Monday, April 29, 2013

Shada

Dear Gary—
Shada, the unaired and unfinished Doctor Who. Some say it is the lost glory of Doctor Who, others say it is a dull mess that is better left undone. The truth probably lies somewhere in between.
I have to admit that I lose the plot thread somewhere around the halfway point in my copy that bridges the gap between the scattered completed scenes with narration by Tom Baker.  I can follow it as long as the Doctor and Romana are in Cambridge visiting a retired Time Lord posing as a professor. He has a book that he took from Gallifrey that needs to be returned (it is one of the artifacts of Rassilon and could be dangerous in the wrong hands) but he has absentmindedly lent it to a student. Meanwhile there is a chap striding around campus in a white cloak with a sphere that attaches itself to people’s heads and steals their minds. This fellow is after the book too.
We come to learn that the retired Time Lord Professor Chronotis is in fact a noted Gallifreyan criminal Salyavin, a boyhood hero of the Doctor. While the sphere can steal minds, Salyavin can project his mind into others and the white cloaked chap, Skagra, wants this power for himself. The missing book holds the secret to the Time Lord prison planet Shada where Salyavin is believed imprisoned (even though this memory has been erased by Salyavin out of history and no one really knows where Salyavin is anymore). In his search for the book, Skagra steals Chronotis’ mind and leaves him for dead. Skagra retrieves the book and heads back to his invisible ship where he traps the Doctor, Romana, K9, and Chris (the student who had the book).
This is where I get a little lost. There is the invisible ship and then I think there is another, visible, ship. There is a think tank and then there is Shada. There is the Doctor’s TARDIS and Chronotis’ TARDIS that is disguised as his rooms in Cambridge. One of the ships has a voice and mind of its own and seems to transport people via a floating cube willy nilly about the place. The think tank is full of a bunch of aged men who are mindless. Shada is full of forgotten prisoners. Somewhere along the way there are Krargs that threaten people. Our cast crisscrosses their way from ships to TARDISes to think tank to Shada; it’s hard to keep track of who is where when.
The whole scheme seems to revolve around Skagra’s intent on conquering the universe via his mind absorbing spheres coupled with Salyavin’s mind altering power. So where do the Krargs come in? I don’t see their point other than to keep K9 busy. And if Skagra already has Chronotis’ mind in the sphere he therefore already has Salyavin’s. Why doesn’t he know this? What use are the captured minds if he doesn’t access that knowledge? And I’m a little confused as to the effects of the sphere on its victims. Sometimes it kills, sometimes ages and leaves mindless, sometimes turns into zombie armies. Also, if the sphere has a copy of the Doctor’s mind allowing the Doctor to control it, wouldn’t the same hold true of Chronotis who has come back to life with his mind intact? But then, I lose track of where Chronotis is during this part. Probably off somewhere making tea.
If we had the missing scenes to fill in the gaps I’m sure much of this would be explained. But let’s face it, many a Doctor Who story remains scant on details even when completed. So I guess I’ll stick to the scenes I have before me. Although I would dearly love to see the Doctor’s “fascinating display of illogic logic” that Tom Baker’s narrative claims. Douglas Adams’ words combined with Tom Baker’s acting of this unfilmed footage holds the promise of that lost glory many fans mourn.
Shada starts out at a leisurely pace, and I have to remark, Gary, that Doctor Four and Romana Two seem to be the most relaxed of all the Doctor/companion combinations. Perhaps after the Key to Time task the Doctor feels he has the right to some rest and recreation. Punting on the River Cam during May week in October (the TARDIS was a bit confused), the Doctor and Romana are the very picture of tranquility.
Their visit to Professor Chronotis in his cozy Cambridge rooms is also friendly and casual as the absent minded professor prepares tea. Even their frantic search for the dangerous book is more laid-back than frenetic as they take the time to browse titles and read aloud sample passages. It is a nice change of pace, too, for the Doctor to run into a fellow Time Lord who is not intent upon taking over the world or wreaking havoc. True, Chronotis does turn out to be a fugitive, but his crimes are rather vague and don’t seem too far off from the Doctor’s own rogue adventures.
It is at this point, Gary, that I want to mention the similarities between Shada and Douglas Adams’ book Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. I don’t remember if I read the book first or saw Shada first, I just recall noting the cannibalizing of material. Someday I’ll have to reread that book.   
But back to Shada, or what exists of Shada.
One of my favorite characters who made it to film is that of Wilkin. “Wilkin! You remember me,” the Doctor says in amazement. This unflappable porter of Cambridge recalls not only the Doctor’s honorary degree in 1960, but his previous visits of 1964 and 1955 as well (although he missed him in 1958 when the Doctor visited in a different body). And what would any conscientious porter of Cambridge do when an entire room apparently disappears to be replaced by a blue haze other than fetch a policeman?
I rather like Clare as well. She too remains unflappable, even in the face of TARDISes and space ships and “a conceptual geometer relay with an agronomic trigger” and “a totally defunct field separator.” She does lose a few points when she doltishly lets go of the handle to grab the pencil, though.
Chris is unflappable in his own way, but somewhat bland. Although I do like his guess of “Advanced State of Decay” for the acronym ASD. Professor Chronotis is likeable, but our main villain Skagra is rather unimpressive for the few scenes we have of him, and the Krarg are missing altogether.
There are a few good lines, like the Doctor telling Chris “You’ve got a lot to unlearn” when he says he understands Einstein, quantum theory, Planck, Newton, and Schoenberg. And there are a few Doctorisms (“Did you just see what I didn’t see?” “No.” “Neither did I.” and “I can do your part if you can do mine.”). There are some clunkers as well. “Time Tot” Romana? Really?
All in all Shada is a mixed bag, but if it had been completed as intended it would have made a decent enough story, probably better than many that were made during the surrounding couple of seasons. As it is in its abridged form it is still an entertaining serial well worth the watch.
Hope this finds you somewhere out there, Gary . . .

