Second Sight

It's impossible for me to predict how I will respond to re-watching a particular Doctor Who story. This is doubly true for classic era episodes. They tend to be self-contained, standing or falling on their own merits. One can re-watch the recent Moffat season and be swept along by the ongoing narrative of the 'cracks in time' or the developments in the relationship between Amy and Rory (both salvage the Silurian two-parter, or add heft to Amy's Choice).

Image of the Fendahl is a decent story, one I've always enjoyed. Reviews of it tend to be quite positive. This time it sort of washed over me.

I still loved old Mother Tyler and her son Jack with their penchant for rock salt, proper tea and old world British paganism. Wanda Ventham is still stylish. The opening sequence with the hiker is suitably chilling.

All the theatrical little touches that Chris Boucher brought so successfully to Robots of Death are also present throughout the story (little bits of throwaway character stuff, witticisms, people making grand statements to the air). Somehow it seems more forced in a contemporary setting.

Edward Arthur's performance as Adam Colby seems more suited to the stage, as if he's playing to the back row. I like the line where he warns Mother Tyler about her varicose veins, but it feels like he's delivering it just to hear the sound of his own voice. I wanted Adam to be more dry with his off-the-cuff remarks. And I just didn't buy Scott Fredericks' Max as a power-mad leader of a coven. One could argue that it's just a more understated way of realizing the part, but it didn't sit well with me. When he finally asked the Doctor for the gun to commit suicide, I felt nothing.

Probably most damningly, the Fendahl never really cast the shadow of doom that I wanted it too. I felt like the danger was explained more than it was shown. Dr. Fendahlman's info-dump in episode 3 was logical and laid out the threat well but I didn't evoke much doom for me. While I liked the idea that Thea Ransome was destined to be the perfect host/victim, the scenario only translated into a lot of fore-head holding and fainting. Compare that to Noah in The Ark in Space where we felt his agony at losing his identity.

Don't get me started on the Doctor and Leela popping off in the TARDIS to investigate the 5th Planet. What as massive tension breaker! Bookend that with the jaunty way they just sort of pop the skull into a box and whisk it away for disposal at a later date.

I don't mean to be over-critical, rather I'm wrestling with why the story washed right over me. Perhaps I wasn't in the right mood. Maybe I had too much wine. Or too little.

Second sight is unpredictable that way. Let the re-watch continue!

Original viewing date: January 22, 1984

Wine: "Ravenswood", a fantastic red Zinfandel (I'm tempted to revisit this wine for Stones of Blood!)

Music: "Back on the Chain Gang" by the Pretenders.

Sheard Moments

Part of me is sad that I will never have an opportunity to meet Michael Sheard. I'm generally not a starstruck sort of person, but some actors or personalities have had such a steady presence in my life, showing up at important moments in my personal narrative. Michael Sheard fits into the category.

Even before I knew his name, he was present. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the classic Space: 1999 episode "Dragon's Domain" has been forever cemented into my psyche. Besides scaring the ever-living crap out of me, it provided endless fodder in the playground. My friends and I would take turns playing victim and monster. Two or three kids would form a creepy array of dangling arms to which another would be dragged helplessly towards. Then we'd switch places. Once I recall an endless stream of kids lining up to their metaphorical doom.

Michael Sheard was one of those victims in the episode. Part of a hopeful crew of space explorers, he would eventually be reduced to a cobwebby mess. It was a small part. I don't even think he had any lines come to think of it. My eight-year-old self mourned for him nevertheless. If only his character had gone into another career (perhaps, barbering, since all those guys are bald anyway).

The next time this gentle actor graced my imagination was in 1980. Our class was on a trip to Trier, Germany to study Roman ruins. One night we took a mysterious bus ride to a nearby American Armed Forces base where we were treated to a screening of The Empire Strikes Back (the yanks got it before us on the Canadian base at Baden). I won't bore you with how much of massive Star Wars fan I was: if you're reading this, chances are you were too). Sheard of course played Admiral Ozzal, doomed once again to meet an unfortunate fate at the hands of a man who couldn't even bother to be in the same room when he did him in. Once again, a minor role, but in a massive phenomenon.

A year later if I'd blinked I'd have missed him as the captain of the freighter in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Pyramids of Mars brought Sheard to my full attention as the tragic Lawrence Scarman. With each viewing of the story, my imagination fills in a few more details, the point where I can now evoke images of the two Scarman brothers playing cricket on a lazy afternoon or vying for the attentions of the local Victorian beauty (no I will not be writing any related fan fiction any time soon!).

Sheard was one of the highlights for me in The Invisible Enemy. I remember rooting for his character, Lowe, as an ally of the Doctor and Leela only to be chilled by his possession of the nucleus. Once he start working against the goodies, he's quite chilling. Again, there's that bittersweet sense of a good man lost. I suppose as an inhabitant (Mergrave) of Castrovalva he was collectively lost once Adric's sums fell apart, and we never got to see if the Headmaster at Coal Hill School (in Remembrance of the Daleks) was a good man possessed or just another fascist sympathizer. It's ironic that I never caught his most famous and iconic role as Deputy Headmaster Bronson on Grange Hill.

