Whilst I do rather enjoy The Two Doctors, I will admit that it does have a few issues with it that prevent it from being a truly great story. Looking at the issues in detail, however, it's clear that one of them is oddly one of the story's highlights, whilst the other represents a low point for the series.
The first thing that I wish to talk about is the Sontarans. Their role in this story is to generally act as another party with respect to the work being done by Dastari and Chessene, with a keen interest in their work with time-ships. However, they don't really make that much of an impact on the plot. Aside from an attack on the space station at the beginning, the vast majority of work that the Sontarans do in this story is stand around and plan to double cross their allies, until they find that they themselves have been double crossed. It's kind of a waste of a good race of aliens, and leaves me with the impression that the story might have been better without them.
Which is a bit of a shame as it's actually one of the best depictions that we've had of the Sontarans. This is to be expected, given that they are being written by their creator, Robert Holmes, who brings them a return to their militaristic roots. It feels like all of their discussions are of battle plans, fighting and war. This is carried through to the production, with Peter Moffatt directing the Sontarans to be full military caricatures, having them march into scenes and continue to stand up straight like the officers that they are. It's also present in the music by Peter Howell, as can be heard above, which is a nice effective march, getting across the general notion of the Sontarans in around 30 seconds of music. So what we end up with is a story that doesn't need the Sontarans, but ends up having them as one of the highlights.
The same cannot be said, however, for the other major downfall of this story. Towards the climax, Shockeye, the villain desperate to taste human flesh, begins a hunt for the Doctor. This culminates in the Doctor putting a cloth that has been doused with cyanide over Shockeye's mouth, causing him to convulse, before dying. The Doctor then delivers a quip about the death and moves on. This is another awful moment for the Doctor, as he kills another being in cold blood, and although Shockeye was unrelentingly evil, it still doesn't excuse the fact that he killed him. It leaves a sour taste in the mouth after a rather good story, and serves as a constant reminder of why I can't really look upon this era of Doctor Who and say that it's one of my favourites.
Still, at the very least, at least there's been nothing too bad so far this series. The Two Doctors has certainly been very fun, Vengeance on Varos had a good concept and at least Attack of the Cybermen and The Mark of the Rani were watchable. What could possible go wrong?
I think that the writing of The Two Doctors is easily the strong point, and that's thanks to Robert Holmes, a returning writer for Doctor Who, who has worked for the series off and on since The Krotons, and previously wrote the acclaimed story The Caves of Androzani. Here, he's given a challenge, where he has to shoehorn in two Doctors, two companions, a returning enemy, a new enemy, a foreign location and make it all into a palatable piece of television. He succeeds, in part thanks to the return of an old friend to the series, or what could be seen as an old enemy, the longer story.
Longer stories have been part of Doctor Who since the second serial, which was 7 parts long in duration. That said, they aren't perfect, and they can occasionally grow boring as it becomes apparent that there's only enough plot to fill an episode for four episodes and now it is being stretched out to six or more (e.g. The Daleks, The Monster of Peladon). However, they tend to allow for a story of more depth, allowing more time for character development or more complex plots (e.g. Doctor Who and the Silurians, The War Games). In this case, it is quite apparent that it is needed for a story of this scale, in order to make it worth watching and not a large mess, but there's also the underlying issue of keeping the audience interested throughout the adventure.
Holmes manages this with aplomb, through various methods. For a start, he ensures that the characters are all worth watching and have their own motivations that are interesting enough to hold the story in their own right. There's Chessene, a genetically modified being with delusions of grandeur, or Dastari, the person who augmented her and wishes for her to be made into a godlike creature. There's also Oscar Botcherby, an actor who has a dramatic turn of phrase but a wish to not really get into trouble, or Shockeye, the alien cook who wishes to taste human flesh.
