Menu Close

Retro-View #6: That’s a Wrap

Planet of the Spiders (Story #74, 1974)
Viewed 26 Oct, 01 Nov 2012

Doctor/Companion: Three, Sarah Jane Smith, the Brigadier
Stars: Jon Pertwee, Elisabeth Sladen, Nicholas Courtney
Preceding Story: The Monster of Peladon (Three, Sarah Jane)
Succeeding Story: Robot (Four, Sarah Jane, the Brigadier)

Our first session started out a bit rough. G couldn’t commit to sit down straight through because she needed to pop home briefly to give her dog B some meds at a particular time, and I couldn’t go too late because I needed to vacate the premises at a later particular time. However, we started early enough that we figured a pause after Part 1 for dog-doping would still give us time to finish in one sitting.

How wrong we were.

Poor G got home and discovered B had eaten all the meds in the half hour since she’d left. Luckily, they were of the dietary supplement kind rather than the deadly overdose kind, but we spent the next hour watching Who with a kind of nervous concern at the backs of our minds as we waited for the vet to return her call. It was a weird day.

Things started out well for the Doctor, though. G recognized the om mani padme hum chant, and figured using it as the basis for “black magic” would not go over well with Buddhists. Can’t say that I disagree, but I suppose at the time it seemed as exotic as bubble wrap, so in that sense I can’t get too uptight about it.

Read more →

Retro-View #5: A Representative Sample

The Dæmons (Story #59, 1971)
Viewed 15 Oct 2012

Doctor/Companion: Three, Josephine “Jo” Grant, the Brigadier
Stars: Jon Pertwee, Katy Manning, Nicholas Courtney
Preceding Story: Colony in Space (Three, Jo)
Succeeding Story: Day of the Daleks (Three, Jo, the Brigadier)

As per our scheme, this time we watched something representative of the middle of our current Doctor’s era, in this case meaning it needed to feature the Master and Jo.
Granted, G is an easy audience, but those who hearken to received “fan wisdom” about the quality of any given story will be glad to hear that she quite enjoyed this adventure. No need for name-calling here.

I’m not sure it’s the same things that such fans cite as reasons for The Dæmons‘ “classic” status that tickled G’s fancy, though. For one thing, she’s got no personal history with – and therefore no particular emotional attachment to – any of the regulars. She’s never seen Jo before (“She really is cute. Very pretty”), or the Master (“Isn’t he just the most evil thing you’ve ever seen? He looks like every caricature you’ve ever seen of Mephistopheles”). Even the Brigadier – not to mention the Doctor himself! – were only in one other story she’s seen. As for the rest of UNIT, she’s never seen Yates or Benton, either. So no “jolly romp in a pastoral English village with all our favorite characters larking about” for G. More just simply “this is a good one. I’m glad you picked this one.”

So in that sense, maybe this isn’t going to be everything The Fans had hoped for. Regardless, I think G’s enjoyment of The Dæmons will still be entertaining for others (as long as I can get it all across adequately). Let’s begin, then, at the beginning.

Read more →

Now That’s Diplomatic Tension

2 Comments

Review of The Ambassadors of Death (#53)

DVD Release Date: 10 Oct 12
Original Air Date: 21 Mar – 02 May 1970
Doctor/Companion: Three, Liz Shaw, the Brigadier
Stars: Jon Pertwee, Caroline John, Nicholas Courtney
Preceding Story: Doctor Who and the Silurians (Three, Liz, the Brigadier)
Succeeding Story: Inferno (Three, Liz, the Brigadier)

It’s been a Three-rich environment around here lately, what with taking G through his era and the DVD releases for October and November both starring this particular Doctor. It’s a good thing I quite like him, or I’d be in trouble.

As far as what I’ve seen, Ambassadors is the penultimate story of Three’s tenure. (The final one is The Mind of Evil, which is being painstakingly colorized by the ridiculously talented Stuart Humphryes, aka BabelColour, and is due out on DVD some time next year.) I was plenty surprised, then, when the opening titles kind of stopped halfway through, cut to a short “pre-titles sequence” and then finished the titles. That format was never used again (which explains my surprise), but I thought it was kind of a cool, interesting way to go about it. (It’s also fun to note that this it the first story to use the “sting” into the closing credits.)

Given the way space travel was just getting underway with the Apollo program at the time these were filmed and broadcast, I found it primarily interesting from a historical perspective. As the astronauts had trouble with their Mars Probe 7, I couldn’t help but wonder how far from Apollo 13 (in which a malfunction endangered the lives of three American astronauts) this was produced. The extras (see below) answered that question – Apollo 13 launched the day Episode 4 aired, encountered its famous “problem” three days later, and splashed down safely the day before Episode 5. That had to have made things awfully weird for the viewers.

