Manufacturer: Big Finish Productions

Written By: David Llewellyn

RRP: £14.99 (CD) / £12.99 (Download)

Release Date: March 2018

Reviewed by: Nick Mellish for Doctor Who Online

"You are cordially invited to Argentia, the galaxy’s most exclusive tax haven, to attend the funeral of mining magnate Carlo Mazzini. The memorial service will be followed by music, light refreshments, and murder!

Carlo’s heirs have come to say their final goodbyes (and find out how much they’ve inherited) but when a masked killer begins picking them off one by one, Argentia goes into lock-down, closed off behind its own temporal displacement field.

Can the Doctor, Nyssa, Tegan and Adric apprehend the murderer before Argentia – and everyone on board - is forever cut off from the rest of the Universe?"

Back in the dim and distant country that was September 2014, I reviewed the play Mask of Tragedy for DWO and sung the praises of Samuel West’s turn as Aristophanes in it. He nailed the comedy perfectly, and the extras showed him to be genuinely passionate about Doctor Who and infectiously enthusiastic.

Flash forward to March 2018 (present day at the time of writing) and Big Finish have just released Serpent In The Silver Mask. Who is that actor putting in a genuinely excellent comic turn with multiple characters, all of whom have a degree of humour and gravity where required injected into them? Take another bow, Samuel West! In the extras for this play, director Barnaby Edwards rightly sings West’s praises and I think it’s worth just stressing again how good he is here. Truly, you’ll not find a better guest performance in a Big Finish play across the board; this equals the very best of them, perhaps even besting his turn in I Went To A Marvellous Party.

(I’ll get a grumble out of the way now: the extras. Long-time readers of these reviews will know it’s a bugbear of mine that the extended extras for subscribers do not surface for weeks after the plays’ releases, and that’s especially irksome here when the extras we get on the CD/original download feel heavily edited. You can tell they’re curtailed, with some edits coming in almost mid-sentence, and that’s a real shame.)

What of Serpent In The Silver Mask elsewhere though?

The play starts with our heroes landing on Argentia where the Doctor is on the hunt for the materials to build a new sonic screwdriver. Before too long, they’ve had their tongues swabbed and they’ve gatecrashed a funeral, but it appears that there’s a murderer on the loose... cue a Sherlock / Christie-style romp with robots and prisons and dolls, oh my!

David Llewellyn is in the writing seat this time around and he’s clearly had the same memo as the other writers in this latest trilogy of Fifth Doctor / Adric / Nyssa / Tegan plays: listen to the DVD commentary for Earthshock and write them like that and not how the characters were on screen. It does mean you’re not going to come away from this play, or indeed any of the others in this trilogy, feeling you’ve experienced an ‘authentic’ era-accurate story. This sort of thing really bugs some fans and kills the mood for them, but for me personally it does not factor in at all when the scripts themselves are as strong as the past three have been. Are these the companions we used to watch on screen or the Fifth Doctor who saved the world in the early 1980s? Not even close at times but, crucially, does it matter at all? Mileage will vary.

For my money though, I’d say Llewellyn has crafted an exemplary script with a central mystery that genuinely surprised me. I was so sure I had worked out “whodunnit” but, pleasingly, I was wrong. I had the means but not the right antagonist: and what better treat for a fan of the genre to be close but outfoxed? I think I had as much fun trying to work it all out as the Doctor does. Indeed, the Doctor is having a lot of fun here, whether conversing with a robot or playing detective, and it’s a joy.

I’ve already celebrated West and the script, so it’s time again to heap praise on Edwards’s direction and the regulars’ performances. I want to highlight Janet Fielding here as this play gives Tegan a lot to do, but frankly Matthew Waterhouse is brilliant, Peter Davison hilarious, and Sarah Sutton making every scene count. This is an exciting time to be a fan of the Davison era. We had Jenny Colgan give us an incredibly good outing for Turlough in Gardens Of The Dead. Time In Office was my favourite main range release in 2017 by some distance, and this original trio of companions just goes from strength to strength in the main range.

Does all this praise feel repetitive to you? It would be understandable if so as I’ve done that time and again this trilogy, because this trilogy is by a leap - a bound - and a mile, the very best succession of releases in the main range we, as fans, have had the pleasure to receive for years, now.

Guy Adams’s stint as script editor for these plays has injected verve and spark in what was increasingly becoming a range of average releases, and his role in teasing out the best we’ve had for ages cannot be understated.

Three high hitters worthy of full marks? Yes, I really think these plays deserve that accolade, and that gives me more pleasure to write and share online than I can readily articulate. As the Doctor herself put it: “Oh, brilliant!"

+ ORDER this title on Amazon.co.uk!

Manufacturer: Big Finish Productions

Writer: Phil Mulryne

RRP: £14.99 (CD) / £12.99 (Download)

Release Date: February 2017

Reviewed by: Steve Bartle for Doctor Who Online

"London, 1864 - where any gentleman befitting the title ‘gentleman’ belongs to a gentlemen’s club: The Reform, The Athenaeum, The Carlton, The Garrick… and, of course, The Contingency. Newly established in St James’, The Contingency has quickly become the most exclusive enclave in town. A refuge for men of politics, men of science, men of letters. A place to escape. A place to think. A place to be free.

The first rule of the Contingency is to behave like a gentleman. The second is to pay no heed to its oddly identical servants. Or to the horror in its cellars. Or to the existence of the secret gallery on its upper floor… Rules that the Doctor, Adric, Nyssa and Tegan are all about to break."

I grew up during the era of the crowded Tardis. Admittedly I was only age 5 but I have distinctly clear memories of a beleaguered Doctor trying to keep relative peace in his time machine with an ever growing bunch of stowaways and orphans joining him for adventures...with the added factor this eclectic bunch weren’t always necessarily happy to be there! Viewing the DVD range more recently you really appreciate what a job he had on his hands at times and one wonders why he continued to journey with them all, on occasions. At times the Fifth Doctor almost adopted the role of headmaster - something which he outright claims in this story!

However, despite the family style friction, this era of the show always gives me a warm fuzzy glow and saw a return to the episodic nature of the black and white days where stories sometimes bled into each other and references were made to previous adventures. Looking back through much more mature and critical eyes you can see where stories were creaking under the pressure of trying to cater for all these different principal characters, and there was an over-reliance on somewhat one-dimensional specific character tropes.

You might be concerned from the opening scenes that this tale veers between paying homage to this era or possibly regurgitating old material. The key protagonists are easily identifiable with their TV portrayals. Adric is somewhat annoying and antagonistic of Tegan, in this case regarding the primitive nature of a cassette player (which is a crucial item in the denouement). Check. Tegan is irascible and talks about Heathrow nonstop, as well as making generic references to flying. Check. Nyssa is...well Nyssa. Pragmatic and pleasant. Check. And of course Peter Davison effortlessly injects his usual breathless energy that always made his incarnation a hero in the truest form. Check. (Thank goodness!)

All four tend to bring out the argumentative side in each other, through constant chiding and witty barbs which too often on TV appeared somewhat childish at times. However, here writer Phil Mulryne has captured the flavour of the interaction of Season 19, but is more effective with the playful banter. This interplay immediately aids in casting the listener back to that time where Doctor Who was arguably more like a soap opera until its 2005 return, but without grating on your nerves.