The villains are also given enough menace to make them believable and somewhat frightening as well, such as can be seen in the cliffhanger to this episode where Shockeye's hands move towards Peri in a point of view shot, giving a truly creepy and disturbing feeling to the cliffhanger and making him feel like a tangible threat. This is clearly one-up to The Mark of the Rani, which felt that you could make a good villain by just giving them good dialogue. That's not to say that there's any shortage of good dialogue here, with plenty of witty exchanges between the characters, that are given just the right turn of phrase by the actors playing them that they can turn from a slightly odd thing to discuss to something weirdly hilarious, such as Shockeye's desire to eat human flesh. It all keeps the story interesting, which is something that is certainly needed as this is an awfully long story.
But, I'm rather happy to spend all of this time with this story, as it's clear that it's being written by a master of his craft, in the form of Robert Holmes. I'm actually quite glad that he's now seemingly returned to the programme for the long term, and I look forward to future work from him, as it seems like he's never been away.
The Two Doctors is an interesting story. It represents a weird mix of both the old and new of Doctor Who, with various elements of the past returning for no specific reason other than it should make for a fun story. These returning elements are all quite different, but they're all quite interesting, and show just how much Doctor Who has changed over the past 22 series.
The most obvious returning element is Patrick Troughton as the Doctor, alongside Frazer Hines as Jamie. The reason for their return is because the production team enjoyed working with Troughton so much during The Five Doctors that they decided to invite him back for a return story, and to be honest I can hardly blame them. Amongst the many wonderful things about The Five Doctors (and indeed The Three Doctors), Patrick Troughton's performance as the Doctor is easily one of the highlights. As can be seen in this episode, he steps into the role as if he were never away, playing at equal parts the clownish figure who wanders throughout the universe, or the deadly serious man who fights to protect the Universe from all sorts of horrors. This is best seen in the scene where he encounters Dastari where he goes from joking with him in an attempt to show that he is a friend to be trusted, whilst also telling him that he wants his work to be shut down, to getting progressively angrier with him as he realises the short-sightedness of Dastari and that he doesn't realise the implications of his work and how dangerous it could be.
There is, however, the question of continuity. This story has the Second Doctor working for the Time Lords, alongside Jamie, as they sort out the issues with Dastari. But the only problem with this is that the Second Doctor never really worked with the Time Lords, indeed he spent much of his time as the Doctor running away from them. No explanation is given in this story as to why this is happening, although fans have developed a theory revolving around the Doctor being taken away after his trial to work as a rogue agent for the Time Lords. But all of this brings forth a tiny little issue that I have with this, that this isn't the sort of thing that the Second Doctor did during his tenure, and so we're not really getting a true representation of his wonderful time as the Doctor.
But maybe that's just the point, that we can't really return to things just as they used to be. Instead, we return and find that they've developed and changed whilst we've been away, and we're not entirely sure about how to deal with that. But I suppose that that's just the very nature of life itself.
The Five Doctors is special. A 90 minute extravaganza where all five Doctors appear to fight various monsters whilst seeking a great and mystical Time Lord secret to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Doctor Who. It's remarkable because it's fun, the sort of story where you can just relax and watch the characters that you've seen over the past 20 years, back for one last adventure. It's also special personally for me, as it was the third Doctor Who story that I ever watched, and it will always have that place in my heart.
My parents had already shown me Frontier in Space and one other story that we're yet to cover on this blog, and I was keen to watch some more. I looked downstairs in the video cupboard and found, nestled between Monty Python's The Meaning of Life and some old cooking show, The Five Doctors. It looked cool, so I went back upstairs and put it into the video player. Settling in, I was greeted with words that stick with me to this day.
It's the First Doctor, saying his farewell speech to Susan from The Dalek Invasion of Earth. It's a beautiful little speech, and works in the context here of seeing the Doctors return. We've seen them all go and regenerate (and in the case of the First Doctor, have the actor who played them sadly die), so it's nice to have the idea that they're still alive, working away, which indeed they are. But for now, we go straight from that into the 1980's.
