Day 122: The Savages Episode 4

Another serial ends today. And with it, we see another departure, this time of Steven, the Doctor's faithful companion, as played by Peter Purves. Steven has been a very good companion, because of the way he plays off against the Doctor. He is not willing to just let this man with far greater experience take control, he wants to have a say and he provides an opposing force to the Doctor's world, yet one still on the same side. In a way though, his departure feels cheapened, because it should have happened earlier. This is nothing against the character or the actor, but from The Myth Makers to The Massacre, Steven witnessed people dying left, right and centre and was unable to help them. He fought with the Doctor on this issue and left the TARDIS, only to return a little while later for no apparent reason. Which is very disappointing, because it means that the character is left in stasis for the rest of his adventures, accepting his role in events as an occasionally active observer, and thus we don't get to see the bright spark that we witnessed earlier in his tenure. But he has left now to use his wisdom to guide a society and help it back on its feet. This, while not the best exit for the character, isn't too bad of an idea, because he is the character who has learnt the most from the Doctor, the one who has taken on his wisdom and will now go forth to help others find their feet. Meanwhile, other changes are afoot, and we shall see what happens with them very soon.

Day 121: The Savages Episode 3

For the first time in a while (read: I can't be bothered to look it up) we are in a Doctor Who story where nobody dies. Stuff happens to people yes, and there are threats that we know will be carried up on regarding life-force energy, and yet nobody dies. This is interesting, because it has no impact on the story's quality at all. Death does not indicate terror, nor does it lead to fear. This story is quite good at ratcheting up tension despite the fact that death is not an option, instead it is forced to be more creative with its punishments. Take for instance, seeing the Doctor reduced to a grunting vegetable when we see him after he has been drained of energy. It's an uncomfortable image because we are seeing this character whom we trust and like reduced to complete helplessness, and we know instinctively that there may be no way out of this. Death is not required to create horror, sometimes it can be created through more undignified concepts, like a lack of death, just doomed to wander around without your senses for all eternity.

Day 120: The Savages Episode 2

The Savages is an odd story. This is because it is both unremarkable, and completely remarkable. On the one hand, the story seems relentlessly familiar: the TARDIS crew arrives on an alien world where a society seems to be perfectly kind, until a dark secret is revealed: they are exploiting lower class members of their race for their own personal gain! It feels clichéd, as an audience we are now used to walking into scenarios and thinking that 'Things are not as they seem'. And yet, it somehow works. Each character is well written by Ian Stuart Black, such that their motivations are made clear and we are able to connect with them. The way that things are treated is also of note, it's not mad scientists working in labs, a hidden dark secret, instead it's just some average people who happen to take people's life force away from them. And while the story is well written and presumably well directed, it is still tricky to get away from the fact that the story just feels clichéd. It's not a bad story, it's just one that's unremarkable.

Day 119: The Savages Episode 1

Once again, the Doctor is already known to the people of this planet. Which is remarkably interesting, because previously the Doctor has only been known to a handful of species, mainly those with less than kind intentions. But these people appear to be benevolent, and hold no grudge against the Doctor, they are, in effect, the first Doctor Who fans, keen to hear his opinions on their society for he is a well respected individual. And from now on, things will be slightly different. A precedent has been set for the Doctor's actions to not just have consequences for villainous empires that he has toppled, but also for observers of his work, and this means that he is making an impact within the course of the history of the universe. It draws to mind the outcome of The Wedding of River Song, where the Doctor resolves to remove himself from history, and to not be noticed as much. Because we've now been introduced to a story where a known figure is called in to fix things, but the story of the unknown man who travels in a magic box who travels to places and goes on an adventure is far more interesting. But we'll see how this story unfolds first, realising that with every first must come a last.

Day 118: The OK Corral

This episode sees the departure of something that has been with us since this blog started: individual episode titles. Whereas before if you looked at the title of each entry and it would read Day 118: The OK Corral, from now on, it will read things like Day 119: The Savages Episode 1. This is both a good and a bad thing. On the one hand, it makes it easier from a production viewpoint, it will now be easier to distinguish between stories, now that an element of organisation has been introduced. On the other hand though, the individual titles brought an element of excitement to the series, and we are now missing the minor beauties of some of the titles, which will now be replaced with some more generic pieces. But here are some of my favourites:

