Battlefield

Destroyer: Pitiful. Can this world do no better than you as a champion?
Brigadier: Probably. I just do the best I can

Battlefield is the Doctor Who take on the King Arthur legend. I've not heard much about it other than it is generally considered the weakest of four stories that make up Season 26, even by those that despise Ghost Light. I also know that there was an issue with production where this story was expanded from it's intended three episodes to four which has rather baffled people as again, Ghost Light would have benefited from expansion probably more than this story.

Plot Summary

The Doctor and Ace receive a distress call in the TARDIS and materialize on Earth a few years beyond when Ace left. They hitch a ride from an archeologist named Peter Warmsly, who is following a UNIT truck on his way to his dig site. At the dig site, from the Arthurian period, the Doctor finds a UNIT nuclear missile convoy with the new commander, Brigadier Winifred Bambera. Brigadier Bambera is dismissive of the Doctor, but is informed by her sergeant of the Doctor's status as UNIT's scientific adviser.

Bambera drives the Doctor and Ace to a local inn where Ace strikes up with a local named Shou Yuing, who shares her interest in explosives. The Doctor meanwhile examines a scabbard unearthed by Warmsly and hung on the wall. The wife of the proprietor, Mrs. Rawlinson, warns the Doctor that something is off about the scabbard. She is blind, but she can sense power from it. The Doctor notes that it feels hot to the touch and agrees with her.

Bambera drives back but stops on seeing the TARDIS, having been warned to be on the lookout for it. While examining it, she is caught in a firefight between an armored knight and his three armored pursuers. Both are using swords and laser weapons. Bambera shoots back but her gun has no effect. The lone knight retreats but one of them throws a grenade and launches him through the air and into the brewery building next to the inn.

Hearing the crash, the Doctor, Ace and Shou Yuing go to investigate. The find the knight alive, though knocked out briefly. The knight is Ancelyn and he recognizes the Doctor as Merlin, though with a different face. Bambera arrives and tries to arrest the lot but she is interrupted by the other knights. Their leader is Mordred who aims to kill them. However upon seeing the Doctor, whom he also recognizes as Merlin, he retreats, preferring to leave him to his mother Morgaine.

Mordred retreats to a sanctum established in a local castle and uses the power of his sword to open a porthole for his mother to pass through. She arrives during the night while the Doctor's group is hunkered down at the inn. The scabbard leaps off it's mounting and imbeds itself in a post, pulled toward the dig site.

During all this, retired Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart is at his home with his wife Doris. He receives a call from Geneva and dismisses them at first but changes his mind when he hears the Doctor has come back. He is picked up via helicopter and flown to London to be briefed. He and Lt. Lavel then fly north to the site of the action. His helicopter is observed by Morgaine and she brings it down with a surge of power from her hand. The Brigadier and Lavel survive the crash but Lavel is injured. The Brigadier heads to town to get help.

In town he is confronted by Morgaine but she does not attack, seeing a fellow warrior. She had ordered her forces to stand down as they had arrived on a memorial to the World War I and II dead and sheading blood on a memorial for soldiers would be seen as dishonorable. She warns the Brigadier that she will kill him the next time they meet on the field of battle. The Brigadier continues and commandeers the car of Shou Yuing, forcing her into the passenger seat.

The Doctor and Ace return to the dig site with Warmsly where they uncover a stone with the Doctor's writing. He orders Ace to create a hole and she detonates an explosive there, revealing a concrete passage nearly 1300 years old. They enter the passage and then a buried spaceship. The Doctor triggers a door using his voice pattern, figuring that a future version of himself must have set all this in place.

They enter the chamber where a knight in suspended animation is slumped over an alter with a sword buried in it. Ace accidentally pulls the sword out, trigging a defensive system that attacks them. Ace runs back into a cubby which seals behind her and begins to fill with water. The Doctor triggers a button on a console which opens a hatch and shoots Ace to the surface like a torpedo where she swims to shore, gathered up by Warmsley and Ancelyn.

Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart arrives and upon hearing Ace's story, runs into the tunnel. He takes the control from the stunned Doctor and deactivates the security system. The two return to the surface and gather the whole party in two cars to head back to the inn. Most pile in the UNIT car but Brigadier Bambera and Ancelyn take Shou Yuing's car with Bambera a bit put out at Letbrigde-Stewart having taken over command.

Mordred arrives at the inn where he is confronted by Lieutenant Lavel. Morgaine also arrives and probes Lavel's mind, learning of the Brigadier's plans and arrival. She then kills Lavel, turning her body to ash. However, she also pays for the pint Mordred drank by restoring sight to Mrs. Rawlinson. Morgaine orders Mordred to lead the men to attack the UNIT forces while she goes after the Doctor and Excalibur.

Mordred's men ambush the two cars returning to the inn but Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart's gets through. Brigadier Bambera and Ancelyn are run off the road and are forced to run back to the lake to regroup with other UNIT soldiers.

The other car arrives at the inn where another group of UNIT soldiers is unloading specially designed munitions for alien invaders. The Doctor puts in an order for silver bullets and then hypnotizes the Rawlinsons and Warmsley into evacuating. He leaves Excalibur with Ace and Shou Yuing and orders Ace that if things go funny to draw a circle with a piece of chalk he gives her and stay inside it.

The Doctor and the Brigadier drive back to the lake to see UNIT and Mordred's men engaged in combat. He runs in to stop the fighting but Mordred laughs at him, noting that this is just a feint. The Doctor realizes that the real attack is now against Ace.

Ace and Shou Yuing stay in the circle as darkness envelops the inn, though light remains in the circle. The two girls start fighting as they think they hear the other one insult them but they realize they are being tricked. Finally Morgaine herself appears with a demon called The Destroyer to recover Excalibur. However, she cannot penetrate the chalk circle. The Destroyer can but Morgaine refuses to unbind his silver chains to unleash his full power.

The Doctor calls out to Morgaine, threatening to kill Mordred but she dismisses him as bluffing. However, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart steps up, prepared to shoot Mordred and Morgaine knows he is not bluffing. She abandons Mordred and the Doctor and the Brigadier stuff him into Bessie and drive back to the inn. The Destroyer breaches the circle and he and Morgaine head back to the castle with Excalibur, destroying part of the inn in the process.

The Doctor and the Brigadier arrive with the real Excalibur to find Ace and Shou Yuing partially buried in the ruins but ok. They also notice the gateway used by Morgaine and the Destroyer is still open, being held open by the Destroyer. The Doctor and the Brigadier hurry through it. Ace follows a few moments later with two boxes of silver bullets. Mordred slips away from Bessie and runs back to the castle on foot.

In the castle, Morgaine uses Excalibur to try and reopen the portal to their own world. The Doctor, the Brigadier and Ace arrive to confront her. Threatened, Morgaine orders her men to attack UNIT and finally unbinds the Destroyer's chains, catching the Doctor off guard. Mordred reappears, catching his mother off guard as well. He is put out at her abandonment of him but the two vanish away from the castle as the Doctor steals Excalibur back from her.

The three retreat from the castle with the Doctor telling them that silver bullets are the only way to stop the Destroyer. He loads the Brigadier's gun with the bullets and prepares to go back in. However, the Brigadier knocks him out and takes the gun in himself. He confronts the Destroyer, shooting him and running as the demon explodes. The Doctor comes to as the castle explodes. He finds the Brigadier just outside the ruins of the castle, dirty and bloodied but alive. The three then head to the lake to stop Morgaine.

UNIT successfully defeats Morgaine's troops but Brigadier Bambera is captured by Mordred and taken to Morgaine, who probes her mind to discover how to activate the missile. The Doctor, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart and Ace return Excalibur to the ship and find that Arthur is actually dead, having died in battle 1,000 years ago. The Doctor finds a note left by his future self, warning of the armed missile and heads off to find Morgaine. Ace and the Brigadier are left with orders to destroy the ship, which Ace does with relish.

The Doctor finds Morgaine and confronts her with the reality that nuclear destruction is death without honor. She relents and deactivates the missile but demands to face Arthur in combat again. He reveals that Arthur died and she wilts with a lack of purpose, her thirst for revenge unfulfilled. He has Morgaine arrested, along with Mordred, whom he disarms just prior to killing Anselyn in single combat.

Victorious, the whole group returns to the Brigadier's estate where the ladies all take Bessie for a day in town, leaving the Brigadier, the Doctor and Anselyn to work the garden and prepare dinner.

Analysis

Battlefield is a story that probably had a significant amount of potential when it was first written, but the background folks let it down. It was padded which bloats the story and the acting took a hard turn into the scenery chewing vein and not in a good way.

The more stories I've seen, the more I like the Seventh Doctor and this story is no exception. The Doctor adapts rather well to the conditions shown him and unlike the other stories of this season where he is a bit too much in control, there is enough wrong-footedness to make his performance that much stronger. Being forced to adapt to things you haven't done yet puts the Doctor in the unique position of having to figure things out on the fly. Of course, it also gives an extra sense of boldness since the Doctor knows that he must survive in order to be Merlin in the future and set things in motion for his past self. But it still works.

It was nice to see the Brigadier again. I thought he did very well and in Episode Four he took Ace's position away as primary companion, to the point that he made a little joke of it. I liked the Brig in this one, especially as he fully gave way to the Doctor and was prepared for just about anything. I also appreciated his candor about the situation, knocking the Doctor out because he felt he was more expendable than the Doctor. In early drafts of the script, the Brigadier was supposed to die in the confrontation with the Destroyer. I'm glad he didn't but if that had been kept, it would have been a noble and fitting end for him.

I was a little disappointed by Ace in this story. Part of that comes from a sense of Sophie Aldred trying a bit too hard with the teenager bit in her scenes with Shou Yuing. Her nature works well in contrast with the Doctor and the Brigadier because she is so much younger than they are and the naivety plays more naturally. When she is with peers or even other people, it starts coming across that she is older than what she is trying to play and there is a sense of wrongness about it. It's not terrible, but it just rubs wrong during the story.

Where this story really starts to fall apart though is in the guest cast. Most of the ancillary characters are middling at best in their acting. A couple stand out as being a little better here and there but most aren't great. The three that really disappoint though are Brigadier Bambera, Mordred and Morgaine. Bambera is supposed to be this "tough as nails" sort of commander, but she comes across as more of a jerk than anything else. It's hard to imagine anyone with more of a "shoot first and ask questions later" person than Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, but there she is. However, this does not enhance her character but instead makes her into a dumb hothead. She doesn't know the Doctor and constantly gets her foot into it. She is further diminished by playing up a comedy role for her as the object of Ancelyn's affection which is so cliché that it just doesn't work very well.

I didn't expect much out of Mordred so his turns to camp were not overly surprising, though no less painful. His scenery chewing, especially with Ancelyn made me just long for the Brigadier to pull the trigger on him when he is cornered at the beginning of Episode Four. But despite that, Morgaine was actually worse for me. I think this is due to the fact that Jean Marsh is a good actress and she has been shown to play her roles well, even in other Doctor Who stories. Here, she is incredibly over-the-top and scenery chewing and it goes to the point of being almost community theater level of portraying the bad guy.

