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Tag: Nyssa

Could’ve Been Worse

Review of Arc of Infinity (#124)

DVD Release Date: 06 Nov 07
Original Air Date: 03 – 12 Jan 1983
Doctors/Companions: Five, Nyssa of Traken, Tegan Jovanka
Stars: Peter Davison, Sarah Sutton, Janet Fielding
Preceding Story: Time-Flight (Five, Nyssa, Tegan)
Succeeding Story: Snakedance (Five, Nyssa, Tegan)

The entries for this year’s theme of Highs & Lows end with Arc of Infinity, which is one I never know how to rank. It seems not to have left a strong impression on me one way or the other, aside from the slowly decaying “Doctor” at the end. I guess that makes it more of a personal “Meh” than either a High or a Low.

So I kind of went into my re-watch this time with an open mind. Would it be better than I thought? Worse than I thought? Who knew; I would leave myself open to any possibility.

In the end, I think I came out in roughly the same place as Charlie Jane Anders in her rankings on io9 back in 2015, where she placed Arc of Infinity at #205 of 254 entries, or roughly the 20th percentile. It wasn’t so horrific that I would flinch at the idea of watching it again, but neither did it have much to recommend it.

Primarily, I found that the plot—wherein the Doctor is forcibly recalled to Gallifrey because some as-yet-unidentified extra-dimensional entity has tried to cross dimensions by bonding with the Doctor’s physical form, and the High Council wants to prevent the entity from doing so at any cost—relied so heavily on arcane sci fi elements of Time Lord technology that it was difficult to follow.

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Slipping Subtly Onto a Soapbox

Review of Snakedance (#125)

DVD Release Date: 12 Apr 11
Original Air Date: 18 – 26 Jan 1983
Doctors/Companions: Five, Nyssa of Traken, Tegan Jovanka
Stars: Peter Davison, Sarah Sutton, Janet Fielding
Preceding Story: Arc of Infinity (Five, Nyssa, Tegan)
Succeeding Story: Mawdryn Undead (Five, Nyssa, Tegan, Turlough, the Brigadier)

I’m not sure if it’s because I didn’t grow up watching these stories, because I find the Fifth Doctor’s era nearly as beige as his costume, or because of something else, but I don’t really have a strong impression of many of the early-80s stories. So when I popped Snakedance into my machine to watch it again, I really didn’t know whether this month’s adventure was supposed to be a High or a Low.

Happily enough, it didn’t take much run-time for me to decide which end of the scale it occupied (it ranks #57 on io9’s list); I could relax into it and watch without keeping an eye on the clock the way I do with some of the Lows.

We discover early on that poor Tegan is not rid of the evil Mara that invaded her mind nearly a season beforehand (Kinda aired in February 1982). Instead, it is invading her dreams to begin to take control of her. Under its influence, she sets the TARDIS coordinates for Manussa, where the people are celebrating the banishment of the Mara some five hundred years ago. Almost no one believes in the prophecy of the Mara’s return, but thanks to Tegan and her serpentine mental parasite, prophetic events begin to unfold anyway.

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Memories Unlocked

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Review of Mawdryn Undead (#125)

DVD Release Date: 03 Nov 09
Original Air Date: 01 – 09 Feb 1983
Doctors/Companions: Five, Nyssa of Traken, Tegan Jovanka, Vislor Turlough, the Brigadier
Stars: Peter Davison, Sarah Sutton, Janet Fielding, Mark Strickson, Nicholas Courtney
Preceding Story: Snakedance (Five, Nyssa, Tegan)
Succeeding Story: Terminus (Five, Nyssa, Tegan, Turlough)

I’ll be the first to admit that the Fifth Doctor’s era is not at the top of my list of personal favorites. Maybe that’s why so many of them are vague and nebulous in my memory, including Mawdryn Undead. Yet nearly the only thing I clearly remembered about it turned out to be pretty much the last plot detail in the whole story.

As the introductory story for clearly-not-from-Earth schoolboy Turlough, MU might seem like one that would be rather memorable. And while I rarely hear anyone loudly singing its praises, neither does it get regularly ripped on within fandom. Falling at #63 of 254 in the io9 ranking, it just squeaks under the wire into the top quartile. That all puts it solidly in Hidden Gem territory, a not-bad-but-rarely-a-favorite adventure that’s worth revisiting.

When we meet Turlough, he’s being generally mischievous, crashing the Brigadier’s one-of-a-kind car that’s been parked in front of the boarding school where Turlough is a student and the Brigadier has been teaching. He’s immediately unlikable to me, and I can’t even really feel sorry for him when the Black Guardian appears to manipulate him into doing the Guardian’s dirty work.

