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Tag: the Brigadier

Retro-View #4: A New Leading Man

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Spearhead from Space (Story #51, 1970)
Viewed 10 Oct 2012

Doctor/Companion: Three, Dr. Elizabeth “Liz” Shaw, the Brigadier
Stars: Jon Pertwee, Caroline John, Nicholas Courtney
Preceding Story: The War Games (Two, Jamie, Zoë)
Succeeding Story: Doctor Who and the Silurians (Three, Liz, the Brigadier)
Notable Aspects:

  • Three’s first story

Now this was not a reaction I’d anticipated – G is a shipper! She’s convinced that Three fancies Liz. I suppose she might have a point. She’s not far off base when, after the Doctor wiggles his eyebrows at Liz and tells her “That’s Delphon for ‘how do you do?’,” she says, “It’s also wolf for ‘what a babe.'”

Of course, she appears to fancy Three herself (have I mentioned that she’s about a decade older than Pertwee was when these were filmed?). The shower scene prompts her to comment that Three’s is “not a bad body.” By the end of Part 3, G’s praise is effusive: “This is a good one. I just like the new guy a lot. I’m in love.” Perhaps, then, there’s a bit of projection at work in her Three/Liz ship.

She loves the switch to color, and comments on the updated music, too. (Not sure how updated it can be, since Dudley Simpson was also responsible for The War Games – though admittedly there was hardly any incidental music in that particular serial.) The humorous bent of the Doctor-based portions of this adventure are right up G’s alley, as well. Three’s first view of his own face, Liz’s take-no-prisoners attitude toward the Brigadier (Brigadier: Am I interrupting? / Liz: Yes.), the way the Doctor calmly appropriates first an outfit and then a car – all of these result in the gleeful noises I so love to hear. “This is very Monty Python-ish,” she declares as the Part 1 credits roll.

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Nu-View #10: Mastering the Situation

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Terror of the Autons (Story #55, 1971)
Viewed 28 Aug 2012

Doctor/Companion: Three, Jo Grant, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart
Stars: Jon Pertwee, Katy Manning, Nicholas Courtney
Preceding Story: Inferno (Three, Liz Shaw, the Brigadier)
Succeeding Story: The Mind of Evil (Three, Jo, the Brigadier)

Summer has really wreaked havoc with our quasi-regular WhoFest schedule. We even watched the first episode of this story once already, at the end of our last WhoFest. Of course, that was so long ago that I didn’t expect anyone actually to remember it, so we watched it again anyway. (Also, I’d managed to lose my notes.) And it’s good that we did, because it had pretty much completely escaped everyone’s memory (except mine, of course; I’ve seen it more times in the last year and a half since its release on DVD than is perhaps entirely healthy).

In terms of pre-Hiatus Who, it’s an Auton-rich environment around here lately, what with the Special Edition of Spearhead from Space coming out on DVD earlier in August, too. However, the Autons were just a bonus; my main reason for screening this particular story was to give the Ladies a proper introduction to the Master.

Before that could happen, though, we’re introduced to another new, and in her own way iconic, character: Jo. “What terrible clothes!” Clearly jA is not hip to the 1971 fashion scene. Putting things in perspective, jE chastised, “think of the year – that’s not a terrible outfit!”

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Necessity Is the Mother of Reinvention

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Review of Spearhead from Space: SE (#51)
DVD Release Date: 14 Aug 12
Original Air Date: 03 – 24 Jan 1970
Doctor/Companion: Three, Dr. Elizabeth “Liz” Shaw
Stars: Jon Pertwee, Caroline John
Preceding Story: The War Games (Two, Jamie, Zoë)
Succeeding Story: Doctor Who and the Silurians (Three, Liz)

When Pat Troughton left Doctor Who, the show was kind of in trouble. Ratings had fallen, and the BBC wasn’t sure it wanted to put any more into something that had such a lackluster performance. For various reasons, it continued nonetheless, but by necessity – both due to casting changes and other production pressures – it did so as quite a different program.

As a result, there are a lot of amazing firsts in this story. We get our first taste of a new Doctor, a new Companion, a new credits sequence, a new “monster” and a new era of television: color. Sitting through it again, I couldn’t help but draw parallels to multiple later stories, primarily Terror of the Autons and Rose, thanks to those pesky Nestene-controlled Autons, though the dual-hearted x-ray (another first – the mention of a Time Lord’s now-famous binary vascular system) had me flashing to The Movie for a moment.