While I was watching her performance, I found myself wondering why her performance was so painful to watch when Anthony Ainley's performances as the Master were probably just as campy but enjoyable. My speculation is that Ainley knew when to pull it back when he had to for dramatic purposes and that his camp was always layered in a sense of fun that the Master would have. Whatever the circumstances, the Master was enjoying himself and the whole plot was just a game. Here, Morgaine is set out with a mission to find and recover Excalibur and then defeat Arthur. There is nothing fun in that so her decent into camp feels exactly like an actor doing a bad job rather than playing up the mustache twirly-ness for comedic effect. I wouldn't have thought it bad, but it just didn't work for me.

As interesting as the idea was, there were also some problems with the writing. Some of this came to stringing out of the plot, which added scenes and expanded the scope, but that expansion also created extra threads which just left things dangling.

I genuinely did not understand what the whole bit with the nuclear missile had to do with anything. That was never made a focus of Morgaine's at any point. Her goal was always to recover Excalibur and then battle Arthur. Fleeing before the released Destroyer was one thing but the idea of setting off the nuclear missile out of effectively spite, only to be talked down because of a lack of honor in such a killing was just dumb. Had she taken over the missile and threatened to use it unless Arthur came to challenge her and then have her face the reality of Arthur's death would have played much better. It would have put the focus on her revenge rather than another anti-nuclear bit that was very common in the 80's.

In many ways, the inclusion of the Destroyer himself is rather pointless. He is introduced midway in Episode Three and then dispatched early in Episode Four. There is a lot of build up towards with the silver bullets but it's a bit too much for a simple dragon and it took the focus off Morgaine and she should have stayed the focus in my opinion. It feels like another instance of putting a monster in Doctor Who simply so there will be a monster.

One of the few good scenes that came out of the need to pad this story out to four episodes is a reunification between Nicholas Courtney and Jean Marsh. Jean Marsh made her Doctor Who debut in The Crusade but they were both featured prominently in Nicholas Courtney's first appearance in The Daleks' Master Plan where Jean Marsh's Sarah Kingdom shot and killed Nicholas Courtney's Bret Vyon. The characters show a great deal of respect for each other and you can't help but think that very little acting is actually going on as it is two distinguished actors giving each other respect. As an overall scene, it is completely pointless and puts a rather odd bit of honor in what is otherwise rather ruthless killing, but I still enjoyed seeing the two of them share the screen together.

Another thought that came to me while I was watching was how the story should have been tightened further in regard to the Brigadier. I'm not well versed in the Arthurian legend about his return, but it seemed pretty obvious to me that the Brigadier was playing the role of Arthur. He had retired to his own Avalon with Doris but is summoned back by Merlin (the Doctor). He leads his forces to victory over Morgaine and her dragon and in early drafts of the story, the Brigadier actually died which would have further played into the legend, given Arthur's own death against Mordred's forces. You even have the nice tie in with the actors having played brother and sister in a previous story. But it felt like the Arthurian bits got dropped by Episode Four, and it just didn't quite work after that. You had a tiny little revival when Morgaine effectively gives up after learning of Arthur's death (much like the legend) but since so little focus had been given on that part of Morgaine's desire, it didn't really go anywhere.

That little point also speaks to a larger problem with the ending. Mordred is disarmed and captured. Fine, that works. But Morgaine also gives up and yet she still has all her technology/magical powers that she had before. Are we to assume that she is going to meekly submit to spending the next few years sitting in a British prison and will be released at some future point? That makes absolutely no sense. If the story didn't want to kill the antagonists, fine. I can deal with that. But the Doctor should have arranged to have them detained in their own dimension or exiled to some other world as a prison there. These are not conventional criminals that you just toss in a cell. It's another aspect of the odd pacing that came about by the expansion.

I rather wonder if in the original story, Morgaine is killed or mortally wounded by the Destroyer and calls for Arthur to finish her off after the Brigadier defeats him. There the Doctor would have stood over her and told her that Arthur was dead and that her revenge was pointless. I would have been a bit of the dark Doctor showing up and fully closing Morgaine's story rather than just letting it dangle at the end.

The production values of this story aren't bad for the 80's. It is fairly well directed and there is some nice camera work. There are a number of visual effects which do look very fake, even for the time. In fact, just about everything the Destroyer does looks quite bad. Despite the fact that the Destroyer himself actually looks really good. I'm going to fault the times and the budget more than anything and compared to the other problems of this story, it's a minor thing.

This is a story that I can honestly say I wished I liked more. There is potential here both in plotline and the talent available. But it just turned into a steaming pile. There are too many groaner moments to outweigh the good moments, especially between the Doctor and the Brigadier. There are far better Seventh Doctor stories and I think the final ride of the Brigadier is the only reason to give this one a second time around.

Overall personal score: 1.5 out of 5

Planet of Fire

The worst place in the universe, English public school on Earth.

I know very little about Planet of Fire going in to it other than it involves the Master, Kamelion returns, Turlough leaves and Peri joins. That's quite a lot for one story to do so I'm not surprised that those parts are well known. What's surprising is that so much of the story is not discussed. Even the location shooting on Lanzarote is better known than most of the plot elements so despite knowing several highlights, I'm going into this one with something of a blank slate.

Plot Summary

On the planet Sarn, two men are climbing a volcano, testing to see if their god Logar is real. Reaching the top, they find nothing, validating their skepticism. They head back down and confront their leader, Timinov, who is a strong adherent to the faith and is guiding Malkon, the Chosen One.

On the TARDIS, the Doctor overhears Kamelion screaming and finds that the TARDIS is picking up a signal that is overwriting his functions. Turlough sets up a wave to block the signal but also sees another signal from the Trions, his own race. He sabotages the circuit picking up the signal, but the TARDIS is redirected to the source, the island of Lanzarote on Earth. The Doctor and Turlough walk around searching for the source of the signal.

On the beach, they meet Howard and Curt, who have been pulling artifacts out of the ocean. Howard is the stepfather to Peri, a young American woman attending school in England. He has also just tricked her into missing a flight to Morocco where she had planned to spend the summer with some English boys she had met and is now stuck on the artifact recovery boat. The Doctor notes the signal coming through and Turlough heads back to the TARDIS so that they can triangulate the signal.

Angry at Howard and determined to make her flight, Peri leaps off the boat and tries to swim to shore. However, she cramps up and begins to drown. Hearing her cries for help, Turlough swims out and pulls her to shore. He takes her into the TARDIS and lays her down on a bed to recover. He also notices that one of the things in her bag is the source of the signal, marked with a double triangle signal, identical to a brand on his own arm (and on Malkon's arm, the symbol of Logar).

Turlough takes the device and tries to destroy it but it signals again and the Doctor follows it back to the TARDIS. The signal takes hold of Kamelion and Kamelion enters new coordinates into the TARDIS, though Turlough stops him before he can fully engage. The Doctor takes the data core from the device but it engages the TARDIS and they take off.

Kamelion reconfigures himself to the appearance of Howard, startling Peri. She follows "Howard" into the TARDIS control room asking what is going on. No one says anything as they land on Sarn. The Doctor and Turlough leave to explore, leaving Peri with Kamelion.

In the temple, the unbelievers confront Timinov who requests a sign from Logar. In response, the flames of the temple burst through the gates. They receive word a few moments later that an Outsider has arrived, seemingly in response to a prophecy. Timinov orders the unbelievers arrested and appeals to Malkon to have the unbelievers thrown to the fire as a sacrifice to Logar, as only the Chosen One has the authority to order such a sacrifice. Malkon demurs, wishing to see to the Outsider before ordering death to anyone.

On the TARDIS, Kamelion, in his Howard form begins to laugh and transforms himself again into the Master. The Master keeps Peri in the TARDIS until her mind begins to override the Master's. Kamelion transforms into a silver-skinned Howard, who gives Peri a computer component of the TARDIS and orders her to run. As she tries to flee, the Master regains control and grabs her. But an earthquake knocks over the Master's TARDIS, which has materialized across the courtyard from the Doctor's, and the Master loses control again, allowing Peri to run.

Peri runs after the Doctor and Turlough, spying them on a ridge ahead of her. She calls out but they are too far ahead. She runs further with the Kamelion Master behind her. She reaches the lookout point from where the TARDIS was spotted by the Sarnians, trapped by a dead end. She threatens to throw the TARDIS component over the edge if the Master approaches. Her strength of will begins to override the Master's control again and Kamelion turns back into the silver Howard allowing her to flee into the waste.

The Doctor and Turlough keep walking until they are spotted by a lookout for the unbelievers. He takes them to a cave in the mountain where Turlough recognizes the equipment as a means of tapping the energy of the mountain by his people, the Trions. The Doctor and Turlough meet Malkon, to whom the Doctor explains the equipment. Turlough listens to Malkon's story of being discovered near the mountain with a double triangle brand, a brand Turlough shares, and Turlough implores Malkon to take him there. The Doctor meanwhile, asks to be taken to the main settlement.

Timinov and the scout stop to rest near the lookout post where they find Kamelion in silver Howard form. As silver skin is a sign of Logar, they assume him to be the Outsider. The Master reestablishes control and resumes that form, requesting they take him to their settlement. Once there, he sees the Doctor and orders him and the unbelievers to be consigned to the flames.

Turlough and Malkon reach the remains of a crashed Trion ship from which Malkon was found. Turlough also finds Peri nearby and takes her along. Peri gives Turlough the piece of the Doctor's TARDIS and tells him that the Master is here. The three then run back to the settlement as the Master is ordering the burning.

Malkon enters, ordering that the burning be stopped. The Master counters the order and one of the guards shoots Malkon, though not killing him. Turlough and Peri run to the unbeliever's cave and reworks the machine to shut off the gas flow, killing the flames in the burn cave. Timinov takes this as a sign that Logar rejects the sacrifice due to the wounding of the Chosen One.

The Doctor tries to take control of Kamelion by asserting his will over the Master's. The Master fights and orders the Doctor and the unbelievers be locked in the extinguished cave. The geology of the cave diminishes the power of the Doctor's thoughts and the Master reasserts control. Seeing this on a screen, Peri runs back and tries to take control, but the Master has taken a firmer hand and her mind is no match for his. The Master then orders the villagers to come to the ruins where he will give them the gifts of Logar, taking Peri with him.

Turlough sneaks back and releases the Doctor and the unbelievers from the cave. They head back to the unbeliever's hideout carrying Malkon with them. Turlough reveals that he believes Malkon may be his brother. Knowing that he has to rescue Peri, the Doctor heads to the ruins with an unbeliever named Amyand as his guide. Turlough gives the Doctor the component that Peri gave him and follows.

At the ruins, the Sarnians uncover and right the Master's TARDIS, disguised as a pillar of stone. The Master pulls Peri into the TARDIS and disappears. The Doctor observes this, but knows that the Master is still on Sarn as their two TARDISes are linked. Turlough reveals his brand and declares himself as the new Chosen One. This permits the Doctor to reenter the TARDIS and reinstall the component. However, he realizes that the Master has also removed a component and they are still stuck.

