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

Day 350: The Web of Fear, Episode Four (Revisited)

Dear diary,

The last time I did this episode, I complained that they were using the Cybermen’s theme - Space Adventure - as the background music for the Yeti attack in Covent Garden, but having not heard it for a few months it is great to hear it again. Curiously, I didn’t make much of a mention of the attack in my first write up for this episode;

”Today’s Yeti attack in Covent Garden is lost somewhat by appearing only on audio - the telesnaps for the scene, coupled with knowledge of Dougie Camfield’s direction, make it look fab - the new style Yeti even look imposing when outside. Last year, the Mirror newspaper published online a load of photos from this scene, with the Yeti menacing a man and his dog - they do look great!”

But seeing it on screen does serve to highlight why audio isn’t the best form for this sequence because Camfield is such an action director. Right from the first shot of the Colonel and his men out on the surface and on film, you know what’s about to happen. Is it perfect? Well, no. There’s a few moments when you can see the rather large zips snaking up the backs of the Yeti costumes (Although, all right, you could make the argument that since these creatures are robots, the furry suits are simply added on after and zipped up…).

It’s also a shame that after such a good job is done of making it look like there’s lots of Yeti (and it does! It’s simply the same four outfits being shot from different angles down the street, but it multiplies them brilliantly) we don’t see any laying dead on the floor. I’m thinking in particular of one shot, late in the battle, where the floor behind an advancing Yeti is littered with dead soldiers… and nothing else. Having just watched a grenade attack that seems to take out several of the creatures, it just looks a bit odd.

It’s not a huge complaint, though, because the battle is fantastic. The Yeti really do manage to look scary even when out in the open, and as for the moment when the Colonel and another soldier hide up high in the warehouse and a yeti reaches up to grab the soldier’s foot… well it’s no wonder that this story had a specially made trailer to warn children that the Yeti were scarier than the last time.

They’re not the only things in this story to come across as unnerving, either. Even I was quite put off by the sight of a soldier in a gas mask being pulled back out of the tunnel coated in a layer of web. I was somewhat surprised – when the mask came off – to find that his face was perfectly plain. I think I’d half expected it to be made up somehow.

All the sequences down in the tunnels today have a real air of menace about them, and I think that’s the thing I’m most pleased to see from the recovery of this tale. I’ve always half-doubted the story that the London Underground thought Doctor Who had filmed in their stations without permission, but when you see how good these sets really are, it’s not hard to believe. I had worried that it might be like The Celestial Toymaker, where everyone who’d previously rushed to talk about how good it was suddenly has to back-track pretty sharpish…

 a

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

Day 349: The Web of Fear, Episode Three (Revisited)

Dear diary,

I thought I was clear of the era in which recons were an option! I really debated over how to best tackle today’s episode, because as long-time readers of The 50 Year Diary will be aware, I’m not the world’s biggest fan of recons. I find that I just can’t get caught up in them, and they actively reduce my enjoyment of an episode, more than they help it. I wondered about simply re-listening to the soundtrack of today’s instalment in an attempt to enjoy it more, but since the recon came as part of the complete serial on iTunes it felt silly not to watch it…

Sadly, I still find myself less than impressed by the experience. Several people have commented that this recon isn’t as polished as the one from Loose Cannon, so that may be where I’m going wrong, but the telesnaps really are no substitute for either the original episodes, or the visuals my mind fills in via the soundtrack release. I think coming from eight moving Troughton episodes in a row has spoilt me.

The episode is still quite interesting because it’s the first appearance of the would-be Brigadier. I said of the character last time; ”Interestingly, he's played as something of a 'grey' character here, and we're not entirely sure that we're supposed to trust him. Certainly, if you pointed him out to a viewer watching in 1968 and told them that this man would become the Doctor's best friend through several incarnations, they'd think you were mad,” and it’s even more interesting to watch having just emerged from the latter-half of the Pertwee years, in which he’s very firmly established himself as a part of the Doctor’s life.

What’s surprising to me, though, is that he’s not as different as a character as I’d expected. As I’ve said in the past, I always think of the Doctor and the Brigadier as being the best of friends, but even up to The Three Doctors, there’s a slightly uneasy relationship between the pair. It’s great to go back and see how much of a through-line there is between the Colonel that we meet down here in the tunnels and the one I’ve grown used to since September. Sadly, I can also feel myself enjoying the character (and Nick Courtney’s performance) more here than I do by the time Season Ten rolls around. I think it’s in the next episode that he takes the Doctor’s explanation of a time machine at face value, which will feels like such a relief after the blatant disbelief of anything he displayed during our multi-Doctor team up.

The other thing I drew attention to first time round: ”To put it bluntly, I'm not sure who is working with the Intelligence - and I like that! It's keeping me guessing (and second guessing) at every turn.” I’m still not sure who’s moving around the little Yeti statues at this point, and this surprises me a little. I was chatting to a friend about this story the other day and mused that I couldn’t remember who was behind everything at this stage. I know Travers gets possessed before long (end of tomorrow’s episode?) but I genuinely have no clue for right now.