Its opening episode is a lovely way to bring UNIT back into the mix – where it would stay, to one degree or another, throughout Three’s time in the TARDIS and beyond. I can’t help but smile at the Brigadier’s reaction to the news that an abandoned police box has been found in the middle of a field, or at the exchange between the Brigadier and the Doctor as both realize how much his face has changed.

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Neither Angel Nor Devil

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Review of The Dæmons (#59)
DVD Release Date:  10 Apr 12
Original Air Date:  22 May – 19 Jun 1971
Doctor/Companion:  Three, Jo Grant, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart
Stars:  Jon Pertwee, Katy Manning
Preceding Story:  Colony in Space (Three, Jo)
Succeeding Story:  Day of the Daleks (Three, Jo, the Brigadier)

A lot of Long-Term Fans have a pretty high opinion of The Dæmons, from what I understand. That kind of reputation always makes me approach a story with caution. With a pedestal so high, can it possibly be as beautiful as those who put it there believe?

For me, it’s a bit of a mixed bag. Yes, it’s an enjoyable story. There’s a lot to recommend it, and I could probably watch it again relatively soon without complaint. But there are the standard silly bits, too, and it’s not quite engaging enough for me to ignore them all.

Based on conversations elsewhere, I think at least some of the story’s charm is lost in translation, as it were. An idyllic English village doesn’t trip all the cultural nostalgia triggers that it would for a Brit or that, say, a small rural town or farm would for me, as someone who was raised in the American Midwest. So while the village square surrounded by pub, chapel, and such may stir something deep in the soul of a native of the British Isles, I find it merely quaint.

So what is it I’m not ignoring? Let’s start with the Master’s whole plan. Why the hell (~ahem~) is the Master bent on dominating humanity? Doesn’t he hate this backward little planet? Hasn’t he already tried to wipe out our species several times over? Isn’t he sick of the place? For a while I thought maybe that last bit was part of the answer – he’s stuck here, but has decided to make the best of it, and live up to his name. But that can’t be right – it’s not till the end of The Dæmons that he’s locked up by UNIT (so he can later wreak havoc with The Sea Devils), and since we’ve just seen him in Colony in Space, we know he’s got full control of his TARDIS. So I’m back to square one: wtf?

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Three Has Company

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Review of The Three Doctors: SE (#65)

DVD Release Date:  13 Mar 12
Original Air Date:  30 Dec 1972 – 20 Jan 1973
Doctor/Companion:  Three, Jo Grant, the Brigadier
Stars:  Jon Pertwee, Katy Manning, Nicholas Courtney
Preceding Story:  The Time Monster (Three, Jo, the Brigadier)
Succeeding Story:  Carnival of Monsters (Three, Jo)

Whoever first decided the crazy idea of having all three Doctors in one story wasn’t so crazy after all (I guess that’s either producer Barry Letts or script editor Terrance Dicks, then) deserves an award, in my opinion. This first multi-Doctor story was precursor to many others, both on- and off-screen and I, for one, love that.

The story serves multiple purposes, too. Not only did it provide the fan service of bringing back the previous Doctors, but by the end Three had also regained his ability to leave Earth (which made subsequent story arcs easier, after so many invasion-of-Earth stories already in the can). And those social-interaction pieces of the story, at least, are plausible.

The science, on the other hand… ~sigh~ An antimatter universe? Through a black hole? No. Just… no. I think that – more than any other Doctor Who story – the “science” here is painfully awful. Most of the time, I can gloss over it, suspend my disbelief and say, “yeah, that sounds almost plausible,” and roll with it. This bit, though, is egregious enough that it regularly jars me out of that mental story-space. I can get past it enough to enjoy the story, but I kind of have to work at it. I think Letts said it best when he pointed out in the commentary (see below) that “this is really science fantasy, rather than science fiction. It bears no relation really to what … scientists think goes on in the middle of a black hole.” Makes for a pretty good story, though. So let’s move on to those good bits.

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Ignore the Dinosaurs Behind the Curtain

Review of Invasion of the Dinosaurs (#71)
DVD Release Date:  10 Jan 12
Original Air Date:  12 Jan – 16 Feb 1974
Doctor/Companion:  Three, Sarah Jane Smith, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart
Stars:  Jon Pertwee, Elisabeth Sladen, Nicholas Courtney
Preceding Story:  The Time Warrior (Three, Sarah Jane)
Succeeding Story:  Death to the Daleks (Three, Sarah Jane)

What can one really say about low-budget mid-70’s television dinosaurs? Certainly nothing flattering. I mean, I give them credit for trying – the script did rather present them with an impossible task, after all. Dinosaurs in Central London? Not something you can just “work around” and keep the story at all intact. That doesn’t disguise the fact that they’re rubber rubbish.

