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…

 Day 318: The Curse of Peladon, Episode Four

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

Day 318: The Curse of Peladon, Episode Four

Dear diary,

You could almost be forgiven for thinking that this might be Jo’s final story in the series. It’s her seventh story, which gives her almost twice as many as Liz, and equal to Victoria and close to Zoe. She’s suddenly become a very useful asset to the Doctor, providing the solution to many of the problems they’ve faced in this story, from finding the tunnel in Episode One to helping keep the peace as best she can. Oh, and then there’s a love story.

I said back at the start of the story that I was hoping Jo would be kept front and centre throughout, and I think it’s fair to say that she’s been pretty well-served in that respect. What’s lovely is how real her personal story throughout the last four episodes has felt. You can really see Jo and King Peladon falling for each other, and the final scene in which he asks her to stay and she has to decline without giving a valid reason is genuinely heartbreaking. That they get to part with a kiss is a lovely touch, and it helps to flesh out the characters even more.

Right back at the start of The 50 Year Diary, I expressed surprise at just how three-dimensional the companions were. There’s something of a myth that’s built up over the years that all the new series companions are fully formed while all the classic ones were merely ciphers. I’m constantly waiting for the standard to drop, but on the whole I’ve not been disappointed. Victoria was something of a blip, but all the companions so far have had a quality to them that I’m surprised to see, and I think it’s another benefit of watching through in order like this.

A lot of my good feeling toward this episode seems to be born from the last five minutes of it. The conversation between the Doctor and Jo about how they arrived on Peladon at this precise point in its history was welcome, as I’d been wondering earlier on how the Doctor had managed to bring them here. It’s nice to see that Jo’s wish to get back to Earth next is echoed by the Doctor. I’ve not really been keeping track of his character’s evolution over the last few stories, but I think we’re seeing a shift now.

The first few stories of this era saw him desperate to get off the planet and return to his wanderings in time and space. Now that he’s getting occasional trips out courtesy of the Time Lords, he seems to be finding himself a bit more settled at UNIT. It’s something that still has a way to go (and I’ll try to remember to keep an eye out for it as I move forward), but I think we’re seeing a very definite change in his persona, and it’s for the better.

I’m also pleased to see the arrival of the real Earth ambassador at the end of the story. It’s something I thought was going to be a bit of a plot hole - and at one stage I even wondered if the Doctor was the real ambassador, set in place by the Time lords themselves. It’s interesting to note how different the Third Doctor is in his assumed role when compared to his Second incarnation during The Power of the Daleks. There’s never been a more clear contrast between the pair!

I’m looking forward to moving to another story, though. The Curse of Peladon simply hasn’t captured my imagination in the way I was hoping it might, and having had a break from him for a week or so, I’m looking forward to seeing the Master again. I’m all for the series trying to break up the monotony of Earth-based a bit, but hopefully the next one will be more to my tastes…

a

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

Day 317: The Curse of Peladon, Episode Three

Dear diary,

Over the first half of this story, my biggest complaint has been that it’s simply too ‘talky’. Almost every scene boils down to the cast (some of whom are dressed in mildly amusing alien outfits) talking at each other, while not a lot else happens.There’s a scene in today’s episode, for example, where the various delegates of the Galactic Federation debate the merits of leaving the Doctor to his fate. It should be a great scene in which Jo finds herself facing a wall of opposition while trying to save her best friend’s life… but I just sort of watched it without engaging.

Equally, today’s episode has shown that when it’s done well, a dialogue-heavy scene can be absolutely brilliant. I’m thinking specifically of the exchange between Jo and King Peladon, in which she asks for his support and he tells her that he can’t give it, before asking for her hand in marriage. If you were to strip away the fact that David Troughton is wearing such a sparkly purple costume, this could very well be a scene from any period drama between a king and his love and set in a castle.

It’s helped, too, by Katy Manning turning in her best performance to date. She’s never been bad in her role, but she’s never been as good as we see here. I’ve heard people hold up her attempt at saving the Doctor’s life in The Dæmons as her golden moment (and, indeed, I believe it was scenes from that story which helped her win the job during auditions), but for me, this episode sees far and away her best acting, and it’s the first time that I think I’ve ever seen Jo as a proper grown up.

It’s a shame, then, when we see her blunder in to the tunnels and interrupt another of the Doctor’s experiments. During Episode One, I said “we’re a million miles away from the character who was introduced at the start of last season”, but suddenly we’re given a scene that’s almost identical to her very first! It feels like they’re trying to use this story to give Jo the space and freedom to grow as a character, but then every so often they need to resort to giving her that traditional ‘companion’ dialogue, so that the Doctor can explain his clever plan to the viewers at home.

It’s quite fun watching the Doctor put together this clever plan, too. Seeing him tinker with odds and ends to create the device he needs is so very right for this incarnation (there’s an image on the DVD cover art for the story that’s taken from this scene, and it’s just looks like the Third Doctor in his natural habitat!), and then it’s good to see him using this device to hypnotise Aggedor (and Jo!)

But I wonder if he’s also one of the things that’s stopping me from engaging with this story. It feels odd to not see this Doctor grounded so much in the Earth. Even during his last excursion from the planet we were in a time that looked even more like the 1970s than the actual 1970s do! For all he may look right tinkering around with technology, the Third Doctor simply looks a little out of place around these corridors and tunnels.

It is nice to see him engaging in the fight sequence at the end, and even though I knew it was a stunt man in the overhead shots, it took me a little while to actually notice it. It’s good to see him refusing to kill his opponent at the end, though I worry that it may come back to haunt him yet. In all, I’m still just not taken by this story. I’m hoping that Jo’s sudden prominence as a character may make her vital to the conclusion, and that it may be enough to give the tale a last-minute surge…

a

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

Day 316: The Curse of Peladon, Episode Two

Dear diary,

The oddest thing about this story is that I keep thinking how much greener the Ice Warriors look here than in their last few appearances. Yeah, yeah, I know that they’ve only ever shown up in the programme during the black-and-white era, but I never imagined them as looking this green before. I wonder if I’ve been thinking of the Cold War colouring, in which it’s more of a muted aqua-green that the all-out version on display in this story?

I’m really loving the struggle between the Ice Warriors and the Doctor, though. The idea that he’s so sure they’re in the wrong based on past encounters is nicely played against the idea that they equally suspect him or wrong doing. Having been involved in Doctor Who fandom over the years means that I’m well aware that the Ice Warriors are an innocent party in this story, but that gives me a nice platform from which to watch the action unfold.