The Master and Peri rematerialize in the control chamber of the volcano. He threatens Peri with his tissue compression eliminator and reworks the controls. His experimenting causes earthquakes and Turlough orders everyone into the TARDIS for protection. They emerge when the tremors stop and find the volcano spewing blue gas, a sign of great favor from Logar according to Timinov as it has healing powers.

The gas is actually numismaton gas, a rare and powerful restorative agent mined by the Trions on Sarn. With the gas flow established as ready, the Kamelion Master prepares to pull a box from his TARDIS into the flow. Peri manages to get away from him and lock herself in the Master's TARDIS with Kamelion out of it. She opens the box to find the real Master, shrunk to a tiny size, a victim of a failed experiment with his Tissue Compression Eliminator.

The Doctor and the rest of the group return to the settlement where the Doctor orders Malkon brought up and placed in the cave. The flames are reestablished and turn blue as the released gas mixes with the flames. They all step in and feel a great restoration with Malkon being healed of his wounds. However, the Doctor realizes that the mountain will explode from the Master's interference and makes plans to evacuate. Turlough decides to return to the crashed ship and signal his people.

Turlough reveals that the brand is the mark of Trion prisoners. His family was on the losing side of a civil war. His father and brother and other members were sent to the prison planet of Sarn while he was exiled to Earth where Trion had a scout to keep taps on him and others like him. He will summon a Trion ship to rescue the people, who are descendants of the original inhabitants blended with prior Trion exiles. As he leaves, the Doctor and Amyand also leave to find the entrance to the control cave.

In the Master's TARDIS, the Master eludes Peri by diving into the console. He triggers the doors, allowing Peri to escape before the Master can reestablish control over Kamelion. She runs out of the cave and on the slope where she spots the Doctor. She hails him and leads him to the cave entrance.

The Master crawls back into his control box just as the Doctor, Peri and Amyand enter. The Doctor steals the control mechanism from the Master's TARDIS to replace the one stolen from his. He then peers in on the Master. The Master has reestablished control over Kamelion who then forces the three out of his TARDIS. Kamelion then moves the TARDIS into the flame area.

The Doctor gives Amyand the control unit and orders him to give it to Turlough and to bring the TARDIS to the room. He dresses Amyand in a thermal suit to protect him from the volcano fires that are now erupting around them. The Doctor then rigs a mechanism to break the Master's control of Kamelion as well as reconfiguring the flame output of the mountain.

Kamelion emerges from the TARDIS and places the Master's box in the flame. He emerges to stop the Doctor with the Tissue Compression Eliminator but the Doctor triggers the device, causing Kamelion to spasm. As the Master loses control, Kamelion urges the Doctor to kill him as he is in pain and cannot fully break free of the Master. The Doctor uses the Tissue Compression Eliminator to shrink and destroy Kamelion.

Turlough signals Trion and arranges a rescue ship. He then heads back to the settlement to urge everyone to head out there. While there, Amyand arrives, mistaken at first by Timanov for Logar. Amyand reveals himself and gives the circuit to Turlough who races off, followed by most of the people. Amyand appeals to Timanov to come with them but he declines saying that he and the other elders will die with the settlement, subservient to Logar to the end.

As the rescue ship arrives, Turlough reinstalls the circuit and send the TARDIS to the control room on delay while he goes with the others. The TARDIS arrives just as the flames begin to be infuses with the healing gas. Peri goes in the TARDIS as the Master regrows back to his normal size. But the Doctor shuts off the gas flow and the Master is surrounded by flames. They grow and he disappears into the flames. The Doctor follows into the TARDIS and takes it back to the rescue ship where Turlough is waiting.

Turlough is informed that the regime on Trion has changed and political prisoners are no longer subject to exile, meaning that he is allowed to return home. With his brother to see to and with a longing for home, he reluctantly bids goodbye to the Doctor and Peri and leaves in the Trion ship. The Doctor and Peri take off as well with Peri asking if she could travel with the Doctor for a while as she had been hoping to travel before everything got started. The Doctor agrees and officially welcomes her aboard.

Analysis

I rather like this story. I know that Peter Grimwade was predominantly a director rather than a writer but I'd say he did a decent job on this one, though Eric Saward did a fair amount of fill in work. I would also say that there is a lingering presence of Christopher Bidmede in this story as well, though with slightly less derision towards religion than Bidemede usually included.

Before even getting into the story or the acting, much praise must be heaped on to Fiona Cumming and the location shooting. The studio work was pretty good too with some nice angles and viewpoints but the exterior filming on Lanzarote is some of the best I've ever seen on the show. She made an absolutely excellent use of all the available terrain and features to really give you the sense of an alien frontier and doing a lot with probably a very small budget.

The Doctor does well here. There is something about the final season of the Fifth Doctor that gives him a darker edge and it works well. He tries to maintain the lightness of tone, but there is no longer any aloofness about him. He is very direct and what few jokes he does make are very underplayed, mostly in an aside to no one sort of way. This more serious take lends an extra air of seriousness that is sometimes lacking in other stories. Given that there are no rubber monsters to deal with, it gives the overall story some significant gravity.

The companions are a mixed bag here. Turlough was pretty good although I think Mark Strickson still delves a bit too much into the overacting bag. He is more restrained and that helps his performance but you get a bit of the darker Turlough here given his fear to reveal his past to the Doctor. It both helps and hurts because there isn't really any reason that he should be keeping anything from the Doctor at this point. It's not even as if he is a real criminal. His side merely lost a war and he was exiled for it. There is no personal shame in that, nor would the Doctor be angry at Turlough for it. I can understand Turlough's lack of desire to contact Trion for fear of being returned to exile, but that also betrays a lack of trust in the Doctor to keep him free. Still, I think his overall performance was definitely weighted on the positive side.

The introduction of Peri demonstrates to me that there were very little change in her performance in her time on the show. I will give Nicola Bryant one significant benefit of the doubt in that I believe her performances suffered due to shallow writing and her focus on maintaining the "American" accent. It's also unfortunate that most male fans focus on Peri's "attributes" being showcased in Episode One and take that as the whole reason to like her. Looks are fine and I'm not going to complain about things like that, but I would rather have had a companion with a bit more substance and a lot less of the whiney-wibble in her voice. But for that, I blame JNT who clearly told her to focus on the accent. Still, Peri is probably less objectionable in this story than in others, though she does do nothing other than be the damsel in distress the whole time. I would have preferred it if she had actually done something of substance in the story.

Another bout of disappointment in her character is the obvious potential for backstory laid here that was never explored. Her nightmare when recovering from nearly drowning clearly indicates that she was abused (probably sexually) by Howard. Couple this with an obvious desire to accompany men to strange, exotic places for thrills shows a rather damaged young woman. This helps explain why she sticks with the emotionally abusive Sixth Doctor but also makes him to be such a bigger jerk than even originally intended. I would have liked to see some growth and independence in her overall development, such that she was a stronger person towards the end. Admittedly, she was better in The Mysterious Planet, but I still feel that there were some missed opportunities in her overall arc.

There's not much to say about Kamelion. I think this story did a good job of showing the missed opportunities with him and the pitfalls. Kamelion was dropped because they couldn't get the robot puppet to work right and that still shows in the few scenes where you see it. But it also shows how Kamelion could have been portrayed by a random guest actor as the story warranted it. Of course, Kamelion spends so much time as the Master that you genuinely forget that it is Kamelion at points if there weren't several protracted battles for his control. In the end, I'm not sorry they killed him off. It was too confusing and the control issues never really resolved themselves. There is one extra bit of interest as I believe this is the only instance where the Doctor actually killed a companion himself. All the other companions who died, died due to the machinations of the enemy or by their own actions.

Of the guest cast, Timinov was my favorite. It would be very easy in this story to show the believers of Logar as delusional fools and blood-thirsty savages, much as was done in Meglos. However, Timinov gives a great sense of nobility in his faith, going so far as to accept his own death in the destruction of the mountain as a gesture of his faith. A measure of condescension towards this can be seen with the unbelievers, especially Amyand, but I respected Timinov for his choices and beliefs. He remained ignorant of certain truths and that probably resulted in his overall downfall, but his faith was genuine and I could appreciate that.

I continue to maintain that Anthony Ainley is a better Master and certainly better actor than he is given credit for. Yes, he goes mustache twirl-y over-the-top a number of times, but there still a level of menace in his performance and he can pull it back to a more serious tone when necessary. I found him quite enjoyable in this story, although he did have a bad moment when he was posing as Logar's prophet. He went way overboard with the hand and body movements in pronouncing judgment on the non-believers. He looked like he was trying to do something like what Southern revivalist preachers might do, but it was so unnatural and jerky that it just looked incredibly out of place. Other that that, I didn't have a problem with it and actually rather enjoyed the fact that the Master was operating on a rather simple and direct plan. He had had an accident and was trying to fix himself. No grand design, no significant theater. Just a was to fix a problem situation.

On an overall level, I really enjoyed this one. There were a couple of hiccups here and there but the flow of the story worked well and it's well worth watching for the cinematography alone. That it has excellent performances for the most part is just another bonus. Of the all the Fifth Doctor stories I've seen so far, I think I would only place it behind Earthshock and Kinda so I would readily watch this one a second time around.

Overall personal score: 4 out of 5

The Ark

They were treated like slaves. Is it no wonder that when they got the chance they repaid you in kind?

The Ark is a story that I don't know much about other than that the principle aliens are the Monoids and that it is divided into two halves with the cliffhanger of Episode Two being the statue with a Monoid head. I've never heard anyone speak highly of it so I'm expecting a story that rather mundane. Usually if a story is openly bad, it gets a little extra attention just for that. Forgettable stories just fade into the ether.

Plot Summary

The TARDIS lands in the midst of a jungle filled with Earth creatures. Dodo, who is suffering from a cold, assumes they've landed in a zoo and goes wandering off. Steven follows her, chastising her for being so cavalier. The Doctor also believes they are in a zoo of some kind but notes a metallic sky and mechanical vibration in the floor.

They have actually landed on a ship and in the crew area, a trial is being held regarding a crewman who endangered the lives of others both human and the alien Monoids, who escaped to Earth from their own dying world and are now travelling with these humans who are escaping the dying Earth. The defendant is found guilty and placed into a machine that shrinks him to a microscopic level where he is then frozen and placed into storage. One Monoid enters and informs the court that strangers have arrived and a group of Monoids go to investigate.

The Doctor and his party become aware of the search party and duck into a cave to avoid them. Once past, they walk out and into the inhabited part of the ship, with the Doctor realizing they are on a ship. The Monoid search party finds them and they are taken to the Commander.

The Commander welcomes them and explains their history and their goal of traveling to a world seven hundred years travel away. Most of the human colonists have been shrunk and frozen, leaving a small group to breed and man the ship along with the Monoids. The group is also shown a statue being built as a symbol of unity among the crew.