We see the TARDIS team, as it is right now. The Fifth Doctor's full of enthusiasm and energy, and yet there's a calmness about him that works well when contrasted with the other, slightly more rambunctious Doctors. Tegan, who will fulfil the role of the main companion for this story, is actually written rather well here, being a companion with a mind of her own, who will complain if she's not happy, but within reason. It's a far contrast from her first appearance, where she was the reluctant companion, quick to complain and always at the Doctor's throat. Now that she's mellowed, she's a far more likeable character. Turlough has calmed down too, free from the influence of the Black Guardian, he's just keen to help the Doctor without getting into too much trouble.
But strange forces are working, as we see a black hand manipulate events. The First Doctor is taken from wandering through a rose garden into some weird maze with mirrored walls. It's perhaps now that I should mention the fact that we have a new actor for the First Doctor, by the name of Richard Hurndall. He's an adequate replacement for Hartnell, but he's not perfect. Hartnell had far more of an edge to him, and his grumpiness helped to define the character (and also, through contrast, made his lighter moments seem all the sweeter. Hurndall, on the other hand, goes mainly for an impression, playing a grandfather-esque figure, missing out on the hidden details that Hartnell put into his performance. But you can't have everything, and at least we have most of the rest of the surviving Doctors.
Troughton, for instance, drops back into the role like he was never away. He plays around, making jokes, and being a foil for the Brigadier (who he is partnered with in this story). There's part of me that's a little bit disappointed, as I kind of feel that his Doctor would be better suited to working with a companion that he worked with more frequently (such as Jamie or Victoria) but Troughton plays it brilliantly, playing a looser character than the Brigadier's straight man, making for a great double act and an excellent time with the story.
Speaking of good double acts, we get a brief clip of the Fourth Doctor and the Second Romana (Tom Baker declined to appear, hence we only get his Doctor through stock footage) from the aborted story Shada. It's a frightfully witty scene, written by Douglas Adams, and acts as a pleasant reminder of his time as the Doctor, frightfully witty and full of fun.
Pertwee's introduced with an action sequence, as befits his Doctor. There's also a brief sequence once he reaches Gallifrey where he rescues Sarah Jane after she's had a nasty fall. And in other stories, I might criticise this moment, on the basis that Sarah Jane's fall is down a very slight slope, which I refer to as The Mild Incline of Moderate Doom. But this story's fun enough and light enough that I can forgive it and just have fun with it, despite its flaws.
That said, there are several strong flaws. Susan, for one, is poorly treated as a character, where she's reduced to just screaming, spraining her ankle and calling for her grandfather. There's not even a moment where we get a heartfelt reunion, particularly after the little speech that we had at the beginning. But, then again, Susan's character was always treated this badly in the series (save for a few exceptions, e.g. The Sensorites), and so I can hardly blame it for being accurate.
The Master's back as well, playing the role of a vague ally to the Doctor. He's been employed by the High Council to find the Doctor and rescue him, in one of their more curious employment strategies. This leads to what is, in my opinion, Ainley's best performance as the Master yet. He's someone who genuinely wants to help the Doctor, only to be squandered at every opportunity because they don;t trust him. This is something that could perhaps only work with Ainley as the Master, as he is so much of a pantomime villain that it's easy to mistrust him, hence every one of the Doctors that he encounters knows better than to accept his help (contrast with Delgado, where there's enough respect between his Master and the Doctor that they would help each other if circumstances demanded it). This, naturally, makes him give up on everything and attempt to go fully evil, eventually being thwarted by being punched by the Brigadier. Which is nice.
One of the other legitimate highlights of the story is the Raston Warrior Robot. In a remarkably well directed sequence done by both Peter Moffatt and John Nathan-Turner (the producer of the series at the time). It's pacy, action packed, and has, at its heart, a neat concept of a robot that moves as fast as lightning and can take out anything that comes in its way. It also serves as a reminder of the good things that Doctor Who can do now, and that it can be a show filled with action and the like, making it one of the best shows on TV.
