Monday, December 31, 2012

The Ark in Space

Dear Gary—

The Ark in Space is not the first time the Doctor has landed on an ark in space. Interestingly, both mark the first full TARDIS adventure for a new companion, Dodo back in The Ark and Harry in our present serial The Ark in Space. Both take place on a ship sent from a dying Earth full of representatives of humanity along with flora and fauna of the planet. However, that is where the similarities end. The Ark in Space is a story unto itself, and quite remarkable at that.
The TARDIS lands off of its mark of the moon, apparently due to the clumsiness of Harry who pushed the wrong button in flight. I believe I had described Dodo in The Ark as a floppy sheepdog getting under foot, loveable but exasperating. Harry is similarly endearing, but in his own way. He is a tad old fashioned, always well-intentioned, and prone to mishap. He goes through most of the story in his stocking feet because he loses both of his shoes, and he mentions his dislike of sliding doors ever since he got his nose trapped in one.
But Harry is game, accepting the fact that they have traveled many thousands of years into the future and ready to face any danger. “Oh, I say, we’ve gone,” is his fist reaction as he steps out of the TARDIS. “I’ve gone mad,” is his conclusion. But he quickly adapts in his typical British “simple sort of chap” way.  When the Doctor leaves him in charge of resuscitating the sleeping  human cargo on the ark using the advanced medical technique he only observed once, Harry calms Sarah’s doubts by claiming, “dead simple, really; medicine by numbers.” Harry might push the wrong buttons at the wrong time and step out of his shoes, but the Doctor can count on him in a pinch.
“Your mind is beginning to work,” the Doctor tells Harry, but then qualifies, “it’s entirely due to my influence of course; you mustn’t take any credit.”
Harry has quickly settled in as a companionable companion.
The Ark in Space is not only Harry’s first TARDIS adventure, but Tom Baker’s as well. His first story, Robot, was a UNIT adventure taking place on Earth. The Ark in Space is his first foray into space and time.
“There’s a mystery here, Harry.” The Doctor has always loved a good mystery to solve, and my impression of the fourth Doctor’s quick wittedness in Robot continues here in The Ark in Space. More than any previous generation, this fourth Doctor inspires confidence that his mind is always working, always several steps ahead of anyone else, always unraveling the mystery as easily as he untangles sabotaged wiring.
Sidestepping questions is a Doctor Who tradition. The first Doctor couldn’t be bothered; the second Doctor ran; the third Doctor simply reversed the polarity. With Tom Baker’s Doctor we realize that the questions just don’t matter, we know that the Doctor has the answer and that’s all that counts.
Harry: “Doctor, I haven’t the foggiest notion what you’re on about.”
Doctor: “Never mind. It just means that Sarah can’t be far away. All we’ve got to do is find her. Come on.”
“Never mind." He would explain and sometimes does, but why when the explanation would be so far above everyone’s head? (“He talks to himself sometimes because he’s the only one who understands what he’s talking about.”) Simply put it in practical terms (“It just means that Sarah can’t be far away.”) and act (“All we’ve got to do is find her. Come on.”).
And then there are philosophical questions that have definite answers (“yes”) but that have deeper meaning.
Vira: “Is she of value?”
Harry: “Of value? She’s a human being like ourselves. What sort of question is that?”
Doctor: “The answer is yes.”
Vira: “Your comrade is a romantic.”
Doctor: “Perhaps we both are.”
The “she” in question is Sarah Jane who has been accidentally placed in cryonic suspension. The Ark in Space goes beyond the question of the value of a single human being, however. The Doctor has always had an affinity for the human race and in this story he admits this interest plainly: “It may be irrational of me, but human beings are quite my favorite species.”
The Doctor is a romantic, he has a sense of wonder and awe fostered in him by his aged mentor on that long ago Gallifreyan mountainside. The Doctor sees Mankind as the “daisiest daisy.” But the Doctor can say it far more eloquently:
“Homo sapiens—what an inventive, invincible species. It’s only a few million years since they crawled up out of the mud and learned to walk. Puny, defenseless bipeds. They’ve survived flood, famine, and plague. They’ve survived cosmic wars and holocausts. And now, here they are, out among the stars, waiting to begin a new life; to upset eternity. They’re indomitable . . . indomitable.”
The poetic soul of the Doctor brings beauty and meaning and life to the Time Lord vision of limitless time and space.
This romantic nature manifests itself in practical terms: “Never mind me, Harry; there’s a man in danger.”
I’m sorry for rambling on, Gary, but it has been a while since I have been as inspired by the Doctor, and I am excited to learn that my youthful affection for Tom Baker’s Doctor stands the test of time. I truly do find this fourth generation Doctor to be the most interesting and complex.
This new Doctor is serious and playful at the same time; calm and intense; logical and nonsensical; arrogant and humble.
“When I say I’m afraid, Sarah, I’m not making jokes.” In the same way, when playing with a yo-yo he is really taking a gravity reading. The Doctor has many layers; what you see is not always all that it seems. A joke is not always a joke; a yo-yo is not always a yo-yo. The Doctor has depths deeper than his endless pockets (in which a yo-yo, cricket ball, and jelly babies are found in this story).
The first Doctor stated he never did get his medical degree; the second Doctor at first claimed to remember getting his degree but then later in his run said that no, he was not a medical doctor; the third Doctor when asked about his title often replied that he’s a doctor of “practically everything.”  Now with the fourth Doctor we learn: “My doctorate is purely honorary.” This Doctor has a certain humility about him, despite his arrogance (“Mine is exceptional,” he says of his brain).
And of course there is that wonderful scarf, almost as endless as his pockets. It gets an end scorched off in this story: “Pity about the scarf. Madam Nostradamus knit it for me; witty little knitter." Yet it seems to remain as long as ever. Good thing since the Doctor says he’ll “never get another one like it.”
I’m definitely rambling, Gary, and I haven’t really said anything about the plot, which has a complexity of its own. The fact that the inhabitants have been in suspended animation and overslept their alarm clock by several thousand years is compelling enough. Add the horrific fact that an alien insect has invaded while they slept and laid its eggs in one of the humans and that the entire human race is in danger of being absorbed by the newly hatched creatures, and the story becomes riveting.
Like the Doctor, the plot finds humor in the horror. I especially like the character of Rogin. “We’d have been happily dead by now,” he grumbles upon waking to find himself thousands of years off mark and in danger of becoming an insect (Wirrn).
At first I took Rogin to be your typical malcontent trouble maker, but he is anything but. Yes he complains, but he is heroic in his actions, sacrificing himself to save Mankind. “We’re all safe now, Sarah, thanks to Rogin’s bravery.”
I really should wrap this up, Gary. The Wirrn explode (more sacrificial bravery on the part of Noah who has been taken over by the Wirrn) and the Doctor and his companions use the Ark’s transmat system to beam themselves down to Earth to look around while Vira revives the rest of humanity. It’s a rather nice flow into the next story, which I am really looking forward to as I remember it to be a short but sweet Sontaran story.
“Well,” says Harry, “the Brigadier did tell me to stick with you, Doctor, and . . . ah . . . orders is orders.”
I’ll stick with you, too, Doctor.
So I send this out, dear Gary, hoping it finds you out among the stars, waiting to begin a new life; to upset eternity . . .

