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

Day 593: Kinda, Episode Four

Dear diary,

Full disclosure: I’ve watched today’s episode with the CGI effects option turned on. I’ve been a fan long enough to have seen the original ending with the original snake more than once, and having loved Kinda so much all along, I wanted to go out on a high, instead of… well… with that original snake! I’ve dabbled with the CGI effects over the course of this marathon, but I think that this is the release that gets it the most right. It’s not having to replace lots of small effects across the entire story, but concentrating it all into the final showdown, and I think the CGI here is of a quality that I wouldn’t blink at on television today. It really does serve tohelp the story, and I think it does make the ending all the better for it.

I’m also pleased to say that I finally ‘get’ the Mara. The concept is actually quite simple in the end (I thought it might be, and that I’d just been missing the point for a while), but it’s certainly at its weakest when forced out of Aris’ mind and in to the open. The large snake is supposed to be the climax to the story, the big fearsome monster, but it just doesn’t scare me as much as the thought that the Mara could be inside anyone’s mind, and that it could just as easily infect you as anyone else. I think that’s where showing Tagan as the one who initially lets it enter our world inside her head really works wonders - it can infect a member of the TARDIS crew, the Doctor’s companions, so it must be powerful. Maybe to a child watching at the time, the snake at the end is a massive part of the tale, and the culmination to everything we’ve seen. I’ve built up a following of a few people in the comments to these entries who were watching at the time - help me out guys, was the snake scary at the time (even in its original form?), or had you enjoyed the creeping sense of unease across the episodes leading up to it?

Something I realised watching today’s episode is that I didn’t really take the time to praise Janet Fielding’s performance during the early stages of this tale. There’s been so many brilliant aspects of Kinda to comment on that things have somewhat fallen by the wayside! Fielding has always been a good actress in regards to the series, and one of the better companions, but given the chance to really go off and do something abstract with the ‘dream’ sequences in this tale, she’s really excelled. It’s almost a shame coming to this episode and finding her back in to the standard companion role of asking questions and getting annoyed at the Doctor! I think I’ve praised most members of the cast at one stage or another during this story, so let’s just say that everyone has been on absolute top form throughout Kinda, and the finished result is all the better for it.

Now, though, I’m sad not to be following the adventures of the Fifth Doctor and Todd as they head off to another time and place. Peter Davison and Nerys Hughes have really just fallen in to step with each other throughout this story, and Nyssa cutting short their conversation at the end by whining that she wants to leave (having only been awake a few minutes!) really just hammered home to me how much I’d rather have the Doctor leave her behind, drop Tegan off home, and travel on with Todd instead! I’m somewhat surprised that the character has never come back for Big Finish - especially with Hughes having worked for them over the years - and I’ll be crossing my fingers now and hoping for a trilogy of adventures for the pair. I can dream, can’t I? Maybe not too much, though. I don’t want the Mara to get me…

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

Day 592: Kinda, Episode Three

Dear diary,

I think the cliffhanger to yesterday’s episode - resolved in today’s one - has to rank among the very best that the programme has ever given us. There’s something just so wonderfully Doctor Who about the fact that it can start off as being truly scary (we’ve seen Sanders open the box and lose his mind already, and then there’s Todd’s scream), move that fear into being funny, with a small figure bursting from the box, and then make it truly eerie as you realise that there actually is something in the box, as it starts to shut off all the power in the base and allows the cell door to slide slowly open… It’s carried out perfectly, and it’s a sign of the episode ahead. I’ll spoil things for you slightly here by telling you that today’s episode is - for the first time since Genesis of the Daleks - a full on 10/10 from me. I’ve really loved it.

Since finishing the episode a couple of hours ago, I’ve been trying to wrap my head around just what it is that’s working so well about Kinda, and this episode in particular. I simply end up coming back to the same things I was banging on about yesterday. Everyone involved is treating this episode as though it were something special. It’s got a feel to it that transcends simply being another four episodes in an ongoing series, and it almost feels as though it could be a one-off play by itself. Removing some of the trappings from this era simply helps to reinforce the feeling of this being something different - Nyssa is still locked away in the TARDIS (and not been mentioned here), Tegan only gets a single brief shot in today’s episode, in which she’s asleep, and even Adric’s role is kept small and away from the Doctor.

