Day 227: The Invasion Episode 8

It's worth mentioning how different this serial has been to previous serials. It stands out amongst everything that it is surrounded by, with the introduction of a military presence and an action packed finale, as well as gratuitous amounts of action thrown in throughout the past eight episodes. This means that we have to talk about the future (read: I've decided to not talk about Tobias Vaughn for the umpteenth time this serial). This is unquestionably a pilot. In a television sense, we normally think of pilots as ways for spin-offs to occur, and a widening of the brand of the particular series. This, however, is not a pilot for a spin-off, rather a pilot for Series 7. Doctor Who has been steadily decreasing in viewers, and so a radically different approach has been suggested for the series. There will be less stories like The Dominators, where we fight aliens on alien worlds, and more like The Invasion, where the Doctor and his UNIT friends fight alien menaces on Earth. It's a new direction for the series, and this serial has certainly been incredibly enjoyable. We'll just have to see how things pan out. And let's not forget, Series 7 is still a little while away, which means that We've Got Work To Do!

Day 226: The Invasion Episode 7

The inevitable happens and the Cybermen turn on Tobias Vaughn, proclaiming that he is not required for the invasion and that they will proceed without him. This is positioned at the end of the episode, forming the cliffhanger as we deal with the fallout of this plot development. What's important in this plot development is how little it affects our heroes. We already expect the Doctor to save the day, with or without Vaughn in his way. Jamie's gone off sick (read gone on holidays) and Zoe is busy defeating the Cyber-fleet with the Brigadier. The major person who this affects is Vaughn himself, which indicates that the audience is now expected to care for him and his motives. And despite the fact that he's the villain, we overwhelmingly do. He's charismatic and interesting enough such that when he's on screen, we pay attention. Compare him to the villains for The Dominators, for instance. For a start, I can't actually name them, so that's an indication of how much they've stuck in my mind. When they fight, we instead find it an annoyance, whereas when Vaughn fights with his lackeys, we can sympathise with the lackeys easily because we know that Vaughn is the stronger man. And when we see terrible things happen to the Dominators, we feel glad because the bad guys have been defeated. But with Vaughn, we feel the same sympathy as we have grown to respect him as a character and so we want to see him succeed, despite the fact that he is evil. In short, we are invested enough in the character of Tobias Vaughn that when the cliffhanger rests on him, we overwhelmingly want to discover what will happen to him.

Day 225: The Invasion Episode 6

And it would be foolish of me to ignore one of the most iconic moments in the history of Doctor Who that occurs in this single episode. But which one? Firstly, there's an extraordinary scene where Tobias Vaughn goads his captive into shooting him, only to reveal that he has been partially cyber-converted, and the bullets have no effect on him. It stands out in the episode as a wonderful scene as it shows the extent of control that Vaughn has over the situation. It begins with the audience realising the fear that he can instil in everyone, such that even if they have a gun in their hand, they still are unable to shoot him, due to his power over them. It means that when the gun is fired, we're shocked because it represents a new direction in the story, we as an audience know that the villain cannot die this early and this inconspicuously, so when it is revealed that he is part machine, we're left with realising that this was all a ploy, and we appreciate Vaughn's power afterwards. It's the most definitive villain moment in the history of Doctor Who so far, and possibly of all time.

Another all time great moment occurs as the Cybermen's plan is put into action. We see them burst out of manholes in London, and advance through the streets, most memorably walking down the steps of St Paul's Cathedral. It is the epitome of the idea of the ordinary becoming extraordinary as we see alien monsters walk down an iconic landscape in the public consciousness. These are steps that are well known, and so the audience already has some sort of connection to the place in which the action is happening. This represents the epitome of the idea of 'Yeti on the loo in Tooting-Bec', where suddenly monsters can be hiding in everyday areas, probably causing children to be terrified of the mundane as well as the not-mundane.