As they talk, the Commander begins to feel a bit ill. As his fever grows, a flatbed cart is driven in by a Monoid with another Monoid on it. Both the Monoid and the Commander have contracted Dodo's cold and their lack of immunity is making it worse than for Dodo. The Monoid dies and the Commander becomes incoherent. The deputy commander, Zentos, accuses the Doctor's party of being agents of the planet they intend to colonize and orders them arrested.

As the cold spreads, Zentos orders the Doctor, Dodo and Steven to be put on trial as saboteurs. Steven elects to be the representative at the court with a man named Rhos and the Commander's daughter Millium acting as defense. During the trial, word comes that a human has died from the illness and the crowd declares the defendants guilty and to be executed by being ejected into space. Also during the trial, Steven falls ill from the cold and is taken back to the cell.

Millium goes to her father and rouses him enough to order that the Doctor be given a chance to find a cure for the illness and that Steven is to be the test subject. If he fails, they will be executed. The Doctor readily accepts and has Dodo and the Monoids bring him ingredients from the TARDIS and the animals in the jungle. Working with both the human scientists and a Monoid technician, the Doctor synthesizes a cure and injects Steven with it. His fever spikes briefly and then breaks. Dodo heads out to inform the others and the cure is passed out to all the others.

Apologetic, Zentos releases them and wishes them well on their travels. The three leave in the TARDIS only to have it reappear in the same place. Confused, they walk out to look for the people they just met and find the space nearly empty. They do find the statue has been completed, only instead of being a man like the plans, it has the face of a Monoid.

The Doctor investigates the empty control room to find it fully automated. He also discovers that the Monoids have taken over and are now using the humans as slaves. The Doctor, Dodo and Steven are discovered by the Monoid second-in-command who takes them to the Monoid leader. The leader recognizes them as the same travelers from the past. He also relates that Dodo's cold mutated after they left, weakening the humans and Monoids in it's wake. The Monoids, encouraged by the humans to improve themselves, learned to make weapons and rose up in a violent revolution.

The three are sent to the security kitchen to assist in the preparation of food. The Doctor and Steven rally the humans to try and rise up against the Monoids but they are beaten back and one is killed by reinforcements. The Doctor and Dodo are taken out of the kitchen with Steven left as a promise of good behavior.

Approaching the planet Refusis II, the Monoids launch a landing craft with the Monoid second-in-command, his human slave, the Doctor and Dodo. They explore the planet but see no one. They do find a castle and enter it. The Monoid begins to destroy things to get the inhabitants attention but he is stopped by an invisible power. The Doctor calmly talks with the Refusian and learns they were altered into beings of energy by a solar flare impacting their planet. They welcome new inhabitants, so long as they are peaceful, and have taken steps to build shelters for them, including the castle.

Back on the ship, the Monoids plan to land on the planet and colonize it once they have a report. They also plan to blow up the Ark and all it's inhabitants with a bomb in the statue, ridding themselves of the remaining humans. One of the slaves overhears this and runs to the kitchen to warn the others.

This plan is also let slip by the second-in-command to his slave and Dodo. The slave tries to fight him but is shot down. The Monoid continues back to the landing craft, unaware that he is being followed by a Refusian. He signals the Ark but before he can relate the information about the Refusians, the Refusian blows up the landing craft, killing the second-in-command and leaving the Doctor and Dodo stranded on the planet.

Concerned over the failure of communications with Two, the lead Monoid orders that all Monoids, including the preserved ones, head down to the planet. However, Monoid Four believes that they should stay on the Ark and begins to foment dissent among some of the Monoids.

Knowing that they need to find the bomb, Steven and the others watch the Monoids prepare to depart. One man, Maharis, sneaks out after finishing loading the pods with the Monoid colonist trays and releases the others from the kitchen. After the Monoids depart the ship, they begin to scour the ship for the bomb.

On the planet, the Doctor and Dodo hide while the Monoids look for Two and the inhabitants of the planet. The Doctor and Dodo sneak aboard one landing craft and signal the Ark. The Doctor and Steven devise a plan where they will keep looking for the bomb while the Doctor tries to get it's location from the Monoids. As an added distraction, the Doctor has the Refusian he has been in contact with, take the landing craft back to the Ark.

The Doctor and Dodo surrender to the Monoids and the Monoids are equally dumbfounded by the landing craft departing when they cannot see anyone flying it. Interrogated by Monoid One, the Doctor insists that he and Dodo have not seen anyone. Unnerved, Monoid Four openly defies the leader and leads some of the Monoids back to the pods with the intention of taking the Ark elsewhere. Monoid One gloats that as the bomb is in the statue, he will find it difficult to move, allowing the Doctor to learn of it's location. Monoid One then gathers his followers to deal with Monoid Four's insubordination.

On the Ark, Maharis decides to take the landing craft back to Refusis to help the Doctor. Another collaborator, Dassuk, insists on going along and they head down. They land to see the Monoids in a firefight with each other. Dassuk tries to give himself to them but he is shot down. Maharis and those that accompanied him run to the castle where they tell the lone Monoid guard that Monoid One has sent for him to help in the fight.

Unguarded, the humans and the Doctor make their way back to the landing craft where the Doctor signals Steven that the bomb is in the statue. On board, the Refusian uses he powers to levitate the statue to the landing bay and Steven and another human named Venussa launch it into space where it explodes harmlessly.

The humans come down to the planet where they disarm the few surviving Monoids, Monoids One and Four having been killed in the fight. The Refusians allow them to colonize the planet so long as the two species live in peace. The Doctor chastises the humans noting that their ancestors enslaved the Monoids, embittering them towards the humans. If they treat each other as equals, they will live well together.

The Doctor, Steven and Dodo depart in the TARDIS. While in flight, the Doctor has a slight cough and as he does so, he begins to become invisible. Steven asks if this is similar to the Refusians but the Doctor informs him that he believes they are under attack from a more powerful source.

Analysis

I think The Ark can best be described as something that is there as it is not overly engaging. I do think that the second half of the story is better than the first, but neither is particularly engaging.

I think unquestionably the best thing about this story is the Doctor. The Doctor is calm, collected and inquisitive. He aims to help and doesn't get flustered, even when things go against him. He is also quite proactive, which is somewhat unusual for the First Doctor. Steven still takes the lead on much of the action but the Doctor goes out of his way to do things on his own. He actively petitions to help cure the plague in the first half, he instigates the feelings of rebellion in the second and actively works to thwart the Monoids and lend as much aid as possible to Steven in finding the bomb. He does all this with a chipper sense of adventure that is sometimes lacking with the First Doctor and it is enjoyable.

I'm not much for linguistics and it's been a while since I watched The Massacre so Dodo's switch from a more working class accent to the posh version was entirely lost on me. She was okay in this story though a bit dim. I got the feeling that she was intended to be more of a comic relief type of character, especially when dealing with the cold in the first half. In the second, she took a more subservient role to the Doctor and behaved more or less as the average 60's female companion: look nice and don't get in the Doctor's way. I didn't have a problem with it but there was nothing particularly catching about it either.

Steven was typical Steven. He took on a slightly exasperated parent tone when dealing with Dodo in Episode One, which did amuse me as Vicki had a similar tone when dealing with Steven in The Time Meddler. But once things got real, he settled down into his usual role. Episode Two didn't give him much other than the trial at the beginning but in the second half of the story, he went into typical action-man mode, going so far as to metaphorically slapping around the human slaves. He did well, but again, there wasn't much outside of what I would have expected. It was Steven being Steven and he did it well but nothing outside of that.

If there was a point where this story really fell down it was in the acting of the guest cast. This is more so in the first half. I actually didn't have a problem with the Monoids as I thought they were reasonably well designed and did about as well as you would expect a man in a suit to do. As such, when they were the focus in the second half, shortfalls in the acting did not register as much.

The real problems came with the human crew. The worst offender I thought was the Commander who falls ill at the end of Episode One. He has one good moment where a criminal is put into storage. After that, his delivery is terrible and he doesn't seem to know which direction he should take himself. Mellium is okay but she is every bland 60's female guest actor. She has her moments of stilted delivery and just standing about looking pretty which makes her quite uninteresting. Similarly Zentos is every zealous over-reactionary we've seen before. He chews the scenery while proclaiming the Doctor and his companions to be evil with no proof. He stands in a position of self-righteousness only to be humbled later as we have seen so many times before. If the acting doesn't get you, the genericness of the characters will.

There is a bit of an improvement in the second half as all the human characters seem to be portrayed by better actors, but there is so little time devoted to them, that it is impossible to care about them. I actually lost track of who was who at one point because all the men just seemed to look like each other. I guess that should be expected when you start with a relatively small genetic pool and then look forward seven hundred years, but it made the story just that much more difficult to follow. The standout was Venussa, not only because she was a woman but also because she seemed to be a slightly better actress and seemed to be the most enthusiastic about the revolution.

It's actually a bit of a shame that more time could not have been devoted to them because there was an interesting angle could have been explored about the collaborators and their relationship with the Monoids and then back to the humans. It's glossed over in a bit of a hasty way in this story with only the one die-hard collaborator who is gunned down by his masters when he surprises them.

Another thing that bugged me about this story is the nature of the plague that developed. Dodo has a generic cold, a bout of the sniffles essentially when they land. I can understand it felling the inhabitants of the Ark and being nastier there as they are lacking the level of immunity that Dodo and Steven have. However, even without that immunity, death from a cold seems like an extreme reaction. What's more, Steven catches the disease but instead of having symptoms like Dodo, the virus has apparently mutated in the span of a few hours to fell him during the trial. This makes no sense as the base level germ should have been the same to what he was exposed to in the TARDIS. At one point when hiding, Steven had his hand over Dodo's mouth to keep her quiet so he has been more than exposed to the germ. Yet, rather than having an immunity to it, he is felled just as bad as the others. Even if he had not yet fully gotten Dodo's cold, he should have displayed symptoms similar to hers, given his own build up of immunities over the years. A slight fever maybe but it should have essentially been a runny nose, watery eyes and sneezing.

I would argue that the disease is not Dodo's cold but in fact some other germ that they've been exposed to and brought with them. The Doctor is immune because of his different physiology and Dodo does not get it because her cold has her immune system working harder and it repels the bulk of the infection without any significant effects. The passengers are felled first because of their lack of prior immunities but then Steven goes down with similar symptoms, demonstrating that it is a different bug. At least, that's how I like to think of it.

Jumping back to the Monoids, I rather liked the design even if the Beatles haircuts are a bit much. I would also note that despite what the Doctor says in Episode Four, there isn't a lot of evidence showing the Monoids as slaves in the first two episodes. Monoid One even goes so far as to mock the humans for encouraging their learning which allowed them to rise up. I thought it rather a weak sauce to make the idea of peace a little easier at the end by implying the humans were just as guilty as the Monoids, despite there being no evidence in the story of that guilt. It is actually a Monoid death that prompts Zentos to have the Doctor and his companions arrested, which doesn't seem like the actions of a slave master. I think it would have worked a bit better if the Monoids felt like they were being oppressed and the Doctor telling both sides they needed to talk to each other rather than just have the Doctor pronounce guilt on the humans, mitigating the Monoid's actions.

