plea for mercy at the end was also a bit melodramatic for my taste but I think that was to be expected. What probably increased the melodrama was that the end felt a bit rushed. The Doctor's tale to Churchill was well paced and built the interest in what was happening. But the scenes at the pyramid took on a feel of hurry up and get this done which meant that the emotional resonance both between the Doctor and River and between Amy and Rory had to be crammed into about fifteen minutes. Emotional development usually takes a bit more time and while this was building on existing canon, it still felt rushed and undeserved. Especially as it did not require River and the Doctor to get married just for her to look into his eye. For the marriage, there should have been a deeper and less melodramatic scene between them so that the marriage was a natural outgrowth and letting River in on the Doctor's secret was secondary.
Even the scenery had it's let downs at points. The team travelled to Utah to film the lake scenes there but apparently the close ups between the Doctor and River didn't come out so they reshot them with a rather poor looking blue screen behind them. It was a decent effort but the contrast was just so sharp as to be very noticeable. Similarly, while the scenes in the pyramid worked well with that claustrophobic sense, the scene at the top looked like a basic set with a blue screen in the background. It was just another little addition that made the final scene between River and the Doctor feel rushed and somewhat poorly prepared. Other direction, such as in the great hall with the Silence by contrast, was quite well done and set up the scenes quite well.
Overall I'd say the fundamental story is sound and the actors did reasonable jobs, but there were little misses here and there. The ending needed either a couple more rewrites or another couple of minutes to breathe. There needed to be extra motivation to drive the conclusion as it felt unearned. Good performances from earlier in the story were undercut by lesser performances much as with shortfalls in the production. It is not bad, but it does feel like a truly satisfying conclusion that one might have hoped for given the scope of the series arc.
Overall personal score: 3 out of 5
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