Meanwhile, out hero is paired off with Todd as they encounter the Kinda tribe and start to piece things together. I toughed briefly yesterday on Nerys Hughes working well opposite Peter Davison, but this episode takes that and really runs with it. When they escape from the dome and start to explore the jungle, they just click as a Doctor/Companion pairing, and much like the Fourth Doctor and Duggan in City of Death, I think this will end up being one of those team ups that I long to see more of.

It’s also bringing out the best in Davison, who’s turning in his most confident performance yet (more confident, perhaps, than even inCastrovalva, which was filmed after this), and has finally really bedded in as the new Doctor for me. His exasperation at being constantly called an idiot throughout the meeting with the wise woman is brilliant, and he plays it so very perfectly. I spent a fair while yesterday praising Simon Rouse’s turn as Hindle during the story, and I fear that I’m simply going to have to repeat myself here. He’s walking a very thin tightrope between underplaying and overplaying the part, but it’s working just so brilliantlyfor what’s required.

Something else that’s really working for me in this episode is just how fully developed the tribe of the Kinda is. We’re given several bits of information about them - such as the fact that they have seven fathers - which could feel completely irrelevant (there certainly doesn’t seem to be any need for that information to further the plot), but actually just helps to strengthen them as a society. It means that when we’re given information about their prophecies, or we’re asked to go along with the more outlandish aspects of their culture, it’s far easier to do, because Ibelieve in this species, and I’m willing to accept anything I have to.

That’s a reflection on Christopher Bailey’s script, which I fear I may have been doing down over the last few days. I keep talking about how good the cast and the direction is, but they can only work with what they’re given. What they’ve been given here is an intelligent, entertaining script, from someone who’s totally sure about the story he wants to tell. He’s done the thing that all the best Doctor Who stories do: created a world, populated it with people, and then dropped the TARDIS in to see what happens to it. Bailey’s name doesn’t often come up during discussions about people’s favourite Doctor Who writers, but I think it’s going to start coming up when I’m asked the question, because Kinda really is one of the best scripts that the programme has ever had.

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 591: Kinda, Episode Two

Dear diary,

Back when I was really enjoying The Macra Terror (and doesn’t that just feel like ages back?), I commented that it was too good to be Doctor Who. Don’t get me wrong, I love Doctor Who to pieces. Of course I do. I wouldn’t be making my way through this marathon if not! But there’s always a vague sense you get when watching that it’s simply Doctor Who. It’s rarely high art (nor does it aspire to be), and many of the people involved, especially guest actors, seem to treat it with that same sense of mind - it’s ‘only’ Doctor Who.

One of the places that Kinda is really holding up for me is that - as with parts of The Macra Terror, for me - it’s better than I’ve come to expect of the programme at this stage. Everyone involved, from the writer, to the director, the set designers, the costume-makers, and the guest cast, is treating this as something special. There’s lots of moments that I could point to here, but I think I’m going to focus specifically on our guest cast for the day, because they’re all uniformly brilliant. They’re treating it as though it were any other piece of ‘proper’ drama on television - performances that you’d be able to get away with in the most high-end production of Shakespeare, under the most exacting producers.

That’s true of everyone involved (including our regular cast - I’d hate to be excluding them here, and I’ll get on to them shortly), but it’s especiallytrue of Simon Rouse playing the part of the put-upon Hindle. The cliffhanger to yesterday’s episode requires him to go somewhat over-the-top as he declares his power of life and death over everyone else. It’s a moment that’s very easy to ham up… and I think it’s also fair to say that Rouse actually does ham it up. He goes at that scene with all he’s got and it really is a little bit over the top. What’s so wonderful about his performance in this story is that it works to take that moment too far! It all helps to add to the sense of this man completely snapping, and when he’s toned things down for today’s episode, they help to make that line even more unnerving and - yes - actually a bit scary.

I can’t stop watching him when he’s on the screen - even if he’s not the focus that that particular moment, I’m watching to see what choices he’s making with his movement, because it’s all incredibly well thought through. I think in his performance more than at any other time in the ‘classic’ series so far, you can really see the period of rehearsal before each recording session making a difference. He’s thought through every facet of this character, and he’s really giving it his all - far more than I’d usually expect to see for a few week’s work on a single Doctor Who story.

