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Tag: Adric

The Doctor Does Dracula

Review of State of Decay (#113)

DVD Release Date: 03 Oct 16
Original Air Date: 03 – 24 Jan 1981
Doctors/Companions: Four, Romana II, Adric, K9
Stars: Tom Baker, Lalla Ward, Matthew Waterhouse, John Leeson
Preceding Story: Full Circle (Four, Romana II, Adric, K9)
Succeeding Story: Warriors’ Gate (Four, Romana II, Adric, K9)

I have to say I was utterly unsurprised to find State of Decay among the titles here at the bottom of the “Everything Else” barrel. As the middle installment of the E-Space Trilogy that sees the introduction of Adric and the departure of Romana (and K9), it doesn’t seem to stand out in any particular way except one: vampires.

Given the recent popularity of the Dracula Daily email list for reading Bram Stoker’s classic in chronological (not chapter) order, it’s a fairly timely coincidence that I have the opportunity now to talk about Doctor Who‘s own take on vampiric myths. Sadly, unlike the Stoker novel, State of Decay doesn’t really give the viewer anything truly gripping or unique to hand onto.

We begin with the Doctor and Romana still looking for a way out of E-Space, initially unaware that they now have an additional crew member in the form of stowaway Adric. When they find themselves on a planet with nothing but a single village and an imposing tower, and the peasants all apparently willing to continue serving their three Lords unquestioningly, of course they need to look deeper. Nominally that’s so they can get a lead on how to get themselves back out of E-Space, but in practice it’s because the Doctor just can’t help himself.

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First Arc Flat

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Review of Full Circle (#111)

DVD Release Date: 03 Oct 16
Original Air Date: 25 Oct – 15 Nov 1980
Doctors/Companions: Four, Romana II, Adric, K9
Stars: Tom Baker, Lalla Ward, Matthew Waterhouse, John Leeson
Preceding Story: Meglos (Four, Romana II, K9)
Succeeding Story: State of Decay (Four, Romana II, Adric, K9)

I have to say I wasn’t surprised to find Full Circle among the ranks of Everything Else when I looked over all the stories I hadn’t yet reviewed. It’s one of those stories that flies easily under the radar, certainly not a “really good” story, nor an entirely awful one. And as Adric has never been one of my favorite Companions (though I don’t think I dislike him as thoroughly as some fans do), his introduction story has also not really been one I think on often.

As such, my impressions of Full Circle have been pretty minimal. I’m pleased to say, though, that I did at least remember the main conceit of the story, and knew what the big twist at the end was going to be. Being able to watch things unfold with that kind of foreknowledge is one of the fun parts of re-watching a show for me, so I appreciated being able to take advantage of that small bit of familiarity with the plot this time.

Right off the bat, we get a major plot point that will follow the Doctor and Romana through this trilogy of stories, known collectively as “the E-Space Trilogy”: the TARDIS has been pulled off course into Exo-Space, a dimension outside of “real” space where our own universe exists. Instead of having landed on Gallifrey, then, they are on a planet called Alzarius, right when an every-fifty-years event called Mistfall is beginning.

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Step Into the Mystery

Review of Warriors’ Gate (#113)
DVD Release Date: 05 May 09
Original Air Date: 03 – 24 Jan 1981
Doctors/Companions: Four, Romana II, K-9, Adric
Stars: Tom Baker, Lalla Ward, John Leeson, Matthew Waterhouse
Preceding Story: State of Decay (Four, Romana II, K-9, Adric)
Succeeding Story: The Keeper of Traken (Four, Adric, Nyssa)

One of the things about Classic Who that’s become more obvious in retrospect is how the multi-part serial format allowed for extensive story set-up, leading to a slow build. So begins the final installment in The E-Space Trilogy, the spacetime-bending Warriors’ Gate.

Effectively all of Part One is background, laying the scene for what comes after in the manner that a modern audience expects more to see in a novel than in a TV show. We meet the human crew of a cargo ship stranded in some strange void, reminiscent of The Mind Robber (which I’m set to review in October); the Doctor and his friends soon find themselves there, too. The humans’ navigator is a leonine being, apparently enslaved, who breaks free, enters the TARDIS out of phase with their timeline, and then retreats via a door in a stone arch through an ancient, cobwebby great hall. The Doctor follows.