Friday, April 26, 2013

The Horns of Nimon

Dear Gary—
“The Nimon waits for no man.” OK, Gary. Things are definitely on a downhill slope.
However, a Tom Baker Doctor Who, even if not the best, is still entertaining, and The Horns of Nimon is innocuous enough fun.
It starts out rather good in fact in what I consider to be an impressive set of a deteriorating space battle cruiser. “When are we going to get modern equipment?” the copilot complains. This is what I would expect an aging spaceship bridge to look like, dark and cramped with cables and equipment littering the place.
The tense exchange between the weary pilot and bitter copilot also sets the stage nicely. The once great Skonnan battle fleet is now patched together with spit and wire and converted into cargo ships hauling human sacrifices from enemy planet Aneth back to Skonnos to please the Nimon who is Skonnos’ last remaining hope of returning to glory.
“Patience is the virtue of the weak,” the copilot grumbles, the very picture of impatience while the jaded pilot patiently chides him to his duty and goes on to inform him that this is to be their last shipment. “Our part of the contract will be fulfilled,” he tells the disgruntled copilot who immediately starts making rash decisions that overload their computer, knocks them off course, and kills the pilot.
With the steadying voice of the pilot silenced so early, the remaining story takes its cue from the copilot’s buffoonery and later Soldeed’s insanity. Add in the scant, cheap sets once we leave the ship’s bridge and the uninspired guest characters and we have another Doctor Who with its budget and ennui showing.
But that doesn’t necessarily make it bad, because it doesn’t get boring. And I suspect, Gary, that with the steadying influence of the pilot guiding the show, perhaps it could have been boring. Not to say that it would have, it might possibly have risen to heights unknown, but we will never know. Because The Horns of Nimon took another path and it is that path we will follow.
This path is predicated on four things: the copilot, Soldeed, the Nimon, and of course the Doctor.
I’ll start with the copilot because I already have.  This character is so wildly caricaturized and so deliciously despicable. Waving his gun about (“Have you noticed how people’s intellectual curiosity declines sharply the moment they start waving guns about?”) and hiding his cowardice behind a false bravado, cunning but stupid. The copilot is an opportunist who doesn’t think. Quick witted but slow and dimwitted. His mind works to his best advantage but it lets him down every time. In short, he is just plain fun to watch as he self destructs.
Next we have Soldeed. Soldeed has sold his soul, his people, his planet to the Nimon, but he has deluded himself into believing he has the upper hand. Whereas the copilot recognizes the reality before him and changes his tack accordingly, Soldeed recognizes only his own reality and changes fact to fit his delusions.
Soldeed’s counterpart Sezom on the Nimon conquered planet Crinoth remains sane but broken and disillusioned. If this had been the story of Crinoth rather than Skonnos with Sezom taking the lead and not Soldeed, this would have again been a different story much as if the pilot had lived. Sober and serious, perhaps boring, perhaps elevated. We’ll never know. But this is the story of Skonnos, of the copilot and Soldeed, of buffoons and insanity. This is a much different story.
The presence of the pilot and Sezom are grounding, though. They resonate with what once was, what might have been. They provide structure and meaning to the buffoonery and insanity.  
But let’s return to that insanity. Upon first meeting Soldeed we do not know that he is insane; he lets this out a little at a time, building to a mad crescendo.
“Begin at the beginning and end at the end, Sorak,” Soldeed calmly tells the military captain who doesn’t quite know how to relate the bad news he bears. Soldeed can be very calm and ordered in his irrational thinking. Soldeed’s staff and his mantra of “In the name of the Second Skonnan Empire” are the two mainstays of his convictions. Armed with only these he goes to confront the Nimon.
“He speaks of many things,” Soldeed informs Sorak upon emerging from his conference. “He speaks of the great journey of life.”
“Again? What does he mean by the great journey of life?” the sane, practical, and incredulous Sorak wonders.
“Mean? It is . . . it is a metaphor,” the delusional Soldeed replies, trying to bend the truth to his own mad desires.
A still canny Soldeed sees through the deceit of the copilot. “You are a liar,” he tells him. “Your story alters by the second.” He knows the copilot has not the intelligence for his lofty claims. But Soldeed cannot see past his own lofty ambitions. “Our fire shall infest their heavens. It shall be the greatest empire the galaxy has ever seen. An empire of fire, steel, and blood. Skonnos shall rule!”
“I play the Nimon on a long string,” he later tells Sorak, justifying his fawning before the great and bestial Lord Nimon.
As Soldeed’s insanity becomes clearer his acting becomes more unhinged and we see and hear it in every gesture and intonation.  “Three. I have seen three,” Soldeed finally breaks as Romana forces him to face the reality of the Nimon and his “great journey of life.” But he still refuses to admit hard truths. “You have brought this calamity upon me,” he accuses Romana before he pulls the fatal lever that will blow the complex sky high. “You are all doomed. Doomed.”
The exaggerations of the copilot and Soldeed make the blandness around them bearable. The blank and barren sets, the profusion of metal grating, the mute sacrifices, and the insipid Seth and Teka. Seth is harmless enough, but Teka’s incessant questions and unfounded faith in Seth is annoying.
Teka: “What’s going on?”
Seth: “I don’t know.”
Teka: “Why don’t you know?”
Seth’s irritated “I don’t know” reiteration is welcome, but it would be more welcome if Teka was as silent as the other five sacrifices that shuffle around in the background.
I have to put in a word here, Gary, about Romana. Romana plays it serious throughout which works quite well in this mix of hyperbole and mediocrity. She is firm, angry, and decisive as needed, very much taking everyone in hand and leading the way. I love her tallyho outfit, and she has even crafted her own sonic screwdriver (coveted by the Doctor). Romana is beginning to hit her stride.
Next on our list, the Nimon. The Nimon is a lovely Doctor Who monster. Jet black head to toe with bright yellow plastic horns sprouting from his huge head, ungainly platform shoes, top heavy, and almost balletic in his gracelessness. First there is only one, then three with the threat of multitudes to come, swarming across the universe like locusts.
Again, let’s compare what could have been with what is. Romana finds herself on the defeated and depleted Crinoth with the sober Sezom and the horde of Nimons preparing for their invasion. A little of this is taut and terrifying, but I can see where an extended four episodes of this could have been dark and dreary. I think I prefer the Skonnos/copilot/Soldeed version of events. Too much of Crinoth could have shown up the Nimons as laughable; Skonnos allows our suspension of disbelief wider scope.
Finally we turn to the Doctor. The Doctor is just the right blend of jocularity and gravity. The Doctor handing out jelly babies as he soothes the sacrifices and elicits vital information; the Doctor as he tries to swap sonic screwdrivers on Romana while restoring power to the Skonnan ship; “Tell me, Nimon, tell me, are you really terribly fierce?” as the Doctor rescues Romana, Seth and Teka; “Well I hope you get it in the right order,” as the Doctor is told he will be questioned, tortured, and killed; the Doctor, always ready with a quip or an antic to lighten the perilous moments.
There are a few instances of going too far, however. The Doctor giving mouth to mouth resuscitation to K9 and the cartoon boing noises emanating from a malfunctioning TARDIS console for example. And then there is the Doctor on the run stopping in the middle of the Council room and saying, “Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking, I’d like to say one thing and let me make it perfectly clear, I stand before you desperate to find the exit.” Meanwhile the oblivious council members ignore him and the guards run past him. Too much; too far.
Overall, however, the Doctor hits the right note and The Horns of Nimon works, and again I have to give credit to Romana. Playing it serious, Romana keeps the Doctor from roaming too far into the madcap. Thus the opening TARDIS scene as the Doctor tinkers with the console is funny, but we also feel the danger as they face the inevitability of a crash with no operable defense shields. The two are beginning to work well together.
“Ah, well people often don’t know what you’re talking about,” Romana tells the Doctor; she is definitely settling in to this companion role, and I love the closing exchange between the two:
Doctor: “Well, come on old girl. There’s quite a few millennia left in you yet.”
Romana: “Thank you, Doctor.”
Doctor: “Not you, the TARDIS.”
There are quite a few millennia left, Gary, and quite a few Doctors to go.
As ever . . .