One positive point was the model work. Both the model statue and the ships were quite well done and I thought that was good work for the time. All the sets really were well done, although the idea of a "security kitchen" is a little dumb. I'm also not sure a real elephant was necessary to convey the feeling of the Ark, but it did add a nice little bit of extra flair.

I'm a bit indifferent about the Refusians. They were a literal Deus Ex Machina with the added benefit of being invisible so you save money on design. The story worked well enough with them, though the addition of god-like beings did make the Monoids seem like much more adept villains that normal. Or the humans as just that much more pathetic. Take you choice there.

If you can get past the faults of the first two episodes, this story isn't terrible. I wouldn't recommend it as a first run on the First Doctor era as there are much better stories out there. But it has some good points and at least a bit of fun adventure in the second half. The concept is definitely sound and one that should be played with more often (such as is implied in The Face of Evil) but this is more of a first draft effort.

Overall personal score: 2 out of 5

Pyramids of Mars

Your evil is my good. I am Sutekh the Destroyer. Where I tread I leave nothing but dust and darkness. I find that good.

Pyramids of Mars is one of the widely known and celebrated stories. It does get the occasional bit of backlash for being overhyped though. Sutekh is also generally regarded as one of the best one-off villains ever seen on Doctor Who even with the famous snafu of "the hand of Sutekh". So the question is, does this story hold up to the hype it fosters, or are the nostalgia goggles a bit too thick on this one?

Plot Summary

An Egyptologist named Marcus Scarman enters an Egyptian tomb in 1911. His Egyptian workers flee when he tries to open a door marked with the eye of Horus. Scarman enters and is immediately felled in a wave of green light.

The Doctor and Sarah are journeying back to Earth with the Doctor in a foul mood as he doesn't like being at the Brigadier's beck and call. The TARDIS is suddenly thrown off and Sarah sees a jackal-like face appear briefly. The Doctor lands the TARDIS at the location of UNIT headquarters but finds they've landed in 1911 where a manor house stuffed with Egyptian artifacts is located.

The house is owned by Marcus Scarman and an old friend of his, Dr. Warlock, comes to check on him. The house is being maintained by an Egyptian servant named Ibrahim Namin. He tries to shoo Warlock off but they are distracted by the butler, Collins, being attacked and killed by something after warning the Doctor and Sarah out of the house. Namin feels Warlock has seen too much and shoots him, however the Doctor grabs him just before he fires and the shot only wounds Warlock rather than killing him.

The Doctor and Sarah help Warlock out of the house and into the woods surrounding it. Warlock collapses and the Doctor carries him while Sarah runs ahead to find Lawrence Scarman, Marcus' brother who was waiting in a guest cottage on the edge of the property. The group is pursued by Namin and three mummies, one of whom killed Collins. The Doctor and Warlock hide until they hear an organ playing, which recalls the mummies and Namin to the house.

Lawrence and Sarah find the Doctor and Warlock and carry him back to the cottage where they dress his wound. The Doctor is intrigued by Lawrence's experiment, an early form of a radio telescope. He activates it but a signal overloads it. The Doctor pulls out his own version and verifies that a strong signal is coming from Mars. The three of them head back to the house while Warlock rests.

Namin returns to the main hall and bows before a sarcophagus, which transforms into the end point of a time tunnel. A figure clad in black emerges and kills Namin, claiming that only he is the servant of Sutehk. The figure removes his suit to reveal the reanimated body of Marcus Scarman. Marcus pulls four pots out and orders them set up at the compass points to create a magnetic shield around the house.

After they leave, the Doctor, Lawrence and Sarah enter. The Doctor tells them that Sutehk was a member of a race called the Osirins who reveled in destruction. He was pursued across the galaxy before being imprisoned by his brother Horus. The battle was woven into Egyptian mythology and if Sutehk escapes his prison, he could destroy Earth. As he explains this, the Doctor steps too close to the time tunnel entrance and he is nearly sucked in. He tosses a fob aside and a small blast knocks him away and unconscious. Marcus and Sarah drag him into a priest hole nearby, fearing the return of the mummies.

Unwittingly trapped in the shield is a poacher named Ernie Clements who first observes a mummy pull himself out of one of his traps and then witnesses Marcus order a mummy to kill Warlock, whom he discovered while searching for Lawrence. Clements follows Marcus returning to the house and shoots him just before he discovers Lawrence, Sarah and the Doctor in the priest hole, believing him to be a burglar. The shot passes through Marcus but Sutekh reverses the shot, leaving him undamaged. Clements runs as Marcus orders two mummies after him and Marcus follows, allowing Sarah, Lawrence and the revived Doctor to escape.

The Doctor figures he can cancel Sutekh's information relay with Lawrence's machine and the control ring that Namin used on the mummies. They find his body and grab the ring but are forced to hide in the TARDIS when Marcus and two mummies enter to grab missile parts. The Doctor realizes that they are building a missile to destroy the power source of the field that is keeping Sutekh restrained. Sarah suggests they head back to 1980 to avoid everything. The Doctor transports the TARDIS forward in time to show a destroyed planet. He then takes them back to demonstrate that they must work to stop Sutekh.

They make their way back to the cottage where the Doctor adapts Lawrence's machine. He makes an offhand comment that the knocking out of the field will free Sutekh's control and finally kill Marcus. Lawrence tries to stop the Doctor but he activates the machine. Marcus collapses and Sutekh orders two mummies to destroy the interference, having just killed Clements outside the cottage. They enter and one destroys the machine, though it is electrocuted in the process. The second attacks the Doctor but Sarah sends it back to the house with the now dislodged control ring.

Unable to jam the signal, Lawrence suggests destroying the missile with blasting gel that Clements kept in his shack. The Doctor and Sarah go to retrieve it while Lawrence removes the bindings from the mummy robot. The Doctor and Sarah find one of the power sources for the magnetic shield and the Doctor is able to deactivate it with his sonic screwdriver. They find Clements' shack and the blasting gel, though no blasting caps.

The failure of one of the shield generators alerts Sutekh to an alien presence and he sends out Marcus. He finds the empty vessel and then heads to the cottage where he finds Lawrence, having just finished removing the wrappings. Lawrence appeals to Marcus and Marcus' memories come back for a moment before Sutekh reestablishes control. Marcus then kills Lawrence before heading back.

The Doctor places the blasting gel in a safe spot and heads back to the cottage. Alerted, Sutekh has ordered the missile guarded by the mummy robots. In the cottage, they find Lawrence's body and the Doctor orders Sarah to wrap him in the mummy outfit. Posing as a robot, he places the blasting gel on the missile platform and after also installing the launch coordinates from Marcus, walks away, allowing Sarah to shoot the gel with a rifle.

The gel starts to explode but Sutekh contains the explosion with his will, ordering Marcus to remove the gel. Seeing this, the Doctor sneaks into the house and passes through the time-space tunnel. He materializes in Sutekh's chamber, distracting him, allowing the gel to explode and destroy the missile. Angered, Sutekh interrogates the Doctor, still powerful enough to control him with his will. Sarah is captured and knocked out by Marcus and brought in the house. Sutekh realizes her value to the Doctor and probes the Doctor's mind to discover the TARDIS. He takes the TARDIS key from the Doctor and sends it through the time-space tunnel to Marcus, ordering him to bring the TARDIS to his prison on Mars.

The Doctor counters claiming the TARDIS will only work with him flying it. Sutekh then takes control of the Doctor's mind and has him fly the TARDIS with Marcus, Sarah and a mummy robot to the pyramid on Mars (Sarah being brought along as a hostage should the Doctor break free of Sutekh's control). They land on Mars and Marcus orders the robot to kill the Doctor. He strangles the Doctor and the two enter the next chamber. Sarah checks the Doctor and he revives himself, having regained partial control over his mind enough to shift his body dynamic so the attack wasn't fatal. Now fully released, they follow Marcus.

Sutekh control Marcus through a series of traps and logic puzzles. The Doctor and Sarah do the same. They are slowed by one last logic puzzle, allowing Marcus to reach the central chamber where the eye of Horus supplies power to the field entrapping Sutekh. Sutekh's mummy engages with the guardian robot, allowing Marcus to grab the power source and destroy it, just as the Doctor and Sarah enter. With it's destruction, Sutekh let's go of Marcus and he collapses, his body turning into cinders on the ground.

As the doors to the prison open, the Doctor and Sarah run back to the TARDIS and rematerialize in the house, knowing that it will take about two minutes for the failure of the power source to register due to the speed of light between Mars and Earth. The Doctor grabs the time-vortex controls from the TARDIS and hook them up to the sarcophagus that is the end of the tunnel between Mars and Earth. Freed of the force field, Sutekh steps into the tunnel to travel to Earth. Once activated, the Doctor engages the controls and moves the end point of the tunnel, trapping Sutekh in the tunnel. Sutekh lashes angrily but the Doctor stretches the tunnel out further and Sutekh eventually vanishes, trapped at the equivalent of 7,000 years in the future.

The sarcophagus catches fire due to the stored heat energy and Sarah recalls that the house burned down, allowing a new building to be built on the land which became UNIT headquarters. Sarah and the Doctor head back to the TARDIS and take off as the mansion burns to the ground.

Analysis

I like Pyramids of Mars a great deal. It has a dark, gothic edge for most of it, feeling very close to a genuine classic horror movie at certain points. It slips out of that horror towards the end of Episode Four, but you can forgive it somewhat as you still feel the menace brought in by Sutekh in the earlier parts of the story. The major key though is that even when the tone shifts, the story never feels like it drags and the ending doesn't feel too rushed, although I wish there could have been a better way to film Sutekh's destruction as his fading up the tunnel didn't feel quite satisfying enough.

The Doctor was very good in this story. Right from the start, there is a high level of seriousness and you buy the menace of Sutekh in the first two episodes almost solely on his reaction alone. He has moments of levity as you can see the huge amount of pleasure he gets from showing Lawrence around the TARDIS, but he doesn't pepper in that many jokes so as to take away the seriousness of the situation.

I also enjoy his straight-forward assessment of the situation. Sarah occasionally gives in to emotional shifts, clearly unaware of the true direness of the situation. This allows her to get overly emotional over things like Lawrence's death. The Doctor, quite correctly, takes a pragmatic approach and reminds her that other people have already died and more will if they don't move on from Lawrence. It's an important thing so as to not get overly sentimental and it's also a lesson I wish other Doctors (such as the Tenth) would have taken in.

Sarah is very good here. She runs the gambit of emotions all through the story but never allows herself to descend into a helpless damsel. She is adventurous throughout but also reserved enough to decide when to retreat, thinking that as it all happened in the past, it's not their concern. The emotional weight of seeing a destroyed Earth is also impressive as she doesn't get hysterical or argumentative. Once shown what the consequences are, she takes it in stride that it's up to them to stop that from happening.

