144: Trial of a Timelord: The Mysterious Planet

8/26/08

Wow. Where to start? I'll give a brief rundown of the plot, but there's a lot to say about this one.

The TARDIS is pulled, forcibly, across space and into a space station, where it ejects the Doctor, alone, into a large room, totally dark, with a chair. Across the room, a man greets him and tells him to have a seat. The Doctor is dazed. He doesn't know where he is or how he got there. When he sits, the lights come up and the doors open as an entire jury walks into the room. He is in a courtroom, and he is now on trial by the Timelords for violating their first law, which forbids interference in outside worlds.

To get the full impact of this story, you have to know a little bit about what was going on behind the scenes at this point. I'll talk in much more detail about this when I do my "6th Doctor: A Look Back" in a day or two. Basically, the powers that be at the BBC, mainly the controller, Michael Grade, did not like Colin Baker and did not like the direction the show was going in. He said it was overly violent and thought it to be a waste of time, money, and energy of the BBC. He forced the show to take an 18 month hiatus, and when the show came back in 1986, it was reduced from the standard 26 or 27 episodes to a mere 14. What's more, when the season was finished, Michael Grade had Colin Baker fired. This is also the man, who three years later, canceled Doctor Who, where it would not return to television in series form until a decade and a half later.

So we're going into this knowing that the tone has been dramatically shifted. Things are dark, and Trial of a Timelord is a dark story. It shows all over the place. It's in the stories, it's on the screen, and it's in Colin Baker's performance. Peri is gone. We don't yet know what happened to her. The Doctor is on trial for his life. Things have gotten very, very serious.

So we flashback to what forms the bulk of the story. The Doctor and Peri arrive on a planet called Ravalox, much like Earth, but it's not where Earth should be, so is dismissed as being that planet. But in actuality, it IS Earth. How did it get there, two light years from where it should be? We don't get our answers in this story, but rather, later.

On this planet, the Doctor finds that there were huge fires that drove survivors underground. There, a select few have taken the sacred Three Books of Knowledge (Moby Dick, The Water Babies and UK Habitats of the Canadian Goose) and deified them into holy texts. They do not realize that the fires have abated and have not blazed for hundreds of years, and that now there are whole societies of survivors above ground. They are led by a renegade robot who refuses to believe that life exists above ground.

That's all we get in this story, but I was extremely invested in what must follow. This is only the second time in the history of Doctor Who that a whole season was devoted to one story. The other was the Key to Time series, which starred Tom Baker in the role.

The coolest and best thing about this story is the way that the first episode begins. It's honestly the best visual I've ever seen in Doctor Who, and I'm including the new show too. It resonates with me on so many levels. This is what we see:

We open to cold open space. In the distance is a round space station, very large. The camera zooms toward it, and flies over it's surface. When it gets to the center, it begins to spin around the inner walls of the space station, and the stars in the background begin to spin as well, making for an awesome visual, but it's not over yet. Then, a portal opens and a blue beam of light shoots out, dragging the TARDIS through it. We see the TARDIS as it passes, then the camera follows it down the portal, and then the TARDIS materializes in the space station. It seems so simple on the page, but it's breathtaking to me. It's like the shot of that first Star Destroyer in Star Wars: A New Hope.

I couldn't find a good copy of this scene on youtube, but I found a passable one, which comes from a commercial for the story. It's got overdubs and it's got some annoying video elements, and it's really dark, but you can get the scope of what I'm talking about.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZH2km6b8n44

I left this episode full of questions and with more than a little worry. That's good writing, and that's good storytelling.

I give Trial of a Timelord: The Mysterious Planet a 8/10. I give the first 2 minutes a 10.

143: Revelation of the Daleks

8/26/08

The Doctor and Peri go to a planet called Necros, where the Doctor has heard one of his dear friends is to be laid to rest. What they uncover is a planet where the dead are kept in suspended animation, and where Davros is secretly stealing bodies for experiments to bring back his Daleks.

There's a lot that I like quite a bit about this story, and one thing that makes me violently annoyed. I'll start with the bad first so we can get on to the love fest. They have an idea in this story that while the dead are being kept in suspended animation, they are kept entertained by a DJ who plays them music, news, and commentary. Playing this DJ is Alexi Sayle in the most annoying role this side of Jar Jar Binks. He does most of his dialog in this TERRIBLE American accent with this moronic overtone that hits me on some subconscious level that triggers very violent thoughts. I literally cannot stand to listen to this guy. And some genius decided it would be a good idea to make one of his most annoying clips a loop on the DVD menu. They need to be sacked. Now.

But enough of the negative. This is really a thoughtful episode, and I enjoyed it. We have the return of Davros the Overactor, he who screams his lines. But here's the thing: in this story, he plays at least 80 percent of his performance very subdued, quiet, and reserved. Terry Molloy, the man who gave life to Davros underneath the mask, talks on the bonus features about how nice it was to be able to dial it down and play Davros as a very quiet threat instead of constantly ranting. I can tell you, I really enjoyed it.

Plus, without spoiling things, it's got some pretty gruesome Dalek stuff in it, too. Eric Saward wrote this, and while it's not perfect, it's both thought provoking as well as entertaining. The Daleks are villains that have been used so much that most all of their threat is gone, but we get to see some really creative stuff in this story. I enjoyed it.

I give it a 7/10.

142: Timelash

8/26/08

Timelash finds the Doctor being recruited to retrieve an artifact for a future society who seeks to overthrow their dictator. Along the way, H. G. Wells tags along in his young, pre-writing days, and we find many references to the Third Doctor and companion Jo Grant.

This was alright. I like it a lot when Doctor Who as a show plays with history and goes back to visit historical figures, painting them in a new light. In this case, it is showing H. G. Wells, or Herbert, as he is known here, as a headstrong, overbearing thrill seeker who keeps thrusting himself into adventure just for the experience. We also get to see Paul Darrow of Blake's 7 fame in another Doctor Who role. The man is so easy to dislike!

Not much to say about this one. I give it a 6/10.

141: The Two Doctors

8/26/08

The 2nd Doctor and his companion, the Scottish Highlander Jamie, are taken captive by a duo of unlikely captors. The Sontarans, and the Androgums. The 6th Doctor, sensing something wrong with his past self, travels to uncover the source of the disturbance.

This is the fourth and final appearance of the Sontarans in classic Doctor Who. To me, they looked pretty bad, if I'm being honest. I much preferred the way the Sontarans looked in their past stories. Here, the masks that they wore seemed to be just a hollow rubber mask set atop the actors heads, and they dimple and cave in all the time here. But having said that, it's good to see them again. That's about all I can say is good about this story...

For me, the Second Doctor is fantastic. He's full of wide eyed wonder, innocence, and a likability. Patrick Troughton played him as a sort of intergalactic hobo, his clothes too big, always moving from one place to the next. I love that. But here, Troughton just doesn't get the chance to shine. He is tremendously mishandled and wastefully written by Robert Holmes, perhaps one of the three greatest writers of Doctor Who, along with Eric Saward and Terrance Dicks (a personal preference, mind you). He shines like a diamond in the first 45 minute episode (first of THREE very long 45 minute episodes, I should say) but then is relegated to backgrounds in the second episode and comic relief in the third.