For example, it’s noted early on in the story that the various races of the Federation have all had violence in their history, but that they now keep it under control - a nice foreshadowing of this revelation later on in the story. I’m looking forward to the Doctor’s reaction to the change in lifestyle for the creatures, though I’m suspecting that they may string it out a little bit first, with Jo trying to convince him. Certainly, tension seems to be creeping in among all the delegates now.

Sadly, I’m still just not all that into things. It feels just like The Dæmons, in that there’s nothing inherently wrong with the story, but I’m just not getting hooked in the way that I should be with Doctor Who. This episode is still very talky in places, and I can almost feel my attention beginning to wander as the scenes go by.

I am enjoying the involvement of Alpha Centuri, though. It’s one of those creatures from Doctor Who history that you’re always vaguely aware of. I often group the character together in the same box as the Moxx of Balhoon. When the new series was starting up in 2005, there were loads of images around of the Moxx, so people just sort of knew he was there in the series somewhere. Equally, I think the same is true with Alpha Centuri (although one person when told I was now doing this story responded by calling Alpha Centuri the ‘dick in a cape’…).

There’s just something about the character’s voice that really makes me smile, and I’m rather impressed with the costume, too. I’ve always assumed that it was a fairly basic creature, with everything pieced together as best they could. Actually, it’s really well made. There’s a few moments when the head has to turn, and it just looks good! Usually things like this would leave me complaining that it doesn’t quite work out, but no! Hooray! I think if this story wants to do better in my estimations, we need more of Centuri!

a

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

Day 315: The Curse of Peladon, Episode One

Dear diary,

Ah, Peladon. This is another one of those stories that I’ve never seen, and I’m in two minds about. On the one hand, I’ve always liked the idea of the Third Doctor making two trips to the planet during his era (for the same reason I enjoy the Tenth Doctor returning to New New York a season after his previous visit). There’s a moment in the Sarah Jane Adventures episode Death of the Doctor in which Jo and Sarah both reminisce about trips to Peladon and get very excited by the very fact that they both visited the same place at different times. That whole scene paints the place as very romantic, and a lovely memory for the pair.

On the other hand, I can distinctly remember my friend Huw reaching the mid-Pertwee era in a marathon of his own last year and suddenly losing the will to continue. When I told him this week that I’m about to start on this story, he rolled his eyes and groaned. It’s hardly the most encouraging of signs, is it?

I don’t think things got off to the best of starts with today’s episode, either. I’m visiting family this week, which means I’ve seen today’s episode on a screen several times larger than I’m used to. The only other episode of the marathon I’ve watched on a screen this size was The Underwater Menace Episode Two. In that instance, I was thrilled to be seeing it on a larger space! The print was in a shocking condition in places, but that just added to the charm of the whole thing! Today, I spent the first five minutes wondering if the restoration work on this story had just gone terribly wrong somewhere. It was all terribly over-exposed, and I could barely make out what was happening in some places. Thankfully, after a while the screen seemed to figure out what was wrong and corrected itself, giving me a far better image than the one I had been watching. A quick check online tells me that The Curse of Peladon is one of the worse-off prints in the archives, so I’m guessing that didn’t help.

Once I was past all of that, though… I was just a bit bored. A lot of this episode seems to just be people standing around talking at each other. To some extent, I don’t mind this. It’s exposition, and it’s necessary to get us up-to-speed with events. Since Jon Pertwee took over the TARDIS, we’ve only had a single story set away from Earth, and even that had a tag scene at the start and the end to give us some context to the adventure. Here, we get a name-check for Mike Yates to explain why Jo is all dressed up, but other than that we’re almost entirely removed from the setting we’ve come to expect from the programme. It needs some exposition to save us from being completely lost at sea.

But then it doesn’t stop. We get long conversations about the legend of the planet (which seems to be coming to the fore in some kind of Scooby Doo-like plot), about ‘protocol’, about the Galactic Federation, about the Ice Warriors, about King Peladon’s ascent to the throne… it just goes on and on. I’m hoping that now we’ve got all of this out of the way, the next three episodes can be all about action and adventure to make up for it.

It sounds like I’m being unfairly harsh on the episode, and in some ways I am. I decided that I just couldn’t forgive it after the entrance of the Ice Warriors was somewhat badly handled. I’m a Doctor Who fan. I know that the Ice Warriors are a part of the Peladon stories (they’re so intertwined with the stories that - along with Alpha Centuri - they’ve been a part of every Peladon story, on telly, in books, and on audio). Despite all this, as today’s episode played out, I completely forgot that the lizard men from Mars would be putting in an appearance.

Therefore, when they do show up for the first time, about three-quarters of the way through the episode, I should have been really excited! A great surprise-that-I-knew-was-coming-but-forgot-about, if you know what I mean. Sadly, they first appear as bumbling down a corridor as the Doctor and Jo first emerge into the castle. An Ice Warrior is shot from behind as it waddles along, and it just left me thinking ‘oh yeah, they’re in this…’

The whole situation worsened as I recalled how well their appearance in The Seeds of Death was handled - teasing the viewer of their presence because you knew they were there, but they just wouldn’t show you! A real shame. It’s odd, and I’ve never noticed it before, that after Pertwee’s first two seasons featured no returning monsters from the 1960s, we now get two in as many stories! The Ice Warriors weren’t shouted about quite as much in the pre-publicity, but they’re very much in the same boat as the Daleks - they’ve both fought the Doctor on multiple occasions in the black-and-white era before vanishing from the screen for a few years. Here’s hoping that my interest will perk up as the story goes on, and that they’re not wasted here in the same way the Daleks were during the last story.

I can’t just complain, though. The scenes between the Doctor and Jo are lovely, and just like various Doctor/companion teams of the past, they’re quickly becoming able to salvage any situation for me. Jo’s been given plenty of opportunities today to prove her worth, and we’re a million miles away from the character who was introduced at the start of last season. It’s Jo who finds the tunnel into the castle, and it’s her intervention that helps out when they’re put under pressure from the members of the Federation. I’m hoping that - with her posing as a princess in a story featuring a king - this can become her story and really let her shine throughout.

