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Tag: Ben

Now With More Terror

Review of The Macra Terror (#34)
DVD Release Date: 12 Nov 19
Original Air Date: 11 Mar – 01 Apr 1967
Doctors/Companions: Two, Jamie McCrimmon, Ben Jackson, Polly Wright
Stars: Patrick Troughton, Frazer Hines, Michael Craze, Anneke Wills
Preceding Story: The Moonbase (Two, Jamie, Ben, Polly)
Succeeding Story: The Faceless Ones (Two, Jamie, Ben, Polly)

Welcome to the first DVD review of 2022! Before I get into the actual review, I’d like to talk about themes.

For the past several years, I’ve had an overarching theme of sorts for these monthly reviews (Highs & Lows, Hidden Gems, Bad Reputation…), and so I wanted another such theme for this year. As I looked over my list of remaining stories to review, though, I realized two key things: (1) there are 17 adventures left for me to review from the Classic era (an awkward prime number at best), and (2) there is no real underlying connection among them.

My eventual conclusion was that my theme could be nothing but a catch-all. Like the final room of a museum from a favorite childhood book, I would label them “Everything Else.” And since they don’t fit nicely into a whole number of years, I’ll simply keep going until they run out.

That takes us midway through 2023. I’ve said before that I don’t know how much longer I’m likely to continue blogging here; Confessions of a Neowhovian is getting pretty long in the tooth as it begins its twelfth year. But with Classic stories still to cover through mid-2023, and a 60th anniversary special to come that November, I think I can safely commit to continuing the blog through its 13th year.

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Faces Old and New

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Review of The Faceless Ones (#35)

DVD Release Date: 20 Oct 20
Original Air Date: 08 Apr – 13 May 1967
Doctors/Companions: Two, Ben Jackson, Polly Wright, Jamie McCrimmon
Stars: Patrick Troughton, Michael Craze, Anneke Wills, Fraser Hines
Preceding Story: The Macra Terror (Two, Ben, Polly, Jamie)
Succeeding Story: The Evil of the Daleks (Two, Jamie, Victoria)

Welcome to the first installment of the new review series Highs & Lows! We’re starting off with a story only recently added to the DVD ranks with an animated reconstruction. The Faceless Ones is a six-part Second Doctor story with only two extant episodes, but the animation team has recreated all six episodes for this late-2020 release. One has the choice to watch the story with the existing episodes (1 and 3) interspersed, or as a fully animated version.

Although it is certainly not the first such reconstruction, the animation here is less to my taste than some of the others. The movement and detailing of the scenes is fine, and certainly didn’t bother me, but I don’t find the character design particularly flattering to the original actors. I kept getting distracted by Jamie’s or the Doctor’s oddly-shaped faces.

Looking beyond the mechanics of the reconstruction to the story itself, though, I find it surprising that its ranking on the io9 list is so low (#244 of 254). Charlie Jane Anders, the list’s author, says that the main premise of The Faceless Ones, in which young people’s forms are being copied as new identities for aliens “isn’t enough of a plot to sustain six episodes.” (She ranks Terror of the Zygons at #84. I guess those two extra episodes were too much.)

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A Not-Worth-the-Time Machine

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Review of The War Machines (#27)
DVD Release Date: 06 Jan 09
Original Air Date: 25 Jun – 16 Jul 1966
Doctors/Companions: One, Dodo Chaplet, Ben Jackson, Polly
Stars: William Hartnell, Jackie Lane, Michael Craze, Anneke Wills
Preceding Story: The Savages (One, Steven, Dodo)
Succeeding Story: The Smugglers (One, Ben, Polly)

The First Doctor is always going to be a hard sell for some fans. Even his stories of the objectively best quality would land near the bottom of the rankings for those who just can’t get past the peculiarities of the black-and-white era.

So when we come to The War Machines, which is one of the poorer options (coming in at #199 or 254 in io9’s Best-to-Worst ranking), I would be unsurprised if it was unfamiliar to First-Doctor agnostics (or outright haters). And while I can’t disagree that it probably belongs in that bottom ~20%, I don’t think it’s so much bad as pedestrian.

The plot is typical SF fare: a sentient computer wants to “help” by taking over for mankind, and sets out to subjugate humanity with a few ~ahem~ well-crafted war machines. There’s brainwashing and blatant disregard for human life and a creator turned into the tool/stooge of his creation. Classic stuff. But especially by today’s visual storytelling standards, the plot moves so slowly one wishes for a TARDIS to skip over all the middle bits.

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Feel the Power

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Review of Power of the Daleks (#30)
DVD Release Date: 24 Jan 17 [Region 1]
Original Air Date: 05 Nov – 10 Dec 1966
Doctor/Companion: Two, Ben Jackson, and Polly Wright
Stars: Patrick Troughton, Michael Craze, Anneke Wills
Preceding Story: The Tenth Planet (Two, Ben, Polly)
Succeeding Story: The Highlanders (Two, Ben, Polly, Jamie)

Although we’ve had some brilliant windfalls in recent years in terms of recovered “lost” episodes of Doctor Who, there are plenty that are still missing in their entirety. Perhaps the most famous/famously sought-after is Marco Polo, but Patrick Troughton’s first serial Power of the Daleks is also high on many peoples’ lists.

Perhaps that is the reason that BBC Worldwide took the unusual step of animating all six episodes of Power. While they have previously commissioned animations for missing episodes of stories that are incomplete in the archives, this is (correct me if I’m wrong) the first story to be reconstructed in its entirety with no surviving visual material but a few minutes of clips and stills.

