Menu Close

Tag: Two

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.

Read more →

Confession #59: I’m Sick of the Omnirumour

Part of the mythos of our show is the sad fact that many of the early episodes from the first two Doctors are no longer in the BBC archives. Pretty much ever since the advent of home video, fans have hoped that some—or preferably all—of those would some day be recovered. We’ve had our share of happy surprises, most recently when The Enemy of the World and The Web of Fear were returned last year.

There are nearly a hundred still absent, though, and someone somewhere always brings up the idea that more are out there, just waiting to be revealed to the public. It’s the Omnirumo(u)r—the rumor that will not die—and it has many forms. One particular collector is hoarding [“The Smugglers” / “Marco Polo” / all remaining missing episodes] (strike as relevant). The aforementioned episode(s) have been found in some backwater of Africa / Asia / wherever. And so on.

Of course the BBC’s tendency to deny things that later turn out to have been fuzzy versions of truth keep fans frothing. “The BBC’s just being coy!” “They’re covering their behinds!” “If Doctor Who Magazine (DWM) denied it, it’s just that they don’t know better!” And I really think the BBC buys fully into the old saw about there being no such thing as bad publicity.

Read more →

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.

Read more →

Atmos-Fear-ic

Review of The Web of Fear (#41)

iTunes Release Date: 11 Oct 13
Original Air Date: 03 Feb – 09 Mar 1968
Doctor/Companion: Two, Jamie McCrimmon, Victoria Waterfield
Stars: Patrick Troughton, Frazer Hines, Deborah Watling
Preceding Story: The Enemy of the World (Two, Jamie, Victoria)
Succeeding Story: Fury from the Deep (Two, Jamie, Victoria)

The recovery of two back-to-back stories from the sorely underrepresented Troughton era of the show feels almost too good to be true (though them being found together makes a fair amount of sense). Yet here they are, and The Web of Fear starts up where the cliffhanger ending of The Enemy of the World left off.

Episode One isn’t what’s got Who fans’ collective panties in a bunch, though; it’s the only one that had remained in the archives. So although watching the cliffhanger resolution is more meaningful in context, having seen Enemy Episode Six for oneself, what follows is the familiar setup we’ve already seen (that is, if one had bothered to track down a copy). It is, in essence, your basic “our heroes get themselves into a pickle” episode.

Read more →

Friend of My Heart

Review of The Enemy of the World (#40)

iTunes Release Date: 11 Oct 13
Original Air Date: 23 Dec 1967 – 27 Jan 1968
Doctor/Companion: Two, Jamie McCrimmon, Victoria Waterfield
Stars: Patrick Troughton, Frazer Hines, Deborah Watling
Preceding Story: The Ice Warriors (Two, Jamie, Victoria)
Succeeding Story: The Web of Fear (Two, Jamie, Victoria)

I can’t even describe the thrill I felt watching The Enemy of the World unfold before my very eyes. I’d long since inured myself to the idea that my only chance to see Troughton in his double role as the Doctor and Salamander was to watch Episode Three, which had previously been the only one remaining in the archives. And while I’d read both a full synopsis and the BBC’s photonovelization before, it’s a completely different experience to see it for oneself.

For anyone who has never seen the Second Doctor in action, you could hardly ask for a better introduction. I’ll admit it’s probably an advantage to know him so one can appreciate the differences between Troughton’s two characters better, but the story itself is a real cracker. Each episode unfolds another layer of intrigue until we see what a truly tangled web the players have woven.

Read more →

Once Bitten, Twice—OH MY GIDDY AUNT!

7 Comments

Over the last several months, a Who fan would have had to have been hiding under a rock not to have heard the rumors that missing episodes of First and Second Doctor serials had been found. There was the hype, the counter-hype, the supposed confirmations, the supposed denials, back and forth for months. The lost episodes are like the Holy Grail of Doctor Who, so fans have understandably been by turns excited beyond words and bitterly disappointed.

This last week, the rumor surfaced again. Several outlets of various degrees of reliability broke the “news”—first the Mirror claimed on Sunday that all 106 had been found. On Monday the Radio Times reported that an unnamed number of “episodes” would be made available for purchase on Wednesday, then reversed and said the press conference wouldn’t be till Thursday. On Tuesday, the BBC itself posted a story. Although fandom considered it all old news by then, having word come down from Auntie Beeb herself certainly seemed like the “official word” many of us had been waiting for before going off the deep end in ecstasy.

By Tuesday evening, there was a post on Deborah Watling’s (who played Companion Victoria Waterfield to Patrick Troughton’s Two) official website saying that she and Frazer Hines (Jamie McCrimmon) would “be helping the BBC to launch the newly found Dr.Who episodes” sometime on Thursday.

Read more →

Revival of the Fittest

Review of The Ice Warriors (#39)
DVD Release Date: 10 Sep 13
Original Air Date: 11 Nov – 16 Dec 1967
Doctor/Companion: Two, Jamie McCrimmon, Victoria Waterfield
Stars: Patrick Troughton, Frazer Hines, Deborah Watling
Preceding Story: The Abominable Snowmen (Two, Jamie, Victoria)
Succeeding Story: The Enemy of the World (Two, Jamie, Victoria)

For some reason, Troughton’s second season (Season 5, by the original count) was into cold climes. Starting things off with the cryogenic Tomb of the Cybermen, it proceeded on to Tibet and The Abominable Snowmen before landing the TARDIS crew in the glacier-covered future wasteland of The Ice Warriors.

