Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 495: The Invasion of Time, Episode One

Dear diary,

Ah, The Invasion of Time. It’s another one of those stories which isn’t very well liked, and its faults are all too known in fandom, even before you sit down to watch it. I’ve never seen this one, but I know the basic plot, I know the twist at the end of part four, and I know how it ends. I think that’s going to mean that I’m a bit non-plussed by the story, and that I’m just going to be going through the motions. What I really need is to be able to watch it without any of that prior knowledge about the quality or the plot. It needs to be seen through the eyes of someone completely in the dark to actually stand a chance of it being received well.

Thankfully, I’m on holiday with Emma this week. Not a massive holiday anywhere sunny or hot (mores the pity), just a simple trip back home to look after the animals while the family is away (they’ve gone somewhere hot. Boo). Six nights away, six episode of Gallifrey-based Doctor Who to watch, and one partner who doesn’t have a clue what’s to come. Surely that’s the perfect test for The Invasion of Time?

Emma was fairly silent throughout the episode itself. She usually has a fair bit to comment on (often it’s how much she’s enjoying - or not - the dress sense of the companion), but today didn’t really prompt much of that from her. Instead, she waited until the closing credits were rolling before admitting that she was simply confused by this one. To be fair, she’s not the only one. I knew that the story involved the Doctor returning to Gallifrey to assume presidency of the Time Lords, and yet the episode moves at such a pace, and sees him (seemingly) acting so out of character that you’re really not sure what to think.

That’s not to say that I’ve not enjoyed it, though. As ever, there’s some sparkling dialogue between the regulars, and for the first time it really feels like K9 is a part of the team. We’ve had scenes of him playing chess with the Doctor before now, but it now feels… I don’t know. Different somehow, but in a good way. I laughed heartily at K9 telling Leela to shut up (‘engage silent mode, mistress!’), and also his description of swimming as ‘being fully submerged in H2O.’

I think for now that it’s just got an awful lot to set up very quickly. I’m hoping that now we’re in this position, with the Doctor given all the things he needs to rule Gallifrey, we can settle down a bit and get more in to the story. Although I know the basic outline of the story, I’m not really sure what fills up these first four episodes.

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 494: Underworld, Episode Four

Dear diary,

Confession time: I’ve never actually sat through an entire Star Wars movie. I know, I know, that’s something tantamount to blasphemy within the sci-fi world… but I’ve never really thought of myself as a science fiction fan. I love Doctor Who, in all its many varied forms. I’ll happily sit and watch other bits of sci-fi, or fantasy, but I’ve never been one for really delving into them. I’ve simply never had all that much of an interest. The only time that this wasn’t quite true was during 2005, when people were gearing up for the release of the final Star Wars. I can’t remember where I saw it, but there was a short feature about the way in which the film had been largely shot against green-screen, and speculating that this was the way all films would be made in the future - who needed to spend time building the scenery when you can simply add it in later, making changes as you go. The thought of that absolutely captivated me (although these days, I’m not so fond of the idea), and I love that there’s a clear ancestor to that kind of production here in Underworld.

It’s fitting, in a way, because this serial was in production when the first of the Star Wars films reached the UK. I’ve spent some time tonight catching up with the special features on the DVD of this story, and Anthony Read confirms that he went - along with Graham Williams and Tom Baker - to see a preview screening of this soon-to-be-seminal film. There’s some discussion on the effect the film had towards the models’ budget for this serial (and I still think that the spaceship shots are one of the very best bits of the entire story), and I think it’s also telling with the way that the series is moving in this latter-half of the Baker years. It’s becoming more ‘spacey’: we’re going to be spending a lot more time away from Earth in the next few seasons (and I think I’m right in saying that this incarnation of the Doctor won’t be venturing into Earth’s history again for the rest of his tenure), and we’ve even got a cute robot sidekick along for the ride.

While I’m briefly touching on the subject, I do have to praise the special features on this DVD. The Doctor Who range as a whole has been ridiculously well-served over the last 15 years or so, and I think it’s fair to say that no other series - archive or not - has been given the love, care, and attention that this one has. By the standards of some discs in the range, this release is positively stripped-down, but what we do get is fascinating. There’s a thirty minute documentary about the production of the serial, looking at the parallels with the tale of Jason and the Argonauts before moving on to the actual in-studio problems, and then there’s an additional 20 minutes or so of narrated footage from the various studio days. It gives a brilliant insight into the way this programme was put together, and really highlights how hard everyone worked to even get the story to screen in the first place.

So how’s it fared on the whole? This was ranked in Doctor Who Online’s story poll last year as being the worst story of the 1970s - and by quite some margin. Well… I’m pleased to say that I’ve not actually found that to be the case for me. I’ve been updating my friend Nick on this fact as I’ve moved along and, bless him, he’s tried to understand. I think the biggest problem for me is that the story has simply fallen a bit flat. I’ve already spoken at length about the face that the plot isn’t really anything new or interesting, but the expectation of the story being terrible has had a negative effect on it. I’ve not found it to be as bad as everyone says, but it’s hardy one of the best either. It’s sort of stuck in a purgatory, and its average score of exactly 6/10 across the four episodes puts it just about right. Slightly above average in places, but not breaking out that much.

Indeed, from the 1970s, I’ve rated four stories lower than this one (The Sontaran Experiment, Revenge of the Cybermen, The Android Invasion, and Image of the Fendahl) and several others have come in with the same average score - including that supposed classic The Deadly Assassin! That’ll probably duffel a few feathers!

I’m glad that I’ve enjoyed the story more than people usually do, and there’s something nice about knowing that I’ve liked it more than several stories that I’ve already been through. It leaves me with a sense that there’s always things to enjoy within Doctor Who - even when they’re supposed to have very few redeeming features at all…

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 493: Underworld, Episode Three

Dear diary,

Whenever I buy a new issue of Doctor Who Magazine, I have a strict way of reading it. An order that I always take. Well, I say ‘strict’. Effectively, I turn to the ‘Production Notes’ section, read that first, and then read the rest of the issue in any old random order that I want. It’s been this way for as long as I can remember, and I can tell you why that is: I love the way Russell T Davies writes his column. And Steven Moffat after him. It’s not about grabbing little bits of production information for me, it’s about enjoying two story-tellers tell a story. There’s been so many of the columns now (well over 100), and they don’t all stick in my mind. There’s one or two, though, that for some reason I always remember.

There’s one, for example, from early 2008, which is very pertinent to the watching of this story here and now. In it, Russell finds a VHS copy of Underworld in the back of a cupboard, in the middle of the night, and decides to pop it in for a watch. He admits that he’s seen it twice before, and didn’t care for it on either occasion. But then, as Cardiff Bay wake up around him (much as it has done for me this morning - I’ve got a busy day ahead so I’m watching this episode at an ungodly hour), he finds himself changing his mind…

“We’re way past Part One now! The script has moments of elegance: ‘The Tree at the End of the World is guarded by Invisible Dragons.’ There’s a Blackpool joke. There’s a pacifier ray, which makes Leela smile like a baby! There’s a villainous, arch supercomputer which actually sounds both villainous and arch in the right quantities. Better still, the villainous, arch supercomputer then realises, a second before death, how very wrong she has been. It’s actually rather moving. And, d’you know what? Sometimes, just sometimes, you can see these CSO shots as they were meant to be. The odd fleeting image has some depth, and shadow, and promise. The potential of Underworld is still there, buried under the tape”

He goes on to wonder about the design of the decedents in the story, too, deciding that if you mentally block out the ‘nose’ from the gold helmet design, then they’re actually not bad creatures. There’s definitely something alien and different about them. Mostly, I’m just surprised to find that the design of the helmet (or… mask? head?) only surfaces at this point of the story - almost three-quarters of the way through! You’d think they’d want to get their money’s worth out of the costumes, but they’ve hidden them under a black hood for the majority of the tale!

Russell picks out a number of things to enjoy about this story, and he’s right with all of them. The design isn’t all that bad, and the nose does somewhat throw it off. All that talk about invisible dragons is lovely (and leads to the Doctor being more ‘Doctory’ than I’ve seen in a while, when he sets off to find them), and whereas Russell says that some of the CSO shots work, sometimes, I’m willing to say that for me, they mostly work! Maybe I’m metally blocking out the worst offenders (the ‘falling’ sequence, for example, but then that would have been of a similar quality wether they had regular sets to hand or not), but I’m not having any problems with them.

My main issue with this one is still that it’s ‘generic science fiction’. It’s a story which feels familiar because we had a variation on it only a season ago (Doctor and friends head into a mythical temple which turns out to be a lost space vessel with a faulty computer), and no one is really giving it anything more than a basic performance. The guest cast are plodding through the script, Tom is over-doing things in an attempt to make up for other failings, and Leela has a sudden lust for revolution following her recent trip to Pluto. I still maintain that there’s a lot to be enjoyed in ‘Underworld’, and it’s still far from being deserving of the ridiculously low score it’s often saddled with… but it’s certainly one of the weaker stories, there’s no denying it. 

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

492: Underworld, Episode Two

Dear diary,

I know how this works. You lot. You’ll laugh, you’ll point. You’ll hunt me down with knives and pitchforks. You’ll revoke my Who card and make me surrender my DVD collection. But you know what? I’m going to say it anyway: Underworld isn’t that bad. And on top of that… the CSO actually kind of works.

Oh, believe me, I’m as stunned as you are. I was really dreading making it out of the ship today and into the the green-screen tunnels. It just seemed like such a bad idea. There’s several places where - no - it really doesn’t work: moments when characters are able to walk in front of things that they shouldn’t be able to, or when the smoke starts to fill the cavern at the end of the episode (although points for trying…), but equally there’s a lot of places where it looked good enough to me.

It’s worth bearing in mind that I’m saying this after a single episode of CSO shenanigans. By the time I’ve finished the next two episodes, I’ll probably have grown somewhat sick of it. I think the biggest shame is that while this world well enough to tell the story, it can’t ever compete with being out in real caves on location somewhere. It just lacks the kind of depth that you get when they film in locations like those used for The Mutants. This seems even more of a pressing shame coming right after The Sun Makers: a story in which to corridors and tunnels looked especially nice for being proper locations.

The other thing that seems to be happening - and especially in Tom Baker’s case - is that people are compensating for the fact it’s being shot so much on CSO by over-acting. When the Doctor and Leela first step out into the cave system, we get a few shots of him as things are explained. It’s all pretty standard stuff for a Doctor Who episode, and it’s the kind of thing that Baker could usually rattle off in his sleep.

He’s really going for it, though, and delivering a version of the Doctor that I’ve not seen him give before. He’s more ‘boggly’ than ever before. In some ways, it reminds me of that bit in the Whose Doctor Who documentary, where he describes Jon Pertwee as being like a big lightbulb. Playing up for the cameras. It’s not needed in this instance, though, and it sticks out more than any of the CSO backgrounds are.

The other issue I’m having is that… I don’t really care. Yesterday’s episode gave us a lot of sci-fi nonsense with dying civilisations, and pacifier rays, and rede banks, but as soon as we switch today to some men in hoods banging on about sacrifice, I just really thought very clearly ‘I don’t care’. It doesn’t feel rooted in reality: it’s just the kind of thing you could find in any old sci-fi. That’s not a fault particularly of Underworld (indeed, several Doctor Who episodes fall into the same trap), but it is a let down. I’m starting to wonder if the story’s poor reputation may actually be deserved - in the past I’ve only ever heard people say it’s rubbish because of the CSO effect… I’ve never actually heard anyone talk about the story…

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 490: The Sun Makers, Episode Four

Dear diary,

People often mourn the loss of the ‘Pure Historical’ format from the programme’s style after about Season Four (one of two exemptions not withstanding), but I think it’s a style which lives on throughout several other tales. Take this story, for instance. Sure, it’s set in the far future of Pluto, and the ‘big bad’ turns out to be a kind of alien squiddy creature (although you never actually see him in anything other than human form), but really it’s a story about oppression and revolution. You could take much of what we see in these four episodes and only apply a few small changes to set it at any point in Earth’s history. You don’t see anything that looks alien, and aside from references to other planets, it really could be set anywhere.