Sarah also provides some levity. The Doctor stays mostly serious as he is fully aware of Sutekh's power. She however, doesn't have a frame of reference and so gets back to being cutesy on occasion. Her cavalier attitude about tossing the blasting gel is a good example of that. But she is also quite useful, saving the Doctor during the mummy robot attack and shooting the gel to destroy the missile. In every sense, Sarah fits the perfect role of a companion, having to have things explained to her (and the audience) but also being a useful helper to the Doctor.

The extras do alright in their limited roles. Warlock and Clements mostly serve as fodder to show the seriousness of things. Lawrence is likeable and you feel real sympathy in how he refuses to believe that his brother is truly dead and in how he is proven wrong. They even give you that glimmer of hope as Marcus fights off Sutekh's control for a half a second before he kills Lawrence.

The villains escalate throughout the story. Namin functions much as the low level you would expect. Marcus is more menacing but there is still the limitations of him as a tool that show through. Sutekh is above them all and that is solely due to the voice acting of Gabriel Woolf.

Much like Omega, Sutekh is nothing more than a man in a mask with eyes that light up on occasion. This actually should make him less menacing than Omega because at least Omega could move and act in a threatening manner. But while Omega was over-the-top loud and clearly on the edge of insanity, Sutekh is calm, collected and in complete control of his mind. He's actually at his most menacing in the beginning of Episode Four when, thinking himself trapped still, he does not get angry with the Doctor, but calmly talks about the pain and suffering he will inflict upon him. It's the coldness of someone who has no value for life or the feelings of others and it is genuinely menacing.

The production values of this are quite good with lots of nice exterior filming. The sets on Earth are well done and even Sutekh's chamber is done well with a sense of ambiguity as to it's true nature. There is some padding regarding Clements' death but aside from that, the story pretty well hums along, keeping the tension up for nearly the entire story.

The production does start to fall apart a bit in Episode Four as the CSO on half the sets looks very out of place and is rather distracting. There is also the fact that it calls back to Death to the Daleks so much that Sarah actually comments on it, despite the fact that she did not actually go into the City of Exxilion and wouldn't have any idea of what that particular puzzle looked like. Of course, given that Death to the Daleks is often overlooked, I doubt anyone would have worried much about the similarities in the puzzle.

Another shortfall in the production is Sutekh's true form. In the mask, he is properly scary as the mask is something we're used to and looks good. The thin jackal head looks as though it's made of paper-mâché and undermines nearly all of Sutekh's menace. It's not killing but it's a bit of a let-down after the fear Sutekh inspired at the beginning of the episode.

Overall, I think this story is excellent. All the characters do well and it is engaging from the get-go. There are a couple of minor shortfalls in it, but they are so outweighed by the quality of the acting and overall story that I think they can be considered of little consequence. It is easily a story that could be popped in and watched for repeat viewing on any occasion.

Overall personal score: 5 out of 5

The Angels Take Manhattan

Melody... you look after him; and you be a good girl and you look after him.

The Angels Take Manhattan is the much hyped dismissal of Rory and Amy. I say much hyped because all of Season 7A was a very drawn out notice on the fact that they were leaving. This story hits you pretty well in all the right emotional points but there are elements where plot and emotional convenience cause things to fall by the wayside.

Plot Summary

A detective named Sam Garner is engaged by a rich mobster named Mr. Grayle. He is given an address to a building called Winter Quay and makes his way there, warned to beware of moving statues. Garner enters the building and finds an old version of himself lying in a bed. He runs but is blocked by a group of Weeping Angels. He runs to the roof where he is captured by an angel in the form of the Statue of Liberty.

In 2012, the Doctor, Rory and Amy are relaxing in Central Park, the Doctor reading a book he found in his pocket about a detective named Melody Malone. He rips out the last page and places it in their picnic basket, not wanting the story to end. Rory decides to go out and get coffee. He does but on his way back, he hears a strange noise. In a darkened portion of the park, he is attacked and transported back to 1938 where he comes face to face with River Song.

As he reads, the Doctor sees his, Amy and Rory's name in the book and how Rory disappeared while getting coffee. They go to search for him but find nothing. They then run to the TARDIS with Amy peeking ahead to get a date. The Doctor tries to land in 1938 but the angels have made so many manipulations of the time stream that the TARDIS is bounced out and they land in a graveyard outside the city back in 2012.

A confused Rory and River are taken by gunmen to the home of Mr. Grayle. Grayle, not interested in Rory, orders him locked in the basement. River is brought to the study where she finds a chained angel. Noting an odd translation on a piece of Chinese porcelain, she transmits the word through her vortex manipulator. Grayle flicks the lights, allowing the angel to grab River by the wrist. Grayle then demands to know everything about the angels.

Amy reads a bit more in the book, revealing that Grayle's house has several examples of Chin Dynasty. The two of them travel back to a porcelain house in the Chin dynasty to send the message. The Doctor also chastises Amy as she reads further along, noting that if she reads it, it will become a fixed point in time. They then receive the word signal from River that he had the painters put on several pieces in Chinese. He follows the signal, creating a large disturbance as he rips through the time distortions surrounding the period.

In the basement, Rory is in the dark and hears skittering around. He lights a match, given by one of the gunmen and sees small stone cherubs looking at him. He lights another match and notes that they have moved closer to him. He tries to back away but is trapped against a wall. He lights another match, only to have it blown out by a cherub next to him. He then vanishes from the dark basement.

As the TARDIS arrives in Grayle's home, there is an electrical discharge which knocks Grayle out. The Doctor finds River while Amy searches for Rory. He is dismayed to learn that he must either break River's wrist or the Angel's just as Amy read. Amy proposes reading the chapter titles of the book to learn things without risking spoilers. However, the Doctor becomes enraged when he reads the title of the last chapter "Amelia's Farewell" and angrily orders River to think of another way to escape the Angel's grasp.

The Doctor follows Amy and pulls her back from the basement, seeing a dropped book of matches and stone cherubs around. River emerges, trying to disguise the fact that she broke her own wrist to escape. They figure they can track Rory's signal as he has been transported in space but not time. Learning that River did break her wrist, the Doctor becomes angry but is chastised by Amy.

Amy waits for the tracker to narrow Rory's location while a chagrined Doctor apologizes to River and spends regeneration energy healing her wrist. This angers her as she sees it as a waste but their renewed spat is cut short by the tracker targeting Winter Quay. They steal a car and drive to the Battery while two angels, posing as statues outside, walk in the left open door to attack the waking Grayle.

The group arrives at Winter Quay and find Rory entering a room with his name on it. An old man calls to Amy from the bed. She goes over to find an old Rory who dies in her arms. The Doctor realizes that the Angels have created a farm, sending anyone who tries to escape back into the past of the building and continuously feeding on that energy. Amy proposes that they run for if Rory dies someplace else, it'll create a paradox and undo what the Angels have done, killing all of them.

Rory and Amy manage to run to the stairs but are cut off from the exit and run towards the roof. The Doctor and River are slightly behind and get attacked by a pack of Angels. They dash out the window and begin climbing up the fire escape.

On the roof, Rory and Amy are trapped by the Angel Statue of Liberty. Keeping their eyes on it, Rory climbs to the edge of the roof and urges Amy to push him off. He figures that if he dies now, it'll undo everything and he'll be fine but can't bring himself to actually jump. Amy, unwilling to lose him, climbs up with him and they fall together as the Doctor and River climb up. As they fall, the paradox manifests and the whole region collapses.

All four reappear in the graveyard where the TARDIS landed earlier. The Doctor proposes they go find a pub but as Amy and Rory walk towards the TARDIS, Rory stops to notice his name on a headstone. As he does, an Angel attacks him from behind, causing him to vanish. Devistated, Amy begs the Doctor to go get Rory in the TARDIS but he can't due to the paradox keeping all time travelers out. Amy then says her goodbyes and turns her back on the Angel, allowing it to send her back to Rory.

The Doctor and River leave in the TARDIS with River going over what she has to do to ensure the Doctor gets the book. She tells him that she will suggest that Amy include an afterward when she has the book published in the past. The Doctor directs the TARDIS back to Central Park and finds the basket with the last page in it. On it, Amy tells the Doctor that she and Rory are fine and charges him not to travel alone. He then travels in the TARDIS to give young Amelia a quick flyby for hope.

Analysis

The Angels Take Manhattan is a good story and resolves one of the main conflicts during the whole of Amy's travels with the Doctor: Rory or the Doctor. Now, I thought it was rather clear for the duration of her time that it was always Rory (which was what made The Asylum of the Daleks so odd) but others felt that needed to be a bit more spelled out so I can understand Steven Moffat being so explicit. It is not without it's flaws though.

The Doctor is fairly good here but he's also a bit overemotional. This is the first manifestation of the "hating goodbyes" and one of the only ones that I can recall. Obviously each personality of the Doctor takes on new characteristics but he seems so hamstrung on the can't say goodbye to Amy that it seems to weaken him to the point of not being able to function. Granted, the Eleventh Doctor has made a special bond with Amy but he should still be better than a gibbering wreck when it comes to losing her.

I do like his interaction with River and this is one of the few episodes where they function on the same plane of knowledge. Usually it's one of them having a leg up on the other in terms of knowledge. Here, they are both working towards the solution with the same info and it makes them function more as a team or even as a married couple. River helps make up for some of the shortfalls in the Doctor's emotional make up and it's a nice balance. I also happen to think that River looks very nice in the detective noir outfit.

Amy and Rory are pretty good although Rory doesn't get much. He gets the nice emotional scene on the rooftop with Amy but he's the damsel in most of this story, but that is where he did tend to be more often than not so it's fitting. Amy is also good as she is a bit more grounded in her reactions. She plays the adult more often than not between the Doctor and River and gives a certain amount of gravity to some scenes that might go awry. She also has two very nice emotional scenes with her commitment to die with Rory in the fall and then in the decision to let the Angel take her to Rory rather than stay with the Doctor. Overall a very strong story for her.

The Angels were pretty good in this. The scene with the cherubs in the basement was properly unnerving with all the various "monster in the dark" tropes you could want. The idea of an Angel farm actually makes a lot of sense, although I'm not sure how well the people could be contained within the building in the past unless it was of tighter security then. Yes the Angels could zap someone into the past but unless there was something in the past to hold them there, they could just escape and be running around turn of the century New York. I can also understand the desire for the visual of the Statue of Liberty as an Angel, but when you but any thought into it, it's really rather stupid, especially in the second scene where it just has to stand there while Amy and Rory decide whether or not to fall off the roof.

That scene is actually one that contains one of the problems with the Angels in this story: inconsistency. It's well known that an Angel moves when you don't look at it. While Rory is climbing on the ledge, Amy locks eyes on the Angel and allows him to look away. However, when Rory is talking to Amy and she is deciding to jump with him, he looks down at her and she looks up at him. At that moment, the Angel should have taken them both. It's dramatic license but if you make such a big deal about your enemy in such a fashion, you shouldn't draw such attention to when you don't do it, especially with such a big Angel hovering in the background.