Monday, April 22, 2013

Nightmare of Eden

Dear Gary—
Nightmare of Eden is not as bad as its rap, but it’s not as good as it should be either. It is a case of too many people letting the production down and not doing justice to a fairly solid script. It is almost as if everyone decided that as long as the stars showed up the show could rest on its reputation and not have to try very hard.
The result is four episodes of sufficient enough entertainment to pass the time.
It starts with the set. No attempt was made to make this in any way believable as an interstellar passenger cruiser. These are rooms set up on a stage with wide corridors, huge elevators (how many floors does this thing have?) and spacious lounges that don’t have much in the way of lounge furniture. There is none of the economy of space you would expect on such a ship, a government subsidized ship no less, that apparently only boasts two first class passengers (both on the government’s ride)for its cavernous first class lounge. Occasionally we do get a glimpse of coach, but these are just some rows of airplane seats set up on the stage with bizarrely outfitted passengers.
Let’s talk about those bizarre outfits. Why on earth would anyone voluntarily put on these ridiculous silver coveralls and sunglasses? I can’t imagine anyone falls for that “protective” nonsense they are told. Why don’t the crew and first class passengers need to wear them? Is there something in the coach compartments themselves that the passengers need protecting from? Or is this simply a means of identifying the riff raff? Or rather, a means of differentiating the extras from the speaking roles.
Sticking with costumes, I can see why the ship’s crew and Dymond, captain of the trade ship that crashes with the passenger ship, have to wear uniforms. But Tryst, Della and Stott? A zoologist and his colleagues? Why do they need uniforms? Or do they all just happen to dress alike?
I’m not even going to get into the monsters of Eden. They’re harmless enough. They’re useful for people to shriek “Mandrel!” and run to keep up some pretense of danger in our story. The monsters are more or less an afterthought for me; oh yeah, there are some lumbering creatures roaming about the set.
Everything about Nightmare of Eden strikes me as some lazy shorthand on the part of the production team.
And what’s with Tryst’s phony accent? I keep expecting him to break into a Danny Kaye Tschaikowsky routine.
“Interfere? Of course we should interfere. Always do what you’re best at, that’s what I say.” Even the Doctor has thrown up his hands on this one and given in to the ‘what difference does it make’ attitude. Let’s just dive in, he seems to be saying, and make the best of it. Throw all that pretence of Time Lord philosophy and detached concern out the window. At least the Doctor is having fun with it, which is exactly what makes Nightmare of Eden work to the extent that it does.
“Work for? I don’t work for anybody. I’m just having fun.”
That’s about all I take away from Nightmare of Eden. A bunch of men in space suits running around some cheap sets shooting off their blasters occasionally, a man with a funny accent with his machine that displays other worlds in a projection against the wall, Romana and the Doctor jumping in and out of the projection, some lumbering monsters wandering into the scene only to be chased off through an airline set that looks like it belongs to a different production, and oh yes, I think there is something about drug smuggling. Mildly amusing, a pleasant enough way to spend an hour and a half.
Once in a while someone does try to get things on track.
“I wish everyone would stop showing off and get something done about my ship.”
Two space ships have collided, the Empress passenger liner and the Hecate trade ship. The collision has rendered Tryst’s CET machine unstable and creatures are therefore able to walk in and out of it (curiously, only from the one projection of Eden and none from the other planets stored on the machine). An undercover agent has also been released from his captivity inside the Eden projection and reveals that drugs are being smuggled by someone in Tryst’s expedition. The captain of the Empress and one of his crew members are under the influence of the dangerously addictive drug. Customs officers arrive to investigate the crash. The Doctor and Romana have to separate the ships, discover who is smuggling the drugs and how, fight off the Mandrels and return them to their projection, fix the CET machine, and elude the Customs officials.
It could have been an interesting story, but unfortunately there is no feeling of tension, no impression of impending doom, no sense of any real danger. It is all rather loose and freewheeling.
“We’ll go that way and we’ll call it east.”
The few pretenses at Mandrel mania are rather pathetic. The monsters themselves just kind of blindly swat at people, and then there is Romana flinching at the thought of having to jump over a dead one. Come on, Romana, they aren’t very menacing when they are alive. You’re a Time Lord, for goodness sake. But then, maybe that’s her problem. After all, who are our only female Time Lord examples to date? Susan and Rodan. Perhaps when Romana regenerated she reverted to true Time Lady type.
“Here am I, trying a little lateral thinking, and what do you do? You trample all over it with logic.”
The Doctor’s lateral thinking is always welcome, but I think perhaps there isn’t enough rational thought to counterbalance in this story. Everyone kind of jumps in and out of their scenes reciting lines that were written for them. Captain Rigg does a creditable job, but his devil-may-care outlook while under the influence of Vraxoin, which is entirely appropriate to the script, gets lost amongst all of the unrestrained action going on around him.
“First a collision, then a dead navigator, and now a monster roaming about my ship!” Rigg exclaims at one point before the Vraxoin gains hold of him. “It’s totally inexplicable.”
“Nothing’s inexplicable,” the Doctor replies.
“Then explain it,” Rigg demands.
The Doctor answers in the only way he can, “It’s inexplicable.”
That’s Nightmare of Eden. It’s inexplicable. First a collision, then a dead navigator, and now a monster roaming about the ship. Not inexplicable as a plot. That rather nicely sums up the plot and it all should have worked. But somewhere along the way Nightmare of Eden abandoned the plot to its messy fate of shoddy workmanship and what is left works, but it works purely on the level of superficial entertainment.
“What is the man doing? He comes up with a marvelous idea then he fiddles about.”
Well, Gary, I’m done with all the fiddling about in Eden; too bad the marvelous nugget of an idea was never adequately developed, but at least it was pleasant enough to watch.

Friday, April 19, 2013

The Creature From the Pit

Dear Gary—
The Creature From the Pit is one of those Doctor Who blends of good and bad, so much so that I can’t quite determine if I like it or not. I think overall I probably do like it, even though the bad tends to outweigh the good.
The first thing that I think most everyone can agree on—the creature is one of the worst (if not the worst) monsters in all of Doctor Who. It is not just that it is horribly realized, it is that the conception is almost impossible to realize.  The effects people probably didn’t come up with the best they could, but I challenge anyone, given the budget and concept, to outdo them. An elect few maybe could, and perhaps with more advanced techniques not yet available or perfected in the ‘70’s, but not by much.