I think I quite like that. Over time I’ve found myself enjoying the appearances of monsters in Doctor Who, but I rather like having these stories come along every so often which don’t really conform to the usual ‘man in a rubber suit’ style. It seems to be the direction in which the series is heading, too. During Season Thirteen (to pick a random, recent example) monsters were the flavour of the day. Be it Zygons, or Sutekh and his Mummies, the Kraals, the Anti-matter creature… monsters were undoubtably a focus of the series. But then compare that to Season Fifteen so far. In The Horror of Fang Rock, The Invisible Enemy and Image of the Fendahl, the monster doesn’t turn up until at least the end of that third Episode. Oh, its presence is felt throughout the story up to that point - we might even get the odd glimpse of it - but it isn’t remotely the focus of the tale. In this story, it never even arrives. It’s an interesting change of pace, and one which I think I’m rather enjoying.

Especially when it means that we get villains and creatures like the Collector in this story. I’ve held off mentioning him up to now, simply because I didn’t know what to say about him. At times, he’s reminded me of Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory (both in mannerisms and speech patterns), but mostly I think I’m just a bit… put off by him. I mean that in a good way - I find him a little bit revolting, and it’s almost difficult to watch his scenes without a sense of just being uncomfortable.

Henry Woolf gives a wonderful performance, and he’s quite unlike anything else we’ve seen in the programme before. You can see - during their confrontation in this episode - that Tom Baker raises his game in order to go toe-to-toe with the man. It feels like some time since a guest has had such an effect on our Time Lord, and that’s always a good thing to see happening. Indeed, I think the only thing I’ve found to be a let down about the Collector is that his motorised transport doesn’t quite work. As the head of ‘the Company’, I’d expect him to have the latest model of wheels… but even K9 can get around more efficiently!

On the whole, The Sun Makers has been a really pleasant surprise. I entered into the story really not knowing what to expect, and my opinion has shifted a little bit all over the place in the last few days. I’ve ended up thinking that it’s something of a success. Does everything work perfectly? Well, no. But then, that’s always the case with Doctor Who. That’s the case with life in general, probably! A nice surprise in the middle of the season, though. And tomorrow I move onto Underworld: another tale I know very little about… but I’m well aware that it’s not regarded at the best the series has ever produced…

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 489: The Sun Makers, Episode Three

Dear diary,

I’m finding The Sun Makers to be a bit of an odd one, truth be told. Not in a bad way, simply in the sense that it seems to be getting a good deal better as it goes along. In my entry for Episode One, I complained that the direction wasn’t quite as interesting as I’d like it to be, and that you don’t get a real sense of the location when we’re out on the rooftops because there’s no model shots to help us along. Today, though, it’s like they’ve taken all that criticism on board!

The cliffhanger reprise has that lovely shot as the camera pans around the corner where Leela and her comrades are hiding, and you get to see the real length of the corridor behind her. I can’t say that I really picked up on just how nice this moment is, but I’m glad that I’ve noticed it today because the rest of that scene goes on to give us some really - really - nice shots. Use of selective focus when looking at K9 (there’s one moment when we get a real close up on his ‘nose’, and another where we watch his tail dip) and on Leela as she lies wounded on the floor feel almost filmic in nature, and they’re really rather great. It helps that they’re being shot on film, and that’s always a sure-fire winner with me.

We’ve then even got a shot of the city as a model! It’s hardly the best model that Doctor Who has ever given us (indeed, it’s far from the best model this decade), but it does help to give a scale to the world we’re inhabiting. There’s something oddly retro about it - that sense of ‘this is what the future will look like as decreed in the 1950s and 1960s - with all the skyscrapers and connecting beams, and I rather like that. I’m wondering now if there might have been a shot of this during that first episode that I simply missed, because it seems strange to build the model and then only show it at this late stage.

The only thing I am coming away from the episode feeling a little down-hearted at is some of the sets. Now that I seem to have ‘switched on’ to the direction being used here (it’s not as though they saw the work in the early episodes and then changed the way it was done, because it would have all been filmed in one big ‘block’, although I suppose they could have changed between locations), I’m really loving the use of the various locations. They give the underworld of the city a real industrial feel, and I completely believe that this world exists under those enormous tower blocks. I love the concrete tunnels as much as I love the sterile while corridors way overhead, and I love the sense of realism that it gives the story.

But then you enter sets like the control room above the steamer, or the correction centre. They’re all bloody peach! They don’t look like the kinds of technology that I expect to find in this world at all. I grew up on a farm, though it had long ceased operating as one by the time I was born. Right at the back of the main yard there’s an enormous barn. The roof has half caved in, and it’s reached a point now where the structure is so covered with Ivy that you can’t see a single inch of the brickwork below. Truth be told, it looks a bit like a Krynoid looming over the other outbuildings.

When I was young, I used to be fascinated by this place. It was a forbidden world of adventure and exploration. I wasn’t allowed in because of the roof being in such a precarious state (frankly, I’m surprised it’s still holding up now in places. I imagine that’s the work of the ivy), but I could peer through the cracks in the big, metal doors. It was full of old decommissioned farm machinery. Great big vats, three or four meters tall. Bits of equipment that had stood in this place for ten, twenty, even fifty years in some cases. By the time I was a teenager and old enough to decide that of course I was going in, I realised that if you worked your way around the back, there was a great big opening in the wall. Finally, I made it in there to look at all this stuff up close.

I know what you’re thinking - I’m supposed to be talking to you about The Sun Makers. But I am! Because all this equipment is exactly what I expect to find in this ‘control centre’. Rusting, and ancient. Crumbling away in places. You’ve got plenty of dials and readouts in this one, but they feel false. They’re too comically overrides and made out of numerous pastel colours. I want real dials. Little readouts behind panels of glass (cracked, of course), and little switches and levers to control all the operations. In short, I want this area to look as out-dated and industrial as the rest of the city does. It’s the only thing which is taking me right out of the story.

By contrast, the more I see it, the more I love the Gatherer’s office. It’s an odd kind of corridor that leads you in (something like a rib-cage, but it works!), and the whole thing feels like a set… but that’s just right for it. It’s supposed to feel different to the rest of the city. I also can’t help but like the hideout of the rebels deep down in the under city. It’s very stripped down and minimal, but those ‘pipes’ which lead up and out look fantastic, and I can really believe that they connect to the locations we’ve seen above. I don’t think that we’re going to be seeing many (if any) new locations in the final episode, but I’m hoping that if we do, they’ll be falling into the category of things I love rather than the things that feel like they’re letting me down.

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 488: The Sunmakers, Episode Two

Dear diary,

I don’t know if I was simply having a bad day when watching Episode One of this story, but I’ve found this episode far more agreeable. Lots of the things that I was complaining about before either don’t seem to bother me so much now, or are simply better. The direction, for example, is much better here than it was during the first part, and there’s some lovely shots both down in the tunnels as the Doctor heads back to the under city, and when Leela and her new party of revolutionaries are making their way through the long, white tunnels upstairs.

Leela herself is yet another highlight. Anyone who follows The 50 Year Diary on a regular basis will be more than aware how much I’ve come to love the character over the last month or so, and she’s as brilliant here as she ever is. It’s another one of those instances where both the character and the actress really come together to create something… well… something perfect. Every choice Louise Jameson makes with her performance is fantastic - just watch here as she tells one of the rebels that they have have no pride, or courage, or manhood, and tell me that it isn’t one of the best performances a companion has ever given in Doctor Who.

Leela is simply brilliant in herself, though. She doesn’t even see the Doctor in this episode - they don’t once share the screen - but you never feel like she’s left running around as a spare part. She actively goes looking for her friend, and in the process starts to build up supporters for a revolution. I can only assume that this plot thread is going to keep building in the next half of the story, and we’ll have a rill-scale revolt on our hands by the end of Part Four.

Even K9 is acting as a great part of it, being sent to stun the gourd and giving Leela and Cordo a chance to proceed with their plans. By the time that the little robot pooch was removed from the programme during Season Eighteen, people often claim that he’d become too much of a useful tool, eliminating any really danger or tension in a lot of instances. I think I can see that already beginning here, but it’s still fresh and news, so I really enjoy it. We’ve never had a companion like Leela before - one who would be so willing to head off armed with a knife and a robot dog - and seeing them paired up like this is simply fun.

That said… oh my God K9 is loud! I don’t know if it’s a peculiar side effect of the types of tunnels they’re filming in this week, but I can’t say that I noticed his motors quite so obviously during The Invisible Enemy! It makes it sound really rather strange when he trundles up to the guard, and his mechanics are drowned out by the incidental music! The Doctor spent some time in the last story upgrading the dog’s systems - let’s hope he’s aiming to make him quieter! If I’m honest, I’m not entirely sure how K9 was able to sneak up on the guard like that! 

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 487: The Sunmakers, Episode One

Dear diary,

Every so often I seem to tell you how this is ‘another one of those stories’ that I know very little about, and every time I’m convinced that it’s the last one I don’t know very much about. I genuinely do find myself surprised when another one comes up, especially on a day like today - when I’m expecting to pop in the DVD of Underworld only to remember that this tale exists before I reach that one! When it comes to The Sunmakers, I know it’s set on Pluto… I know that it’s a story about a population crippled under the weight of enormous taxation… I presume there’s something about people making suns in there? Basically - oh look! it’s ‘another one of those stories’.

It’s also one of those episodes that Emma has joined me for. She’s dipped in and out occasionally and seems to enjoy touching in on the Doctor’s adventures from time to time. In todays episode, she’s very taken with Leela, not keen on K9 by any stretch of the imagination, and somewhat indifferent to the rest of the story (although she likes the Gatherer’s hat).

For me… well… I’m not really sure yet. The Sunmakers is odd in that - I believe - there’s no monsters or anything like that in there. This isn’t a case of ‘mysterious deaths with a green slug arriving in the last third’, and as such I’m sort of left wondering when things are really going to get moving. Much of today’s episode is incredibly ‘talky’, and spent setting up the world into which we’ve found ourselves. It’s really the locations of the story which work the best for me - being so striking and different as to really make an impact. They’re cold, and grey, and utilitarian. They’re bleak, and large, and the kind of shapes (and sizes) you just don’t find in a BBC tv studio.

Sadly, they’re being shot in a particularly bland way. These settings call for the strange direction of George Spenton-Foster, or even the keen filmic eye of Douglas Camfield. That never-ending round corridor, with the concrete pattern built into the walls could look so dynamic and interesting, but it comes across as simply flat. Maybe that’s the point - this is supposed to be a crippled and cloudless society after all - but it feels like a real missed opportunity.

I’m also longing for the kind of model shots which were used to such good effect during The Robots of Death - cleverly masking in a shot with a model to give the scene some scale. When we watch the Doctor and Leela look out from the roof of a building ‘thousands’ of meters high, You want an impression of that size. Instead - again - it’s just flat. Even some shots slightly from below, looking up to them, would help to sell the idea that bit better for me.