Everything else about the story worked pretty well. I liked the fact that it was very obviously the actual Central Park they were filming in at the beginning and the end. Most everything else had a nice moody feel to it and I liked the fact that Steven Moffat came as close as he's ever done to indulging in the no-win scenario. He almost never does it so it feels good when he does.

That being said, there is no good reason why the Doctor couldn't travel to New York in the 1940's, several years after Amy and Rory arrived and see them. Perhaps he makes the decision to not let them travel because of the dangers to the time line and I can buy that. But there is no reason he can't at least visit. River certainly makes it clear that she will be traveling to them to ensure the manuscript gets published by Amy so a certain amount of travel to them is not impossible.

My head cannon guess would be that with their deaths fixed in the past (70s-80s), he refuses to visit them for fear that he will take them back into the TARDIS and disrupt the timeline further. That's the only reason I can think of but it also makes the Doctor something of an emotional twat for being so dramatic. He can't trust himself so he has to act as though they've died. Again, Steven Moffat doesn't indulge in the no-win scenario much so his natural habit of trying to find a loophole to ensure a happy ending for all does create some rather nasty plot holes.

Still, especially if you lose yourself in it, the story makes a strong emotional impact and is very easy to enjoy. The good highly outweighs the bad and the bad really only kicks in if you're of the more pedantic nature, which I can be now and again. It's easily the best story of Season 7A and a good send off for Rory and Amy. I'd happily sit down with anyone to watch it, although I clearly wouldn't recommend it to anyone as their first story. There's far too much backstory and emotion required to initiate someone with a story like this.

Overall personal score: 4.5 out of 5

The Androids of Tara

Next time I will not be so lenient!

The fourth leg in the Key to Time saga is somewhat notable for having almost nothing to do with the actual Key to Time. The Doctor and Romana find the key almost immediately and then follow though on a fantasy style adventure that would not be out of place with the likes of The Princess Bride. When ranking stories in their various lists, The Androids of Tara almost always ends up near the top of Season 16, usually in a battle with The Ribos Operation for the top spot, although exceptions are to be found here and there.

Plot Summary

The TARDIS materializes on the planet Tara where the Doctor has decided to take a break and go fishing. Romana, in a fit of mild irritation, ventures off into the forest to find the fourth segment of the Key to Time. She comes across a statue and the segment is disguised as a portion of the statue. As she retrieves it, she is attacked by an ape-like creature. The creature is then driven away by a helmeted knight with an electrified sword.

The knight removes his visor and reveals himself as Count Grendel, the lord of the lands on they are found. Seeing Romana has sprained her ankle, he carries her to his horse and takes her back to his castle. Upon reaching the castle, he gives her over to his engineer, Madame Lamia, where both he and her have mistaken Romana for an android. Lamia prepares to disassemble Romana but Romana notes her ankle and upon seeing swelling, Lamia realizes that Romana is flesh and blood. Under orders from Grendel, she knocks her out with an injection.

While fishing, the Doctor falls asleep. He is woken by two men holding him with electrified swords. They are Zadek and Farrah, two soldiers serving Prince Reynart. They take the Doctor back to a cabin where the Prince is resting. Reynart appeals to the Doctor to help him fix an android double of himself. The Prince is scheduled to be crowned king tomorrow and he fears that Count Grendel might try to harm him on the way to the ceremony which if he misses, he will forfeit his right to the throne, allowing Grendel to put forth his claim.

The Doctor agrees and manages a patch job on the android. Reynart pulls out a flagon of wine to celebrate, inviting the two guards to imbibe as well. As all four drink, they pass out from the drugged wine. The door to the cabin opens and Grendel walks in. He kidnaps Reynart, leaving the other three.

Upon waking and realizing what has happened, the Doctor decides to use the android copy of Reynart to be crowned, thus thwarting Grendel's plan and buying them time to rescue him. He summons K-9 from the TARDIS and asks him if Romana has returned. When he answers negatively, Farrah informs the Doctor that if she went into the woods, she was probably captured and taken to Grendel's castle. The Doctor sends K-9 to the castle to see if Romana is there and then report back to him.

In Grendel's castle, Romana wakes and is taken into the dungeons where she is shown Princess Strella, whom Grendel intends to marry and then dispose up, putting him closer to the line of succession. Princess Strella also happens to look just like Romana, which caused Grendel's confusion earlier. She is then taken to Prince Reynart's cell where she is locked in with him to tend his wounds and the subsequent infection he is now suffering from.

The Doctor, Zadek, Farrah and the android Reynart make their way to a secret passage that leads to the castle. They knock out one of Grendel's guards stationed at the entrance and make their way in. When nearly there, they are discovered by more of Grendel's guards, forcing them to make a fighting retreat into the throne room. As the hour of crowning comes, the Archimandrite (the high priest) opens the doors to find Reynart already seated on the throne, flanked by Zadek, Farrah and the Doctor.

The Archimandrite crowns Reynart as king of Tara. Grendel hesitates but goes along with the submission to him, unwilling to expose his knowledge that this is a trick. The android Reynart gives his acceptance speech, although it jogs slightly during the speech. Princess Strella then approaches the throne and bows before Reynart. The Doctor suddenly leaps up and strikes Strella with the scepter, revealing her to be an android. At Count Grendel's insistence, the ceremony is adjourned until the following day to allow Reynart to rest and investigate the assassination attempt.

As Grendel returns to the castle, Lamia pulls Romana out of the dungeons to ask about the Key segment. Romana pretends to be unaware of it's properties but Lamia suspects she is lying. Grendel returns and orders Lamia to create a new android, but this time of Romana. He then sends his man servant to lure the Doctor into a trap by offering to return Romana at a cabin on Grendel's land. K-9 returns to confirm that Romana is being held by Grendel.

The Doctor and K-9 head to the exchange cabin after agreeing and hide themselves prior to the time of exchange. Lamia, Grendel the android Romana and several guards approach the cabin. Lamia enters and is surprised by the Doctor, who initiates the exchange earlier. She brings in the android Romana but K-9 warns the Doctor and he ducks before the android can shoot him. He maneuvers around, allowing K-9 to destroy the android. Hearing female screaming, Grendel orders his men to fire on the cabin. Lamia runs out, yelling at them to stop firing but is shot down.

Back at Grendel's castle, Romana picks the lock of her chains and frees herself. She unlocks Reynart but he is too weak to travel. He creates a ruse and knocks out the guard, allowing Romana to escape on Grendel's horse. She rides past the cabin just as K-9 finishes cutting a hole in the back, allowing the Doctor and himself to escape. The Doctor and Romana ride off while K-9 stuns the pursuing guards.

The Doctor returns to the house outside the city where he first met Reynart and the android has been taken for repairs. Shortly after arrival, Grendel appears under a flag of truce. He enters and offers the Doctor the chance to become king. The Doctor is amused but alerts Zadok to Grendel's plan. Grendel takes his spear to which his white flag is attached and throws it into the chest of the android Reynart. Grendel then flees, grabbing Romana and riding back to his castle with her.

Back at the castle, Grendel summons the Archimandrite to perform first the wedding between Reynart and Princess Strella (really Romana) and then his own to Princess Strella following Reynart's death. As the real Strella refuses to go along with it, he uses her life to threaten Romana and Reynart to agree to his plan.

The Doctor devises a plan to get into the castle and open the doors from the inside for Reynart's men. He and K-9 take a boat across the moat to a passageway under the castle. The passage is baracaded by a heavy door but K-9 cuts an opening for the Doctor. The Doctor sneaks in but leave K-9 to guard the boat in case they need a hasty escape.

The Doctor enters the main hall and stops the wedding before it finishes. Angered by the Doctor's interference, Grendel challenges the Doctor to single combat, going so far as to give him a sword for a proper fight. The Doctor toys with him a bit but soon has Grendel on his heels. He tells Reynart to open the gates and he does, allowing Zadok and his men to pour through the main gate.

Grendel's captain of the guard heads down to the dungeons to kill Princess Strella but Romana follows him and she and Strella knock him out before he can attack him. As the castle falls, Grendel and the Doctor fight on the rooftop. Realizing the battle is lost, Grendel retreats and dives off the battlements, into the moat and swims away.

A victorious Reynart offers the Doctor control of all of Grendel's lands but he declines. He collects Romana and then the Key segment from Lamia's lab. They then spy K-9 adrift on the boat in the middle of the moat. They move to collect him and depart the planet.

Analysis

I don't know that I could rate this one as high as The Ribos Operation, but this is a fun story to watch. While the androids and electric swords and crossbows officially push this over to science fiction, it's much more of a romantic epic in the lines of The Man in the Iron Mask and the like.

The Doctor is quite fun here. He's jokey but not over-the-top to the point of silliness. He has good lines and trades wit with both friends and foes alike. But he also has a few moments of seriousness that emphasize the danger to those involved. It's a good adventuring Doctor.

Romana is pretty good in this one and Mary Tamm actually gets a lot of extra work playing Princess Strella and two androids. She doesn't do much as Strella and the acting for an android is to play nearly dead, but it is still a lot of screen time. I rather enjoyed the beginning how she is off to shove it in the Doctor's face as to what their business is. She also has a good amount of spunk while still showing how green she is in the ways of the universe. Her attempting to get Grendel's horse to move is quite funny and you can tell that she is much more comfortable with something like K-9 than an actual animal.

Unquestionably, the star of the show is Count Grendel. He is mustache twirl-y but not so over-the-top as to become farcical. He also shows an odd dichotomy for both being a cheating asshole (such as promising not to shoot the Doctor and then ordering his men to shoot him) but also being a strict observer of the rules. Grendel clearly has the power to seize the throne by force or at least threaten the other nobles into supporting his claim, but he instead chooses to through a more complicated plan involving androids and murder just to ensure he has legal standing.

For all his mustache twirling, it was nice to see him be fairly competent. He successfully captures Reynart, successfully destroys the Reynart android and could have killed the Doctor to seal the wedding plan if he had not chosen to indulge in sport and a bit of chivalry. What's more, he is actually a very good swordsman and could have bested anyone else who challenged him, making his pretense of chivalry with the Doctor a lot less bluster than it would have been with other villains. Despite his being a bastard, in the end, there is a part of me that is happy to see him swim away, the odd taunt still on his lips.

The sword fight at the end was actually really well done. It's starts with a touch of silliness from the Doctor and a clear bit of irritation from Grendel. But it escalates quickly. What's even more interesting is that there is no music for the first part of the fight. It's just the open clash of the blades that fill the hall. It's not until Grendel is disarmed by the Doctor and he takes on a "this is serious tone" that we start getting some background music for their fight. What's more, the focus then begins to shift to the other aspects with Reynart retraining the manservant and opening the gate as well as Romana tracking down the captain of the guard in the dungeons. I only wish the middle portion of the fight in the passageway to the roof had been better lit. There is a nice play of shadow but Grendel gets the Doctor off-balance before he runs off and I would have liked to see that better rather that have the Doctor just be consumed by one area of darkness and then shown to be on the ground.

