When Tim Treloar and Katy Manning return as the Third Doctor and Jo Grant in The Third Doctor Adventures: Volume Five, they’ll be joining forces with three other iconic characters from 1970s Doctor Who.

In this new audio box set from Big Finish Productions made in association with BBC Studios, several friends of the Third Doctor will be returning for more Doctor Who adventures in this iconic science-fiction franchise.

Jon Culshaw takes on the role of UNIT commanding officer Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, a character appearing under licence from the Haisman Literary Estate.

After an extensive casting process, senior producer David Richardson and executive producer Nick Briggs finally remembered a conversation they’d had with Jon, when he told them the thing he’d most like to do for Big Finish would be to play the Brigadier.

Nicholas Briggs said:

"After checking his rendition of the character in the BBC Audiobook of The Five Doctors, we just gave him the job! It was a very tricky thing casting someone to do justice to Nicholas Courtney’s brilliant, original performance. Jon has done this with honour and love for what the splendid Mr Courtney did all those years ago."

Returning alongside the Brigadier is Liz Shaw, the first companion of the Third Doctor. She will be portrayed by Daisy Ashford, the daughter of the original Liz Shaw actress, Caroline John (who played the role on TV and returned to the role for several Companion Chronicles at Big Finish).

Plus, returning to play Sergeant Benton is John Levene. John first played the part of Benton (who was then a corporal) in the Second Doctor TV adventure The Invasion. He returned to become a regular with Third Doctor Jon Pertwee (also appearing with later with Tom Baker), and has previously reprised Benton twice for Big Finish.

Tim Treloar, who has portrayed the Third Doctor on audio since 2015, has been at the forefront of a new era of 70s audio Who treats.

David Richardson, Producer of The Third Doctor Adventures, said:

“It’s been so rewarding to see how Doctor Who fans have embraced these new Third Doctor stories. We knew Tim’s performance (and it is a performance, not a mere impersonation) as the Third Doctor was extraordinary – and it’s clear that listeners feel the same way too."
 

The two adventures in The Third Doctor Adventures: Volume Five will require the Third Doctor, all his companions AND the full might of UNIT to save planet Earth.

Primord by John Dorney 

The Scream of Ghosts by Guy Adams

The Primords (from the Doctor Who TV story Inferno) interrupt the Doctor and Liz Shaw’s reunion, and become one of the fiercest tests of UNIT and the Doctor to date. And in the second, 'ghostly' adventure, the population of a village are apparently being spirited away in the oddest of manners.

Katy Manning (who plays Jo Grant) told us during recording what it was like to bring back these beloved characters:

“It was a joy working with Jon Culshaw, and working with Tim has been so much fun, watching him become the Doctor more and more. But Jon came in and in an instant (and I won’t tell him how!) caught the Brigadier immediately!”

Daisy Ashford says of coming to the Big Finish fold to play Liz Shaw:

“I’m really excited and honoured to have been asked to play Liz, and to step into my Mum’s brilliant shoes!”

Doctor Who: The Third Doctor Adventures Volume Five will be released in May 2019.

Pricing:
Pre-order: £25 (CD box set) / £20 (Download) from www.bigfinish.com

Big Finish online: 

Website: www.bigfinsih.com
Twitter: @BigFinish
Facebook: Facebook.com/TheBigFinish
Instagram: @BigFinishProd

[Source: Big Finish]

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

Day 623: Terminus, Episode Four

Dear diary,

I think this might me one of those unfortunate instances, as with Time-Flight, where there’s a really good story to be told here, using all of the elements we’re given on screen, but what we’ve actually got has slightly come off the rails and missed it. What I mean is that there’s a great departure story for Nyssa in Terminus… but it’s only in the last three minutes when she’s actually making her goodbyes.

This fourth episode is, in many ways, all Nyssa’s. She’s spent a few episodes infected by a virus, and then she’s cured of it, and decides that her purpose in life should be to stay here and help refine the process. Her split-second decision at the end to leave her life in the TARDIS behind is rather touching, but it feels as though it’s all come somewhat out of nowhere. I think it’s largely down to the fact that Nyssa’s interest and skills in science haven’t really been forefront in recent stories, so to suddenly have her so up-to-speed with things again here just doesn’t feel quite right.

It’s also the case that I don’t really feel like I’ve seen much of her in this story. The fact that she’s ill and gets to see the conditions that the Lazars are being kept in is vital to her decision to stay behind at the end… but it’s all felt like a side story to the Doctor’s plot about the birth of the universe. In fairness, this episode does do a rather good job, I think, of intertwining the two strands of the story: but it’s too little too late for me, and I have to admit that I zoned out a little bit today, so I think I’ve possibly missed some things…

As for Nyssa herself… I’m sorry to say that I’m not really going to miss her all that much. That’s nothing against Sarah Sutton, who’s turned in a good performance fairly consistently, but more that the character never seemed to chime with me. Throughout Season Nineteen, she was my least favourite member of the TARDIS crew (and I thought the team worked better throughout Kinda, without Nyssa there), and Season Twenty seems to have robbed her of any particularly interesting character traits, and reduced her to your stereotypical screaming-and-pointing assistant. Over the years, I think I’ve heard Peter Davison say that he felt Nyssa should have carried on while Tegan should have left the series, but I’m afraid I’d disagree - I’m much more looking forward to having Tegan around for a good while yet.

The same can be said of Turlough. I think I’m liking him so far - he’s another character with a great line in sarcasm, and that’s always a winner for me - but it’s difficult to judge from this story. He’s had to spend far too much time scrawling around in maintenance ducts, and when he does manage to break away and into the rest of the set, he’s reduced to talking with his pet crystal! I can’t wait to get the Black Guardian storyline out of the way in the next story, so that we can enjoy Turlough on his own merits.

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

Day 621: Terminus, Episode Two

Dear diary,

The last time Steve Gallagher wrote a script for Doctor Who, it was Warrior’s Gate… and I didn’t understand it very well. Terminus is a far more straightforward serial (though there’s still enough here to keep me guessing), but it’s not the writing that I actually want to focus on today - it’s the sets and the direction. Something I praised in Warrior’s Gate was the use of different levels on the sets of the spaceship to make it feel far less studio-bound than we were used to. The same effect is being applied here, too, to an even greater extent… even though it’s an entirely different director. I know, this sounds like a ramble of various different thoughts, but in my notes, I compared this story to Warrior’s Gate because of the set design… and only found out afterwards that this was also a Gallagher script. It’s strange, really, how little coincidences like this crop up from time to time in the programme.

I said yesterday that the sets for this story were a little drab - lots of grey and not much to them. In this episode - perhaps because we’ve spread out into Terminus itself - I’ve completely ‘got’ them, and I can’t help but really like them. You first get a sense of the size in the cliffhanger reprise, when you’ve got the Doctor stood up on one platform, looking down at a dozen or so extras milling around, and then you cut to Tegan and Turlough slipping down into the ventilation shafts beneath the floor: you really get a sense of this ship being a real location. It’s then carried on into the rest of the sets, and Mary Ridge’s direction starts to really make the most of these different levels.

There’s also a lovely shot towards the end of the episode, where we pan up from a supporting artist working at some sci-fi machinery, to see the Doctor and Kari walking along one of the gantries. The shot then pans back down again to the extra once more, while in the corner of the shot, we can still see Peter Davison and Liza Goddard exploring. It’s probably the most inventive use of the sets we’ve had since Four to Doomsday, and it’s a shame that Ridge never had another opportunity to work on the programme (reading an old Doctor Who Magazine interview with her, I don’t think she had the best of experiences when making Terminus, so it’s a real credit to her that it looks as polished as it does!

It’s also been a while since I’ve had one of my moans that the whole series should have been shot on film. Tegan and Turlough exploring the ventilation shafts looks lovely in every singe shot, and the detailing of the set, coupled with the lighting and use of smoke make these look like some of the nicest parts of the story - perhaps for the best, because they’ve spent the whole episode trapped in them!

I also have to mention perhaps the most famous moment of the story - Nyssa dropping her skirt for seemingly no reason at all. A quick look online reveals that the original plan was for her to drop her brooch, leaving a clue to the Doctor that she had been this way. The fact that she’s suddenly started changing her costume every single story, though, means that she no longer has a brooch to drop, and elects to use the only bit of the costume that was removable… the skirt! Now… I’m not particularly versed in the ways that these things work, and maybe they just wanted to show Nyssa stripping off before she leaves the series for good (in one quote I’ve seen today, Sarah Sutton calls it a ‘parting gift to the fans’!), but surely if the script required her to drop a brooch… they could have made sure she wore one for this story? She needn’t go back to her entire old costume just for the sake of that one moment, but it seems like harder work to change the script to accommodate the dress, than to change the costume to suit the script! Bizarre! 

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

Day 620: Terminus, Episode One

Dear diary,

Of the three tales in the ‘Black Guardian Trilogy’, Terminus is the one I know the least about. I’ve seen it (or, at least, some of it) before, but my memories really boiled down to a single image - that of the TARDIS wall being replaced by a large image of a skull. Other than that, I know some basic facts about the story - it’s Nyssa’s last, features a large dog, and is based around a leprocy colony - but that’s it. I always love going into tales like this one, because I’m completely unbiased from either a previous viewing, or the way I think other people may feel about the story - I simply have no idea!

First impressions… have we ever had a more 1980s story than this one? To start with, Nyssa’s hair is looking particularly ‘on trend’ for the period, and don’t even get me started on Liza Goddard’s barnet! The space suits our two raiders have been stuck in are particular dated now, too. Very much a 1980s rendition of 1960s ‘futurism’ - Dan Dare as seen through the prism of 1983. It’s not necessarily a bad thing - but it certainly does make this story scream out at you more than any others this season, and I dare say more than any other this decade. It almost needs that, though, because the sets for the story are particularly drab, decked out largely in gun-metal grey. Once again, that’s not a complaint, because it suits the story perfectly, but having such outrageously 1980s fashions stuck in there gives the piece at least a little jazz!

And yet, despite being so ‘of the era’, this is another tale which harkens back to the early days of the programme. Nyssa and the Doctor don’t get to leave the TARDIS until something like ten minutes in, and we don’t have any characters other than the regulars until fourteen minutes in. We’re back into the old model of the TARDIS crew exploring the strange new location for a while before encountering danger. One of the ‘strange new locations’ on show is the TARDIS itself - with Turlough lost in its rabbit warren of corridors. I think it’s fair to say that they’ve never looked quite as good as they do in the opening shots here: it’s simply the regular set flats arranged in a different way, but they seem to better give the impression of the corridors stretching out into the distance. I’ve had the CGI effects on again for this episode, which means that the Doctor and Tegan staring into the problems the ship is encountering makes it look larger again (though I did check the original version for comparison - the very close up pixellation effect doesn’t work as well for me, but mostly because it makes it look like Tegan is stood just a few inches from the trouble when she notices it!