Then you’ve got Nerys Hughes as Todd - who’s almost become the defacto companion for this story! While Nyssa is asleep in the TARDIS, Tegan is off in the jungle, and Adric is pretending to go over to the dark side (again), the Doctor’s being paired up with another companion! It’s remarkable how well he works opposite a slightly older person, too, compared to the three youngsters that he’s usually with!

I suppose this is the right point to turn to my daily evaluation of Davison’s performance. He’s still feeling his way a little, but we’re more-or-less at the point where he’s settled down into a version of the character that we’ll be seeing for the next few years. There’s a lot to like in his performance today, but I can’t decide if he’s simply humouring Adric when they’re playing the ‘guess which hand’ game. To start with, I was entirely convinced that the Doctor was simply going through the motions in an attempt to pass the time in the cell, but then as the scene goes on he seems to become more and more fascinated by the idea. I don’t know if this is down to an odd bump in the performance or simply because I’m a bit dim - probably the latter!

Speaking of being a bit dim, mind, why is the Doctor so convinced that Hindle’s fear of the vegetation in the jungle is a sure sign that the man is mad? Has he already forgotten all those Terry Nation adventures he had to go through in his first few incarnations?

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

Day 590: Kinda, Episode One

Dear diary,

People often describe 1980s Doctor Who - the Peter Davision years and Season Nineteen in particular - as being a bit too much like a soap opera. I think I can see where they’re going with that, and it’s seen mostly in the way that every episode joins up relatively neatly with the next one. The Leisure Hive sees K9 damaged by sea water, and when Meglos begins, he’s under repair. That tale ends with a call from Gallifrey, which is where the Doctor and Romana are heading when they find themselves catapulted into E-Space in Full Circle. Adric then sneaks aboard the TARDIS, where we find him during State of Decay, and an attempt to return the young stowaway home at the end of that tale leads to the events of Warrior’s Gate, trapped in the void. When The Keeper of Trakenshows up in the Console Room, Romana has only just departed, and that story ends with Nyssa looking for her father, which she’ll contact the Doctor about in Logopolis.

The next one is obvious, with the Fourth Doctor taking a tumble at the end of that story, and those events picking up in Castrovalva. Four to Doomsday opens with the Doctor trying to get Tegan back home, and this story starts off with a discussion of Nyssa’s collapse at the end of the previous one, a device which will write her out of the next four episodes almost completely. Doctor Who hasn’t felt this much like a continuing adventure serial since the early days of Season One, when every story would feature a similar linking device from one tale to the next. I don’t think I mind it - it builds in a nice sense of continuity - but it does mean that all these adventures take place over a fairly short space of time. There’s one or two points of that narrative I’ve just outlined in which youcan find a bit of wiggle room, I think, but it’s tight.

But anyway! We’re on to Kinda, one of the stories that’s generally considered to be something of a ‘classic’, and another one of those ones that I’m not sure I completely understand. I’ve seen it before at one time or another, and I remember enjoying it but not being entirely sure about the nature of the Mara creature. I’m not one who really goes in for ‘fan fiction’, but the one time I did write a story for a friend’s run of fan fics, I chose to write one about the Mara, setting it in a jungle (because, well, that’s where this is set), and with a dome full of research scientists (um…), and a big snake turning up that could eat people. Because, frankly, I liked the image of a giant snake lurching out of the darkness and gobbling up one of the characters. So there. I also included a crystal that the Mara was trapped in (because I think that’s a plot point in Snakedance) and a cave in which the walls are covered with mirrors (because mirrors are the key to defeating the creature in this story). I love the idea of the Mara… but I don’t completely understand it. Here’s hoping that I’ll work it out on this viewing!

We’re certainly off to a good start. The writing out of Nyssa is a little clumsy to begin with, but once she’s out of the way, it leaves us with room for the Doctor to breathe a little, accompanied by only two of his companions. It’s not long before Tegan is taken out of action, too, and we’re left with the Doctor and Adric getting some quality time together. Aside from a brief period in yesterday’s episode (which was under considerable pressure), this pair haven’t had a great deal of time to spend together since the regeneration. It’s nice to see them given the chance to bond, and in such a nice environment, too. The jungle set for this story is really rather lovely, and it’s another thing that feels like a throwback to the 1960s - the Doctor and his companion being given a chance to explore their strange new surroundings.

