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Tag: Tegan

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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Setting the Standard

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Review of The Five Doctors (#129)
DVD Release Date: 05 Aug 08
Original Air Date: 25 Nov 1983
Doctors/Companions: Five, One, Two, Three, Four (cameo), Tegan, Turlough, Susan, the Brigadier, Sarah Jane, Romana II (cameo)
Stars: Peter Davison, Richard Hurndall, Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee, (Tom Baker), Janet Fielding, Mark Strickson, Carole Ann Ford, Nicholas Courtney, Elisabeth Sladen, (Lalla Ward)
Preceding Story: The King’s Demons (Five, Tegan, Turlough, Kamelion)
Succeeding Story: Warriors of the Deep (Five, Tegan, Turlough)

With tomorrow’s anniversary of the show’s beginnings, I felt now would be an appropriate time to look back at a different celebration of its history. Though this year we mark fifty-four years since the show’s inception, 1983 was merely twenty, and the Powers That Beeb decided they couldn’t let such a large, round number go unnoticed.

Here in the post-fiftieth-anniversary era, we think of that celebration as having pulled out all the stops, but really, it was The Five Doctors that set the standard. And while, like Moffat, JNT didn’t get everyone he wanted to participate, he nonetheless pulled together a remarkable cast, including—in a way—all five incarnations of the Doctor who had appeared up to that point.

While First Doctor William Hartnell had (just barely) managed perform a part in the tenth anniversary story The Three Doctors, he was already eight years dead by the time this next milestone rolled around. Rather than exclude his Doctor entirely, though, JNT simply recast Richard Hurndall in the role, much like David Bradley has taken over the same in the modern era. But much like Eccleston for the fiftieth, Tom Baker could not be convinced to reprise his own Fourth Doctor (reportedly because he thought it was too soon).

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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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The Beginning of the End

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Review of Resurrection of the Daleks: SE (#133)
DVD Release Date: 12 Jun 12
Original Air Date: 08-15 Feb 1984
Doctor/Companion: Five, Tegan Jovanka, Vislor Turlough
Stars: Peter Davison, Janet Fielding, Mark Strickson
Preceding Story: Frontios (Five, Tegan, Turlough)
Succeeding Story: Planet of Fire (Five, Turlough, Peri)

The TARDIS crew unravelled pretty quickly at the end of Five’s tenure. First – here – Tegan bows out, then Turlough immediately thereafter. Having picked up Peri during Turlough’s swan song, Five then completes his last adventure with her. Bam, bam, bam! In quick succession, two Companions and a Doctor were all out; everything was completely changed up by the end of the series.

So in a sense, Resurrection marks the end of an era. Tegan’s been with Five since the beginning, and with this, she’s gone. Change is on the wind (“and not a moment too soon,” if you believe some folks). Of course, as some things change, others stay the same.

First, the Daleks are back. They (and their minions) are more effectively brutal than before – the body count in this story is insanely high; just about everyone dies (including some innocent bystanders), excepting about three baddies and our heroes – but they’re still Daleks, and as such are somewhat predictable. I have to say the new helmets they’ve forced their troopers to wear are good for a laugh, though.

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Nu-View #4: My Job Here’s Not Done

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Resurrection of the Daleks (Story #134, 1984)
Viewed 19 Jul 2011

Doctor/Companion:   Five, Tegan Jovanka, Vislor Turlough
Stars:  Peter Davison, Janet Fielding, Mark Strickson
Preceding Story:  Frontios (Five, Tegan, Turlough)
Succeeding Story:  Planet of Fire (Five, Turlough, Peri)
Notable Aspects:

  • departure of Tegan

Having felt that I’d not yet given the Ladies a good feel for Five, I decided to trot out some Daleks (the vote was in favor of them over the Cybermen). I’m not sure I still managed to get across a good feel for his character, as evidenced by some of the general reactions (see below), but at the very least, a good time was had by all.

First impressions were that this one seemed more ’70s than ’80s (aside from costuming). It was also rather Star Trek, what with the crashing around and the doctor in battle, ready to “take the fight to them!” Someone also opined that Turlough looked like a Romulan with a red wig (also apropos because he claims to be on the side of the “good guys,” but we (the Ladies, anyway) never quite trust him…). However, it was really the Doctor and the Daleks that brought the most comments.

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Malus Aforethought

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Review of The Awakening (#132)

DVD Release Date:  12 Jul 11
Original Air Date:  19 – 20 Jan 1984
Doctor/Companion:  Five, Tegan Jovanka, Vislor Turlough
Stars:  Peter Davison, Janet Fielding, Mark Strickson
Preceding Story:  Warriors of the Deep (Five, Tegan, Turlough)
Succeeding Story:  Frontios (Five, Tegan, Turlough)

For various reasons explained in the extras, it was deemed that the story that eventually became The Awakening needed to be reduced to two episodes. I suppose that’s one reason that it didn’t grab me as a particularly inspiring installment. It starts out feeling very Doctor-y, with something going wrong with the TARDIS yet landing in the right time and place. Some villagers are “in on” the odd happenings and others aren’t, and we’re left wondering why.

However, after that, it gets a tad jumbled. It’s not that it’s a bad story, by any means. I never really understood the motivation of the Malus, though. It was all just a bit… foggy. What finally defeated it in the end was unclear, too, but aside from the Malus itself looking a bit rubbish once it began to animate (sorry – I know the production team did a fabulous job given the times and the budget, but…), I actually did enjoy several bits, even if they were oh-so-stereotypical.

For example, Tegan ends up as the target for some sort of nastiness (possessed, kidnapped, slated for ritual death… she seems to “get it” in nearly every story). Then there’s the part where the Doctor and his two Companions are all split up – big surprise. I also had to wonder, as the word extended seemingly forever, how many cliffhangers have ended on someone screaming, “Doctooooooooooooooor!” Even so, those just really give it the Who flavor, so I couldn’t complain.

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