Mostly, though, I think I’m interested to see how they use K9 in the plot. I rather liked him during The Invisible Enemy (and despite the Doctor’s assertion at the end of yesterday’s episode, I like that here he’s very much Leela’s pet again), but this is the first chance we’ve really got to see him being integral to a story away from his origins. I love that he’s setting out on his own to explore (even if he is followed by CCTV and leads thee ‘baddies’ to the Doctor), and I can’t wait to see where he goes from here… 

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 485: Image of the Fendahl, Episode Three

Dear diary,

I feel a little bit silly in admitting it… but I genuinely don’t have a clue what’s happening in this story. I mean, I understand that there’s a scientific research station set up in an old house to investigate this mysterious skull, and I get that the skull is really alien, and is drawing power in an attempt to live again… but I’m not sure what’s actually happening.

When the giant worm creature appears round the corner at the end of the episode… Is that a Fendahl? Where did it come from? Did the skull grow into that thing when it had absorbed 100 hours worth of energy (I’m guessing that it’s drawing this energy from the time fissure)? Or did the group of people in the catacombs manage to summon this creature up somehow? Did Thea turn into it? Or Max? Or one of the others? I just don’t know what’s going on.

Part of this comes back to the problem that I described yesterday - I’m struggling to follow the direction of the story. I can’t tell if the Doctor and friends being rooted to the spot by the sight of this creature is happening at the same time as the clock reaching 100 downstairs. There’s a point earlier on in the episode where we witness a conversation in the TARDIS between the Doctor and Leela, switch back to the Priory to see a van of people unload, then return to the TARDIS to find Leela out cold on the floor. Why? Was she asleep? Unconscious? Did I miss a bit? I’m not sure what was happening there, so it’s cast doubt on my ability to follow the plot in the cliffhanger.

I’m hoping that everything becomes clear in the the final episode, because I’m really rather keen to enjoy this story more than I am. There’s so much great dialogue for the Doctor and Leela to share (I expected nothing less of a script by Chris Boucher) - a particular highlight has to be the savage freeing the Doctor from the Fedahl’s grip early in the episode, and them both rousing on the floor and asking in unison if the other is all right. I wondered how I’d feel about the fact that so many Big Finish adventures for the pair have been set in the gap between their two seasons in the last couple of years - but these two have obviously been travelling together for a very long time. There’s something rather nice about that.

There’s also the fact that we’ve not got an actual monster to focus our attention on. I never really thought of myself as being one of those kids who loses interest in a Doctor Who story when there wasn’t something big, green, and slimy to keep me invested, but it’s felt like this story has been lacking one up until now - I’m really keen to see what George Spenton-Foster does with the creature, because it’s a really nice design, and I’m sure that his artistic - if tricky - direction could make it look stunning… 

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 483: Image of the Fendahl, Episode One

Dear diary,

I’m terribly sorry, but I think I’ve gotten lost somewhere along the line while working my way through Doctor Who for this marathon. You see, this is clearly a Philip Hinchcliffe story from Season Thirteen/Fourteen, and not part of the same programme that’s now shifted tone to things like The Invisible Enemy. I commented during Horror of Fang Rock that it always took a bit of time for a new production team to establish themselves, so I’m not really expecting Graham Williams to set a tone for the programme until the next season rolls around, but The Invisible Enemy felt like much more a template for what’s to come than this episode has, if anything, this felt like going back a step.

That’s not a complaint, mind, because there’s an awful lot about it to like. Opening with a shot of the skull is immediately striking, and certainly means that my interest is being grabbed right from the start. That we go on to have sets of big country houses (something the show always does very well), and plenty of shooting at night means that I’m kept rooted to the screen right the way through. This has been one of those strange episodes where it’s felt as though it’s going on for an absolute age, while also managing to be over before you know it. That’s always a sure sign that I’m too caught up in events to pay attention to anything else.

This is another one of those stories which I really know very little about. I knew it was set in a location called Fetch Priory. I knew there was a skull. I know there’s a kind of… worm creature turning up at some point. The DVD disc also informs me that there’s a character painted gold at some point. That’s all I’ve got! Everything else is completely uncharted territory, and that’s always an exciting prospect.

Something to note, though… we seem to have reached a shift in the way that Tom Baker approaches the role. It’s been creeping up for a while now (mostly since they resumed to start filming this season - with The Invisible Enemy forming the first story of the ‘block’), but we’re definitely seeing him approach it differently to the way he did for his first three years in the role. There’s a couple of ways of looking at this, and I think it comes down to a combination of the two.

The first way of explaining it is to simply reference Matt Smith’s Eleventh Doctor. In Series Five, the writers script a generic ‘Doctor’, and Smith then applies his own unique performance to that character, giving us a new incarnation of the Time Lord. By the time we get to Series Six (and, to a lesser extent, the latter episodes on Series Five), writers have seen enough of Matt’s performance to start writing the character as ‘The Eleventh Doctor’. Suddenly, it doesn’t feel as natural anymore - all the quirky moments are now scripted, so they lose something in the translation to the screen. It feels a bit like that’s happening here, too. It feels entirely natural that this Doctor would hold court with a field of cows, and it did make me laugh, but it also feels more forced than I’m used to.

The second way of explaining it returns to my thoughts of the Tom Baker years comprising three distinct ‘eras’. I’ve described them as being largely divided by the producers in charge, and that seems to apply to Baker’s approach to the role, too. He’s playing everything up that bit more now. He is the Doctor. He’s settled and confident enough in the role by now that he can pretty much do whatever he liked. Several tales do the rounds of this period of the programme’s history, where Baker would offer his suggestions, and if they were turned down he’d just go ahead and do it anyway. You can feel that confidence in his performance during this episode, and it’s not always a good thing.

That might just be me having an off day, mind. The Doctor and Leela haven’t really gotten caught up in the story yet (they’ve only met a single character - who also hasn’t intersected with the main guest cast), so I’m perhaps focussing on the pair more than I usually would. They’re being given the freedom to roam more than I’m used to of late. Maybe once they’re inside the house and fighting this month’s menace, Baker will settle down again? 

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 482: The Invisible Enemy, Episode Four

Dear diary,

Today’s episode is something of an odd affair… because it seems to be everything that people think Doctor Who is like, and quite unlike anything I’ve grown used to in the series over the last few seasons. As Doctor Who fans, we’ve all encountered those same old jokes about the programme’s ‘classic’ run. The sets wobbled! The Daleks couldn’t get up stairs! The monsters were rubbish! The companions simply stood around and screamed! Ignoring these comments is something you simply learn to do when faced with them, and I think you’ve truly graduated to a certain type of person when you choose to not bother correcting people, but simply smile and nod (while, of course, knowing that they’re completely wrong and quite possibly an idiot).

And yet, everything in this episode seems determined to back up many of the well-worn cliché´s. Leela doesn’t have to stand around screaming, but it’s set in a stereotypical ‘space’ set, the guest cast run around with silly face make-up on, the monster is less-than-impressive, and there’s a few effects that simply don’t work. We’re even back to the old-style TARDIS console room from this story onwards, but it’s not given anything near the space it used to have, and seems to look tatty and cramped already - just a few weeks after it returned to the programme at the start of this story.

I don’t think we’ve had any other single episode which so fulfils the idea of ‘that’s what Doctor Who is like’, and I’m not sure if that’s because this is just a very… typical episode. There’s nothing very surprising or new in here (unlike yesterday’s episode which at least had the good grace to do CSO effects better than usual, or Episode One which really highlighted just how good the model work in the show can be), it’s just a lot of running around, fighting a rubbish monster. You just know that this is the episode people will have tuned in to purely by chance, and then not bothered to return the following week (which can only mean that tomorrow’s episode must be an absolute blinder - it’s typical for something like that to happen!)

I’ve always found it somewhat strange that Doctor Who does develop all these stereotypes of what it’s like, when they’re really not right at all. I’ve mentioned above that people always talk of the ‘screaming’ companions from the old days, but we’ve still not really hit that. Oh, sure, you get it now and then - but it’s always used to great effect. It makes an impact because you’re not used to seeing the Doctor’s friends that scared. I know that by the time we hit Mel it’s likely to have become more prominent, but it’s really not true of any companion from the fourteen years of the show I’ve already watched through.

This idea of ‘stereotypical’ Doctor Who has always been around, though. Watching the ‘Tomorrow’s Times’ feature (a summery of contemporary press reaction to the series) on the DVD for The Face of Evil a few weeks ago, I was surprised by a comment made by one reporter during Romana’s time on the programme:

“No matter what time the stories are set in, or what new girl is chosen to be the Doctor’s accomplice, one thing remains constant. The girls are always half-naked. And they are always being chased.”

It just didn’t ring true to me. Janet Fielding often tells the story that she was made very aware of the fact she was on screen to keep the dads watching, but really only Leela up to this point could fulfil the ‘half-naked’ description. Jo Grant liked to wear her mini-skirts, but still! It feels especially odd coming late in the Tom Baker era, because I’ve never really thought of either incarnation of Romana as being particularly under-dressed.

I suppose what I’m trying to say is that there’s a commonly held perception of what Doctor Who is like. There was a time when it’s what people thought all Doctor Who was like, whereas these days it’s shifted to be what the old series was like, before they had the money, and the computers, and that David Tennant. Often, this perception is completely wrong, or at least only formed from half-truths. Sometimes, though, you get an episode like The Invisible Enemy Episode Four, which just seems to be exactly what outsiders expect the series to be like… and that leaves me a bit cold! 

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 481: The Invisible Enemy, Episode Three

Dear diary,

I genuinely love it when Doctor Who can still really surprise me. I’ve watched an episode every single day for well over a year now, and I’ve watched as the programme’s style has developed from a police box in a junk yard, via Moonbases and Ice Ages, through the Doctor’s exile on Earth and back out into the stars. I’ve watched as it makes progressive leaps forward with effects work - improving the model shots and monster costumes as they go. But because I’ve got a fairly good overview of the show’s history from even before starting on this journey, there’s various things that I expect to find. I know that Season Fifteen is hit by money troubles, and I know that one of the complaints often levelled against it is that it looks so cheap. I also know from bitter experience through the Pertwee years that CSO effects tend to not be so great on the budget Doctor Who can give to them.

So imagine how much I sit and smile to myself (genuinely, a big, broad smile right across my face, sat alone in a room watching a 30-something-year-old piece of television really do something that leaves me not only a little bit impressed, but actually floored by the effects. I’m talking about the vast use of CSO during this episode to help give a kind of scale to the Doctor’s brain. He and Leela make their way down various neural pathways (I’ll ignore the various science anomalies this causes!) in shots CSO’d onto (presumably) models… and it looks really good. Someone told me recently that I should be weary of the effects in this one - I’ll come to that in a minute - but I’m really impressed by this. Mostly, I’m in awe of the way it works around their hair, as that’s usually a tricky area (Heck, the last story showed that up whenever the Doctor stood in the lamp room in the lighthouse).

Of course, this being Doctor Who, there has to be something along to snap you out of it before you have a chance to get too involved with how good things are looking. There’s several instances in this episode where things don’t quite work out as well as I’d like them to, and coming in an episode that’s been impressing me so much, they tend to stick out more than they otherwise might. There’s obviously the shrimp creature - this is the focus of most warnings about the story - but I think I’ll come to that tomorrow. I can’t really bare to think about it too much right now, and I’ve got a whole 25-or-so minutes in its company to look forward to yet.

For me, the biggest let down is K9’s gun. It should be great - not only does this new companion (not that he is one yet) have that ‘cute robot’ element that became so popular in the late 70s, but he’s got a weapon in his nose. He can team up with the warrior Leela and hold a battle in the corridor of the hospital to give the Doctor more time. It should be impressive when he blasts a chunk out of the wall to give them a barrier to shield themselves with… but you can clearly see where the set is supposed to break away before they’ve even decided what to do with it. Then you’ve got him being possessed by the virus and having to attack his new friend… but his gun completely misses and Leela drops to the floor much too early anyway. It just sort of feels a bit botched, and really takes away from the whole drama for me.