Colin Baker does his thing as he always does, playing the Doctor with a mixture of arrogance and friendliness. The two do not blend well, in my humble estimation. Nor is the story worthy of the two hour plus running time. There is some nice Spanish scenery (this was filmed on location there) and that provides a nice change of pace, but again, the scenery feels mostly wasted to me.
I hate to sound like a naysayer, but I just found very little to like about this episode.

I give it a 5/10. The five points come from the Sontarans and the presence of the ever watchable Patrick Troughton, even though he was misused.

140: Mark of the Rani

8/19/08

Victorian England, during the Industrial Revolution. The Rani, a renegade Timelord, is hiding out and stealing a chemical from the brains of humans for her own experiments. It leaves the humans unable to rest and in a constant manic state. Enter the Master, who has a score to settle with the Doctor and forges an unlikely alliance with the Rani. When you throw the Doctor into the mix, you've got three Timelords playing for three different sides.


Man, I really, really enjoyed this story. It's just beautifully done. I'd say at least 50 percent of it is shot on film, plus the director takes her time establishing shots, and there's some really great cinematography, lending this story a very cinematic, movie like appearance.

Colin Baker actually shines in this episode, and had me smiling at some of the things he said. When the Rani threatens to kill Peri, she says "the girl is of no importance," to which the Doctor replies, "She is to me!"

That's another thing. Peri is really starting to be written well, and shines as her own character, not just as a scream queen, which she still is sometimes. Her intelligence comes through, and she actually tells the Doctor off several times. I've noticed this in the last three episodes, Peri has got some guts. This is just a fantastic story, and so well written. When one of the characters sees the Doctor about to duck into the TARDIS, he asks him "what goes on in there, Doctor?" The Doctor answers, "Mostly arguing," and disappears.

I'm really starting to see Colin Baker come into his own. The stories are hit or miss so far, but there's no denying his charm. On the extras for the dvd is a 40 minute making of featurette, and he literally had me laughing out loud with his stories and his dry delivery.

I say this is the best 6th Doctor story so far. I give it a 7.5/10.

139: Vengeance on Varos

8/19/08

The TARDIS lands on a planet named Varos where society revolves around television and the citizens hold the fate of their leaders in their hands by being able to vote for death or life, all based on a green "Yes" button or a red "No" button. Executions and torture are broadcast live as entertainment, and the politicians are tortured and killed when their policies are not approved.

This is a really dark story, and familiar territory for the genre. We saw it in the X-Men comics with Mojo and we saw something very similar with "The Running Man." It's actually a really sharp episode with a lot to say, and I think it does so with a reasonable amount of success. This story contains the infamous "acid bath" scene, in which the Doctor struggles with two henchmen beside a vat of acid, and they fall in. It's gory and pretty gruesome, considering that it's a children's show, and this Doctor doesn't feel nearly as pacifistic as the previous Doctor.

Also starring Jason Connery, son of Sean, as a man trying to escape the gauntlet of cruel tricks set up for the viewer's enjoyment. It's also got a pretty disturbing creature called SIL, who does this thing with his tongue that just really freaks me out.

The Doctor is really coming into his own, slowly, and is not nearly as disagreeable as he was at first, and while still incredibly arrogant, he does seem to care for those around him. He actually wants to help, as opposed to not caring about anyone else. He's not my favorite, but it's a start.

I give Vengeance on Varos a 7/10.

138: Attack of the Cybermen

8/18/08

The Doctor takes the TARDIS to 1984 Earth where he stumbles across a Cyberman plot to destroy the world.

You know, I think I'm just not a big Cyberman fan. I find them to be a bit boring. If you have seen one or two Cybermen stories, you know what you are going to get out of all of them, because they aren't that different. One thing that sets this story aside from the rest is the other alien race in this story, the Cryons, natives of the planet Telos, which the Cybermen have over run. What is cool about the Cryons is that they are all played by women, and I think this is a welcome change to Doctor Who. Sometimes you just get tired of dudes in masks screaming a lot, and when you have women underneath the special effects makeup, it makes for an interesting change.

In addition to that, I liked the stuff that happens with the chameleon circuit in this story. The Doctor thinks he has fixed it, enabling the TARDIS to blend in with it's surroundings, no longer being stuck in the guise of a police box. Of course, it doesn't work quite right, and I like that.

And while I'm not a Cyberman fan, there is something incredibly cool about one Cyberman literally punching the head off another Cyberman. Say what you will about these stories, but they do have some good robo-carnage.

But the thing I like most about this story is that the Doctor really misjudges a character in the story and gets it all wrong. That was a nice change from the last story, where the Doctor thought he could do no wrong. He acts incredibly arrogant, but as he learns in this episode, he doesn't know everything.

These are all things I enjoyed about this episode, but outside of this, I thought it was very standard, maybe even substandard. But I came into it with preconceived notions anyway because I'm not a fan of the villains.

I rate this episode a 6/10. It's not bad, it's just...average.

137: The Twin Dilemma

8/17/08

Well, this was technically the last story of season 21, the finale after Peter Davison's exit last story. We meet the new Doctor, played by Colin Baker, and we jump right into the fray.

Now I've seen most of Colin's stories before, so I do know how he plays the Doctor and I know the challenges he was facing behind the scenes, but this is the first time I've ever seen the Twin Dilemma, and I was immediately struck by the arrogance of the Doctor. They clearly wanted a change after Peter Davison's portrayal, and I guess the best thing to do is go 180 degrees in the other direction, making the Doctor...well, a douche bag.

Let's see, in this episode, he attacks Peri and tries to strangle her, rattles on about how intelligent he is and how stupid humans are, pitches a half a dozen temper tantrums, and at one point stomps off and leaves his companion and a man he'd rescued to fend for themselves on a strange planet. The reasoning for this was supposed to be the difficulty resulting from the regeneration, which keeps with past regenerations in which the Doctor always has a hard time coming to grips with who he is and what is going on inside his mind. But this...this was over the top, and far too much.

The plot bored me to tears, but for those reading, I'll sum it up briefly. Two genius twins, about 13 years old, are taken from their home planet to help a race of gastropod aliens do bad things. The Doctor stumbles upon their plot and somehow, through his douche-baggery, manages to sort of save the day.

Well, we've got that out of the way. Now onto my thoughts. I consider this season to have ended with Peter Davison's departure. It's just easier for me to do that, because if you include this in the season, it tends to drag it down and mar it. I prefer, in my mind, to separate the seasons by the passing of the torch. So I will consider this to be the first story of the Colin Baker era, which it was.

What were they thinking? It's hard to tell. The script is pretty bad. This is not the way you want to start your new Doctor off. You take a man who was loved and replace him with someone else, but make him revolting? I just don't get it. Much has been said about the Doctor's costume this time, but I kind of like it. It's way over the top, but so is Colin Baker. He's a fantastic actor, and I've come to love him through his later stories and through his Big Finish audios, and also from his comments behind the scenes regarding what the struggle to keep the show on the air. In other words, the man has cojones, and I respect him a lot for what he did. But he is so hard to like in this story!

Maybe that's why, at the end of the story, he tells Peri something that is meant for us at home as well.