The sequence of them climbing the mountain up to the castle looks fab, and it’s one of the best-looking bits of the episode. The Restoration Team website tells me that it’s a film-clip donated by John Ainsworth, reinserted into the rest of the footage, which likely helps with the quality - so thank you, John! The downside is that it doesn’t help the rest of the story - when we cut from the Doctor and Jo on the rain-lashed cliff face directly to a (rather drab looking) BBC studio set it doesn’t half lose some atmosphere…

a

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

Day 314: Day of the Daleks, Episode Four

Dear diary,

Almost as soon as I realised that Day of the Daleks was a story in which people come back from the future to prevent a certain chain of events from happening, I knew that the guerrillas would be the cause of that particular time line. It’s a strand of science fiction that’s reared its head time and time again over the years, in everything from The Twilight Zone (in a story that sees Hitler killed as a baby, and then replaced by another child… who grows up to become the ‘Hitler’ we know from history) to the third Harry Potter book.

There’s a risk that this story could suffer from being based around such a well-known concept, but I’ve rather enjoyed it. Watching the Doctor piece everything together is fun (obviously he’s not read The Prisoner of Azkaban by this point!), and I was even slightly surprised that they’d managed to overturn everything by the end of the story. For a while, I suspected that they’d tie this Dalek occupation of the planet into the one from Season Two, and simply gloss over the fact that this back story doesn’t fit the one we were given way back then. It’s good to see that it’s not the case, and that the Doctor is able to save the day in the end.

I’m disappointed by how much the big ‘Return of the Daleks’ has been wasted in this story, though. The production team at the time really went to town to shout about the return of the Doctor’s greatest enemies, but then they barely feature throughout the entire story. Perhaps the biggest shame is that Pertwee only gets to direct a single line at his foes, when he warns them that they can’t succeed in their plans. Over the years, many of the actors to play the Doctor have commented that they really didn’t feel that they ‘owned’ the role until they’d faced off against the Daleks, so it’s a shame to see that Pertwee’s first meeting with them is a bit wasted.

Even away from the Doctor, these Daleks feel like a bit of an anti climax after nearly five years away. As a fan of the programme, I’m well aware of the ‘Three Daleks and some Ogrons’ battle at the end of the story. Knowing that I was planning to watch an episode of this story in its Special Edition form, I was almost tempted to do so for this one, in the hope that it could improve the scene. As it is, I decided that part of Doctor Who’s charm is that we get the invasion of a world peace conference by three Daleks and a couple of gorillas. The highlight is surely when one of the Daleks gingerly opens the back door to the house, and slowly moves inside, with all the charm of a neighbour calling in for a cup of tea.

When I think back to the Dalek stories of the 1960s, the moments that stand out to me are when they’re at their most impressive. The Dalek production factory from Power. The Egyptian massacre during Masterplan. Even that first shot of the plunger headed towards Barbara. The Dalek image from this story really should be the sight of them filing out of the tunnel interspersed with the Ogrons – in many ways it’s designed to be similar to that shot from Power. Even this doesn’t quite work for me, though. The implication throughout has been that the gold Dalek is the top dog, but they re-use this prop in the sequence a few times, just as they do with the standard grey drones. The ultimate effect is that having only three of them becomes even more obvious.

I’m also surprised to see that the ending to this story is pretty much the same as the ending to the last story – the main building around which the action has been set is blown up. Once again, it’s a very good effect (I’d probably go so far as to say that this shot, along with the destruction of the church in The Deamons count as the best effects shots of the 1970s so far), but when you’re watching the stories in quick succession, it does rather feel like de ja vu.

It sounds like I’m really having a moan about today’s episode. Almost everything I have to say about it is broadly negative. And yet, I’ve really enjoyed it. It’s the kind of episode that I can simply switch off and watch. I don’t need to pay much attention to the plot, because I know what’s happening. For today, it’s all about watching UNIT get blasted by the Daleks. It means, though, that I’m in a bit of a tricky place today.

When I give my rating out of ten to an episode, it’s based simply on gut instinct. I usually declare my score out loud to the flat as the end credits roll, almost as a way of cementing it in my mind. The last three episodes have all been a ‘7/10’, but I’ve enjoyed this one more than the last few episodes. It’s certainly not an 8/10 (it just doesn’t feel like an 8/10), so let’s call it a high…

Mind you, UNIT’s not going to be tasked with any more peace conferences, I’m guessing. The last one saw them lose a missile that could start a Third World War, and even if they’ve managed to save the delegates from death, they’ve failed to spot a man in the basement of the house with a bomb. Having failed to find the Doctor and Jo hidden in the same location a few episodes ago, you think that really someone should have a word with the Brigadier about what this ‘security’ work involves…

a

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

Day 313: Day of the Daleks, Episode Three

Dear diary,

Over the last week or so, people have been getting in touch with me about this story. I've had messages on Twitter, via the 50 Year Diary's Facebook page, and even one text from a concerned friend. All of this correspondence centred around one key issue - ensuring that I watch Day of the Daleks as the original version. I remember the hype surrounding this story's release a few years ago. 2|entertain released a teaser at one stage that said something about a title which would bring an exciting new dimension to the Doctor Who DVD range. Guesses varied from a rerelease of certain stories post-converted into 3D to a release of Dimensions in Time on DVD (I'd buy it. And before anyone else asks, yes it will be getting an entry when the time comes!)

Two years have passed since this story's DVD release, and time doesn't appear to have been all that good to it, because all the messages I received told me to make sure that I steer clear of the 'Special Edition' version of the story, because it's basically pants.

To tell the truth, I'd not even considered watching it any other way than the original broadcast version. I'm not in any way desperate to make this a 'pure' marathon that sticks only to the original versions of the stories (and I'd made a mental note to watch at least one story with new effects switched on), but I'd not even thought about seeing this version in its new, 21st century glory. Of course, once everyone started getting in touch to make sure, it completely settled it. I'd have to watch the special edition.

I've held off until now. Episodes One and Two have been watched via 'disc one', and thus have been the regular versions of the episodes. Today, though, I decided to switch things up a little, and go for the enhanced version. I think I decided that it wasn't for me about thirty seconds into the cliffhanger reprise, when the Dalek-revealing cliffhanger I praised yesterday was smothered by some overpowering CGI materialisation effects. It was probably the perfect example that just because you can add CGI to something doesn't necessarily mean that you should.