It can also deal with fairly big ideas as well, such as the prize for winning the Game of Rassilon: immortality. Borusa, President of the Time Lords, has manipulated these events such that he may win the prize, and so he meets with Rassilon to collect it. However, immortality is not that great, and Borusa is given it in the form of becoming a statue, frozen in time forevermore. It's another cool idea, and one which actually works well with memory of the previous series. If Mawdryn Undead, and to a certain extent Enlightenment, are recalled, it can be seen that immortality has not been seen as a blessing, but rather a curse. Sometimes it's best to die with dignity intact, or you risk being a walking zombie for the rest of time. That's why the series has changed so much, a way of cheating death without immortality, allowing for constant rebirth and renewal, so that we can have five Doctors, all of them different, and all of them part of the same fantastic programme.
And coming back to the beginning of the blog entry, I mentioned that this was the third Doctor Who story that I ever saw. I loved it, as it had everything that I could want. Multiple Doctors, action, a Dalek, great jokes, an intriguing story, I would watch it regularly from that point onwards. In fact, when watching it today, I was struck by how much of the dialogue I remembered, as I quoted various bits and pieces along with the characters, having fun with them on their adventure.
And, oddly enough, this story ended up helping me out one day. I was doing my end of school examination for Physics, and there was a question about calculating orbital velocity, or something along those lines. My mind panicked, this was something that I knew how to do in theory, but I couldn't quite remember how to calculate it. Suddenly, I remembered a scene from The Five Doctors. The First Doctor and Tegan are discussing, in order to cross a minefield, how the solution is as easy as Pi. The Greek Letter Pi, it turns out. Tegan says "The ratio of a circumference of a circle, to its diameter, is equal to the Greek letter Pi". Using this relation, I answered the question. So I have to thank The Five Doctors, for helping me with my Physics exam.
And, so, to close this entry, there can only be one way to end it.
This reason also has Omega, an example of the fantastic ideas which Bob Baker and Dave Martin can bring to Doctor Who. Omega is the man responsible for creating the Time Lords, giving them the power of time travel. As a reward for this, he was chucked into a black hole to another universe, where he lives in solitude, going clearly insane due to his isolation. This is a fantastic idea as it draws into the past of the Doctor Who mythology, showing us what happened before the series began and giving glimpses into the universe in which the Doctor inhabits, showing us that it has been working for far longer than ten years. But it's also a fantastic idea at the heart of it, a man who has been given the power to be a God in his own domain and it has driven him mad.
This is also followed up on by two key parts of Omega. One is the performance given by Stephen Thorne, the actor behind Omega's mask. He fully conveys the insanity and strong emotion at the heart of this character, shouting and screaming his way through the dialogue showing his full madness. The other key part of Omega comes when he removes the mask which has covered him for the entire serial, revealing that his entire body has been eroded away and that the only thing keeping him alive is his will to live. This reveals both the strength of the original man that he was able to keep alive through will and will alone, and yet his insanity, as it is shown that there is nothing concrete that remains of his self, only the shadow that holds the very fibre of his being together (and even then that is fading). It's a fantastic idea and shows that Bob Baker and Dave Martin are clearly the people to turn to for some fantastic and truly insane ideas.
One of the best things about The Three Doctors is to be found in the character of the Brigadier. We know this character well, as the military man in charge of the situation. But what happens when he isn't in charge of the situation? This story examines that, having a direct attack on UNIT HQ to cause him some degree of unhappiness then he is faced with the Doctor changing his face again and to top it all off he is sent to an entirely new universe. It's hilarious to see this unflappable man completely out of his comfort zone as he desperately tries to make sense of everything. In a way, we can see this as revenge for the fact that we were forced as viewers into the Brigadier's world when Doctor Who became Earthbound. Now we have been sent back to the more surreal, mystical and wonderful way in which Doctor Who used to be and the Brigadier is unable to take it all in. It shows, in the 10th anniversary story, both the way in which Doctor Who used to be and the way in which it is now coming together in a cataclysmic crash of ideas.