‘Oh, that’s easy!’ he told me. ‘It’s Staff Sergeant Arnold. He gets taken over when he goes into the web…’ Darn, that’s ruined it for me a bit – a spoiler for a story I’ve already heard! Every time Arnold heads into the tunnels, I expect him to walk into the web and get possessed… but it’s not happened yet! It’s not the Staff Sergeant at this point in the story, so I’m completely lost. Am I just missing something really obvious? Is there some big neon light flashing over the culprit’s head?

But you know what? I kind of like that I still don’t have a clue. It means that the menace is still there, lurking in the darkness of the tunnels, and I’m just as lost as our heroes are at this point!

 a

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

Day 348: The Web of Fear, Episode Two (Revisited)

Dear diary,

“In some ways, this episode is absolutely made to be listened to as just the audio.”

I feel like I should regret saying that, now that I've just sat and watched the episode play out, but actually I think I stand by it. A lot of this episode is just ripe for audio. The dialogue between Jamie and Evans as they look at the Tube maps and emerge into stations is still very descriptive, but I think it's sticking out so much simply because I noticed it last time around.

By the same token, getting to see this one unveils things that I'd not really gotten from the audio. The key thing is the way that Camfield shoots Chorley throughout. You're bout supposed to like the reporter. He's infuriating, rude in places, a coward, a potential suspect once the grip of the Intelligence starts to close in… and yet when you can actually see the man on screen, all of this gets heightened. He's always a presence in the scenes in a way that he simply isn't on the soundtrack. When he questions Jamie and Victoria, the microphone is right up tight into their faces (and taking up a good deal of the shot). He's always hovering in the front of the shot, or hiding in the background chiming in with a quip here or there. When the sound of gunfire and a battle is heard down the end of a telephone, he makes sure to lean in with the microphone to get a good recording of it. It adds a whole new dimension to the character that I'd simply not seen before, and the story is all the better for it.

Now… you'll have to forgive me a bit today. I've just re-read my original entry for this episode, and there's so man things I want to bring up that it's going to sound like I'm simply answering myself. It's like a conversation through time!

“I also spent some time thinking that it was a good job we couldn't see the huge battle between the Yeti and the soldiers, until I remembered that it's a Douglas Camfield episode we're dealing with, and hurried to go through the tele snaps. It's hard to tell, because so many of the snaps catch people mid-action, but the impression I get is that it looked brilliant. The setting really helps, too, the cramped tunnels really helping to give the Yeti a kind of scale that was completely lost out on the Welsh hillside.”

Oh, Douggie. I do love you. My impression was right. The battle was lovely to watch. I was torn between a desire to make notes or simply sit and watch the action with a sense of absolute wonder. I plumped for the latter in the end. It's so wonderfully down from start to finish, and it really does make the Yeti look imposing… and actually quite scary! I can quite imagine being five or six years old and being absolutely struck by this sequence.

It's not just the tunnels that give these creatures a sense of scale, but the skill with which Camfield has shot them. The cameras aimed in their direction are almost exclusively placed low down, shooting up at the beasts, and making them look even bigger than they really are. The cramped tunnel does then help to accentuate this, and they just keep on coming. As if to really hammer the point home, they proceed to batter their way through the pile of explosive charges in a sequence which should look rubbish (no, really, it should. At one point, a Yeti stumbles trying to get over the props, but then it finishes the manoeuvre, straightens up, and carries on. Under a lesser director this could have been another 'Zarbi hits the camera' - well, not quite that bad - but here it seems to add to the threat!)

It's not all praise, though. The Yeti leaving their prisoners and simply wandering off when they think of something better to do seems even more odd on screen, because they really do just walk away when the moment comes, Still, that's a relatively minor niggle at the end of a very lovely sequence…

“I think it's probably a testament to how much I'm enjoying this one that it was fifteen minutes or more before I noticed the complete absence of the Doctor.”

And it's probably rather telling that I didn't notice it again this time around! Well, ok, that's not strictly true. I did notice, but only in the last couple of minutes when attention was drawn to it once more. For the rest of the episode, I was too busy enjoying the rest of the cast.

The one who needs extra special praise from me today is Deborah Watling. I wan't all that fond of Victoria during my first run-though of Season Five. By the time she left at the end of Fury From the Deep, I was rather glad to see the back of her. Now though, with these episodes coming free from all the others around them, I'm rather liking her once more. And I'm enjoying Watling's performance more than I have for a while, too. I think she really does suffer from having so much missing from the archives (not any more! For the first time in 40 years, we've more of her episodes in the archive than not! Hooray!), because when we can watch her performance, it's so much easier to appreciate.

