Menu Close

Tag: K-9

The Most Important Woman in the Universe

Review of Turn Left / The Stolen Earth / Journey’s End

With this set of three episodes, we have reached the end of our Series Four journey (see what I did there?). While, if I’m being honest, I didn’t remember as many details from them as I thought I might, they are definitely, as a collective whole, the episodes that made the most lasting impression on me from this series.


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2008 BBC

In particular, Turn Left, the nominal single episode that leads directly into two-part series finale, stands out to me as one of the best episodes of the entire RTD1 era. Although it still has some flaws, like some regrettable Asian stereotyping (and at least one Chinese character that I’m pretty sure was only half a character, but I had to stop myself from further research to confirm my suspicion after the first fifteen minutes), it is overall a brilliant piece of television.

The whole premise is another take on the butterfly effect, this time focusing on how extremely important Donna is to the universe—or, in fact, the multiverse—as a whole. By changing one tiny decision, Donna alters the fate of all reality.

Before I talk about that cascade of events, I want to mention that one of the things I’d forgotten was how much the fortuneteller got Donna to spill. Without Donna verbally guiding her to the specific inflection point that could prevent her from ever meeting the Doctor, the fortuneteller never could have implemented her plan. (And here we find another flaw: what was the fortuneteller’s motivation? Was she hired by someone? Who?)

Read more →

Polyphase Avitron Wants a Cracker

2 Comments

Review of The Pirate Planet (#99)

DVD Release Date: 03 Mar 09
Original Air Date: 03 – 12 Jan 1983
Doctors/Companions: Four, Romana I, K9
Stars: Tom Baker, Mary Tamm, John Leeson
Preceding Story: The Ribos Operation (Four, Romana I, K9)
Succeeding Story: The Stones of Blood (Four, Romana I, K9)

Somewhat unbelievably, with this month’s entry in the Everything Else series, I’ve reached the end of my Classic reviews. Every extant story from Hartnell through McGann (as well as most of the modern era, with major gaps in Tennant’s and some of Smith’s tenures) should now have its own blog entry somewhere. Not a bad showing for twelve-and-a-half years’ work, if I do say so myself.

Given how many positive things I’ve heard over the years about The Pirate Planet, I’m sure some fans will wonder how this particular story ended up being at the bottom of my metaphorical barrel. That’s a valid question, though the answer is not very exciting: it has neither very high nor very low fan rankings, is part of the Fourth Doctor’s run (of which there are the most adventures), and just… never grabbed me.

I know a lot of fans like Pirate Planet (simply?) because it’s written by Douglas Adams, and anything Adams touched has gained near-mythic importance to a certain slice of fandom. There are certainly elements here that exhibit Adams’s style. In particular, it has a thinky and complex ending, which may or may not quite make sense, but certainly takes more intense concentration to parse than I was willing (or able) to give it during this viewing.

Read more →

Non-Invasive

2 Comments

Review of The Invasion of Time (#97)

DVD Release Date: 09 Jul 19
Original Air Date: 04 Feb – 11 Mar 1978
Doctors/Companions: Four, Leela, K9
Stars: Tom Baker, Louise Jameson, John Leeson
Preceding Story: Underworld (Four, Leela, K9)
Succeeding Story: The Ribos Operation (Four, Romana I, K9)

Every time I pick up one of my Classic DVDs and see that I’m in for a six-parter, especially now that I’m down to Everything Else, I cringe a little. Despite the fact that I can easily invest dozens of hours in a K-drama, somehow spending two and a half hours on Classic Who feels like an ordeal.

Usually.

When the sting sounded and the credits rolled on the first episode of The Invasion of Time, I was shocked. “That went so fast!” I thought. Then it happened again for the second episode. Maybe I was just in the right frame of mind this time, but this Invasion didn’t feel like as much of a slog as some have.

Then again, perhaps my poor memory worked in my favor. My pre-viewing notes show that I remembered precious little about the story: a trip through the TARDIS interior (including the swimming pool), Leela staying with Andred, and Sontarans on Gallifrey. I’d say that last point was a spoiler—none of these but the pool actually show up until the last two episodes—except for how prominently displayed the Sontaran is in the cover image.

Read more →

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.

Read more →

First Arc Flat

1 Comment

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.

Read more →

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?

Read more →

Not the End of the World

Review of The Armageddon Factor (#103)
DVD Release Date: 09 Mar 09
Original Air Date: 20 Jan – 24 Feb 1979
Doctors/Companions: Four, Romana I, K-9
Stars: Tom Baker, Mary Tamm, John Leeson
Preceding Story: The Power of Kroll (Four, Romana I)
Succeeding Story: Destiny of the Daleks (Four, Romana II)

This month marks the fourth of six installments of The Key to Time that has made it onto the Bad Reputation list. The Armageddon Factor is, however, the highest-ranked of those four on io9’s Best-to-Worst list, coming in at #207 of 254, putting it in only the bottom fifth of televised canon.