One could be forgiven for thinking, at this stage, that there’s not much to this story, and that one’s time could be better spent elsewhere. But there are several mysterious situations established here that develop in interesting ways through the rest of the serial. What’s the relationship between the Tharils—those leonine beings valued for being “time sensitive”—and the humans? What’s up with the microcosmic void? Is it really near the boundary of E-Space and N-Space, and why does it seem unstable? And is that ancient hall really as abandoned as it looks?

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Four-gettable

Review of Four to Doomsday (#117)
DVD Release Date: 06 Jan 09
Original Air Date: 18 – 26 Jan 1982
Doctors/Companions: Five, Adric, Nyssa of Traken, Tegan Jovanka
Stars: Peter Davison, Matthew Waterhouse, Sarah Sutton, Janet Fielding
Preceding Story: Castrovalva (Five, Adric, Nyssa, Tegan)
Succeeding Story: Kinda (Five, Adric, Nyssa, Tegan)

When I selected Four to Doomsday (4tD) to appear in my series of stories with bad reputations, I suspect I had given it more bad-credit than it deserves. Perhaps it’s because on first viewing I gave the physics of the climactic “Doctor uses a cricket ball to fabulous effect” moment such serious side-eye. Mostly, though, I think 4tD simply flies too far under the radar as a middle-of-the-road installment. It is so unremarkable as to be forgettable.

The Doctor’s first attempt to return Tegan to Heathrow Airport so she can finally start her new job goes (predictably) wrong, and the TARDIS crew lands instead on some sort of spaceship. The technology present is advanced enough to delight the Doctor and Nyssa as they explore. The crew soon find three slightly ominous beings in charge of the strange vessel. They introduce themselves as Monarch, Enlightenment, and Persuasion, and inform the Doctor that they are from the now-destroyed planet Urbanka.

Meanwhile, the TARDIS team also find several people who are obviously from Earth, including an ancient Greek philosopher named Bigon, an Australian Aboriginal man named Kurkutji, one Princess Villagra of the Maya, and an imperial Chinese official named Lin Futu. The circumstances surrounding the presence of these people and their subordinates on a ship filled with (unseen) Urbankan refugees are part of the mystery to be solved.

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No Need to Gild the Orchid

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Review of Black Orchid (#120)
DVD Release Date: 05 Aug 08
Original Air Date: 01 – 02 Mar 1982
Doctor/Companion: Five, Tegan Jovanka, Nyssa, Adric
Stars: Peter Davison, Janet Fielding, Sarah Sutton, Matthew Waterhouse
Preceding Story: The Visitation (Five, Tegan, Nyssa, Adric)
Succeeding Story: Earthshock (Five, Tegan, Nyssa, Adric)

It’s time to throw a little love the Fifth Doctor’s way, as he is currently the most under-represented (percentage-wise) in my reviews. And, since I was short on time, why not start with a nice, quick two-parter?

Besides its length, the other advantage of delving into Black Orchid is the fact that it is a “pure historical,” one in which there are no science-fictional plot elements (aside from our heroes’ presence outside their own time, and the brief use of the TARDIS to hop between locations). It is, in fact, the first pure historical since the Second Doctor’s second outing in The Highlanders (more than fifteen years prior), and the last to be broadcast on TV to date.

However, some have suggested that new showrunner Chris Chibnall might bring back the pure historical (an idea I wholeheartedly support). Reviewing how such a story can work—and work well—is thus a fine exercise.

Our story begins when the TARDIS brings her crew back to Earth in June of 1925, where strange things are afoot at the Cranleigh family manor. As has often happened, the TARDIS crew walk in at just the right time for a case of mistaken identity to take hold, though this time there’s a twist—not only is the Doctor taken to be the anticipated replacement cricketer, but Nyssa is the spitting image of Charles Cranleigh’s fiancée Ann.