There's two lovely moments from her today. The first has to be when she slowly comes to the realisation of who the blustery old man they're talking to is - while Jamie continues to put his back up and argue back, and beautiful smile breaks out across Victoria's face and she excitedly announces that they're back with Travers. Jamie soon swings round to a similar joyous reaction, but it's not a patch on hers - a simply fantastic piece of acting. After this we've got her listening in on the accusations against the Doctor and quietly excusing herself from the room again to go off in search of him. I'm so pleased that she's given these wonderful moments in the recovered episodes, because I'm pleased to think that I'm not the only person re-evaluating her now…

 a

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

Day 347: The Web of Fear, Episode One (Revisited)

Dear diary,

There was a point during the Troughton years when I really worried that I’d be ruining the series for myself. I was really enjoying the process of watching an episode a day and then writing about it, but what if once I’d finished them all… watched every scrap of Doctor Who… what if I was bored by the thought of ever watching any more? At the same time, I was trying to counter this worry my making a mental list of stories that I’d want re revisit once the marathon was through. Late Season Five ended up being added to the list in something of a chunk – I wanted to do The Enemy of the World a second time to see if I’d get different things from the story already knowing the twists of Episode Six, Fury From the Deep I wanted to hear again away from all the other stories around it, and The Web of Fear was ripe for a second go because – basically – it was bloody good.

Seconds into today’s episode and I’m completely reminded of that fact – it all just looks so good, doesn’t it? This first episode was the one we’ve had from this story for a long time now, so I’ve seen all of these shots before. Like last time, it’s the shot of the TARDIS doors closing as the camera moves back to the right position that really sucks you in, and it’s all uphill from there.

Funnily enough, the direction was the thing I was most drawn to last time I did this story, but I compared it very favourably to the preceding story:

”It's miles ahead of the stuff seen in The Enemy of the World Episode Three (our last surviving episode), and had me completely gripped.”

Now that we can actually watch The Enemy of the World, it’s more a case of just having two wonderfully directed serials in a row, which is a lovely thought. There’s something rather nice about having two stories emerge from 45 years in hiding and both turn out to be so good.

To be honest, that was another worry I had. I kept coming back to what I’d call Tomb of the Cybermen syndrome. A lost Doctor Who ‘classic’ suddenly unearthed after decades hidden away in a foreign television archive, rush released and shown to be… well, received wisdom claims that The Tomb of the Cybermen isn’t as good as everyone thought it was, but it’s still my favourite tale. I really did worry that Web would come out and we’d all go ‘ah…’ and quietly forget the years of desperation for its return.

I’m loathe to just go on about the brilliant direction in this episode, because that’s pretty much all I did the last time around. I’m sure I’ll have plenty of time to talk about it during our four newly recovered bits of the story. Instead, I want to touch on something that I’ve seen cropping up since the return of these stories could add an extra step to my ‘Great Intelligence Timeline’.

I’m not sure where the idea came from, but I’ve seen people musing that The Enemy of the World and The Web of Fear may share a common link – The Great Intelligence is Salamander. Yeah, yeah, I know. Put down that bit of lead piping and hear me out. That was my first reaction, too, but there’s a bit of me that rather likes it. The suggestion is (and I’m tweaking and elaborating to make it fit my earlier timeline) that when Salamander is sucked out into the vortex, he becomes scattered through time and space. This process robs him of his physical form, but also makes him greatly intelligent (see what I did there? Clever, that).

The Doctor himself even says that ‘He's not in a very enviable position, floating around in time and space…’, and you can quite imagine that he would be keen to get back to his own physical form. Maybe from here he finds himself in contact with Padmasambhava, and the rest follows on as I speculated during The Abominable Snowmen and the original entries for this story.

While it needs a bit more hammering into shape to make it totally work, I think I do rather like the idea. Adding in my previous musing that the Great Intelligence might have been behind the scenes, pushing Victoria to leave during the story after this one, it gives Season Five a kind of loose story arc – one which even has an element of ‘timey wimey’ to it, because the TARDIS crew’s first encounter with the Intelligence comes before they’ve even met Salamander.

What do you think? Plausible theory, or just plain nonsense?

 a

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

Day 346: The Enemy of the World, Episode Six (Revisited)

Dear diary,

Oh, I’m so very happy. All the way through this story – no matter how much I’ve been enjoying things – I’ve had something niggling at the back of my mind. Let’s face it, the ‘Doctor vs Salamander’ fight at the end of this episode has long been at the top of many fan’s wish lists when it comes to the missing episodes. It’s Troughton up against Troughton, and as I pointed out when I first did this episode, the single telesnap which shows the pair pretty much nose-to-nose made it look so good.

And that’s where my problem came from. I’d seen people praise the way that Episode One of this story was directed. I’d seen the excitement at finally having a date pinned down for events. General consensus was that Salamander's ludicrous accent was far less distracting when you could actually watch the rest of Troughton's performance…

But curiously, no one seemed to be discussing the final scene. Now, admittedly, I've been avoiding threads on the forum specifically dedicated to these recovered stories, but there's been several posts of praise about them showing up on Facebook and Twitter… but not a word spoken about these final few minutes. Ah. The doubt started to grow in my mind. Was no one talking about it because - God forbid - it wasn't very good?

Well, no, of course not. I watched the final scene, and then I went back and watched it again. And then again. And then once more, just for luck. Oh, it's stunning. Brief, yes, but stunning. And it's not just the actual fight that works so well. We've got an actual night shoot! That's rare even deep into the depths of the Pertwee era (remember how shocked I was to see one crop up in The Dæmons? Double it for this). The whole sequence on the beach is stunning, from the way the TARDIS is lit from inside, to Jamie staring out into the night and Salamander stumbling his way up over the dunes.

