Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start...
Day 548: Shada, Episode Two
Dear diary,
We get to see a fair bit more of the animation in this episode (though it’s still less than the filmed footage at this stage), and I have to admit that I’m quite enjoying it! It mixes somewhat 3-dimensional backgrounds with 2-dimensional characters, and that looks rather good, giving the shots a depth that could otherwise be lost. The characters themselves are spot on, too, with great likenesses captured for everyone so far. The only one who doesn’t quite work for me is Claire, but I think that may simply be because I’ve yet to see her real-life counterpart, so I have nothing to compare her to! As it stands, she just feels a little less… finished than the others do.
There’s only one thing that’s letting the animated segments down for me, and that’s the Tom Baker impersonation that’s used for them. I think Tom is the only surviving cast member who didn’t take part in the recording for this animated version, so it probably makes him stand out even more because everyone around him feels so authentic. It feels more like someone trying and not quite managing to capture Tom’s voice - almost trying too hard. Still, I may get used to it yet, because there’ll be plenty of opportunity to hear it over the next few days!
Animation aside, there’s an awful lot that I’m enjoying in this episode. People always talk of Shada as being a lost ‘classic’, and I usually dismiss it as a product of being lost that gives it such a reputation (in the same way that both The Tomb of the Cybermen and The Web of Fear took a bit of a knock from their ‘untouchable’ status once they were back in the archive and available for all to see). Despite enjoying the story the last time I saw it, I’m pleasantly surprised by just how much there is to love in this one, and I’m smiling along with much of the story as it progresses.
Of particular note today is the Doctor’s chase through the streets of Cambridge (not so gratuitous as the running through Paris scenes from a few stories back, but possibly because there’s less looking at local landmarks here), and I found myself watching the entire sequence simply wondering… why wasn’t this used for the Time Scoop scene in The Five Doctors? Oh, don’t get me wrong, I really enjoy the ‘vanishing from the punt’ scene that we actually ended up with, but this feels like it would be a great opportunity! For a start, the Doctor is actually being chased by something that could very easily be replaced with a black shape!
Aside from that, there’s lots to enjoy back in the professor’s study. The more I look at it, the more I find myself realising just what a beautiful set it is - yet another example of the BBC being better at doing the down-to-earth settings over any of the far-flung space age stuff. Maybe it’s a good job that the scenes inside Skagra’s ship are reduced to being on animation - because that set looks rather good there, too, freed from a BBC budget!
I’m surprised to see the Professor shuffling off this mortal coil quite so easily here, and I’m sure there must be a way around it, because I’m vaguely recalling other plot twists still to come. Denis Carey continues to be an absolute delight, making the Professor another character from this season that I’d love to see bumbling around time and space with the Doctor and Romana. It’s a part (and a performance) that I can easily imagine Patrick Troughton in, had he not been cast as the Doctor.