What of the story itself? Well it’s a bit of a curio. Centred on the titular Contingency Club; an exclusive club in Victorian London where the gentlemen of the upper social strata gather to think, talk and, of course, drink. The clubs' popularity is such that membership is swelling and their restrictive policy for new members make it more appealingly exclusive. This club is the place to be.

The Tardis team, via unorthodox means, visit the club and, very early on, it becomes patently evident that something VERY strange is going on. The members of the club refuse to acknowledge that Tegan and Nyssa are women! The valets are all called Edward and are identical! Plus absolutely no one comments on the foursomes’ strange garments or their presence there at all.

And if all that wasn’t bizarre enough we have the mysterious club owner Mr Peabody and his even more mysterious benefactor, The Red Queen, who has an insidious reason for the club existing in the first place - all centred around a seemingly futile game.

There is some good comedy to be had in this one especially around the plurality of the ‘Edwards’! And surely “we’ll break our necks on the pavements of Pall Mall” might be one of the strangest cliff hanger statements ever! Ultimately this boils down to a gothic mystery in a Victorian Steampunk environment. Matthew Waterhouse, Sarah Sutton and Janet Fielding all effortlessly slip back into their roles and, unlike on TV, they are all served pretty well without any of them really being side-lined. But it’s Peter Davison whose star shines the brightest as he drives the narrative and perfectly recaptures every trait that made him a success. Sardonic wit, bravery, vulnerability and going full tilt in every scene. It’s all here!

Arguably the story is a little light weight in places but is a genuine attempt at something different, captures the TARDIS crew perfectly from the early eighties, and is a fun romp from start to finish.  Highly recommended. Want to listen? Join the club. 

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The Sisterhood of Karn - the London-based social group for LGBT Doctor Who fans - present ‘An Evening With Adric’.

Companion actor Matthew Waterhouse, who played Adric alongside the fourth and fifth Doctors, will be joining the Sisterhood Of Karn as a special guest for the evening. Matthew will be performing live commentary on episodes that he is in, and perhaps even on one that he isn't...! He will also be signing copies of his books, which will be available to purchase at the event.

+ Tickets: £5.90 Available at http://eventbrite.com/e/an-evening-with-adric-tickets-27489952187

[Source: Richard Unwin]

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

Day 607: Time-Flight, Episode Four

Dear diary,

When you’ve been a fan of Doctor Who for long enough, there are several ‘facts’ about the show that you just sort of ‘accumulate’. You know that Adric dies in Earthshock. You know that the final story of the original run is called Survival. One of the things that you just somehow end up knowing - wether you’ve seen the story or not - is that Tegan leaves in this final episode of Time-Flight… only to return in the very sext story, after the gap between seasons. I’ve never been sure how keen I am on the idea, but watching through now, I think I rather like it.

I certainly love the idea that the Doctor simply leaves her behind at Heathrow, not realising that she’s chosen to stick around on the TARDIS, and the whole sequence is played far better here than I remembered it being - I’d forgotten that Tegan actually wanders off to have a think about where she wants to be, for instance. The only thing that’s niggling in the back of my mind now is the fact that there needs to be at least one story without her before she returns, I think, but I’ll wait and see how it feels over the next few days.

That final scene is by far the best part of this episode, it has to be said, and everything else has left me cold. Something that bothers me more than anything is the fact that the master is only there because they wanted him to be there - not because there’s a good plot that absolutely requires him to be. You could play this story in a similar manner with any old villain who’s been stranded on prehistoric Earth and needs to lure someone there so they can steal working components to escape. Saving the reveal of the Master until half way through the story and then separating him from the Doctor until it’s time for the traditional negotiations for help just makes it feel hollow - and that he’s then defeated with a swift ‘oh, there we go, I’ve gotten rid of him’ feels like a terribly low-key final battle for the season.

I think more than anything, though, I’m disappointed that Season Nineteen has gone out with such a whimper. It’s been a run of stories that I’ve really enjoyed watching, with a few true stand-out tales in there. I think this season - even more so than Season Eighteen - is the one that I would have enjoyed the most as a kid, and it’s easy to see why so many children of the early 1980s look back on this period with such fond memories. It’s been the strongest run of stories in a long, long, time. But now we’re moving on to Season Twenty, which is more divisive among people’s opinions. Some see it as the beginning of a slippery, continuity-filled slope, while others find it to be a year-long celebration of the programme’s past. It’s certainly got a lot to live up to after this season, and I’m not entirely sure it’ll be able to. John Nathan-Turner’s era of Doctor Who is probably the most uneven in the minds of fan opinion (although I can happily say that I enjoy parts from all of it), but I think it’s fair to say that had he left here, after two fantastic years, and having cast a great new Doctor - I’ve sort of stopped tracking the evolution of Davison’s performance, now, because he seems to have found his ‘groove’ - he’d be remembered as one of the best producers we’ve ever had.

Probably a good job he didn’t leave here, though: this would be an awful story to go out on!

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

Day 606: Time-Flight, Episode Three

Dear diary,

I really don’t know what to make of Time-Flight at all. This episode is clearly another not-so-great one, and yet I’ve reached the end of it with a sense of vaguely enjoying it. I’m not entirely sure what I’ve enjoyed about it, though, and I can’t pick out anything in particular to highlight. The sets are alright, but that’s down to their sheer size more than the design, I quite like the plucky air crew sneaking aboard the TARDIS and getting into a pickle, I suppose. Anthony Ainley slapping the door controls for the TARDIS, and being paid to mostly stand around fiddling with props is good for him, I suppose? It’s one of those episodes (and this is usually the mark of an episode that has failed to engage me), where I really have nothing of interest to say, because it’s not offered me any threads to pull on.

Never mind, though, because there’s something else I want to discuss today, anyway. After writing yesterday’s entry, I was thinking more and more about how botched the apparition of Adric was. As I’ve said, the idea of having his reappear briefly after his death is a great one, but it’s an example of John Nathan-Turner understanding the ‘showmanship’ of the programme (Matthew Waterhouse is only there to help hide his death in Earthshock, after all), while failing to grasp the dramatic potential of such an event. I also got to thinking how I would have handled the situation (one that I’ve already admitted is difficult), and so I’d like to present another edition of ‘This is How it Should Have Been (I reckon)’…

Instead of the TARDIS arriving at Heathrow more-or-less by accident (having spent several stories earlier in the season trying to get there!), it should be on purpose. Tegan and Nyssa should be more upset by Adric’s death, the way they are in those final moments of Earthshock. They should ask the Doctor to go back and save the boy, getting ever more frustrated with his refusal, until eventually Tegan demands to get to Heathrow right away. She should make some comment about not wanting to arrive centuries too early, or too late, or on a different world altogether, but just to get home. Adric’s death should be the catalyst for a huge row on the TARDIS - it’s been simmering all season, and it sort of needs the death to be a focal point that sorts everything out once and for all.

Arriving in the airport terminal, we should then have her saying goodbye to Nyssa - but not the Doctor - and leaving the TARDIS behind. With the Doctor ready to depart with his one remaining companion, he should then get caught up in the events of the story. Either you have the police arriving at the police box and questioning the Doctor (as in the broadcast version), or someone commenting that UNIT had advised the Doctor would be along.