Once we're inside the TARDIS, things continue to be rather lovely. Salamander indicating to Jamie that he should set them in motion is rather nice (He doesn't actually say anything at this point, so it's hard to enjoy the subtleties of Troughton's performance when you're only listening to the audio), and the way he turns around to see the Doctor stood in the open doors… It's one of those things that will sound weird when I say it - but doesn't he just look so much like the Doctor stood there, staring into his ship? I don't know if it's the direction or what, but it's lovely.

The fight is then rather well done. The single tele snap that promised so much pretty much sums up the entire time they spend occupying the same shot, but I'm pleased to see that it's just as effective on screen as I' hoped. There was a very real danger that this may not hold together, but it's become one of the most striking bits to survive from the 1960s.

And isn't that just a brilliant sentence? Suddenly - wonderfully - we've got The Enemy of the World in its entirety ready to watch and enjoy. Waaaay back when I first did Episode One of this story, I told you a story about how it was my friend Graham's favourite tale ever, and how I was a bit surprised to learn this:

“My disbelief wasn’t because I’d heard bad things about this story, it was mostly just from the fact that, well, I hadn’t really heard anything about it. The sad fact is that The Enemy of the World is one of those stories that people just forget about.”

Since the recovery, these six episodes have had something of a reappraisal. I've seen a number of people commenting that it's now become their new favourite Troughton adventure, and I think a large part of that is because barry Letts was right all along - Episode Three was by far the worst example to survive from this tale. I wonder if people were simply put off it by seeing those twenty-five minutes?

It's not going to be to everyone's tastes (Another friend this week has said he didn't really care for the story, and thought it was a bit of a disappointment), and once the sudden thrill of having it all back wears off, I think it's going to balance out in people's estimations again. It's lovely to see that the recovery has won people over, though. This makes the next story all the more interesting, because The Web of Fear has been a fan favourite for years and years despite being just as missing as this one was. I've seen fewer comments on that tale since the return of the episodes, so I'm keen to see my reaction.

If nothing else, it's Douglas Camfield directing Patrick Troughton again! That may just be the most exciting thing in the world…

 a

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

Day 345: The Enemy of the World, Episode Five (Revisited)

Dear diary,

While I'm aware of the twists and turns in this story from my previous viewing, I can't help but think that the episode descriptions in iTunes are somewhat spoilerific for a first-time viewer. The caption for yesterday's episode opens by saying that 'Giles Kent is revealed to be a traitor, in league with would-be 21st century dictator Salamander.' Except… he isn't revealed to be in league with our evil friend until tomorrow's episode! Today's description is equally as misleading, telling us that the 'traitorous scientist Kent has blown up the research station', but once again, that hasn't happened yet! I do hope that no one had their first viewing of the story ruined by reading these descriptions in advance of watching - they give away some pretty major plot points way in advance!

However, I must confess that I actually learnt something from them today, too! There's a moment when Jamie and Victoria are carried into the research centre on a pair of stretchers, and I suddenly remembered that I didn't know what they'd been up to in the story, but the description for Episode Four confirms that they're not in that episode! Haha! A quick check of my write up for this episode the first time around confirms that I didn't notice it then, either. I spent so long during the 1960s tracking the holidays of the various cast members and yet this one has managed to pass me by twice!

It's rather nice to have them back again here, and given a lovely sequence to dig their teeth into. The questioning scene is fantastic right the way through, and it adds another layer to the relationship between Jamie and Victoria. The way that he cradles her while they're being held at gunpoint is lovely, and his determination to give in rather than see her hurt is touching. The tables then get turned as they question the man they believe to be Salamander, and we're treated to some more of Barry Letts' beautiful direction on the sequence, focussing on several close ups of the pair as they cut back and forth.

You can choose to see this as either clichéd or traditional, but I'm going to have to heap some praise onto Patrick Troughton again. Listening to this story on audio, the switching between his two characters is pulled off mainly by dropping the accent and adding a few more fluffs and stutters to the performance when switching back to the Doctor. On screen it's great to watch him making choices in every movement he makes. We spend a large amount of time today with him dressed as Salamander (indeed, his more traditional outfit doesn't even appear today!), but we're only in doubt as to which one he may be when we're supposed to be. It's a very well considered performance, and a great example of why he's one of the best actors to have been involved in the programme.

I also need to bring attention to how much I'm enjoying Milton Johns as Benik. On audio, I can't say that I ever really payed the character that much attention (I'd sort of lost track of who was who by this point), but he's really quite special on screen. I spent his first couple of episodes actively disliking him - the character simply made my skin crown when he appeared - but then today I realised that you're supposed to feel like that! There's a beautiful line where Jamie muses that Benik must have been a horrible little boy, and he simply replies that he was, but he had a good childhood. Terribly slimy, and one of the nastiest characters the series has ever given us. I'm so glad that I'm able to enjoy his performance all the more now it's available in full…

 a

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

Day 344: The Enemy of the World, Episode Four (Revisited)

Dear diary,

Salamander confirms today that the 'survivors' have been down in the bunker for almost five whole years, which means that they should be headed down there… well… any day now!