After that, I can't really say that the differences really made an impact on me. The sparks and bolts during the trike chase (I know the Third Doctor's a man of action but a trike? Really?) were a nice touch, and certainly made it look a bit more action-packed than the original version, but it didn't really mean all that much to me. As you'll have no-doubt ascertained from that last sentence, I have been back to watch the original version so I could compare the differences, but I only skipped through to key moments.

One thing that I thought looked better in the Special Edition was the Doctor's mind scan. In the original, we get a few still photos of the Doctors flashed up on the screen, and in one instance on a Hartnell photo, you can see where they've failed to frame it properly. That same image also comes across as having a bit too much contrast on - which is an issue I seem to recall that photo having in an early issue of Doctor Who Magazine, too! Obviously the BBC Photo Library didn't have many good-quality copies!

The Special Edition replaces it with clips of the Doctors taken from other episodes instead, and they make a bit more of an impact for me. It's the first time, really, that we've had any kind of flashback like this so blatantly, and I think the moving images made it seem all the more special for me. I wasn't expecting to see the older Doctors, but worried when they flashed up on screen that I might get a nostalgic pang, and long for the days when I could accompany the Doctor down into the Underground or to the Cave of Skulls.

If anything, though, I'm rather liking Pertwee again in this story. I can't describe it (and believe me I've been putting off the writing of today's entry in the vague hope that I'll suddenly find a way!), but Jon Pertwee here looks better than he ever has as the Doctor. There's something about his style in this story, with the shirt slightly undone and looking a bit tired that really works for the character, and it helps to sell the threat of the situation just that little bit more.

That's good! Of course there's a big threat! It's the return of the Daleks - the Doctor's arch enemy! - after almost five years away from the programme! And yet… they're hardly in it. We've had a couple of minutes of Daleks huddled around in a small room (with a single brief excursion to the tunnel), and that's it. I'm hoping they're going to be a big part of Episode Four, or something will have really gone amiss…

The voices surprised me today. I'd completely forgotten that Nick Briggs had re-recorded them for the Special Edition, and about half way through their brief appearance today, I worried that I might have been mistaken yesterday and that they had remembered a ring modulator! So ingrained in my mind is Briggs' Dalek voice that it just feels natural when you hear it!

It's back to the regular edition to round out the story tomorrow, but I'm glad I've taken this little side-step into an alternate reality. I love that the DVD range has been able to include little curiosities like this within the releases, as they help to make the story of Doctor Who just that little bit richer. I think I'll be sticking with the originals from now on, though…

a

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

Day 312: Day of the Daleks, Episode Two

Dear diary,

One of the special features on the Day of the Daleks DVD is a clip from Blue Peter, in which Peter Purves talks about viewers having 'long memories' to remember him ever being a companion in Doctor Who. They go on to talk about receiving a lot of letters asking if the Daleks will ever be returning to menace the Doctor again, and as the three props from this story circle the studio, we're teased that if enough people keep on asking, they just might be there on the Doctor's next adventure.

Purves also says that the Daleks have 'created probably a greater impact than any other monster before or since' within film and television. I'm wondering about these 'long memories' though. As I said yesterday, the four-and-a-half years between The Evil of the Daleks and this story is a really long time, and I'm wondering how many of the younger audience members would have remembered the Daleks at all? Are any of my readers of a vintage that they can remember this story first airing? Were you excited to have the Daleks back, or was it just some monster from the Doctor's past?

(Incidentally, there's another special feature on this DVD in which a class of children receive a Dalek model they've won in a Radio Times competition. The reporter asks - if they're all so scared of the Daleks - why they wanted one in their classroom, and the response effectively boils down to 'it was our teacher's idea… Obviously there were at least some children not all the bothered by the return of the pepper pots.)

It would seem that the programme makers have forgotten all about the Daleks, too. People often talk about this story having somewhat dodgy Dalek voices, and while I can't say that I particularly noticed yesterday, it's definitely obvious today. The voices have been created in the studio, and they've forgotten to bring a ring modulator (even the Daleks on the Blue Peter clip got that right!) It;s almost as though the voices are being provided by people who half remember what a Dalek is supposed to sound like, but hasn't bothered to check. Thus we get them soun-ding out ev-e-ry syl-a-ble, some-times to the point of mad-ness.

It's not all that over powering, because the creatures barely appear in today's episode either. They're playing a really long game with us in this story, but now that Jo is in the 22nd century, and the Doctor has encountered a Dalek in a tunnel (in a great cliffhanger. The effect of the Dalek suddenly appearing is very well done - it's a shame that this wasn't our first sight of them after all this time), I think we're headed for more Dalek action.

One of the sad things about this episode is that we seem to be back to UNIT not really knowing what they're doing. 'We've searched the house and the grounds' Captain Yates tells the Brigadier when reporting the disappearance of the Doctor and Jo. They can't have searched very thoroughly, though, can they? The missing pair were in the cellar the whole time! Added to that, you've got a pair of guerrillas running around the property, too, and you've got a group of actual gorillas running around in the grounds at intermittent intervals!

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

Day 311: The Day of the Daleks, Episode One

Dear diary,

One of the things that I keep banging on about in relation to this marathon is the idea that it makes me experience Doctor Who in a set order. When I look at the DVDs on my shelf, I can see that there's Dalek stories pretty regularly for the first four years, then a gap followed by another four years of solid Dalek tales, and then they come intermittently for the rest of the 20th century series. They're all just 'facts'. Watching everything in order from the start means that I get to really experience those gaps… and that makes them seem all the more bizarre.

The gap between The Evil of the Daleks and this story is around four and a half years. That's just about equal to the distance between the first broadcast of Planet of the Dead and the publication of today's entry. That feels like a huge amount of time! From my point of view in the marathon, I last saw a full Dalek story in late June, and so much has happened since then.

I think I've always just found it strange that after so long away from the series, the Daleks suddenly come trundling back in once again, and finally establish themselves as a key part of the Doctor Who formula. Over the last four seasons, they've proven that the Daleks aren't entirely necessary for Doctor Who to survive any more, but now that they've turned up once again they're forever ingrained as a key factor. Maybe the same would happen if they'd brought back the Voord in the early 1970s? Maybe not.