The Day of Darkness has some nice imagery, which also draws attention to how tonally dark the story of The Aztecs is, while A Race Against Death brings a hefty amount of excitement to The Sensorites. Some say that The Sensorites is quite a dull story, but you can't really say that about its titles. The End of Tomorrow brings to mind the depressing nature of Dalek Invasion of Earth, as it shows that the perfect images of the future aren't the only things we'll get in these serials. The Dimensions of Time shows us the wonderfully temporal nature of The Space Museum, even if future stories with the words Dimensions and Time may not fare so well. The Death of Time and Flight Through Eternity are also wonderfully evocative examples of the oddball nature of The Chase. Small Prophet, Quick Return is a wonderful pun from The Myth Makers, although the rejected title of Is There a Doctor in the Horse? is admittedly far better. The Feast of Steven brings the fun nature of the show's Christmas episode to mind by giving us another gag. The Steel Sky brings a sense of wonder to The Ark and A Holiday for the Doctor is yet another great joke from Donald Cotton. But to finish this entry off, it's worth mentioning the first episode: An Unearthly Child. Evocative, with a helpful dash of curiosity as to what the show's about, it brought us this wonderful programme that is Doctor Who.

Day 117: Johnny Ringo

For best results with this blog, it is perhaps wisest to watch the video on the right before reading the entry.

So welcome to this blog

You haven't clicked wrong

This entry will be written

In the form of a song

But why has this fellow

Started to croon?

It's because this song is the Ballad

Of the Last Chance Saloon.

The Gunfighters features

A song that's throughout

It informs the viewers

What the story's about

But does it make the story

Better or worse?

I guess that we'll find out

Within the next verse.

It makes these episodes

Feel fake and unreal

In real life we don't need

A song to tell us to feel

It's kind of annoying,

It intrudes on the plot

Does it improve this story?

Some say it does not

But in my opinion,

The song is quite good

It gives you a change

From a normal story's mood

It juxtaposes death

With a jolly tune

That's why I am quite fond of

The Last Chance Saloon.

Day 116: Don't Shoot the Pianist

So this story is set in the genre of Western, a genre familiar to viewers of the time. This story, first broadcast in 1966, is in a time when audiences were enjoying adventures in the Wild West, most of which were American imports. So the audiences are watching this with prior knowledge of the tropes and natures of Western adventures, however it was actually poorly received at the time. There are several reasons as to why this could be. The stock response is to say that the reason why people said that it was bad is because it is bad. This is wrong, because it's actually a very funny script that's had some excellent direction from Rex Tucker, although some of the accents leave much to be desired. Another reason could be that audiences are snobby, as this serial is one of, if not the, first British productions in the Western genre. The audiences of the day would be used to the American serials, and so there could be some disappointment if the production values didn't meet their high standards for drama production. Then again, a couple of weeks ago we had monsters whose defining characteristic was that they had Beatle wigs and a singular eye made from a ping pong ball, so production values aren't probably on the viewers' mind. The key reason is probably at the top of this entry, where it states Day 116. 116 episodes of Doctor Who so far, and although it visits varying locations, and meets varying people and aliens, it is getting a bit old. It signals that perhaps it's time for a change, and not just in terms of production, but in something far more visible.

Day 115: A Holiday for the Doctor

It's another comedy episode as we delve once again into historical events with Donald Cotton (The Myth Makers) but instead of meeting the Ancient Greeks, today we meet cowboys. Now, this is a concept that I've possibly mentioned before, but this is an example of Doctor Who acting as a genre machine. In case I haven't mentioned it before, or you don't want to trawl through 114 posts to find an explanation for this term, then I'll explain. The TARDIS travels through time and space, and it takes its travellers on adventures. These adventures are, for the most part, different from the previous week's. Take for example going from a historical comedy with The Myth Makers, to a science fiction epic with The Daleks' Master Plan to historical drama with The Massacre after which there is a simple space adventure in The Ark and a fantasy game show in The Celestial Toymaker. Through looking at these varied genres, we can see that Doctor Who is a show where we travel to different genres, a genre machine. So why, I hear you ask, is a historical comedy so important for you to mention it here? Well, for a start, it's because it acts as a break from the high stakes adventures that we've had, the characters are allowed to relax and jokes can occur. It also means that the show remains fresh because the average viewing audience will have only recently finished watching 21 weeks of adventure, most of which ended with death and destruction. We've had 8 weeks of progressively nicer stuff, where things are finally allowed to get better for the TARDIS crew, and so a historical comedy is a natural continuation of this, because it has been the peak moment in past times for the crew to be at their happiest. Although, things will get worse quickly, and soon there'll be blood upon the sawdust at The Last Chance Saloon.