When these recovered episodes were released back at the start of October, I went into something of a lockdown while I decided what to do with them in regards to the marathon. I didn't just want to slot them in at the tail-end of Season Seven because it would have been very out of place (and I'd only just parted ways with the Second Doctor about three weeks earlier anyway!), but then I didn't know where to put them. The situation never drifted far from my mind, and people even tweeted me and left messages on the 50 Year Diary Facebook page to ask if I'd be tackling these episodes any time soon. No, I decided, I'd leave them until after the whole marathon was complete, letting me know that there'd still be a few bits of the 1960s waiting for me once I'd reached the finishing line.

Well… it was a nice idea, I guess. The problem is that so many of my friends these days are the kind of people who'd be downloading these episodes the very moment they arrived on iTunes, and suddenly my Facebook and Twitter feeds were filled with people discussing how wonderful they were. There was no way I'd make it all the way through to 2015 before seeing these stories again - it just wouldn't be possible. I made the decision to slot them in here after Troughton's (brief) return to the programme, and then carry on once more. I've still tried to ignore people's discussions of the stories for a while, though, because I wanted to be as unbiassed by outside thoughts as possible. I've even been avoiding the reactions on the forums. Have the tables turned? Is The Enemy of the World now a classic while The Web of Fear is universally panned? I guess I'll be finding out soon enough…

I wasn't able to avoid all mentions of the stories, of course, and there was one particular tweet from Clayton Hickman which caught my eye: “Ooh! We finally have a date (ish) when Enemy of the World is set. Astrid's helicopter license expires in 2018!” Cue a mad panic! Did this tie in with the timeline I'd been using for the stories? I only really touched on it once (During The Space Pirates Episode Three), but as I said back then, I was more than happy going along with the timeline proposed in the second volume of the About Time books.

In that essay, they muse that the Cold War style event that forced the people down into the bunker here happened around about 2025, with the events seen in this story taking place about five years later, which they place contemporaneously with The Wheel in Space. Well now we know that they're about twelve years too late - and as if to rub it in, the shot of the helicopter licence is big and bold and hard to miss! Ah, but why then does the description for the story on iTunes state that 'The Doctor has arrived on Earth in the year 2017 A.D.'?

Well… a discussion about this with a friend earlier today revealed to me that the newspaper found by one of the 'survivors' later on in the story bears the date '2017', but this is then described as being explicitly 'last year'. So there we have it, either the person writing the description got muddled up (or pressed the wrong key), or the survivors have lost track of the days and are out with their counting.

What's nice about having some (almost) firm dates for the story is that everything else still works! I can imagine The Wheel in Space as being somewhere around 2030, and the proposed timeline after that, leading through the Gravitron being installed in 2050, and then the events of The Moonbase in 2070 before another Cold War sets in for the 2080s feels very natural still, and if anything it spaces the stories out a little better. The other thing I rather like - assuming that we say they've been down there since very late 2012ish - is that Salamander could have used all the 'End of the World' myths that were floating around last December as a way to trick them all into believing the war was about to break out and destroy the world. I can imagine him as the leader of a cult, preaching portents of doom!

Anyway, away from dating quibbles, we're back into fine territory here. Within the first few minutes the episode is more visually interesting than Episode Three was - yet more proof that we've been left with the wrong episode for all these years! There's some lovely direction as the Doctor faces off against Kent, including some beautiful close-ups between the pair. Later on we get to watch Salamander's decent into the bunker… and it's like something out of Thunderbirds! The model work is rather nice, and the whole sequence is somewhat grander than I was expecting. I think I was simply picturing a rickety old lift last time around, because I still had this episode in mind with a very noir feel.

Indeed, that means that other areas of today have been something of a let-down for me. As I said first time around:

“I don't think I've ever been as visually connected to one of those soundtracks as I was during the first half of this episode, with the security forces closing in on the Doctor, Kent, and the others. It was like my head was mapping out exactly how I'd direct the scene if it were to be re-made, complete with angled cameras, and shots of our heroes on the run, silhouetted against the alleyway as the guards closed in.”

After The Enemy of the World, the number of missing episode soundtracks I had to listen to were severely reduced, but this episode - along with sections of The Macra Terror - still represent the best visualisations of the series that I ever had during the 1960s section of the marathon. Even now when I think about these scenes, I can picture the way that I saw them the first time around, with the high angles, and a city which to my mind was 1930s New York, complete with heavy film grain and the shadows of German expressionist cinema.