Over the course of the 1960s stories, I found myself falling for the Daleks. I'd never really been a fan before, but suddenly I could completely understand their appeal. Making their return here and now sadly reminds me why I was never fond of them in the first place - the Daleks in the colour stories always tend to look a bit tatty. In some ways, I shouldn't be all that surprised. Parts of the Dalek props used here have been turning up ever since the first Dalek story in 1963, so they've been through a lot since then, but all the same it's a bit of a let down. Such a song and dance was made about their return to the series that I'd rather hoped they would look fantastic, at least in their first colour appearance.

Still, it's probably not fair for me to really judge them yet. In traditional Dalek style, they don't properly arrive until the cliffhanger for Episode One (though we do get a brief glimpse of the gold version about half-way through the episode). Everything else on display, I'm rather enjoying. The Doctor still comes across as a bit pompous (the cheese scene is often cited as an example of this characteristic), but he's back to being somewhat nicer to Jo. She gets to have some fun scenes with Benton and Yates, and Nick Courtney has plenty of chances to do his 'exasperated' acting.

In some ways, it feels like we're back to the kind of story that I enjoyed so much in Season Seven. I'm not entirely sure why this is, but it probably doesn't hurt that the Doctor's got the console out of the TARDIS again and there's a scene of time displacement not all that dissimilar to the one from the opening episode of The Ambassadors of Death. It does lead me to wonder, though… When do UNIT settle down into a HQ?

I've always thought of UNIT as having their HQ in an old country house. It's where they're based in The Three Doctors, for example, and the same lab set turns up in Planet of the Spiders and Robot. I'm sure I've read somewhere that the house in Pyramids of Mars is the same one (or becomes the foundations to the UNIT version at least). When they appear under St Pancras for Spearhead, I assumed that it was because they were still new and waiting for a permanent location. The rest of that season sees the Doctor setting up shop on a temporary basis wherever they happened to be that week. Season Eight then gives us several very different looking settings for them to work from. And now today we seem to be set inside a castle of some sort, judging from the architecture! It looks quite nice and all (though the Doctor's still painting his doors with that horrible green paint), but it just seems odd.

I'm glad to have the pepper pots back, no matter how beaten up they might seem. I'm hoping that the next few episodes will help me rekindle my love for them - and for the series as a whole…

a

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

Day 310: The Dæmons, Episode Five

Dear diary,

I think that my dislike of The Dæmons is possibly more the fault of Season Eight than simply this story. It's the same problem that Fury From the Deep had coming towards the end of Season Five - I've simply had enough. Barry Letts has commented over the years (indeed, he does so on the DVD for this story) that having the master show up in every single story simply didn't work, and I think that's where my issue lies - I'm bored of the Master, so I'm spending a chunk of this story counting down to his eventual capture.

It's not helped by the fact that - on the whole - Season Eight has been a real let down. I spent so long heading towards the Pertwee era and simply dreading it, but then the stories from Spearhead through Inferno really gave me hope. Well, with the possible exception of Ambassadors. Since then, though, I seem to be giving out a lot more middle-of-the-road scores, and I'm just not enjoying the series in the way I'd become accustomed to.

As I say, it's not really the fault of The Dæmons. I'm sure that the story is actually quite good. It's got a reputation as being the Pertwee story, so it must be doing something right. Indeed, today has got several great special effects going for it. The shots of Azal growing to full size look brilliant (one shot in particular, of his head against the cavern ceiling is probably the best use of CSO we've ever had), and I'm even rather fond of the heat barrier being opened up. It's not the greatest effect in the world, but it's exactly what I was expecting, and they pull it off well.

The crowing moment has to be the church blowing up, though. Supposedly, there were complaints at the time when people thought the BBC had blown up a real church just to provide the conclusion to a Doctor Who story. I've always thought that the idea was ridiculous, but looking at it here, I can see why some people might have believed it! The effect is brilliant, and the explosion couldn't be better (truth be told, this production team are very good at explosions. They're almost always gorgeous!)

It's very nice to see the season ending on our regulars having fun, too. I loved the ending of Inferno leaving the Doctor and the Brigadier on slightly awkward terms, but it's good to see that changing a little more as time goes by. It's a lovely note to end on, and the final shot of the camera pulling back out to show the village as a whole is beautiful.

And yet… it still hasn't struck a chord with me. There came a time about half-way through today's episode where I suddenly realised that I didn't really have the first clue what was going on. I was watching it, and I was paying attention, but it was going in one ear and out the other as the images flashed about a bit on the screen. Throw in a conclusion where this all-powerful creature is destroyed by Jo taking a step to the left and I was completely out of the loop.

I think - as with Fury From the Deep - this is one of those stories that I'll need to watch again, once I've finished the marathon. Watched away from all these other Third Doctor stories, and with (hopefully) fond memories of this team, I may find a lot more to like in here.

There's no stopping, though, and tomorrow I set out onto Season Nine! It's the first story in a while to not feature the Master turning up (hooray! I've grown to like the man, but I need a break!), and it's the first time I've had a Dalek story since June, which feels like ages ago. Here's hoping that it can get me back on track again, and that the ninth season can help move the Pertwee years back up in my estimations again…

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

Day 309: The Dæmons, Episode Four

While I'm sorry to say that I'm still not really bothered at all by The Dæmons, I am pleased to report that today is by far my favourite episode of the serial. There's just so many moments in here that have really appealed to me, and most of all, it's raised a few laughs, too.

This is the point where I start to become a yo-yo, and I tell you that despite my dislike for the way the Doctor was behaving in yesterday's episode, I've really enjoyed him today! I knew that things were on the up when the Brigadier asked the Doctor if he was positive that he knew what he was doing, and he replies 'my dear fellow, I can't wait to find out!' The whole exchange reminded me of a similar one between the Second Doctor and Jamie (in which the Highlander asks the Doctor if he knows what he's doing and the response comes as 'oh what a question! Of course I don't!')

From there, we get another action sequence as the Doctor hurries back to the village on a motorbike and finds himself shot at (still nothing all that special in the direction, sadly), and then the best scene that we've had in the entire story, as the Doctor finds himself trapped by a troupe of sinister Morris Dancers. The whole scene of entrapment is great to start with, as it moves from playful fun to something genuinely scary, but I think it's the following scene in which the Doctor is revealed to be a 'wizard' which really works for me.

I'm pleased to see that Bessie's remote control feature is being used for an actual plot reason - it seems just that bit too convenient at the start of the story when he used it to trick Jo, having installed it at just the right time - and it's a brilliant sequence from start to finish. When the Third Doctor is having fun, I think I can enjoy him a whole lot more, and this scene is the perfect example of that.