I’m somewhat confused about Turlough’s purpose again here. At the end of Mawdryn Undead, he’s relieved to see that the Black Guardian’s crystal is cracked and I took that to mean that he thought he was free of the man’s influence. Obviously, I knew he wasn’t, but I was expecting him to simply get on with his new life in the TARDIS for a while before the Guardian re-emerged to him. Instead, we open this story with the boy in mid-conversation with his evil paymaster, and it doesn’t feel quite right. It’s as though we’ve missed an episode between this one and the last, in which he finds that he can never escape (waking or sleeping, etc etc)… 

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

Day 619: Mawdryn Undead, Episode Four

Dear diary,

There’s something I’m not quite getting about Mawdry Undead. The Doctor’s biggest objection to giving up his remaining regenerations to end the suffering of the creatures on this ship seems to be not that he’d then have no more lives to live, but that ‘it would be the end of [him] as a Time Lord’. What I don’t understand is… why? Because he’d be unable to regenerate any more? Does that mean that Matt Smith’s Doctor wasn’t a Time Lord, considering that he wasn’t supposed to regenerate any more? I sort of kidded myself into believing that it was because he’d be helping people who stole Time Lord technology, but that’s not what the dialogue here seems to confirm. Still, it’s not that much of a sticking point for me (I can always put it down to the Doctor being over-dramatic), because I really love the idea that these people stole regeneration technology from the Time Lords, and their punishment for doing so is to live on forever, never dying. It dovetails neatly with the way seekers of immortality are treated in The Five Doctors, so if we believe that Rassilon was the man who imposed the ’13 lives’ limit, then it fits very nicely. As in Shada, it’s a nice addition to Time Lord mythology (and notice how much better this is for the species, compared to actually visiting them and getting bored to tears during Arc of Infinity…)

On the whole, Mawdryn Undead has turned out to be a massive surprise for me. I’ve always thought of it as being one of those stories that just happened to exist, much in the way that something like The Savages does. No one really dislikes it, but then no one really cares all that much for it, either. The only thing I’ve ever known it to be notable for is the return of the Brigadier after a long leave of absence. Looking at the Doctor Who Magazine poll from a few months back, this story charted at number 117 - almost smack-bang in the middle of all results. I’m actually really surprised, though, because it’s been great! I almost did a real-life, cartoon-style double take watching the special features and realising that this was written by Peter Grimwade: the man who washed away so much potential (and good sense, if we’re honest) with Time-Flight last season. For comparison’s sake, that story ranked 237 out of 241… so at least we all agree that this is a massive step up!

The whole script dovetails nicely, and this last episode has been filled with little moments that just left me sitting there grinning from ear to ear. Tiny little things, that shouldn’t even register suddenly feel like everything snapping in to place. For example, I love that the school Doctor is waiting at the top of the hill able to find the amnesiac Brigadier in 1977… because the Brig himself had left a message for the man to be there three episodes earlier, when they thought that the burnt man in the TARDIS may need help! As I say, it’s a tiny, insignificant thing, but it makes it feel as though some real thought has gone into this (it also makes the Brig’s outburst about the man earlier in the story all the more affecting - to know that this doctor didn’t only diagnose a breakdown, but was the one who found the Brig makes it all the deeper).

What made me smile, and laugh, the most though was Tegan’s reaction to events - and more notably, the way it was used to show how her relationship with the Doctor currently stands. In episode three, the Doctor explains to the Brigadier why having two versions of himself on the spaceship at the same time is a bad thing:

DOCTOR
You'd exist twice over. And if the two of you met, you'd short out the time differential. Don't you see? The Blinovitch limitation effect? Oh dear. As Tegan would say, zap!

This is then turned back on itself in this episode, after the two Brigs have met, and The Doctor tries to explain to our former air hostess exactly what’s just happened…

DOCTOR
The two Brigadiers just shorted out the time differential.

TEGAN
You mean zap?

DOCTOR
Yes, that's right. Zap.

Again - it’s tiny! The kind of fun little detail that you’d usually just gloss over in a script, and yet here it absolutely sings, and the look the Doctor gives Tegan as he replies is absolutely perfect.

Throughout this whole story, there’s really been one thought that just keeps on recurring… Nicholas Courtney really is fantastic, isn’t he? I commented a couple of days ago that his relationship with the new Doctor was very in keeping of my memories with the previous incarnations, but the same is true for the Brig as a character, too. It is, of course, partly down to the writing (another plus for Grimwade, there), but it’s also down to this man who simply loves and embodies the part more than any other actor and character in Doctor Who’s long history. I’ve absolutely loved having the Brigadier back, and I think Mawdryn Undead may well become my ‘go-to’ story when I want to watch Nick Courtney at his absolute finest.

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

Day 618: Mawdryn Undead, Episode Three

Dear diary,

I’m really enjoying the way the Doctor and the Brigadier are interacting in this story. I’ve been trying all day to think of the right way to put it, and it stuck me about a half an hour ago - they’re interacting like the Doctor and the Brigadier! Yeah, yeah, I know that sounds like I’m just being facetious, but what I mean is that the relationship they share here is in many ways the same that Patrick Troughton’s Doctor had with the Brig, or Jon Pertwee’s, or Tom Baker’s. It’s not identical to any of those earlier versions, but it fits right in with my memories of them. Way, way back, during Season Seven when the Third Doctor and the Brigadier weren’t often getting along, I mentioned that I’d always seen the pair as being best friends because that’s how they’re portrayed in the 1980s stories. I think this is specifically the tale that I was thinking of - it’s the way that Davison’s Doctor grins when he first sets out to follow the man back down to the school, and the way that the Brigadier has a dry remark to counter everything the Doctor says, before getting on with the task in hand because he trust’s the Doctor’s judgement, no matter what face he’s wearing.

I’ve not yet mentioned the Black Guardian in this story, who’ll be popping up over the next few tales, too, forming what fan’s tend to call the ‘Black Guardian Trilogy’ (it’s imaginatively titled). It always struck me as an odd return for the character, several years after he was last a threat, and operating in such an odd way. In The Armageddon Factor, he was trying to gain control of the Key to Time because he could use it to plunge the universe into chaos. Here, he’s using an alien in an English school to try and simply kill the Doctor. After appearing to be such an immensely powerful being in Season Sixteen (and slightly beyond - even though he often over-rode it, the Doctor had to install the Randomiser in the TARDIS to make sure he could escape the Guardian’s clutches), this all felt a bit… low key.

I can see now just how like The Trickster from The Sarah Jane Adventures he is. At the time I remember thinking that the Trickster felt familiar, and it’s strange to see this serial now when I’m so much more familiar with the spin-off. For some reason, though, I accept this kind of meddling from the Trickster and accept that he’s a supremely powerful being, whereas in the case of the Black Guardian, I simply don’t buy it. Maybe it’s because he insists on wearing that bird on his head?

He does at least escape his green vortex in this episode - but only because I’ve turned on the CGI effects. To be honest, I wasn’t sure what effects they’d actually replace (it’s hardly a story that relies on lots of laser beams, exploding castles, or giant snakes), so I thought I’d give it a go. It makes the Guardian’s appearances suitably more creepy - especially when he takes the place of a bust on Mawdryn’s ship - and it gives us a really rather nice effect as the Teleport capsule arrives back in place, too. I think I’ll leave them on for the next episode, just to see if they do anything with the two-Brigadier’s meeting moment.

While I’m at it - I’ve loved the couple of scenes in today’s episode of the Brig just missing himself in the ship’s corridors - and I’m hoping we get one or two more before they come face-to-face!

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

Day 617: Mawdryn Undead, Episode Two

Dear diary,

This episode really is an unashamed continuity fest. And you know what? As much as we might look back at 1980s Doctor Who and complain that it gets far too entrenched in continuity, on this first occasion it’s absolutely glorious. This really feels like it’s supposed to be a celebration of the programme’s first twenty years, and the montage of old clips used to represent the Brigadier’s memories coming back is absolutely perfect. The few brief shots we got of the earlier Doctors confronting Cybermen in Earthshock was exciting, but this is something completely different.

I can’t quite relate to children of the time watching that scene, because for them they’d likely never seen any of these moments, only read about them or heard about them from older fans, but I can get at least a sense of how it must have felt, because I’m excited by it! All these moments of Doctor Who gone by - there’s clips in there on The Invasion, which I saw just over a year ago… but it feels like a lifetime! The programme has been through so much since then. I’m even feeling nostalgic about the Pertwee years - and that’s not something I could have predicted way back when! If anything makes the montage extra special; above and beyond the way the Brigadier’s face fades into a shot of his earlier self, or the way we get to see glimpses of Zygons, and Yeti, and the original Omega, it’s the way that the montage comes full circle, and ends with a shot of the Brig meeting this latest incarnation of our hero, just a few scenes earlier. Somehow, it makes him feel even more like the Doctor.

That montage isn’t the only ‘kiss to the past’ in this episode, either. The Doctor himself mentions the Yeti, and all of his Pertwee era companions. We get an update on where Benton is these days (somehow, selling used cars seems both so right, and also so wrong for him - it couldn’t be better), and Nyssa goes to pains to remind us that they used the Zero Room during the Doctor’s last regeneration. As I say, it’s an unashamed continuity fest, and I don’t even care, because it’s wonderful to see. I’d imagine that such things will feel less special when - say - we reach stories like Attack of the Cybermen which are entirely built upon the idea of continuity, but for now, I couldn’t be happier.

I think it also helps that this is a rather good episode in itself. There’s something wonderful (and very in-keeping with the rules of the programme during the Steven Moffat years), about the Doctor trying to find out where his companions have ended up, with the Brigadier starting to remember Tegan… who we see meeting a younger Brig, intercut with these moments. It feels like an exciting way of playing with time in the programme, and it’s not something we’ve seen done very much at this stage. I also love that the two Brigadiers are identifiable by the state of his moustache!

Another great idea in this episode is Nyssa and Tegan believing that the Doctor has regenerated… but it doesn’t quite work as well as it should. It’s great when they enter the teleport capsule expecting to find the Doctor, and mistake the only occupant as being him… but even though he’s badly burnt, he’s clearly not the Doctor, even before they think he’s regenerated. They could have at least cast someone with similar hair to Peter Davison, so that they’d have more of an excuse for getting it wrong!

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

Day 616: Mawdryn Undead, Episode One

Dear diary,

It’s always felt really odd that the Brigadier comes back in the middle of the Fifth Doctor’s tenure, having been absent from the programme since Terror of the Zygons a full seven-and-a-ha;f years earlier. Doctor Who is a very different beast now to the one the Brig left, and he’s a very different man. For a start… he’s a teacher! Oh, I know, the story was originally planned to be bringing back William Russell as Ian - a call back to the original TARDIS team in the programme’s twentieth anniversary year - but it’s never quite sat right with me that the Brigadier simply turns up here with no fanfare, and in such a different setting.

This is usually the point where I’d ask if people even really knew who he was at the time, and if this had an impact when the episode first appeared, but I’m largely getting the impression from comments on this era over the last month or so that yes, of course it would have had an impact! A slightly different question for a you all today, then: had the Brigadier become, by this point, the legendary character we think of him as now? Or was that partly fuelled by the fact that he pops up a few times in the 1980s?

I’ve also only thought today that the Brigadier’s love of vintage cars could well be inspired by the time he spent with the Third Doctor - I certainly don’t remember him having all that much of an interest in them back then, so I’m adding that to my own personal ‘head cannon’ from now on!