There was no way that the episode would ever live up to that. I don't care how much of a surprise Episodes One and Two turned out to be, or even the futuristic lift system in today's episode, even at the top of his game Barry Letts would be unable to achieve the shots i had in mind on the schedule and budget of a 1960s Doctor Who story. What's sad though is just how much of a let down the actual scenes are. I was braced for something a bit worse than I'd pictured, and when we get a shot of some guards high up on a balcony I did briefly wonder if we might really get some great high-angled images, but it wasn't to be. Ah well, you can't win them all, I guess…

 a

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

Day 343: The Enemy of the World, Episode Three (Revisited)

Dear diary,

Over the course of The 50 Year Diary, I try to quote myself as little as possible. While I'm going back and rewatching these two newly-recovered stories, though, it's rather difficult not to do so - a lot of my reaction to them is informed by my own experience of them the first time around. Today is something of a special case, because until recently it was the only episode from The Enemy of the World to exist in the archives, and thus it's the first of the entire marathon that I'll be watching again some months down the line. Unless we get some more missing episodes cropping up in the next year or so (well… you never know…), it will hold this title with only The Web of Fear Episode One. So, this episode, first time around was exciting because it was Doctor Who switching to 625-line video:

“And what a story to feature an upgrade in picture quality! Episode One features a hovercraft and a helicopter on the beach! The second episode ends with the eruption of a volcano! This third episode is full of… well, corridors, decorated with varying types of garish wallpaper. Oh dear. Couldn’t we have had Episode One saved, instead?”

If anything, having the preceding two episodes back in the archives and available to view makes this one seem even more of an oddity. At least last time, I'd been picturing things on a far smaller scale than we've seen was actually the case. This time around, I've just come from being shocked at the balcony scenes yesterday, and all the use of rear-projection to give certain set ups some more scope. To go from all of that to what we see today feels like a real come down, and I think it may have actually harmed this instalment. Barry Letts always said that Episode Three was the weakest of the serial (and thus it was ironic that it was the only one surviving!), and I think I'm seeing that point proved here now.

Still, I'm finding it a bit easier to follow than I did the last time. As I said yesterday, I'd initially been somewhat confused by the events of Episode Two, and this one relies so heavily on it. Being able to now differentiate the characters better means that I can become a little more involved in the story than on the first time around.

I'm also finding that I can appreciate some of the other performances and characters in this episode more this time around. The chef is a great character, and I enjoy every moment he spends on screen. Hiding under the table when he thinks that a battle is breaking out nearby is his highlight, as everything seems to roll on around him while he just shrugs his shoulders. The young guard who dares to ask Astrid out for wine while she's sneaking past him with a fake pass is another great character - very little screen time, and only a handful of lines - but he feels very rounded, and I rather like that.

It's not quite enough, though. I made a point today of not looking at the score I gave the episode last time, because I'm keen for these revisited entries to be very much based on my gut feeling (as though they were being rated as just the regular next episode in the marathon). Having finished the episode, I announced the the (empty) room that it was 'a five or a six'. Having then checked the original entry, I found that last time I gave it a seven. So there we have it - the episode is let down by being among it's more impressive siblings!

I'm feeling generous, so I'm going to be going with the upper end of my score for the day, and giving this one:

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

Day 342: The Enemy of the World, Episode Two

Dear diary,

The weird thing about going back to do these stories for a second time is seeing how my perceptions have changed in the four-or-so months since I first experienced them. I think that it’s fair to say that my feelings towards the series have cooled a little since Season Seven, and I’m finding myself handing out a lot more ‘average’ scores than I was during the latter half of the 1960s. I means that when I reached the end of yesterday’s episode, I instantly reached for a ‘9/10’. I’d enjoyed it much more than I had any episodes for a while, and a solid 9 placed it firmly in that bracket.

But then I remembered that I’d originally given it a ‘10’. If anything, actually seeing the thing had made it better again. All the action sequences being pulled off spectacularly, the Doctor and his companions interacting so perfectly naturally, and of course some outrageous flirting in a beach house. There’s no way I could mark it lower than full marks, so up to a ‘10’ it went.

It makes it tricky in the long run, though, because I may be rating these revisited episodes slightly lower that I did first time round, and there’d be several reasons for this to happen. For a start – these stories aren’t ‘fresh’ for me anymore. This time around, I know the twists in Salamander’s story. Next week, while I’m making my way through the webbed tunnels of the London Underground, I’ll know every beat of the great Intelligence’s plans. On the one hand, I might find it exciting to enjoy them in a different way, with the prior knowledge of what’s to come, but on the other it may well lessen the impact in a way that seeing the visuals can’t make up for. What I’m trying to say is that I’m still going to be giving these episodes my honest gut reaction when it comes to a final score, and I’m looking forward to seeing how that may have changed since my first viewing.

Today’s episode is another perfect example of the visuals actively helping a story in my estimations, though, because seeing this one has really benefitted the tale. It’s funny just how much I can remember about where I was during these episodes the first time around. During yesterday’s episode, I could pin-point exactly the bit of road I’d been crossing when I first heard Salamander’s speech about the crop growth. For today, I can recall listening to the scene of Jamie ‘saving’ Salamander while I’d been going through the self-serve tills at the supermarket… and then listening to it again five minutes later when I realised that I’d not got a clue what was actually happening in the episode.