For starters the creature is conceptualized as huge. Now we have seen similar dubious results with enormous monsters in serials like The Power of Kroll and Invasion of the Dinosaurs. But at least Kroll and the invading dinosaurs could be laughed at from a distance and be vaguely convincing. The creature of our title is up close and personal. The creature of our title is in a claustrophobic pit. The creature of our title is ultimately supposed to be sympathetic, reasoned, and personable. A giant, amorphous blob (with or without phallic parts) just doesn’t work towards this end.
Next, and for me more importantly, Lalla Ward is simply dreadful. The last two stories, Destiny of the Daleks and City of Death, Lalla had settled into a comfortable persona as Romana Mark II. In The Creature From the Pit, however, she is horrifyingly bad. Worse than the creature. Because she is supposed to be good. She is the Doctor’s companion. She doesn’t have to be exceptional; she just needs to be fundamentally sound; even adequate will do. As much as I hate the later companion Peri, at least I wouldn’t say of her that she is a bad actress. Whiny and annoying, yes, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say that there is a deep-rooted core of ugly unpleasantness about her.
I hate to dump too much on poor Lalla for just this one serial, Gary. As I said, in the previous two she made her slightly supercilious tone work for the character. In The Creature From the Pit, however, it falls completely apart. Just look at her scene with the Fagin-like scavenger and his gang of thieves. Captured and bound, she puts on an air of such supreme self-importance with absolutely no moral center to back her up. She has an obvious disdain for this “collection of hairy, grubby little men” (“Well, she’s no call to get personal”), and she is able to cow them simply because they are weak minded. She is like a shark going in for the kill; no, not a shark, more like a hyena. Because when confronted with a more forceful presence, for example the Lady Adrasta, she herself is cowed. She displays none of the righteous indignation or moral integrity that Leela, Sarah Jane, or Romana I would have shown under similar circumstances. She has not the courage of her convictions; I’m not even sure she has convictions.
Next in the bad column is K9. K9 has been sidelined for a couple serials and he now emerges with an altered voice and somewhat altered personality. K9 always had the subtlest of inflections to depict the emotion that he adamantly denied, but this new incarnation is overt in his moods. K9 rhapsodically reading Peter Rabbit is just plain silly. Amusing but silly.
Then there is the script. This serial is only four episodes in length, but it barely has enough material in it for three. Much of the blame can be placed on the creature “oozing about and sitting on people; not much of a life, is it?” No, and not much of a plot, either. A giant blob “skulking about in a pit eating people” that is unable to communicate its intentions doesn’t provide much potential for action. If it were rampaging about the countryside terrorizing people that would be one thing, but no, it is confined to a pit. The action has to come looking for it. Or the plot has to go looking for the action outside of the main arena. Thus the raggle taggle group of “hirsute” men.
I have nothing in particular against this mob, except that for the better part of our story they are totally disconnected from it. They are convenient for introducing the concept of metal hording, but we are left in the dark for a long time as to the importance of this. Especially since these dim-wits can think of nothing better to do with their stockpile other than to paw it lecherously. For all we know the only purpose of metal on this planet is to look pretty. No, this rabble serves merely as a distraction.
The final element tipping the scales to the bad side: the Doctor. In particular, “Everest in Easy Stages.” The Doctor, hanging precariously on the side of the pit, equipped with a hammer and some spikes, decides he needs to peruse a book on how to climb? And then: “It’s in Tibetan!” Now I’m pretty sure the Doctor already knows Tibetan, at least enough to get by. Just as I’m sure he knows enough to hammer some spikes into a wall to use as stepping stones. So why the books? There is no one else about to be disarmed by this, so for whom is he performing? It can only be for the camera. Shame on you, Doctor. It is an amusing gag, yes. Highly amusing. Extremely funny in fact. But shame on you, Doctor.
Now for the scale tipping on the side of good: the Doctor. In a story of non-action, in a story of elongated scenes of distraction, in a story with a non-menacing creature, the Doctor takes the only tack appropriate to the occasion: curiosity. He does not gleefully sic K9 on people only to wring his hands in despair when he fails ala Romana; he grabs a rope and jumps down into the pit (what a great cliffhanger, by the way).
Despite not being able to communicate with the creature, the Doctor manages to calm it and gain its trust. With nothing but his observations and common sense he is able to deduce the history of the creature. And with no more than a few brief monologues and a stray “Chlorophyll? I wonder?” or two we start to piece the puzzle together with the Doctor. No drawn out distractions of metal worship are needed; the Doctor simply needs to pick up and muse on a few nuggets of iron. The Doctor jumps into the pit and gets to the bottom of things.
While in the pit the Doctor meets up with another in our plus column, Organon. Organon, the astrologer in disfavor who has been thrown into the pit and survived and who befriends the Doctor. Organon is an important element of the story because, monologues aside, the Doctor needs someone he can interact with other than taciturn blobs. And Organon, with his star-reading mumbo jumbo act, is just the right touch our story needs.
Joining Organon in our scale tipping is Karela, although she doesn’t provide quite as much weight. It’s not her fault but the script’s. Karela, right hand woman to Adrasta. We don’t see enough of her and we don’t get enough “If I say you’re made of tin, you horrible little animal, you’re made of tin” out of her. But she makes the most of what she is given.
And now the final and overwhelming counterbalance: the Lady Adrasta. The Creature From the Pit works solely on the basis of the Lady Adrasta. The Lady Adrasta—Lady MacBeth, Cruella de Vil, the Evil Queen of Snow White—by any name she is larger than life and twice as fascinating.
“Point the dog against the rock!”
The Lady Adrasta is melodrama at its pinnacle, and she elevates our pit to those soaring heights.
Unfortunately for us she is killed off at the beginning of the fourth act and we have to sit through the hastily tacked on conclusion that takes us out of the pit but fails to elevate us.
Overall, however, I have to say that The Creature From the Pit works. Because we are in the realm of melodrama the miserable monster is tolerable and the distractions forgivable. And with the exception of Everest, some of the more glib remarks by the Doctor can be taken for the jokes they are meant. (“Time Lords have 90 lives.” “How many have you got through, then?” “About 130.”; “What sign were you born under?” “Crossed computers.” “Crossed what?” “Computers. It’s the symbol of the maternity service on Gallifrey.”)
And there you have it, Gary.
“We call it . . . the Pit.”
“Ah, you have such a way with words.”