Although the animated reconstruction was released on the BBC Store last November (fifty years to the minute from the original broadcast of its opening episode), a physical version (DVD, rather than digital download or BBC America broadcast) was not made available in the US until late January. Being the obsessive collector I am (and refusing to pay for it twice), I therefore didn’t get to see it until just recently.

The story begins with the first-ever regeneration. As a fan fifty years out, it feels oddly portentous watching that moment, even animated (though I still find the original surviving footage more moving). Troughton’s skill and the lampshading of the wildly radical concept of the lead character’s complete change of not only body but personality through the Companions’ reactions to him paved the way for everything that followed.

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The Stinker Swims

Review of The Underwater Menace (#32)
DVD Release Date: 24 May 16 (Region 1/N.America)
Original Air Date: 14 Jan – 04 Feb 1967
Doctor/Companion: Two, Polly Wright, Ben Jackson, Jamie McCrimmon
Stars: Patrick Troughton, Anneke Wills, Frazer Hines
Preceding Story: The Highlanders (Two, Ben, Polly, Jamie)
Succeeding Story: The Moonbase (Two, Ben, Polly, Jamie)

This past weekend I had the pleasure of attending the third iteration of CONsole Room, my local Doctor Who convention. I won’t be posting a full recap on it this year, as I was only there for a few hours each day for the panels I was on, but among the guests were three early Companions: Anneke Wills (Polly Wright), Frazer Hines (Jamie McCrimmon), and Wendy Padbury (Zoë Heriot). All three worked with Patrick Troughton (though Anneke started with William Hartnell), so there are plenty of each of their episodes that are missing.

Interestingly enough, one of the more recently recovered episodes (found in December 2011) was from early in Season Four (Troughton’s first), including Anneke as Polly and Frazer’s second outing as Jamie. It was finally released on DVD here in North America about two weeks ago, a week and a half before CONsole Room. I didn’t manage to find time to watch it until after the con, which is a shame, because then I might have been able to (a) ask the guests some semi-intelligent questions about the story when I saw them on their main stage panel on Saturday and (b) fully appreciate the cosplay of the (highly embarrassed) young lady who got called out to show off her Polly-as-an-Atlanean costume during said panel. Alas, I did not have that much forethought. With mild regret for missed opportunities, then, I sat down to watch the last release of the home video line (barring any further lost episode recoveries).

The Underwater Menace has a reputation as one of the big stinkers. Until now, it’s only been possible to watch one of its four filmed episodes, which in my opinion makes it ridiculously difficult to judge. Even with this release, Episodes One and Four (those still absent from the archives) are terribly difficult to follow, as all we have to go on are the soundtrack and production stills. Thank Prime for closed captioning.

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Over the Moon

Review of The Moonbase (#33)
DVD Release Date: 11 Feb 14
Original Air Date: 11 Feb – 04 Mar 1967
Doctor/Companion: Two, Ben Jackson, Polly Wright, Jamie McCrimmon
Stars: Patrick Troughton, Michael Craze, Anneke Wills, Frazer Hines
Preceding Story: The Underwater Menace (Two, Ben, Polly, Jamie)
Succeeding Story: The Macra Terror (Two, Ben, Polly, Jamie)

I’m rather behind the curve on this one. Not only was the Region 1 release three weeks later than the Region 2 release (as has often been the case), but it also fell on the day before I left for this year’s Gally. So I’m afraid I’m not exactly at the cutting edge here, but perhaps not all of my readers were in a rush anyway.

For completionist fans like me, this isn’t precisely a new release. Though two of the four episodes are still missing, the existing ones have been available for quite some time as part of the Lost in Time box set, so I’ve actually seen half of the serial before. However, the addition of the animated reconstructions makes a big difference.

There’s a great deal to be said for the black and white era when it comes to tone. Something about it transcends the dated effects and lends an extra sense of tension to all the scary bits. To say such episodes are “atmospheric” might be cliché, but it doesn’t make it less true.

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The First Finale

Review of The Tenth Planet (#29)
DVD Release Date: 19 Nov 13
Original Air Date: 08 – 29 Oct 1966
Doctor/Companion: One, Ben Jackson, Polly Wright
Stars: William Hartnell, Michael Craze, Anneke Wills
Preceding Story: The Smugglers (One, Ben, Polly)
Succeeding Story: The Power of the Daleks (Two, Ben, Polly)

With all the focus on regenerations and the history of the show lately, it seems fitting that the DVD releases for the anniversary year should draw to a close with The Tenth Planet. Not only does it bring Hartnell’s era to a close with a radical new idea, but it also introduces the “always a bridesmaid, never a bride” baddie from every fan favorite list ever (in case it’s not clear, I’m referring here to the Cybermen, who always come second (or worse) to the Daleks).

Tenth Planet is one of the last (mostly) complete stories to be released on DVD. Although I had read the synopsis a few times, and read a photonovelization at least once, then, I’d never had the opportunity to watch it. As a result, it still felt new and unfamiliar. And I’ll admit I was taken off guard by these Cybermen.

Forty-seven years down the road, it’s difficult to put oneself in the mindset of the audience of the time. They must have found this new threat truly horrific, these once-human, but distinctly alien, robot invaders. On the brink of the Space Age, they must also have recognized many of their own fears about the dangers of space exploration as the plight of the Zeus IV crew unfolded. (I’ll admit that I didn’t much care to watch their fate, either, despite how cheaply inaccurate the portrayal looked to those of us who have watched actual astronauts at work on the International Space Station.)

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