In total, I’d listened to bits of this episode three times last time and I still didn’t quite have my head around what was going on and who was who. It didn’t help that I thought Astrid’s surname was ‘Ferrier’, when that’s actually the name of a completely different character. No wonder I’d confused myself! Seeing everything happen makes it much clearer – and also reveals a kind of scope that I’d not imagined for the tale.

I assumed that all of Salamander’s conference (plus Jamie ‘saving’ him, and the final scene as they looked out over the volcanic destruction) were taking place in an office. For some reason, on first listen, this story took on a very ‘noir’ tone in my mind, and I’d pictured this office almost in the style of your stereotypical 1940s Hollywood private eye. To be honest, while it did the job, I’d never imagined that it would look as good as the actual set. These scenes take place out on a balcony, surrounded by foliage, and a very nice set beyond the facade of the house, too. It’s quite a large set – helped somewhat by some clever rear-projection, which I’ll come to in a moment – and it’s far more impressive than I’d have guessed.

Then we’ve got the scenes on the park bench. These don’t work quite so well with the rear-projection technique (if anything, it makes the bench look as though it’s been plonked in the corner of the studio as an afterthought – a shame for a location we spend a fair bit of time in), but it’s great to see Barry Letts playing around with things like this even in his first contribution to the programme. Having sat though his first few seasons at the helm of Doctor Who, I’ve grown used to his pioneering work with CSO, and this feels very much like a fore-runner of all that.

Perhaps the biggest revelation of all, though, is Troughton. In my original write up for this episode back in July, I said ’towards the end of today’s episode, I thought about the fact we'd not had that much Troughton in this one, except that we had, just not in his usual form’. On audio, this is because he’s doing an accent so different to his own (today’s highlight: ‘Is not so good, boys, is not so good!’), but even when we can see him on the screen it doesn’t feel like he’s really here. His performance as Salamander is fantastic, and it only serves to remind me why I love him so much. There’s a great moment where he makes a joke about Ferrier, and then snaps at her to get him a drink. The way he moves his eyes, and the scorn that comes out in the performance… it’s stunning. Seconds later he snaps his fingers for a guard and one comes running. I thought I’d experienced so much of the 1960s, but these few episodes coming back really does show that so much is lost when we can’t see these performances – I can’t wait to see what other little gems get unearthed over the next few days…

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

Day 341: The Enemy of the World, Episode One (Revisited)

Dear diary,

Will Brooks sits in front of the control panel at Doctor Who Online. It may sound impressive and futuristic, but it's really held together by sticky tape and a couple of old washing up liquid bottles. Satisfied, he hits the 'publish' button for The Three Doctors Episode Four, and prepares to get on with the rest of the evening, having completed his daily dose of Doctor Who. It's then, as he grabs his coat and prepares to leave, that he finds himself caught up in something more unusual than he's used to. The hairs stand up on the back of his arms, a ringing enters his head, and he feels himself start to fade away and out of existence. Nearby, people report his final words carried on the wind - whatever's happening is making him giddy, apparently.

Well would you look at that. It would seem that - somehow - I've been scooped up by the Time Lords when they returned Patrick Troughton to his proper place in the timeline (the late 1960s on BBC1, as it happens). I seem to have ended up a little earlier in the time stream than he came from, which places me smack-bang in the middle of Season Five. You can see where I'm going with this, can't you? Go on, keep up the charade with me for the next twelve days - it's the 12th of July 2013. There's still a sun in the sky. You've no idea that Peter Capaldi will be taking on the guise of the Doctor. The revelations and thrills of the 50th anniversary special are still a distant dream…

It all seemed so perfect. Here I was, finally undertaking a proper Doctor Who marathon. After years of telling myself that I'd do it one day, I'd suddenly found myself not simply watching all of the series in order, but blogging about it daily on one of the web's biggest websites devoted to the subject, with a fair number of people reading along and being incredibly kind about the whole thing. Better than that: I was approaching the end of the William Hartnell era. I'd come too far now, there was no going back. And then things got even better. Not only would I be making my way through the Patrick Troughton years - home to the Doctor I'd always considered my favourite - but suddenly there was a lot more of it than ever before. The Enemy of the World and The Web of Fear back in the archives where they belong, and just in time for me to enjoy them for the very first time!

And then it all went a bit… wrong. I made my way through Season Four, and ventured off to The Tomb of the Cybermen. I ventured to Tibet and fought off the Ice Warriors. There was no time left. I'd reached The Enemy of the World… and it still wasn't available. I delayed viewing that day for as long as possible, just in case, and then grudgingly hit the 'play' button for the narrated soundtrack. Thankfully, the first episode was - frankly - brilliant, and there was no time to muse on it, I was too busy being caught up with hovercrafts, and helicopters, and doubles of the Doctor. There were Mexican accents galore, plenty of action, and more happening in 25 minutes that I could have ever dreamed of.

Following Patrick Troughton's brief return in The Three Doctors with the recently returned episodes was on the cards from the moment it became apparent that the announcement was to hit in October. Timing-wise, it gave me a good excuse to slip them in to the marathon without having to wait until the very end. There was no way I'd ever have held off watching these two stories for another 18 months - I'd enjoyed them too much the first time around. It also gives me a great opportunity to keep tracking how different Troughton's performance is between his own era and the return in 1972.