Friday, December 28, 2012

Robot

Dear Gary—

“If the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum on the other two sides, why is a mouse when it spins?”
Aaaah . . . yes . . . that is one of the many reasons I love Tom Baker’s Doctor. He has a touch of Ish Kabibble about him (by the way, what exactly is the difference between a duck?).

“A new body is like a new heart; just takes a little bit of time to settle in.”
Tom Baker has no problem settling in to the role of the Doctor: “You may be A doctor, but I am The Doctor; the definite article you might say.”

I have to say, Gary, that I was a bit apprehensive about Robot; I was concerned that I had built Tom Baker up too much in my mind and I would find I was disappointed, especially since the last time I viewed Robot I recall finding it a touch boring. Not to worry. Both Robot and Tom Baker fire on all cylinders, or as the Doctor says, “Of course I’m fit . . . all systems go.”
Ish Kabibble aside, the Doctor is still the Doctor; and what impresses me about Tom Baker’s portrayal in Robot is that he can quickly and easily go from “People never can see what’s under their noses above their heads” nonsense to “Assuming I’m right, and I invariably am,” and we have every confidence that he is.

Everything about Baker’s Doctor is quick witted; he flows seamlessly from gibberish to reasoned logic, all at lightning speed. The Doctor has always been intelligent; with Baker we see his intelligence. From his examination of the pulverized dandelion to his study of the list of stolen equipment, we can see the wheels turning, calm and steady and ordered, even while the non-stop string of banter flies unchecked.
Tom Baker’s Doctor illustrates the “lateral thinking” of Jon Pertwee’s. This is lateral thinking at full tilt.

Tom Baker is not the only star of Robot. Nicholas Courtney, John Levene, and Elisabeth Sladen as our regulars, the Brigadier, Benton, and Sarah Jane, are stellar as ever. The Brigadier has always been a standout for me; his lines and his delivery are consistently spot on. Robot contains one of his classic lines that is so apropos of Doctor Who: “Just once I’d like to meet an alien menace that wasn’t immune to bullets.” And when he boldly declares, “Just for once we’re not going to need the Doctor,” only to have his plan backfire, he takes the resulting disaster with his usual nonplussed but stoic restraint.
Then there is Benton, who we learn has rightfully been promoted. Benton quietly goes about his job, mostly content to remain in the background, but always on hand. It is Benton who thinks to remove the disintegrator gun from the hands of the immobile robot; it is Benton who recalls the professor’s claim that the robot is made of a living metal. Benton: the unsung hero of Doctor Who.

And of course there is Sarah Jane. Sarah is still the independent reporter, going out on her own seeking the answers and more often than not coming up with them. Sarah leads the Doctor to the Institute, Professor Kettlewell, the SRS, and the robot. But she is more than the liberated woman of ‘70s stereotype. She is a woman of warmth and understanding and compassion; the “sort of girl who gives motor cars pet names.” Sarah forms a bond with the robot that is far more effective than the Brigadier’s bullets.
Finally we are introduced to a new regular—Ian Marter as Harry Sullivan (shades of Ian Chesterton of old). Harry isn’t given much to do in Robot, but he is on hand for the following:

Doctor: “Never cared much for the word ‘impregnable’; sounds a bit too much like ‘unsinkable’.”
Harry: “What’s wrong with ‘unsinkable’?”

Doctor: “Nothing; as the iceberg said to the Titanic.”
Harry: “What?”

Doctor: “Gloop, gloop, gloop, gloop, gloop, gloop, gloop.”
Harry provides some nice fresh blood to our Brig, Benton, Sarah mix.

With a crew like this it is acceptable that the supporting cast is rather too wild-haired absent-minded professor and stock Nazi-wannabe caricature. In fact I think it preferable. Robot is a story for the regulars to shine. The supporting cast is there for just that—support.
Shining above all, of course, is the Doctor. Fourth generation Doctor. William Hartnell-Patrick Troughton-Jon Pertwee-Tom Baker. It is quite a kaleidoscope. William Hartnell, the citizen of the universe and gentleman to boot; not a doc and not a god. Patrick Troughton, the hobo; the adventurer; the clown. Jon Pertwee, the dandy; the action hero. Tom Baker, a whirlwind of all the generations in one; both the eye of the storm and the storm; the calm and the chaos; all rolled into one extraordinary being.