Day 224: The Invasion Episode 5

A cynic would say that the only reason that the Cybermen are in this story is because they're known quantities to the audience, and it saves having to explain to an audience who the monsters are, as well as getting a boost of publicity from having some 'celebrity' monsters. The logic follows that any monster could be substituted in for the Cybermen, and that they exist purely as lackeys for Tobias Vaughn. However, the Cybermen are used well in this, with elements to their system that can only truly be found with the Cybermen. For example, Vaughn has decided that, in order to ensure that his alien allies do not double cross him, he needs a back-up plan to fully exert his power over them. He does this by introducing emotions to the Cybermen, filling them with fear and taking advantage of their emotionless state, sending them into a panic. This fully takes advantage of the background that the Cybermen have, and it seems clear that either Derrick Sherwin or Kit Pedler sat down and looked at what the Cybermen had in their arsenal and tried to figure out which would suit the story best. It means that the villains are actually being used to their full advantage, unlike in, say, The Wheel in Space, where they were just another monster thrown into the mixing pot

Day 223: The Invasion Episode 4

This story is eight parts long, which is a bit cumbersome when you expect audiences to keep attention for eight solid weeks without getting bored. Nevertheless, writers have come up with ways in which to make the longer serials work. We'll be dealing with one such scenario later on in this series, but let's focus instead on what we've got here. The basic plot so far is that a mysterious man has taken the world by storm with his electronics company. There's some nice James Bond action as we see a daring escape in a helicopter, and there's hints of an alien intervention, but beyond that, this serial should be quite a basic four part serial, with the end of this only having a few loose ends to tie up. But the genius of this serial is to hide a key element from the plot and bring it out when things threaten to get stale, thus giving the plot a constant movement. It's akin to a magic trick, where a magician will draw back some curtains that you didn't know were there in the first place (and is that an actual magic trick? It sounds like quite a dull one in my opinion. File that one away in reasons why this blog author should not do magic). So what have the curtains revealed? What has been so immense as to change the course of the story completely? Well, it can only really be the revelation of a returning monster, which we have in this instance as we discover the Cybermen returning to our screens, after a painstakingly long 14 episode absence.

Day 222: The Invasion Episode 3

Or, we could look at the character of Tobias Vaughn, the villain of the piece. He works because he's played by Kevin Stoney, the actor who formerly played Mavic Chen in The Daleks' Master Plan. This is an absolutely wonderful actor because he is able to clearly show two radically different states of mind: calmness and rage. When he is calm, we appreciate him, being completely unflappable and perhaps the coolest character in the history of Doctor Who. He doesn't care about whether the Doctor escapes, because his plan doesn't entirely need that, it's all worked out. It would be nice if his henchman in chief, Packer, could capture the Doctor, but there's no real need for him to do so. But hiding underneath that calm exterior is a raging bull. His anger is palpable as he shouts and tears down everyone in his way. He is a terrifying figure when he is angry because we have seen the calm contrast beforehand. If all we had was the anger, then it would not be as effective due to it just coming across as a very angry man, but by having the contrast then we are able to realise the ruthlessness of this villain and feel true fear of his power.

Day 221: The Invasion Episode 2

And this episode marks a very important addition to the mythos of Doctor Who, with the introduction of UNIT. They're a military organisation who investigate strange goings on, essentially meaning alien interference with the affairs of Earth. Their introduction allows for a sense of organisation with regards to the modern day stories for Doctor Who. Suddenly, stories that are set in the modern day will already have a set of allies in place, meaning that the audience will be able to latch onto new stories more easily. This is something that was explored, again, in The Web of Fear, which had Professor Travers as a recurring character from a previous adventure. This time, there's another recurring character, in the form of Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart. How he works as a character we'll deal with several times over the course of the next couple of years, including, perhaps, tomorrow's entry...

Day 220: The Invasion Episode 1

This story is able to push itself away from the previous serial by firmly placing both feet into the realm of reality. It's firmly modern again, with a story based around electronics, a relatively new technology at the time. Indeed, it's worth comparing this to the previous two times that Doctor Who went 'modern'. The most recent such instance was Fury From the Deep, although I would argue that that doesn't count as much, given that it was set in the fairly remote area of an oil rig, wheras the other most recent modern adventure was The Web of Fear, which can be easily compared to this story. Both are set in and around urban areas, and both will concern themselves with monsters roaming the streets, a topic that we will look at later. But the major difference between the two is in terms of the space in which the two stories take place. The Web of Fear took place in a small and confined area, building on claustrophobia within the space, whereas the Invasion is quite clearly more spread out, showing us the full city and drawing upon the fact that it is taking place in a larger area allows for more to be showed off, at the expense of losing the claustrophobic atmosphere that perpetrated Web. It's a change, but what is Doctor Who without change?