Regardless of the seeming repetition of setting, I was glad to see another Troughton story I hadn’t had the privilege of watching before. Even when you’ve read a blow-by-blow plot synopsis, seeing it on the screen in front of you is a different kettle of fish. Besides, how can anyone resist any performance involving that infamous cosmic hobo?

As with many early stories, one has to take this one with a largish grain of salt. Not only are the Ice Warriors’ creature costumes ridiculously unconvincing (its the rubber mouths that don’t move in sync with the actors’ jaws that really does it), but the science is sorely outdated. The idea that extreme deforestation (not that the script calls it that) would lead to less carbon dioxide in the atmosphere might have been a believable hypothesis at the time, but these days we’re seeing the opposite effect. So the very premise comes across as extremely retro-futuristic.

Read more →

A Bold New Direction

2 Comments

Review of The Doctors Revisited – Second Doctor

At the end of February, BBC America viewers were treated to the second installment of the “Doctors Revisited” series. This time, it’s all about Patrick Troughton’s era.


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2012 BBC

The format is the same as it was for Hartnell’s Doctor, covering first the character of the Doctor himself, then reviewing his Companions and how they influenced the flavor of the show, and finally covering the key “monsters” the Second Doctor had to face.

Interviewees in this installment are primarily the same as before, as well; Moffat, Skinner, Gaiman, Tennant, and Barrowman all make appearances. The change comes in the Companion department, where instead of Ian and Steven, who were exclusively One’s Companions, we hear from Wendy Padbury, who played Two’s Companion Zoë Heriot.

Fans unfamiliar with Troughton’s work as the Doctor might be surprised to hear how much credit these folks give him for turning the show into what we know and love today, but it’s quite true. Had he not been able to convince the audience at the time that he really was the Doctor – despite how very different his version of the character’s personality is – it would have died then and there. And, as Tennant points out, essentially everyone since has done their own version of Troughton, carefully balancing the Doctor’s roles as both man of action and comic relief. That’s one of the reasons I personally love him so much; he comes across as a big goof, but he’s still sharp, clever, and a little bit scheming underneath.

Read more →

Retro-View #3: The Games Are Afoot

11 Comments

The War Games (Story #50, 1969)
Viewed 25 Sep, 04 Oct 2012

Doctor/Companion: Two, Jamie, Zoë
Stars: Patrick Troughton, Frazer Hines, Wendy Padbury
Preceding Story: The Space Pirates (Two, Jamie, Zoë)
Succeeding Story: Spearhead from Space (Three, Liz Shaw)
Notable Aspects:

  • Two’s final story
  • First mention of the Time Lords (by name)
  • First appearance of the Doctor’s home planet

It is an utter joy to watch Who with G. She’s an ideal audience for indoctrination from the beginning, as she comes into it willingly and with love and appreciation for television of the ’60s anyway. You can always count on her to giggle with absolute glee at the poor stage fighting, Two’s gurning, or the long-since-outdated science fiction props.

On the other hand, she’ll also ask the kinds of questions I imagine the audience at the time would have asked, and is often completely quiet because she’s just soaking it all in, getting involved in the plot. Either that, or she’s exclaiming about something being revealed on screen, “uh-oh”ing at all the right moments or gushing about the “wonderful” sets. I can just imagine if those responsible for creating this story were on hand to observe her they’d be grinning ear to ear the whole time.

For my part, I had a hard time not interjecting things left and right (“Look! The sonic screwdriver is being used as an actual screwdriver!” “He just said his name was Doctor John Smith!” “He just mentioned the Time Lords for the first time ever!” “It’s Philip Madoc! Isn’t he brilliant in this role?”). It was worth it, though, to get her unadulterated reactions (e.g., “I like the War Lord. He’s kind of cute.”).

Read more →

Add Crunch to Your Salad

2 Comments

Review of The Krotons (#47)
DVD Release Date: 10 Jul 12
Original Air Date: 28 Dec 1968 – 18 Jan 1969
Doctor/Companion: Two, Jamie McCrimmon, Zoë Heriot
Stars: Patrick Troughton, Frazer Hines, Wendy Padbury
Preceding Story: The Invasion (Two, Jamie, Zoë)
Succeeding Story: The Seeds of Death (Two, Jamie, Zoë)

It’s amazing how different a Doctor Who story looks when comparing the picture in your head whilst reading a synopsis to the picture on the screen as broadcast. The Krotons certainly looks nothing like I envisioned it, but I don’t think that’s altogether bad.

When I first read that synopsis, I was also unfamiliar with several parts of the Whovian mythos that make them items of interest here. First, I really didn’t know beans about Robert Holmes. The Krotons is Holmes’ first stint as a writer for Who, but certainly not his last. He penned more than a dozen stories before he was done, was script editor for a goodly chunk of the show’s “heyday” (depending on which fan you ask about the definition of heyday), and introduced a vast number of important characters and concepts to the Whoniverse. In retrospect, then, it’s interesting to see how he makes his start.

Similarly, Krotons is the first story in which eventually-iconic Who villain Philip Madoc made an appearance. Madoc (who passed away this past March) is perhaps best known for his role as Solon in The Brain of Morbius, but his Eelek here is just as oily and commanding. He is perhaps the strongest of a fair-to-middlin’ batch of supporting cast here (though the Vana character is utterly useless, and in my opinion not well portrayed).

Read more →