“In science, as in morality, the end never justifies the means.” A statement that could have been made by any one of the Doctor’s generations.  That underlying, unifying element that makes each Doctor the Doctor. And when the odds of defeat are enumerated, the Doctor, any of the Doctors, can and does say, “I know, but we have to try.”
The Doctor. The same. The Doctor. Different.

“That, Mr. Benton, is the Doctor.”
“You mean he’s done it again?”

Yes, he has done it again. He is the same and yet different. Perhaps not as abrasive or rude as past generations, but still firm and decisive; with a dash of buffoonery and a splash of sleight-of-hand. And so when he meets the evasive Professor Kettlewell he disarms him with his interest and knowledge before hitting him with his demand for answers. And when confronting the SRS he beguiles them with dance and tricks before calling in the troops.
And he does it all with his pockets bulging. The Doctor has always pulled surprises out of his pocket; fourth generation Doctor’s pockets seem to be bottomless. Not only does he carry jelly babies (first produced from the second Doctor’s pockets), but he empties out a scroll from Skaro, a pilot’s license from the Mars-Venus rocket run, galactic passport, and honorary membership in the Alpha Centauri table tennis club. Deep pockets indeed.

The Doctor’s long-standing dislike of computers is yet another constant: “The trouble with computers, of course, is that they are very sophisticated idiots,” he says as he averts another Doctor Who constant, the ominous count down. However he achieves this by overriding the programming rather than past generational solutions of smashing or re-wiring.
Tom Baker is the definite article.

“There’s no point in being grown up if you can’t be childish sometimes.”
That, Gary, sums up the Doctor.

And I think, Gary, that it just might give a key to the lateral thinking; to the Ish Kabibble factor.
I remember babysitting for Robert when he was very young and we were watching Robot. “Why is that car yellow?” he asked and Cindy and I laughed at the absurdity of the question. Why not yellow? What difference does it make? Because that is the color it was when it came off the assembly line. Why ask? Watching Robot now, though, it struck me—yellow Bessie is leading a long line of army green vehicles. All the cars are green except Bessie. Why, Robert’s young mind was asking, is the one yellow when all the rest are green?

It was the same frustration my childish mind wrestled with when I once asked Mom while we were driving at night what the towers with the blinking lights were for. “So the planes won’t hit them,” was her reply. They built the towers so that planes wouldn’t hit them? Why not just not build them? She of course thought I was asking what the lights were for when what I really wanted to know was what the towers were for.
And so, dear Gary, “Why is a mouse when it spins?” might not be such a nonsensical question after all. We might have to look at the world upside down and sideways and through the mind of a child before we can make sense of it, but there is sense, even if it is nonsense.

I hope, Gary, that somewhere out there in the Doctor’s time swirl you are able to ponder these questions, and perhaps you do know why is a mouse when it spins, and maybe even what’s the difference between a duck. (I know, Gary . . . . One leg is both the same.)

Monday, December 24, 2012

Jon Pertwee

Dear Gary—

“I wonder why he’s wearing fancy dress.” Jon Pertwee has taken William Hartnell’s “citizen of the universe . . . and a gentleman to boot,” to the next level. His velvety jackets and ruffled shirts are always colorfully coordinated and refined. People might inquire, “Going to a fancy dress party?” but the Doctor is no fool. Jon Pertwee’s Doctor is more than ready to enter the fray; he just wants to look good doing it.
And Jon Pertwee’s Doctor is indeed ready for action. He has taken Patrick Troughton’s penchant for running and turned it into high speed chases in motor boats, helicopters, hover crafts, motorcycles, cars—just about any mode of transportation available. And when he catches up with his man he is ready for hand to hand combat, fencing, Venusian karate (or aikido); Pertwee’s Doctor is well equipped for a fight.

Yes, it is that time, Gary. Time to reflect back on Jon Pertwee’s long run as the Doctor. I see from my original rankings that I placed him a rather dismal eighth. I am tempted to move him up at least one notch, just above Davison, but that might be only because he is freshest in my mind, so I am going to reserve judgment.
I started out my Jon Pertwee experience by discovering that I disliked him more than I thought, but I ended by learning I liked him more than I thought. Jon Pertwee began his generation ill-tempered and rude, perhaps as a result of his exile. Jo Grant eventually softened him and a more tender side of the Doctor emerged.

However I still have a sense of detachment from this third Doctor. Perhaps this, too, is a result of his exile. Hartnell and Troughton were wanderers, hobos, adventurers; but they both had their TARDIS, their home base. Pertwee is stationed on Earth for most of his generation; he has stability with UNIT; he is in familiar territory. But this stability, this familiarity is foreign to him; it is not of his own choice. Perhaps this is why he seems more distant and inaccessible.
What we do get with Pertwee more than with the previous two is action. But perhaps this, too, creates a barrier to our (or my) affection. High speed chases are exciting; however they don’t do much in the way of character development.

That is not to say, Gary, that Jon Pertwee’s Doctor has a lack of character development. Indeed, this third generation goes a long way in enriching the legend of both the Doctor and the Time Lords.
For the first time with Pertwee we not only learn that his home planet is Gallifrey but we have brief glimpses of this planet as well. We meet several Time Lords, most prominently the Master (although I have to say that the Master was a bit overused), and we get more insight into the Time Lord philosophy of non-interference (although they have no problem interfering in the Doctor’s life) and as “galactic ticket inspectors.”