Also appearing in this episode is William Hartnell. As scripted, he appears as the wiser old man to guide his two replacements to the right answers. However, it's sadly apparent that age has not been kind to Hartnell. You look at him and you don't see the energy that was present when he was the Doctor, the ability for him to dash about with his wits and remain on top. Instead, we just see an old man appear on a television screen, obviously unwell and trying to recapture the spirit of the Doctor, but not entirely succeeding. It's a sad reminder of why Hartnell left, he was sadly fading and would not have been able to carry on as the Doctor for this time. Fans can praise Hartnell for returning for the 10th anniversary special, but for me it's somewhat depressing to see what was once so great be so diminished due to illness and age.
Patrick Troughton makes a return to Doctor Who in this serial. To say that I was looking forward to this would be an understatement. I was practically bouncing off the walls with joy at the thought of seeing Troughton again, it's not that I dislike Pertwee, it's just that I like Troughton far more, due to his sense of fun and lightness that he brings to the role. Take, for instance, the second half of this story which brings Troughton and Pertwee into conflict, showing the base differences between their portrayals of the Doctor. Pertwee remains serious throughout the situation, whereas Troughton has an element of fun with the situation, playing his recorder and generally being happy about the situation that he finds himself in. These two personalities immediately come into conflict providing some of the best moments in the history of Doctor Who as they play off eachother perfectly, making this a serial to remember throughout the years as we hit the 10th anniversary of Doctor Who.
And so all good things must come to an end. This Doctor, as played by Patrick Troughton, burst into a dying series, bringing it life and energy, completely revitalising it for a new era. But time has caught up with him, time lords to be precise. They have put the Doctor on trial for his meddling in the affairs of other planets, and so he is forced to prove himself. He shows us clips of monsters from the past: Quarks, Yeti, Ice Warriors, Cybermen, and the Daleks. As an audience, we not only see the reasons why the Doctor should continue, but also why this era was so great. All of these memories come flooding back of fun adventures that we've had battling monsters. From The Dominators, which brought so much unintended hilarity to The Web of Fear showing us true suspense. From The Ice Warriors and the instantly memorable and enjoyable character to The Invasion and an instantly memorable villain. And finally we remember Power of the Daleks, where we first met this Doctor, and we learnt the true meaning of perfection, as we got to witness what is probably the best Doctor Who story of all time.
But as the memories flood back, so they must fade away. Jamie and Zoe are consigned to forget about the TARDIS, and their adventures with the Doctor. This is one of the saddest things ever to occur in all of Who. We realise that Jamie won't remember the relationship that he built up with his best friend, or the heroics that he performed by fighting all manner of outer space villainy. Similarly, we realise that Zoe is doomed to return to her vaguely oppressive regime, and that she will have no idea as to what happened with her friends Jamie and the Doctor. I cried at this bit. Because my favourite characters have been forced to stop, and so we lose the friendship that they developed.
And the Doctor is exiled to Earth, forced to change his appearance. If the previous regeneration was all about confusion, this one is about fear. We don't know what will happen now. We don't know who the Doctor will be. All we know is that the show will change completely. But unlike before, where we were ready for a change, this time we were perfectly happy to stay. But times must change, and so does the Doctor, as we remember that We've Got Work To Do.