Day 209: The Wheel In Space Episode 6

And at the conclusion of this story, the TARDIS gains a new crewmember, in the form of Zoe Heriot. Already, I instantly prefer her to Victoria, due to the way in which her character has been presented. Zoe is a futuristic character, who takes no nonsense from either Jamie or the Doctor. She looks down on Jamie due to his poor knowledge, and yet she is able to defer to him in times when more basic human feelings are needed, such as having trust in the Doctor, or alternatively in the things for which Jamie knwos but Zoe doesn't. Already, an interesting dynamic has been set up between these two characters that allows them to be in conflict and still have a strong mutual respect for each other. Likewise, Zoe fails to see the playfulness within the Doctor, and yet she knows thta he is te more intelligent of the two. And we know that by starting this character as someone who is fond of logic, we're going to be able to see their character develop as they break out from the dull world of The Wheel in Space and move onto more exciting times.

Day 208: The Wheel In Space Episode 5

Not much of note happens in this episode, so I'm going to cheat. Big Finish Productions is a company that produces licensed audio adventures about a vast array of series, including Doctor Who. Some of their plays deal with the world of The Wheel In Space, because it's actually an incredibly depressing world. There's a young character, Zoe, who is a genius, created to have perfect recall and a completely mathematical mind. And she's been brainwashed to do this, taken at a young age for the good of the world. A young child has been forced into this life, having pieces of their mind like emotion and irreverence replaced with logic. Big Finish deals with this sort of thing in plays such as The Uncertainty Principle or The Memory Cheats, both of which deal with Zoe trying to fight the world that she has been brought up in, as she has long since realised that this is no way to run a society. To tie this back into The Wheel In Space, we can see that this is a world which has been constructed well, and whilst it's not as well done as Whitaker's previous efforts, such as The Power of the Daleks, it still has hints of something lurking behind the scenes, ideas that were never fully realised. Whitaker remains a good writer, it's just that the good writer is slowly fading away, so we need some more writers to take his place

Day 207: The Wheel In Space Episode 4

Let's have a talk about Jarvis, the Wheel's neurotic controller. He's such an interesting character because of what he isn't, rather than what he could be. He's a small man, who wanders about shouting and generally being suspicious of everything that's happening, yet stubbornly refusing to believe anything that falls outside of the realm of the laws of Physics, meaning that he doesn't believe that there is a Cyber-invasion, choosing instead to spend his time in opposition to the Doctor and all of his new allies whom he has gathered to fight the Cyber-Force. What's interesting though is the fact that he is an anti-Captain Kirk. Captain Kirk represents your stereotypical hero, a man who is intelligent, caring and more than willing to fight if needs must. He's what you think of when you consider a spaceship captain, which indicates that Jarvis has been written such that all of the stereotypical captain traits have been chucked out of the window and replaced with their opposites, to show the differences between what normal writers for television series would do, and what Doctor Who writers can do.

And it is at this exact moment that I suddenly realised: in over half of the stories this series, we've dealt with slightly insane leaders of scientific groups. It's a testament to how well defined each of them are that I didn't realise this sooner, but also worth pointing out that I generally write these quite late at night, showing that my mental faculties aren't really up to scratch at this time...

Day 206: The Wheel In Space Episode 3

Aww, it's destroyed everything that you hold
dear in the cutest way possible

The Cybermen make a return appearance in this story, as do their little friends, the Cybermats. The Cybermats somehow escaped my attention when we first met them in The Tomb of the Cybermen, so I should probably mention them here. They are fundamentally cute creatures, and it's clear that they have been written in this way, in order to create a new sense of horror as these cute little things attack you and kill you horribly. Except they don't really look that cute, instead they look like a toy (almost as if they were created to be toys...). Nor do they look particularly menacing either, meaning that the monsters tend to fail. That said, they're reasonably well directed in this story, or they would be if one of the crew members who was killed by them wasn't one of the hammiest actors that the series has had to date. but it's hard to get past these creatures who were probably just created to act as toys.

Day 205: The Wheel In Space Episode 2

Of note in this episode is the first occasion where the pseudonym Dr John Smith is used to cover the fact that the Doctor's name is not generally told to people. It's used in a hurried fashion, as Jamie has to quickly come up with a solution to the problem that has arisen, and brings up the fact that this whole thing about the Doctor having the pseudonym of John Smith is not an idea that has been meticulously prepared. Instead, it's an idea that's been made up on the fly, to just answer someone as quickly as possible. What's also noticeable is how quickly this idea took off, as it becomes the go-to pseudonym, and given that the previous serial brought the sonic screwdriver, it's becoming apparent that the things that will become pure facts of Doctor Who at the moment are not going to be the monsters as much as they're going to be little details that flesh out the universe that is inhabited by the intrepid crew of the TARDIS.