With Pertwee we learn of the Doctor’s affection for Venusian culture, not just their martial arts but their philosophy and lullabies. We learn of his old boyhood mentor who gave him the secret of life, and we even meet this wizened Time Lord in Pertwee’s final serial. And let's not forget his beloved Bessie; although the Doctor seems to forget her in favor of his more modern hover car during the end of his reign. Jon Pertwee's Doctor does enjoy tinkering with gadgets.
The Jon Pertwee era also ushered in some new enemies for the Doctor, most notably the Master, the Silurians, and my favorite the Sontarans. And it expanded on the role of old friends; without Nicholas Courtney as the Brigadier I’m not sure I could have made it through the Pertwee years. The sonic screwdriver and use of the name John Smith, both introduced by Patrick Troughton, were also expanded on with Pertwee.

Jon Pertwee has made the role of the Doctor his own. He has explored elements of his predecesors and taken them to new levels, and he has forged new territory. One side note I would like to make that always rather bothered me, however--William Hartnell's Doctor was always keen on admonishing people for calling him 'Doc.' Pertwee never seems to mind this; multiple characters throughout his run get away with it. "Not a doc and not a god" seems to have been forgotten.

If I were to pick my favorite Pertwee story I would probably say The Time Warrior. Inferno is also great fun and Colony in Space and TheMutants are examples of strong scripts enhanced by some inspired casting.
I am more than ready, though, to say goodbye to Pertwee and am excited to begin the Baker era.

As the Brig would say, Gary, “Well, here we go again . . .”

Friday, December 21, 2012

Planet of the Spiders

Dear Gary—

“Never mind the dratted coffee; what about the spiders?”
Planet of the Spiders is yet another Doctor Who example of everyone involved taking the production so seriously that the ridiculousness of it all does not overwhelm. This has always been one of the strongest points of Doctor Who. No matter how cheap the production; no matter how cheesy the costumes, the props, the sets; everything is acted as though it is all real. The actors believe; the audience believes.

Planet of the Spiders almost makes me want to revisit The Web Planet. Maybe I can finally overcome the cheesiness of that story too.  But as I remember, The Web Planet didn’t have strong enough acting or storyline to carry it. What The Web Planet does have, though, is affection for character which I don’t quite have to the same degree with this third Doctor. And I should not have thought of that, Gary, because it takes Planet of the Spiders down a notch in my thinking; the acting and story, although a step above The Web Planet, is not quite up to many a Doctor Who serial.
But back to the spiders. The spiders, I feel, actually elevate this story. Yes they are rather weak in terms of monsters. I mean, just step on the thing and be done with it. And yet they speak with such confidence and authority with their thin and gangly voices. And the infighting and intrigue—oh what a tangled web. I find myself fascinated by this glimpse of political spider machinations.

Spider, spider, burning bright.
I find the human plotters, however, to be far less effective. This nerdy group of middle aged accountant and salesman types sitting cross legged on a cellar floor chanting “Ohm” over and over lacks a certain fearful symmetry.

Lupton is the only member of this nerd pack who has any sense of purpose, and even that is rather sketchy. Like most Doctor Who monster collaborators, Lupton is after power. I’m not sure, though, how he figures on getting this power, or how he has convinced his cohorts to go along with him on his rather vague and incoherent plans.
The humans on Metebelis Three are equally unimpressive. These descendants of a crashed spaceship live in a primitive state; obviously their ancestors taught them nothing of their technology or gave them the common sense to realize that if the blue crystals on the planet could develop super spiders it could do the same for humans.

Planet of the Spiders, however, is less about the story and more about the third Doctor. This is Jon Pertwee’s final serial and Planet of the Spiders provides a nice wrap up. The sense of curiosity and wonder of the first and second Doctors has grown to a self confessed “greed for knowledge; for information;” and that greed has caught up with him.
To begin, the Doctor’s insistence on experimenting with a reluctant clairvoyant results in the death of this psychic. Early in Pertwee’s run as the Doctor he was similarly responsible for the death of Barnham in The Mind of Evil. At that time he became defensive; now he takes responsibility for his actions.

The events in Planet of the Spiders are all triggered by the Doctor’s action of stealing the blue crystal from Metebelis Three back in The Green Death. Jo has returned the crystal to the Doctor, having been warned of its evil aura. (I can’t help wondering, Gary, how different the spiders’ reception might have been in the depths of the Amazon forests.) Now the spiders of Metebelis Three have come to Earth through the channel of the chanting accountants in search of this crystal.
After some extended chase sequences in various modes of transportation (“Yes, of course we’re flying”), the Doctor revisits Metebelis Three (“the TARDIS may be a little erratic” at times, but the Doctor has wired Metebelis Three coordinates into the programmer).

“I had to face my fear,” the Doctor explains. Back in The Mind of Evil his greatest fears were revealed to be fire and past monsters. It has never been hinted that the Doctor has arachnophobia; I’m not sure what fear he was confronting; perhaps it was his own mortality.
Although mortality, much like time, for a Time Lord is relative. For the first time we get the term ‘regeneration’ used to describe the Doctor’s metamorphosis. “When a Time Lord’s body wears out he regenerates; becomes new.”

The Doctor is not the only one to regenerate in this story; in another nod to the past, the Doctor’s old hermit mentor from Gallifrey (first referenced in The Time Monster), makes an appearance in the form of K’anpo, Abbot of the Tibetan monastery that is home to the chanting accountants.
“The recognition of friends is not always easy,” K’anpo tells the Doctor as he reveals himself. And in another Time Lord revelation, he explains that the monk Cho-Je is in reality a projection of his future self; when K’anpo’s body dies, he does regenerate as Cho-Je. (This forward projection of a Time Lord’s soul will be utilized in the fourth Doctor’s regeneration.)