We’ve also got the introduction of Turlough to the TARDIS crew… in what must be one of the strangest introductions ever. He’s brought in as a schoolboy, and set up as a troublemaker right from the very start. But then there’s all these references to him not liking Earth, and wanting to go ‘home’ - but it’s not been explicitly stated yet that he’s an alien, and I think I’m right in saying that we don’t find out the truth about his background until his final story - towards the end of the next season! It’s very unusual way to bring a new character in to the programme. I do love that he’s been taken under the employ of the Black Guardian and forced to kill the Doctor, though. I’ve always felt that this little ‘arc’ plays out over too many episodes, and I vaguely recall things getting a bit silly by the end, but at this stage, with the boy holding a rock over the Doctor’s head, it’s something new and exciting.

There’s not really a great deal else that I want to say for this first episode - it’s quite an unusual start to a new story, with everything moving a bit slower than I’d expect. Having just come from a story in which Tegan had become possessed and started terrorising people by the time the first cliffhanger rolled around, this is positively leisurely. That said, I would like to call out Davison for praise again, because I really love the Doctor that he’s settled in to playing. The moment when he runs in to the TARDIS - straight past Turlough, who’s fiddling with the controls - and then takes a moment before looking up to really take in the boy has to be one of my favourite scenes ever. I hooted at that one for ages. It’s also very reminiscent of the way he encounters the Tenth Doctor in Time Crash (I know, I know, I bang on about that seven-minute scene over and over, but I’ve spent so long thinking that the Fifth Doctor was a bit out of character in it that I love seeing all the little moments which clearly influence it!).

 a

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

Day 340: The Three Doctors, Episode Four

Dear diary,

I've always rather liked the idea that various incarnations of the Doctor just don't see eye-to-eye, and end up bickering a lot. I once saw it described as being on a date with your attractive new partner, when your younger self from ten years ago shows up and manages to completely embarrass you. I think that's the perfect description for the relationship between the Second and Third Doctors - one takes themselves far more seriously than the other does!

It's crystallised here when Omega considers them both before taking the Third Doctor to one side to ask if he's sure that both incarnations are of the same intelligence. It's a great line and it had me laughing out loud - I really am more unfamiliar with the latter half of this story than I am with the first half. It means that I get to be surprised by just how well these two Doctors interact with each other. Once all the arguments and one-upmanship has finished, they actually make a rather good team.

As anniversary stories go, The Three Doctors is a bit of an oddity. We tend to class it as the Tenth Anniversary celebration, and it kickstarts the tradition of Doctors meeting up every ten years (a tradition that has held throughout the programme's life, although for the 40th anniversary not all the actors were playing the Doctor all the time), but it's not really a celebration of ten years, is it? For a start, it was broadcast almost a year too early, just after the programme's ninth anniversary, and the only real link to the past is the appearance of the two older Doctors - one of whom is in a sadly reduced role.

But there's several other elements that feel like they're missing here, too. There's not Captain Yates for example. Maybe he's on leave? He did have a bomb hit him almost square-on in the last story… It just seems strange that in this story we think of as celebrating the show, we're missing one of the key figures from this point of the legacy.

It does however start to set us up with a number of things that will be important in the future. The Doctors telepathically communicating with each other becomes a staple of their multi-Doctor team ups. Omega will return to do battle with the TIme Lords on the next big anniversary for the show. And perhaps most important of all… UNIT HQ has finally started to settle down! The laboratory seen in this story is the one that I most readily associate with the Third Doctor. It's the same one (or, at the very least, the same style) as the one we see again in Planet of the Spiders and Robot (and a single episode of Blue Peter…), and I have to confess that I'm surprised by how late into the UNIT era it's arrived. I think I'd always sort of assumed that this was the design of the UNIT lab, and that it was more-or-less constant throughout the early 1970s. I'm wondering if we'll see it again before Planet of the Spiders, and I'm hoping so - I'd hate to think that a set I've always considered so iconic only made three appearances!

I'm also slightly surprised by the break-up of the UNIT era. I've always known that the end of this story sees the Third Doctor given his freedom and allowed to travel out among the stars again, but I thought that with maybe one exemption, he'd been very much stuck on Earth before now. Having UNIT only feature at the top and tail of Season Nine has made it already feel like the Doctor has a fair degree of freedom, so there's less of an impact carried by this moment that I'd expected. What is rather lovely is the way that he insists on sticking around for a bit before taking off. Jo's worried that it means we'll be seeing the last of him with his 'family', but the Doctor decides that there's things to do before he can go gallivanting off to the stars. There really is a rather nice through-line from Spearhead From Space to now which sees the Doctor adapting to - and coming to terms with - his exile, and I think Jo is a huge part of that process. I'm glad that I can finally see what all the fuss is about with this pair, they really are made for each other, aren't they?

Oh! Ah! What's that strange feeling? It's almost as though I'm being picked up by a time scoop! Oh dear! Those silly Time Lords must have got something wrong! I seem to be heading for… 1967? Well this is really going to mess up the dating of the diary. And you thought the UNIT dating was bad!

 a

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

Day 339: The Three Doctors, Episode Three

Dear diary,

I'm never entirely sure whether Omega's realm is awesome or awful. On the one hand, I rather like the design of the bubbles which are present from the Gel Guard creatures to the archways in the set (and even for what appears to be Omega's 'scanner screen', a fact that has passed me by before), on the other hand… it does look rather a lot like a cheap BBC studio set, doesn't it?

I think the issue is in the sheer emptiness of the set. Between the bubble archways, everything is just painted black - from the floor to the walls - and it makes the whole thing look a little bit rubbish. Judging from the fight scene at the end of the episode, I think the black spaces are supposed to represent a complete void - they're left empty because Omega simply hasn't willed anything into being there. Sadly, it just doesn't work for me in that way, and it is a bit of a let down.

The same can't be said for Omega himself, though. I've always thought that it was a brilliant design, and it's the mask that really does it for me. There's something about the image, and I used to love a big full-page photograph of it in an old Doctor Who reference book back when I was new to fandom. It's such a striking design, and doesn't look too out of keeping with the style of Time Lord design that we're used to from the more recent series. One of these days, I might have to have a go at adding a few Gallifreyan symbols to the design just to see how it looks.

Stephen Thorne is giving his all in the performance of the man, too. I've always thought of his performance as being a bit over the top (and there are one or two moments where it does veer in this direction. I'm thinking specifically of the moment he catches the Doctors in the singularity chamber and enters with a highly dramatic 'WHAT!?!?!?'), but on the whole he's very good here. There's a lovely line when the Doctor has described him as a hero and he responds that he should have been a god. It's delivered brilliantly, and is actually quite menacing. It's a great example of treading that very fine line between a fantastic performance and a bit of a hammy one…

It's nice to see that the design of the other Time Lords in this story seems to be consistent, too. It works almost as a halfway house between the style seen in The War Games and the one that will be making an appearance from The Deadly Assassin onwards. It's little bits of continuity like this that I'm rather keen on - nothing over-the-top, but just enough to make everything feel fairly coherent.

And we get to see them summoning the First Doctor for orders! I mused yesterday that he seemed to be acting as a bit of a go-between for the Time Lords and his other selves, but had forgotten that we actually get to see this in progress. It's great to see him projected up on such a large screen, too, because it's the best he's looked all story. I have to confess that I can't really remember where the tale goes from here (save for the resolution involving Troughton's recorder), but I'm keen to see how they pull off the First Doctor being sent to get involved with the action - I'm assuming that he'll just be popping up on the TARDIS screen again?

 a

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

Day 338: The Three Doctors, Episode Two

Dear diary,

'I think the strain is a little too much for him,' Benton explains when the Brig has stormed off in a huff, refusing to believe that the Second Doctor could possibly have returned. It has to be said… this isn't the Brig's finest hour in the series. Right from the off he's being even more pompous and ridiculous than usual, refusing to take what the Doctor tells him at face value and simply becoming more and more exasperated. This now is very much the 'UNIT era' that I remember - and it's not one that I enjoy all that much.

When we had the character turning up in the 1960s, he was a pretty affable sort of chap. He got on well with the Doctor (after a few initial misgivings), but he was still decisive, able to get things done, and he'd take things at face value. For example, look at how quickly he accepts the Doctor's story about a time/space machine in The Web of Fear and compare that to his reactions here upon finally entering the ship for the first time. It doesn't help that even Benton is showing him up - in the last episode, he entered the ship, stated that the 'bigger on the inside' quip was pretty obvious and then announced that nothing to do with the Doctor would surprise him any more. The Brigadier takes almost the exact opposite approach here. When the Doctor tries to explain the situation, he snaps back 'I don't believe a word of it!'

It's a shame to see the character heading in this direction as I've really rather loved him up to now, and I was hoping that this story would be another four great episodes spent in his company. I will say that the shot of him first looking around the TARDIS is perhaps one of the most iconic he's ever had in the programme, and it's nice to finally see it here in context again.

Elsewhere, it's still Patrick Troughton who's stealing the show for me. In terms of his characterisation being a little off from the way he used to play it, I think he wavers in and out. There are a few moments that could have very much been lifted directly from his era of the programme without a great deal of trouble. I also need to hand out some praise to William Hartnell, who I've not seen in what feels like forever. He bowed out of the marathon way back in May for me, so it is good to see him again.

It's a shame in some ways that his last work for the programme came in such a diminished form, and I think that being confined to the TV screen means that he doesn't get as much attention as the other Doctors in the story, but there's still a few flashes of performance in there that are very much William Hartnell as he always was. I've often wondered how much of a performance he was able to give in this story, considering his ailing health at the time, but having watched the interview with him on the Tenth Planet DVD today I can see that he's acting just as much as he ever was. There's one particular moment today where he tells the Second Doctor to use his intelligence, and I can just picture him delivering the same line to Ian, or Steven, Vicki.

I have to wonder, though… are these earlier Doctors briefed for their involvement in the story? They both seemed to have a fairly good idea of what was going on when they arrived, and the First Doctor is almost acting as a go-between for the Doctor and the Time Lords. I'm a big fan of the idea that the Doctors don't remember their team-up adventures when brought together by the Time Lords (so the same would be true for the Five and the Two Doctors), so maybe the Time Lords are able to bring these two up to speed properly before sending them on their missions?

Another fan-theory that I tend to subscribe to is that when the Doctor regenerates, his past incarnation lives on in his head somewhere, occasionally chipping in with their own opinion. There seems to be some kind of evidence for this when the Second Doctor claims to have 'always had a great deal of respect for his advice,' in regards to his earlier self. What does everyone else think? Do the Doctors live on after their deaths?

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

Day 337: The Three Doctors, Episode One

Dear diary,

Do you remember, right back when I started Spearhead From Space, I told you that my over-riding memory of the story was tainted by the fact that I felt ill while watching it? A similar sensation hangs over The Three Doctors, but in a different way. I'd been holding off buying the DVD of this story for a while, because I was still pretty new to Doctor Who, and I wanted to have seen some other stories for the Doctors before I sat down to see them team up together (the same goes for The Five Doctors, although I can't recall when I first saw that one).