Somehow, Tegan should end up with the Doctor and Nyssa on the Concorde flight, and not be happy about it. He just can’t let her go, can he? In my head, Tegan should be really hard on the Doctor, not happy at all. This would then culminate when they reach prehistoric Earth, with Nyssa being released from the Plasmatrons and having a heart-to-heart with her friend, telling her that it’s not really the Doctor’s fault, and that Adric chose to live the dangerous life aboard the TARDIS, and went out saving their lives. It would help to inject a bit more urgency to the proceedings, with the Doctor trying to find out what’s happening here, while also trying to deal with someone who’s so angry with him.

You then have the apparitions in the tunnels. Adric shouldn’t be the first, I don’t think. It could work as sheer shock value, but it’s directed so flatly here as to lose all effect. Instead, I’d start with the Melkur - Nyssa confronting her greatest fear. This statue represents not only the man who killed her father, but also the one who went on to destroy her entire world, and kill Tegan’s aunt. Nyssa’s faith in the Doctor should be the thing that gets her through - after all, the Doctor did give his life to stop the Master.

I’d then pick up with Tegan encountering the Mara, and the worry that it could still be inside her mind. It’s an idea that was planted during the end of Kinda, when she asks the Doctor if she’s free, and he fails to respond. It should all add to her wavering trust of the man. Maybe Nyssa can help to convince Tegan that the Doctor is a good man, and that they should support him. If need be, you can have the Mara transform into a Terrileptil, and Monitor, and even a Cyberman if you want - a snapshot of their adventures together - before…

It’s Adric. Taunting her. Clutching his brother’s belt, still, and staring sadly at his former companions. Tegan needs the chance to say goodbye, and to apologise for not always being the easiest person to get along with. It’s all part of bringing the emotions of the season to a head. Able to move past the apparition of Adric, the pair should encounter the Doctor in time to see the villain revealed as the Master. I know that they’re in an entirely different part of the complex at that point, and much of this episode is about them being there, but it just feels wrong that these two characters - who’ve both had relatives killed by the Master - should find out that he’s here simply by the Doctor throwing it into the conversation. The trio need to be there to see the reveal together - the Master was the villain in all of their first adventures, and bringing him back in the season finale has to be a real statement, and his inclusion should be more symbolic than anything else.

The rest of the basic story can remain unchanged, I think. You can have the Concorde being transported down a time contour. You can have the hypnotised crew, and the split-personality brain, and the flight crew heading off for adventures in time and space (or a mile above the planet). But the story needs to be about the Doctor and his companions, about them dealing with the loss of Adric, and using that event to strengthen them and move forward, overcoming the ultimate villain together. I’m not sure if the whole ‘leaving Tegan behind’ thing at the end of the story would work so well after a few episodes of bringing them closer together, though it could make all the more impact, if she finally decides to make that same decision - to travel with the Doctor no matter the danger to herself.

It’s probably not to everyone’s tastes, and I think it’s far more character-driven than anything Doctor Who tended to do around this point in its history, but it’s what Time-Flight is supposed to be in my own head. Even the bland, generic science fiction wouldn’t feel out of place if it’s simply a stock backdrop to the real story. As it is, that’s out main focus, and it’s just not up to scratch.

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

Day 604: Time-Flight, Episode One

Dear diary,

Time-Flight is the unloved child of Season Nineteen, isn’t it? On the whole, it’s a very strong run of stories, with some absolute ‘classics’ like Kinda and Earthshock, and some other tales that simply worked well for me, even if general opinion is mixed, with the likes of Four to Doomsday and Black Orchid… and then it ends with this tale. On the whole, I think the problems most people have with Time-Flight boil down to some of the more ridiculous elements, and I’ll get to those in the next few days I’m sure, but I was pleasantly surprised by this first episode… because it’s rather good!

I’ve only seen this story the one time, when it first came out on DVD, and over the years I’ve come to think of it as being one that simply never takes my fancy for a re-watch. All I can remember about it is that it largely takes place on prehistoric Earth, and the Master turns up somewhat improbably. I’d forgotten, for instance, that this first episode is largely set in the present day at Heathrow - I thought scenes here simply topped-and-tailed the adventure. I’m glad that’s not the case, though, because I’m really enjoying lots of the airport material. It’s almost like going back to the 1960s (I seem to be saying that a lot recently), where there’s something really exciting about seeing a location ‘as it was’ at the time. Landing the TARDIS right in the middle of the building is great fun, too, and I love the way that the Doctor decides that he simply has to go and have a look, and then on course he gets caught up in something. Curiosity defines this Doctor more than I’d ever noticed - making his comment in Black Orchid all the more appropriate!

There’s also something quite exciting about seeing the Doctor inside a Concorde. It feels at once like something too mundane for him (last week he was in a space freighter), and also terribly exciting because it’s not somewhere that you really get to see very often (especially not these days - Time-Flight has become a historical in more ways than one!). Seeing him peering round the cockpit brings the series closer than ever before to being Blue Peter.

I feel as though I’m being generous here - although I really do enjoy all the stuff at the airport and on the plane - because as soon as we touch down on to prehistoric Earth, things all start to fall apart for me. From the moment that they step off the Concorde and into some questionable CSO, we’re back into the story that I remember Time-Flight being, with not-particularly-great sets, some questionable guest performances, and monsters that aren’t… great. I have a feeling that the goodwill built up in the first two-thirds of this episode may dissipate over the next few days, so I’m glad that it has at least started strong. In that spirit, I’d like to add that the concept of everything in this episode is fantastic - the idea of stepping off the plane to find themselves back at Heathrow, until Nyssa sees through the illusion to a pile of bodies, is a great one, and I think it really is a case of the effect letting it down.

Something that does need to be mentioned is the way they deal with the aftermath of Adric’s death. It’s a tricky thing to pitch, really, and I’m not sure that they quiche get it right. Let’s use Journey’s End as an example: Donna’s memories of the Doctor have been wiped, and she’s been returned home. The Doctor can never see his best friend again, and she’s resigned to living a life in which she’ll never be as great as she could. The episode ends on a down-beat note, and you’re left with the Doctor alone, and sad, and soaked from the rain. But the crucial thing is… this comes at the very end of the season. When we next catch up with the Doctor, it’s Christmas, and he’s off for an adventure in Victorian London in the snow. Now, on original broadcast, there was a real gap between episodes that lasted months and months. You don’t get that now, if you’re watching the episodes through in order, but there’s still a real sense that a great deal of time has passed for the Doctor and the programme, so it can move on in to a bold new adventure. With Cybermen! That’s not to say that Donna’s departure is completely ignored, the Doctor is still hurting from it, and that gets touched upon later in the story, but it feels right that we should pick up with smiles, and festive cheer, and a brand new story.

Time-Flight doesn’t get that luxury. I commented the other day that to feels like a season finale… but it’s not. It’s the penultimate story of the season, so we’re going out with this one. As has become common practice for the series at this point, today’s episode picks up only a short time after yesterday’s one, and then we’re off into a new adventure. Now, this is where things get tricky. You can’t make the whole episode be about Adric’s death, or you’d never get a story going. Equally, you can’t simply ignore the fact that in the last episode you killed off one of the main characters! Do you see what I mean? Tricky to pitch. Time-Flight deals with it by… having 16 lines of dialogue between the three regulars, and then brushing it off with the Doctor promising a “Special treat to cheer us all up.”