Peri: Are you having another one of your fits?

Doctor: You may not believe this, but I have fully stabilized.

Peri: Then I suggest you take a crash course in manners.

Doctor: You seem to forget, Peri, I'm not only from another culture, but from another planet. I am, in your terms, an alien. I am therefore bound to have different values and customs.

Peri: Your former self was polite enough.

Doctor: At such a cost! I was on the verge of becoming neurotic!

Peri: We all have to suppress our feeling from time to time! I suggest you get back in the habit!

Doctor: And I would suggest, dear Peri, that you wait a little while before criticizing my new persona! You may well find it isn't quite as disagreeable as you think.

Peri: Well, I hope so.

Doctor: Whatever else happens, I AM THE DOCTOR. Whether you like it or not.

We'll see, Colin. I give the Twin Dilemma a 5/10.

The 5th Doctor: A Look Back

8/17/08

Well, I can honestly say that, after watching all 20 of Peter Davison's 5th Doctor stories, he gives Tom Baker a run for his money as my favorite Doctor.

Peter Davison first appeared as the Doctor at the end of the story Logopolis, during the Tom Baker regeneration scene. This aired on the 21st of March, 1981. He was only 29 at the time. When I think about how young he was to take over such a huge role in a show that was approaching 20 years on the airwaves, I can't help but feel that he must have been quite scared. After all he was, and still stands as, the youngest actor to take the keys to the TARDIS. I'm about to be 29 myself, and the thought of the weight that must have been on him to not just entertain kids and families every week but to also bring something new to the persona is staggering.

But he did it, and he pulled it off. When he started his regular stint in season 19 in January of 1982, he'd worked out exactly what he wanted to do and he brought a whole new dynamic to the show. He was kind, affable, likable, and diplomatic. He cared for his traveling companions and he was very rarely grouchy. He rarely raised his voice, and he almost always had a smile. When he started, he was very youthful and full of energy and wonder, but as the three years went on, he matured, and by the time he was ready to leave the show, he was sometimes in spectacles and seemed a bit worn.

He had spoken to Patrick Troughton, the Second Doctor, about taking the role, and Patrick encouraged him to do three years and get out. You didn't want Doctor Who to define you forever, and you wanted to move on to other projects. Three years, Patrick said, is enough. So as his third year began, Davison, dissatisfied with some of what had happened in stories past, informed John Nathan Turner, his producer, that this would be his last season. What he didn't count on was how memorable that third season would be and how sad he would be when the time came. He started to regret his decision, and was going to talk to JNT about staying, but at this point, it was too late and Colin Baker, his replacement, had already been hired.

So after a brief stint of only three years, Peter Davison closed the door on Doctor Who and left us with a fantastic legacy of 5th Doctor stories and what is, for me, the most memorable regeneration scene of the series.

Seeing him come back to the role 23 years later in the Children In Need special "Time Crash" in which he meets the 10th Doctor, was fantastic, and he still lives on in his Big Finish audio adventures, of which there are many.

Peter took a role that had been held by Tom Baker for seven years, the man who WAS Doctor Who for millions, and not only made it his own, but gave Tom Baker a run for his money.

And in the process, made me a huge fan.

136: The Caves of Androzani

8/15/08

This is it, the final story featuring Peter Davison as the 5th Doctor. There's something about this story, even from the very beginning that just makes you feel uneasy. It feels different. There's a seriousness to it that can't be missed. The stakes really feel raised in this episode.

The TARDIS lands on Adrozani Minor and the Doctor discovers that there are mines for a substance called spectrox, which if taken by a human can double a lifespan. An evil head of a conglomerate named Morgus is manipulating things behind the scenes and is double crossing people left and right to position himself into power and to make a fortune on this spectrox. On Androzani Minor we find some gun runners who are trading arms for spectrox, and there, deep in the caves of Androzani, we meet Sharaz Jek, a man dressed all in black with a black and white mask over his face.

The final shoe drops when Peri and the Doctor are infected with spectrox poisoning, the only cure being the milk of an underground bat which is deep in the impossible reaches of the caves, and time is running out.

SPOILERS FOLLOW.

What a story. This is perhaps the best episode of the entire 5th Doctor tenure, and I've never felt more attached to Davison's Doctor. Long time Who writer Robert Holmes penned this story and Eric Saward, who is the script editor during this era, contributed as well. We get an explanation for the celery that the Doctor wears on his lapel, and we get some of the best acting of the entire 3 seasons. Sharaz Jek was amazing, giving a performance that was both menacing and sad at the same time. Bu the thing that endears me the most to this story is the way the Doctor regenerates and the circumstances that surround it.

In previous regenerations, the Doctor has "died" saving the world (Logopolis) or from doing the right thing (War Games and Planet of the Spiders) but never has the death been so personal or moving for me. And I've seen all the regenerations after this one as well, so I have to say that this is by far my favorite regeneration.

What happens is that Peri and the Doctor are dying from Spectrox poisoning, and the only way to survive is by extracting the milk of the cave bat deep below. At this exact time, internal natural explosions start destroy the caves. The Doctor, realizing that he is the only one who can (and will) risk it all to save Peri, takes it upon himself to trek deep into the caves, into certain death, to get this extract. He can barely breathe. He's bloody and clearly injured, and his immune system is gone. He is very obviously dying. He makes it back to Peri, grabs her, and
makes it out of the caves, all the while being blasted on all sides by explosions. he's on his last leg. The acting and intensity of Peter Davison is tremendous during this. He makes it through the TARDIS door and manages to dematerialize it just as an explosion destroys the very spot that the TARDIS stood on.

He falls to Peri's side, opens her mouth, and pours every last drop of the extract into her mouth. She wakes up and as she does, she realizes that he is not well. He is dying. She asks him to take some of the extract himself, but he confesses that he gave it all to her. Then he says "Is this final death?" She doesn't know what he's talking about, so he continues, "I might regenerate, but I can't be certain. It's never felt like this before." And then, faces from his past, faces from the last three years, Adric, Nyssa, Tegan, Turlough, and the Master, dance around his head, both compelling him to regenerate and the Master telling him to die. The screen goes wonky as waves shoot toward us, and when the dust clears, there is Colin Baker, sitting up with his cocky know it all expression.

"What happened, Doctor?" Peri asks him.

"Change, dear Peri...and it appears not a moment too soon."

Then new credits appear with Colin Baker's face in place of Peter's.

Now, I've seen this story before. But there's something about watching all of the 5th Doctor stories in the short amount of time that I have, all in a row, that really made this hit home for me. Seeing how he played the Doctor, seeing the choices he made, I really, really have come to love Peter Davison.

Here's what gets me more than anything. Regeneration is a way to avoid death, so when a situation forces this to happen, I consider this to be the Doctor facing death. So that's how I'm going to reference it. Past Doctors have died for various different reasons, all of them noble, but none as personal as this.