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

City of Death

Dear Gary—
“What’s Scarlioni’s angle?”
To steal the Mona Lisa. To ransack and sell priceless treasures through the ages. To finance dangerous time experiments. To reunite his twelve fractured selves scattered throughout history. To roll back the Earth’s clock four hundred million years. To undo all of human progress.
“Scarlioni’s angle? Never heard of it. Have you ever heard of Scarlioni’s angle?”
“No, I was never any good at geometry.”
The City of Death, like The Romans so many years before it, is Doctor Who as unabashed comedy.
Also like the Romans, City of Death is Doctor Who on vacation: “It’s the only place in the universe where one can relax entirely.” The Doctor and Romana are in Paris and there is a wonderfully leisurely feel to the story as they take in the sights, from the Eiffel Tower to the Louvre to sidewalk cafes; riding the metro and running across busy streets; the two are totally at ease with one another; and the accompanying musical score to this holiday is inspired.
But when the world takes “a funny turn” and the Doctor and Romana run afoul of Scarlioni things really take off. City of Death is Doctor Who in top form: an excellent script full of excellent supporting characters played by excellent actors.
I’ll start with the least minor character. In the midst of all the big name talents of Julian Glover (“the centuries that divide me shall be undone”), Catherine Schell (“you’re a beautiful woman, probably”), and John Cleese (“to me, one of the most curious things about this piece is its wonderful afunctionalism”), the likes of Peter Halliday makes his usual Doctor Who memorable impression. Tom Baker as the Doctor and Julian Glover as Captain Tancredi are clearly the major players in their scene together, but Peter Halliday in his quiet way as an unnamed soldier steals it.
“I say, what a wonderful butler. He’s so violent.” And then there is Hermann. There isn’t anything exceptional about the character of Hermann, except he is the perfect foil; always deadpan, always on hand to set up a laugh: “Sell a Gutenberg Bible discreetly?” “Well, as discreetly as possible. Just do it, will you?”; “Count, I would really like to get some sleep.” “Hermann, cancel the wine; bring the vitamin pill.”
The scientist Kerensky is yet another notable in our cast. Duped into believing he is working for the betterment of mankind (“It’s the Jagaroth who need all the chickens?”), he is befuddlement and genius combined (“You never cease to amaze me, that such a giant intellect could live in such a tiny mind.”).
Even the tour guide at the Louvre gets in the act.
But it is our main players, the Doctor, Romana, Duggan, the Count, and the Countess, who make City of Death the classic that it is.
Let me start with the Count (Julian Glover) and Countess (Catherine Schell), our two stars among the guest stars. Without their restraining presence the Doctor’s antics would not work as well as they do.
For instance, the Doctor introducing himself and his companions to the Countess while on his knees (after having been tripped up by the violent butler Hermann) and then directing everyone to their places and helping himself to a drink all would have been completely over the top if the Countess didn’t remain perfectly calm, firm, and aristocratic throughout. Even a touch of Margaret Dumont would have sent this scene into the realm of the zany. This is not Marx Brothers but Doctor Who after all.
The Count is equally calm, although not quite as humorless as the Countess. But his is the dry, above-it-all humor one would expect from an alien being who has been splintered into twelve separate parts living twelve separate but connected lives amongst a peoples so far primitive to his own for a seeming eternity. The Count, Scaroth, Last of the Jagaroth; “An infinitely old race and an infinitely superior one.” That he can find humor at all in his plight is remarkable.
I especially love the scene in the cellar as the Doctor peppers the Count with questions that beg for exposition only to have the Count answer in staid, monosyllabic “No” and “Yes” replies (“I like concise answers”), and then the Doctor echoes this back to him when the Count begins his own interrogation. Punctuating it all, of course, is Duggan’s punch (“Duggan! Duggan, why is it that every time I start to talk to someone, you knock him unconscious?”).
But I don’t want to get into Duggan just yet, Gary, because I have more to say about the Count and Countess.
What a fascinating pair, these two. “A few fur coats, a few trinkets, a little nefarious excitement.” This apparently is all it takes to keep the Countess happy. One has to wonder about that nefarious excitement, given the fact that her husband is an undercover alien with one eye and green tentacled face and hands and who knows what else. “What have I been living with all these years?” she finally thinks to ask, and we have to ask why she never thought to ask before.
The Countess is a woman full of her own self-importance, reveling in the power and wealth her husband provides, and thrilling in the criminal escapades he masterminds. (Countess: “Think of the wealth that will be ours.” Count: “The wealth is not everything.” Countess: “Of course. The achievement. Yes, the achievement.”) The Count plays up to her vanities and secretly scorns them.
Puffed up as she is, she knows her place:
Countess: “Of course. Just tell Hermann.”
 Count: “No, my dear. You tell Hermann.”
She has sold herself for fur coats, trinkets, and nefarious excitement, and she never thinks to ask, “What have I been living with all these years?”
Now let’s get to Duggan, ”I’m about ready to thump somebody” Duggan. This Bull Dog Drummond meet Inspector Clouseau character contributes more than his punctuating punch (“I think that was possibly the most important punch in history”).  And he does more than merely introduce us to the art theft sub plot that sucks us and the Doctor into this story.
Duggan lets us get to know Romana Mark II. Now the previous story, Destiny of the Daleks, and the opening scenes of this have shown us a relaxed and easy side to our new Romana. But her interactions with Duggan let us glimpse a side to her beyond her role as companion. Romana is a Time Lord (or Time Lady if you will) and it is nice to see City of Death give her an opportunity to shine as such. (Interesting that now she is a Time Lady and not Time Lord Romana has become vain about her age and is shaving years off, telling Duggan she is 125 when we know from The Ribos Operation that she is 139.)
“If you wanted an omelet,” she tells Duggan displaying a biting wit worthy of the Doctor, “I’d expect to find a pile of broken crockery, a cooker in flames, and an unconscious chef.”  And then she gets to do some Doctor Who technobable explanations to an incredulous Duggan regarding time continuums before giving up and concluding, “Come on, let’s get back to the chateau where at least you can thump somebody.”
“Can anyone join in this conversation, or do you need a certificate?” Duggan’s confused dim-wittedness in many ways voices the same need of the audience for explanations. While Romana assumes a more authoritative, informative role usually consigned to the Doctor alone, Duggan takes on the more traditional companion role needing the intricacies of the plot spelled out for him.
 “Stealing the Mona Lisa to pay for chickens?” That would be Duggan summing up the plot. And that’s not a bad summation, except the Doctor would substitute tinkering with time for chickens, and “that’s always a bad idea unless you know what you’re doing.”
“Oh, some can,” the Doctor says, clearly placing himself in that category, “and if you can’t you shouldn’t tinker with time,” he concludes, clearly placing Kerensky in the latter.
The Count agrees, and he demonstrates exactly how he deals with fools by placing Kerensky in the field generator (“No! Not that switch!”) and ages him to dust. Not to worry, Romana has built him a field interface stabilizer so he can utilize the equipment Kerensky has built as an effective time machine and succeed in his goal of returning to his past self in order to stop himself from causing the explosion that resulted in his fractured existence (and incidentally producing the massive dose of radiation needed to create life on Earth).
And now, Gary, I want to turn my attention to the Doctor. He might have displayed a relaxed and easy charm on holiday followed by some comic turns complete with pratfalls, but when it comes down to it there is a dead serious core masked by the buffoonery that has always been a part of the Doctor’s, and most especially Tom Baker’s Doctor’s, persona.
Doctor: “Ah Count, hello. I wonder if you could spare me a moment of your time. Romana, hello, how are you? I see the Count’s roped you in as a lab assistant. What are you making for him? A model railway? A Gallifreyan egg timer? I hope you’re not making him a time machine. I shall be very angry.”
All that quick, rapid-fire wit we come to expect from the Doctor. Light and humorous but masking concern and gauging the situation.
Scarlioni: “Doctor, how very nice to see you again. It seems like only 474 years since we last met.”
(The Doctor has just returned from his sojourn back to Leonardo da Vinci’s time and his meeting with one of Scarlioni’s alter egos Captain Tancredi.)
Doctor: “Indeed. Indeed yes. I so much prefer the weather in the early part of the sixteenth century, don’t you?”
And then, added to the end of this droll string rolling swiftly off his tongue: “Where’s Duggan?” With all of human history hanging in the balance, with off-the-cuff banter flying about, the Doctor takes the time to enquire after a man he barely knows, a man who is “in it for the thumping,” a man who has blundered his way into the Doctor’s life.
It is that dead calm eye of the storm existing within the chaos that is the fourth Doctor that first impressed me back in Robot and that is impressing me still as we near the end of his long run.
Duggan: “Doctor, get me out of here.”
Doctor: “Ah, there you are Duggan. Are you behaving yourself? Good, good. Now, Count, this is what I’ve come to say . . .”
Assured of Duggan’s safety, the Doctor can get down to the serious business of saving the world.
A quick hop in the TARDIS back four hundred million years (apparently the Doctor can take the TARDIS off the randomizer when necessary) and Duggan can make his world saving punch. In the end I feel sorry for Scaroth, the Last of the Jagaroth. But the Doctor is right: “You’ve thrown the dice once. You don’t get a second throw.”
 I do wonder, though, why Scaroth (as Scarlioni) didn’t hook up with the gang from Invasion of the Dinosaurs working towards the same goal of moving the Earth back through time, but then we’d have a different story. I also don’t know why he didn’t cooperate with the Fendahl and the Daemon Azal to advance Mankind through the ages, but again, different story. It is rather maddening, all these aliens claiming credit for our advancement (including the Doctor’s off-hand claims regarding Shakespeare). And since I’m on the subject of re-writing history (rather ironic since the Doctor is admonishing Scaroth from doing just that when the show is rather liberal with its own revisions), really Gary, are we to believe that da Vinci could make seven identical pictures, so much so that no one can tell the difference from the original even if painted by the same hand?
I have long cited City of Death as my favorite Doctor Who. I don’t know, Gary, that I would state this unequivocally if asked today; I don’t know that I could single out any one story for such an honor, although it remains in my top ten if not top five. Rivaling City of Death for top spot would be that long ago Hartnell story The Romans as well as fellow Tom Baker serials The Brain of Morbius, Pyramids of Mars, The Talons of Weng-Chiang, The RibosOperation, and The Pirate Planet (but don’t count out Sylvester McCoy’s Paradise Towers).
I wonder, Gary, where you would rank City of Death, but I can only wonder and send this off with these words of wisdom from the Doctor:
“Well, I suppose the best way to find out where you’ve come from is to find out where you’re going and then work backwards.”
If and when I ever find out where I’m going, Gary . . .