This particular episode isn’t much helped by a fault on the DVD, which causes the end scenes to skip about a little bit - I’d forgotten about this error, and it did leave me a bit confused for a moment while I tried to piece together exactly what had happened. Going back and watching it again didn’t really make it much clearer, though, so maybe it would have been a bit of a shame in any case. So yes - I think The Invisible Enemy is one of those frustrating stories that gets so much very very right, but then an equal amount very, very wrong. The final episode could end up being the decider for me, and with a giant shrimp about to burst out of the cloning chamber, I’m not holding out much hope…

…Actually… While I’m thinking about it. They’ve got a cloning chamber. They’re all worrying that Leela and K9 won’t be able to hold off their attackers for very long. Just clone them! We’ve already got one clone Leela running around inside the Doctor’s skull, so clone another ten of her to fight in the corridor! And assuming you can clone a robot dog, get a whole army of K9’s out there to help defend yourselves, too! I thought it was a bit odd in yesterday’s episode when Marinus claims that there’s no real use in cloning - but even if they do only have a lifespan of ten minutes or so, they’d come in handy as an extra line of defence during this situation, surely?

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 480: The Invisible Enemy, Episode Two

Dear diary,

This episode has brought me closer to what I’ve always imagined The Invisible Enemy to be like… but it’s not half as bad as I was expecting. The design of the Bi-Al Foundation is just as tacky and rubbish as I was expecting it to be, but that kind of works for it. It suits the setting, and I think the fact that I’m still being pleasantly surprised by the story is helping me to over-look things which I’d normally find off-putting.

And, of course, we’ve finally got the first appearance of K9! It’s funny, looking at this story, thinking that he may have only appeared in this one single tale, and never again. It doesn’t feel right, somehow - possibly because I know what a big part of Doctor Who lore he’s destined to become over the next thirty-odd years. I’ve always found him to be a bit divisive among fandom - you seem to think he’s either one of the best ideas from this period of the programme’s history, or the worst. I don’t have enough knowledge of his appearances over the next few seasons to really give an opinion yet, though, so I’m keen to see how I find his addition to the TARDIS crew.

For now, though, I’m really rather liking him. It seems somewhat fitting that his very first line in the show is ‘Affirmative, Master’, considering it’s the phrase that will come to be most associated with him. It’s also great to see him being paired off with Leela so early on, considering that this particular model of the dog will be departing with he at the end of the season. I wonder if he’s going to be the perfect addition to Leela’s character to see us through the next few stories, watching her evolve before leaving? She’s very much left to her own devices here, with the Doctor spending large chunks of the episode in a self-induced coma, but as ever she’s on fine form. I’m not even going to bother drawing attention to the things I’ve enjoyed from her today - just take it as read that I’ve loved every minute she’s spent on the screen!

As for the story itself… I have to confess that I don’t really know why I’m enjoying it so much. I really just can’t get my head around it! There’s not an awful lot to it (today’s episode essentially consists of the Doctor being taken to hospital, and creating a clone while Leela fights off some standard-issue ‘men with guns’ in the corridor), but I’m really caught up in the events. I think I’m slightly put off by the fact that all this feels simply like build up to the main event: I’ve known for years that this is the story in which the Doctor and his companion get injected into his brain (although I didn’t realise that it was clones of the pair who underwent this process - I’ve spent years wondering how the Doctor was able to be shrub and placed in his own body…), and so everything that’s happened up to now has been almost filler to me.

I’m hoping, now, that following the clones inside the Doctor’s head means that we get yet another change of setting. The fact that Episodes One and Two seem to be set in such vastly different locations has really helped to make the whole story feel a bit more interesting than it really has any right to be, and if we’re switching somewhere new again for Episode Three, then it may help to stop the boredom from setting in. Otherwise, The Invisible Enemy could be in danger of becoming just a generic ‘space’ yarn…

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 479: The Invisible Enemy, Episode One

Dear diary,

Thing I’ve always thought I’d known about The Invisible Enemy Number One - It’s K9’s debut! Hooray! Obviously, it’s a story in which he’s completely central to the plot.

Thing I’ve always thought I’d known about The Invisible Enemy Number Two - It’s set in a fairly bland-looking white sterile, typically ‘space’ environment for the most part, with an excursion into the Doctor’s brain, just to break things up a bit.

Thing I’ve always thought I’d known about The Invisible Enemy Number Three - It’s not very good, by most accounts.

Based on this first episode alone, I seem to have been wrong on all three of those counts. For a start, K9 doesn’t even turn up in this episode. I assume he’ll be along later on in the story. This does slightly make me worry, mind. Like Jamie or Nyssa, K9 was made a companion after work had begun on the story. It’s not a tale written specifically to introduce him. I worry, though, that since he’s not in at least a quarter of the story, he may turn up, trundle around a bit, then hop aboard the TARDIS all fairly arbitrarily. I’ll hold back on that thought for now, and muse on that some more once he’s actually arrived on the scene.

That’s the only downside to being wrong about this story, though, because what we’re given here in these first 25 minutes is far more interesting than I was expecting. This was one of those stories which I entered into with a slightly bored feeling. I try to keep an open mind when entering into any new story during this marathon, but I’ve spent years hearing that this is… well… not the best story every produced. Plenty of images from the recording leave me with that worry, too, as it seems to be something of a let down in the set-design department - lots of plain, boring, space design, and lacking in the style or charm of something like Nerva.

What we get here is very different - it’s still fairly typical as ‘futuristic’ designs go, but it’s nicely lit and feels quite lived in. There’s something almost Pertwee-esque about the space ship at the beginning, and I’m rather taken with the whole thing. And then we’ve got those model shots.

I’ve learned since watching that this story had a higher budget for the model work than any story before it - and that really shows on screen. From the shots of the spaceship in the asteroid field, to being ensnared by the… whatever-it-is in space, coming in to land, and then watching the ship defend into the moon… Yeah, this is some very impressive work. I’ve been full of praise for Doctor Who’s model work for ages, now, but it’s always lovely when something can come along to really make you sit up and take notice. I said during The Robots of Death that they’d need to start upping their game to keep me noticing these things, and it looks like they’ve really done that!

The other thing that I need to praise during every story is the character of Leela. Are you sick of hearing it yet? I’m sorry, but she’s brilliant! Even here, in her fifth story, she’s still very true to the original concept - and that really impresses me. Watching her learn to write is fun enough, but it’s bringing in that hunter sense, that she simply knows something is wrong, which really works for me. She’s only around for the rest of the season, so you’ll not have to hear me bang on about her for too much longer - she really is the best thing about the programme at the moment, though, and I’m glad that they’re setting her in some really great stories. 

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 478: Horror of Fang Rock, Episode Four

Dear diary,

There’s something really quite unsettling about just how carefree the Doctor and Leela appear as they make their way back to the TARDIS here. Considering that they’ve just finished an adventure in which everyone else in the story dies. That’s not me being over dramatic, either, everyone dies. All the guest cast. The alien. Even other members of the alien’s race - who only turn up in the last half of this final episode - all get slaughtered. It’s a very bloodthirsty story… and it really works all the better for it. In many ways, this is a hugely brave choice for an opening serial: not just because it’s a fairly downbeat way of introducing the new run, but because we’re supposed to be at the dawn of a new era for Doctor Who, with a new producer who has been specifically asked to tone down the violence. Oh.

All of this is just my way of darting around simply saying again how much I’ve enjoyed this story. It’s not perfect, though I’d struggle to pick out any specific things that I’ve failed to enjoy, and I dare say that one of the biggest strengths and the biggest weaknesses of the tale is just how much it feels like something from the last season. It’s everything that Season Fourteen did well, being done very well, but I’ve come to expect that from the programme now. I want to see something new, and watch the TARDIS start to venture out and tread new ground in the universe.

Mostly, I think I’m just pleased to see that my opinion on the story as a whole has changed since the last time I watched it. That’s one of the funny things that I find with Doctor Who (and I’m hoping other people get this too, and it’s not just be being a little odd!) - there’s so much of it, I sort of lose track sometimes about which ones I like and which ones I don’t. Just recently, I was talking to a friend about one of the Hartnell stories and telling them how I had a strange urge to watch it again because I’d enjoyed it so much the first time around. He then proceeded to point out that - actually - I’d rated that one fairly low, and hadn’t found all that much to love in there.

It’s one of the best things about Doctor Who, too. I genuinely think that I could pop in An Unearthly Child the day after I finish this marathon and do it all again: one episode a day, every singe day, writing down my thoughts and scoring out of ten every time… and you’d end up with different ratings to what I’ve given it in this run though. Part of that will be because I know what to expect, so maybe I’ll be rating fairly (or, conversely, I could be rating harsher!), but some will simply be down to the way I feel on the day and seeing the story with a different frame of mind.

I think that may be why Doctor Who never seems to get old for me. 

Manufacturer: Big Finish Productions

Written By: Nicholas Briggs

RRP: £10.99 (CD) / £8.99 (Download)

Release Date: April 2014

Reviewed by: Matthew Davis for Doctor Who Online

Review Posted: 23rd April 2014

The TARDIS lands in the cargo hold of luxury space cruiser the Moray Rose. The crew and passengers are missing. The agents of Inter-Galaxy Insurance are determined to find out what’s happened and the shadowy Interplanetary Police Inspector Efendi is showing a very particular interest.

Caught up in all this, the Doctor and Leela find themselves facing a horde of metal mantis-like aliens. But throughout it all, Leela is haunted by terrible nightmares and the dawning realization that everything she knows about her life is a lie.

* * *
The Master, that dastardly arch nemesis of our favourite Time Lord returns in the latest release of Season Three of The Fourth Doctor Adventures. 

The Evil One is essentially and unashamedly an elaborate revenge tale. Using the companion as his weapon to kill The Doctor is a believable course of action for The Master, and it develops at a rather cracking pace. Supporting characters are introduced and discarded rather quickly, but the focus always remains on the brain washed Leela hunting The Doctor.

A considerable atmosphere of foreboding is introduced very early on as Leela is plagued by strange dreams, false memories and hallucinations. It pays off in a clever little cliff-hanger that pays homage to Leela’s first television story The Face of Evil. Prior knowledge of that story is not necessarily required to listen to The Evil One, but it certainly makes a lot of the references more enjoyable.

The great revelation of this story is the exploration of some of Leela’s past.

The final scene between The Doctor and Leela is beautifully written and played to perfection by the leads. Tom Baker and Louise Jameson really do cement their Doctor/Companion relationship with this scene. The joy of their reunion since the start of The Fourth Doctor Adventures is watching how gradually the writers are opening up the character’s relationship and here Briggs really expands it with wonderful results.

Geoffrey Beevers is a deliciously evil as The Master, refining his very silky interpretation of the character with each of his Big Finish appearances. His Master is very well suited to Baker’s Doctor, just as Delgado was to Pertwee and Ainley to Davison.

The supporting cast is made up of Gareth Armstrong as Arthley and Blake’s 7's very own Michael Keating as Calvert. Arthley is a thinly sketched character whereas Calvert has much more to do and has some excellent scenes with Tom Baker.

The Evil One is a great little story from Nicholas Briggs whose excellent script and tight direction make this a very enjoyable and surprisingly moving story.

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 477: Horror of Fang Rock, Episode Three

Dear diary,

“The 50 Year Diary Day 477… or ‘How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Fang Rock”…

I don’t know if it’s just be being a Doctor Who fan, but I’m constantly on the edge of my seat in anticipation of disappointment at the moment. Right from the start of this story, I’ve been waiting for it all to go wrong. For the story to come crashing down around me, and to open one of these entries by bemoaning the fact that it had all seemed so promising. Actually, I think I can tell you exactly what the problem is - I discovered that the Hinchcliffe era of Who was my highest-rated on average, so there’s a voice in the back of my mind that tells me everything has to suddenly turn disastrous.