After that, Adric is forgotten, and we continue on as though nothing had happened. It just doesn’t work for me, and it’s another example of the programme not always being good at the character-led pieces that a situation like this one really needs. A pity, in many ways, because those 16 lines between the Doctor, Tegan, and Nyssa raise some interesting points that I’d love to see explored further (for example, Tegan’s suggestion that they could save Adric and still allow the freighter to crash so that it wouldn’t change history would be - so far as I can tell - entirely workable under the rules of more recent Doctor Who!), and it feels like there needs to be something more. I know Adric makes a brief cameo in this story somewhere, so I’m hoping that might give us something a little bit better.

I should point out that despite what I’m saying here, I don’t think you could have ended the season with Adric’s death: it’s just too bleak. In The Writer’s Tale, Russell T Davies has long discussions with Benjamin Cook about the ways to end that Fourth Series, and he worries that you need something to bounce back. I think what we ended up with there was perfect, but I don’t think it would have worked for Adric’s death - it’s just too major. I keep on saying it… tricky!

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

Day 603: Earthshock, Episode Four

Dear diary,

Having missed yesterday’s episode, Emma has rejoined me for this episode. It’s time to show her the second big twist of the tale, as Adric finally meets his doom. I’ve been ever so good up to now, making sure that the DVD is paused on the title sequence of the episode by the time she enters the room, so she won’t catch any glimpse of the footage on the DVD menu. I didn’t want to repeat the situation my friend Nick had a few weeks ago, with the ending being spoiled in advance. We sat and watched the episode, waiting for that ending…

…and five minutes before it arrives, Emma picks up her phone. A minute later she asks: “So this is the one where Adric dies?”

Confiscate the phone! It seems such an obvious thing, now. Ho hum. In Emma’s defence she claims to have only looked it up because she could sense it heading in that direction, but still: I was waiting for the surprise! Oh well.

Much as I’ve liked Adric’s time in the TARDIS (he’s certainly nowhere near as bad as received wisdom would have you believe, even though I still think he works better opposite Baker than he does with Davison), I really do love the idea of killing him off. It makes such a bold statement, and the sleeve notes to the DVD sum it up best:

”The final scenes of Earthshock shattered once and for all the cosy air of invulnerability that had pervaded Doctor Who. The Doctor was fallible, and fail he occasionally does…”

There’s just something so bold about the idea of killing off a long-running companion. The last time the show dabbled with the idea, back in Season Three, it only killed off characters who’d been a part of the Doctor’s - and the viewer’s - life for a few episodes at most. Here, we’re discussing the end of Adric, the boy who first encountered the TARDIS in Full Circle. On original broadcast, it was almost eighteen months between his arrival and his departure, which means it’s a really big deal. Watching all the stories in order like this also has an added advantage - I can better appreciate little things like the theme from Full Circle being introduced into this episode, and his clutching of his brother’s belt in his final moments. I don’t think I’ve seen this story since watching Full Circle for the first time - so this is the first time that I’ve ever really been able to appreciate what’s happening in that moment.

A somewhat embarrassing admission, though: on my first viewing, when the credits roll silently over Adric’s shattered badge… I didn’t realise it was his badge. I thought it was supposed to represent the Earth blowing up having been hit by the freighter, and it was just a particularly rubbish effect. I couldn’t understand what the point of that was, since it’s clear from the dialogue that the planet doesn’t blow up (of course it doesn’t, it wouldn’t make sense!). In my defence, though, watching through this time, I’ve never noticed before that the floor of the TARDIS has turned black for this shot! Is there a particular reason for that?

It seems pointless to discuss much else about this episode, because the death really is the thing that defines it, but that’s not to say that there isn’t a lot to enjoy elsewhere, too. People mock the Doctor’s speech to the Cyberleader, but I think there’s an element of the Doctor mocking his enemy here while trying to make his point. It raises a smile, and there’s something just so very Doctor Who about trying to appeal to a creature of evil by suggesting they should have a nice cooked meal!

The whole of Earthshock really feels like a season finale - and much more so that the actual season finale will. There’s a sense of the stakes being raised higher than ever before, and not everyone makes it out. I can’t remember the last time the programme had such confidence, and it’s probably this production team’s highest point. I loved Kinda, and that story scored better than this in my ratings, but I appreciate Kinda as someone watching now, when I know it would have gone a little more over my head as a child on first broadcast. Earthshock is a story that I can appreciate as a grown up, and I know I would have loved as a child.

Oh, and one thing: if I have to suffer, then so do all of you. Someone pointed out to me this week that this design of Cybermen has ‘eyebrows’ built in, giving them a look of being completely surprised all the time. Now I’ve seen it, I can’t unsee it, and I don’t plan to be alone in this. 

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

Day 602: Earthshock, Episode Three

Dear diary,

Way back in the mists of time when I first got in to Doctor Who, this was one of the earliest stories I saw. It wasn’t my first Cyberman story (that was The Tomb of the Cybermen), but it’s a tale that I think really helped make me love the silver giants. There’s really two main schools of Cybermen: you’ve got the sinister, scheming ones of stories like The Moonbase where they infect the crew slowly via the sugar, or The Wheel in Space, where people are hypnotised into helping them, and then there’s the ‘macho’ versions that really make their first real impact in this story. These are Cybermen reimagined for the 1980s, and they really go on to inspire the versions seen in the new series. Both types have their highlights (though I think right now the 1960s versions would win out, but ask me again tomorrow and it’ll be the 80s models. Then the 60s again. You get the idea…), and I don’t think that this particular style of Cyberman has ever been done better than in this episode.

Put simply, the Cybermen in today’s episode are unstoppable. They just are! There’s only a handful of costumes (though more than I’d expect), but they’re being directed and shot so well that it feels like there are hundreds of them. The implication is that we’re looking at something like 15,000 onboard this freighter alone, and you really get a sense that the figure could be true - there really are loads of them. From my twenty-something perspective, I can see that the slit screen and mirror shots don’t always look the best, but it’s another thing that I know would have worked absolutely for me as a child. For me now, it’s the repeated shots of them breaking out of containers, or ripping plastic off themselves that really sell it for me. We’re never told that there’s a whole army waking up here, but it’s all implied and works really very well.

I think it helps that I really like the design of the Cybermen in this story, too. By the time you reach Attack of the Cybermen it’s the controller that sticks in your mind, and the over-chromed versions of Silver Nemesishave never really been as appealing to me (watch me change my mind on that in a couple of months, I’m sure!), but in Earthshock, we get to see this design really shine. I’ve heard people complain over the years that it’s too much of a departure from what had gone before, but I can’t see that at all. This feels like a 1980s update of the costumes seen in Revenge of the Cybermen, and this outfits in turn felt like a 1970s version of the ones from The Invasion. There’s something about this version in particular - right down to the little tubes on the main body (I believe that these were converted from flight suits, and are part of the original suit as opposed to an added detail) that really works for me. The tubes leading up into the helmet and the see-through chin pieces all stand out, too. I think this is the closest to seeing the Cybermen as organic creatures with things plugged in to them, keeping them going, that we’ve come since their very first appearance all those years ago.

