Day 529: The Leisure Hive Part 4

So the story has come to an end. The ending feels a little rushed, to be honest. There's an impressive scene where Pangol creates his army of clones, and a strong sense of dread created as we slowly realise that nothing can possibly save us now, topped off by the fact that he immediately kills some friendly Foamasi thus provoking war between the two species. But, the day has already been saved, as we learn that the clones are of the Doctor and that they're disintegrating rapidly. It feels a bit of a cheat to have everything sort itself out from that point onwards, not least because we cut from Pangol being impressed with his achievements to being stressed that his plan has failed.

But on the whole, this has been a remarkably enjoyable story, and I can say with certainty that, on the basis of The Leisure Hive, we look as if we're in safe hands for the forseeable future.

Day 528: The Leisure Hive Part 3

I've seen this story before. Well, sort of. It was repeated when I was around the age of 10 or 11, and I distinctly remember watching it at that time. Unfortunately, I had a school excursion to go on during the week in which it was broadcast, and so I missed around half of the story, so my recollections of it are vague. But, there were a few things that I recalled, such as the villain, the Doctor becoming ancient due to a mishap with a temporal experiment, and the basic design of the monsters, known as the Foamasi. So I sat down to this story expecting everything to play out as I thought it would.

I expected, for instance, that the major revelation that would take place in this story revolved around the villain's plan, which we later learnt is to do with cloning. My projection for the rest of the episode revolved around the Foamasi beginning their attack and the cliffhanger in particular would be the revelation of the Foamasi in full costume (they have been spending the rest of the story hiding from full view). So when we discover that the Foamasi don't seem to be that nasty, my interest was piqued. I'd seriously not expected this development, and I now had to re-think my thoughts about how the rest of the story would play out.

This was not the only surprise, however, as the cliffhanger proved. The Foamasi begin to advance on one of the humans on the planet Argolis, Brock, and begin to menace him. As a viewer, I expected him to be killed, and for the Foamasi to move on to another target. What I wasn't expecting, however, was for the Foamasi to reveal that Brock was in fact wearing a disguise and that he was actually a Foamasi. I was mightily confused, mainly through the swift editing used by Lovett Bickford in order to create more action, as well as the fact that the Foamasi head is quite clearly larger than a human's head, raising the question of how he was able to fit inside the costume. But these things fall by the wayside for what is, in fact, an absolutely brilliant cliffhanger. It's purpose is to provide enough new information as to change the direction of the story, something it clearly succeeds in doing. It also succeeds in terms of shock, as this is clearly not something that the viewer would necessarily expect to happen, and thus it sticks in the mind as a defining moment of this story.

So I'm actually kind of glad that I missed the last half of this when I first watched this. Because it meant that I was more inclined to let my guard down, and actually be completely thrown for a loop by a cliffhanger, that makes me want to watch the conclusion more than ever.

Day 527: The Leisure Hive Part 2

Another short blog today, as I'm busy staring at a series of laboratory results desperately trying to figure out how Physics works. But funnily enough science is key to my entry today. The new script editor is a chap called Christopher H Bidmead, a writer with a keen scientific eye, having previously contributed articles to New Scientist. As such, various scenes over the next year or so will be more scientific than usual, such as a scene in this episode where we do an experiment in tachyonics. This consist mainly of Romana working with another scientist as they try to make the sand in an hourglass flow backwards. The main flow of the scene is them staring at the glass, turning the power up, staring at the glass again, and so on. It's actually rather gripping, half because it's well put together by Lovett Bickford, but also because it's all about science, and the thrill of trying something new in order to achieve results. So as I stare at my relfection coefficients and try various techniques in order to get an answer that is scientifically viable, I'll think of The Leisure Hive and how they were able to, for a moment, turn back time.

Day 526: The Leisure Hive Part 1

The Leisure Hive is the start of a new era. New producer, new script editor, new director, new music, new title sequence, everything feels new. And it certainly shows on camera. The director, Lovett Bickford, instantly sets himself apart from virtually every single director before him, mainly through his innovative use of scene transitions. We have one corridor scene that is spiced up by having the characters walk towards the camera, before their bodies obstruct the camera's view, such that when we can see again, the camera has switched positions and we are now seeing them walk away from the camera. It's a simple camera trick, but effective. Similarly effective is the cliffhanger, where the Doctor appears to have been dismembered. We watch this on a screen, and as the cliffhanger approaches, the screen zooms in on the Doctor's face. This is all fairly normal, however what makes it interesting is the fact that the camera also zooms in on the screen at the same time, making the zoom appear quicker and more violent as we zoom in on the Doctor's face. We then immediately cut to the credits, with a harshness that leaves the viewer shocked and slightly disoriented. It's one of a number of things that feels new about the series, now that a breath of fresh air has been blown into it, giving us something truly memorable as a result.