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Retro-View #14: Taken in Stride

Earthshock (Story #122, 1982)
Viewed 22 Oct 2013

Doctor/Companion: Five, Adric, Nyssa, Tegan Jovanka
Stars: Peter Davison, Matthew Waterhouse, Sarah Sutton, Janet Fielding
Preceding Story: Black Orchid (Four, Adric, Nyssa, Tegan)
Succeeding Story: Time-Flight (Five, Nyssa, Tegan)

It’s been four months since G and I last sat down together to watch Doctor Who. A lot has happened both in our daily lives and in the life of the show. In our flurry of catching up, the latter got lost; I never did tell her about the amazing episode recovery announced earlier this month. I did, however, manage to explain a little bit about the Cybermen.

One of the many reasons I chose this particular serial to screen for G next is that our methodology—viewing introductory and final stories for every Doctor, with one or two “representative” stories in between—has meant that she’s missed out on the Doctor’s epic struggles with some of his most iconic foes. She only met the Daleks a few sessions ago in Genesis, and until now, she’d never come across the Cybermen. So it was predictable that the “big reveal” at the end of Part One—when it turns out the Cybermen are behind it all—didn’t get much of a reaction: “Okay, now we’re to the silver guys.”

You see, since the Cybermen are all over the DVD menu, she’d seen them ahead of time. I’d had to explain who they were, and that the Doctor had come across them often before (though it was quick). So her reaction was completely unlike any fan who watched it at the time (“Cybermen! They haven’t been seen for years!”) or even a post-Hiatus fan otherwise unfamiliar with pre-Hiatus stories watching this one without spoilers (“Hey, Cybermen! I guess the Doctor did say that one was an ‘old friend’…”). In fact, I had to remind her that these were, in fact, the Big Bad; she’d been hoping for some sort of pyramid scheme in which we’d keep finding another kind of mechanical creature behind the last, as the Cybermen had been behind the androids in Part One.

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Retro-View #13: The Celery’s Fresh, But G’s Wilting

Castrovalva (Story #116, 1981)
Viewed 24 Jun 2013

Doctor/Companion: Five, Adric, Nyssa, Tegan Jovanka
Stars: Peter Davison, Matthew Waterhouse, Sarah Sutton, Janet Fielding
Preceding Story: Logopolis (Four, Adric, Nyssa, Tegan)
Succeeding Story: Four to Doomsday (Five, Adric, Nyssa, Tegan)

I had high hopes for this story going in. G seems ready to try a new Doctor, and despite the fact that my kids are home on summer break from school, they have plans for how to occupy themselves while the grown-ups are involved with their silly videos.

And it starts out well. The regeneration scene is recapped, and the action continues on right from that point. The guards catch up to our heroes and drag them off. Tegan huffs, “Take your hands off me. This is an official uniform!”, causing G to chuckle and declare “I like her the best.” Finally—someone who shares my fondness for the Mouth On Legs!

G asks some good basic questions, too. “Why did the Master do that?” she wonders when he materializes in middle of the fray, then seems to go running, allowing the Doctor to escape into his own TARDIS, and leaving Adric behind to be rescued. “So he’d still have a good adversary?” Now if she’d take her speculation to the next level, we might make a Fan of her yet…

I’ll admit that I still enjoy the whole regeneration regression part (as the Doctor does impressions of himself) far more than G does; I don’t even bother to pause and explain when he spouts “reverse the polarity of the neutron flow” and she doesn’t laugh with me. Then again, maybe she didn’t even hear it. After several moments that I’d expected to get a reaction from her get none, I realize she’s left me.

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Retro-View #12: Melancholy Moment

Logopolis (Story #115, 1981)
Viewed 03 Jun 2013

Doctor/Companion: Four, Adric, Nyssa, Tegan Jovanka
Stars: Tom Baker, Matthew Waterhouse, Sarah Sutton, Janet Fielding
Preceding Story: The Keeper of Traken (Four, Adric, Nyssa)
Succeeding Story: Castrovalva (Five, Adric, Nyssa, Tegan)

It seems to me that by the time Logopolis rolled around, Tom Baker was more than ready to leave his role as the Doctor. He just seemed tired, pensive, and like he simply wasn’t having very much fun any more. Luckily, it fits well with the story, and doesn’t translate into any sort of loss of quality.