I will admit, though, that they do look pretty stupid when Tegan and her squad of soldiers spy on a pair of Cybermen who just mill around having a chat!

Elsewhere, there’s an awful lot to really like about this episode, and a lot of it comes down to the direction. I’ve already praised the way that the Cybermen bursting out of hibernation has been handled, but the lighting in these sequences deserves a bit of attention, too. It’s the same throughout lots of the episode - the different areas of the ship all feel distinct and they’re all lit beautifully. The shot of the Cyberman getting trapped in the door is one that I could bang on about for hours, too - it’s not only a great visual image, but it’s pulled off perfectly. Surely one of the best effects shots the programme has ever given us?

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

Day 601: Earthshock, Episode Two

Dear diary,

Today sees the annual appearance of the ‘classic montage’ which John Nathan-Turner was keen on inserting into seasons in the first half of his time as producer. We get some clips in Logopolis as the Doctor watches his life flash before his eyes, then they turn up in today’s episode to represent the Cybermen looking back over their previous encounters with the Doctor (and to me, the absence of the Third Doctor seems to be staggeringly obvious. I’ve never really noticed quite how much it sticks out that he never got to face off against them, but it’s no wonder that we’ll see this rectified before too long!). Season Twenty-One sees clips integrated via the Brigadier getting his memories back, and then we get snapshots of the Doctor’s previous companions - well, most of them - in Resurrection of the Daleks. This fad seems to disappear by the time the Sixth Doctor arrives, and the programme gets its nostalgic kick from elsewhere.

I’m somewhat gently mocking this practice here, but I can only begin to imagine how exciting this must have been for kids watching at the time. Not only had they just had a shocker of a cliffhanger in which the Cybermen came back after a huge break away from the show, but they were getting clips of the old Doctors facing off against them! People talk about the Five Faces of Doctor Who repeats season as being absolutely massive because it was a chance to see stories they never thought they would, but now they’re getting snippets of them integrated into the series proper. I’d have genuinely wet myself with excitement, I think.

Whereas yesterday’s episode was largely split between scenes in a quarry, a cave, or the TARDIS, today’s episode is filled with far more things that I think of when picturing Earthshock. The freighter has a very distinct style to it, which is beautiful in a kind of industrial way, and much like Four to Doomsday, it utilises the actual television studio itself to help make spaces seem larger and more solid than they really are. When the Doctor and Adric are out exploring the cargo hold, you get a real sense of them actually travelling around the place, rather than it simply being a set. There’s some real tension in these scenes, and it all helps add up to make this simply one of the most exciting things ever.

Where this story differs from Four to Doomsday is in the success of its ‘name’ casting. Under that tale, I praised the inclusion of Stratford Johns among the cast, pointing out that John Nathan-Turner’s stunt casting really could work on occasion - bringing in a well respected and talented actor to fill the role of a major guest character. I mused that perhaps it’s wrong of us to always remember his headline-grabbing casting policy as being a bad thing. This story, however, presents us with the other side of the coin, in casting Beryl Reid as the head of this space freighter. The performance is somewhat out-of-kilter with everything around it, and you do somewhat get the impression that she doesn’t have the first clue about what she’s actually doing here. A pity, because I think it’s the one weak link that’s bringing the story down a little…

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

Day 600: Earthshock, Episode One

Dear diary,

In the old days, Doctor Who wasn’t necessarily a programme which tried to really surprise you. Oh, there have been moments of it over the years - Sara’s sudden brutal death in The Daleks’ Master Plan, or the reveal of the Master in a few of the Pertwee stories for instance (hush, it was sometimes a surprise) - but generally, it’s only been surprising because there were very few places to get information about what was to come. The Daleks’ returns were often heralded in the title of the story, or previewed in the pages of the Radio Times. Companion’s arrivals and departures were in the newspapers some time before they occurred. Even the cliffhangers are simply a part of the programme, so you get to know the format they take.

So I think it’s fair to say that Earthshock is probably the first Doctor Who story that prides itself on actually shocking you. It’s full of surprises, and the production team went out of their way to make sure that these moments stayed intact for the broadcast of the tale. The gallery at TV Centre was closed off, so that passers-by wouldn’t catch a glimpse of the Cybermen in the studio. John Nathan-Turner turned down the cover of the Radio Times - the first offered to Doctor Who since the Pertwee days! - because he’d rather keep it secret. Even the death of Adric at the end of the tale (I’m terribly sorry if that’s a spoiler now, but more than thirty years on I’m fairly sure it’s common knowledge) was kept under wraps by finding a way to have him appear in the following episode - just so that his name would appear on the cast lists and thus throw you off.

Now, my friend Nick likes surprises in Doctor Who. Or, more specifically, he likes surprising unsuspecting fans with twists in the story and seeing how they react. He recently showed a friend The Caves of Androzani without her knowing that it was Peter Davison’s swan song. Oh, the joy of the reaction, as the end of that story approached and she realised that the Doctor was heading to his death! The plan for the next night would be to show her Earthsock, and see how she reacted to all the various twists in this one. The plan somewhat backfired, though, because having been filled once with the ending to Caves, she decided to do a bit of digging on this tale and uncovered the news about the Cybermen and Adric. A pity.

Thankfully for Nick, a week on from that event and it’s my turn to watch Earthshock. I’ve got my own guinea pig to test it out on, and thus I’m joined for the next few days by Emma, who thinks it’s just time for me to show her a Peter Davison story. She’s actually quite excited by it. I’ve gone to great pains to keep the DVD cover hidden from her, and to make sure that the episode is cued up to start playing from the opening titles by the time she enters the room, so that she won’t catch sight of the clips on the menu. We sit through 25-or-so minutes of the Doctor and his companions in a cave, before that stunning final reveal of the Cybermen watching them (‘Destroy them! Destroy them at once!’), and I snap my head towards Emma to gauge her reaction.

‘Friends!’ she declares. I forgot that were Emma to travel in the TARDIS, she’d make friends with pretty much any monster she came across.

But all is not lost. She may not have been entirely floored by the appearance of the Cybermen, but there’s something more interesting happening here which I’m looking forward to seeing play out over the next three episodes. She’s taken something of a dislike to Adric immediately (I have pointed out that he’s being made more whiny and annoying than usual here), and has already told me that it’s his last story because he ‘keeps banging on’ about going home. She’s sure that the story will end with the Doctor trying to get him back to his own planet, so I’m keen to see how she reacts when he ends up slamming into our planet, instead.

It’s quite hard to watch this episode when you know that it ends with the Cybermen showing up. All the suff with the androids in the tunnel feels like padding until the cliffhanger arrives (although it’s plenty enjoyable in itself). Earthshock was one of the very first Doctor Who DVDs that I bought - already knowing the surprises - so for me it’s a story in which I’m waiting to see the silver giants make their appearance. But I love all the stories about kids at the time falling open mouthed, and excitedly discussing it in the playground the next day. I think that’s where this new twice-weekly broadcast pattern really comes into its own: allowing children to analyse the story the very next day at school.