And things continue to change in Doctor Who as Troughton is forced to call for help. The task has become too large for him and he needs help from these Time Lords to solve the problem which he finds himself in. It's unlike anything that we've seen this Doctor do before, we've known him as the mercurial man who comes around and fixes things, and now he has been forced to call for help. But the Time Lords obviously have problems with the Doctor, which means that they chase him and attempt to capture him. And in one of the most surreal and spectacular cliffhangers in the series, the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe run towards the TARDIS as time begins to slow around them. Hats off certainly go to everyone involved in this, for realising how this 10 part epic can't just end like any other episode. It needs to be a spectacular ending to reflect the spectacular nature of this story, so well done to Dicks, Hulke, Maloney and Sherwin for their work on this story. It shows the God-like powers of these Time Lords, and sets up what will be an amazing and truly game changing final episode of The War Games
Time Lord. Two simple words that will grow to mean so much, and they're finally uttered here. It's a chilling moment because we get glimpses of the Doctor's past. We realise that the War Chief recognises him as a fellow member of his race. And most importantly of all, the series acknowledges his past. We find out that the Doctor is a fugitive, and that he ran away from his people. This may have been mentioned in earlier stories, but we have to remember the number at the top of this post: 251. That's how long it's been for the series to finally get around to acknowledge the history and begin to explain what happened before we met the Doctor. And this isn't the hints that we'v received in previous stories, this is full on explanations of the sort of things that happened. Clearly, Doctor Who has now crossed a threshold. There is now no going back, and the series will never be the same again.
Day 250. "How are you going to spend your post for Day 250?", I hear you ask. Will you do a retrospective on how far we've come? A piece about how you are now beginning to associate moments of your life over the past 3/4 of a year with 1960s Doctor Who episodes? Or are you just going to talk about Philip Madoc?
Well, Madoc is a wonderful actor. Remember when I did The Invasion, and every other entry was about how brilliant Kevin Stoney is as Tobias Vaughn? Well Madoc is possibly better than Stoney, because of the menace with which he operates. Madoc stays still, relying on his ability to stare down anything that comes in his way. He exudes menace, as the audience is left in his complete power. Whereas Stoney was a joy to watch because he was an incredibly enjoyable villain, here we don't so much get enjoyment as we get fear. Pure unadulterated fear from a man staring at you.
There's a remarkably nice scene that features Troughton in this episode. Not that one though, his son, David Troughton. He is holding one of the aliens hostage, and performs his role well. He exists to be used, to be hypnotised and forced to fight his fellow resistance members. It's a well directed and written scene, in particular the end which features him shooting his captive just as his captive has taken control. It shows how tense the story is when the viewer is fully left with the impression that the story will go in a new direction after this point, and the sight of seeing the officer straighten up as he is shot comes as such a relief to the viewer that, even though the plot hasn't moved forward, we still feel just as invested in the story.
This is the episode wherein not much should happen. We're now too far away from the beginning of the story for us to receive set-up and we're too far away from the end to receive much conclusion, meaning that we are instead left with the plot continuing to move along without introducing too much. And yet, whilst the above is true, there is still stuff happening. We get hints of how the villains are carrying out their scheme, about how they are using time travel with the help of someone who apparently knows the Doctor. And most importantly of all, we get to see the War Chief (who has provided them with the time travel technology) and the Security Chief (one of the aliens who has presumably been in this from the beginning) fight it out. Their tension is spellbinding, and it provides the ultimate contrast to The Dominators, where the tension between villains there bordered on the ridiculous. Here, we see these two villains get cross at each other, whilst the audience recognises that they are both powerful. We are so drawn to their fighting that we have to tune in the following week, to just see how their relationship will develop.
We settle, as an audience, into how this is all going to play out. The Doctor and Zoe are undercover listening to a lecture delivered by one of the alien scientists. Lieutenant Carstairs, an ally of the Doctor's, is brought out and re-programmed, essentially being hypnotised again. He recognises the Doctor and Zoe, but not as friends, instead as the enemy, in line with the way in which they were treated when he first encountered them in Episode 1. And as an audience, we expect that this will lead to them being captured and incarcerated for much of the next episode. Instead, it's dismissed. It's a surprising turn in this story and refreshing to see that the villains have enough sense to require sufficient evidence before jumping to conclusions. Hats off again to Hulke and Dicks for taking a plot mechanism and subverting it, keeping The War Games completely fresh.
But something goes wrong. A man, who we've seen previously to appear to be in charge, looks at the Doctor. Recognition goes across his face. Fear goes across the Doctor's face. The true cliff-hanger to this story is not Carstairs holding a gun to Zoe, instead it is this moment. Suddenly, the audience gets a sense that everything is about to change impossibly.