Day 204: The Wheel In Space Episode 1

It's a return of David Whitaker to the writing fold, and a realisation of just how much Doctor Who has changed since Whitaker first wrote for the series. It's because he's writing it very much in the traditional sense of how Doctor Who used to be, a first episode that consists of the regular cast (in this case the Doctor and Jamie) exploring their surroundings, with not much else in it. And back in those days, it was OK, because we were able to appreciate that it takes time to tell a story and that we need to set the scene before we can begin. But now, we've realised that there are other ways of doing this. We can, for instance, allow for the situation to be discovered through taking part in the situation and using this as a springboard to meeting characters and discussing the problems that are occurring. This can be seen in 'The Ice Warriors', which begins with the Doctor meeting the crew members, and discovering about the world that he's landed himself in through expository dialogue. Here, on the other hand, we're treated to the Doctor and Jamie landing on a ship, and then exploring the empty sip for 15 minutes. There's a brief stab at action when a pitifully slow robot attacks them, and Troughton begins to fall unconscious towards the end, but aside from that, it comes across as a very dull piece of work. But the odd thing is, that this wouldn't have seemed as dull 200 episodes ago, giving us a concrete example of just how much the show has developed over the course of the five or so years that it's been on the air. It's an interesting to think about, but not so much to watch.

Day 173: The Tomb of the Cybermen Episode 4

One of the vaguely unsettling subtexts in this episode is not the conversion of people into metal creatures, but instead the way that others will appear to be treated in the future, and by others, I mean one person in particular. His name is Toberman, and he is the strongman for the archaeological expedition that is being undertaken. His role would seem to be being bossed about by his superiors and to carry things. He doesn't really have a character beyond that, the most interesting thing that happens to him is that he is converted by the Cybermen and then later overthrows them completely, only to be killed at the story's conclusion. And that's a nice little idea, that uses the idea of someone being converted fighting back against their original programming, and it will occasionally be used again in later stories (cf Doomsday, Closing Time). But here's the annoying thing: Toberman is a person of colour. And that means that the story has an uncomfortable slavery subtext beneath it. For all that it portrays itself as a futuristic version of a mummy movie, occasionally it too strays into uncomfortable stereotypes, showing us a white crew where a black man is told to do things for them as a slave. Does this mean that the writers (Kit Pedler and Gerry Davis) were racist? In my opinion, no, because it is less individuals that are racist and more the time that the story is made in. When people will search for characters, often they will do so with a certain stereotype in mind, and it just so happened that Toberman was the stereotype associated with strongmen, generally being from outside of Britain, from far off regions such as Africa or Europe. But all of this means that when we come back to the story, we can see all of the cracks that are associated with it, be it in the writing or how some of the effects come across, or in how the characters are portrayed. This story is undeniably a product of its time, the only problem is seeing whether it is still relevant today, or whether things have just become too uncomfortable.

Day 172: The Tomb of the Cybermen Episode 3

The Cybermen are now back to their roots, after their Moonbase interlude where they just provided a known monster and nothing much else. Here, their emotionlessness is part of the core of their plan, as is their wish to conquer the Earth through conversion. Indeed, it's only really now that this is brought up with the Cybermen, as The Moonbase failed to mention it and The Tenth Planet had it as a disturbing subtext, but here it is presented to us front and centre: they wish to convert the human race and remove all of their emotions. And the effect of this is it allows a climate of fear to be created around these creatures, because conversion is not a process that is performed quickly, like shooting someone in the face, for instance, instead it is done slowly, with a build up to the main event. This means that the Cybermen have more time to extend tension, thus making it tenser for the audience and creating a more exciting programme. But what happens to the cyber-convertees? We'll find out next time

Day 171: The Tomb of the Cybermen Episode 2

Dr Eric Klieg is one of the men on this expedition, and he comes across as an interesting character. Driven by science and logic to his goals, he is actually quite poor at his work and frequently received the help of the Doctor in order to achieve his goals. And the Doctor is quite willingly helping as well, as Troughton plays the role in his slightly dark and devious character that we've seen him develop over the past couple of stories. But Klieg is also of interest here, because it transpires that he has been in search of the Cybermen to revive them and use their power for his own devices. And the surprising fact here is that he appears to be competent, an evil character out for his own motives and not those of his fellow archaeologists. But he is mercilessly crushed by the Cybermen, a plotline that looks as if it is over. Pedler and Davis, the writers of this story, clearly know that the arrival of the monsters means that everything else needs to move aside, because they need the audience's full attention on the threat, drawing more attention to the fear that the Cybermen bring. The Cybermen have been awoken, and we shall now see how they will work in this story.