Friday, April 12, 2013

Destiny of the Daleks

Dear Gary—
Destiny of the Daleks is the perfect story to follow up the Key to Time Season. After a unique season long story arc with none of the traditional Doctor Who monsters it is refreshing to return to the tried and true formula with one of the Doctor’s oldest foes.
But of course I have to first address the change in Romana from Mary Tamm to Lalla Ward. Much has been said and written about this ‘regeneration’ scene; much outrage has been vented; much contempt expressed. Many hardcore fans are incensed that Romana does not regenerate with all of the uncontrolled trauma that the Doctor undergoes. They rage at her casual ‘trying on’ of bodies and her apparent waste of regenerations. Personally my outrage has always been over the choice of actress and not the means by which she is introduced. Frankly I find the scene immensely funny.
Perhaps my lack of fury over the flippancy stems from the fact that the first time I viewed this particular story I had never seen a Doctor regenerate before. Now that I have seen all of the Doctor regeneration scenes, however, I remain unfazed. In fact, the more I think about it, I’m more upset by the way in which the Doctor’s regenerations have become an increasingly over dramatic ordeal.
Let’s look to that very first ‘renewal.’ William Hartnell stumbles into the TARDIS stating that his body is wearing a bit thin, collapses, and pops up as Patrick Troughton and he’s off and running. His second occurs at the will of the Time Lords, and if you remember Gary, he is given a choice of faces before the Time Lords impatiently choose for him, and voila Jon Pertwee. He does remain unconscious for a time, but probably more because the regeneration was forced on him and the Time Lords had also tampered with his memory and such. Next we have Jon Pertwee, after having dealt with deadly spiders and massive radiation, stumbling from the TARDIS and collapsing on the UNIT floor only to wake up as a delirious Tom Baker.  But Tom Baker was soon up and about “all systems go.”
The Doctor, as you rightly know Gary, is a renegade Time Lord. He is on the run from his society. Who knows how a true Time Lord, a by-the-book, staid, intergalactic ticket inspector Time Lord regenerates? I can well imagine that such a Time Lord doesn’t desperately hold on to a persona to the bitter end before being forced to change. I imagine such a Time Lord very well goes in to a shop to pick and choose what flavor of man (or woman) he (or she) wants to be next. It’s probably the only measure of titillation such a Time Lord has in his (or her) infinitely boring life span.
Next let’s turn to Lalla Ward. I have to admit that I have come to a grudging acceptance and even liking for Lalla Ward’s Romana. My initial ire is long blunted by time and now that I have seen her many times over as Romana I can appreciate her portrayal.
Having said all of that and gotten it out of the way, I can finally turn my attention to our story at hand, Destiny of the Daleks.
“Destiny. Destiny. No escaping that for me.” (Sorry Gary. I couldn’t resist that quote from Young Frankenstein. It just escaped me.)
The Doctor and our newly regenerated Romana (“What are you doing in that body?”) step out of the TARDIS onto a truly inhospitable landscape. “Shall we go back inside?” asks Romana. “What, and never know where I’ve been until the end of time?” responds the ever curious Doctor. Where they are is Skaro. That long ago and far distant planet of the Daleks first introduced with our first Doctor.
Now I’m going to aside again here, Gary, and please forgive me. Just as Romana has crossed the divide between Mary Tamm and Lalla Ward, so too has Doctor Who crossed the divide between Genesis of the Daleks, when last the Doctor visited Skaro, and Destiny of the Daleks. And just as Lalla Ward pales in comparison, so too does Destiny. But just as Lalla Ward will do, so too will Destiny.
To be brief: the Daleks have returned to Skaro to dig up their creator Davros who is buried under the demolished dome of those long ago and now mutated Kaleds. The Daleks are in a non-ending war with the Movellans and need Davros’ humanoid senses to provide the edge against their robotic foe. The Movellans have trailed after the Daleks to see what they are up to. The Doctor and Romana stumble upon these two warring factions and a typical Doctor Who adventure is born.
Again we have outrage and contempt expressed as the Daleks are referred to throughout Destiny of the Daleks as robots. I have to admit that I was thrown by the use of the term in relation to the Daleks, but then Gary, it’s all semantics. As you can probably tell, I’m not one to go by the rule book of grammar; so let the Doctor throw away the rules of semantics. We know that the Daleks are not robots in the strict sense and so too does the Doctor (“They used to be humanoid themselves.”). Let them bandy about the word; we know the truth. Just sit back and enjoy, throw out that rule book, and let Doctor Who be Doctor Who.
Since I am doing multiple asides—Destiny of the Daleks always reminds me of a sci-fi short story I read too many years ago than I want to admit about a technology dependent society that had long given up the teaching of such fundamentals as math to its citizens, but which had a crisis that was resolved by one man (or possibly boy?) who could actually do math in his head. It is the vaguest of memories, but it has stuck with me lo these many years, only to resurface whenever I watch Destiny of the Daleks and see the Doctor demonstrating via rock/paper/scissors how the robotic Movellans and robotic (?!) Daleks will be forever stalemated without the interjection of the human factor (“make mistakes and confuse the enemy”).
Next we have Davros and the Daleks. Last we saw Davros he was a chillingly evil mastermind masterfully brought to life by Michael Wisher in The Genesis of the Daleks. Resurrected in Destiny, he doesn’t have quite the same impact. Neither, frankly, do the Daleks. Blame it on the semantics.
No, not semantics alone. I watched this time, Gary. I watched it through and thoroughly. At the end of Genesis the Daleks had turned on their creator in one of the most spine-tingling moments of Doctor Who. Now they dig him up because they need him. OK. I can accept that. The Daleks might not be robots in the true sense of the word, but apparently they have relied upon their computers (?!) to conduct this war with the robotic Movellans (I can only assume this is only one faction of the Daleks fighting only one faction of their never-ending war against all of creation) and they need the humanoid unpredictability factor that Davros (not only Davros—couldn’t they enlist some humanoid ally as they have done multiple times in the past?) can provide to tip the scales in their favor. OK.
“Supreme Dalek. Hah! That is a title I shall dispute most vigorously,” Davros states. The Daleks had turned on him, had tried to kill him (his secondary and backup life support systems having saved him), and now have dug him up and turned to him in their hour of need, all feeding the hubris of Davros. I expect such grandiosity from Davros.
“We obey only Davros.” I expect that the Daleks (not robots) have the wherewithal and duplicity to coddle along with their megalomaniacal creator to get what they want, which is the means with which to win their war.
However, Gary, I watched this time. I watched it through and thoroughly. The obsequiousness of the Daleks, I always assumed, was a put on. They would turn on Davros in a second once their objective was secured. This never happens. The only excuse I can afford is that they don’t have the opportunity. The Doctor intervenes and everything explodes (literally) in their faces.
Now, Gary, I think I have one too many excuses for this story. I can forgive and forget and explain away only so much. How many times must I do it before I say enough is enough?
I suppose the main problem is that Destiny of the Daleks was written by Terry Nation, one of the original contributors to Doctor Who and creator of the Daleks, and script edited by Douglas Adams. Two geniuses at odds.
But then, Gary, we are looking at the mechanics of the show, aren’t we? The semantics, the grammar, the behind-the-scenes, the history, the lore.
Let’s toss all of that and view Destiny of the Daleks as a single Doctor Who adventure in and of itself.
As such, Destiny of the Daleks delivers as some decent entertainment. Certainly not the best and brightest, but presentable.
And so we can enjoy moments like the Doctor, buried under a fallen beam, calmly taking out a copy of Origins of the Universe by Oolon Colluphid and scoffing, “Ha, ha! He got it wrong on the first line . . . . Why didn’t he ask someone who saw it happen?” while Romana runs off for help. Or the Doctor taunting a frustrated Dalek below him, “If you’re supposed to be the superior race of the universe, why don’t you try climbing after us?” Or Romana off-handedly saying of her two hearts, “One for casual, one for best” (I’ll bet that was a Douglas Adams line).
And we can get to know this new Romana. I have to say that she is growing on me, although I doubt if Romana I would whimper under Dalek torture like Lalla does (I guess it is Dalek torture—she is standing with her hands on a couple of flashing balls and doing a lot of sobbing “I don’t know” responses to Dalek questions, so I guess she’s being tortured in some way). But now that the whole quest thing is over and done with, this new Romana and the Doctor have found a more relaxed bond that suits them well.
Destiny of the Daleks does not have any supporting cast of note. Davros is passable but not memorable as he had been in Genesis. Tyssan, the escaped Dalek prisoner, is fine but doesn’t have much to do really other than keep the action moving along. The robotic Movellans are robotic even before we know they are robots (and why would they wear their power packs out there in the open for anyone to grab?).
“I’ll go alone,” the Doctor says at one point in our story and adds, “Ask me why.” I don’t have to ask, I know. Because there really isn’t anyone worth taking along. But his answer is better: “They’re unconscious. Also, I’m a very dangerous fellow when I don’t know what I’m doing.”
And that, Gary, is what makes Doctor Who Doctor Who. Despite all of the outrage and contempt over flaunted conventions and despite the lack of strong supporting roles, there is always the Doctor. He might be a dangerous fellow when he doesn’t know what he’s doing, but how often does he not know what he’s doing? He might seem to not know, his companions might question if he really knows, but we know. We know and we love and we forgive.
There is much to forgive in Destiny of the Daleks, but there is much to love as well. In the end I suppose they balance out.
Destiny, Gary . . . no escaping . . . .