I’m also absolutely loving the somewhat surreal edge that we’re being given in this episode, with Tegan trapped inside the dreamscape. There’s something about these scenes which puts me in mind of a 1980s music video (I think the make up and almost ‘new romantic’ feel to parts of the sequence help with that), and it’s really great to see the programme going off in this direction once again. The last time that I can really remember the show doing anything quite this triply is right back in The Krotons, when the Doctor and his companions were subjected to all the mind scans, so it’s about time we had more of it!

While I’m at it, I should update my thoughts on the way that Peter Davison is growing in to the part. Once again, we’re seeing him settle in a lot more here than he has done over the last few episodes, and his performance is starting to feel much closer to the one I think of when picturing this incarnation of the Doctor. What struck me most in today’s episode is the fact that he’s almost more like the Tenth Doctor than the Fifth in places - the moment when he describes the one-man travel machine as being ‘obviously an armoured suit of some kind’ is the one that sticks in the mind most clearly. I compared his anger in yesterday’s episode to the character we see in Time Crash, and I think that this is the closest we’ve come to seeing where the Tenth Doctor gets it from. When he tells his earlier incarnation how much he loved him… I think he meant he’d been watching Kinda!

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

Day 589: Four to Doomsday, Episode Four

Dear diary,

Four to Doomsday has never had a particularly strong reputation amongDoctor Who stories, and often people’s criticism of it seems to stem from this episode. In particular, it’s the whole sequence of the Doctor having to perform a spacewalk to reach the TARDIS, and using his cricket ball to propel himself further. I’m not sure what the problem is, though, because I really enjoyed this bit of the story! It was certainly staged a lot better than I was expecting it to be (for a start, the Doctor’s coat actually hangs better here - there’s none of that Castrovalva style, Zero Room nonsense here), and I just know that watching this as a kid I would have absolutely loved this whole segment.

In fact, I think that’s fair to say of this story as a whole - it’s damn near perfect for the intended audience. As a ten-, eleven-, or twelve- year old, I think that this would have appealed to me perfectly. It’s got everything I could want: impressive, large-scale space ship sets, frog creatures, killer cliffhangers, androids, the space-walk scene, Tegan managing to move the TARDIS outside the ship (just)… it’s a story that’s very sure about the audience it’s pitching to, and it pulls it all off with a real flair.

Something else that’s really been appealing to me through this story is the way that Adric gets so easily swayed by Monarch’s argument, and tries to convince everyone else to see things from that point of view. It was a similar situation that got him in to trouble during State of Decay, and it’s nice to see such a thing being continued in his character here and now. People often describe the Fifth Doctor as travelling with a group of children, and while that’s certainly true to some extent (I believe Tegan must be the oldest of the companions, and even she’s fairly young), it’s in story lines like this that we can really see Adric’s youth being used to its full advantage.

It also means that we get to see the Doctor round on him somewhat, and even call him a ‘young idiot’. Davison still isn’t completely sure on the way he wants to play this part, yet, but we’re certainly seeing him figure it out more and more as these episodes go by. If anything, this is probably closer to the performance that he’s giving at the start of Time Crash, when asked to be annoyed at the presence of another Doctor in his TARDIS. It’s fun to watch, and it might actually be my favourite part of his performance so far.

Sadly, though, there’s a number of things in this final episode which really just don’t work for me. Chief among them is the fact that Monarch has spent the last few episodes determined to get his hand on the TARDIS, and yet when he’s stood just a few feet from its open (!) doors, he just continues to mill around, waiting for someone to stop him. Things have slightly fallen apart for me at the end here, but certainly I think Four to Doomsday is better than its reputation would suggest. And with the collapse of Nyssa in the closing moments, we’re about to head on to a story which has a reputation all of its own, and one quite different to this story…