Here we have the Doctor knowingly sacrificing his life for a human that he's only known for a few days. This was the second story that Peri was in. In this story, he isn't even sure of her full name. They've literally just met. But yet he is willing to (and he does) die for her. Not for the human race, not for the greater good of justice, but for the life of one human girl who would never be missed if she didn't return to earth. To me, that's the ultimate sacrifice. What's more, he wasn't sure that he was going to regenerate. He says "it's never felt like this before." He had no idea if he was or wasn't. For all he knew, he had just given his life for someone he just met. For me, that's incredible, and extremely memorable. Tom Baker is my favorite Doctor because of the fun and quirkiness he brought to the role, but this story gives Tom Baker a run for his money and may be one of the best Doctor Who stories ever.

I give Caves of Androzani a 9/10. It was Peter Davison's finest hour, and I am really, really going to miss him.

135: Planet of Fire

8/14/08

There's an awful lot of story packed into this 4 parter, but I'll condense it to the important facts. First, we end up on the planet Sarn, where there are two factions of people, one who believes in a deity, the other who doesn't. The side that believes in the deity is led by "the chosen one" who has a triangular mark on his arm. This mark, we find out, is also shared by Turlough..

Spoilers ahead.

Turlough, as it turns out, is in political exile from his home planet of Trion. He'd been sent to earth as his sentence, watched over by a solicitor at the school. This is why he's been behaving oddly and knew all sorts of things a human schoolboy wouldn't know. I wonder if this plot direction was planned from the start or if it developed over time.

This episode also saw the return of the Master. If you ask me, producer John Nathan Turner went to the Master well at least one times too many during this three year period, but Anthony Ainley plays it with relish. I have to confess that this is my least favorite Master story of the whole 5th Doctor period, though.

This episode also saw the return and writing out of Kamelion the robot. He factors into the plot heavily, and is given a very definite ending.

Last story at the end of Resurrection of the Daleks, Tegan left, and this time we have Turlough leaving at the end of the story. If you figure in that Peter Davison leaves the very next story, it's not hard to figure out that they were making way for the new Doctor and new companion, and that the door was about to be closed on a whole era of Doctor Who. It's sad, if you think too deeply about it.

But, what we are introduced to in this story is the new companion who will accompany the 6th Doctor, Peri Brown. Peri, played by Nicola Bryant, is not the best actress, doesn't have a terribly convincing American accent, and always plays the damsel in distress, but I find her to be incredibly pretty, and the most attractive of all the companions:

So while we are closing the door on an era of Who, we are opening a new door. I've got one Peter Davison story left in my marathon viewing of 5th Doctor stories, and while I'm sad, I'm excited at the same time.

As for Planet of Fire, it's another one of those stories that is par for the course. I give it a 6/10.

134: Resurrection of the Daleks

8/14/08

Davros! Woohoo!

The TARDIS lands on Earth, 1984 near the Thames, but there's something going on. The military is there, and they are investigating the presence of strange cannisters. What are these cannisters? Above Earth aboard a ship, there's a whole army of Dalek sympathizers who wish to re-instate the metal warriors to their former state of glory. To do this, they revive the creator of the Daleks, Davros, to help engineer the Daleks into a more powerful race.

There's a lot to like here. It's the 5th Doctor versus a whole slew of Daleks (for the first and only time of his tenure, barring the appearance of a lone Dalek in the Five Doctors) and there's Davros, the greatest villain of all. Plus, there's enough action to make a whole series of bloody action movies.

This needs to be addressed. I'm not squeamish, and the violence in this episode was fairly clean and always bloodless, but this has the highest body count I've ever seen in a Doctor Who episode. Further viewing may turn up an episode with even more violence, but for now, the record stands at this story. Within the first minute, I counted 7 deaths, and by the time the final credits had rolled, we'd passed the number SIXTY. Some of them are with the simple "bloop bloop" ray guns and Dalek lasers, but a good portion of them were with good old fashioned machine guns and pistols. It's rumored that this story had a higher body count than the first Terminator movie and also as much as the first five Friday the 13th movies combined. But again, it's clean deaths, no blood, no gore.

If I'd attribute a negative to this story, it would be the overacting of Terry Molloy as Davros. I get that you want to go big, but he screams a good third of his lines. That's something that a lot of these Doctor Who villains do. I think they must have been encouraged to do this. Screaming a line is one thing. Screaming for 30 seconds at a time reduces the impact. I'm sure lots of people would disagree with that, but I gotta be me.

This is a good story, lots of action, and it's good to see the 5th Doctor facing off against his oldest foes. I give this story a 7/10

133: Frontios

8/14/08

The TARDIS lands on a planet named Frontios where the Doctor soon discovers that people are disappearing. There are mysterious deaths and mysterious disappearances of the bodies. The culprit? A underground dwelling creature called Tractators, which the writer based on wood lice that he found in his garden.

Spoilers follow.

In the finale to the 2008 series four of Doctor Who, the TARDIS literally tows the earth back to where it's supposed to be in the galaxy. There has been much complaining and much debate over this, but I have to say after seeing this episode, Frontios did it first. The Tractators are a sort of hive organism, and when they are together, they can do remarkable things like moving objects through space. The disappearances have occurred because they are literally bringing people down through the ground.
Their goal is to move entire planets out of their places and bring them to themselves, using the power of their collective mind. It's not exactly the same thing, but the people who have problems with the TARDIS towing a planet take note: planets have been towed by less powerful things than the TARDIS.

One thing that's beginning to become very evident is that there is much more to Turlough than meets the eye. He knows things he shouldn't know. He mentions that earth is not his home planet, and he is incredibly good at navigating the TARDIS when no human should be able to. At first I thought that maybe I'd missed a story and that there was an explanation that had been given that I'd not happened upon, so I went to the internet to research it, and lo and behold, there IS much more to Turlough than meets the eye, but they haven't tipped their hand on it yet. I have indeed seen all of his appearances. I'm supposed to notice that all is not as it should be with him and that he is more than meets the eye. Within the next two stories it seems I will have all my answers.

Another thing I want to mention is that I'm really starting to see the little quirks that David Tennant patterned his Doctor on. The 5th Doctor wears Plimsoll shoes, which look like trainers, and he has now started using spectacles in this third season, another trait of David Tennant's 10th Doctor. In addition, I see much of Peter Davison in Tennant's speech pattern and the way he relates to his companions and other characters. I think when this season is over and we have moved on to Doctor number 6, I will do a retrospective piece looking back on Peter Davison's portrayal and what he brought to the show.

Frontios is an okay story, but really, it's just par for the course. I give it a 6/10

132: The Awakening

8/13/08

This two parter starts of with the Doctor and company landing in a town in 1984 England in which a group of historical re-enacters have gotten out of hand. They have started to believe that it is 1643 and that they are the real army, not just actors.

Turns out, they are unwittingly a pawn of a creature called the Malus, a satanic evil looking creature. It's feeding on their psychic energy from the war games they've been playing and it's pushing them too far.

There's a couple of things here that surprised me. The first is that this story really got under my skin. You see stories set in governments where the people have no say and are basically prisoners in their own city, but to see it brought home to modern day England and have people in their town not even able to do or say anything that is not agreeable to the military really unsettled me. It's a statement on free speech and how far we as society have come. I was taken aback at how unsettled seeing these freedoms being violated made me.