In the past, with returns of characters like The Master, I’ve always questioned how much the viewers of the time would have really known of the character (and several of you have commented with your own tales of the time - please do so today, too, as I’d love to hear how you reacted to this one!), but I don’t feel the need to do that with the Cybermen. They’re one of the elite of Doctor Who monsters, and this might well be the very best surprise that the programme ever delivered…

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

Day 599: Black Orchid, Episode Two

Dear diary,

Do you know… I complained in The Visitation about the way the Fifth Doctor just invites people inside the TARDIS as freely as you like, and even singled this story out for doing it in a particularly ridiculous way, thinking of the ‘strike me pink’ comment as one of the police officers enters the ship for the first time. Actually, though, I found myself laughing as that moment occurred! Maybe I was laughing because it’s especially stupid (it’s not the actual reaction that bothers me, it’s that he then composes himself so swiftly and gets on with the job! Very professional, I’m sure, but I just don’t buy the performance), or maybe I’ve mellowed? Either way, it worked for me!

On the whole, as I’d expected, I simply enjoyed this episode. It’s never going to win an award for being the most amazing episode (or story) in Doctor Who history - I think you’d be hard pushed to find anyone who’s favourite story is Black Orchid, but I’d love to hear about it if that person exists! - but it works as two nice episodes that sit nicely in the middle of the season. I think it also plays a larger part in the grand scheme of things. Just as stories like The Long Game, or The Lodger may feel initially like a kind of ‘filler’ with no real consequence to the season at large, it has a role to fulfil and it does it well. The next story is a fairly momentous one for the Doctor (and especially for Adric), and I’m not sure that the emotion of that story would be as strong if we came to it directly from, for example, The Visitation. We need to see this quartet actually enjoying each other’s company for a while before they’re torn apart, and while I know that the next story opens with more arguing, that doesn’t matter, because I’ve seen here that these people do like each other, and that they can get along.

It also acts as a bit of a breather for us as well as the characters. Black Orchid is somewhat throwaway, but it’s a chance to simply sit back and enjoy watching our regulars in another setting. Peter Davison complains on the commentary, I believe, that there wasn’t much call for this story because Agatha Christie stories are fairly prolific on TV anyway, and they’re often done much better than this one. While I concede that he might have a point to some extent, I think it’s that old thing that Doctor Who does best: taking the characters we know and love, and dropping them into a type of story which we’re already familiar with. We know the tropes of a 1920s murder mystery, so it’s less about that story, and more about seeing our characters interacting with it.

On that level, it works perfectly. There’s some lovely locations, some very nice sets (proving that the BBC has lost none of its touch with creating ‘historical’ settings), some decent performances… yes, I’m a fan of this one. I’m sure it’s a story I’ll end up watching again at some point, just as something to have on in the background somewhere, and remember the time that the Season Nineteen crew simply got along. This is the happiest we’ve ever seen them, but I fear that won’t last for long… 

Manufacturer: Big Finish Productions

Written By: Jonathan Morris and John Dorney

RRP: £30.00 (CD) / £25.00 (Download)

Release Date: August 2014

Reviewed by: Nick Mellish for Doctor Who Online

Review Posted: 15th August 2014

Psychodrome

“Shortly after surviving the perils of Logopolis, Castrovalva and the machinations of the Master, the new Doctor and his new crew could be forgiven for wanting to take a breather from their tour of the galaxy. But when the TARDIS lands in a strange and unsettling environment, the urge to explore is irresistible... and trouble is only a few steps away. 

The world they have found themselves in is populated by a wide variety of the strangest people imaginable - a crashed spacecraft here, a monastery there, even a regal court. And not everyone they meet has their best interests at heart. 

With the TARDIS stolen, and the very environment itself out to get them, the travellers face an extremely personal threat. They'll have to work as a team if they want to get out alive... but can you really trust someone you barely know?”

Iterations of I

“The house on Fleming's Island had been left to rot. Ever since a strange and unexplained death soon after it was built, and plagued with troubling rumours about what lurked there, it remained empty and ignored for decades until the Cult moved in. As twenty people filled its many rooms, the eerie building seemed to be getting a new lease of life.

But now it is empty again. The cult found something in its corridors... and then vanished.

Trapped on the island one dark night, the Doctor, Tegan, Nyssa and Adric look into the building's mysteries, its stories of madness and death. Their only chance is to understand what terrible thing has been disturbed here... before it consumes them utterly.”

***

It feels like it’s been a long time coming: the return of Davison’s original TARDIS crew.  We’ve had new companions come and go, extended time with Nyssa and Peri, and some solo jaunts for Doctor Number Five, but now we’re able to go right back to where it all started, and it really does feel like a pleasant trip down memory lane: Tegan! Nyssa! Adric! The roll call trips off the tongue and by the time the first episode has finished, you find yourself wondering if you haven’t actually heard this crew reunited on audio before, so familiar is the set-up and so at ease are the actors at slipping back into these roles.  It’s a real pleasure to have them back.

This box set comprises two four-part adventures, Psychodrome and the beautifully pretentious-sounding Iterations of I.  Perhaps unsurprisingly, a lot of my focus upon listening to the first play at least was on Matthew Waterhouse, reprising Adric for the first time for Big Finish.  I’m not going to retroactively lie here and pretend I think Waterhouse is the greatest actor the show ever saw (though he is far from the worst) and I have always maintained that as a character, Adric worked very well with the Fourth Doctor and not so well with the Fifth.  However, Psychodrome goes some way into readdressing both of these things for me.

Time has been very kind to Waterhouse and quite simply, the performance he gives here across these two plays is the best he’s ever given us as Adric.  He is undoubtedly helped by a script which plays to all of the individual characters’ strengths, but that aside, he carries a weight and depth to his role that he either did not get the chance to show us on screen, or perhaps could not due to age.  Whatever the case, he is fantastic across this box set, never more so though than in Psychodrome, where Adric lets his mask slip and shows us that he has a deep and desperate need to prove himself to everyone, hinting at his fate in but a few stories’ time.  Sometimes, knowledge of future stories can slightly harm the drama as we know that everything is going to be alright, but in this case, it is knowing the tragedy of Adric which brings things to life.  Quite simply put, we feel extraordinarily sorry for him.

Back to Psychodrome though.  This story is set just after Castrovalva, and much like Big Finish’s play The Elite did for us, it helps plug a gap we as fans had never realized required plugging.  Whereas there it addressed the end of Arc of Infinity and led us nicely into the team as we know them in Snakedance, here it addresses the fact that no-one really knows each other at this point in the TARDIS crew’s history, something never tackled on screen.  We have a Doctor who is getting to know himself and bond with his crew, an Adric who doesn’t know where he fits anymore, and then we have Tegan and Nyssa, cast away from their homes and with awful, painful losses behind them, still recent enough to sting afresh with each reminder.  Psychodrome throws us headfirst into adventure, of course, barely giving us time to pause for breath before the team are lost in caves which seem to shift and find themselves encountering monasteries for mathematicians, man-sized spiders who feed on blood, and explorers with no real sense of direction.