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

Day 588: Four to Doomsday, Episode Three

Dear diary,

I’ve often said - indeed, I think I’ve mentioned it before in The 50 Year Diary - that my favourite Doctor Who story ever is the Eighth Doctor’s final comic story, The Flood. It’s always been the one Cyberman tale which just works for me. The one in which the entire idea of their species just feels most clear, and I think it’s the most effective use of them that we’ve ever seen. I won’t go into detail on the specifics of that story (although I will implore you to pick up a copy if you’ve never read it), but the gist is that the Cybermen are poisoning the rain with a drug which heightens people’s emotions. If something’s funny, you’ll laugh until you drop. If something’s a little sad, you’ll cry until you’ve no more tears. They then proceed to use this to show how awful emotions are, and thus how becoming a Cyberman isn’t something terrifying and scary, but rather something wonderful - a salvation from emotions.

I’m somewhat surprised, then, to see that Monarch is using a similar argument to this - and others presented in The Flood about humans being weak with disease and war and famine - to justify the way that he operates here. He talks of chicken pox, and heart disease, and my personal favourite, the description of internal and external organs as being ‘the greatest tyranny in the universe’. Lovely stuff.

While I’m at it, I should probably take this opportunity to praise Stratford Johns’ performance in this story, too. As we move further in to the 1980s, the programme will see a lot more of John Nathan-Turner’s insistence on casting ‘big names’ partly for the publicity that they’d bring to the show, rather than what they could bring to the role. Often in this cases, it’s theless successful attempts of bringing people in that are talked about, but it’s important to remember that he did manage casting coups such as this one, and I’m really loving every moment of Johns’ time on screen. Certainly, you could never be bored by him!

I’m also enjoying Peter Davison’s performance in this story, too, but for entirely different reasons. As I said yesterday, this being his first story recorded, you can see him trying to figure out exactly what he wants to do with this part over the next few years. Instances of the Sonic being waved around like a Harry Potter wand are at their peak in this episode (and it still doesn’t look right to see him using the tool at all), and there’s a few moments in the dialogue which are either not suited to the Doctor that Davison will ultimately evolve in to, or that he’s just not comfortable saying yet. I have a feeling that the line ‘the devils!’ probably falls into the former category, while ‘of course! That’s it! He’s after the silicon!’ is firmly in the latter.

Still, it’s entertaining to watch him feel his way around the part in this early stage, and although it may seem as though I’m complaining, I’m really not. There’s something quite charming about all of this, and it’s nice to see a version of the Fifth Doctor who is slightly different to the way I usually think of him.

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

Day 587: Four to Doomsday, Episode Two

Dear diary,

I think the thing that’s impressing me the most about Four to Doomsday has to be the sets. They’re stunning! For starters, they’re a nice design in an of themselves, but then they’re also massive. There was a sense of this in yesterday’s episode, too, right from the moment that the TARDIS arrives in the laboratory. There’s just a real sense of scale to the area, with the camera pulling back at times so that we can really take this all in. There’s stairs, and a sense of the ship going on far beyond what we can see before us. Even when we go into corridors (the same corridor sets do get reused as different locations here, but there’s a few of them), they feel somewhat more special than the ones we’re used to seeing. I praised the corridors on location in The Sun Makers because you could see them going on for miles - here you don’t need to see that, because you simply get the impression that they do.

I think my favourite set of all has to be the ‘greenhouse’ one that you see today - lots of trees and other assorted plants poking out and again really feeling massive. I had to check if this story had been given one of the larger studios in Television Centre, because I’m not used to seeing sets looking quite so large. Often, you’ll get a set which is impressive (the throne room in State of Decay, for example, or the Decider’s chamber from Full Circle), but then several smaller sets to help free up the space they need. Here, though, every set seems to be on a grand scale, and it’s absolutely fascinating me!

Such impressive scenery isn’t quite enough to stop me from noticing that Peter Davison hasn’t quite figured out how he wants to play this role yet, however. That’s not necessarily a criticism, by all accounts he was basically put into his costume and pointed towards the studio, but it does make things feel ever-so-slightly off kilter here. It’s perhaps at the most unusual when he’s asked to use the Sonic Screwdriver. I’m so used to the idea of the 1980s Doctors not using this device (we’re only a few stories away from its destruction), that it simply feels wrong to see him waving it around like a wand here to take out the CCTV cameras that insist on following them around. I’m keen to see how long it takes for Davison to settle in to the role from here, so that’s likely to be the think I’ll be keeping an eye on across this first season, at least.