The other thing is that the Malus, the creature in this story, REALLY freaks me out. I don't know what it is...it's the design, surely, but there's more to it. In the town they land in, there is a huge stone edifice of the Malus with glowing green eyes, perhaps 8 feet tall. That was freaky. Then there is the psychic manifestation of the Malus which appears in the TARDIS. It's tiny, maybe the size of a cat, but it just looks so evil. The design team really outdid themselves on this one. While it doesn't look real, it looks pretty disturbing to me.

I give this story a 6/10.

131: Warriors of the Deep

8/13/08

The Doctor ends up on a sea station that end up defending against both the Sea Devils and the Silurians. That's about it...

There's a monster here called a Myrka that was laughably executed. It was supposed to be a sea monster that walked on all fours, but just comes off as two guys covered in a green sheet trying to walk like a horse. It's pretty ridiculous.

I'm really surprised that there's not more to say about this episode, but I can't think of much. This was the first story of Davison's last season, and he's got a new short haircut and Tegan has grown her hair out a bit, but other than that...there's not much here.

I give this story a 5/10

130: The Five Doctors

8/12/08

The Five Doctors stands as a very cool story, the likes of which had never been done before. The plot is a simple contrivance to get 5 Doctors together, but as long as you don't ask too much of it, it's a great episode.

The Doctors are being taken out of their respective times by an unseen force and deposited on Gallifrey, their home planet, in an area known as the Death Zone. Turns out, years back on Gallifrey, it was a savage place and the Death Zone was used as a walled in territory for war games. You'd drop some folks in and let them fight it out until only one remained. One Timelord put a stop to this barbarism, and his name was Rassilon, revered leader of the Timelords. At the center of the Death Zone is a large tower that is the tomb of Rassilon, and this is where our story takes us.

What's really cool about this story is that we get to see pretty much every major player that's ever had a part in Doctor Who in it's then 20 year history. There are a few exceptions, such as the first Doctor, William Hartnell, who was deceased and replaced by a similar looking actor. Jo Grant, Harry Sullivan and a few other notable cast members weren't included for various reasons, and Tom Baker refused to participate, forcing them to use footage from an unaired episode, but what we did get was pretty cool. The first 5 Doctors, Susan, Sarah Jane, The Brigadier, Liz, Jamie, Zoe and Yates are returning good guys, and on the bad guy side we get a Dalek, lots of Cybermen, a Yeti, and a Raston warrior robot, not to mention the Master.

The coolest scene, for me, is the Raston warrior decapitating two Cybermen in graphic detail. I can't believe that got away with that on a kid's show. He then goes on to take out an entire batallion of Cybermen, as well.

Without spoiling the plot too much, these Gallifreyan people are really turning out to be sinister and devious. I've said it before, but I don't blame the Doctor for staying as far away as he can.

Notable moments include the new console in the TARDIS, which looks incredible, and the repeated comments from doctors 2-5 about how grouchy and hard to be around the first Doctor is.

Also noteworthy is the third Doctor "reversing the polarity of the neutron flow" to release the TARDIS from a trap it was about to fall into.

This is a fun story, and while it's a shame that Tom Baker wouldn't join in on the fun, it still stands as a great way to look back at 20 years of Doctor Who while telling a great story that introduced us to more Gallifreyan lore and to Rassilon.

I give this story a 7.5 out of 10.

129: The King's Demons

8/12/08

The TARDIS materializes in the 1215 in England. King John is to soon sign the Magna Carta and change things forever, but the Master doesn't want that to happen...

This episode had it all for me. I am a huge fan of Medieval stories and this delivered in spades. We have knights, armor, castles, jousting, duels, heraldry, an iron maiden, and a one on one sword fight between the Master and the Doctor. I ask you, what more can you want?

Also, central to the plot is the robot named Kamelion. He was amazing in his appearance, as it was a fully working robot that had moving lips and moving limbs. He was set to be a companion on the show and was welcomed into the TARDIS, but shortly after this story, the real life creator of the Kamelion was killed in a boating accident and no one else was able to get the robot to work as well as he could, so he was pretty much written out. He appears briefly in the final Peter Davison series, but was never the companion he was intended to be.

The story served as the season finale, and while it was only a two parter, I must say that I absolutely loved it. I think they've used The Master a bit too much in this Peter Davison era, but that can be forgiven, because Anthony Ainley is such an amazing bad guy.

I'm giving this episode an 8/10.

Rest in peace, Kamelion.

128: Enlightenment

8/12/08

This is a mixed bag for me. I like some of it, and I dislike other parts. The basic concept is that The TARDIS appears aboard a ship at sea, deep down in the hold. The Doctor and Turlough set out to explore and are apprehended taken to the Captain's quarters where they discover that they are aboard a yacht that is in a race. The crew has no memory of how they came to be on the boat. As the race begins, a viewport opens up and we see that the boat is not a boat at all, but a space ship, and that the race is among other ships in deep space. The prize is enlightenment.

Over the story's unfolding, we learn that the captain and his right hand man are among a group called the Eternals and can read thoughts. They know everything about the Doctor and his two companions, and they see them as toys. The reason the crew cannot remember how they got aboard the ship is because the Eternals have taken them from their respective time, that being somewhere in the early 1900s. All aboard the other ships, this same thing has happened. The race is among Eternals, and they each have a ship from a different period. A Greek ship with authentic Greek crew, Pirate ship with actual pirates, etc.

The catch is that when a ship is knocked out of the race, the crew are killed. They disappear into nothing. The Eternals go back to their home, but not the mortals. They are dead. So the Doctor clearly cannot stand by and watch this happen.

What unfolds after this brings a resolution not just to this story, but also to the Black Guardian trilogy, with a definite ending being put on the traitor storyline of Turlough. I still don't like him, though. He's going to have to earn my respect, and he hasn't done so yet.

I give this story a 5.5/10

127: Terminus

8/12/08

The Black Guardian is still instructing Turlough do destroy the Doctor, and to do so he must sabotage the TARDIS. He does what he can to destroy the TARDIS, causing it to materialize in a ship in space. There are skulls painted on the doors, and the ship seems abandoned. The Doctor and Nyssa end up separated from Turlough and Tegan, and eventually run into a band of armored men who call themselves the Vanir. We learn that behind the doors with skulls on them are many people who are basically lepers.

As time passes and investigations are made, the Doctor learns that the name of the ship is Terminus, and that it is sitting at the exact center of the universe. One of the engines has failed, resulting in radiation, and this is what the people on board suffer from.

What follows contains spoilers.


The crux of the whole episode hinges on the fact that this ship went back in time billions of years and jettisoned it's fuel into a highly combustable atomosphere. The fuel ignited, then caused the atmosphere in space to ignite, and in turn created the largest explosion in history. In other words, Terminus created the Big Bang. It lept forward in time at the precise moment of ignition, and the resulting explosion rocketed the ship farther into the future than it planned to go. It destroyed one of the engines and damaged the other, creating the radiation problem.

Through all of this, there is a creature named Garm aboard the ship who is the slave of the Vanir. he looks really great, a bit like a minotaur, perhaps a bit more doglike. He's huge. He is the one who must save the day at the request of the Doctor.

At the end of the episode, Nyssa decides that she is going to stay on board Terminus and help the people rebuild their lives with her vast knowledge of science.