So if we are to take this story anything close to seriously, we need to get one thing straight right off the bat: the effects are heinously poor, but you have to pretend they’re good. Break out some mental steel cable to keep your disbelief willingly suspended if necessary, but make it work. Because behind those shoddy Cretaceous monstrosities is a pretty good science fiction plot.

The Doctor and Sarah Jane are just returning from her first, unintentional adventure with him. When they land, they find London deserted. Eventually, they learn a veritable plague of dinosaurs has descended on the city and prompted a mass evacuation. From there, intrigues abound and chronobabble flows freely while, as they say, the plot thickens.

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End of an Era

Review of Planet of the Spiders (#74)

DVD Release Date: 10 May 11
Original Air Date: 04 May – 08 Jun 1974
Doctor/Companion:   Three, Sarah Jane Smith, with Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart
Stars:  Jon Pertwee, Elisabeth Sladen, with Nicholas Courtney
Preceding Story:  The Monster of Peladon (Three, Sarah Jane)
Succeeding Story:  Robot (Four, Sarah Jane, the Brigadier)

The last story I reviewed was all about firsts.  This one’s rather the opposite, as Three’s swan song. I’d heard lots about it for that reason, and even seen the final regeneration scene a couple of times on YouTube (it’s so much better in context). I’m really pleased finally to have the opportunity to see the whole thing. I suspect that if I’d been soaking in it at the time (you know… if I’d been a Brit, and old enough to watch tellie), it would’ve been even more of a thrill to watch.

As it is, I can kind of watch it from two perspectives:  Historic Story (HS) and Standard Fare (SF). As HS, it’s got lots of portent, what with the whole Cho-je/K’anpo/Doctor dynamic that only comes to a head in the last episode or two; it’s nice seeing a little more of the Doctor’s personal history. There are also little nods all over the place to the entire Pertwee era – from the Metebelius crystal coming back to UNIT from Jo (who’s off galavanting in the jungle) to the redemption of Mike Yates (former Capt. with UNIT, who turned traitor in a previous story) to the fabulous Sgt. Benton almost blithely offering to risk his life in the Doctor’s stead (“Wouldn’t it be better for me to have a go first? I mean, I’m expendable and you’re not.”).

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A Beautiful, Um, Friendship?

Review of Terror of the Autons (#55)

DVD Release Date: 10 May 11
Original Air Date: 02 – 23 Jan 1971
Doctor/Companion:   Three, Jo Grant, with Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart
Stars:  Jon Pertwee, Katy Manning, with Nicholas Courtney
Preceding Story:  Inferno (Three, Liz Shaw, the Brigadier)
Succeeding Story:  The Mind of Evil (Three, Jo, the Brigadier)

How can you not love stories that you know in retrospect to be The Start of Something?  At the beginning of Three’s second season, having been stranded on Earth sidekicking for UNIT for a year now, the Doctor needs a new “assistant” – and a new challenge.  Enter three new regulars:  Jo Grant, Capt. Mike Yates, and the Master.  I wonder if anyone at the time had any idea how big an impact their new villain would have…

This story is full of win. Not only do we get the aforementioned introductions (including the Master’s hypnotic control of others, and his Tissue Compression Eliminator), but we get some key “rare appearances,” too. For example, we have only seen another Time Lord or another TARDIS a couple of times before (in The Time Meddler and The War Games), and the Autons last appeared in Three’s first adventure (Spearhead from Space). There’s also lots more of the same things we’ve already come to love (e.g., the Brigadier and the Doctor snarking at each other with some glee).Aside from all these classic, eminently Whosome moments (running up and down exterior stairs! a twisted ankle!), there are also a few lovely flash-forwards to modern episodes. The fact that the Autons are controlled by a large, round radio telescope (“Danger: Keep Clear of Radio Telescopes,” reads one sign; Four obviously had forgotten that advice) immediately makes Nine’s search for a transmitter in Rose a more obvious task. Later, when Three and Jo discover their driver is actually an Auton, I couldn’t help but think of Runaway Bride.

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