But it’s not happening! Well, not yet, anyway. Once again today, I’ve found myself completely riveted by the events unfolding on Fang Rock, and I almost don’t want to write this entry: I just want to stick on the next episode and see how it all ends. I think the story is helped by the fact that I was expecting a simple runaround. The Doctor and friends are trapped in a lighthouse with a glowing alien blob. Oh no! What we’re actually getting is a tightly-executed lesson in building tension and really hooking in a viewer. We know what the threat in the story is - we’ve had point-of-view shots since the first episode, and we’ve now seen shots of the creature on a few separate occasions - but it still doesn’t feel as though we’re really confronting the monster. Dragging out the tension, and the games being played with the creature, is making this story feel a little unnerving, and claustrophobic - and that’s exactly what Terrance Dicks wants.

All this confined threat is only ramped up by the fact that this is such a bloodthirsty story. We’d lost one of the lighthouse men shortly into the First episode, and now we’ve not only lost Reuben, but discovered that he’s been dead for a while, and it’s a walking corpse we’ve seen wandering around acting strange. It’s not a particularly uncommon theme in this type of literature - a dead person being possessed to continue on in some mission - but what makes me uncomfortable about this particular example is the way the Doctor announces it: finding the man’s body and simply commenting that he’s in a state of rigamortis, and has been dead for some time. I think it’s because it suddenly makes it very real that this man is dead - usually n Doctor Who, we move on too quickly from the dead bodies for things like this to be an issue.

We’ve also lost Lord Palmerdale now, which isn’t a great surprise. The man was too thoroughly vile to live past the end of this story. I’m starting to wonder if any of our characters are going to make it out alive, though. Adelaide is starting to grate on me and become ruder and ruder to the people we care about (in this case, the Doctor, Leela, and VInce), while we’re getting more and more hints about Skinsale’s dark deeds. I can’t decide if I want to know the information that would ruin the man, or if I’d prefer to leave it unsaid. My current guess is that maybe - only maybe - Vince could make it out alive. The legend of the beast says that two of the three keepers died, while the other lost his mind… and Vince is the only one of the trio left alive at this point…

Despite all this darkness, there’s an awful lot of humour to be found in the story still. Palmerdale was a key source of laughs in yesterday’s episode, but much of that is gone for the final minutes of his life here. Instead, it’s Leela who once again lights up the screen for me. I love her slapping Adelaide (I think I may ever have cheered a little…), and her assertion to the Doctor that she’s only a savage being met by his response - ‘come along, savage!’ I think it’s moments like these which may save this story from becoming completely overtaken by the darkness… 

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 476: Horror of Fang Rock, Episode Two

Dear diary,

Oh, I’m so happy. I approached this episode with so much trepidation. Vague memories of not liking the new guest cast from the ship mixed with very few memories of anything else about this story left me thinking that it was probably about to take a bit of a nosedive in quality. In fact, I’ve laughed my way through all the comedy elements of the tale, while simply enjoying everything else about it.

Let’s start with the quest cast. Lord Palmerdale was the character I had in mind when I was complaining about not really caring for these characters, but he’s actually the best of the bunch. He’s thoroughly slimy and manipulative, but that gives him a certain air of humour that I can’t help but love. Sean Caffrey (in his only Doctor Who role) gives a really rather brilliant performance, and he’s does a nice trade in those ‘Martin Freeman’ style facial expressions, staring round in exasperation when Vince is fawning over Adelaide before him. I can only assume that he’s set to die before the adventure is done - he seems purpose-designed for that.

What’s interesting, in an era where monsters have very much become the forefront of the programme again, is that we’re now half way through this story and we’ve only had a single, very brief look at the threat we’re facing. So far, we’ve got one dead man, and the Doctor running around telling everyone (and us) that we should be on guard, and afraid, but there’s nothing really which makes the terror tangible. It’s best illustrated in the cliffhanger: Instead of something like Terror of the Zygons, where the cliffhanger involves Sarah Jane turning round and screaming while giving us our first clear shot of the monster, here the attack happens off-screen - we hear Reuben scream, the Doctor runs to find him, and we end with a simple ‘what the devil was that?’

It makes the threat so much more real, and I think it’s a testament to the story that I’m so gripped by it in spite of the relative lack of monster. We’re watching a story which excels in ramping up the drama and the tension, and I think it’s likely to really pay off in the next couple of episodes. The only downside is that the one shot of the creature that we do get in this episode is a bit of a let down - the scale is all over the place! For a moment, I thought Leela was looking at a tiny, insect-sized creature on the rail of the lighthouse (and I suddenly wondered why I couldn’t remember it growing by the end of the story - possibly with the more electricity that it absorbs?), but then I realised it must be down on the rocks below. But what size is it meant to be? I vaguely recall it being about the size of a dog, but am I just assuming that now? Hopefully we’ll get some better shots of it once the reveal has been made properly - it’s far more effective when simply seen as a rock pool glowing green when the Doctor turns away from it.

Ah, yes, the Doctor. It’s been a while since I’ve really pointed out just how good Tom Baker is, but it really does need to be done again here. I worried that now we were in his fourth season he may start to tire of there role a bit. I know at some stage he starts to go a bit over the top and just do whatever-the-hell he likes with his performance, but it certainly doesn’t seem to be the case here. In fact, I think Louise Jameson’s style may be rubbing off on him - when he hears the tale of ‘the Beast of Fang Rock’, he stifles a smile at Reuben’s expense. It’s only a tiny action, and it would be easy to miss, but it really adds something to the scene. Jameson’s performance is full of these tiny moments: and it’s what makes her performance one of the best we’ve ever had. She does it today - the way she acts when left alone at the top of the lighthouse, entirely bored by having to operate the foghorn, but then finding ways to enjoy the task.

While I’m at it - that foghorn is one of the best bits of the episode. Right at the start, Reuben makes a point of saying that it must be kept up from now on, every few minutes. As they venture out to explore the rocks and look for survivors from the ship, the horn sounds at regular intervals in the background. I wondered just how long they’d keep it up for before fading it out in favour of simply showing us the drama unfolding downstairs… but they don’t! At regular intervals right the way through the episode, we get blasts of the foghorn to jolt us upright: it came as a shock on most occasions! It’s just another of those little things that really does help add something extra to the story, and I’m glad they went to the trouble of doing it. 

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 475: The Horror of Fang Rock, Episode One

Dear diary,

You know that feeling you get in the morning of New Year’s Day? You’ve spent the night before seeing out the old year and telling yourself that this is it: brand new year, brand new start. You might make resolutions, you might simply decide to do things differently, but it’s a whole new world. And then, the sun rises. January 1st is simply The Day That Follows December 31st. It’s not a brand new year at all - it’s the same old year with a load of tidying up to do from the night before. I’ve got that same feeling with The Horror of Fang Rock Episode One. I finished yesterday in a mixture of happy and sad feelings towards the end of the Philip Hinchcliffe era. As much as I’d enjoyed it, the time felt right to move on into a new style, before the old one wore thin. And then today’s episode… well, it wouldn’t feel out of place in Seasons Thirteen or Fourteen.

You’ve got a remote, isolated setting. It’s night-time, and there’s plenty of atmosphere (here rolling in on the mysterious fog). The Doctor and Leela have rocked up in the middle of the night and it’s the early Twentieth Century. There’s a feel to this story which I can imagine people calling ‘gothic’ simply for lack of any better term. In short, it feels a bit like a horror movie. This isn’t the bold new start that I was expecting at all. I have a feeling that’s going to come with the next story (in the same way that The Ark in Space is a lot more like Hinchcliffe Who than Robot was), so I’m just going to carry on.

All of this sounds a bit like I’m complaining, when of course I’m not. All these elements, familiar as they may seem, add up to make a truly great opening episode. There’s plenty to hook you in, and I’m captivated by the whole lot of it right from the start. I have seen The Horror of Fang Rock before, but it’s so long ago and so wiped from my memory as to be practically new to me. I’d forgotten, for example, that the dead lighthouse keeper gets up and goes missing (though I now have vague memories of him coming back for a confrontation on the stairs, maybe?). I’d forgotten that Leela takes it upon herself to venture out onto the rocks to investigate, while the Doctor heads upstairs to get his knowledge from the ‘locals’. I’d also forgotten just how good the serial looks.

I’m in danger of becoming horribly repetitive lately, because I seem to be giving a lot of praise to the set design in every story, but it really does need to be brought up again. They do a great job of making the lighthouse feel really cramped, while making the vast open rocks feel just as overbearing and claustrophobic. The lighting and the ‘fog’ all help towards this, of course, but it’s a great way of opening your season. It feels so rich, and real. It’s a shame, then, that it’s let down somewhat by the model ship in the cliffhanger. I don’t know what I was expecting to happen, but the lingering shot of the ship brushing against the rocks led me to think that more was to come of it. After some truly great model work in the last few years, this felt like a bit of a damp squib.

I also worry that the addition of more characters to the story will start to take something away from it for me. I have a vague recollection of not much caring for the guest character in this tale, and I worry that it may end up putting me off. Still, if worst comes to worst, I can at least enjoy this as a great start to the season.

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 474: The Talons of Weng-Chiang, Episode Six

Dear diary,

There’s an awful lot packed into this final episode, but it doesn’t feel bloated at all. Indeed, there’s just enough to hold the interest right through to the very end, and you come away from the story with a real sense of contentment. It’s possibly the most competent season-ender that we’ve ever had from the programme - it feels (and looks) truly special, and you’re left with the thought that the Doctor and Leela are headed off for adventures new. It’s funny to think that - in the original plan - this could have been Leela’s final story in the programme. I don’t know if the plan was to leave her behind with Professor Litefoot (although that would be fitting, and the idea of him teaching her to become a lady would be great fun), but I’m rather glad they opted for a different route. We’ve only had Louise Jameson in the programme for three stories, but she already feels like part of the furniture. I’m hoping that her strong characterisation and performance continue on into the new season - she’s very quickly becoming one of my favourite companions.

Speaking of which… can I count Jago & Litefoot as companions, too? I suppose that they’re not, in the traditional sense, but thanks to their continued life on audio, they have now experienced a further adventure with the Fourth Doctor, and they’ve even travelled through time and space with the Sixth! No matter what their status, they’ve been truly great value for money throughout this story, and especially so in the last two episodes, when they’ve been brought together. There’s no wonder, watching this, that the BBC considered giving them their own TV spin-off at the time, and I’m not surprised that it’s worked so well for Big Finish on audio. They’ve just recently released the seventh series, with another three already commissioned. See the ‘extra’ section for today’s entry for a bit more on their own adventures.

I’ve really nothing more to add on the subject of The Talons of Weng-Chiang. It’s one of those tricky stories where I’ve simply enjoyed the experience of watching it, and have really very little to comment on. Instead, I’m going to take this opportunity to say farewell to Philip Hinchcliffe, who’s been steering the programme since the Fourth Doctor stepped foot in the TARDIS 75 days ago. For as long as I can remember, people have told me that the Hinchcliffe era of the programme is the strongest that it’s ever been, and I’ve always been sceptical. I love too many other eras, and this isn’t one that I’ve ever really paid that much attention to. I’m surprised to learn, then, that when you take the average ratings of this era into account (including those stories from Season Twelve, which were technically commissioned by Barry Letts and Terrance Dicks) it comes out with an average rating of 7.46 - the highest average rating that any producer has achieved up to now. Indeed, it even blasts the previous winner (Innes Lloyd) out of the water, where he’d averaged a 6.90.