Perhaps the thing that's striking me the most about this story is the sets. I don't often draw attention to them, because they don't always stand out in every single story, but the ones we've got here are pretty special. I think it's a testament to the work that's been put in that I spent several minutes today trying to figure out if Jo's room at the pub was a set or filmed on location with everything else (I think I'm right in saying that The Dæmons has one of the highest film-to-video ratios of the era, so it's not too unbelievable). It's the little set of steps down to the door that does it - you don't normally get that kind of attention to detail.

The set of the cavern is pretty good too, and again there's a set of steps to help give the space a slightly different feel. The lighting used here is pretty good, too, which always helps. I can't help but wonder how Azal fits, though. We're constantly told how tall he can grow, and it would somewhat undermine the cliffhanger if he has to start crouching down under a low ceiling after a while…

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

Day 308: The Dæmons, Episode Three

Dear diary,

When I wrote yesterday about this story reminding me of Quatermass and the Pit, I feared that it might be flippant of me. I was basing the link simply on the scene of the Doctor and Jo exploring the hidden spaceship and the fact that it had recently been discovered unexpectedly during a dig. Actually, though, this is very much like that third Quatermass serial, innit?

The mysterious spaceship turns out to be the craft of a species who periodically visits Earth and who have inspired our mythology - particularly when it comes to horned creatures being the devil. I have to say that this similarity isn't really heeling The Dæmons win me over any more, because suddenly I'm just too busy trying to spot other connections.

Earlier today, I was tying to explain the issues of 'popular' stories to my other half. I mused that The Dæmons probably isn't any better or worse than Colony in Space, but because I'm coming into the story expecting something from years of reputation, everything's just a bit of a let down. I'm automatically marking this story down a few points because it's just not as good as I'd expected it to be, and I think it's the same issue that's plagued stories from Evil of the Daleks to Fury From the Deep.

The thing is, there's still a lot to like here! It's the perfect example of the Pertwee years as being action packed, in a scene that sees a helicopter chase end with a big explosion! The Doctor takes off on a motorbike! Jo gets thrown (gently) from Bessie! I'm just not bothered by any of it. The direction isn't bad, but it's just very workaday. I was excited to see the return of Christopher Barry because the last two stories he directed fared pretty well with me… but then I remembered that neither existed in the archives, so what I'd enjoyed were the telesnaps! Going back to Barry's last surviving story - The Romans - I seem to recall it was nothing special there, either.

The Master is very good in this one, and it's nice to see him getting the chance to really use his powers of persuasion. He's somewhat hampered by calling in the gargoyle when things get out of hand, though. The design is nice enough, but when it's prancing around on the screen it just looks a bit naff - nowhere near as scary as I'd always assumed it to be. The effects when it disposes of someone are quite good, but it's still just a bit of a let down for me. At least Roger Delgado really suits those glasses.

To some extent, I'd been enjoying the relationship between the Doctor and Jo, and it had been helping me along a bit, but today he's just downright dismissive of her in places. It's the kind of character that I remember the Third Doctor as being, and I think it's the one I always associate with a dislike of the era. In yesterday's episode when he asks Jo if she failed latin as well as science, it comes across as a bit of a joke: just some banter between good friends. Today, he comes across as simply being a bit of an arse, and it's not really helping me to enjoy the story…

Once UNIT are properly in the village and we can get a big, end-of-season battle, I think I may start to get more involved, but it's looking increasingly like The Dæmons may end up on the pile of 'classics' that just don't appeal to me…

 a

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

Day 307: The Dæmons, Episode Two

Dear diary,

This is very suited to being the last story of the season, because it feels like the final day of school for the year where, instead of boring old lessons, the teachers stick on a film (When I left school, Pirates of the Caribbean had just been released on DVD and video, so it was always the film we saw. Problem was that each lesson was only an hour long, so I’ve seen the first half of that film more times that I care to count), and you get to spend the day out of uniform.

The Doctor and Jo have gone off on their own mission (as with the opening to The Mind of Evil, it’s lovely to see them pairing off without UNIT in tow to begin with, as it really helps their friendship seem more genuine than Jo simply being assigned to pass the Doctor test tubes), Benton and Yates have gone for a ride in the Brigadier’s helicopter and they’re both out of uniform, and the Brig himself has taken the night off and spent part of today’s episode tucked up in bed.

I think this is the kind of ‘UNIT era’ that I’ve always had in mind when picturing ‘the Pertwee Years’. Way back under The Invasion, when I complained that the UNIT of the 1970s was never as vast or well funded as it had been when fighting the Cybermen, this is what I was thinking of. Season Seven surprised me, but now we're firmly into the era of the 'cosy' UNIT, where a select few members of staff become our reliable buddies. I shouldn't really complain, because I do like Benton, Yates et al, but it just feels a bit more 'safe' than I'd like.

We're not all that far removed from Season Seven in some ways, though, because we seem to be in for a remake of Quatermass again (this time it's more Quatermass and the Pit that I'm thinking of). The final scenes in the mound where the Doctor and Jo discover a space ship buried where no one expects it started setting alarm bells off in my head, but I don't think that's a bad thing. For a start, I rather like Quatermass and the Pit (which is more than I can say for this story…)

Oh, no, that's not really fair. The Dæmons is just another one of those stories where there's nothing wrong with it, but I can't seem to understand why it's got such a massive reputation to it. There’s plenty of threat going on, with giant footprints stretching out across the landscape (and they look brilliant when viewed from the air!), vans (and sticks) bursting into flame as they try to approach the village, and the Doctor being out cold (ho ho!) for much of the episode, but it's just kind of happening. I'm not excited by any of it.

Still, it's early days, and perhaps watching a very autumnal episode with the sun blazing through the window from an unseasonably nice day isn't the best setting for the story. Perhaps tomorrow I'll wait until dark before tuning in…

 a

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

Day 306: The Dæmons, Episode One

Dear diary,

If Colony in Space was interesting to me (well, to start with, anyway) because I knew next to nothing about it, then The Dæmons is interesting for almost the exact opposite reason. I've never seen this story, but I know it takes place in a small village, features the Master summoning up something akin to the devil, has a troublesome gargoyle on hand to keep UNIT busy, and ends with the church blowing up. I also know that it's considered to be one of Doctor Who's proper 'classics'.