Speaking of old friends, Mike Yates redeems himself in this story after his acts of betrayal back in Invasion of the Dinosaurs. And there are a couple name droppings by the Doctor (“Next to Mrs. Samuel Pepys you make the finest cup of coffee;” and “Harry, err, what was his name? . . . Houdini!”). We have the letter from Jo, and of course the old standbys Benton, Sarah Jane, and the Brigadier. And let’s not forget the TARDIS (“I always leave the actual landing to the TARDIS herself; she’s no fool you know.”).
The Doctor has faced his demons and now he is amongst friends. “I got lost in the Time Vortex; the TARDIS brought me home.” Home. Amongst friends.

Jon Pertwee fades away and Tom Baker takes his place.
“Well, here we go again.”

Yes, here we go, Gary . . .

Monday, December 17, 2012

The Monster of Peladon

Dear Gary—

“There’s a gang of hot-headed miners running around in those tunnels with sophisticated weapons.” That nicely sums up The Monster of Peladon.
The Doctor has returned to Peladon fifty years after the events of The Curse of Peladon, this time with Sarah Jane Smith in tow.

“It’s not your precious Citadel at all; it’s another rotten, gloomy old tunnel.” A tunnel with hot-headed miners running amok in their afro badger hair.
Peladon hasn’t changed much since the Doctor’s last visit. It still has a rather ineffectual ruler (King Peladon’s daughter Queen Thalira); it still has a rather medieval caste society; and it still has Alpha Centauri. Peladon has joined the Federation, but the hoped for progress has not materialized.

It would be interesting to see Peladon fifty years after Curse if Jo had stayed behind to become the queen. How different things might have been. Instead King Peladon must have continued allowing himself to be cowed by his Chancellor and the Federation; forever caught between the two and paralyzed to make any decision. And his daughter is carrying on where he left off.
The result is that Peladon is on the brink of yet another civil war, this time led by the exploited miners who have been bearing the brunt of the power struggles occurring in the Citadel.

Add to this boiling pot a traitorous Federation engineer and a rogue Ice Warrior faction intent on getting the trisilicate for the Federation’s enemy the Galaxy Five confederation. Then mix in the Doctor and Sarah Jane.
The result is another decent Doctor Who action adventure.

Decent Doctor Who adventure . . . Galaxy Five . . . I don’t know, Gary . . . I’m kind of missing the days of reconstructed Galaxy Four.
But I have to let those sprays of molten silver that are Galaxy Four spread themselves out and dissolve into the Galaxy Five crisis at hand.

And so the Doctor’s lament, “I wish we could stop for a while and take stock of ourselves instead of being surrounded by dangers all the time,” disperses out and reimages itself as “My dear Sarah, there is nothing I’d like more than a quiet life.”
A quiet life, however, is never the Doctor’s fate.

“He was the most alive person I ever met,” Sarah says of him when she thinks he is dead. Alive; full of life; larger than life; never quiet. Even the Doctor’s Zen like memories that he shares are bursting with color and life, just like those shimmering molten silver sprays.
But of course the Doctor is not dead.

“I put myself into a complete sensory withdrawal,” he explains; “I shut myself off.”
That brief trance-like state is the only quiet the Doctor knows. After that it is off to race about the tunnels with those hot-headed miners. The Monster of Peladon really should have been called The Tunnels of Peladon.

The monster that the title refers to is a holographic image of the Doctor’s old friend Aggedor that the engineer Eckersley and his Ice Warrior cohorts are using to terrorize the miners. The real Aggedor also makes a cameo appearance and the Doctor reacquaints himself using his old standby Haroon, Haroon, Haroon lullaby. Unfortunately this furry royal pet meets an untimely death.
It is an interesting re-visit to Peladon, The Monster of Peladon. It has enough reference to The Curse and yet enough difference to keep it a separate story. Trisilicate and the miners were only minor plot points of Curse and have been mined effectively here in Monster. The Chancellor holding desperately to the old ways and dominating the young ruler is also a nice echo of the past story, but the outcome of Monster promises more reform than the previous with the appointment of the miner Gebek as the new Chancellor.

Sarah’s exhortations to the queen also remind one of Jo’s efforts with Peladon back in Curse, although Sarah seems to be making more of an impact. Peladon was lovesick and starry eyed; when Jo left her influence left with her. Sarah’s lectures on women’s lib, however, start to sink in and Thalira begins to take more of a commanding role as the story progresses.
And then there is Alpha Centauri. Good old Alpha. And the Ice Warriors. Only this time, instead of being the good guys the Ice Warriors turn out to be the baddies. Similar yet different. Quite a nice touch.

Galaxy Four to Galaxy Five; Curse to Monster; first Doctor to third; the magic of Doctor Who. Shimmering echoes of the past enriching the present.
Here’s hoping those shimmering echoes are spreading out amongst the stars and will find you, Gary, somewhere in time and space.

Friday, December 14, 2012

Death to the Daleks

Dear Gary—

“They’re probably the most technically advanced and ruthless life form in the galaxy.” And yet whenever the Daleks appear on screen in Death to the Daleks they are accompanied by some kind of bumbling bumpkin music that undermines this image of the Doctor’s deadliest enemy.
“Inside each of those shells is a living, bubbling lump of hate.”

Cue bumbling bumpkin theme music.
It just doesn’t rhyme.

Granted, the Daleks are somewhat neutralized in Death to the Daleks due to the energy drain that has rendered their weapons useless. However, even with their energy blasters out of commission the Daleks find a way to dominate; they simply fit themselves with more primitive firearms.
I do have to wonder, though, why the energy drain does not affect the Dalek power of movement. After all, the TARDIS is completely shut down. Landing on the planet Exxilon the TARDIS, “a living thing . . . thousands of instruments . . . its energy sources never stop” as the Doctor describes her, is plunged into darkness. Even the doors will not work and the Doctor has to dig out a hand crank to pry them open. Back in The Web Planet the first Doctor could open the powerless TARDIS doors with his ring, but absent the ring I guess he uses a crank.