Day 170: The Tomb of the Cybermen Episode 1

New story, new series, new companion. We were introduced to Victoria in the previous story, but there she was just a Princess Peach character, existing mainly to be rescued by other characters within the story. However, at the story's conclusion, she was invited aboard the TARDIS, a position which she took with little choice, given that everything that she was even remotely close to had been destroyed by the Daleks. And so, we see her in her first adventure here, and what comes across is just how absurd everything seems to her. And it's not that she's from Victorian times, it's that she's just been taken away in a magical box to distant worlds, and it's a bit too much for her. And so, the Doctor and Jamie are left to look after her, to comfort her through this period. It's the first time since Ian and Barbara that we've had this sort of reaction, everyone else has either taken it in their stride, or remained skeptic, only to discover that they have travelled in time, at which point everything becomes normal again. But Victoria is able to have problems with accepting this fact, and this makes the audience be able to sympathise with her, because she represents the realistic reaction to everything that's about to happen. And whilst a lot of what Victoria will do will not be realistic for a Victorian girl to do, there is a great deal of realism in how she reacts to everything, giving good signals for how she shall fare over the rest of her time aboard the TARDIS.

Day 152: The Moonbase Episode 4

Kit Pedler is Doctor Who's scientific advisor, and as such, this story is a bit more scientific than the normal asventure. In the previous episode, for instance, there's an extended sequence wherein Ben describes how squirty bottles work, and the story itself is not based on a clolony of normal people, instead looking at a group of scientists all working together on a gravity based device to control Earth's weather. So we're bringing Doctor Who back to its original remit, to educate the audience about science and history, except history has been deemed to be boring, and so science education shall rise. And I'd like to come at this from a completely subjective viewpoint, and state whether this is actually interesting to the young children watching it, but there are a few problems with this.

One is that I am not a young child any more, and so the things that interest me now are different than the things that interest me 10 years ago. It's probably the major difficulty when commenting on Doctor Who, because a large element of it is aimed at a family audience, including children, and it becomes harder and harder to think about what kids are into these days, and whether kids are really interested about this stuff. In my opinion, this is exactly the sort of thing that children should be watching, and it is thoroughly interesting, but I don't know whether they'd enjoy it, I can only speculate. It's an interesting point, and we'll probably come back to it at some point over the next 650 odd episodes, but for now, We've Got Work To Do.

Day 151: The Moonbase Episode 3

Once again we're going to talk about Polly this episode. This time, it's because of her role in the plot. While the Doctor does clever things, and Ben and Jamie do action things, Polly is left to do screaming things. But, halfway through this episode, she gets the idea to use a solvent to dissolve the plastic on the Cybermen's chest units, and in doing so, cause them to be destroyed. This is wonderful, because it is showing us that a character who is assumed to be frivolous, and only exists to scream and look pretty, is actually rather intelligent, and can do things by herself. But, all of this is quickly destroyed when she indicates that she would like to help destroy the Cybemen, only to be told that it is "men's work". This is blatantly awful, and it's quite annoying to think that elements of this blatant sexism can exist in Doctor Who. Watching it reminded me of The Secret Seven books, by Enid Blyton, which would frequently feature a scene akin to one of the boys telling the girls that they couldn't take part in the adventure, because it was for the men only. It's uncomfortable to view, because it serves as a reminder of the poor treatment of female characters in fiction, and also tells the young girls who are watching this story that they might not be able to fully partake in the adventure, due to their gender. And, come to think of it, there are no female scientists on the base either. This is thoroughly giving the impression that all women are good for is screaming and occasionally being useful, which is quite poor writing, despite any attempts to defend it as 'of its time'. What makes it a real shame is that this has been quite a nice little story, but it is hampered with the sexism of the time that makes it uncomfortable vieweing for an audience of today.