That last fact worries me a little bit. Stone cold classics haven't always fared well with me during this marathon - The Evil of the Daleks and Fury From the Deep stand testament to that - and I'm also taking into account Nick Mellish's words on the subject, in which he described The Dæmons as 'the most over-rated Doctor Who story ever.' Sorry, Nick. There'll be a lynch mob at your door by morning. I'm quite glad to have these opposing viewpoints, because it means that I'm not going in completely wide-eyed and expecting things to be brilliant… which is a good job, really.

Now, don't get me wrong, this was a perfectly good episode, and there's a lot of rather nice little moments that I'll come to in a minute, but it wasn't a particularly Fantastic episode. Sometimes I find myself sitting forward on the sofa really gripped by that day's instalment, whereas today was more of a 'sitting back and watching' experience. That's not through lack of trying on the story's part, mind. The atmosphere is successfully built up throughout the 25 minutes, and it's genuinely quite tense by the time that the cliffhanger arrives. The fact that it features so much night-time location work simply adds to the atmosphere - it's still rare to see in Doctor Who of this age.

And what a pace it's moving at! I assumed somewhere around the middle of the episode that opening the Devil's Mound would be the cliffhanger to Episode Three, or possibly even Episode Four, but they've already gone and done it! They're racing ahead. Even the Master, who was fashionably late to the last story has gotten an awful lot done. His appearance here is handled much better than it was in Colony in Space, too, giving us a great reveal of him as the Reverend Magister. I'm going to assume - based on past form - that he plans to use Azal to destroy the world so that he can then rule over it. Or something.

The story isn't shy of being about 'the supernatural and all that magic stuff', as Jo puts it. In the opening moments, during establishing shots of the village being battered by a thunderstorm, we're given images of a frog, a cat, and an owl (also a dog, but that's less of a magical creature, traditionally…). Miss Hawthorne is shown calming the winds, and even Bessie is seen to move 'magically' around outside the Doctor's workshop (though this is later revealed to be the Doctor with a remote control). I'm not entirely sure how they're going to account for it all, since the series has always taken the stance that all 'magic' has a scientific explanation (indeed, that's what the Doctor says here, and I think this might be the first time that it's mentioned).

I'm going to assume that the most striking bit of 'magic' we see - the wind compelling a local policeman to attempt murder with the aid of a hefty rock - is somehow caused by the Master's hypnotism being somehow 'transmitted', but I'm looking forward to finding out. I bet the Doctor Who production team weren't popular this season, though. There were lots of complaints during Terror of the Autons about the policeman ripping his face off to reveal it was a monster, but I think this policeman gets the scarier job: it's a genuinely chilling moment to watch him robotically pick up the rock and lift it towards the back of Miss Hawthorne's head…

 a

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

Day 305: Colony in Space, Episode Six

Dear diary,

Will Brooks and the Doctor Who Marathon.

Will Brooks sat his freshly-poured glass of Pepsi (other colas are available) down on the table, and settled on to his battered red sofa. Striking the space bar of the Mac, that day's episode started to play. As the titles played out, Will scribbled a note onto his sheet of blue note paper: 'Colony 6'.

Dutifully, Will had gone through a similar routine to this on many of the previous 304 days that year, working his way through the entire back catalogue of Doctor Who one episode a day. That journey had brought him to here, an episode in which not a great deal captures his imagination, and he's left with very little to write about for you fine people to read.

…I'm half tempted to add in a line about my 'pleasant, open face', but I've not shaved for a few days so it's not that pleasant. At the start of this story, I told you that I only knew a few things about it. Well, sort of knew a few things about it. Having now watched all six episodes, I've come out with a mixture of things I got right and things I got wrong. Good enough.

Thing is, several of the Pertwee stories represent the 'black holes' in my Doctor Who knowledge - Colony in Space just happens to be one of the more proficient gaps. This was perfectly proved about half way through today's episode, when the Master finally tells the Doctor why he's on this planet - because he wants to steal a 'doomsday weapon'. At this point I suddenly realised something - the Target novel Doctor Who and the Doomsday Weapon is a novelisation of this story.

Yeah, yeah, you all knew that. I get it. But I didn't! I thought that was a novelisation of The Mind of Evil, simply because the Doctor is trying to get his hands on… well… a doomsday device that will end the world! It's an easy mistake to make, I'm sure you'll agree. But then I started thinking about how odd it was to give the book that title.

Several of the early Targets use different names to the broadcast stories, but they normally go for some kind of key selling point, or something that neatly sums up the plot. Doctor Who and the Cave Monsters is a fairly spot on - if basic - way of describing Doctor Who and the Silurians. Doctor Who and the Daleks is a fab title for (you've guessed it) The Daleks. And who could fail to fall in love with Doctor Who and the Loch Ness Monster?

But the eponymous Doomsday Weapon doesn't turn up until the last episode of a six-part story! If you'd asked me to guess where this was going even as late as yesterday, I'm not sure I'd have predicted that they'd have a weapon capable of wiping out the Sun. It's a great idea and all, and the fact that it can put me in mind of an earlier plan by the Master means that he's at least being consistent in his ideas, even if he's doing it on a different scale now, but it does just sort of crop up. And then, just as quickly, it's gone. The Doctor is asked to destroy the device by pulling that really handy lever sticking out the top of the main control panel. Better hope no one ever pulls that by accident - bit of a design fault.

Oh, I think I'm just bitter. Colony in Space started off so well, and I was really enjoying it to begin with but by the time we'd reached the end here, I was just bored. The one moment that did make me sit up and take note was the Colonist's spaceship blowing up as they tried to take off (my notes on that moment are unpublishable on a family website), because I was shocked they'd had the sheer nerve to go through with it, but then it turns out they're all fine and well. Even the noble sacrifice Ashe made didn't reverse my slight disappointment that they'd mostly survived. Is that bad of me?

I think what surprised me the most was my reaction to Nick Courtney turning up again in the closing minutes. There's a danger of taking him for granted when he's simply there in every story, but seeing him arrive to welcome the Doctor back (well, sort of) raised a smile. I'm glad that we'll be seeing more of him in the next story…

 a

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

Day 304: Colony in Space, Episode Five

Dear diary,

I've wait it before, but one of the things I'm really enjoying about the Third Doctor's era is the sense of continuity. More now than perhaps any time since Season One, it feels like we're watching an unfolding tale, as things come back into play from recent episodes. We've already seen it on a couple of occasions this season, when the Doctor steals the dematerialisation circuit from the Master's TARDIS, and it's used as a bargaining tool (briefly) in the following story. Today, we get reminded that the Doctor still has a key to that TARDIS, and when he tells Jo that's where they're heading, she comments that she's not seen 'the Master's horse box' around here anywhere, acting as a nice callback to Terror of the Autons, which was quite a while ago when this was originally broadcast - we're almost right the way through the season from that one!