Read more →

Retro-View #4: A New Leading Man

4 Comments

Spearhead from Space (Story #51, 1970)
Viewed 10 Oct 2012

Doctor/Companion: Three, Dr. Elizabeth “Liz” Shaw, the Brigadier
Stars: Jon Pertwee, Caroline John, Nicholas Courtney
Preceding Story: The War Games (Two, Jamie, Zoë)
Succeeding Story: Doctor Who and the Silurians (Three, Liz, the Brigadier)
Notable Aspects:

  • Three’s first story

Now this was not a reaction I’d anticipated – G is a shipper! She’s convinced that Three fancies Liz. I suppose she might have a point. She’s not far off base when, after the Doctor wiggles his eyebrows at Liz and tells her “That’s Delphon for ‘how do you do?’,” she says, “It’s also wolf for ‘what a babe.'”

Of course, she appears to fancy Three herself (have I mentioned that she’s about a decade older than Pertwee was when these were filmed?). The shower scene prompts her to comment that Three’s is “not a bad body.” By the end of Part 3, G’s praise is effusive: “This is a good one. I just like the new guy a lot. I’m in love.” Perhaps, then, there’s a bit of projection at work in her Three/Liz ship.

She loves the switch to color, and comments on the updated music, too. (Not sure how updated it can be, since Dudley Simpson was also responsible for The War Games – though admittedly there was hardly any incidental music in that particular serial.) The humorous bent of the Doctor-based portions of this adventure are right up G’s alley, as well. Three’s first view of his own face, Liz’s take-no-prisoners attitude toward the Brigadier (Brigadier: Am I interrupting? / Liz: Yes.), the way the Doctor calmly appropriates first an outfit and then a car – all of these result in the gleeful noises I so love to hear. “This is very Monty Python-ish,” she declares as the Part 1 credits roll.

Read more →

TLS Trivia Champion!

Wowza! I am absolutely stunned and honored to receive this trophy!

I started following the Time Lord Society on Twitter (@TimeLordSociety) a couple of months ago. Every now and then, they'd post trivia questions – sometimes pre-Hiatus, sometimes post-Hiatus. More often than not, I'd see the flurry of activity in my stream after the fact. Everyone who answered a question correctly got a point, and they kept a list of the rankings. Sometimes I knew the answers, and sometimes I didn't. On the occasions I did get in on the action, I was often beaten to the punch by other extremely knowledgable "Time Lords." Somehow, I managed to claw my way into the top 11 who would be allowed into the tournament.

Over the course of the last couple of weekends, I was fortunate enough to get more questions in my matches that I knew than ones that I didn't (or at least, often when I didn't know one, neither did my opponent). It was a brilliant tournament, and the competition was fierce. I count myself fortunate even to have been in the tournament, and this outcome is more than I could ever have anticipated.

Thank you to the Time Lord Society, to my opponents, and to all who played throughout the trivia season! I look forward to competing again next year!

Read more →

Retro-View #3: The Games Are Afoot

11 Comments

The War Games (Story #50, 1969)
Viewed 25 Sep, 04 Oct 2012

Doctor/Companion: Two, Jamie, Zoë
Stars: Patrick Troughton, Frazer Hines, Wendy Padbury
Preceding Story: The Space Pirates (Two, Jamie, Zoë)
Succeeding Story: Spearhead from Space (Three, Liz Shaw)
Notable Aspects:

  • Two’s final story
  • First mention of the Time Lords (by name)
  • First appearance of the Doctor’s home planet

It is an utter joy to watch Who with G. She’s an ideal audience for indoctrination from the beginning, as she comes into it willingly and with love and appreciation for television of the ’60s anyway. You can always count on her to giggle with absolute glee at the poor stage fighting, Two’s gurning, or the long-since-outdated science fiction props.

On the other hand, she’ll also ask the kinds of questions I imagine the audience at the time would have asked, and is often completely quiet because she’s just soaking it all in, getting involved in the plot. Either that, or she’s exclaiming about something being revealed on screen, “uh-oh”ing at all the right moments or gushing about the “wonderful” sets. I can just imagine if those responsible for creating this story were on hand to observe her they’d be grinning ear to ear the whole time.

For my part, I had a hard time not interjecting things left and right (“Look! The sonic screwdriver is being used as an actual screwdriver!” “He just said his name was Doctor John Smith!” “He just mentioned the Time Lords for the first time ever!” “It’s Philip Madoc! Isn’t he brilliant in this role?”). It was worth it, though, to get her unadulterated reactions (e.g., “I like the War Lord. He’s kind of cute.”).

Read more →

Confession #28: I Grok the Paleowhovians

8 Comments

Once before, I referred to long-term fans, or those who came to love Doctor Who through the pre-Hiatus series, as “paleowhovians.” I liked the symmetry with my own self-description as a neowhovian, since neo- and paleo- are the opposing prefixes from the Greek, but I thought maybe it didn’t sound very… complimentary, somehow, so I didn’t use it again.