For me, this episode had it all. Dark setting, creepy large monster, good action, and challenging science fiction concepts. I loved it. I was actually really sad to see Nyssa go, especially considering how I felt when I started this show at Castrovalva. She really irritated me, but she quickly grew on me. I hear that you can read more about what took place after the Doctor left her on Terminus in the BBC novel Asylum.

Turlough, I can't stand. He's still playing the Doctor and only worried about himself. This is part two of what is known as the Black Guardian Trilogy. It concludes with the following episode, Enlightenment.

I loved this episode. I give it a 7.5/10

126: Mawdryn Undead

8/12/08

This story opens with a schoolboy (who looks 30) named Turlough crashing a car, then finding himself floating above his body and being communicated to by a man known as the Black Guardian, who we met back in the Tom Baker years. He's the counterpoint to the White Guardian and he represents chaos and evil. Anyway, he tells Turlough that he will save him if he will do one thing for him: kill the Doctor. Turlough agrees and finds himself back in his body.

The TARDIS is flying through space when it is suddenly appears aboard a ship that seems to be empty, is well furnished and lavishly decorated, and appears to have been in orbit around earth for a very long time. There is a Transmat on board, which is a teleportation sort of device with an opening at one location and another somewhere else, making travel between the two points instantaneous. The TARDIS cannot depart because the transmat beam is interfering. So the Doctor traces the beam to earth, where the other portal is, in an attempt to free the TARDIS of the beam.

On earth, they find the Brigadier, the classic character who was the head of UNIT and has been around since the days of the second Doctor, has taken a job as a teacher at the school that Turlough attends. He gets caught up in the story at this point. The Doctor goes back to the ship to try to free the TARDIS, then comes back to earth, only accidentally does so 6 years too early. Therefore there are two Brigadiers running around, one 6 years the senior of the other.

This is where the story gets tricky, and I think they did a reasonably good job of keeping this all straight. Aboard the ship in the sky a man named Mawdryn reveals himself, along with 7 of his race. They are damaged and dying, and they have mutated. As the story unfolds, we learn that they are immortal, but they are mutants and are incredibly unhappy and weak. They were exiled from their planet, and every so often their ship comes close enough to a planet that they hope will give them help. In this story, the only person who can help the 8 mutants is the Doctor, and to do so he must give up his remaining regenerations to them. I'll leave the story at that.

There's a couple of things worth mentioning in this episode. The first is that this is the episode that brings us Turlough as a companion. I've never really cared for him, as I've found him smug and unlikeable, and now I get why I have always thought that. He boards the TARDIS as a traitor, and is just waiting for the right moment to strike at the Doctor. Granted, he is in the power of The Black Guardian, but he's also a pretty nasty character.

Second, this is a story that mentions previous Doctor Who stories and characters, something that was never really done back then. There's been a few references before, but I appreciated what we were given here. When the Doctor finds The Brigadier, he has to jog his memory as to who he is. He asks about former companions, he asks about former monsters the two faced together, and then as the Brigadier remembers, we get black and white clips from the second, third, and fourth Doctor. A nice tip of the hat to the past, in my opinion.

Sonic Shenanigans: The Doctor mentions "reversing the polarity of the neutron flow" which was something the writers had him say when he needed to do something incredibly difficult incredibly quick. It's a deus ex machina device.

This is a decent enough story, and I liked it, but it doesn't do anything exceptional for me, so as such, I'm giving it a 6/10.

125: Snakedance

8/10/08

Egads, another story centered around the Mara, the creature from Kinda? I hated that story and thought it might be perhaps the worst Doctor Who I'd ever seen. Could this, being a sequel in both theme and concept, make a better impression on me than it's previous attempt?

No. I loathe this story as well.

The TARDIS is taken to a planet by coordinates that were input by Tegan, being influenced by the Mara, the psychic being who attached itself to her in Kinda. Somehow it's been clinging onto her subconscious and comes to her in her dreams. On the planet they land on, called Manussa, there is a spoiled little prince who, long story short, is also affected by the Mara, thanks to Tegan. What follows is more of the metaphysical, mental plane jibberish that I hated in Kinda. Meditation, finding a central point in one's self, and spiritual experiences abound in this story.

A few things of note. There is a Carnival Barker type character, who is played by Brian Miller, also known as Elizabeth Sladen's (Sarah Jane Smith) real life husband. Also, the spoiled prince in this story, Martin Clunes, I believe, is a dead ringer for 80s teen movie star Martha Plimpton. What that says about him, I'm not sure. Also, we finally get Nyssa out of that rough looking maroon crushed velvet deal that she's been wearing for about 9 stories and into some normal looking clothes.

At the end of the episode, Tegan asks if it's over, and the Doctor replies along the lines of "it's dead. Now it's gone...forever." Lord help me, I hope so, because I don't know if I could watch another one of these Mara stories.

*Sonic Shenanigans: Trapped in a prison cell, Nyssa tells the Doctor "If only you still had your Sonic Screwdriver."

I rate this episode a 3/10

124: Arc of Infinity

8/10/08

Aboard the TARDIS, the Doctor is first joined by some sort of anti-matter entity which comes into his body, then the recall circuit aboard the TARDIS is activated, bringing him back to Gallifrey, his home planet.

On Gallifrey we find that they are aware that the anti-matter creature has bonded with him, and without doing any research into the matter, promptly sentence the Doctor to death rather than allow the anti-matter creature to survive.

I once again enjoyed this story quite a bit. I find that I am more drawn to the stories with hard science fiction elements to them. In this episode, we have Colin Baker, who in two years would be the Doctor himself, acting as military Commander Maxil, a cold and ruthless follower of orders. Also, we get to see that the Gallifreyans are not very kind beings, and are willing to send the Doctor to his death rather than do a small amount of research to try to solve the matter without violence. No wonder the Doctor never wants to go there.

The identity of the anti-matter being is revealed in the third episode, but I will not spoil who it is. Suffice to say that it is a character that goes back many years to The Three Doctors. I was very happy to see this character once again.

All in all, this was a very solid episode that I thoroughly enjoyed.

I rate it a 7.5/10

123: Time-Flight

Publish Post8/9/08

I absolutely loved this episode. Again, I can't really discuss it without spoilers, so proceed with caution.

This picks up immediately after the death of Adric following the events of Earthshock. Tegan asks the Doctor why he couldn't go back in time to save Adric, to which he answers that there are some rules that even the TARDIS can't disregard, and never to ask him to do such a thing again. Well, Doctor, I don't know what rules that would be. You could have taken him off the ship and let it crash without affecting anything other than letting the poor boy live...not that I wanted him back on the ship, but come on. Give a decent excuse, please.

The TARDIS materializes above Heathrow airport, where planes have been disappearing. The Doctor is apprehended by airport security, prompting him to tell them to contact UNIT, which they do, and they find that he has full access and is to be informed of all the details of the missing airliners.

They set up a flight with the Doctor and TARDIS aboard and end up going back in time through a time warp above Heathrow. There on this planet, we learn that there are several things going on. First, there are all the survivors of the previous missing flight, but they have been tricked by illusions into thinking that they are still back at Heathrow.
Second, there is an entity that materializes out of thin air, who we later learn are the Xerophin, and alien race who has combined their forms into one collective to survive an apocalypse, and who want to be released.
Third, there is a stereotypical Asian wizard-type man who is trying to manipulate things here.