It serves as a nice chance to top up Jo's knowledge of life in the TARDIS as it was for companions before the Third Doctor. It makes sense for her to assume that it always looks like a police box, because the Doctor's TARDIS did when they arrived on this planet. Still, it's good to see them drawing attention to it all the same. It's a level of detail that I'd never realised existed in these stories before now, and which only really becomes obvious when doing a marathon.

And what a TARDIS they've found themselves in! The simple action of moving the doors to a position other than left of the screen has been a way to indicate that we're in a TARDIS belonging to another person since the very first time we saw another TARDIS (right back in The Time Meddler), but it really does work. On top of that, we see the outside of the doors while we're inside the console room. At first, I wondered if we were seeing something we shouldn't, but no! It's actually been planned! Of course, it only works because the Master has disguised his machine as a much larger space ship, but it's still a bizarre thing to see - and it really sells the idea to me of this being a more advanced model!

Further in to the console room and it's all gone a bit wrong. I complained yesterday that the Master pretending he was an adjudicator made him look like some kind of middle-management figure, and a row of filing cabinets in the main room of his ship - filled with information about mining, no less! - doesn't really help to make him seem cool again. There's more hints of the obnoxiously 1970s design creeping into the set here, too. On the other hand, we get to see the printed roundel wall forming a major part of the Master's control room, so at least they're getting their money's worth from it before the retirement!

More importantly, though, it's the return of the Sonic Screwdriver! Hooray! After its brief appearance as a 'door handle' in Inferno, the device has been strangely absent from the Doctor's bag of tricks, so it's nice to have it back again. And this is the closest to the tool we all think of as being the Sonic than we've ever seen. Here, the Doctor uses it to study the alarm in the Master's TARDIS, and deduce that there's a convenient gap at the bottom for them to crawl under (he then proceeds to snap at Jo to keep 'flat to the floor' while he sort of shuffles though at whatever height he fancies).

You'll have no doubt have noticed that I'm focussing all my attentions today on a single scene from the episode, and not a lot else, and that's simply because I don't really have a lot else. The Doctor complained in the last story that he's some sort of yo-yo, and the same isn't far wrong for this story - the IMC ship is forced to leave the planet. They stay. A struggle ensues and they decide to leave. Following a scene out in space (with, it has to be said, a great planet model and some of the better CSO this story has to offer), they decide to head back down to the planet again.

Even the Doctor is at it, heading back and forth from the Master's TARDIS to the colony and the City - the whole story could do with a bit of a trim. I was hoping that the Master turning up might be enough to keep from boredom setting in, but sadly, it doesn't seem to be doing the trick…

 a

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

Day 304: Colony in Space, Episode Five

Dear diary,

I've wait it before, but one of the things I'm really enjoying about the Third Doctor's era is the sense of continuity. More now than perhaps any time since Season One, it feels like we're watching an unfolding tale, as things come back into play from recent episodes. We've already seen it on a couple of occasions this season, when the Doctor steals the dematerialisation circuit from the Master's TARDIS, and it's used as a bargaining tool (briefly) in the following story. Today, we get reminded that the Doctor still has a key to that TARDIS, and when he tells Jo that's where they're heading, she comments that she's not seen 'the Master's horse box' around here anywhere, acting as a nice callback to Terror of the Autons, which was quite a while ago when this was originally broadcast - we're almost right the way through the season from that one!

It serves as a nice chance to top up Jo's knowledge of life in the TARDIS as it was for companions before the Third Doctor. It makes sense for her to assume that it always looks like a police box, because the Doctor's TARDIS did when they arrived on this planet. Still, it's good to see them drawing attention to it all the same. It's a level of detail that I'd never realised existed in these stories before now, and which only really becomes obvious when doing a marathon.

And what a TARDIS they've found themselves in! The simple action of moving the doors to a position other than left of the screen has been a way to indicate that we're in a TARDIS belonging to another person since the very first time we saw another TARDIS (right back in The Time Meddler), but it really does work. On top of that, we see the outside of the doors while we're inside the console room. At first, I wondered if we were seeing something we shouldn't, but no! It's actually been planned! Of course, it only works because the Master has disguised his machine as a much larger space ship, but it's still a bizarre thing to see - and it really sells the idea to me of this being a more advanced model!

Further in to the console room and it's all gone a bit wrong. I complained yesterday that the Master pretending he was an adjudicator made him look like some kind of middle-management figure, and a row of filing cabinets in the main room of his ship - filled with information about mining, no less! - doesn't really help to make him seem cool again. There's more hints of the obnoxiously 1970s design creeping into the set here, too. On the other hand, we get to see the printed roundel wall forming a major part of the Master's control room, so at least they're getting their money's worth from it before the retirement!

More importantly, though, it's the return of the Sonic Screwdriver! Hooray! After its brief appearance as a 'door handle' in Inferno, the device has been strangely absent from the Doctor's bag of tricks, so it's nice to have it back again. And this is the closest to the tool we all think of as being the Sonic than we've ever seen. Here, the Doctor uses it to study the alarm in the Master's TARDIS, and deduce that there's a convenient gap at the bottom for them to crawl under (he then proceeds to snap at Jo to keep 'flat to the floor' while he sort of shuffles though at whatever height he fancies).

You'll have no doubt have noticed that I'm focussing all my attentions today on a single scene from the episode, and not a lot else, and that's simply because I don't really have a lot else. The Doctor complained in the last story that he's some sort of yo-yo, and the same isn't far wrong for this story - the IMC ship is forced to leave the planet. They stay. A struggle ensues and they decide to leave. Following a scene out in space (with, it has to be said, a great planet model and some of the better CSO this story has to offer), they decide to head back down to the planet again.

Even the Doctor is at it, heading back and forth from the Master's TARDIS to the colony and the City - the whole story could do with a bit of a trim. I was hoping that the Master turning up might be enough to keep from boredom setting in, but sadly, it doesn't seem to be doing the trick…