In the end, this story ended up on my birthday list for 2005. The return of the programme to television had kicked my fledgeling fandom up a few notches, and the time had finally come to experience this very special anniversary story. I was in my mid-teens by that point, so birthdays had gone from 'loads of presents' to 'here's your present', and because I was at college, the term had ended a while before the day itself. It meant that I'd picked this story to watch on my birthday, and I planned to really savour it.

I sat through Episodes One and Two, completely riveted by the whole thing, and then I had to stop. There was something else happening out in the real world, and it was far bigger than three actors teaming up to run around in a quarry and fight an anti-matter monster. It was the day of the London bombings, and the TV was quickly switched from Doctor Who to the news where it remained for the rest of the day. It's a strange event to look back on now, and I think in many ways it gets forgotten a lot more than other terror attacks from the last few years. It was (comparatively) small scale compared to the situation in New York four years earlier, but at the time it felt pretty big - it was bringing the spectre of this new age down onto our shores in a way that we'd not really experienced in a long time. I can't remember when I actually finished watching The Three Doctors - although I know I have seen all four episodes - but it certainly wasn't on that day.

It's not fair to say that it's ruined the story for me - indeed I seem to have quite fond memories of the tale itself - but I don't think that I've actually watched it again since that very first time. In contrast to The Five Doctors, which I've seen more times than I care to count, this one has been somewhat forgotten. It didn't help that, again, it was a part of the Pertwee era, and I've always been so sour to that period as a whole.

But we're off to a great start today! Even before all the business with the earlier Doctors turning up, the story is pretty good right from the off - the opening is quite slow for a season opener, but it worked well to draw me in, and I couldn't remember what happened to either Ollis or Dr. Tyler. I was even pretty captivated when the jellies arrived on the scene - I've never noticed the lights in their claws before! Let's be honest, they're far from being the best Doctor Who monster ever (Though they're still a league above Kronos…), but there really is something a bit appealing about them. It's perhaps telling that the action figure of one creature is out on a shelf in the flat, while even poor Jo from the same set is shut in a cupboard!

The real charm starts when Patrick Troughton shows up, though. I've been surprised by how much I'm enjoying the Pertwee years, but they're still coming out as fairly 'average' for me, and there's been something of a decline since Season Seven. Seeing Troughton arrive gives me an odd kind of nostalgic feeling that I wasn't really expecting. Right back when I started on the marathon, I commented that it was hard to form a real attachment to the older Doctors or companions when you can see any of the stories in whichever order you want, but here once again I can really feel the marathon format working. For me, it's only been a few months since I last shared a story with the great man, but it feels so nice to have him back again.

The question is… does he behave as the Second Doctor as I remember him? I've seen a lot of talk about the way that he plays the role in his return appearances to the series - perhaps the best summation I've seen is that from 1966 - 1969, he was playing 'the Doctor', while in theThree, Five, and Two Doctors he was playing 'the Second Doctor'. It may not sound like much, but there is a distinct difference, and I think I can see that in play here. When he tootles away on his recorder to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, I'm remembering the early version of the character, but it perhaps doesn't feel as natural as I remembered: here it's being used as a gimmick. I'm keen to monitor it as I go along and see how I feel about his performance by the end of the story…

 a

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

Day 336: The Time Monster, Episode Six

Dear diary,

Well… let's start with the positives, shall we? To begin with, the minotaur actually surprised me. I grudgingly hit the 'play' button today assuming that I'd have to endure a terrible-looking monster shuffling around in some bizarre maze with Jo. Realistically, I should be complaining that it's just Dave Prowse in a mask (and not a lot else!), but it really does work rather well. Indeed, the whole scene with the minotaur actually surprised me, including the Doctor playing bull fights with the creature - another thing that I'm not sure I should like but I think I rather do!

It set me off on the right foot, and I found myself getting drawn more and more into the story. It's somewhat uncomfortable to see that the Master has managed to worm his way into power so easily, but then it's a truly magical scene where he's found out for what he really is. Ingrid Pitt was a fairly late addition to this story, so I've not really had a lot of time to pay her much attention, either (and I resolved very early on not to draw attention to her very revealing costume!), but she really shines when she discovers that her husband is dead. There's something very believable about her lust for power, but the pain she feels when it comes at the cost of the king's life.

All of this just helped to convince me even more that I'd have loved to see a story that was entirely set around Atlantis and the dealings in the court here. Now, I know what I'm like, so I'm sure that if we'd had events here spread out over several episodes of their own I'd be telling you all how much better it would have worked as a two-parter, but the grass is always greener on the other side!

Just when I thought that the story had really turned itself around and managed to completely win me over… oh dear. Kronos is summoned up once again. We get the awful bird costume swung around on a wire some more as it terrorises the people of Atlantis, and suddenly I'm back to recalling why I'm not enjoying this one as much as I'd like. It's a real shame, because the destruction of the city around this stupid bird is very well done, and one of the better effects we've had in the series.

It's after all of this that things really started to lose their way for me. There's another stand-off between the Doctor and the Master before they find themselves trapped in a Colour Separation Overlay nightmare. You almost get away with the shot of the TARDISes trapped in the void (and the fish-eye effect to the image is great), but then Jo has to travel between the ships and finds herself disappearing in the process. No-one told the costume designer that she'd bee needed on a yellow screen.

Still, I was feeling somewhat charitable after the good start to the story, so I decided that the forces of this void were tearing her apart. That's why she's disappearing. But then she steps back outside again with the Doctor. And he doesn't disappear because he's not wearing or reflecting the yellow. Oh. By the time the true face of Kronos had shown up on the scene, I'd pretty much lost all interest.

The Time Monster as a whole has been a bit of an up-and-down ride for me. It's never really hit above average, but there's several little bits of the tale that feel like they could be doing so much better. The Master tormenting UNIT with foes from history was good fun, I keep on telling you how much I'd like to see this Atalantis given more room to breathe (I do still miss Professor Zaroff, mind), and there's still some great examples of dialogue in this episode ('I'm fine,' Jo tells the Doctor. 'Dead, of course, but fine…'), but the story just never quite hits its potential for me. It comes across as too much like several ideas all bolted together to finish up the season.

Still, it's Doctor Who's birthday party tomorrow! I'm hoping there'll be cake. I rather like cake.

 a

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

Day 335: The Time Monster, Episode Five

Dear diary,

It’s always a bit odd when a story goes through such a massive shift in tone. If you were to show this episode to someone unfamiliar with the story alongside Episode One from the same tale, I’m not sure that they would automatically realise that both were from the same story. That’s not necessarily a bad thing – it helps to keep the interest up when we shift settings so radically like this – but it does leave me in an odd situation where I think I’d have rather had two separate stories based around these ideas. One in which the Master torments UNIT with his deadly time experiments and one in which the Doctor and Jo find themselves in the ancient city of Atlantis – possibly sent by the Time Lords to ensure that the destruction goes according to plan (although there’s no Professor Zaroff in sight! Maybe he’s busy feeding his pet octopus, no?)

The design of Atlantis is actually rather well handled, and I’m pleased to see how heavily it draws on the designs of Ancient Greece. You can really tell that they’ve put some thought into all of this, which is nice for the sake of two episodes and a few brief cameos throughout the rest of the story. The theme carries on through brilliantly from the design of the sets, costumes, and props. Even Jo’s outfit is rather lovely, and the running joke of calling her Lady Jo-Jo is great fun (and the name seems surprisingly fitting for her character!)

I’m also finding that more and more the dialogue of this story is keeping me interested. We’re a far cry now from the ‘good ship women’s lib’ from a few days ago, and we get great scenes like the one where the Master, the Doctor, and Jo all bump into each other (‘curses! Foiled again!’). There’s also lots of great moments like the Master arriving in the centre of Atlantis, stepping out of his TARDIS and casually brushing aside one of the tridents pointed in his direction. And yet, despite all of this, I just can’t get into the story.

I think it’s because everything has come a bit ‘too little too late’. As I’ve said, I wonder if I’d have preferred a full four-part story that sees the Doctor and the Master battling it out in Atlantis (just typing that out makes me think about how obvious it seems), without having sat through the previous four instalments of the story. I’m also wondering about the Doctor’s arrival here – he implies that they can travel to Atlantis in the TARDIS because he’s locked onto the Master’s co-ordinates via his new TARDIS-tracking machine… but surely that’s not enough to over-ride the Time Lord’s blocks on the ship?

And then there’s that oncoming fear of tomorrow’s episode. I’m guessing it will see the return of our giant white bird costume, which I’m not too eager to see again, and we’ve got a minotaur thrown in too. There’s a very real danger that the season could be going out on a bit of a whimper…

 a

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

Day 334: The Time Monster, Episode Four

Dear diary,

Dear diary,

There’s a bit in the Sarah Jane Adventures episode Death of the Doctor in which Sarah Jane and Jo Grant are strapped into the Shansheeth’s ‘Memory Weave’ machine, and forced to remember the TARDIS so that the machine can make a replica of the key and give the vultures access to time and space. The memories take the form of a series of washed-out flashback clips of the TARDIS – inside and out – from over the years. One of those clips is the blue box being towed from a trench by UNIT soldiers. I’ve seen that episode a few times over the last few years (and I’m holding off to watch it again once I reach the Eleventh Doctor’s era in this marathon), but I’ve always thought that it looked pretty darn awesome… I just didn’t know which story the footage was taken from.

I’d love to say that I’ve been watching out for the scene as I've made my way through Jo's tenure on the programme, but I'd be lying. To be honest, I'd completely forgotten about it until the second it made an appearance today. Oh, but how good does it look?! It's not just the bit where the soldiers have to heave the box upright in the trench, but the following shot where it stands there, surrounded by smoke and destruction as the Doctor and Jo depart in it. There's a real sense of just how indestructible this machine is, and it's by far the most atmospheric moment of the story so far.

And then we're off! Into time and space, with our two Time Lords continuing to play a game of 'one upping' each other, which nicely continues the theme started with the Doctors machine of odds and ends from the other day. It was only when discussing the episode with a friend earlier that I realised - this is pretty much the same plot as Volcano, one of the episodes in The Daleks' Master Plan. In that one, it's the Doctor and the Monk who spend the running time trying to get the better of each other through a series of little tricks.

That episode didn't fare too well with me (indeed, it was the lowest-rated part from that entire story), but looking back over my notes for the day it seems that it's because there was no weight to the confrontation. The pair spent the time laughing (I think the planet had an atmosphere that was basically laughing gas, didn't it?), the Monk stole the Doctor's TARDIS lock, and the Doctor fixed the problem in about thirty seconds. At least in this story, the Master and the Doctor play off each other rather brilliantly with their sparring, and then we're left on a cliffhanger - it just makes everything feel like a bigger deal than it might otherwise do.