Because the Doctor still isn’t quite 100%, it means that he’s still relying very heavily on his companions, and the script uses this to a great advantage. I spoke yesterday of the way the Doctor tries to keep all of the ‘kids’ entertained, letting Nyssa explore the technical equipment while taking Tegan to meet a new alien species. Here’s he finally finds a use for Adric, too, asking for his assistance when it comes to mathematics. He’s not entirely dependant on them, though, and I rather love that Tegan’s knowledge of ancient history isn’t as great as all the other talents she’s suddenly acquired throughout the story!

The cliffhangers in this story deserve a mention too, while I’m at it. The one yesterday, in which the two drawings Tegan had made earlier in the episode have come to life and are revealed to be the frog creatures we’d met earlier in the episode, was a great one: perfectly Doctor Who with a sense of being somewhat bizarre and whimsical. Today’s is also very well done, as Bigon opens his chest to reveal his android interior. When he lifts up his face, it’s perhaps not quite as effective as they’d like it to be, but it’s a nice twist on the 1970s way of showing off androids.

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

Day 586: Four to Doomsday, Episode One

Dear diary,

We’re at a proper milestone, with this episode. I’ve already had five days since Tom Baker fell from the satellite dish and relinquished the role of the Doctor, but because Season Nineteen was filmed wildly out of order, this is the first episode of Doctor Who since 1974 to be made without Tom Baker involved. It’s hard, looking back on it from thirty-something years later, to really appreciate how much of an impact that must have been at the time. The mid-to-late 1970s were often seen as the ‘golden age’ of the programme, and certainly viewing figures have at various times lately been higher than ever… but I fear that it was starting to get a little stale. Season Eighteen managed to breathe a bit of new life in to the programme, but now we’ve got an entire cast made up of people who haven’t been here longer than about a year. This is where the 1980s begin.

And it’s apparent right from the off that things are slightly different here. Whereas Tom Baker would swan on to a set and simply own everything in there, Peter Davison commands an entirely different presence. He’s the youngest Doctor that we’d had up to this point (by quite some margin), and it shows. There’s something entirely wonderful about the way he reacts to all the various technological equipment on the space ship - he’s much more an excited youngster than we’ve seen before. There’s one particular shot (you’ll know it if you watch the episode) where he looks so thrilled to be exploring this location that he could burst - and you can’t help but smile along with him.

You also can’t help but feel that he’s slightly glad to be out of the TARDIS for a few minutes and away from the chorus of companions he’s currently got around him. In the same way that State of Decay felt like a mum and dad looking after the youngest son, the Fifth Doctor here seems to be trying his hardest to keep up with all his ‘kids’, and making sure that none of them feel left out. I love that he takes the time to show Nyssa the machinery, knowing that it would be of interest to her, and that he takes Tegan with him to meet the masters of this place. Poor Adric has sort of slipped out of being the cute kid now, though, and been recast as the sulky teenager, almost throwing a strop when he’s told to stay behind with Nyssa.

It’s nice to see the Doctor and Tegan getting a chance to bond. She’s had a mad few hours, really: preparing for the first day at a new job, a car breakdown, the murder of her aunt, and alien world, a radio telescope, another alien world, a man changing his face and personality right in front of her… Yikes! People complain that she can be a bit gobby - I think we’re lucky that she hasn’t had a breakdown yet! I also love that the story opens with the Doctor trying to get her back to her rightful place and time. It feels like the right kind of acknowledgement of where she’s come from, and the fact that unlike Adric, she hasn’t chosen to join in with this adventure.

Good job that she’s the one he picks to come along, mind, because she proves to have all the talents they could possibly need for this one! She just happens to be a fantastic artist (and very quick, too!), drawing up images of modern fashion trends, and then she just happens to speak the right aboriginal dialogue to communicate with the people on this ship! Adric tells her she needs to study maths and get a better job - but with talents like hers, I’d imagine she could walk into a job with relative ease!

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

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

Day 584: Castrovalva, Episode Three

Dear diary,

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

Day 582: Castrovalva, Episode One

Dear diary,