Day 114: The Final Test

The final game that Steven and Dodo are put through is a twisted version of Snakes and Ladders, with electrified floors and the like. However, there is a major problem with this, in that there is no strategy to be had with Snakes and Ladders, it is instead a game of chance. It's why their opponent comes across so well here, because even though he blatantly cheats and causes problems for the two companions, he is attempting to implement some sort of strategy. He has spotted the trick to winning the game, not to play by the rules, but to amend them as you go to allow for a more fun experience. In some ways, this sums up the complete adventure, The Celestial Toymaker. It is an adventure where rules are set out, and the outcome is often left to chance more than our heroes' intelligence. And whilst the adventure is reasonably entertaining, you are left empty inside, because our heroes didn't do anything interesting, they just took part in things that seem interesting, but they have no impact on the eventual outcome. Like Snakes and Ladders, it may seem like a cool game to play, but when you realise that there's no strategy to it, it loses its charm.

Meanwhile, the Trilogic game is incredibly interesting, and I will come back to that in the future. Yes, I know that tomorrow I'm going to start a new adventure, and the Trilogic game doesn't appear at all in the future of Doctor Who, but at some point in the future, there will be something on this blog about the Trilogic game. As for now, We've still Got Work To Do.

Day 113: The Dancing Floor

The Doctor is barely in this one, reduced to a hand moving game pieces across a puzzle. The story behind why this is happening is actually quite interesting. William Hartnell is not a well man, and he is also not getting along with his producer John Wiles, who is reducing Hartnell's role in the series because it is becoming more and more apparent that he is unable to cope with the making the show. And so, when this story came about, it was suggested that the Doctor would reappear with a new face, allowing Hartnell to be quietly written out of the programme. This was vetoed by the head of serials at the BBC, and thus John Wiles left the series in protest. On the one hand, you can see why they kicked him out, because he was being unfair to this older actor, who was actually capable, it was just that his health was failing him. But that doesn't mean that he was wrong, because the problem was still there of a show that had a protagonist who was not in his best of health. This is still an issue, and it needs to be addressed quite soon.

Meanwhile, because I feel that I never properly said so, I would like to say farewell to John Wiles. He's overseen some very good stories in his tenure, although to be honest he was given the unworkable brief of a 12 part Dalek serial, and his tenure was unfortunately short due to the aforementioned Hartnell problem. Yet, he still managed to pull things off and produce some fine television. It's a shame that his era remains mostly missing from the BBC archives, as an awful lot of it is absolutely brilliant, leading the programme into a slightly darker time.

Day 112: The Hall of Dolls

The annoying thing about this episode is that, for the interesting idea of having to play games for an omnipotent being in order to fight for your freedom, the programme fails to do anything unique with it over the course of the episodes, which is to say, it follows the same pattern as the last episode. Steven and Dodo play a game against the Toymaker's playthings. They win the game, but their TARDIS is in another castle, amd so they must continue onto the next game. Meanwhile, the Doctor annoys the Toymaker by continuing to solve the puzzle of the Trilogic game. Granted, there are some differences between this episode and the last, such as in the portrayal of the Toymaker's minions. In The Celestial Toyroom, they were evil little people who created mischief and cheated at every turn. This episode, the new minions are slightly nicer, although there is a strain of evil within them, as they try and get others to potentially commit suicide before them in order to further their goals. But the crux of the matter is that the same structure has been used for the past two episodes, and I can pretty much guarantee that it will be used for the next two as well. It's not looking good for this story so far...

Day 111: The Celestial Toyroom

A new serial brings with it a new nemesis, this time The Celestial Toymaker. He's introduced as something that we've never really seen before, a character with godlike powers who has captured the TARDIS crew. And not only that, but he's captured them presumably in order to meet the Doctor again, and to beat him in his twisted games. This whole fantasy like concept, with godlike creatures and deadly parlour games is a realm that Doctor Who has never travelled to, although it possibly should have. When the series was first proposed, it was deemed that there would by three possibilities for story ideas: trips to the past, trips to the future/alien worlds and 'side trips' where odd things would happen to the TARDIS crew, such as being shrunk down, or driven insane by the TARDIS going faulty. Here, we get what is arguably the third of these 'side trips', with a weird fantasy world and an all-powerful game player behind it all and it becomes apparent to see why these concepts haven't really occurred in Doctor Who before. It has previously been a show that, despite the science fiction elements, has had a degree of possibility and rational explanation behind it. Here, we've broken the rules and can do whatever we like because we're in fantasy land now, and we don't need things like rationality for us. It's an interesting experiment, and we'll see how it plays out over the course of the next couple of episodes.