It means we also get to have a good look at the new TARDIS redesign! This particular version of the console room only turns up in this one story, and while I knew it was the Master's new look, I must confess that I'd forgotten the Doctor's ship would receive the same makeover. It feels like a bit of a letdown, because I realised the second we entered the Master's machine - the doors for the Doctor's version are clearly present on the other side of the set. I know that the door style is somewhat traditional (I think I'm right in saying that they're even the same doors that William Russell and Jacqueline Hill burst through in An Unearthly Child), but it's nowhere near as cool as the version on the Master's TARDIS, where the whole door section moves forward once they've closed! I think it's fair to say that this isn't my favourite version of the TARDIS console room ever, but it's at least interesting enough as a one off experiment!

 a

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

Day 333: The Time Monster, Episode Three

Dear diary,

Recently at work, I found myself in one of those slightly awkward conversations about Doctor Who. It’s always awkward when this happens, but because people know that I’m a fan, I always seem to find myself as the default guy for this topic. Usually it comes as a result of someone seeing a Doctor Who item in the morning’s papers, and deciding to quiz me on it. For years it’s been ‘That Matt Smith has quit as Doctor Who, hasn’t he?’ (to which the answer was normally ‘no, he hasn’t…’), or else people telling me that their favourite Doctor was John Hartnell, or Jim Davison.

Today’s conversation originated from a different place. A colleague has just returned from a few weeks’ break in Greece. When I asked what he’d gotten up to on holiday he told me that he’d bought a Kindle version of the 50 Year Diary book, and had spent a few days reading it on the beach. Having told him that it was a waste of perfectly good sand castle time, the questions started. It came from other colleagues, ones who didn’t have much of an interest in the programme. ‘Oh, have you written a book? What’s it about?’

It’s very hard to explain to someone who isn’t a fan of Doctor Who quite why you’d bother to sit down and watch it all in order from the start. You often find yourself faced with questions about how long it’s been going, how many episodes there are, what your favourite episode is (as if it would mean anything to them when you say The Tomb of the Cybermen) etc, etc. And then… it always turns in the same direction:

Old Doctor Who used to be a bit rubbish, didn’t it? People always seem to point out the wobbly sets (something I’ve not been keeping a track of in the Diary, but I can’t say I’ve really noticed), the fact that the Daleks can’t travel upstairs, and the monsters. It tends to swing with the monsters. Half the people I speak to tell me that they were scared of the Cybermen in black and white, while the other half simply talk about how they were all stupid ‘men in rubber suits’. And I do my duty as a Doctor Who fan, telling them that – actually – the monsters are pretty good! I tell them how effective some of the creatures are, and mention that you sometimes get brilliant human villains like Tobias Vaghn.

And then… well… then you get an episode like this, in which a person in a white bird costume is strung up from the ceiling, and flapping around in a laboratory. It’s fair to say that this isn’t the programme’s finest moment. It’s a real shame, because a lot of other stuff in this episode has been quite enjoyable. The Master summoning up various figures from history to do battle with UNIT is blatant padding (if we didn’t get the point, he demonstrates the same trick three times), but it’s quite fun, and it’s nice to see Yates being in charge of a battle again. It’s all shot on film, so that helps make it look a bit better, too.

The Master is as good value as ever, though it’s only today that I’ve noticed how little he actually wears his ‘iconic’ Nehru suit. It always seems to be the outfit that’s most closely associated with this incarnation of the character, but he spends just as much time wearing standard suits as he does this. Today he changes back in to it (Though I’m not entirely sure why), and I suddenly realised how little I actually associate it with him now. I’ve also remembered that The Time Monster is the story in which we get to see the ‘washing up bowls’ TARDIS console room, so every time he gets close to that computer bank, I’m expecting us to follow him inside. Special praise also has to be given to his introduction as ‘A Lord of Time’ – what a great way of phrasing it!

I also need to highlight another brilliant piece of dialogue between three of our regulars:

THE DOCTOR

Oh dear.

JO

What's up?

THE DOCTOR

It doesn't work…

THE BRIGADIER

You astound me.

It’s only a brief moment, but I think it sums up everything that I do enjoy about this era of the programme…

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

Day 332: The Time Monster, Episode Two

Dear diary,

It looks as though it must have only been Episode One of this story that I've seen before, because I don't remember any of this episode. It's a shame, in a way, because this one has been better than the last was! It starts very early on, with the discovery of Stuart having ages sixty years in a matter of seconds - surely this would have been a better cliffhanger than the Master calling out for Kronos? Certainly, it's the most striking image of the story so far, and I think it's what helped to draw me in a bit more today.

Aside from this, I'm finding myself completely captivated - once again - by Jon Pertwee and Rodger Delgado. As ever, they both seem right at home in this story, and they each get their chance to really impress me. The Doctor's at his very best when trying to find out what's happened to Stuart. While everyone else around him is trying to let the man rest, the Doctor is adamant that he needs the information, and bellows at Stuart to answer him.

In some ways, this should be counted as one of those scenes where I think the Doctor is just being a bit of a jerk, frankly, and I should be using it to highlight everything that's wrong with the Pertwee incarnation… but it works! If anything, I'd almost go so far as to say that he's rarely been closer to the Doctor's character than we see in this scene. Yes, he wants Stuart to relax and get some rest, but first he needs this information, and he's going to make sure that he gets it.

He continues to be great throughout the rest of the episode, too. In the same way that I was surprised people didn't make more of Troughton battling with Medusa being akin to a confrontation with a Weeping Angel, I'm surprised to see that people haven't edited Pertwee's description of Kronos into one about these Lonley Assassins. 'They can swallow a life as quickly as a boa constrictor can swallow a rabbit,' he muses, and describes them as being creatures from outside time itself.

For the Master, it comes in the form of him imitating the Brigadier's voice down the phone. Usually, trying to lip-synch to another actor's voice like this looks ridiculous, but Delgado gets away with it, through a combination of being a bloody good actor and hiding his mouth partially behind the telephone prop. He's in his natural habitat again today, with a cigar sticking out of his mouth as he sits in a high-backed leather chair and does his calculations in front of a roaring fire. This incarnation really can only be described as suave in a way that him successors never quite can, and he's really managed to endear himself to me over the last two seasons.

I also have to call out special praise today for John Levene as Sergeant Benton. He's not someone I often find myself discussing - as a member of the UNIT family, he's always just sort of… there - but he gets a chance to shine today when given the opportunity to confront the Master and avoid being tricked by his fake telephone call. It's just a shame that he gets himself knocked out so soon after, though!

6/10 

 a

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

Day 331: The Time Monster, Episode One

Dear diary,

I often think of myself as having experienced a lot of 'classic' Doctor Who. Obviously, I've just done all the 1960s stories in order for the marathon, and I've seen every story from about 1982 onwards. It's this tricky middle period - the 1970s - that I'm not overly familiar with. I did plan here to make a list of all the stories I've seen from this decade, but frankly I can't remember half the Tom Baker tales that I've watched, and I think that several of them probably just ended up as background noise. I can tell you categorically, though, that I've never watched The Time Monster. Nope. Never.

Why, then, did the Doctor's opening nightmare, in which the Master stood as a giant over him ring such a bell? It can't simply be because the Master has a similar vision in The Mind of Evil (in which it's the Doctor stood tall over him), because the whole sequence seemed very familiar. It must have simply been that I've seen a clip of the dream sequence somewhere. There was a Master documentary on one of the recent DVDs I've watched - it must have been included there.

But then… The Master's two assistants in this little escapade seemed very familiar, too. Right down to the awful line about the good ship women's lib (and all who sail in her). Odd. They must have been included somewhere in a clip I've seen, too. And then there's the shot of the building to which I instantly thought 'there's something in this about a window cleaner…'

I'm sure you get the picture. I have seen this story before (or, at least, this episode before), and then completely forgotten about it. If you'd asked me this morning, I would have happily bet an entire year's wages on having not seen any of this story. I've spent the last hour trying two wrack my brain for any nugget of memory, so that I could compare my reaction to the episode this time around to my previous one… but I've got nothing.

And actually, that's a pretty good way of summing it up. This episode isn't particularly special at all. I wondered if it might feel like something of a homecoming - we've got the Brigadier! Mike! Benton! The Master! Bessie! The Doctor's even got another new lab (which is sort of par-for-the-course in the UNIT stories, it would seem). And yet, it just feels like we're getting on with the next story. I'm not surprised to see the Master turning up, and crucially I'm not all that excited, either. Certainly not in the same way that The Sea Devils made me pleased to see him again.

What strikes me is how much this is his story, as well as that of the Doctor or UNIT. We spend the first two-thirds of the episode following both stories in tandem, before they're brought together right at the end. The Master really is a part of the UNIT 'family', and I'm hoping that I'll find myself enjoying him more as The Time Monster goes on, because this is the last time that he'll be sharing the screen with the Brigadier and his men.

For now, it's not as bad as the reputation would suggest (finding out last week that this is generally rated as the worst of the Pertwee stories hasn't exactly thrilled me to be reaching this stage!), but it's not all that great, either. It's all just a bit… average…

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

Day 330: The Mutants, Episode Six

Dear diary,

Maybe it’s simply that I’m paying more attention today, but suddenly a number of the things I wasn’t quite understanding earlier on in the story. Several revelations about the evolution cycle of the Solonians I’d sort of pieced together as we’d gone along, but I couldn’t for the life of me work out where they crystal or the radiation cave came into the equation. Everything now hangs together quite nicely, and in retrospect, even locking the hostages in a room full of radiation seems really quite clever. I think the only thing that I struggle to believe is the massive transformation that the people go through, from a cod-medieval society, via the Mutts, to some kind of all powerful ghost-like figure.

Still, I almost don’t mind, because the effect is (on the whole) very well done. The shimmering radiation across the image looks great, and very in-keeping with everything we’ve seen of the radiation before in the story. It feels strange to say it, but it does almost feel like this story has had a proper ‘tone meeting’ in the same vein as the modern-day series does, in which they’ve thought through all of these elements. The only thing I’m not keen on is the way that Ky seems to get smaller before passing through walls, where they’ve somewhat over-done the perspective.

I’m hugely pleased to say that the Mutts themselves still look pretty good even when they’re aboard the Sky Base, with far less flattering lighting than they were given in the caves. There’s one moment where everything risks falling apart, when a Mutt squeezes itself into one of the transport chambers and very nearly crushes the costume’s tail, but they still come over as being pretty impressive. I'm pleased because, like the model work, it seems to be an area in which the programme is really excelling this season. So far, I've had cause to praise Ogrons, Alpha Centuri, Sea Devils… Season Nine is pushing the boat out in all the right ways, I think.

Perhaps the best bit of today's episode is that the Doctor and Jo are finally brought back together properly. They've been almost like ships in the night throughout the story - there's even a few episodes that they spend entirely apart - but as soon as they're back together here, we're given more of the great dialogue that they had right back in Episode One. If there's one thing that 'the Bristol Boys' get right in their writing it's the way that this pair interact. They joke together about heading back to 'the broom cupboard', and they're clearly enjoying each other's company.

And the Doctor even gets to use the Sonic Screwdriver to open a door! Hooray! This is the second story in a row that the tool has cropped up in, so I think we're finally heading towards a stage where it becomes the device that we know from later on in the programme's run. It feels like ever such a long time coming, and I'm sure I'll regret my excitement when it turns into a continual get-out clause, but I'm glad to see such an icon of the series finally headed towards it's most well-known stage.