Most of the rest of the cast was also decent, though they didn't have that much to contribute. Reynart was probably the strongest of the lower tier, managing to pull off a man who did seem truly suited to be king. Lamia was probably the weakest as she was a little too emotionally stunted for my taste. I think she was going for bored indifference, but it came across as more stiff than anything else. Even her death seemed like weak acting, as though she couldn't show emotion even then. It just didn't play that well.

There were some nice little touches made in the production. I found the clock with extra hours a nice addition and there was a good diversity among the clothing of the nobles, giving it a strong period vibe. There was also a nice blend of exterior and interior shooting, including some clear night shots which gave the story an added layer of depth and realism that I enjoyed.

I also enjoyed how this story used K-9 as a true member of the crew though it did expose one reason why he isn't used that often. The Doctor clearly needed him to get out of the one trap and to breach the castle in another. But in the escape from the cottage trap, K-9 mows down four or five of Grendel's guards and that does remind the audience just how overpowered he is. K-9 could easily have been used to destroy the entire garrison of Grendel's castle single-handedly should the Doctor have wanted to blast his way through, but keeping him to the boat as a trusted sentry, actually makes sense and was a way to keep him from doing something like that. It's smart use, even if it does highlight other problems.

It did slow down in a couple of points and when the Doctor and Grendel were not directly involved, it bogged down a bit, but this story still moved along fairly well and is well worth watching for Count Grendel alone. I will say that I think you have to be in the right mood for it as the structure and tone is much closer to The Princess Bride rather than any traditional Doctor Who. But I think most folks would be happy to sit down with this story most of the time. I know I would and could easily have some fun with it at any time.

Overall personal score:

Planet of the Dead

He will knock four times.

Planet of the Dead was not that well received when first broadcast, mostly due to fans being a bit put out in getting what is a bit of a romp after a four month hiatus and looking into a further six month wait until The Waters of Mars. RTD later went back and explained that given the dark nature of The Waters of Mars and the end of the Tenth Doctor in The End of Time, he wanted to keep this story fairly light. Watched in isolation and removed from the wait, it is better than original fan reaction, though not without it's flaws.

Plot Summary

A thief, Lady Christina de Souza, breaks into a museum and steals a thousand year old gold cup. The alarms go off as she nears the exit of the building and the police arrive, cutting off her planned escape. She then gets on a bus to hide. Just before the bus leaves, the Doctor gets on, tracking an anomaly in space. The bus drives along and Christina is spotted by the detective who leads a pursuit of the bus. He also has the police set a blockade at the other end of the tunnel the bus has just driven in. As it nears the exit, the bus suddenly vanishes, disappearing through a wormhole.

The bus emerges on the other side, beaten up but intact, and lodges itself in the middle of a desert. The Doctor points out the wormhole they just passed through and before he can stop him, the driver tries to go back. He emerges on the other side, all his flesh having been boiled off. Stunned, the police call in UNIT to take over. On the planet, Lady Christina organizes the other passengers and sets the Doctor to getting them back home.

The Doctor figures the bus protected them like a Faraday cage and that if they can get it moving, they can go back. The passengers are set at various tasks, digging out the wheels, laying them on flats and cleaning the sand out of the engine. As the Doctor and Christina look around, they notice a sand storm approaching, but that contains glints of metal. One of the passengers, a woman named Carmen, has a level of psychic perception that is amplified by the planet, she senses death approaching from the cloud.

The Doctor makes contact with UNIT via a modified cell phone, talking first with the UNIT commander, Captain Magambo, and then with the team scientist, Dr. Malcolm Taylor. The Doctor sets Malcolm on measuring the wormhole and then figuring a way to close it. The Doctor and Lady Christina return to the top of the dune to chart the storm when they are approached by a fly-like alien called a Tritovore. It takes them back to its ship to see the captain.

The captain believes the Doctor and the passengers on the bus are responsible for the attack on his ship, which crashed while attempting to set up a trade between planets. The Doctor convinces the captain that they are not responsible and fellow crash victims. He then helps restore power enough to launch a probe to study the storm. The Doctor learns that the planet they are on was inhabited by 100 billion people and showed no sign of distress only a year ago. Now, the Tritovore ship is crashed in the middle of what was once the capital city. As the probe reaches the storm, they learn that it is not a sand storm, but billions of metallic stingray-like creatures. He reasons they stripped the planet clean and are now flying in formation around the planet, creating a wormhole to fly to the next planet for them to feed.

The Doctor receives a call from the bus passengers informing him that the bus is out of gas, leaving it without power. He decides to extract the main power source of the Tritovore ship to help them. Lady Christina sets up her repelling rig and descends into the shaft before the Doctor can stop her. He then guides her through until she reaches the bottom. She manages to extract the crystal and it's mounting plate but discovers one of the stingray creatures in the shaft, dormant due to the cold, but waking due to her body heat. Once the extraction is done, the Doctor pulls her out and she resets the security field, trapping the creature in the shaft. However, several other creatures were in the hull when it crashed and they are also waking up. The Doctor urges the Tritovore captain to abandon the ship but he refuses. One of the creatures emerges from the hull and eats him. The other Tritovore shoots repeatedly at the creature but it has no effect and he is also eaten. The Doctor and Lady Christina flee the ship, only a short way ahead of the swarm.

Upon reaching the bus, the Doctor tosses the power crystal and attaches the anti-gravity clamps to the bus wheels. He attaches the interface to the bus wheel but find that they won't integrate. Realizing he needs gold to make the interface work, he asks Christina for the cup she stole, having seen it and figuring her for a thief during her descent into the power shaft. She reluctantly agrees and he smashes it apart to make the interface. The Doctor also calls Malcolm to have him be ready to close the wormhole just after they emerge. Captain Magambo overhears this and threatens to shoot Malcolm if he does not close it immediately.

With the interface complete, the Doctor engages the anti-gravity and then flies the bus back through the wormhole. Malcolm refuses to close the wormhole until hearing of the Doctor's pass through. One through, he tries to close it but his machine malfunctions. The Doctor calls him and walks him through the process and the wormhole closes with only three stingrays having gotten through. Those three are killed by the UNIT soldiers waiting on the other side.

Upon landing, the passengers are escorted away, though Lady Christina breaks off to join the Doctor. She asks to come with him, having had the TARDIS delivered to him by UNIT, but he refuses, feeling that it's too dangerous for anyone to travel with him at the moment. Lady Christina is then arrested by the detective who had been waiting around with UNIT during the crisis.

Seeing the passengers off, Carmen gives a warning to the Doctor that his song is ending, that he is returning and that he will knock four times. The Doctor acknowledges the warning and then quietly frees Christina from her handcuffs. She slips out of the police car, steals the bus and flies off into the night as the Doctor disappears in the TARDIS.

Analysis

Planet of the Dead is a mostly fun rompy story but it does have a few flaws. The two most prominent are a couple of the acting portrayals and the occasional hard shifts in tone reflected in the two different styles of the writers: Russell T. Davies and Gareth Roberts. Nonetheless, it is far better than it is generally given credit for.

This is pretty much the last we see of the light side of the Tenth Doctor and he revels in it. He is in full command and very enjoyable. There are glimmers of darkness, such as when he recalls Donna (although not by name) and when he says no to Lady Christina to traveling with him. But even there, he beats back the darkness and indulges in the fun. It's at times silly, but never over-the-top or badly done.

Lady Christina is a fun pseudo-companion. She matches well with the Tenth Doctor, matching him with wit and resource, but also having enough respect for him that she defers to his knowledge when appropriate. Her cockiness would probably have been her undoing had she continued and I think I can see shades of Clara in her, both in the good and the bad. But in this one story, she does well, although I was disappointed in the indulgence of the trope at the beginning where she removed her mask before leaving the museum. No proper thief would ever do something that stupid. She also should have ducked down in the bus, obscuring her face rather than looking directly at the detective. But the plot needed to start in some way.

The folks on the bus are pretty non-descript as they are more rescue objects than actual characters. There is some minor development with a couple and they also provide a touch of comedy here and there but you could have left the bus empty and it wouldn't have changed the story much.

The exception is Carmen and I do not like her. I think the acting was sub-par and the attitude of the character was a distraction whenever it shifted to her. The psychic stuff had no bearing on what happened and if anything it defused the tension rather than accelerating it because it put the Doctor on his guard rather than being totally surprised at the nature of the swarm. The prophecy at the end was far too heavy handed and poorly delivered as well. I would have actually thought it better if as the people walked away, Ood Sigma was left standing (so only the Doctor could see) and stated the line about him knocking four times. It still would have been heavy handed but it would have played in to previous uses of the Ood and their psychic abilities and provided continuity to the use of Ood Sigma in The Waters of Mars and The End of Time.

UNIT was fairly non-descript in this story. Captain Magambo was fine as a stand-in for the Brigadier but I didn't care for the false tension of her threatening Malcolm before the Doctor emerged. It just seemed a bit much and you can see how a character like this was morphed into Kate Stewart in the Eleventh Doctor era. Malcolm was a light bit of humor but also not overly memorable. His main point is to provide the quick Deus Ex Machina fix at the end with the closing of the wormhole. Not bad, but not standout either.

Both aliens were good in this. I like the idea of the somewhat mindless swarm of stingrays that fly from planet to planet like a swarm of locusts. Not evil, just hungry. I also liked the feint with the Tritovores, given our natural disgust towards flies, and having them be victims just as much as the bus folk. I was a little disappointed that they were gotten rid of so quickly as having at least one of them make it back to the bus and interact with the passengers would have provided an interesting little dynamic at the end.

The overall story was pretty good if relatively thin. There is a darker tone that permeates most of the story but with lighter bits here and there. However the end gets a bit too silly for my taste. The sting rays are essentially on top of them and they have time to banter and wave about in the air before going through the wormhole. Likewise there are the soaring aerial shots of London which look very nice, but in that time, much more than three stingrays should have gotten through and been terrorizing UNIT. Christina's escape at the end was also rather farcical as if overly attempting to compensate for the darkness of predicting the Doctor's death. This was rather unnecessary as everyone knew that David Tenant was leaving at the end of the gap year so there wasn't really a need to lighten the tone in such a huge way.

I don't know that much can be said about the effects or direction. The stingrays are dated CGI but it's fairly easy to ignore them as they are not dwelt on for very long. Similarly, I know that parts of this were shot in Dubai but it's rather difficult to tell and I was told that all of it was shot on a sound stage, I would have easily believed it. It has the standard Doctor Who level of engagingness but also cheapness that we expect from British television. The ultimate point is that they don't distract from the overall story which is about as good as you can ask for in any effects heavy story.

Overall, given time and the ability to see this story as it's own thing rather than an island in the midst of a sea of waiting, it is fairly entertaining. Most everyone is either at the top of their game or at least in a position of high entertainment with the prominent exception I noted earlier. If you wanted to treat someone to a decent bit of stand-alone Doctor Who, this would not be a bad choice. It's fun and if you don't expect too much of it, you won't be disappointed.

Overall personal score: 4 out of 5