Day 110: The Bomb

It's worth mentioning our latest companion, Dodo. She's a modern girl who joined the TARDIS rather unexpectedly at the end of The Massacre and this acts as her first story. Her first scene in The Massacre, is unfortunately, awful. She comes across as annoying and her character doesn't do anything towards the continuation of the series. Susan represented an unearthly quality, Vicki gave us youth, Katarina had innocence and Sara gave the series action. And that's the really annoying thing about Dodo, which is that she was a character with strong potential. She could have represented the young people of the day, but instead she becomes an average companion with no real special qualities that are exhibited within her first couple of episodes, at least. Hopefully she'll improve, otherwise her character will remain as dead as her namesake.

Day 109: The Return

But another aspect of why the last episode's cliffhanger is so important and mindblowing is the way that it deals with cause and effect. Doctor Who is generally consisting of standalone episodes, where one plot has little to no impact on the next, save for a handful of mentions of previous adventures and stories featuring either the Daleks or The Meddling Monk. But even then, it is not direct effect that we are concerned with, only mild repurcussions from previous stories, but here the effect is far greater and more visible. It is entirely through the Doctor and co.'s influence that the events of this story have led to the conclusion. It is thanks to Dodo's cold that the humans suffered an illness from which they lost much of their willpower, allowing the Monoids to take over. We've come a long way from not being able to change history, as here the time travellers have actively changes the future. But this comes back to the constant quandary, of how much the Doctor's place in events shape the course of history, because if he's accidentally started a revolution with a cold, then what other changes through history have been created by the intrepid TARDIS crew?

Day 108: The Plague

The important thing about this episode is its cliffhanger. The way that Doctor Who functions as a weekly serial means that we will often not know when one story will finish, it could be a short 2 part adventure or a massive 12 part epic. As we reach the end of this episode, all plotlines have been wrapped up and we have finished our little adventure in The Ark, and so we go on our way. Which makes it interesting when the TARDIS arrives in the exact same set from where it left off, and as they go through the spaceship, knowing that they have arrived at a point in the future of the spaceship, they discover that the Monoids, the race who they co-inhabit the ship with, have taken over as the master race. This is a brilliant cliffhanger because it plays with our notions of how Doctor Who works. We know that when we finish a story, the story remains finished, and we go off on our next adventure in time and space, but to show that the story hasn't quite completed yet leaves a massive surprise for the audience, because it shows that the unexpected has occurred, both on-screen with an unforeseen uprising and off-screen with an unforeseen continuation of the storyline.

Day 107: The Steel Sky

We've arrived on a space ship 10,000,000 years into the future, who are escaping Earth as it's going to be destroyed quite soon. However, the Doctor and co., or more specifically our newest companion, Dodo, has given the ship a cold, which is causing them all to die out due to their lack of immunity to this disease. It's an interesting idea, where we acknowledge that in the future, we are deemed to forget our past, and with it the lessons that we learnt then when we were more foolish. But then again, this message is inherently flawed. Because, for a start, this society seems more enlightened, they appear to have achieved racial harmony with another species on their vessel, the Monoids, and for the first time in a while, their leader seems to be open, and indeed welcoming, towards the idea that time travellers are making a visit. Also, there is the fact that sometimes, we have to face the fact that history has been going on for a while and sometimes we need to acknowledge that we will forget the past, mainly because it happened a while ago. Ask yourself whether you are aware of events that took place 10,000,000 years ago. Either you don't know what was happening then, or what was happening eas far too primitive for us to learn much from that period. Which begs the question, which is what do we look like to them? We might think of ourselves as reasonably sophisticated, but we must be cavemen to the people living here, 10,000,000 years hence.

Day 106: Bell of Doom

There are some things that are amongst the most terrible things in the universe, like what happened in this episode: on the 24th of August, 1572, there was an authorized massacre of the Huguenot population living in Paris, after tensions between the Huguenots and the Catholics reached fever pitch, and a series of events sparked the mass murder of about 10,000 people. And meanwhile, the Doctor has found Steven, and sends Steven's young companion, Anne Chaplet, off to leave Paris immediately. We do not know what happens to Anne. We can only assume that she didn't make it. In another story, this would be a hidden detail, glossed over. But today is different. Steven has witnessed a lot over the past couple of stories. People who he has known and grown to trust have been murdered or destroyed before his very eyes, and today he witnessed the Doctor, the man who he trusts more than any other, send a young girl off to certain doom. 