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Terminal Boredom

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Review of Terminus (#126)
DVD Release Date: 10 Aug 09
Original Air Date: 15 – 23 Feb 1983
Doctors/Companions: Five, Nyssa, Tegan Jovanka, Vislor Turlough
Stars: Peter Davison, Sarah Sutton, Janet Fielding, Mark Strickson
Preceding Story: Mawdryn Undead (Five, Nyssa, Tegan, Turlough, the Brigadier)
Succeeding Story: Enlightenment (Five, Tegan, Turlough)

Terminus is one of several stories in this Bad Reputation™ series that had made very little impression on me. I had vague recollections of it being Nyssa’s farewell story, and little else. When I pulled out my DVD and looked at the cover I went, “Oh yeah—that furry critter. What was it called?”

Upon further reflection, I remembered a plague ship, Nyssa wearing a short skirt (and later disrobing), and some sort of off-limits space where the critter (for the record, it’s known as the Garm) resided. Anything else—save the presence of the rest of the main cast—was a blur.

As I began re-watching, I realized I wasn’t really going to be able to argue much with this story’s placement in io9’s Best-to-Worst ranking, where it came in at #229 of 254, putting it in the bottom 10%. While there’s nothing overtly bad about it, there’s also precious little that I’d consider good.

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A Flight I Don’t Fancy

Review of Time-Flight (#122)
DVD Release Date: 02 Mar 10
Original Air Date: 23 – 31 Mar 1982
Doctors/Companions: Five, Nyssa of Traken, Tegan Jovanka
Stars: Peter Davison, Sarah Sutton, Janet Fielding
Preceding Story: Earthshock (Five, Adric, Nyssa, Tegan)
Succeeding Story: Arc of Infinity (Five, Nyssa, Tegan)

One of the things that makes a Bad Reputation story so hard to watch is that there’s almost always the kernel of a good story buried in there somewhere. For Time-Flight, that kernel is surrounded by a villain based on a racist stereotype, an alien consciousness reduced to an overly simplistic good v. bad dichotomy, and a generally mediocre script.

To be frank, I feel like a lot of the Fifth Doctor’s stories are plagued by similar problems. Although he was formative for some of my friends, Five has always ranked kind of in the middle of my list of favorite Doctors; I suppose that’s why. And while his previous entry in these Bad Reputation games was perhaps not as stinky as I’d recalled (ranking only 212 of 254 in io9’s Best-to-Worst list), Time-Flight is in the bottom ten, coming in at #245.

I imagine the pitch for this one was a pretty easy sell. It sounds great on paper: a Concorde plane mysteriously disappears, and when the Doctor and his friends—TARDIS and all—accompany a second Concorde to learn what happened, the crews find themselves at the end of a time corridor 140 million years in Earth’s past. But after that first episode of set-up, things really start to fall apart.

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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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Genesis of the Cybermen

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Review of Spare Parts (#34)
Big Finish Release Date: Jul 2002
Doctor/Companion: Five and Nyssa
Stars: Peter Davison and Sarah Sutton
Preceding Story: Neverland (Eight, Charley)
Succeeding Story: …Ish (Six, Peri)

Years ago when I first became aware of Big Finish and had conversations about which releases were “best,” Spare Parts came up again and again. It’s thus been on my “to listen” list for ages, though for one reason or another didn’t make it into the rotation until now.

Having now heard it, I completely understand why Spare Parts was recommended so highly. It has its pros and cons, as any of the audio adventures do, but what makes it so appealing is the way it adds to the larger tapestry of the Whoniverse—it’s the story of how the people of Mondas became the Cybermen, well before the Doctor first encountered those iconic antagonists in his First incarnation in The Tenth Planet.

Any good Cybermen story needs some body horror, and we get it here, though it’s not immediate; after all, we need to get to know characters besides the Doctor and Nyssa so that we can be properly appalled when horrible things happen to them. This slow burn adds to the tension as the TARDIS crew struggles with the implications of their actions on the future they know and what they believe, hope, or wish could be changed.

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Favorable Mutation

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Review of The Mutant Phase (#15)
Big Finish Release Date: December 2000
Doctor/Companion: Five and Nyssa
Stars: Peter Davison and Sarah Sutton
Preceding Story: The Holy Terror (Six, Frobisher)
Succeeding Story: Storm Warning (Eight, Charley)

You know that feeling you get when one of your friends is really excited about a story—be it a book or a show or a film—and you’ve got no problem with it, but it just doesn’t excite you? That sense that you’re either about to disappoint your friend or that an unpleasant conversation about your differing opinions is about to ensue? That’s how I felt coming into The Mutant Phase.

You see, although I’ve always liked Peter Davison’s Fifth Doctor, I’ve also found him slightly bland—nothing to get excited about (I know I have several friends who are about ready to dump me upon reading that…). So when I got a nudge from one such friend to try one of Five’s Big Finish (BF) audios next, I agreed with a certain trepidation. My unease increased when I realized the first one on tap from the list of recommendations I have co-starred Sarah Sutton’s Nyssa—another of those dichotomous “friend’s favorite/just okay for me” characters.

Imagine my relief when I realized I was quite enjoying the adventure. With no need to come up with something nice to say simply to appease the Five and Nyssa fans, I could relax and take the story as it came.

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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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