G is immediately intrigued by the way the police box and (Master’s) TARDIS merge, and in on alert when Tegan and Auntie Vanessa pull up next to it with their flat. “Ooh dear. And they’re by the box.” Then when the Doctor’s TARDIS turns them all into dimensionally transcendental matryoshka dolls, she catches onto the danger right away. “This is serious. It’s like he’s ingested poison by materializing that guy in there.” She proceeds to make an analogy with holding mirrors up to each other to make an infinite regression, well before the possibility is mentioned on screen. G’s all over it.

The Watcher has her fooled, though. She reads it as all first-time viewers are meant to: a slightly creepy threat. I can’t help but think of it as the precursor to Ten’s departure, though in this case it’s only the Doctor, rather than the whole audience as well, who anticipates what’s to come. We both enjoy this particular conceit, though. When the Doctor tells Adric that “nothing like this has ever happened before,” G declares that “that’s the fun part.”

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Worth Visiting

Review of The Visitation: SE (#120)

DVD Release Date: 14 May 13
Original Air Date: 15-23 Feb 1982
Doctor/Companion: Five, Adric, Nyssa, Tegan
Stars: Peter Davison, Matthew Waterhouse, Sarah Sutton, Janet Fielding
Preceding Story: Kinda (Five, Adric, Nyssa, Tegan)
Succeeding Story: Black Orchid (Five, Adric, Nyssa, Tegan)

I’ve never quite been able to put my finger on why I like this story so much, but it’s high enough on my list that I chose it to show to the Ladies two years ago. Maybe it’s because, crowded as it made the TARDIS, this particular crew really epitomizes Five’s tenure for me.

It’s kind of typical classic fare. The Doctor steers the TARDIS wrong, then his curiosity gets the better of him, then everyone’s in trouble. There’s some lovely character development at the beginning as Teagan and the Doctor get angry with each other and then apologize, and later when Adric complains of feeling useless.

And, of course, there are some wonderful lines. A long-time favorite of mine is the Doctor’s jibe at the Terileptil about his attitude on war, but the one that jumped out at me this time was this conversation between Nyssa and the Doctor:

“So, what are you going to do if we find them?” she asks.
“Oh, twist their arms a bit to let me take them back to their own planet.”
“I hope they have arms to twist.”
“I’ll find something.”

The revelations about the man’s darker nature in the Series Seven finale put this exchange in a new light. Maybe Five isn’t a totally warm, fuzzy, sweet kind of guy after all.

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Retro-View #11: Winding Down, or Just Wound Up?

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The Keeper of Traken (Story #114, 1981)
Viewed 29 Apr 2013

Doctor/Companion: Four, Adric, Nyssa of Traken
Stars: Tom Baker, Matthew Waterhouse, Sarah Sutton
Preceding Story: Warriors’ Gate (Four, Romana II, Adric)
Succeeding Story: Logopolis (Four, Adric, Nyssa, Tegan)

It’s been a while since G has seen the Fourth Doctor. Not only has it been a month and a half since we were last able to sit down and watch together, but he’s cycled through a Companion or two since our last story, which was broadcast nearly two-and-a-half years before this one. So I guess I can’t blame her when her first reaction at the start of the story was, “Oh my gosh! Look at the question marks on this collar!” And later, “He’s got a new scarf!”

I have to pause and explain about Adric, too. The whole E-Space thing kind of goes over her head, but truth be told, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me either, and I’ve seen all the relevant trilogy. She doesn’t comment on his pajama-esque costume, though, and declares that she rather likes “the little guy.” More than once. And why, do you suppose, she thinks so highly of him? “Because when the women used to tell [the Doctor] he was full of ****, he’d get upset, but when this guy does it, he doesn’t care.”

The story is right up her alley, too. Halfway through Part One, she’s already sussed out (well before we see it happen) that “ol’ Melkur’s marching around in the nighttime.” When his presence leads to the Keeper (apparently) declaring that the Doctor and Adric are “Eviiiiiil!” she can hardly stand it. “I really hate misunderstandings.” (Somehow, I’m thinking she doesn’t watch many sitcoms…)

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