In my initial write up of this episode, I stated:

“I spent a while listening to these scenes thankful that this episode didn't exist in the archives, because it all sounded pretty good, and there was no way that the visuals would live up to the same standard… but then the tele snaps make the scene look just as epic as I'd hoped.”

Thankfully, seeing the scene in question (The Doctor and his companions being chased by gun-wielding strangers before being picked up in a helicopter and flown off over the ocean) makes it even better than it looked via the telesnaps. It's some of the finest direction work that we've had in the series so far and I'm somewhat surprised, as Barry Letts' directorial work in the current era hasn't really been making all that much of an impact on me. There's one particular shot taken fromthe helicopter as it flies out to sea that's very impressive, and it looks almost too good to be wasted on something like Doctor Who.

What the moving visuals give the story most though is the little interactions between the Doctor and his companions, especially Jamie. You'll no doubt recall that by the middle of Season Six, I'd rather had enough of Jamie. He seemed to have out-stayed his welcome in the series, and I was increasingly ready to see the show move on to something new. Dropping back down here in the middle of their time together makes it all seem fantastic again, though. There's a beautiful moment on the beach where the Doctor tells his companions that a hovercraft is a ship that can travel on the land and Jamie replies that he's too old for 'fairy tales'.

On audio, it's just a nice little bit of interplay, in which the Doctor introduces two companions from history to a futuristic machine. Seen in the recovered episode, Jamie gives the Doctor a little push on the shoulder as he delivers his line, and the pair grin widely throughout the exchange. They really come across as two best friends travelling through time and space together. Something else I've seen mentioned a lot since the episode was released is how much of a flirt the Doctor's being with Astrid - and it's true! Troughton, you old dog!

And as if all of this wasn't fantastic enough, it gives me an excuse to start saying 'Allo Bruce! What are you doing here, eh?' again.

 a

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

Day 340: The Three Doctors, Episode Four

Dear diary,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 a

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

Day 339: The Three Doctors, Episode Three

Dear diary,

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

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

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

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

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

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

 a

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

Day 338: The Three Doctors, Episode Two

Dear diary,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Day 337: The Three Doctors, Episode One

Dear diary,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 a

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

Day 336: The Time Monster, Episode Six

Dear diary,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 a

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

Day 336: The Time Monster, Episode Six

Dear diary,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 a

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

Day 335: The Time Monster, Episode Five

Dear diary,

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

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

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

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

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

 a

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

Day 334: The Time Monster, Episode Four

Dear diary,

Dear diary,

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

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

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

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

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

 a

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

Day 333: The Time Monster, Episode Three

Dear diary,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE DOCTOR

Oh dear.

JO

What's up?

THE DOCTOR

It doesn't work…

THE BRIGADIER

You astound me.

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

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

Day 332: The Time Monster, Episode Two

Dear diary,

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

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

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

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

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

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

6/10 

 a

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

Day 331: The Time Monster, Episode One

Dear diary,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Day 330: The Mutants, Episode Six

Dear diary,

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

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

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

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

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

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

6/10 

 a

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

Day 329: The Mutants, Episode Five

Dear diary,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 a

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

Day 328: The Mutants, Episode Four

Dear diary,

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

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

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

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

The BBC have released Peter Davison's comedy sketch 'The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot', which premiered last night on the BBC Red Button.

Synopsis:
A star studded special written and directed by Peter Davison. With the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who about to film, the 'Classic' Doctors are keen to be involved. But do they manage it?

Make sure you keep watching until the very end, as the implications will make The Day Of The Doctor seem even better :)

Watch The Five(isn) Doctors Reboot, below:

+  Follow @DrWhoOnline on Twitter!
+  Follow @PeterDavison5 on Twitter!
+  Follow @SawBonesHex on Twitter!
+  Follow @TheWitchPrime on Twitter! 

[Source: BBC]

 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!

 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!

To coincide with the 50th Anniversary of Doctor Who, Google have dedicated their homepage to a brand new Google Doodle, featuring an addictive Doctor Who, multi-level game.

The game, which was designed by Matthew Cruickshank, features all 11 Doctors as well as Daleks and Cybermen.

Speaking to The Guardian, Cruickshank said:

"It's the first game that I've designed, but it's the technicians and programmers that actually make the game. I just art direct, create the assets, set the visual tone, design the characters, and then do pieces of animation.

It was about four months ago that an employee here who's a massive Doctor Who fan added it to our list of potential doodles. We looked through it and realised that this was something special, a chance to really celebrate a national institution.

The thing is that he's a Time Lord, a time traveller, so I really wanted to get the feeling across that you could travel to different eras. I definitely didn't want you to just play one level and that is it, I love the idea of the Doctor being able zoom around the universe."

See some screenshots from all 5 levels below (just don't look at our time):

+  Read the full story behind the doodle on The Guardian website.

[Sources: Google; The Guardian]

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…