Monday, April 8, 2013

The Armageddon Factor

Dear Gary—
“This thing makes me feel in such a way I’d be very worried if I felt like that about someone else feeling like this about that.”
Amen.
The Armageddon Factor is the conclusion to the Key to Time season, and it is my least favorite story of the six. That is not to say that I don’t like it; it does have some good points to it; it just doesn’t capture my imagination like the other five do.
For starters, it is six episodes in length with not enough to hold my interest for the entirety. The plot, revolving around a futile and endless war between two planets, has potential, and it is structured nicely with two parts Atrios, two parts Zeos, and two parts shadow planet. But rather like the Marshal spending the better part of three episodes in a time loop giving the signal to fire over and over, the story seems to run down the same corridors over and over with little deviation.
Then we have Astra and Merak, the love interest we are supposed to care about, but I just don’t care. They are both rather lackluster and ineffectual. I remember, Gary, my outraged reaction the first time I realized that Astra, or the actress playing her Lalla Ward, was to become the new Romana. The lowlight for me is when Princess Astra is spitting out her lines with the Marshall at the beginning of our story and concludes with, “Then let me go to the hospital. I can’t do anything here.” She begins her delivery in the same angry tone she had been using throughout her dialogue with him, only to realize partway through that this isn’t entirely appropriate to the line and she tempers it, limping her way to the finish. I get the feeling the Marshall lets her go just to get her off screen. Her subsequent scenes with Merak are equally lame, and it doesn’t help that Merak matches her lack of intensity. About the only time I like Lalla Ward’s acting is when Astra is under the influence of the Shadow and playing evil.
In hindsight it is interesting to see the two actresses, Lalla Ward and Mary Tamm, side by side. Too bad neither has any real chance to shine, or at least neither takes the opportunity to shine. The Armageddon Factor is Mary Tamm’s last appearance as Romana in Doctor Who, and I do like that she is given quite a lot to say and do. However what I do not like is that she is humorless throughout. It is a shame that we see none of her personality in this story, and the last we see of her she is delivering a harangue against the Doctor.
There is some humor in The Armageddon Factor, however unlike most Doctor Who serials it doesn’t arise naturally but rather seems forced and out of place. In particular, the characters of Shapp and Drax. These are actually two of my favorite characters in the story, but they just don’t fit.  As K9 observes, “Your silliness is noted.” Shapp and Drax do introduce some much needed lightheartedness to the proceedings, but the action around them is so very serious and grim that it seems glaringly silly in contrast. These two seem to go with a different tale altogether, and I often wish it was that one I was watching.
Thank goodness for the Doctor. I go back, Gary, to The Ribos Operation. Romana asks the Doctor, “Aren’t you frightened?” to which he replies, “Yes, terrified.” Or going back even further to The Ark in Space: “When I say I’m afraid, Sarah, I’m not making jokes.” The Doctor might seem devil-may-care, but beneath his jovial façade we know he is deadly serious. There is much for the Doctor to fear in The Armageddon Factor, but his persona never changes. His is the only humor in this serial that works because it is natural (“Diagonal thinking; that’s what’s required!”).
“Empirical poppycock,” the Doctor says when Romana expresses her expectations of the worst. “Where’s your joy in life? Where’s your optimism?”
“It opted out,” Romana replies—her one moment of humor, but unfortunately prophetic for the rest of the story.
K9, too, has a good line here: “Optimism. Belief that everything will work out well. Irrational, bordering on insane.” Typical K9 logical thinking.
“Oh, do shut up K9,” and typical Doctor berating his mechanical friend. “Listen Romana,” the Doctor continues, “whenever you go into a new situation you must always believe the best until you find out exactly what the situation’s all about. Then believe the worst.”
The worst is what they walk into on Atrios. A world devastated by nuclear war, the people scarred and wounded, the planet contaminated, their fleet depleted, their leaders disconsolate, but a Marshal intent on victory at all costs, throwing everything and everyone at the war effort with no mercy.
“No sign of immediate life,” K9 offers as the Doctor and Romana walk through the empty corridors of Atrios. And then he adds, “The corpse on the left, however, is recent.” That is what is sorely missing from most of The Armageddon Factor, a heavy dose of black humor. Oh what the Coen brothers could do with this script. Wouldn’t that be a fantastic pairing, Gary—the Coen brothers and Doctor Who.
Instead what we get is mostly dark and humorless with sudden bursts of silliness.
I’m not even going to go into the wealth of questions that arise, like what is that skull that talks to the Marshal and why doesn’t it sense the presence of Romana and Merak; why does the Marshal have to look into the mirror to get his instructions; what does the Shadow need with the Marshal when the Marshal seems to want war at all costs regardless of mind control; what happened to all the people on Zeos; and so many more questions I ask myself as the story progresses, but I find I don’t really care enough to get the answers.
 “You don’t beg for peace, Princess, you win it.” The Marshal dominates the first third of the action as it plays out on Atrios, and his single-minded pursuit of victory in the face of devastating losses is engrossing. However the discovery that he is a mere puppet of the Shadow somehow blunts this. Perhaps his monomania is induced, but there is no indication that he was ever any other way. How much more effective this would be if we had glimpses of his true, more moderate self instead of the end product with which we are presented. With the Princess we see the transformation from good to evil, and even though the good is blasé and the evil somewhat inexplicable (can the Shadow really change a personality so completely with just a small black button on the neck?), at least we have the contrast in front of us to add some teeth to the Shadow’s menace. Having only Astra’s change before us I can only wonder why she acts as she does; seeing the Marshal’s conversion would have added a more convincing bite to the Shadow’s power.
Even a hint of his past self would suffice. Perhaps a wife or child agonizing over the personality change. A few simple lines, gestures, looks from one of those wonderful Doctor Who supporting cast members could have added a wealth of depth to this storyline. Instead we get his right hand man Shapp merely rolling his eyes as the Marshal becomes more unreasonable.
For the middle section we move to Zeos and learn that there are no Zeons on Zeos. Miles and miles of empty, dusty corridors and one computer master minding the war effort. Who’s minding the computer, keeping the dust out of the server room, performing minor maintenance, making sure the power stays on? No mention, no matter. Who’s manning those war ships we see as tiny blips on the Atrios radar screen? No mention, no matter. What happened to all of the people of Zeos, or at least their corpses? No mention, no matter.
Finally we arrive at the Shadow’s lair for the denouement (“you are in the Valley of the Shadow”). Here we get an abandonment of the first two thirds of the story (or at least a temporary pause as it is held up in a time loop) so we can get to the Key to Time thread of the plot.
Enter Drax. Drax, a renegade Time Lord like the Doctor, had been employed by the Shadow to build the Zeos war computer Mentalis and has now been conscripted into entrapping the Doctor. Drax recognizes him and for the first time we get an actual name attached to the Doctor (other than his alias of John Smith). “Hello, Theet. How you been, boy?” Theta Sigma, as we will come to learn in later serials, was the Doctor’s nickname back at the Academy. The Doctor seems annoyed at the dredging up of this old appellation and calmly but rather sternly corrects Drax: “Doctor.” I have to say I’m a bit annoyed myself at this familiarity. I do adore Drax, but as I say, he is out of place and his intimate use of the name seems almost sacrilege (and I have to admit, Gary, that I always heard Theet as Feet and was therefore doubly outraged). “No offence,” the Doctor adds, however, because he too likes Drax.
Now we have the Shadow using Romana, I mean Princess Astra, to lure Romana (the real, true, first Romana) and also Merak off into danger, and we have some strange sequences of holographic Romanas (the real, true, first Romana) and the Doctor calling out and walking down corridors (“Ah, I see what you’re at; splitting us up. Divide and conquer, is that it?”). If that is what he’s at, I don’t get it. He already had them split up. What exactly was the point of that? It was some more out of place silliness, like a funhouse set down in the middle of a war torn battlefield.
And then we have the Shadow enslaving K9. The Doctor has the right idea about these little black buttons the Shadow uses; he simply takes it off and scoffs at it. I can see how Astra has come under the influence, and the Marshal doesn’t seem to need any undue influence (although why he didn’t take the thing off as a nuisance I don’t know), but K9? A tin dog? Really? This leads to some rather comical scenes with K9, the Doctor, and Drax, all out of place in the somber Shadow’s lair, but nonetheless entertaining and much appreciated.
Finally we have the revelation that Romana, I mean, er, Astra, is the sixth segment to the Key to Time, and that the Shadow is working for the Black Guardian. Astra willingly undergoes her “metamorphosis” and the Doctor unshrinks himself (don’t even ask about the shrinking shtick) in the nick of time to grab the segment away from the Shadow and race for the TARDIS.
Now we have the first appearance of the Black Guardian, a nice end cap to the Key to Time season. It would have been nice if he posed more of a serious threat, but I have to say that I don’t really mind the fairly anticlimactic end to this quest. All of the fun was in the search, who really cares if it was all for naught? The key is assembled for a brief time, and presumably this is enough for the White Guardian to do his thing. I’m sure he is all-knowing enough to sense it has been assembled and all-powerful enough to restore balance. That’s all a bit of minor technicality that I can leave to my suspension of disbelief.
The Doctor’s “Absolute power over every particle in the universe” routine in the closing moments is worth the entire season-long exercise in futility.
With the Key dispersed once again, Astra is restored to her Merak (although honestly I care more for the Atrios soap opera lovers than I do this duo), the Doctor and Romana are now at the whim of the randomizer the Doctor has newly fitted to the TARDIS guidance system (that “operates under a very complex scientific principle called pot luck”), and Drax is off to peddle his talents to the frustrated Marshal just released from his time loop. Now that, Gary, is another Doctor Who spinoff I would love to see.
And so the Key to Time season comes to a close; a season of diminishing returns.
I’m making it sound as though I don’t like The Armageddon Factor at all, but I do in fact enjoy it. It is just the lost potential that I lament.
But then, Gary, you know that old saying about ifs and buts . . .