One of the best things about The War Games comes about because of the circumstances under which it was written. Doctor Who's previous producer, Peter Bryant, did not have the best of luck when it came to producing Doctor Who, meaning that several stories fell through and other stories would have to be lengthened to conpensate. Which meant that the new script editor, Terrance Dicks, was left with the commission of a four part serial that was quickly extended to a ten part serial. How does he, along with the other writer of this serial Malcolm Hulke, write such a piece? By eking out the plot such that we are drip fed each new bit of information which changes the entire way in which the story is moving along. Take, for instance, the plot as it stands. We have the Doctor and co. arriving in World War One, then discovering that a General is hypnotising the troops, then we discover that the General has futuristic technlogies, then we discover that there's more than one war occurring in this place ie there's also the American Civil War and a Roman battallion amongst others. And finally in this episode we meet the people who appear to be in charge of the whole thing, but we still don't know their motives or their true powers. This could have all been told in one episode, but by stretching it out to three all of these revelations are allowed to be brought to their true size and we get a strong sense of the scale of the events. It's a strong benefit of the longer form of storytelling and one that puts The War Games in good stead.
I'm a great believer in the proverb that states that when you embark on a great journey, you do not look ahead to what you are yet to complete, instead look at what you have already achieved. It's something along this lines that we'll be dealing with here. The character of Jamie has certainly developed since we encountered him for the first time all the way back in The Highlanders Episode 1 He's become a far more well rounded character. Previously, he would jump into fights and that's it. He was a simpler character, essentially bound within the confines of the four episode story in which he was introduced. and yet he is able to break free of these bonds and join the TARDIS. In doing so, he becomes far more likeable, as well as clever. When he meets a Redcoat in this episode, his primary function is not to fight him but to interrogate him to discover more about his predicament. Similarly, he doesn't get out of his gaol cell by just fighting the guards, he uses cunning to escape. All in all, it's a remarkable development for this McCrimmon, showing that as far as Highlanders go, there can be only one.
"No bug-eyed monsters!" I am grateful and no not just because Facebook has recently undergone the spam email plague that I though would have passed by 2005 and hence suggests that I should (mini rant over), but because this command, these mere three words has dramatically augmented my life.
This instruction by Sydney Newman ordered that "Doctor Who" move from sludgy cesspit of 50's pulp sci-fi into what we genre nerds refer to as "The Golden Age". But how, you ask, has this changed my life? Whilst this rule was quickly transgressed with the introduction of the Daleks, the tone set here was for the writers to write sophisticated and mature stories; essentially minus femme fatales, strong male heros and minority inspired villains; and this is why the Space Pirates exists and yes, despite the fact I've attempted to drag it through a lot of mud and faeces (I'll leave it up to you to figure out what faeces I'm referring to) I am truly grateful it exists.
In this, the last episode we see a far more engaging side of the story in which real characterisation shines through and the characters such as Clancey, Madeleine and our beloved Doctor begin being people and not rigid, bumbling, expositionals that have been set up so far (mind the neologism). Watching (well mostly listening) Madeleine performing a functional role other than the previously discussed standard 'I will do anything for X, but I won't do that' morality crisis changes the dynamic and evokes some genuine emotion from both the other characters and the responder. Yes Milo remained a bumbling idiot but the man performs under pressure, he is capable of shifting the tone of the story into action and forces the Doctor back his continually innovative, deus ex machina-y self, having to fix a spaceship, and defuse a nuclear war head all in under an hour (yeah I'm pretty sure that's more than the sum total of the previous 5 episodes) . I seriously believed the writers didn't want to write this or felt that a shorter format may have been better with such and adventurous tale.