Jonathan Morris’s script is wonderful, letting the story breathe whilst never forgetting the time period in which it’s set continuity-wise and the privilege Big Finish affords both writers and actors, letting them develop characters in a manner never allowed on screen.  As is customary in these things, there is a twist of sorts, and I will confess that I has twigged it long before the characters in the script do, but none of that diminished the happy couple of hours I spent listening to this play.

Next up is the aforementioned Iterations of I by John Dorney, which I will state now was my favourite of the two plays.  Oozing with atmosphere and tension, Iterations gives us a spooky ghost story, set in Ireland during as raging storm where some mysterious thing is slowly killing people one by one.

Beautifully, the TARDIS crew are introduced here with a scene set inside the ship, with Nyssa and Adric trying to prove they can fly it and return Tegan to Heathrow.  It all feels so wonderfully normal, so in keeping with Season 19 and the tropes we associate with this team, and of course they land nowhere near Heathrow at all.  I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.  Before too long, the Doctor is right in the thick of it, learning about cults who believe God is a number, delving into the realm of higher mathematics, and casually batting away comedic barbs from Tegan.  Janet Fielding is on fire throughout this play, clearly relishing the script and oozing the material for every comedy beat she can, whilst Sarah Sutton is put in a rare position of fear and frailty, and as with the others has rarely been as good as she is here.  Again, it could be the fantastic script and Ken Bentley’s deft direction, or it could be the fact that the original TARDIS crew has been reunited: you certainly get an air of them enjoying being together and working with one another once again.  Whatever it is, I would say that this is the strongest Sutton has been since The Butcher of Brisbane and the story itself? It’s a masterclass in using the characters and their unique traits and working with that.

In fact, that goes for both stories.  They don’t forget that Adric is fantastic at maths, an outsider, and alien with the ability to heal quickly.  They remember that Nyssa has lost her whole planet and Tegan her aunt.  They tackle head on the breathless youth of the Fifth Doctor and how he’s finding his feet a bit.  And more than anything else, they do it with style and confidence.

When the Fourth Doctor joined the Big Finish fold, much was made by Big Finish about how they were trying to evoke the 1970s and that feel of watching the show on TV, and you know what? It didn’t work, because so often it felt like they were constrained by these boundaries and trying too hard to ape something that is long gone.  I should add, that doesn’t mean I haven’t enjoyed the Fourth Doctor Adventures, merely that I think they’re grown in strength as they have carried on, as they’ve gradually freed themselves from this idea that they have to be as they were and done their own thing instead.  Where this box set improves on things is that it doesn’t actively try to recreate the era and make a big fuss about it; it does so with ease and no fanfare at all.  It slots in perfectly whilst not trying to lavishly adhere to how things were and what would have been possible and shown.  It acknowledges how things were, it pays lip service to them, and then it tells brand new adventures that play with concepts and characters and set-ups.

So, there we are: the Doctor and Adric and Tegan and Nyssa once again, being their usual wonderful selves but perhaps even more so, perhaps even better than before.  It’s about as strong an introduction to a new/old set-up as we’ve ever been afforded and is an easy ten-out-of-ten affair for me.  Marvellous.

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

Day 577: Logopolis, Episode One

Dear diary,

Picture the scene: It’s early 1981. After seven years in the role, Tom Baker is about to begin his final adventure. Just four episodes until he departs the TARDIS, and that bloke from All Creatures Great and Small is about to take over. For a generation of kids, this is inconceivable. Tom Baker has been the Doctor (I know, I’ve already said it, but it bears repeating) for seven years. To many of the children watching, he’s the only Doctor. Even if they were old enough to remember a time when Jon Pertwee used to save the universe, all of that was a lifetime ago in the world before repeats. It’s a momentous occasion, and you can only wonder what will be enough to finish off this incarnation of the Time Lord. You sit down, ready to begin the march to the end...

And then, they show this. Bloody hell. I’m sorry, but this episode is just dull! Don’t get me wrong - there’s plenty of nice things about it, and I’ll come to those in a moment, but as the start of such a momentous story, it’s really, really boring. All that happens, really, is the Doctor paces around the TARDIS a bit, and some Australian you’ve never seen before tries to replace a flat tire on the side of a bypass. I’m bored watching it now, so I can’t imagine how kids must have found it thirty years ago.

Now, I need to be fair, I suppose. when I say ‘the Doctor paces around the TARDIS a bit’, I’m being facetious. Boiled down simply, that is all he does, but he breaks it up with some measuring in the middle. No, sorry, I’m still not being fair. It’s given some character by the whole ‘recursive TARDIS’ stuff (and, I have to admit, that the image of the Doctor and Adric walking from TARDIS to TARDIS as they each get progressively darker is one that’s stuck in my mind for years. This, at least, would have captivated me as a kid... although the Doctor suddenly emerging from the back of the police box always felt rubbish, and it still does here).

In the case of the ‘Australian you’ve never seen before’, it has to be said that Janet Fielding makes a striking impression. That voice! It’s quite nice to see her arriving now, as I’ve always thought of Tegan as one of my favourite companions. I’m perhaps forgiving because I know of her significance to the programme over the next few years, because she really isn’t given a whole lot to do in this episode. I’m not sure I’d care at all about her scenes if I didn’t know that she was about to join us as a companion. The one highlight to come from these sequences today is that I’ve only just realised that the Watcher seems to show up and... um... watch her. It sort of adds something to the idea of him rippling back through time time stream, but it’s again something you only really connect with if you know who she is.

It’s in times like this that I always seem to turn to my friend Nick for feedback. Today was put simply, when I told him that I was thoroughly bored throughout this episode. Nick and I often have very similar views on Doctor Who stories, so it’s always interesting when we differ. This may be one of those times, because he suggested that he may end up championing the story if I don’t care for it. He pointed out how much he liked ‘sombre direction and atmosphere’, which I have to admit are rather nice here, and I’ll be looking out for it more in the coming episodes, but he also vocalised my problem with the episode far better than I could: ‘the script is not aimed at children or even a family audience’. I think that’s possibly my issue - I just can’t connect with the episode because it’s not aimed at the same level as Doctor Who usually is.

There’s one other interesting possibility at play. I’ve seen Logopolis before, and my vague memory is that I didn’t much care for it. Maybe, having been through all the other Tom Baker episodes in the last six months, it’s just not going to feel like a fitting end for such a powerful and important figure in the programme’s history?

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

Day 576: The Keeper of Traken, Episode Four

Dear diary,

I can’t decide if the Doctor is trying to play along with the Master’s game in this story, or if he’s just being especially slow this week. There seems to be a point early on in the episode where the Doctor clearly knows that the Master is the one controlling the Melkur (though he doesn’t say as much), but then later on, when he’s trapped inside the thing, he seems somewhat surprised to find that it’s his old foe behind events here. I’d imagine that there’s a way of reading these events as the Fourth Doctor getting a bit slow - another sign of his approaching death - but that only seems to find its way into events because I know the magnitude of the next story, not because it’s been actively inserted to the story here.