Skipping ahead to the big surprise, the Asian wizard is none other than The Master in disguise. Anthony Ainley, that's twice you've been in an episode and I had no idea it was you. Bravo, sir. His goal was to come to this time and place and steal the Xeraphin collective to power his TARDIS. He actually almost succeeds, gets access to the Doctor's TARDIS, and nearly gets away with it all.

I was really floored by some of the surprises in this episode. It was incredibly well thought out, and I was captivated the entire time. What a way for a season to end. The Doctor really feels like he's come into his own in this incarnation, Nyssa doesn't annoy me at all anymore and I'm becoming attached to her, and we have no Adric mucking up the works anymore. Plus, we get the return of a great villain, we get mention of UNIT without actually having their military presence in the episode, and we get more intelligent science fiction.

I give this episode an 8/10.

122: Earthshock

8/8/08

There's honestly no way I can discuss this episode without spoiling it, so if you haven't seen it and want to be surprised, I'd skip this until then.


I remember liking Earthshock far more than I did when I watched it again today. I think my memory was attributing certain story elements to another story. I'm not sure which one...maybe Remembrance of the Daleks. Anyway, I was kind of bored for a lot of this, and I think that...well, I'm getting ahead of myself.

Let's start at the beginning. The Doctor lands on Earth in the year 2526 outside of a cave. Long story short, there's a bomb in the cave and they've got to find out how it got there. They trace the signal to a freighter that is headed to earth with a bunch of cargo, which turns out to be thousands of Cybermen in silos. Doctor Who goodness ensues.

Now, first off, I want to address the new updated appearance of the Cybermen. They've got a more streamlined helmet, they've got a suit that looks like it's made from crinkled tin foil, and you can see their mouth moving. In short, I think this is a BIG step back from the way they looked the last time we saw them, which was in Revenge of the Cybermen. In that story, they had a sort of rubberized suit that you could easily believe was flexible metal. Not here. Here it looks like something from a Michael Jackson video. John Nathan Turner, the producer, wanted to bring the effects and designs into the 1980s, and maybe he did, but I think he did so at the expense of the look of the Cybermen. I read and hear that this look is well loved and favored, but not by me.

Next, I want to address the Adric issue. The kid was incredibly annoying, and I'd grown to seriously dislike him as a character. Matthew Waterhouse seems like a fine guy, and in interviews on this dvd, he comes across as likable enough. So I know it was just the writing. Young precocious geniuses are never well received. It's sort of a shame that rather than grow his character they just killed him off, but maybe it was for the best. I mean, he clearly wasn't an actor. Still, even though I think it was for the best, it's unfortunate for him.

If you are going to watch this story and have the opportunity to watch it on DVD, make sure that before you select the play feature, you go to special features and choose the CGI option. This episode had some particularly dated effects that have been updated with brilliant CGI for this release, but you have to select it from the special features menu first, or you will just get the dated original special effects. The most notable is the way that this episode ended:
Adric is on the freighter plummeting to the earth, but what we see is a little model on a string, just sitting against a black background. This is supposed to be the freighter in space. Then we see Adric looking through the viewscreen of the ship at the earth. That's all it is, is just a big earth. Then we cut back to the exterior model shot, and it blows up.
On the new CGI version, we see a breathtaking CGI earth that looks remarkably real, and then we see the freighter literally speeding into the atmosphere. It ignites and begins to leave a trail of fire behind it. The eart gets bigger and bigger, then we can make out hills and mountains rushing toward the screen, then we actually see the moment of impact as the freighter hits the earth, and the screen flashes to white before we cut back to the footage of the reactions of the Doctor and crew. MUCH more effective, much more moving. I know they didn't have technology such as this back then, so it's fantastic that such effort has been put into it now.

My last point of discussion is that the Doctor kills the Cyber-leader with said Cyber-leader's own gun. Now, there is a lot of discussion over the violence in Doctor Who over the years. I think it was pretty harmless and innocent. We rarely saw blood and even more infrequently did we see the consequences of death. The violence in Doctor Who has always been to establish consequences, set plots up, and move the story along. It's never been particularly gruesome or gratuitous. Now, having said that, I don't at all like the idea of the Doctor using a gun. He's been very much against guns at different points throughout the show. Peter Davison's Doctor in particular seems to have a large dislike for them. So that's why I have a problem with him taking the Cyber-leader's gun and shooting him in the chest with two bursts at point blank range....then shooting him two more times, and then as the Cyber-leader lays on the ground, dying, shoots him twice for a third time.
Overkill.
It's a nitpick, I will grant that, but I just think that they took it a little too far. When the Doctor becomes Rambo, I think we've taken things a bit too far from the origins and the intentions of the original show. Again, I have no problem with violence, nor do I have a problem with the Doctor doing violence, but not with a gun. Do something more creative. He takes Adric's Maths Badge, which contains gold, and crams it into the chest piece of the Cyber-leader before he takes the gun. This would have been enough for me. The Cybermen cannot stand gold, so just let that interfere with his life systems and kill him that way. Don't get your Ak-47 out, Doctor. Don't go A-Team on the monster of the week.

But outside of that, it's a decent episode. It's not as good as I remembered thinking it was, but it's still not bad. It's got some good sets and it was directed with a lot of style, utilizing many more cuts than Doctor Who episodes had ever used before. Think Michael Bay but a decade early.

I'm giving Earthshock a 6/10.

121: Black Orchid

8/7/08

121: Black Orchid

The TARDIS materializes in England, 1925. We get to see the Doctor utilizing his cricket uniform by actually playing cricket, which he actually seems really good at.

The Doctor is greeted and taken to an old mansion where an old fashioned murder mystery unfolds. Think Agatha Christie. This episode, while brief, had a lot that I enjoyed. The old mansion was like something out of the game CLUE, and had lots of corridors, dusty closets and secret passages.

Nyssa annoyed me less again, and Tegan looked beautiful in her first time out of her flight attendant uniform and into something a little more glamorous. Adric...meh. Come on Earthshock!

There's really not much else to say. It was only 2 episodes, and it got in and got out quickly. Nothing particularly science fiction at all about it, but it works.

I give it 6/10

120: The Visitation

8/7/08

120: The Visitation

The Doctor ends up in England in the year 1666, the time of the Great Plague and the Great Fire of London. A pod containing 3 reptilian aliens, called Teriliptils, has crashed there and the aliens have escaped from a mining prison, scarred and damaged. Rather than try to solve their situation, they opt instead to eradicate humanity so that they can survive. Enter the Doctor.

I really enjoyed this story. It’s the first story written by one of my favorite Doctor Who writers, Eric Saward, who went on to write some of my favorite Cybermen and Dalek stories. There’s not too much to say about this. It’s a solid episode, but it’s also really simple. There’s no particularly great mystery, nor is there a scientific concept that requires deep thought. It’s just good old Doctor VS. Monster, just like it had been in days past. It was refreshing after the bad taste left in my mouth by Kida.