For the fourth story in a row, we witness as thousands of people die before our eyes. For a story that focuses so much on tensions between people of faith, it is interesting that here we lose our faith in the Doctor. He had to let history run its course, and in doing so, he, as well as Steven and the audience at home, are forced to witness the consequences of his inactions, death and destruction. And the death and destruction of a young serving girl. We've had enough, we can't take it any more, we want to leave. And so we do, like Steven, leave the TARDIS, never to come back. We leave the old man in his magic box, as he contemplates the past 106 episodes. He's met two schoolteachers, who taught him compassion, Susan who gave him something to care about, Vicki who brought so much fun, and Steven, with whom he had a strong mutual trust. But that's all over now.

And then a young girl bursts into the TARDIS, full of energy and stupidity. She doesn't realise where she is, she doesn't realise what the hell is going on, but she doesn't care. And Steven returns, because to warn the Doctor of the fact that some policemen are coming to inspect the police box shaped TARDIS and the Doctor is forced to leave, with Steven and this impossible young girl. The young girl's name? Dodo Chaplet. Like Anne Chaplet. There's a possibility that Anne survived. There's hope that things turned out for the best. There is hope that the Doctor isn't a man who sends young girls to their death, instead he sends them to their life. For the first time in what feels like an age, we have hope. And that is one of the most beautiful things in the universe.

Day 105: Priest of Death

The Doctor, as mentioned in the last entry, is not present for these two episodes. This isn't the first time that this has happened, we've had the Doctor be off-screen before, but they've normally featured an absence of William Hartnell as well, however he is present throughout this story. He doesn't play the Doctor, instead he is the villainous Abbot of Amboise. It's a shame that this episode is not currently present in the BBC archives, as it would be a joy to observe Hartnell's performance in another role, and to see how he made the two characters distinctly different, because Hartnell is a good actor, and he would have made them both distinct characters. But the key thing to notice here is the way that the issue of the doppelgänger is addressed. The audience knows that the Doctor is not the Abbot, however Steven doesn't and believes that they are one and the same. So this means that the audience is one step ahead of Steven, and this changes the way that the story is told, allowing for more focus on Steven as he reaches conclusions that are already known, instead of just making it a normal historical adventure. It does have the nasty side effect of changing the impact of this episode's cliffhanger though, which features the body of the Abbot, now deceased, as Steven realises that the Doctor must be dead. But we know that the Doctor isn't dead, and so the shock of this is no longer present, we instead look at Steven's reaction and know that he is wrong, and move on with our lives. But there's another dimension to this, as people are getting blamed for the murder and the Huguenots may be in trouble very soon...

Day 104: The Sea Beggar

This story is a bit Doctor-lite, (we'll focus on what Hartnell is actually doing tomorrow) and as such Steven is forced into the role normally taken by the Doctor. He is the one who is going out and meeting people, and getting himself into historical hijinks. He's even got himself a companion, in the form of Anne Chaplet, a young serving girl. But the problem is, and this is quite a big problem, he's not very good at being the Doctor. There are two reasons for this, one is that he doesn't know things. The Doctor is a man with universal knowledge, and while there are always points where he is able to learn things, he still tends to wards having strong ideas as to what is happening around this time. Steven, on the other hand, comes into this completely blind, with no real idea of what is happening around him. All he knows is that he needs to find the Doctor, but he's not sure of how he's going to do that. The other point of why Steven can't be the Doctor is that he lacks authority. When the Doctor, particularly Hartnell, walks into a room, he is able to take full control, and become a trusted figure quickly. Steven, on the other hand, is losing allies left, right and centre. Everyone that he has met is turning against him because they fell that he is acting against their interests, and whilst he is trying his best to explain to them the truth of the matter, he is failing. Behind the scenes of this period of Doctor Who, it is becoming far more apparent that Hartnell's health is rapidly deteriorating, and the production staff is trying to write him out and find a replacement. If anything, this is showing to them that they can't just promote any character, you need to be special in order to be the Doctor.

Day 103: War of God

We've arrived in 16th century France, a period that is not one of the more commonly known spatial-temporal periods in history, at least to my understanding, but the basics are uncomfortably familiar. The Huguenots are being oppressed by their Catholic overlords, due to them believing slightly different things to eachother. The natural defense to this is subjugation. Which would be funny, if it weren't true, because we know that people all over the world are being subjugated because of their beliefs, their lack of beliefs or indeed just their general way of life. But sometimes, we can find hope. Charles Preslin is a character who was almost certainly invented for this story, but he is important nonetheless. He's an apothecary who is being ridiculed for his work in discovering little creatures that cause illnesses, and he is being shamed for his work. So when he meets the Doctor, he does not wish to see anyone, but upon discovering that work is being done in Germany in order to further develop his research, and that these things will soon have a name, germs, he finds hope. Because sometimes, even in the darkest periods, hope can still be found. Whether it will stay is another matter entirely.