On the whole, I think I've been impressed by The Mutants. I wasn't expecting a great deal from it (and maybe that's the best thing!), but it's come out as rather enjoyable. It's never going to be regarded as one of the all time Doctor Who greats, but it's far better than reputation would have you believe. Even better, my prediction after Episode One that we'd wind up with some 4/10 scores before the story was out has proved to be wrong - One day, I'll learn to stop underestimating this era!

6/10 

 a

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

Day 329: The Mutants, Episode Five

Dear diary,

The Mutants acts as something of a nexus point in Doctor Who history, serving to see out one recurring element of the programme, while simultaneously bringing another to the fore.

This story marks the last appearance of a musical score by Tristram Carey, who’s been providing us with his tunes on-and-off since as far back as The Daleks. He turned up on a fairly regular basis during the Hartnell years, but this is the first time we’ve seen him since The Power of the Daleks. I’ve not often really commented on the music in stories as I’ve moved along, but it’s interesting to note that under yesterday’s notes I’ve actually scribbled ‘lovely soundtrack’. It’s something of a unique sound, but something about it really seems to appeal to me.

It’s always a bit of a shame to see people involved right at the start of the programme make their final contributions to the series, so it’s good to see him going out with something I’m enjoying. Not long after providing this score, I believe he moved to Australia and took up teaching – a bit of a change from creating sound-scapes on Skaro and Solos!

This story also sees the first costume designs by James Acheson for Doctor Who. He’s probably best known for creating the iconic ‘floppy hat and scarf’ look for the Fourth Doctor, but he provided designs for the series across several stories – he's responsible for the Mutts seen in this story, as well, who just keep growing on me more and more!

It’s also home to the first proper appearance of a very important piece of television history. The corridors of the Sky Base feature a hexagonal wall design that will be cropping up an awful lot on British television in the following two decades – ranging from several appearances in Doctor Who, through Blake’s 7, Captain Zep, and even on one occasion turning up as an ornate ceiling design in a period drama! This isn’t the first time it’s been seen in the series (It had something of a preview in Colony in Space last season), but this is the first time it’s been so noticeable as part of the set.

Sadly, I’m not really sure what I make of the sets as a whole. Everything on the location filming seems to look fantastic, but every time we go inside it just feels a bit flat for my liking. I’m not even entirely sure why that is – the sets have levels to them, they’ve got slight slopes at the top to indicate a ceiling (and these bits are given a bit of extra detailing, too), but they just don’t quite work for me.

I am pleased to see that the Third Doctor is fitting into this environment so well, though. During The Curse of Peladon, I mused that he just didn’t feel right so far removed from his contemporary-Earth setting, but here he seems to slot right in. It could simply be that I’ve seen him away from UNIT enough this season that it no longer feels so unusual (I’ve not seen the Brigadier in over a fortnight!), or it could be because Chislehurst Caves look like a better alien world than the drab sets of King Peladon’s castle. It feels like a shame that he (and Jo, at different intervals) seems to spend so much time being shunted back and forth from the planet’s surface up to Sky Base – I want to see him exploring the world a little more!

 a

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

Day 328: The Mutants, Episode Four

Dear diary,

I've been watching the Pertwee era for too long. There were two - yes, two - separate occasions in today's episode where, even though I know he's not in the story, I fully expected the Master to suddenly appear. The first came when the Doctor, and his ensemble were reused from the caves and taken back to the lead-lined laboratory. There's a moment when the mysterious figure in the radiation outfit reaches up to remove the helmet. Who could be under there? Surely it's not? It can't be… Well, no. It isn't the Master. Like I've said, I know he's not under there. It's just Professor Sondergaard.

Later on, a message comes through to the Sky Base that an investigator is on his way to them from Earth. That instantly put me in mind of Colony in Space, where we had to wait for most of the story to pass before the Master arrived pretending to be an Adjudicator from Earth. I hope I'm not the only person who can see why you might expect our resident evil Time Lord to be cropping up…?

I have to confess that The Mutants has somewhat lost me today. I don't know if I've just not been paying attention properly (either to this episode, or to the three previous ones), but a lot of the 'revelations' we're given seemed to lack the surprise they're supposed to carry. The obvious one is the revelation that they're entering a radiation chamber. Sondergaard is clearly wearing a radiation suit when he finds our party, and yet it's not until the Doctor reached the lab and figures out the material that he suddenly pieces it all together. I can just about buy the idea that Jo hadn't noticed what he was wearing the time before - she was being overwhelmed by radiation after all - but it did seem to be a bit of an obvious give away here and now.

Then we've got the Doctor deciphering the tablets sent by the Time Lords. He spends a while mulling them over with the Professor, as he tries to work out what they're saying, and then deduces that it's the pattern of the seasons on this planet. The announcement that the seasons must change every 500 years is treated almost like some big discovery… but the Marshall said something about the 500 year spring ending in the last episode! I'm guessing that it's just supposed to be news to the Doctor and Sondergaard, but it left me a little bit baffled.

 a

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

Day 327: The Mutants, Episode Three

Dear diary,

One of the things that I’ve often seen people complain about in ‘classic’ Doctor Who is the special effects. Alongside ‘wobbly sets’ and the Daleks’ inability to make their way above the ground floor, the effects are the thing that people often end up laughing about when it comes to stories from the 20th century series. Effects have been on a steady incline since the very beginning of the series, but now we’re firmly in a place where they’re part of the programme’s language.

They don’t always work, it has to be said. Today is a fair example of that, when we see Jo inside the disco cave (a check online tells me that this is called a ‘Radiation Cave’ in the script, but y’know…), surrounded by the yellow glow of Colour Separation Overlay. It’s particularly noticeable when she’s forced to lie down on the floor, and her shadow casts a large area of yellow onto the image. We’ve been experimenting with various ‘green (or yellow) screen’ techniques for a while now, but they’ve still not quite found their feet with it.

It does seem like the model effects have suddenly come into their own, though. Model effects have varied in success over the years, from the shots of the Dalek city on Skaro (lovely!), via the Pie-tin spaceships invading Earth in the 22nd century (bit more debatable, those…), and the more conventional, if futuristic ship in The Dominators (one of the few times you’ll see me saying something positive about the story!). It seems that over the last few stories, the production team have really stepped up a gear in regards to the model effects.

The Church in The Dæmons, the house in Day of the Daleks, the castle of Peladon, the submarine sent to inspect the Sea Devils, and now the Sky Base of the Overlords. We’ve not had a single duff model in ages, and they’re certainly some of the best we’ve ever had. Today even sees us given additional effects as the firestorm rains down on the Sky Base from… well, not above, but the left of the screen, at least. It shouldn’t work as well as it does – it’s simply a number of sparks moving across the surface of the model in slow motion – but I was absolutely fascinated by it. It’s the first time in a while that I’ve actively skipped back on a DVD to take a second look at an effect.

Pleasingly, the quality of the firestorm is carried across to the full-scale location filming, too, and although we only really see it from inside the cave looking out, it really works for me. I’m tempted to say that I’m less keen on the brightly coloured lights being cast against the walls of the cave, not only while the firestorm rages, but then throughout the rest of the episode, too, but I think my issue is that it sometimes catches Pertwee’s newly-styled hair at the wrong angle and lights his whole head up bright green.

Now comes the bit where I worry I’ve been too institutionalised by the series… I really like the Mutt costumes! Let’s be honest, they’re not the best. The design of the ‘monsters’ in this story is pretty much the only thing I knew before sitting down to watch, and I’ve never found them all that special. When the individual creature turns up to flail its arms about towards Jo and Ky, I wasn’t overly impressed.

It's the later scene, in which around six of them attack inside the caves, and they're surrounded by smoke, lit interestingly, and they actually look pretty good. From that moment on, I think I was completely sold on them. There's one or two moments where they come across as being a bit like a 1970s update of the Zarbi, but on the whole, they've won me round!

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

Day 326: The Mutants, Episode Two

Dear diary,

Dear diary,

Now that I’m more than a third of the way through this marathon, I’m at a point where I can almost tell where my reaction to things will be heading. By about the halfway point in any story, I have a vague idea of where I think it’ll be ending up, ratings-wise, and I keep an ever-changing average in my head. It’s not entirely foolproof: I really liked the first episode of The Mind of Evil, and thought it was going to be a return to form having not enjoyed the season opener, but then I found my interest faltering as the story went on. I’m glad that I can be wrong in my predictions, because it gives a bit of surprise to proceedings.

Yesterday’s episode of The Mutants scored a 7/10. It’s not the best score in the world, but it’s a long way from being the worst. By my own table of ratings, that classifies it as being well above average, but with room for improvement. I confidently predicted afterwards (aloud, to my empty flat) that the story was likely to score some 4’s before it was over. It just felt like one that I’d not be enjoying, and having found the really rather cool reaction to the story from most fans didn’t exactly help. The Mutants, I decided, would be coming out with something like a 5/10 on average. It just wasn’t all that special as a story.

And yet… I’ve spent today really looking forward to getting home for this episode. Couldn’t tell you why, but at various points throughout the day I’ve been really wishing time forward so I could pop the disc in and see another 25 minutes. I’m not sure if they’ve lived up to my excitement – I’ve certainly found today less interesting than yesterday was – but it’s nice to see that even a story I’m expecting to find a bit average can keep me excited about the experiment.

I think the big step-down from yesterday is that the Doctor and Jo spend the whole episode separated. Episode One was probably their best ever interaction with each other, so to then see them split apart so completely (with Jo down on the planet’s surface while the Doctor remains aboard the Sky Base) feels like a shame. It means the story is doing its job, however, because showing them as being so brilliant yesterday has made the split all the more disappointing than it might have otherwise been.

The world in which the story is set feels very rich, here, and I’m rather enjoying that. Much as the Troughton era had a version of ‘the future’ in which stories like The Moonbase, The Enemy of the World, and The Seeds of Death could all comfortably sit, the Pertwee years are developing their own very distinctive feel too. You can tell that people in the production team (most notably Barry Letts) are keen on environmental issues, when Jo’s description of being from London is met with bemusement – no one can live on the ground – the air is far too polluted and poisonous.

It’s perfectly in-keeping with the vision of the future we were given during Colony in Space. There, the Earth was vastly over-crowded and it was causing the prospect of venturing out into the stars to take your chances on another world to look far more appealing than it really should. It’s great to see this all being developed, as it really does help to give a proper sense of continuity to the universe in which the Doctor travels.

It’s great to see the change coming as we move into the 1970s further and further. In the gap between Patrick Troughton’s last appearance and Jon Pertwee’s first, the whole world changed massively in regards to space travel and the future. America became the first nation to land a man on the Moon, and the whole idea of space-travel went from being some glorious futuristic concept that would sit perfectly alongside our jet packs and rubber cardigans and became just A Part Of Modern Life.

It coincided with the dying days of a decade in which anything seemed possible – the 1960s is still the absolute symbol of freedom. The decade in which the Jon Pertwee stories were made is a far more uncertain time for Britain, and a bleaker view of the future, in which life is a struggle seems far more realistic than a world in which we can teleport people and items globally in a matter of seconds and control Earth’s weather with pin-point accuracy from the Moon.