It seems I’ve been proven wrong, though, since blogger friend Paul Greaves has appropriated it – and the title of my blog – for a post of his own. (I’ve officially been parodied. Does that mean I’ve arrived?) Some of the comments I read on Facebook about the post included the idea that the term “paleowhovian” would be embraced by at least some long-term fans, with no rancor whatsoever. So, for the purposes of this post, I’m going with it.

Many the things Paul mentioned in his confession are things that – despite my post-Hiatus entry into the fandom – completely gel with me. For instance, he echoed something I’d said in Confession #11, saying that the modern 45-minute episodes don’t really do anything for him. Even though that’s what stories were like from the beginning, from my perspective, I find that I prefer the slightly slower, more drawn-out pace of the pre-Hiatus serial format. True, sometimes it resulted in random padding and extraneous “plot” points, but I find that preferable to an incomplete or rushed storyline. So I’m with the paleowhovians there.

Read more →

A Farewell to Aims*

21 Comments

Review of The Angels Take Manhattan
Warning: This review contains episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.

It all makes sense now. Well, I say “all”… Clearly, some of it is still utter nonsense, but at least one of the things that’s been bugging me all series is finally obviously and satisfactorily resolved, at least in my head. But I’ll get to that.


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2012 BBC

Let me start by talking about how this – this – is finally the kind of episode I’ve been looking for all series. At long last, here’s one I can get behind wholeheartedly because there’s so much right with it, I can ignore just about everything that isn’t.

I really liked the gumshoe detective novel feel to the 1938 portion of the episode (aside from “bouncing off 1938” – wtf?), though I didn’t cotton on till the second time through that Mr. Grayle was deliberately feeding the Angels, nor that it wasn’t necessarily Mr. Garner himself typing up the chapter on “The Dying Detective.”

Even better, though, the Angels have gone back to the basics and once again become the kill-you-by-letting-you-live-to-death monsters we fell in love with in Blink. Somehow, the insidious nature of this particular mechanism makes them creepier and more interesting to me than the sheer monster in the dark we saw back in The Time of Angels. It’s made even more horrific by the way both Garner and Rory are confronted with their future selves (loved the age makeup, too!). It’s good to have the “original” Weeping Angels back.

Read more →

Viewer, Rate Thyself

5 Comments

Review of Vengeance on Varos: SE (#138)
DVD Release Date: 11 Sep 12
Original Air Date: 19 – 25 Jan 1985
Doctor/Companion: Six, Perpugilliam “Peri” Brown
Stars: Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant
Preceding Story: Attack of the Cybermen (Six, Peri)
Succeeding Story: The Mark of the Rani (Six, Peri)

Before watching this release, I’d seen Vengeance on Varos twice previously. The first time was when I was just getting started, watching as many pre-Hiatus stories as I could get my hands on, and the second was for my pre-Gally marathon last year. It has always been one of my least favorites.

Trying to give it a fair shake for this review, I did my best to throw all my preconceived notions – and the fiery passion with which I hate the character Sil – out the window. I think I was I was successful; I liked it more this time around.

Once I was able to get beyond (or put a mostly-effective mental block up against) Sil – a native of Thoros Beta, he is of a reptilian race that is sluglike and, at least in the instance of this individual, utterly disgusting to me – I could see there’s actually a pretty good story with some interesting social commentary here.

While the plot device that gets us to Varos in the first place feels utterly contrived (“This is the one problem the TARDIS cannot overcome…”), the twisted society that awaits the Doctor and Peri is thought-provoking. Because it was actually transmitted well before the “reality TV” rage of recent years, Vengeance feels, in retrospect, rather ahead of its time. It taps into the voyeurism and detachment from violence that we all know so well thanks to our own screens today.

Read more →

The Weakness of Plot

24 Comments

Review of The Power of Three
Warning: This review contains episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.

“Uh-oh. It’s Chibnall again.” Despite my more-optimistic-than-any-previous-episode reaction to the next-time trailer for The Power of Three, I couldn’t help wincing a bit and bracing for the worst when I realized it was another entry by one of my all-time least favorite writers. I’m happy to report, though, that I didn’t hate it.


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2012 BBC

Granted, after some thought and a subsequent viewing, my initial very positive reaction was somewhat dulled as I realized how many plot holes there were, but somehow I was still mostly able to look beyond the letdown-y bits and have fun with it. Because – let’s face it – I’m a sucker for any reference, however oblique, to the Brigadier.

OK, OK… There were other parts to like, too (Rory in his pants (or “underwear,” for us Americans) was clearly among them). In fact, there was a lot I enjoyed. Especially that first time through, I got swept up in the “romp,” willing until the very end to play along with what I was clearly intended to be getting out of it. There was a silly-fun puzzle with the cubes, another fish-out-of-water interlude with the Doctor trying to take the Slow Path with Amy & Rory, more of Rory’s charming dad Brian, a random reference to an attempted Zygon invasion, and the delightful Kate (Lethbridge-) Stewart.

In other words, all the window-dressing was beautiful.

Read more →