Friday, April 5, 2013

The Power of Kroll

Dear Gary—
The Power of Kroll is obviously the weakest link in the Key to Time season; and yet I have always liked it. I’m not sure why. The acting is sub-par for Doctor Who; the costumes, make-up, and effects are laughable even for Doctor Who; the characters are rather one-dimensional; the action can be plodding. And yet I have always liked it and like it still.
Maybe it is the wince-inducing green natives pathetically chanting “Kroll, Kroll, Kroll” while the maiden (Romana) is menaced unconvincingly by a rubber suited monster. This scene is everything that is wrong about The Power of Kroll, yet it is somehow endearing and hypnotic.
“Well, he probably looked more convincing from the front.”
That says it all about The Power of Kroll. This is Doctor Who as viewed behind the scenes with all its seams showing. It is Doctor Who inside out. And that is rather refreshing and fun.
One dead on aspect of the serial is the marshy locale. From the moment the TARDIS materializes in the tall grasses and the Doctor and Romana emerge to trudge through the swampy terrain I think, aah—that’s a perfect spot for a Doctor Who story. Then the tall, nearly naked green men show up and I think, aha—some neighborhood gang of friends thought so too and are playing at Doctor Who. The Doctor and Romana have happened upon this backyard production and are playing along. Charming.
“Kroll! . . . Kroll! . . . Kroll! . . .”
Rhythmic drum beats.
Kroll! . . . Kroll! . . . Kroll! . . .”
The key, of course, is that the Doctor and Romana do show up. Not your amateur theatrical Doctor and Romana, but Tom Baker and Mary Tamm.
Doctor: “Well, you’d better introduce me.”
Romana: “As what?”
Doctor: “Oh, I don’t know. As a wise and wonderful person who wants to help. Don’t exaggerate.”
Romana: “This is . . .”
Ranquin: “Seize them.”
Doctor: “I told you not to exaggerate.”
Yes, Tom Baker and Mary Tamm definitely show up.
Doctor: “I know a rogue when I see a rogue, and I’ve no desire to die in the company of a rogue. Have you any desire to die in the company of a rogue?”
Romana: “I’d rather not die at all.”
The rogue they speak of is Rohm-Dutt, a double dealing gun runner supplying defective weapons to our green-skinned friends. About the only distinctive thing about this somewhat bland character is yet another great Doctor Who villain name. I barely notice when a Kroll tentacle drags him off never to be seen again.
Assumed to be in league with Rohm-Dutt, the Doctor and Romana are condemned “to die by the seventh holy ritual” (“Seven’s my lucky number”) and our green-skinned hooligans grab some nearby foliage and truss them up on a makeshift stretcher bar. While Rohm-Dutt and Romana try their best to make us believe they are being torn apart by the creepy crawly vines the Doctor takes note of a window placed above their heads.
“Will you stop babbling about the architecture? We’re having a serious conversation about death.”
Romana has not been with the Doctor long enough to know better (“Doctor, sometimes I don’t think you’re quite right in the head”), but we know, Gary, that there is always sense in the Doctor’s nonsense.
“Nellie Melba’s party piece,” the Doctor says after his high pitched screech breaks the window allowing the rain to loosen the creepers to aid their escape, “though she could only do it with wine glasses.”
In addition to the marshes and the green-skinned natives (cleverly dubbed ‘swampies’) we have a methane refinery and its crew; and lo and behold, Philip Madoc has joined this local troop of actors to lend his talent. His part as Fenner is relatively subdued compared to some of his more memorable turns at Doctor Who (most notably the War Lord in The War Games and Solon in The Brain of Morbius), but he is perfectly placed in this somewhat dull and dour base.
The long scenes of Fenner and Thawn debating over the best method to defeat Kroll (the giant squid of our title) could have been tedious, but with Philip Madoc on hand I actually find these sections to be extremely tense and gripping.
I do have to aside here, Gary. John Leeson was along with Tom Baker and Mary Tamm on this outing, but the swamps were deemed unmanageable for K9 so he was thrown in to the refinery scenes to check monitors and add some Sons of Earth propaganda. I do think, though, that this schoolyard romp missed out—how much more fun it would have been to let John Leeson do his K9 bit on all fours like he did in the rehearsal halls rather than settling for one of the more mundane human roles.
And then there is Kroll.
“Kroll! . . . Kroll! . . . Kroll! . . .”
Rhythmic drum beats.
Kroll! . . . Kroll! . . . Kroll! . . .”
Kroll—what all the fuss has been about. The swampies worship him for some bizarre reason and the refinery crew fears him for good reason. Kroll is one giant squid. The biggest monster ever in Doctor Who. You just have to love this guy.
“Well, I’ve had a happy life. Can’t complain. Nearly 760. Not a bad age.” The Doctor has gone to confront Kroll armed only with the tracer. Kroll (“Kroll! . . . Kroll! . . . Kroll! . . .”) swallowed the fifth segment of the Key to Time (ah yes, let’s not forget the Key to Time) and all the Doctor has to do, after a slight wrestling match, is touch the tracer to Kroll and voila!
This playacting band of thespians, though, obviously didn’t want things to end just yet so they added a Doctor Who count down to certain death so that the Doctor could pull a couple of wires to make the whole thing go pffft.
It probably would look more convincing from the front (“Too convincing, but there’s no need to be smug about it.” “I’m not smug.” “I can tell that expression even from behind.”), but this backstage perspective was highly entertaining.
Only one segment to go.