The Daleks, however, can still move about; can still communicate; can still enter and exit their ship; can still find firearms to take the place of their defunct blasters; can still strike terror in the hearts of their foes. All to a bumbling bumpkin tune.
Despite this anomaly Death to the Daleks is a decent four part story. Due to the energy drain the Doctor, Sarah, a party of similarly stranded earthlings and the Daleks form an uneasy alliance. However once fitted with their new but primitive firearms, the Daleks take over and enslave the native Exxilons to mine for parrinium, yet another rare precious mineral in a long line of Doctor Who rare precious minerals.

Meanwhile, the Doctor leaves Sarah behind to cope with the Daleks and the parrinium while he goes off with Bellal, a native Exxilon, to restore power.
The Exxilons are another example of a longstanding Doctor Who tradition—a tribe of people descended from a great and technologically advanced peoples but who have devolved and have lost all knowledge of their ancestral heritage. Plus we have an engineering feat that has run amok; a maze that can only be traversed by solving a series of complex puzzles; and a computer undone by a paradox. All solid Doctor Who staples.

And all part of a separate storyline that the Doctor has followed, leaving the Daleks, enslaved minors, and stranded Marine Space Corp team behind, although a couple of Daleks and space cadets do tag along belatedly.
Bellal leads the Doctor to the magnificent living city that his ancestors built. This self-repairing city with a brain turned on its creators and now sits impenetrable and indestructible, sapping all energy around it. As the Doctor and Bellal work their way deeper into the city by solving the various brain teasers along the way, they are followed by two Daleks. However the threat posed by these ‘bubbling lumps of hate’ is again undercut by the bumbling bumpkin theme.

I almost wonder, Gary, if the Death to the Daleks title was meant to be prophetic; I wonder if the show was trying to kill off the Daleks, not with a bang but a whimper. After all, who would hide behind a couch when the musical cue was clearly comedy not danger?
And yet the “scorched planet policy” of the Daleks is a very real threat in Death to the Daleks.

It just does not rhyme, this discordant note.
In the end the Daleks are handily disposed of by the unlikely Galloway, the de facto leader of the Marine Space Corp who defies all expectations and sacrifices himself to blow up the Dalek ship in flight, ending the Daleks with a bang after all and not a whimper.

The Doctor is left to deal with the power draining city. “A computer is a machine of logic,” the Doctor reasons, and therefore “it cannot stand paradoxes.” He engineers “what in human terms is called a nervous breakdown” and the city self destructs. This is a useful device used against many a Doctor Who computer, and yet, Gary, I can’t help doubting its authenticity. But I’ll let that go.
The Daleks have their own way of dealing with the city, having sent up two of the space cadets with a bomb to blow up the beacon atop the city. I suppose if the Doctor hadn’t scrambled the city’s brain it would have self-repaired, so the Doctor’s trek into the inner workings of the place was not in vain, and Galloway was able to secrete one of the bombs for use later against the Daleks so everything ties together nicely.

“It’s rather a pity in a way; now the universe is down to 699 wonders.”
Cue bumbling bumpkin music; cue TARDIS takeoff.

Cue another send off, Gary, hoping to find you somewhere out there . . .

Monday, December 10, 2012

Invasion of the Dinosaurs

Dear Gary—

Invasion of the Dinosaurs should be better than it is. Someone had the germ of a good idea, but the execution fails. A tyrannosaurus rex terrorizing the streets of London sounds impressive, but it just looks bad. It almost looks like they cut out a dinosaur from some cheap B flick and then mounted it on a Popsicle stick puppet style and moved it about in front of the camera while filming shots of London; then this footage was projected onto a background while the actors stood in front of it pretending to be scared. It’s bad.
Perhaps I exaggerate. Or perhaps it would have been more effective if they had actually done it this way.

I can forgive poor effects, however, if the rest of the story makes up for it. Invasion of the Dinosaurs doesn’t quite.
It is a shame because the first episode starts out rather promising. The Doctor and Sarah arrive back in London to find it eerily deserted. “Perhaps it’s Sunday,” the Doctor speculates, but even Sunday would not account for the totally dead and silent streets.

This sinister start, however, comes to a screeching halt when the first fake pterodactyl is flung at the Doctor’s head. Then we have a rather mundane arrest as the Doctor and Sarah are rounded up as looters.
Even the Brigadier can’t quite save this story. “It’s more important to find the cause of this crisis than to deal with their effect,” he says quite sensibly, but the cause of the crisis is rather nonsensical.

Earth is in danger of “becoming one vast garbage dump inhabited only by rats,” and a small group of fanatics is bent on bringing the planet back to a simpler time, before it was defiled “by the evil of Man’s technology.” This is a common enough goal, but the means by which this group wants to accomplish this end is convoluted and ridiculous.
Again, I can forgive convoluted and ridiculous plots if the rest of the story justifies them. Again, Invasion of the Dinosaurs doesn’t quite.

Dinosaurs are being transported for brief spans of time onto modern day London streets by a mad scientist in order to evacuate the area so he can work in secret on his real project of rolling back time to a pure and innocent age. Why dinosaurs are chosen as the instrument of terror is a mystery and I suppose incidental. The real question is why do it at all? He is already working in secret in an underground bunker; the dinosaurs have effectively evacuated government workers and civilians, however UNIT forces and the army are now concentrated in the area and on high alert.
OK, the mad scientist has this covered; he has the general in charge of the area on his side and he has the one remaining government representative on his side. But neither of these men are convincing as environmental fanatics. I just can’t see General Finch caring about chemical and industrial pollution or Sir Charles Grover worrying about mercury poisoned fish.