I’m genuinely quite shocked by this. I mean… I know I’ve been enjoying the series of late, but you sort of get used to it just bobbing along at a steady level. You forget how this averages out over time to create a very strong period. And yet, despite this, I don’t think this era is lodged as fir my in my mind as some of the others. Maybe it’s because I’m still deep in the thick of it, and there’s a lot more Tom Baker to come, but nothing really stands out from the crowd here in the way that things do from other eras. There’s few stories from the last three seasons that I’m gagging to go back and watch again, in the way that I am with - say - The War Machines, or The Macra Terror, or Inferno.

It’s been a bold period for the show, and probably the most confident that it’s been since those early Hartnell years when the programme wasn’t afraid to go anywhere and try anything. We’ve veered into more violent and graphic territory than ever before, and we’ve got a Doctor who so completely inhabits the part. I’m really interested to see how my feelings develop as we move forward into the Williams era. From where I stand now, at the end of Season Fourteen, I’m simply expecting it to be ‘cheap’. That’s the only thing that I think I really know about the period to come, and after stories like this one and The Robots of Death, that may come as something of a shock to the system…

Day 474 Extra: *Jago & Litefoot: The Final Act*

The Jago & Litefoot series has never been shy of shaking up the format a little bit. After the first two seasons, in which the pair got themselves involved in a few adventures of their own accord, the third series brought Louise Jameson into the cast as Leela, who arrives back in Victorian London and joins in with their exploits. The Fourth Season sees the introduction of the mysterious Claudius Dark, who isn’t quite what he seems, and then the Fifth Season goes for the biggest shake-up yet – depositing our Valiant Victorians in the middle of the Swinging Sixties.

Just the one box-set – four stories – takes place in the 1960s, but there’s a thread running through those adventures which leads up to The Final Act: a sequel to The Talons of Weng-Chiang. When I first heard the story, it didn’t make a great deal of sense to me. There were enough bits and pieces that I could pick up from simply hearing the story, but a lot was lost on me because I’d never watched this Doctor Who tale. As I’ve made my way through over the last week-or-so, I’ve been growing ever more keen to give this adventure another listen, to see how it fares once I know the story it’s following up from. As soon as I’d written up today’s episode, it was straight to the headphones, and singing along with that fab Jago & Litefoot theme tune…

It took me a moment to get back up to speed with events, as this is really the second half of a two-part tale. Once I was ‘back in the room’, though, I found that I simply couldn’t connect with the tale at all. It tries to act as a logical sequel to Talons - a woman has become obsessed with the thought of bringing back Magnus Greel, and it’s an ambition that her family has had for several generations - but it’s very much a love letter to this earlier story, as opposed to standing on its own right.

Almost every event in the story is a call-back to something from Talons, and mostly to things from this final episode. Obviously, some trappings are bound to crop up again, and things like Mr Sin, the Time Cabinet, and the Key are all expected. But then it’s set in the same ‘dragon temple’ as Talons, which means that we get to see the laser-eyed dragon again, and there’s a sequence in which Mr Sin hides inside and uses it to attack our heroes. Jago and Litefoot get to make their way up the Dumbwaiter again, and they even get to make some of the same jokes and comments about it. They call back to lines from the earlier adventure, with reminders that Leela used to call Greel ‘bent-face’, and mentions of things the Doctor had explained before, and we’re told several times that the Doctor had stamped on the key to smash it into thousands of fragments. 

I think my big issue is that I’m coming to this story mere minutes after watching The Talons of Weng-Chiang for the first time. Heard thirty-something years on, this would probably serve as a lovely nostalgic follow-up to the tale. Still, having finally caught up with the Doctor and Leela’s excursion to Victorian London, I can at least see why this story is so capable of inspiring love letters!

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 473: The Talons of Weng-Chiang, Episode Five

Dear diary,

And so, five episodes in, I’ve finally reached the moment I’ve been waiting for since the TARDIS first touched down on the streets of Victorian London - Jago and Litefoot, Investigators of Infernal Incidents, are finally together and caught up in an adventure! I’d sort of been dreading this moment as much as I was looking forward to it, to be honest. I so love the characters on audio, and they work so well thirty years later when they’re given time to develop and the room of their own series to shine in, but I worried their appearance in Doctor Who proper may come as something of a disappointment. This fear had been somewhat curtailed by their brilliant moments in the four episodes that have led us here, but now they’re together… well, it’s clear to say that they way they’re written for Big Finish is clearly inspired by the way they’re written for here, in 1977.

There’s something about the pair meeting, and Jago mistaking Litefoot for the butler which is so perfect, I actually had to pause the episode and skip back a minute or so, because I was hooting too loud to hear the rest of the scene play out. I wondered if I’d have missed something in their own series by having not seen their first appearance, but knowing the adventures they’ll go on to share over the years really adds to this first meeting. It’s exactly how you’d want this pair to meet, and were you trying to retroactively create a ‘first meeting’ for them now, I think this would be the kind of thing you’d go for.

It’s telling that much of the episode is given over to the pair so that they can make their own investigations: at times, the Doctor and Leela here feel like they’re guest characters in their own programme. It really works, though, and it’s another testament to how well the guest cast is written here. It also helps to give the story a bit of a pick-me-up at this late stage, and it almost feels as though we’re off on a new adventure, suddenly freed from the trappings of the preceding four episodes.

Although we get appearances from the theatre and Litefoot’s house during this episode, we get to spend a lot of time in a grand new location, complete with a large ornamental dragon in the centre of the room, as if they hadn’t made the point clearly enough that there’s a Chinese influence to this tale. Greel seems to imply that the place is finally finished after quite a lot of work, but I can’t help but wonder… would he not have been more comfortable staying here? He’s spent the last few weeks (at the very least) hiding out in the sewers beneath the Palace Theatre, when across town he’s got a swanky crib of his own! I get that he’s had the builders in, but surely they could have sorted him a little room to stay in while the rest of his ‘palace’ (for want of a better term) was being finished off? It feels a bit odd to suddenly reveal this opulent new home for him, having spent so long hanging around in squalor!

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 472: The Talons of Weng-Chiang, Episode Four

Dear diary,

The action figures for the classic series seem to have a slightly heavier focus on this mid-1970s period than any of the others. If you want a figure of the K1 Robot, Revenge-era Cybermen, a Genesis Davros, Zygons, pretty much anything from Pyramids of Mars(including Marcus Scarman!), Krynoids, Morbius, The Deadly Assassin Master, Robots from the Sandminer (complete with stickers, so you can give them all different designations), and of course, a twin-pack featuring Magnus Greel and Mr Sin. Greel even comes with a swappable head, so you can have him with mask on or off when you display him on your shelf. And yet, despite the fact that it’s these two characters from this story immortalised in toy form, I’ve always thought of the bad guy here as being Chang.

Watching through the story, he’s clearly not the bad guy – he’s simply a lackey for the real baddie. He comes across as being fairly in control during the first episode, with Mr Sin doing his bidding, and an entire cult of men at his disposal to dispose of bodies. As the story progresses, though, he continues to lose face, becoming a seemingly incompetent ‘hired hand’ to our masked phantom hidden beneath the theatre. And yet, I still didn’t expect to see him killed off by the end of the fourth episode. Maybe it’s because there’s more images of him around than there are of Magnus Greel, meaning that I’ve become more used to Chang than I have this other character, but it does seem unusual that I’ve spent so long not knowing how… disposable Chang is.

I’m excited by it, though! Now that he’s out of the picture, it really feels as though the story could go anywhere and do anything. The last couple of episodes – much as I’ve enjoyed them – have been treading water in some places, with the Doctor, Leela, Jago, and Litefoot running around after Chang. Now, suddenly, the ball has changed courts. Greel has his Time Cabinet. Chang is dead. There’s suddenly everything to play for.

It does mean that I really should address today the potential issue of racism in this story. It was brought up by a friend recently, when they told me they wouldn’t watch this one because of how racist it was for the programme to cast a white-British actor and then make him up to fulfil the role of Chang. Although there’s elements which can be uncomfortable to watch, I’m finding that it’s more often the dialogue than anything else. Strange as it may seem from a more modern perspective, this is simply something that used to happen on television in those days. It’s worth remembering that when The Talons of Weng-Chiang first aired, the BBC still broadcast The Black and White Minstrel Show (and would continue to do so for almost 18 more months).

As we move into the final third of the story I really am excited to see where we’re headed. I only realised today that Jago and Litefoot have yet to actually meet, and now I’m back to being impatient to see it. Add to that wanting to see how the story all pans out, and bids adieu to Philip Hinchcliffe and I’m very excited for the next couple of days… 

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 471: The Talons of Weng-Chiang, Episode Three

Dear diary,

Oh, ok, this must be what people are talking about when they mention the rat costume in this story. I still maintain that for the most part it’s not actually bad. Oh, sure, it’s very obviously a human-sized rat costume, but shot in some ways, with plenty of shadows and in quick, sharp bursts… you can just about get away with it. But then the chase with the creature goes on that bit too long, and there’s one too many similar shots of the creature scuttling through the tunnels. It doesn’t quite hang together for me. It’s not enough to spoil the story (or even the episode), but it is a shame, all the same. Especially when, earlier in the episode, I was willing to stick up for the rat that little bit more again, when it came to eat some raw meet left out for it - once again a combination of shadows and short shots helped to make the costume look ok.

I think it’s probably hampered somewhat by appearing in a story with such rich production values. Everything in this story feels very real, and I think that’s helped by spending so much time on location. I can’t remember the last story to have such a high split between studio/location work, but this one has to be up there as one of the most in the classic series, I’d wager. Watching the ‘Now and Then’ feature on the DVD today really does hammer home just how much of the story was shot out and about, and just how far afield they went to get all these wonderful locations.

I’ve always throughout, and it’s in evidence watching that special feature, that it must have been somewhat easier to film a story like this - set in Victorian London - back then than it would be now. There’s something about the condition of the buildings, and the whole feel of some areas which has changed in the last thirty years, so that it’s a greater task now to disguise the modern trappings of the location. Take the theatre, for example. I don’t know how accurate to a Victorian theatre it is in this story, but it’s close enough to what I expect it to look like that I can successfully suspend my disbelief.

But then take a look at the more recent shots of the location: it’s all modern and 21st century. I’d go so far as to say that you’d no longer be able to even disguise the backstage areas of that location to use in a story like this. Richard Bignall, who produces the ‘Now and Then’ features, even comments that it was - at the time - one of the few remaining Victorian theatres to contain all the elements they required to realise this script, and I should guess that would be nigh-on impossible to locate these days.

And running around in all these locations is out Leela. Last week, when she first arrived in the series, I was really pleased to find that it was a proper breath of fresh air. Having spent so long with Sarah Jane, I simply wanted something different. Well Leela brings us that in droves, and Louise Jameson is simply one of the best actresses the programme has ever had the honour of associating itself with. I’m finding everything she does as Leela to be wonderful, and much of today’s episode focusses in on her investigation of the events. She’s not afraid to get stuck into the action, jumping through windows, following Chang, freeing another girl and escaping into the sewers. She’s rapidly becoming one of my favourite companions, and I’m really rather pleased about that. 

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 470: The Talons of Weng-Chiang, Episode Two

Dear diary,

I’ll warn you now: I’m likely to bang on about the location work during every episode of this story. I spent enough time yesterday talking about how good it all looked, but it’s almost as though they’ve gone a step further here and decided that they can up their game a bit further!