It had been a good long while since I’d last watched this one, so I’d forgotten a great deal of both the plot and the trappings. For example, it came as a bit of a surprise to discover how much of the story revolved around that last piece of the Key to Time. To be honest, pretty much all I remembered were who the Doctor and Companion were, and that a guest character was wearing a future Companion’s body (or, more correctly, vice versa).

To set the stage for readers who, like me, need either a refresher or an introduction to the adventure, the Doctor and Romana I are in pursuit of the final segment of the Key to Time when they arrive at a pair of twin planets, only one of which is where they expect. Atrios and Zeos are, to our heroes’ surprise, in midst of a nuclear war.

Read more →

A Circle of Disappointment

Review of The Stones of Blood (#101)
DVD Release Date: 01 Mar 09
Original Air Date: 28 Oct – 18 Nov 1978
Doctors/Companions: Four, Romana I
Stars: Tom Baker, Mary Tamm
Preceding Story: The Pirate Planet (Four, Romana I, K-9)
Succeeding Story: The Androids of Tara (Four, Romana I)

When I determined that this story was next up in my Bad Reputation series, I must admit I was a bit stumped. Despite its placement at #216 of 254 in io9’s Best-to-Worst ranking—putting it in the bottom 15%—I have always heard nothing but good things about this one.

Well, okay; maybe almost nothing but good things. Or maybe “enough” good things? Suffice to say, most of what I remembered before rewatching was the Ogri, a bad guy posing as a goddess (the Cailleach), and Amelia Rumford.

Going in, then, I was feeling pretty upbeat. The only “bad” part of the story I remembered was the horny campers who died stupidly at the hands of the Ogri (well, by their hands on the Ogri). But as I watched this time with a more critical eye, I found my estimation of the adventure dropping. I’m not sure I’ve ever come out of one of these Bad Reputation viewings with a lower opinion of the story than I went in, but that turned out to be the case this time.

Read more →

Do Androids Dream of Tin Dogs?

2 Comments

Review of The Androids of Tara (#101)
DVD Release Date: 01 Mar 09
Original Air Date: 25 Nov – 16 Dec 1978
Doctors/Companions: Four, Romana I, K-9
Stars: Tom Baker, Mary Tamm, John Leeson
Preceding Story: The Stones of Blood (Four, Romana I)
Succeeding Story: The Power of Kroll (Four, Romana I)

When I decided on the next stories for the Bad Reputation™ series that I posted about last week, the four lowest-ranking Fourth Doctor selections in my spreadsheet surprised me. None of them struck me as particularly “bad,” and a couple I’d even go so far as to say I’m fond of.

Adding to the “hmm” factor, the first three of them were from the same season: The Key to Time (TKtT). So what gives?

The best I can figure is that when left to my own devices, I’ve already picked out both some of the very best and some of the very worst stories to talk about, leaving most of the “mid-range” adventures still in the queue. Even so, I don’t think I’d have predicted that The Androids of Tara, the fourth segment of TKtT, would fall in the bottom 15%. Yet in io9’s Best-to-Worst rankings, it came in at #217 of 254.

Read more →

Missing the Point

Review of Meglos (#110)
DVD Release Date: 11 Jan 11
Original Air Date: 27 Sep – 18 Oct 1980
Doctors/Companions: Four, Romana II, K-9
Stars: Tom Baker, Lalla Ward, John Leeson
Preceding Story: The Leisure Hive (Four, Romana II, K-9)
Succeeding Story: Full Circle (Four, Romana II, K-9, Adric)

Who doesn’t love a talking cactus? Or, better yet, a Doctor-shaped talking cactus with spine-covered skin? (If you guessed me, you’d be right.)

As with so many of the stories we’ve explored in this Bad Reputations series, there are some good ideas lurking at the heart of Meglos, but somehow they never come to fruition. The weirdly realized antagonist, its incoherent plan, and the heavy-handed religion-v-science subplot all contribute to an underwhelming product that lands at #200 of 254 on io9’s Best-to-Worst list.

Sometimes a rewatch helps me find something in a story that I hadn’t appreciated before. Usually, I find that my vague recollections only cover the surface of the plot or setting or characterization. To a certain extent that’s again true for Meglos, where Tom Baker’s cactus-y mien overshadowed all other memories such that even the identity of his Companion(s) had been lost to me. Realizing I got not only Jacqueline Hill (though not as Barbara) but also Lalla Ward’s Romana II was thus a delightful re-discovery.

Read more →