“It’s not the oil and the filth and the poisonous chemicals that are the real cause of pollution, Brigadier; it is simply greed.” Perhaps it is greed that is motivating the general and Sir Charles, but what will they get out of turning back time? Are they stockpiling wealth so that when all of civilization is gone and none but the chosen few remain they will be kings? But kings of what? No, the motivation for Finch and Grover is murky at best.
And then there is Yates. Poor Yates. I can believe that Yates would care about dying fish, but I can’t believe that he would condone the destruction of countless generations of people to achieve utopia. A mental breakdown of this nature just does not seem in character for poor Yates. Why didn't he just go off with Jo and her professor to the Amazon if he was interested in saving the planet?

I am at least glad to see that Sergeant Benton remains stalwart.
Sarah Jane also does not disappoint. The feisty, independent character that was developed in The Time Warrior is maintained here in Invasion of the Dinosaurs. Ignored and dismissed, Sarah ventures off on her own and discovers the truth. She does get kidnapped, but she doesn’t need the Doctor to save her. She saves her fellow inmates, although she first has to convince them that they need saving.

This is another rather unbelievable element of our story. Hundreds of intelligent people have been duped into believing that a scientist has discovered a means of space travel that will take them to a new planet (that he has also discovered) in only three months time and that they are actually on a spaceship on such a journey, and that all of this has been kept secret from the world at large.
This hoodwinked group kept in an underground bunker reminds me of the similar group in Enemy of the World, except that this group doesn’t believe they are in an underground bunker and the outside world has been dangerously irradiated from war, this group believes that these couple of rooms in an underground bunker is actually a spaceship and that they are on a journey to the stars. And this group is made up of an elite core of intelligentsia. I don’t buy it.

Six episodes of cut-rate dinosaurs and unconvincing characters is a bit of a letdown after The Time Warrior. But it is still Doctor Who and has enough entertainment value to make it passable. One interesting note—the Doctor seems to have abandoned Bessie in favor of a sleeker new age model: “This car of mine is exactly what I need; speed is of the essence.”
I’ll let this go, Gary—speed it off into that time swirl of the Doctor and hope it finds its way to you . . .

Friday, December 7, 2012

The Time Warrior

Dear Gary—

The Time Warrior is Doctor Who at its best. Everything works in this manageable four part story: script, cast, sets, costumes. The only quibble I might have is with special effects, but that is incidental.
I’d like to start, Gary, with the introduction of the new companion, Sarah Jane Smith. Sarah Jane is one of the best known and loved companions of early Doctor Who and The Time Warrior is the perfect debut story for her.

“You can make yourself useful; we need somebody around here to make the coffee,” the Doctor says with a smile as he first meets her. Sarah Jane is no coffee maker; neither is she a test tube fetcher; nor a devotee. Not Sarah Jane Smith.
I love Sarah’s character as depicted in this her premier serial. My initial exposure to her had been in the Baker years when her role had settled down into the more typical female companion who wanders off and gets into trouble. I have only first viewed The Time Warrior in the past few years and I am delighted to see her feisty nature given full reign. I always like a bit of friction between the Doctor and his companion (think Ian and Barbara) rather than the near idolatry that many companions exhibit, so The Time Warrior is a refreshing perspective on the Sarah/Doctor relationship.

“This isn’t a rescue, Doctor, it’s a capture.” Finding herself in the midst of a Middle Ages power struggle between the robber baron Irongron and the local nobility, Sarah decides that the Doctor is at fault.

When first confronted with Irongron and his henchmen, Sarah goes through the natural, logical progression of guesses as to what is going on. A village pageant, a film set, a tourist attraction. She considers and rejects each option in turn until she is left with the obvious truth: she is in the Middle Ages. This leads her to the Doctor and the mysterious machine she stowed away on. The Doctor must be responsible; “he’s no magician, just some eccentric scientist,” and he must be stopped.
Like the good investigative journalist she is, though, she does eventually dig down to the truth and converts to the Doctor’s side. “I never lie,” the Doctor tells her, “well, hardly ever.” And that is good enough for Sarah; a new companion is born.

The Time Warrior doesn’t just introduce a new companion, however; it also marks the first appearance of a Sontaran in Doctor Who. Linx is short and compact, but larger than life. Of all the recurring Doctor Who enemies, I have to say that the Sontarans are my favorite. The Daleks and Cybermen are all very well and good, but a bit monosyllabic. Give me a Sontaran any day.
Add Irongron to this mix and you have one whale of a story.

“I’ll pickle that insolent star warrior in boiling water one day.” Faced with a Dalek or Cyberman, Irongron would never be able to rant and rave as he does. He would be exterminated, cyberized, or terrorized. Linx, however, allows Irongron’s braggadocio. A cowed Irongron would be no fun; an Irongron free to futilely spout and fume provides a wealth of entertainment.
 “My race has been at war for millennia,” Linx says. Sontarans are not intent on exterminating anything unlike them, nor are they motivated by the survival instinct. Sontarans are inspired by the glory and honor of war. As such, Linx has a certain respect for Irongron and his fight against the neighboring lords.

However, Irongron’s conflicts are only a momentary diversion for Linx. His main objective is to repair his spaceship so he can return to the unending war against the Rutans. Not finding the required equipment and expertise for such a project available in the Middle Ages, Linx uses his limited resources to devise a way to kidnap scientists from the 20th Century to conduct the necessary repairs.
It is this rash use of time travel that leads the Doctor to Linx. Linx does not pose an immediate threat to humanity. He has recklessly displaced some scientists out of their own time and is fashioning firearms for Irongron, but he has no malicious intent. He simply wants to escape from this backward time he finds himself stranded in.