Every bit of it is stunning, from the exteriors of Victorian London through to backstage at the Palace theatre. In the same way that the power station gave The Hand of Fear a scope unlike any other in the series, these locations do the same for this story - the shot of the Doctor looking out into the huge theatre hall is beautiful, and it really helps to ground him in the real world. My personal favourite has to be the brief scene in which the Doctor steps out of professor Litefoot’s carriage, and heads off across the street. It’s a lovely location in itself, but the smoke, the extras, and the odd bits of hay littered about on the street really help to give it a texture far greater than I’m used to seeing in this programme. It looks like some of the very best location work that the BBC has ever produced, let alone simply for Doctor Who.

And it’s all helped by some really fantastic lighting. I don’t usually bother to say all that much about the work of the lighting team on the series. That’s a good thing, on the whole, because if attention isn’t being drawn to it then it means that they’re doing their job properly, and I’m getting caught up in the adventure rather than focussing in on their specific role in the production. It’s hard to ignore in this story, though, because it’s simply so beautiful. Again, a lot of it comes down to the amount of location work (lighting for film is a very different skill-set to lighting a studio set on video), but it’s absolutely flawless in every scene. The yellow hue to the light on the street, the near-darkness of the upper gantries in the theatre, even the moonlight of Litefoot’s garden, it’s all somewhat spectacular.

I’m also really loving Litefoot and Jago more and more. As I said yesterday, I’m a big fan of their audio adventures together, but I’m surprised to see just how well-drawn the pair are here. Litefoot is perhaps the most vague, but then he’s always been something of a ‘plainer’ character when compared with Jago. That’s not a bad thing - you need Litefoot’s personality to stop Jago from becoming too over the top, and you can already see his very defined character in full swing here. Passing out when he sees the ‘ghost’, claiming to be as solid as the Rock of Gibraltar (before falling right under the Doctor’s hypnotism)… it’s all very much the same character we get to hear on audio, even after six seasons.

The one thing I am finding though, is how much I prefer their voices in the audios. Both Trevor Baxter and Christopher Benjamin are thirty-something years older by the time they reunite for their own series, and their voices are noticeably older. I think I’d say that they’re also that bit richer with age, and that really works for me. The series is set shortly after the events of this story (placing it primarily in the 1890s), but I always imagine the pair as older men, after years of adventuring. I know this wouldn’t quite fit with the time period, but it’s always the way I picture them! I’m surprised to already be a third of the way through the story, without the pair being brought together, but I know it’s just something to look forward to later on. With all the other great stuff in these episodes, I can wait a little longer. 

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 469: The Talons of Weng-Chiang, Episode One

Dear diary,

I tend to listen to a lot of Big Finish stuff, but vary rarely any of the actual Doctor Who lines. I tend to enjoy the series that are inspired by Who, or set in the same world, but which don’t usually feature our Time Lord pal. Counter Measures, Bernice Summerfield, even some completely non-Who things like Dorian Gray and Dark Shadows. The one that I’ve seemed to latch onto the most, though, is probably Jago & Litefoot. It’s hard to explain the excitement of a new box set from that series, and every time I tell myself to span the adventures out: do them one a week, at least, if not one a month. And then, every time without fail, I listen through all four new stories in the space of a few brief days. I can’t help myself – I just get so caught up in their world, with a lovely mix of Victoriana and the supernatural. And yet, I’ve never actually watched The Talons of Weng-Chiang! Their ‘origin’ story! Truth be told, I think I’ve always avoided it because it’s another one of those stories that people think of as unable to do any wrong, and I’ve always found that very off-putting, in case it doesn’t live up to expectations!

I know I’ve tried to watch it before. I can’t remember how far I got (though certainly not even to the end of the first episode), or what distracted me, but I ended up simply watching the special features on the disc instead. I’m surprised that it didn’t hold my interest, because this first episode is really rather good! I said yesterday that I couldn’t believe Philip Hinchcliffe would instruct the entire production team to go all out and spend whatever for his final few stories, but watching this episode does make you wonder. Right from the opening shot, with an entire screen filled with supporting artists enjoying their night out at the theatre, you can see that some real money has gone into making this serial.

But then, part of the real gloss we’ve got here is simply the result of experience. Every time we drop back into history, I end up saying ‘the BBC are very good at period settings’, but it’s worth repeating yet again – because it’s true! The Victorian age is a specialist spot in the corporation’s skill set, and you can really see that here. Every set is superbly realised, and every location is gorgeous. They’ve not held back on using the smoke machine, either, and every outdoor scene is simply bathed in the stuff! Most impressive is the fact that we’ve got so much shot on location at night! We’re still in a period where night shoots are rare, so they really do make their mark when they appear.

The shot of the TARDIS materialising at the end of a foggy street is probably my favourite bit of the location work so far. It’s got something to it that’s more impressive than I’m used to from a materialisation. Maybe it’s the atmosphere afforded by the fog, or the distance from the camera that the box appears, but it’s really rather striking no matter what the reason. That’s not to say that the rest of the location footage is lacking – David Maloney is really going out of the series in style here. Even a shot as simple as the Doctor walking down the street is given that extra something that makes it stand out.

We’ve even got a fight scene that Pertwee would have been proud of! Tom Baker doesn’t often get the chance to engage in this sort of action, so it’s actually quite nice to see it back again here. Leela getting involved (and using a Janis thorn later in the episode) is a nice link back to her origins, and I’m somewhat surprised to find her still retaining so much of her original character, even though she’s no longer being written by Chris Boucher. It feels as though they’ve drawn a really strong character, and Robert Holmes (perhaps helped by having script-edited the last two stories) has a really good handle on her. I believe that this was originally intended to be Leela’s final story (only a temporary companion to round out this season, before introducing the new ‘full-time’ Doctor Who girl the following year. Or not, if Tom Baker could get his way…), so I’m really hoping that all this strong characterisation doesn’t simply fall by the wayside once we’re into Season Fifteen.

Indeed, I think the only thing which lets this episode down a bit is the giant rat during the cliff hanger. It’s one of those effects which is somewhat infamous in Doctor Who history, and I can’t decide if it’s better than I was expecting it to be, or worse. I knew from behind-the-scenes images that the rat was realised via the age-old medium of ‘a bloke in a rat costume’, and assumed that this was the cause of it not quite working. In actual fact, the close up of the costume wasn’t all that bad (I may regret saying that if we see more of it during the next episode). What threw me were the close ups of a real rat in a model sewer. Something about this just looked wrong - actually, I can tell you exactly what looked wrong about it: it looked like a real rat in a model sewer. I’m actually quite interested to see how it looks during the resolution in the next episode, because I want to see if this is the bit that draws so much criticism! 

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 467: The Robots of Death, Episode Three

Dear diary,

There’s a point earlier in this story when the Doctor says that people rely on robots for everything, but that they’re always unnerved by them. They’re made to look just human enough to be familiar, but they still retain a feeling of being somewhat ‘alien’ all the same. I’ve liked the design of the robots since the very first episode (and I suddenly appreciate them a lot more than I have in the past – I’ve never had the action figure of any class of robot out on display, but I’m now tempted to dig around and get them out), but I’ve never found them in any way creepy… until this episode!

We get a scene today, where one of the robots is reprogrammed to kill, and there’s a shot of the creature staring right down the camera lens, and right out at the viewer. The shot goes on that bit too long – past ‘Ooh, they really should have cut there,’ and into being actually unsettling. As the camera focuses in on the blank, expressionless face, I suddenly understood why they’re so scary – you’d not want one of them to be coming at you with its arms outstretched for murder! People talk about the Daleks being so scary because they have nothing recognisably human about them: there’s nothing in there that you can relate to. These robots are scary for the exact opposite reason – they’re very nearly human, but they don’t quite reach it.

Earlier in the same episode, we get to see some kind of robot graveyard, with a number of deactivated models. As Poul explores and finds a particularly beat-up model, we finally get a shot of the arm hanging lifeless by its side – dripping with blood. It’s actually really scary, and although it’s not really all that over-the-top, it still feels quite shocking, even in this era of pushing things right up to the limits of what would be allowed (I bet Mary Whitehouse loved this shot!)

The only thing that slightly lets the robots down for me is that they’re not all quite uniform. When several have been converted into killing machines, they’re each handed a Corpse Marker and given their targets. ‘I will kill,’ one says. ‘I will kill the Doctor,’ another adds. ‘I will kill Leela,’ the third announces, as they all turn one by one and make their way out into the Sand Miner to complete their tasks. Each one has a different voice, though! I assume it’s the actors inside the costumes delivering the lines, but I wonder if I may find it even creepier if they all spoke with the same robotic voice. This gives each robot more of a distinct personality, and that takes away some of the threat for me – they should all be more identical, allowing the thought of the army of killer robots that the Doctor speculates about.

I’m glad that one robot has a personality, mind: D84. There was something uniquely un-nerving about him during the last episode, when Leela speaks to him before finding out that he’s not supposed to have the ability, but now he’s just a really fun addition to the cast. I love his pairing with the Doctor, and I’m almost sad that we don’t get a few stories of them travelling in the TARDIS together! The Doctor and his robot detective companion – how great could that be? D84 does bring in yet more shades of Isaac Asimov’s work, though. There’s been a strong vein of his style right through this story (any story that takes a strong element of ‘robot rights’ and the idea that they’re programmed specifically to not harm humans is going to be traceable back to Asimov somewhere), but the idea of a robot detective is key in his novel The Caves of Steel.

It’s interesting that this side of the adventure is now starting to come out, just when the murder mystery aspect of it is starting to die down. Dask was one of my suspects (but then, I think most of them have been at some stage!), but it’s odd to see how they’ve given the game away here. We see his face on a screen giving orders to a Voc – although it’s covered by a video effect, you can still clearly see who it is – but then they carry on as if they’re trying to keep the secret! They cover him up for any of his subsequent appearances, as if we’re still supposed to be guessing who it could be. Bumbling mistake, or simply a lack of faith in the audience’s attention span and mystery solving skills?

The Robots of Death has been a fairly strong story so far, with plenty to enjoy, but this episode feels like it’s stepped things up slightly. I’ve praised the set design already, but during some of the opening shots of this episode I realised just how much I love the design of the main ‘bridge’, with its buttresses, and wall designs. The crew quarters are equally brilliant, and even the corridors are of a more interesting variety than usual. The only word I can think of to sum it all up is ‘lavish’ – you can really see that some budget has been thrown at this one.

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 466: The Robots of Death, Episode Two

Dear diary,

I do love a good murder mystery. I think we all do, really. I’m currently half-way through finally watching the first series of Broadchurch - it’s taken me this long to find the time! – and I’m absolutely loving it. Twists, and turns, and everyone is a suspect. That’s the best part: every five minutes I proudly declare that I’ve solved the mystery and pronounce another new character as the killer. If I do it every time we’re introduced to someone new, then the balance of probability will be in my favour when the mystery is revealed. On the subject of which – hush! I’ve managed to avoid spoilers for this long, and I refuse to fall at the last hurdle!

The Robots of Death, while perhaps not as effective as Broadchurch, is having a similar effect. The suspicion is being cast on every character in turn, and I’m constantly updating my guess as to who might be behind the murders. To begin with, I wondered if it may be a robot which has gone rogue (it’s suggested at the start of the story, with the tale of the Voc masseur). I then started to think that maybe it was a Voc which had developed its own conscience (a concept not dissimilar to Xoanon in the last story), and decided to get rid of the humans who controlled him. Then we’re given another piece of evidence – someone is actively ordering the robots to commit the murders.

My absolute favourite murder mysteries are the ones where you’re trapped in a confined space – there’s only a finite number of suspects, and the paranoia all starts to set in. It’s a concept well used throughout literature, and even Doctor Who has done it more than once. The one that immediately springs to mind is The Web of Fear, where everyone starts suspecting everyone else as the pawn of the Great Intelligence. Similarly, my favourite Agatha Christie book is And Then There Were None, where a group of strangers are called to a remote island and bumped off one by one in accordance to the words of a nursery rhyme. It’s very clever, and thinking about it while watching this story is making me want to dig out my well-worn copy again.