We get to see another room in the TARDIS, which is always nice, and Nyssa actually is starting to grow on me. I still want to throw Adric to the wolves, but soon enough….he’ll get his. Tegan actually has begun to grate on me as well. I like her in the stories I’ve seen, but watching her stories in order point out what a whiner she was in those early days.

I’m a sucker for historical stories, and Saward did a great job on this one tying in both the plague and the great fire. The Doctor comes in, does his thing, beats the bad guy (who I felt very bad for…they ended him in a particularly gruesome way) actually starts the fire, and then when questioned, says “this is one fire that must be let burn.” Now, let’s think about that for a second. This fire killed how many? Moreover, the plague killed how many thousands of people? This is a great example of what we have explained to us in the fourth season of the new show as time that is fixed and time that is in flux. Some things can be changed, some things can’t. Clearly, I guess these two events can’t be changed, but the Doctor seems so cold about it all. Now, back in those classic Doctor Who days, there wasn’t any deep characterization, no deep thoughts or feelings, and certainly no time spent on emotional drama. So I’m not surprised that the Doctor seems so blasé about the whole affair, but if this story had taken place in the newer incarnation, we’d have a companion begging him to save some of those people.

*Sonic Shenanigans: I’m very sad to announce that in this episode, the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver is destroyed, and left that way for a very long time. Alas, we hardly knew ye…well, that’s not true, you used it nearly every episode to get out of stuff that writer’s couldn’t bother explaining…but still…I’ll miss it.

I rate this episode 7/10

119: Kinda

8/6/08

119: Kinda

No sir. I don’t like it. What we’re given here is a story that takes place in the mental world just as much as it does in the physical world, and while that may work well on a page, I didn’t like the way it was executed on film. Basically, the concept is this: the Doctor lands on a planet that is more or less a jungle. There is an outpost run by a military organization who monitor the actions of the Kinda, who are the local primitive tribesmen, and who also happen to be telepathic. An evil entity known as Mara is taking over people’s mind and using them, possessing them, in a sense. The Doctor must get to the bottom of it and save the day.

For me, the main reason I disliked the episode was a lack of what I would consider a good plot device. What we are given just doesn’t do much for me, and neither does the plot device of going into the mental plane, which basically means the contrast of the video has been over exposed so that we can barely make out what we are seeing. I thought it was pretentious, but I tend to think that about things when I feel like someone is coming off a bit too big for their intellectual britches. I understand the goal, but I just think it’s flat and boring, and I was constantly checking my watch, being distracted by things around the room, and in general, waiting for it to end.

I read a review of this episode in which the reviewer said that he didn’t understand this story or what it was trying to say until after a couple of dozen viewings. I can assure you, I myself can’t imagine giving it a second viewing.

*Sonic Shenanigans: None. I read somewhere online that one of the writers was making an effort to phase out the Sonic Screwdriver, and that shows in this episode.

Rating: 2/10

118: Four to Doomsday

8/6/08

118: Four to Doomsday


Peter Davison’s second story finds him trying to take Tegan back to Heathrow airport but instead ending up on a ship in space that is heading to earth. We encounter three frog-like aliens who are named Monarch, Persuasion, and Enlightenment. Also aboard the ship are samples of humans from earth that date back to 32000 BC and span many levels of time.

Again, this is a solid science fiction story that really captured my attention. I did see some of the twists in the story coming, but not enough for it to take away any of my enjoyment. There was a device used at the end by the Doctor that was pretty ridiculous, though, so when people hold up the classic series as being so intellectually superior, I must challenge them on it. Okay, here’s what happened. The doctor tried to jump through about 50 yards of deep space toward the TARDIS while attached to the ship by a line of rope. The rope gets disconnected and the Doctor is left floating in space, unmoving, halfway between the TARDIS and the large frog alien’s ship. He reaches into his pocket and takes out a cricket ball, throws it at the large ship, bounces it off the hull, and catches it when it returns to him. The momentum of catching the ball carries him the rest of the way to the TARDIS floating in space. It was worth a groan, especially factoring in the terrible 1981 special effects.

Another thing that I didn’t like about this episode was Adric. This kid gets on my nerves like I never would have imagined. He nearly gets the entire crew of heroes killed because he won’t listen to the Doctor. No wonder he’d be dead in a few stories. He’s intolerable.

But the solid and compelling science fiction ideas presented in this episode are very thought provoking, and in this day and age, very timely. It deals with putting the memories and personality of a person into a computer chip so that they may live forever in a cloned or mechanical host body. This theme was similarly presented in the series 4 two parter “Silence in the Library” in which River Song is put into a computer as data. 27 years in between the two episodes, but the idea remains the same.

*Sonic Shenanigans: the Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to reverse the magnetic field of hovering video cameras.

I rate this episode a 6.5 out of 10.

117: Castrovalva

I've been watching some classic Doctor Who episodes lately and I thought I'd share it here in case anyone else is interested. There may be some mild to moderate spoilers from time to time, but I don't plan on talking too deeply on plot resolutions.
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8/5/08

Story 117: Castrovalva

This 5th Doctor story is the first one featuring Peter Davison after his regeneration from Tom Baker’s 4th Doctor. You can tell that Davison doesn’t quite know how to play his character, but by the end, he seems to have it more or less decided. The trademarks are there: the cricket uniform, the hat, and the celery on his lapel.

The companions for this story are Nyssa, Tegan, and Adric. The only one of these companions that doesn’t irritate me is Tegan. Adric is precocious, and Nyssa is hard to watch for me because she’s not a very good actress (in my humble estimation).

The story was quite good, though. After watching so much of the Russel T. Davies stories in a row without going back to the classic show, I’d forgotten how concept and plot heavy these shows can be. You really need to pay attention lest you lose some of the details. That’s a good thing, in my book.

We start in the TARDIS as we see Davison trying to come to terms with the regeneration. He’s going mad and making very little sense. He’s unraveled Tom Baker’s signature scarf, which seemed to me to be symbolic of the new direction we were going to go in. Seeing that scarf in tatters made me sad, I must admit. One thing I loved about this episode is that we have almost two complete episodes that take place entirely in the TARDIS, and we get to see LOTS of it. I’m sure it was just the same sets broken down and shot from different angles, but the illusion of the many corridors and rooms we saw was sufficient, and something that I’d love to see on the new series. We also get the Zero Room, which is a place the Doctor can go and not be bothered by the energies of the TARDIS. Also, it was very cool that they jettisoned 25 percent of the TARDIS to get away from the threat early on.

Then they make it to the city of Castrovalva, where the Doctor believes he can finish out his regeneration in peace. You get the usual silly costumes and dodgy sets, but underneath it all you also get some remarkable acting and some true imagination. There’s some gorgeous outdoor filming done here and it doesn’t look like it’s aged a day, much less 27 years, as of the DVD release. There was a big reveal of the Master in this episode that I truly did not see coming. What a testament to the acting talents of Anthony Ainley that he completely fooled me. What a testament to the writer and the director as well. This plot has a few holes that I can’t seem to figure out, but it’s really well done and actually has all the elements of a good sci fi tale without sacrificing it for character.

*Sonic Shenanigans: The Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver on screws to unhinge a door. He also mentions using it to reverse the polarity of the neutron flow.


On a scale of 1 to 10, I’m giving Castrovalva a 7 1/2.