As for the look of Solos itself… I shouldn’t like it. When they’re roaming around in the trees shrouded in mist, it really does look quite effective. It looks barren, and I can really believe it as a world being throttled by the poisoned air. But then, Jo and Ky hide in what is effectively a hedge, and there’s no kidding myself that this is some distant world at the very fringe of Earth’s shrinking empire. I’m hoping that the rest of the story gives us lots more of the misty shots – they’re far more effective.

Oh, and while I’m at it, I do with the Doctor would stop talking about the Solonian natives of the planet. I don’t know if it’s just the way Pertwee says it, but it sounds like he keeps saying ‘Silurian’, and it’s getting me very muddled up!

 a

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

Day 325: The Mutants, Episode One

Dear diary,

The Mutants represents another one of those Doctor Who black spots for me, where I know almost nothing about it. I think this is probably the last story that I know so little about - from this point onwards I know at least a handful of basic facts about every story. With The Mutants, all I can tell you is that it's set on an alien planet somewhere, and it's got creatures called 'Mutts' in. I'm assuming that they're the things pictured on Disc Two of the DVD release. I'm so clueless about the story that I didn't even know what fan opinion was, until checking it out on the Doctor Who Magazine Mighty 200 poll today, where it managed to come in at number 182.

It's not the lowest ranking Pertwee story (that distinction - worryingly - goes to the next story, The Time Monster, which placed 187th), but it's hardly a glowing beacon of hope for the story, is it? Regular readers of The 50 Year Diary will no doubt have noticed that I've not been looking at the Mighty 200 results since leaving the Troughton era, and it's been for a very good reason: I've not wanted to know. Coming to the Third Doctor's era with the idea that I wasn't going to really like anything, I wanted to experience the stories on their own merits, without being informed of fan opinion where I didn't already know it.

Frankly, I'm surprised it took me until late Season Nine to take a peek! The thought of knowing so little about the tale was really bothering me, so I figured I'd give myself at least that information to go on (though you'll be pleased to know that I had someone else check the issue for me - so it's only these two stories whose placements I know!)

With a heavy heart, I slid the disc into the Mac, and hit the play button. It's been a bit of a roller coaster, this first twenty-five minutes. I've swung wildly back-and-forth between quite liking what I'm seeing and really not being all that bothered by it all. Let's start with the positives, shall we?

By this point - about half-way through their time together - the Doctor and Jo really have his the perfect balance with their relationship, haven't they? He was, let's face it, a bit of an arse to the poor girl during The Dæmons, but it's mostly been up-hill since there. We always seem to find him being rude to her in relation to food (it happened in Day of the Daleks and The Sea Devils recently), but they're clearly loving each other's company now. I'm really pleased to find myself enjoying the pair so much, as I've never really understood the appeal - possibly simply because it came as a part of this particular era.

Right from their first appearance in the episode, they're sparking off each other nicely - one of my favourite exchanges from this season (scrap that. One of my favourite exchanges from the last two seasons!) has to be Jo's reaction to the Time Lord's errand arriving:

JO
Lunch?

THE DOCTOR
No.

JO
Bomb?

THE DOCTOR
No. Nothing so exciting.

From there, they simply continue to light up the screen together, with Jo refusing to be left behind, and jumping into the TARDIS at the last moment to the conclusion that they've arrived on a Sky Base (with a little help from the tannoy system). Even when he's operating on his own, the Doctor is full of wit here - it's demonstrated best when he hands over his 'container' to someone and nothing happens. 'Yes, well, obviously it's not for you,' he observes before snatching it back.

And yet, for all this, I'm just not that invested in the story. When the Doctor and Jo are on screen then I'm fine, sat up on the sofa, enjoying every second. Bob Baker and Dave Martin have done a stirling job capturing the pair, and I'm hoping they can continue to work their magic as the story goes on - they were the redeeming feature of Season Eight, so there's a high bar to meet!

When we're with the guest cast, though, I'm struggling to really care. We've got what appears to be a slightly medieval society rubbing up against a futuristic one, and it's a theme that will go on to crop up in Doctor Who plenty of times throughout the rest of this decade. The stories I'm equating it to in my mind at the moment are The Face of Evil and State of Decay, though in some ways both are unfair comparisons. I'm hoping that once the story really gets going (I'm assuming that action will shift from the Sky Base to the planet surface before long), I'll find myself caring a bit more about the other characters.

Still, for the 182nd story (out of 200), it's not a bad start…

 a

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

Day 324: The Sea Devils, Episode Six

Dear diary,

I’ve been praising Michael E. Briant’s direction right the way through this story, but this final episode really does give the impression that he could become the new Camfield for the series. There’s a small-scale shoot out with the Sea Devils at one point in this episode, in which I made a note about how good it looked, with the creatures chasing Jo and Captain Hart out of the naval base and towards a hovercraft, but then a little while later we get a full on battle!

It put me in mind directly of the UNIT/Cybermen shoot-out at the end of The Invasion, and there’s a lot of similar directional choices made here. It’s clear that they’ve got the boys from HAVOC on hand, because there’s Sea Devils flipping themselves off rooftops and doing little somersaults when required to fall over from a shot. Most impressively, there’s a sequence in which the Sea Devils are shot at with some pretty heavy artillery, and the explosions are going of very close to the actors in the costumes! There’s some 8mm film shot on location included on the DVD which - taken from a different angle - really shows just how close they were. It’s a dangerous scene to film, but it looks fantastic on screen.

The action isn’t completely confined to fighting, though. I should have guessed, really, that a Jon Pertwee story set this close to open water would involve a hovercraft and some speedboats somewhere. In the same way that the Third Doctor looks so right when he’s tinkering away with the device earlier on in the episode, he looks fantastic when bombing across the waves in pursuit of the Master. Less effective is their later rise back up from the Sea Devil colony, where the pair end up floating around in their orange waterproofs - the Master in particular looks very cuddly!

Having played something of a second fiddle to the story’s monsters for a few episodes, we’re back to the version of the Master that I so love today, in which he’s charming and persuasive, and really just very cool. There’s a scene in which he convinces a soldier that he shouldn’t be held prisoner in which you’re really sold on the idea of the man’s hypnotism (it’s another example of Michael E. Briant’s direction being top notch - the close up on Delgado’s face during the scene is wonderful).

Later on, he manages to escape the clutches of the law once again - and he makes off with the hovercraft! The only issue I take with this is the fact that he’s escaped via the clever use of a mask. If he carries one with him during all this, then surely he could have worn one earlier in the story and avoided detection during his little field trip from the prison? He’d have saved himself a lot of hassle…

I’ve been really pleasantly surprised by The Sea Devils. It’s been one of those DVDs on my shelf that I’ve never watched for absolutely ages - mostly because it’s a Third Doctor story. Then, having enjoyed Doctor Who and the Silurians so much, I worried that a follow-up tale would end up being a real let-down by comparison. As it is, I’ve really enjoyed the tale, and this last episode has been the perfect way for it to sign off.

The next story is another of those ones that I know very little about, but a couple of people this week have shown a slight… distaste towards it when they realise where I am in the marathon, so I’m enjoying today’s high while I can…

 a

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

Day 323: The Sea Devils, Episode Five

Dear diary,

As I make my way through the Pertwee era, I’ve been playing a little game in my own head of ‘spot the Torchwood member’. The game dates right back to The Web of Fear where I pinned the title on the only Welsh member of the cast, but various other characters since then have staked s good claim to the job. Masters in Doctor Who and the Silurians made the list as a potential candidate simply for being a bit self-serving. Professor Stahlman was on there being he was in charge of a dangerous and foolhardy project. I sort of abandoned the game a little during Season Eight, as my interest wained a little.

Today though, as soon as the Parliamentary Private Secretary entered the naval base, he was right up there among the possible members of Torchwood. To be honest, I think he initially made the list simply because he was a bit misogynistic, and so keen to go for a violent solution to this entire situation. The more we saw of him on screen, the more he seemed to fit my idea of just what a member of 1970s Torchwood would be, even going so far as to brush off the idea of letting the Doctor die because ‘war calls for sacrifice.’

I thought at that point that if I stretched the idea a little, I could argue that he knows (or at least suspects) that the ‘Doctor’ who’s been turning up at the base (and no doubt will have been noted in official reports by Captain Hart) is the same one that his organisation has been charged to combat. He’s so desperate to set the ball rolling in regards to an attack not because he’s desperate to see an end to the Sea Devil situation, but because if he acts quickly enough, he can kill two birds with one stone, and really reap the glory for being the man who caught up with the Doctor.

Well then, when the pair actually meet, he makes a point of saying ‘Our duty is to destroy the Queen’s enemies’ He even goes on to cite from the National Anthem as a way of underlining his point. I don’t even have to squint and bend to make this idea work - the man is definitely working for Torchwood! I’m rather hoping that he leaves the Doctor to die again in the next episode just to add even more weight to the theory.

Elsewhere, we’ve got another contender for the story’s iconic scene, when we see even more Sea Devils rising from the ocean. I’m starting to wonder if when people talk about it, they just mean the story in general, as it seems to happen an awful lot. Today’s rendition seems to be more in line with what I’ve always imagined it to be, but it’s the shots after they’ve made it to land that impressed me the most. The sight of them sneaking around the naval base are fantastic, and yet more examples of why Michael E. Briant is becoming one of Doctor Who’s best directors.

I can’t say I really noticed his style all that much during Colony in Space, but here it’s head and shoulders above lots of the stuff we’ve had in this era. There’s a few occasions down in the Sea Devil base which seem to perfectly show it off, when we get lovely close-up shots of both the Master and the Sea Devils, and they really do look great. I’m glad that the costumes are still holding up so well, but the oddly bulging necks are starting to look a bit weird for me in some of the studio scenes…

The only thing I have found odd about the direction comes as part of the the cliffhanger reprise. Frankly, it’s much better at the start of today’s episode than it was at the end of yesterday’s. I’d worked out that the capsule was empty (could it be anything else?) but the way Katy Manning plays the shot makes it look as though she’s staring at something in particular (though at that angle, it can only be a Sea Devil clinging to the ceiling…) Today, we get an added few seconds in which Jo ducks back out from the diving equipment and whispers that the Doctor has gone. I can’t help but think that we’d have had much more impact at the end of yesterday’s episode if we’d ended things on that note!

Just while I’m on the subject of whispering - hooray! The Sea Devil’s voices are actually really good. During Doctor Who and the Silurians, apart from being a little disappointed by the quality of the Silurian costumes, it was their silly voices that really let things down for me. Their aquatic cousins seem to have done well in all respects, and I couldn’t be happier about it!

 a

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

Day 322: The Sea Devils, Episode Four

Dear diary,

I had to double check against the screen captures on the Tragical History Tour website, but I think the model submarine in this story could really stand up against the one they used earlier this year for the shots in Cold War. Oh, sure, the newer model has a bit more detail to it, but I’m really impressed by the work on the one in this story - it looks absolutely fab on screen.