Now back to being grateful. The dialogue we see here is of the calibre that make a decent Doctor Who episode, the suspense is held well in the music and the characterisations are comparitive to other more modern narratives of the same thread such as the previously mentioned "Firefly". For I feel this episode may have been the inspiration, well the base inspiration came from some absolute tripe pulp sci-fi but this story told in this much more mature format is, as far as I can find, the earliest big example of a space western. The Space Pirates sets the tropes of the subgenre, it has taken trash and made it gold, so I can now go and read "Neuromancer" whilst watching the Serenity blast across one screen and a Zurg rush occur across the other all because of the critical foundations set by this story, in part inspired by those three words.
Some of the greatest (and my favourite) exemplars of science fictions are at least in part space westerns, the genre as it is today and my love for it (including Doctor Who) would not have congealed in this way had it not been for the development of this particular subgenre, which is why this story annoyed me so much at the beginning, but as it progressed and it's strengths appeared I could see the importance of this story. It's kind of funny how Doctor Who inspired me to watch Doctor Who, how very fitting.
Unfortunately all this must be disregarded for I was wrong, I was terribly, terribly wrong...
...For Clancy is a far better analogue to Jar Jar Binks.
Well, I'm back. I'd like to begin this entry by thanking Mitch for all that he did over the course of the couple of days. Readers of this blog will not be aware that for reasons that I won't go into, Mitch was called into the same Robogals trip that I was at short notice, meaning that he was watching The Space Pirates in hotel rooms with poor internet (hence why he wasn't able to post episode 5 on the right day and is still yet to post something about episode 6). So once again, thanks Mitch, although The Phantom Menace is still a criminally underrated film.
So, The War Games. There is so much in here that I feel that any attempt to speak about how excellent episode 1 is will pale in comparison to the sheer brilliance of the actual product. Scene setting is done through actions, not through words. We know that there's some mystery occurring but we've got too little of it to actually know what it is exactly, meaning that the viewer has to tune in next week to find out what's going on, especially given the shocking cliffhanger at the end of the episode.
But there's one thing that caught my eye in this. Written on a wall, barely noticeable, is the phrase "Roll on death, demobs too far away", roughly meaning that the soldiers in the WW1 trenches in which this story takes place are ready to die, because of the fact that no help is going to come and they're never going to get out of this mess. It perfectly illustrates the climate in which this story is set and serves as a premonition of the story that is to come...
I open this evening with two apologies. The first is my failure to post last night which occurred due to some extenuating circumstances that have transpired over the past few day. The second is an apology to Thomas for what you're about to read.
Here I feel much more comfortable, the Doctor, when imprisoned, leaps into the usual Macgyver-esque solution whilst supplying us with that old-timey Brit wit and humour. I say this is comforting because it is the one part of the episode that whilst being samey is different. The quirkiness of the doctor actually forced a smile and made the dwindling fire flicker a little brighter and seeing that superconducting brain strategies is close to pure beauty, let's be honest. Unfortunately this does not correct the problem at hand, this continue to build on the aforementioned correlative where a Mr Hatt supplements the story with cute British quirks, more on this in a moment.
The final point I'd like to raise is the villains scheme, which sees the Doctor once again being placed in mortal cliffhanging danger, yep sounds like we have all the pieces in place for an episode... another generic episode. The train of progression is stunted by the box car of the expected, which I feel is the key here, as stated this may be a matter of perspective but alas I feel this may not be the case. Again this simile to tank engines inspires a further comparison in regards to the generic, a how to in the creation of standard and repetitive fictions.
So now on my the big moment, my concluding comparison, as whilst this episode present a change from the set standard of "Not a lot" (self quote boom!), the resounding ehh that results draws me to analogue with Thomas the Tank Engine. For the severe lack of repeatability and lack of any emotion makes me feel like the writer just didn't care and this trickles down the production line. Which is, OF COURSE, the antithesis of Thomas the Tank Engine. Perhaps in my last guest appearance I'll get down to proper analysis, though alas I feel the un-inspiration of this narrative is somewhat contagious and the continued lack of innovation is infectious that may continue to plague me, but hey, I'm trying here!