But this is just a symptom of a wider issue at play here - it feels like all the build up has been for very little. In the special features for this story on the DVD, Christopher Bidmead makes mention of the Master being shoehorned into the script at the last minute, and I think I can see his point in this final episode. The fact that the Master is inside the Melkur is really irrelevant, and the story would work just as well if the creature was simply a being that had bided its time in the garden on Traken for years, waiting for the right time to seize control and make a move. In fact, there’s almost something quite clever in there, with the idea that all evil turns to stone in the goodness of Traken, but if the Melkur were a creature made of stone, then it could be immune... Then there’s the idea of people flocking to worship at the cult of the Melkur (something which is touched on and then seemingly forgotten in the story as-is), which could also provide an interesting story.

If anything, I’d dare to say that the story is almost weakened by the reveal that the Master has been pulling the strings all along, because it’s such a weak denouement here that I’m left completely underwhelmed by his return. I mused yesterday that the audience may not have really remembered or cared who this person was on the original transmission, but all the same, it feels like I should be punching the air with surprise at the return of the Doctor’s greatest foe. When the final scene comes along and Tremas is taken over by the Master, it’s all the more out-of-place - it feels tacked on (it is).

Still, for all my sourness at the way the Master has been used here, I have to admit that I’ve rather enjoyed The Keeper of Traken as a whole. The world really feels more rounded and complete than we’ve been seeing in the series for a while (though it’s becoming more common in Season Eighteen, with the likes of Full Circle and State of Decay featuring worlds just as whole as Traken), and I’ve liked spending the last few days here. Now, though, I’m heading in to Tom Baker’s final story as the Doctor... and that feels like a pretty special moment...

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

Day 575: The Keeper of Traken, Episode Three

Dear diary,

I’m so used to thinking of this story as the first part of a ‘Master trilogy’, that it’s easy to forget that he doesn’t actually show up until this point in the story! We’ve heard his voice right the way though, and there’s been hands flicking switches for a while, but it’s not until the end of this episode that he finally swings around to reveal himself to the audience (and I can’t help thinking that he has the look of an excited puppy in doing so!), and announce his true identity - even if the Doctor doesn’t know it yet.

My wonder is, though... did this have impact when it first went out? The Master here is only a slightly modified version of the one seen in The Deadly Assassin (am I right in thinking that one story goes that they found the cloak from that story in the skip just as they were preparing for this one, and salvaged it in time?), but that last appearance was ages ago. That story went out around October/November 1976, whereas The Keeper of Traken didn’t make it to screen until early 1981! You’re looking just over four years between appearances, and a lot has changed in the programme since then! Graham Williams has come and gone, as have Leela, Romana, and K9... did the audience at the time sit up in their chairs here thinking ‘bloody hell, it’s the Master!?!?’ or was it just an excited puppy in a tatty, skip-bound cloak?

Oh, I’m just nit-picking really, because it is a very good cliffhanger when you’re watching through in order like this. The mysterious bad guy who has been wreaking all this havoc on Traken and causing problems for the Doctor is none other than the Master! And he finally reveals himself to us just as Kassia takes the seat of the Keeper, and is instantly replaced with the Melkur sitting on the throne! It really is a very striking way to end the episode, and the fact that the Doctor has felt more hopeless in this story than many others makes it feel like the Master is a very real threat to him again.

I’m a little puzzled by exactly what this ‘Source’ is that he’s gained control of, mind. As far as I can tell (bear with me): it’s the power source for the Keeper. A kind of technology that needs to be guided by a living mind (the Keeper), and has the ability to keep everything in check throughout the Traken Union (is this a series of planets? That’s how I understand it, though it could simply be a number of countries on the one world of Traken). Being connected to the Source grants the Keeper an unusually long life, because... well... because it does. Hence, when a Keeper dies, they’re unable to hold back forces of chaos any longer, and thus storms begin to brew etc etc. In some ways, it’s the struggle between the Black and the White Guardian in miniature. If I’ve got that right, then it’s a great target for the Master, and fairly reminiscent of his plan in The Deadly Assassin, without all that boring Time Lord Stuff.

I think what’s throwing me is the mashing of a fairy tale world, all groves and stone corridors, with people dressed in crushed velvet, and the world of science fiction, with lots of machinery and intelligent creations like the Source itself. It’s throwing me even more that they can create technology as powerful as this seems to be, but not an adequate way of mankind the transition more stable between two Keepers. I know Nyssa goes on to have an ability with science once she’s a regular member of the TARDIS crew, and I’m wondering if it may feel less of a clash once she’s away from the trappings of her home world?

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

Day 573: The Keeper of Traken, Episode One

Dear diary,

Perhaps more than any other story of this period, The Keeper of Traken suffers when you know about Doctor Who. There’s so many things in this first episode alone that simply don’t work as well when you know what the next few years of the programme are going to be like, and indeed when you know what happens in this story. It suffers because I know the Melkur is a TARDIS. It suffers because I know that the TARDIS is housing the decaying Master. It suffers because I can’t look at Tremas without knowing that he’ll be embodying the Master for encounters with the next three Doctors, and because I can’t look at Nyssa (who is oddly underused in this initial episode), without knowing that she’ll go on to travel with the Doctor for the next season-and-a-half.

For all that, though, knowing these things flags up a few interesting new angles to enjoy with the story. When the Keeper warns the Doctor to think carefully before accepting the mission to help him on Traken, he tells the Time Lord that there is great danger in the task, and that it could cause obliteration to even the Doctor. In hindsight, this can be read as a warning of the impending regeneration, and the fact that this story really kicks off the chain of events that will lead the Doctor to the Pharos Project, and his death. Equally, it’s great to see the way the Doctor behaves here, too, responding to the Keeper’s assertion that the passing of ages have taken their toll on him by claiming to know the feeling.

It’s often said that Season Eighteen has something of a funereal feel to it, and while the whole style has felt more foreboding than ever before recently, this is really where it kicks in. Tom Baker hasn’t looked his best of late - unwell and with hair that’s had to be artificially permed - but this is where he really starts looking old. It’s almost as though the departure of Romana and the return to N- space has taken it all out of him, and he knows that he’s marching towards the end. I think that’s likely to be the thing that keeps me entertained over these next couple of stories. This tale, Logopolis, and Castrovalva are described as being a loose trilogy of adventures, and I’m looking forward to seeing that in action as I move forward. The tone of this first episode certainly seems to be setting us up well for what’s to come...

As for the episode itself... it’s another slightly unusual one, with lots being told in the form of flashbacks, as the Keeper brings the Doctor up to speed with all the events on Traken that have lead to their current situation. I love his initial arrival in the TARDIS, and the Doctor’s solomn reaction to it - it’s almost like the appearance of the Ood in The Waters of Mars, where the Doctor knows he’s being summoned to his final adventures - but it does make for a slightly different feel to the tale. The Doctor and Adric crouch round the old man as he tells us his story, and once the adventure properly gets underway, it’s not long before our heroes find themselves captured and facing inquisition.

It’s great to see them together, though, and I’d forgotten just how much I enjoyed the pairing of the Doctor and Adric on their own. Our favourite Time Lord has agains taken on a more professorial role, teaching the young boy, and it’s perhaps closer to the kind of relationship the First Doctor had with Susan than we’ve seen in a long time. He’s got the irascibility down pat, too. It always seemed to be a shame that they had so few stories together (they barely encounter each other in State of Decay or Warrior’s Gate, so I’m looking forward to enjoying the pairing while I can.