“Human beings must be allowed to develop at their own pace,” is the Doctor’s objection to this plan. Providing weaponry to Man before its time will alter the course of history. The Doctor goes on to describe the Time Lords as “galactic ticket inspectors” opposed to “unlicensed time travel.” And for the first time the Doctor reveals the name of his home planet—Gallifrey.
 “Your Time Lord philosophy is egalitarian twaddle; it is a weakness,” Linx tells the Doctor. The Sontaran weakness, we learn, is the probic vent at the back of their necks.

The Time Warrior has just about everything a good Doctor Who story should have.
“Brigadier, a straight line may be the shortest distance between two points, but it is by no means the most interesting.”

The Time Warrior takes the interesting route.
It is not just the introduction of an ideal new companion, nor the impressive foe, nor the blustering comic relief. It is all of the details; it is the cold stone castle interiors; it is the lush green exteriors; it is Sarah Jane’s Robin Hood and Maid Marian costume changes; it is Bloodaxe hanging adoringly on every inane word out of Irongron’s mouth; it is the absentminded and nearly blind Professor Rubeish wandering at will through the dungeon lab.

I could use the Doctor’s own words about the TARDIS to describe The Time Warrior: “Well done old girl—absolutely on target.”
I hope this hits on target, Gary, and finds you out there somewhere in the Doctor’s time swirl . . .

Monday, December 3, 2012

The Green Death

Dear Gary—

“So the fledgling flies the coop.” The Green Death is Jo Grant’s last appearance in Doctor Who. Jo was the perfect companion for Jon Pertwee’s Doctor. The Brigadier introduced her as a test tube passer and devotee; Jo quickly moved past that limited role and became a true companion. “You need me to look after you,” she tells him in the Mutants; and that is her strong point—she is a care giver, a mother hen, a nurturer. For an earth bound Doctor this was ideal.
However the Doctor is no longer earth bound: “I can now take the TARDIS wherever and whenever I like; I’ve got absolute control over her.”

Unlike companions of old, Jo Grant does not have wanderlust; neither is she rootless. Jo’s first experience in the TARDIS back in Colony in Space she tells the Doctor, “I want to go back to Earth.” Now that he has the TARDIS in proper working order he offers her “all the time in the world and all the space,” but she is more interested in aiding the cause of a Nobel Prize winning environmentalist she has never met, Professor Clifford Jones.
It is appropriate, therefore, that The Green Death is another UNIT story taking place on Earth despite the TARDIS being back in action. The Doctor does take a brief spin to Metebelis Three on his own while Jo and the Brigadier motor off to South Wales; however the Doctor eventually returns, a little battered and beaten, to help investigate the mysterious goings on at the Global Chemicals plant and the nearby abandoned mine.

The Green Death is a complex tale simply told.
“Doctor, it’s exactly your cup of tea; this fellow’s bright green, apparently . . . and dead.”

Simply put; and yet the trail of green death leads the Doctor, Jo, and the Brigadier through a well-crafted web of plot points.
The Doctor wants to explore the universe; the Brigadier wants to investigate the mysterious dead green miner; Jo wants to protest with her Professor. The Doctor wants an unwilling Jo to accompany him; the Brigadier wants a reluctant Doctor to accompany him; Jo is engrossed in a world of her own and is already mentally separating herself from the Doctor and from UNIT.

All three are led to the maggots.
“Well I never thought I’d fire in anger at a dratted caterpillar.”

The Brigadier wants to blow them up. Jo wants to capture one for her preoccupied Professor. The Doctor wants to get to the bottom of them.
The Brigadier still has not found a foe that yields to bullets. Jo just gets herself cornered in a cave surrounded by maggots with her useless Professor. The Doctor introduces himself to the BOSS (Bimorphic Organisational Systems Supervisor).

“I am the BOSS. I’m all around you. Exactly. I am the computer.”
A megalomaniac computer whose prime directive is “efficiency, productivity and profit for Global Chemicals of course.”

“You’re still nothing but a gigantic adding machine like every other computer,” the Doctor tells the comically insane BOSS.
The BOSS, overseeing this complex of plot threads while humming Wagner to itself.

“Wholesale pollution of the countryside. Devilish creatures spawned by the filthy by-products of your technology. Men . . . men walking around like brainless vegetables. Death. Disease. Destruction.” A simple summing up.
The Green Death is a morality tale against the evils of big business; against technology dependence; against mindless destruction of the environment. The Green Death is an adventure story. The Green Death is a romance. The Green Death is about a deadly green virus. The Green Death is about giant maggots. The Green Death is about a megalomaniac computer. The Green Death is a complex tale simply told.

And in the end The Green Death is a fitting fond farewell for Jo Grant. The romance is rather by the numbers as Jo stumbles and bumbles her way into the affections of Professor Jones, but the scenes at the Nuthatch nicely ground the story in the everyday moments of life, just as Jo is completely grounded on Mother Earth.
Jo adores the Doctor, but Metebelis Three does not call to her. She therefore transfers her affections to the closest thing to the Doctor she can find on her own planet. “In a funny way he reminds me of a sort of . . . younger you,” she tells the Doctor.

 I have to say, Gary, that I am not as impressed with the Professor as Jo is, but of all the twits she has flirted with throughout the series I guess he is as good a twit as any for her to settle down with. He won’t take her to Metebelis Three, but he will take her to the Amazon so I guess she has that.
Goodbye Jo Grant, soon to be Jo Jones. The Doctor gives her the blue crystal from Metebelis Three for a wedding present, and she looks wistfully after him as he departs, but her heart remains in her own familiar world.

It is a touching scene at the end when Jo and her Professor celebrate their engagement with their UNIT and Nuthatch friends as the Doctor quietly slips away to ride off solo into the sunset.
I have to say, though, that I am looking forward to the new chapter opening up as TARDIS travel has been restored to Doctor Who.

And so I will take my fond farewell, Gary . . .