I’m not sure who is commanding the Vocs to kill at this stage, or quite why, and I like that. I have my suspicions, sure, but I’m not going to bring them up – this story is such a well known and popular one, that you’ll all be laughing at me if I’m wrong! I love the way that it’s being set up, though, as someone who clearly sympathises with the Vocs, and sees them as more than just servants. I think I’m right in saying that they’re dressed as a Voc when they hand over the ‘Corpse Marker’ here, though it’s surely not to make the robot think that he’s receiving orders from another of his kind? There’s a lovely shot of the killer’s feet moving along the corridor as he approaches the Voc, and it beautifully mirror’s a shot of an actual robot’s feet in yesterday’s episode. It’s little flourishes like that which really help to add a bit more to a story.

During yesterday’s episode, I commented that the model sequences in this story were particularly impressive. We get a lot of new shots again here of the Sand Miner out and about on the planet surface, but I’m more impressed today by the way full-scale shots are being incorporated into models, to create the illusion of a very long shot – almost giving us the same kind of scale in the locations that The Hand of Fear was blessed with. We mainly get these shots here to give us a distant shot of the main ‘bridge’ of the vehicle, and to show a series of gangways, through which the robots move.

I’m sure it’s not the first time we’ve seen this technique employed in the series (though I can’t quite pin-point where else it’s been used!), but it’s being done really very well here. It’s more support for my hope that we’re seeing another evolution of how good the model effects can look in this programme. The only downside is that the same close-up of a model is used to overlay shots of – what I think are supposed to be – different gangways: one with the TARDIS parked on it, and one without. As I say, I think these are supposed to suggest two different locations, but use of the same image of the model led me to wonder if the TARDIS had been moved again without me noticing!

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 465: The Robots of Death, Episode One

Dear diary,

The last time a writer new to the series penned two stories back-to-back was Ian Stuart-Black with The Savages and The War Machines, two of my favourite William Hartnell stories. Seeing how much Chris Boucher impressed me with The Face of Evil, and knowing how well-regarded this story is, I’ve spent today very much looking forward to this episode.

I was a bit disappointed, then, with the scenes of the Doctor and Leela inside the TARDIS. Although there’s one or two moments of genius (I love that she believes the continued use of the yo-yo to be part of the ‘magic’ which makes the TARDIS move), it doesn’t necessarily feel as though this scene follows directly on from the end of the last story. I had no doubt that the Doctor would find it pretty quick to accept Leela aboard the ship – he loves having someone around to show off to – I thought we might have at least some antagonism before he relented and took her off to see the stars. Instead, it feels as though they could have been here for a while, and there’s no mention of her sudden arrival. To be honest, I’m not sure I’d have noticed this if it wasn’t Boucher writing both episodes, because I’d not have been expecting such a direct continuation of those earlier events. Still, it’s hardly the end of the world, and it’s not long before they’re off getting caught up in a new adventure.

Something that Doctor Who has always been very good at producing is model sequences. We’ve had one or two questionable ones over the years, but on the whole they’ve been one of the stronger aspects of the programme. We seemed to hit a point during the early Pertwee era, where all of the model shots moved up a gear, and became very strong. The parade of locations being blown up meant that the model makers were really able to flex their muscles! Since then, with the odd exception, things have remained at a consistent standard, to the point where you start taking them for granted again.

So it’s lovely to see this episode peppered with some especially good model effects. Right from the opening shot of the planet (which somehow seems to take a setting that could be replicated to some extent in a quarry, and yet make it distant and alien again), it feels like the effects have stepped up another stage. I’m hoping that it’s not just a one-off, and that this will be the standard from now on - because it’s gorgeous!

Coming into this episode, I had a sneaking suspicion that I’d seen it before. This is one of those stories that I’ve owned twice on DVD (in both its original release and the updated version which came as part of the ‘Revisitations’ sets), but I’m certain I’ve never watched the full story before. I had vague recollections of the Doctor and Leela getting caught in a grain store, though, and I wonder if I might have been mis-remembering this cliff hanger? The design of the ‘window’ to the various stores rings a definite bell, although I’m sure I can remember Leela being trapped behind it. Maybe that’s from later in the story, and I’ve seen more than I think I have?

Nothing else here rings a bell, mind. I know the design of the robots, because it’s so famous within Doctor Who history, but everything else is entirely new. The design of the ship, the style of the crew, their mission out on this barren world… none of this seems familiar at all. It’s all rather interesting, though, and certainly a departure from the kind of design you usually see in Who space stories. It’s nice to see a space ship which feels like it’s got a sense of artistic design to it, as opposed to being merely functional. My favourite set has to be the main control room, which manages to encompass ‘Art Deco’, ‘Tudor’, and ‘Futurism’ all at once. It’s very skilfully done, and I can’t wait to see more of this throughout other areas of the ship.

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 464: The Face of Evil, Episode Four

Dear diary,

‘I never know why,’ the Doctor explains to a splinter of Clara during The Snowmen, ‘I only know who…’

He is, of course, talking about the way in which he chooses people to travel with him. It seems like the TARDIS is the same - she must have given Leela a hint as to which button needed pressing for the ship to take off so quickly! At the start of this story, she thought the height of technology was a crossbow, and yet now she’s able to run into the TARDIS and set the ship into flight seemingly on first try. I’m not complaining - I really enjoyed that entire final scene, and I can’t wait to see how the Doctor’s relationship with Leela is dealt with in the next episode, since he didn’t ask her to come along.

I’ve really enjoyed Leela throughout this story. It’s felt unusual to have a companion introduced with any kind of background again. Liz is introduced fresh to UNIT, so doesn’t know any of the characters. Jo does know them by the time she meets the Doctor, but only just, and Sarah Jane is brought in to this world and introduced to them all one-by-one too. Even Harry doesn’t feel like we’re greeting him on his own terms, because he suddenly pops up as a previously unseen aspect of a team we already know. The last time we met a new companion in their ‘natural environment’ was way back with Zoe in The Wheel in Space, so it’s nice to see a return to that format here.

And I love that the Doctor doesn’t automatically plan to take Leela with him. I’d always assumed (I say that as though I’ve ever given it more than about thirty seconds thought) that the Doctor would simply reach the end of this adventure and ask Leela if she fancied a trip round the universe with him. Travel broadens the mind and all that. Throughout the story, she’s been filling the role of companion admirably, getting on well with the Doctor, saving his life and caring for him when he’s unconscious for two days… I never considered that he’d not think twice about leaving without her. It’s nice, though, because I’m never fond of the idea that one companion leaves and he just goes off to pick up the next one. You can also wonder if he already thinks of himself as having a companion in Sarah Jane. He only took her home because she couldn’t come to Gallifrey with him, and he was aiming for London at the start of this story. Could it be that Leela turning up and rushing into the TARDIS distracts him for long enough to give up on returning for Sarah?

I’m really excited by it all. I’ve said several times in the last week or so that I wanted this story to act as a fresh start for the programme, and I think it’s done just that. Tom Baker has been on fine form, and Louise Jameson makes a fantastic first impression - even down to tiny little moments, as when Xoanon forms a seat for her and the Doctor. Tom settles in and continues the conversation, but my attention was solely on Louise, who makes it clear that Leela isn’t used to this kind of furniture! It’s a tiny moment, but it’s wonderful. Even the style of there story has felt like something of a hybrid between the programme as it’s been for the last few seasons, and the way that it’ll be come about 1980. The design of the Mordee ship feels like something you’d see in Peter Davison’s era, and the costumes of the Tesh give me the same impression too. Meanwhile, the browns and reds of the ‘outside world’ feel closer in tone to what I’ve come to know since Baker took over the role. This really is something of a changeover story.

Even the effects, used to provide both the image of Tom Baker’s face in the role of Xoanon, and the final form of the computer once its mind has been cleared, feel a bit more progressive. We’re coming up on the half-way point in Tom Baker’s tenure, and we’re right at the height of the programme’s popularity. I’m really thrilled to have been enjoying this one so much, and I really hope the trend continues from here… 

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 463: The Face of Evil, Episode Three

Dear diary,

Oh, I thought it had all fallen apart with today’s episode. I’ve so been enjoying the Sevateem, their style, the sets they inhabit and the jungle they live in, so as soon as we introduce the Tesh, with their bizarre costumes and customs, I thought things had really gone off the rails. I even made a note about things going down hill from here. But then… I just carried on enjoying it! Yes, the Tesh costumes are bizarre (and the bowing movement they make at the start and end of every conversation leaves at least one of the actors looking as though they can’t pin-point where it all went so wrong for them), but they kind of work. Being so very… futuristic Doctor Who, they contrast really nicely with everything we’ve seen so far.

The greatest bit of design on show in this episode, though, is the spaceship they live in. The corridors are pretty plain - all white panels and mirrors - and as with the costumes, it looks like the kind of set that people always think of Doctor Who using. They’re very simple, and very basic, and very effective. They’re such a stark difference to the locations we’ve been in up to now, and the colour pallet really helps to set them apart from all the deep, Earthy colours that the Sevateem live with. And then you’ve got Xoanon’s main room, with the three big screens glaring down at the Doctor. It’s another bit of really simple design, but it’s done really well once again.

One of the working titles for this story was The Day God Went Mad. While it’s tempting to think of it as an early example of the programme taking a mid-season break before coming back with a deliberately provocative title (Let’s Kill Hitler, I’m looking in your direction), I think I’m quite glad that they decided to go down a more traditional route. Mary Whitehouse would have had a fit! That said, all the religious undertones in this story are really working well for me. It’s the Doctor’s reactions to them which are most interesting, and the way that he both seems to completely understand the way it all works while also being completely absent from it. There’s a lovely moment today when Jabel drops to his knees before the Doctor (believing him to be his lord), and the Doctor idly muses if the man has dropped something.

It’s nice to see the series playing with the idea of the Doctor as a somewhat mythical figure here. It happens quite often in the 21st century incarnation of the programme, but I’m not sure we’ve ever had it before this point. There have been instances where the Doctor has returned to worlds he’s visited before (and encountered people who remember his last visit, or at least know of it), but this is the first time that his - unseen - interference in a planet’s history has set up events that will return to haunt him in a new story. There’s lots of lovely dialogue which all fits in rather nicely with this, such as the description of the Doctor as ‘Lord of Time’, and it’s really rather enjoyable to watch.

We’re also getting lots of nice background to the Doctor’s previous visit. On screen, it’s not stated when the Doctor made his first trip to this world, but in the Target novelisation it’s placed during that moment in Robot, when he tries to flee from UNIT HQ not long after his regeneration. To be honest, I can’t actually remember the ship dematerialising during that part of the story (the light flashes, the noise begins, but then the Docto’s head appears around the door), and I’m fairly sure that it came before the Doctor had changed into his now famous outfit, though the mountain-side carving features a hint of a scarf.

That’s really just be being pedantic, though, because it’s a great place to put his first adventure. The Doctor can’t really remember it now because he wasn’t in his right mind during the aftermath of the regeneration (he only really started to settle down once all the business with the Giant Robot got underway), and that would also explain why he’s managed to make such a massive mistake when reprogramming Xoanon the first time around. The Doctor hurries off in the TARDIS, finds the Mordee Expedition, goes through the events we hear about in this episode not because he needs to, but because he’s the Doctor, and making things better is simply what he does. Before he has a chance to realise his mistake, he remembers Sarah’s voice shouting as he left UNIT HQ, and hurries back to catch up with her. It makes a lot of sense to place it in that gap, so I’m going to squint and overlook the fact that it doesn’t seem to quite work with the events we actually see in his first story…