Thankfully, that seems to be a note I’m making about a lot of things in this story. The opening to the episode gives us more of the sequence with a single Sea Devil on the beach, and I made a point of noting down just how great the mask looked shot on film. I thought it was going to become another one of those times where I simply waffle on about wishing the whole programme was shot on film (and don’t get me wrong, I still do wish that. I’d love to see the submarine shots rendered in HD. You could almost substitute the shots from Cold War and no one would really notice!), but then a little later on we get to see the mask close up in the studio, on video, and it still looks pretty good!

I’ve never really given much thought to the look of the Sea Devils before. Because I’ve never seen the story, my only real frame of reference for them has been the action figure - and I’ve never been all that fond of that one. The sculpt itself is pretty good, but I seem to remember always thinking that the paint job on it was a little too ‘flat’ for me. It always looked like plastic, whereas I’d have liked it to have more of a sheen - as indeed they do in this story. Seeing the creature advance across the beach gives us plenty of opportunity to see the full costume, and it really is something a bit special. It shouldn’t work, really, because it’s just a basic lizard-looking suit covered by a tatty string vest, but there’s something rather brilliant about them.

I’m pretty impressed by them turning up on the submarine, with a great effect of the melting door the herald their arrival. That shot towards the end, as the Doctor peers out from a porthole in his diving equipment and sees a creature heading towards him is great, too, and I think I would have actually preferred that as the final shot. Almost as soon as they started raising the machine back to the surface, I knew that the Doctor would be absent. Now I’m interested to see how close Episode Five comes to Doctor Who and the Silurians. The Doctor was captured by the creatures in that story, too, so I’m keen to try and spot some parallels.

We also get today what might be the scene I was waiting for yesterday, with the Sea Devils rising from the ocean. Is this the famous, iconic bit? Surely not? I get that they’re trying to swell the numbers a bit, but seeing a group of the creatures walk out of the tide and onto the beach, before we cut to what appears to be the start of the shot as they rise from the ocean itself threw me a little, as did the light of the scene. It seems to have been shot at dusk, but it just made the picture look a bit grimy. In my head, after years of hearing about ‘the shot where the Sea Devils rise from the ocean’, I’d imagined five or six of them coming out of the water and onto the beach in daylight, and in a long static shot. If this is what all the fuss is about, then I’m sorry to say that I’m really a bit let down.

Thankfully, it’s not enough to ruin the story for me, and I’m finding myself enjoying it more and more. I spent the first couple of episodes expecting UNIT to show up on the scene, before remembering that this is the one present-day-Earth story in which they don’t feature. I’m glad in a way, because Captain Hart and the Navy are fulfilling all the same roles that we’d usually see inhabited by the Brigadier and his men. While you could pretty easily swap any of these characters out for our regular UNIT crew, it feels fresh to see something a bit different - even if it’s only down to the uniforms being a different colour to the ones I’m used to.

 a

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

Day 321: The Sea Devils, Episode Three

Dear diary,

I’m finding that The Sea Devils is almost the exact opposite to The Curse of Peladon for me. At the end of those four episodes, I found myself with little to write because I simply wasn’t enjoying it. Here, it’s tricky to say anything because I am enjoying it! I simply want to hurry over onto the next episode.

If I’m being entirely honest, I don’t quite know why I’m enjoying The Sea Devils so much. Today is probably the perfect example - the shot of the creatures rising from the ocean to swarm the beach is one of those iconic Doctor Who moments, up there with the Daleks on Westminster Bridge, or the Cybermen outside St Pauls. I’ve never actually seen this scene, though (what? Oh, stop judging me. It’s from a Pertwee story, and you all know my thoughts on the era from before I started on this marathon…), and I’m assuming that the end of today’s episode isn’t it.

It felt like everything was in place. The Doctor and Jo have been cornered on the beach. On one side, they’re blocked in by a mine field. In the other direction, a carful of the prison’s guards has just pulled up (for all the good they’d do. Just how easy was it for Jo to break in and free the Doctor? This is supposed to be a high security prison!). Behind them, the Master and Trenchard have arrived with their new Sea Devil remote control. Ahead lies the crashing waves of the ocean as the machine is switched on, calling the creatures to the shore…

And then a single Sea Devil pops his head up from the water! I mean, don’t get me wrong, it still looks quite good - I’m always slightly impressed that the costumes can survive the pressures of being submerged underwater - but I’d amped myself up for something more exciting, which I can only assume comes later on in the story? It’s an interesting new angle on the whole ‘wishing I knew less about the series’ complaint that I often find myself making, in that I’m not sure if there is a scene with many Sea Devils walking out of the water, of if I’ve just assumed there is, and this is that famous shot of the creatures rising from the waves? No spoilers, please, I’m looking forward to finding out.

I need to wonder a little bit about the prison here, too. I’ve already commented on the seeming inefficiency of the guards (overpowered by Jo twice, Overpowered by the Master… their training isn’t the best!), but I’m more concerned about the facility as a whole. Is the Master their only prisoner? There’s not been any mention of other prisoners at all, but I’d assume there must be some to warrant having so many guards on the staff. I assumed that we’d see the Master stirring up some kind of prison revolt (well, he has got prior form…) but now I’m not so sure.

I’m also not sure that I fully understand his plan - but then, what else is new? He claims that he wants to help the Sea Devils reclaim the Earth as they were once its rightful rulers (another direct link to Doctor Who and the Silurians. I’m not sure where I got it in my head that the connection was made later), and he seems to want to see the Human Race wiped out simply because it’s a species that the Doctor is so fond of. Is he just out for revenge, now?Is this like his plans with the Nestenes, where they can destroy the world and he can then rule the empty rock? He may be in charge of things in the prison now, but he still doesn’t seem to have any real idea of his ultimate goal…

 a

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

Day 320: The Sea Devils, Episode Two

Dear diary,

It’s odd to think that this serial is written by Malcolm Hulke and directed by Michael E. Briant, and yet the whole thing feels so much better than Colony in Space did. I made a note yesterday to talk about the direction of the episode, but it somewhat got lost under lots of other praise for the story. Today, we’ve got even more examples of something interesting and new being done with the direction - it really looks very different to normal.

The best example is probably the Doctor being chased through the fort by a Sea Devil, where the camera angles really help to sell the moment. By the time he and Jo chase the creature back through the same corridors, the cameras seem to have slipped a little, and we’re veering into Batman territory…

My one complaint with the direction is probably the way that the Sea Devil’s initial reveal has been handled. Throughout the first episode, we’re given plenty of shots of a scaled hand creeping into view, over the side of a boat or around a corner on the fort. As the episode goes one, we were given more-and-more glimpses of the creature - shot from behind, or moving through the corridors hidden by shadows. I was rather hoping that we’d be in for a repeat of the situation we had for Doctor Who and the Silurians, where we were teased by the creature for a while, before it finally steps into the room and reveals itself to us as part of a cliffhanger.

The final reveal of the Sea Devil does mimic the earlier example by being about the creature emerging into a room… but it’s done simply with the creature wandering through a doorway, and doing something of a double take when it sees the Doctor. Even the attempt at communication from our Time Lord has nothing on the earlier ‘Hello, are you a Silurian’ exchange. It’s a shame that after some nice build-up, they seem to decide that it’s gone on for long enough and simply give us a full view of the creature.

I am surprised at just how linked to Doctor Who and the Silurians this story is. I’ve always known that it’s a follow-up tale (and that the creatures team up together to fight the Fifth Doctor further down the line), but I think I’d always assumed that it was something applied retroactively to the story by fans further down the line, eventually leading to Warriors of the Deep as one of those ‘fan pleasing’ ideas from the 1980s. Here, though, we’ve got references to ‘those creatures in the caves’, and Jo even gives us something of a potted history of the event. The Doctor uses the opportunity to correct a few mistakes made in the earlier story, too, though I’m not sure that calling them ‘Eocenes’ will ever catch on…

Elsewhere in the story, I find it slightly odd that the Master goes to all the trouble of getting a naval uniform, hiding in the back of a car to sneak onto the base… and yet doesn’t bother to use one of his clever masks. They were all the rage last season, and they were pretty infallible, but here he accidentally allows himself to be seen. I suppose you could argue that he’s not expecting the Doctor and Jo to be there, but in yesterday’s episode he noted that the Doctor will be interested by the boats disappearing, and then finds out that he’s been directly told about it. Surely the Master should have pieced it together? It just seems a shame that he’s still managing to make silly little mistakes when he’s been coming across so well.

 a

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

Day 319: The Sea Devils, Episode One

Dear diary,

It’s always a good sign when my notes seem to keep making reference to how much an episode feels like it’s from Season Seven. Right from the opening of the episode, with the submarine under attack, through the look of the setting, the Doctor’s outfit, and the similarity of the Sea Devils to the Silurians, the last twenty-five minutes have felt like they could have come from two seasons ago.

Even the Doctor seems to be perfectly in-keeping with his Season Seven appearance. Quite apart from the fact that we’ve ditched the red jacket (which has become more-and-more common for his Doctor over the last few stories), his whole attitude is very much in line with the earliest version of his Doctor. He’s full of charm when he’s caught inspecting the charred lifeboat, and grins with a smile that couldn’t fail to sway even the most dedicated of security forces. When he doesn’t need to resort to such pleasantries, he’s back to being aloof and above it all, suggesting that he doesn’t carry any of his official UNIT papers because it’s a load of ‘bureaucratic nonsense’, and being keen to jump right in and investigate before his colleagues can be brought onto the scene. Maybe his trip to Peladon with Jo has given him a liking for working alone with a companion once more?

I’m also actually pleased to have the Master back again! By the time we’d reached the end of last season I was - quite frankly - sick of him, but having now had a couple of Master-less stories on the trot, it’s nice to see him being brought back into the fold. It’s good to see that it holds the continuity with the end of the last season, too, with the Master in custody. He’s also back to being the suave version of the Master. He and the Doctor make small talk like two perfect gentlemen, and then it’s right down to business as it’s revealed that he’s running things from behind the scenes. There’s plenty of parallels between the two Time Lords as they piece together the idea that the sea fort is at the heart of the current mystery, and we even get to see him enjoying an episode of vintage British television in the form of The Clangers.

(While I’m on the subject, here’s another opportunity to look at when the UNIT era is set. I’ve heard people talk of the venetian blind TVs in this story as an indication that the story is set somewhat in the future - and yet the Master still needs to specify that he’d like a colour TV set. BBC2 started broadcasting in colour from the start of July 1967, and BBC1 had been gradually switching more and more of its content over to colour since late 1969. While many people would still have been watching in black-and-white by the time this serial was broadcast, it seems strange to think that they’d predict a ‘futuristic’ telly but not think of colour as simply becoming ‘part-and-parcel’!)

Aside from that opening attack on the submarine, the first ten minutes of the episode are all taken up by the Doctor and the Master having a catch up. I’ve spent the last four days complaining about too much talking and not enough action, but for some reason I’m completely riveted by the pair of them. Delgado and Pertwee really are so perfectly suited to each other, and it’s nice to see them given another opportunity to square off against each other. It also gives me hope that the episode may not end up being too padded out - a worry now that we’re back to a six-parter. If we can spend this long on the set up and still keep it interesting, it bodes well for the rest of the tale…