In total he made 6 appearances on Doctor Who in various roles (the list is rounded out with The Ark and Mind of Evil ). Surely, this must be a record.

At 14, The Invisible Enemy stood clearly in my mind as part of the "body horror" sub-genre: good people being reduced to grotesque alien monsters (Ark in Space, Planet of Evil, and The Seeds of Doom round out the quartet). The difference here of course is bright lighting and a talking shrimp. It was still a hell of a lot of fun, even if it was absurd that the Doctor and Leela were walking around in the Time Lord's body (it's like watching an episode of The Magic School Bus but with dodgier science). And of course there is the infamous re-lasered wall (second takes for effects shots on Doctor Who alas) that my Dad will bring up whenever you mention Doctor Who. My partner Ravi's comments about the Nucleus: "Nice head, too bad about the body."

Heck, I'm fine with the dodgy effects and loopy story elements; what annoys the hell out of me is the way the Doctor makes such a big deal of giving the Nucleus a chance to survive only to glibly blow it up at the first sign of trouble. It's a far cry from the tenth Doctor's you get "one chance."

Number of times "Contact has been made" is heard: 10 (with 1 "Contact must be be made" and a half a dozen uses of the word "contact."

Original viewing date: January 15, 1984

Wine: "Jester", a vintage Australian shiraz. As I was doing my weekly perusal of the Summerhill flagship LCBO, I overheard a rather odd man wax ecstatically over it's virtues and then order an entire case. How could I refuse. It fit the contradictions of Graham Williams Doctor Who like a glove and it tasted fantastic! Served with a shrimp cocktail of course.

Music: "Always Something There to Remind Me" by Naked Eyes.

It's Not Easy Being Green

Lance Parkin must have been a very precocious 6 year old, watching The Horror of Fang Rock and proclaiming it cheap, shoddy and un-fun, noting the change in producer (Enlightenment 118: "A Forty Year Adventure in Time and Space."). Then again, Paddy Russell will certainly back him up with regards to the script, which she didn't think was up to scratch (apparently Tom Baker threw it across the room).

Personally, with the exception of a couple of moments, Fang Rock feels exactly likes it's broken from the same mold as the rest of Hinchcliffe/Holmes (Holmes was still credited as script editor). Surely the poached green egg of a Rutan is no more embarrassing than the giant rat?

An interesting observation is made in one of the extras on the DVD: Robert Holmes was more about the moment, the rest of the story is then built around each piece. Terrance Dicks is more concerned with the structure--beginning, middle and end. It explains so much about how their stories work. When one remembers a Holmesian story, one thinks of the Doctor chasing Greel through the theatre, Litefoot and Jago escaping through the dumb waiter. With Dicks, it's harder to break down his stories to incident. It's more about the whole; everything drives the plot forward.

I always jumbled up Fang Rock in my mind with a Sunday afternoon matinee I once saw called The Light at the Edge of the World. The movie, which was set in a lighthouse and also featured a shipwreck, starred Yul Brynner, Kurt Douglas and Samantha Eggar. For years I would attribute details of one to the other. I believe they are both also collectively responsible for a recurring dream I once had involving people in vaguely Edwardian attire doing nasty things to each other by the sea.

Most of what I experienced this time around can be summed up in an Enlightenment review I did a couple years back. Here are some choice excerpts:

Dicks takes a premise that by all rights shouldn't have a heck of a lot of incident and infuses it with all kinds of little surprises. The opening shot is ominous and simply effecting. Fog and effective lighting are used again, as in Talons, to hide what creeps in the dark (as well as the production deficiencies). The scene where Leela ventures outside to investigate in episode two is quite tense with the discovery of dead fish adding a nice touch. The tried-and-true method of not showing the "creepy green thing" works well here.

As the story opens, Dicks introduces us to the lighthouse crew: Vince, young and wet-behind-the-ears; Reuben, old, crusty and protective of his younger charge; and Ben the very model of an Edwardian rationalist. Dueling working class accent and lots of local colour draw us in and make lonely, stark locale somehow warm and human. There's an obvious current of the little Englander woven throughout the story: early on Reuben mutters, "Frogs, Ruskies, Germans--can't trust any of them." Later in episode two when Skindale remarks that Leela is, "quite a looker," Adelaide's biting (and racist) response is "were you a long time in India, Colonel?"

Watching the interplay between the various characters proves very entertaining and illuminating.. Vince, although lower class, is ever the gentleman, concerned foremost with the well being of Adelaide. Adelaide is turn demonstrates her her upper-class snobbery when she asks him his name. "Vince Hawkins," he replies. "Thank you Hawkins," she replies as if he's her servant. Annette Wollett's performance ultimately outstays it's welcome though, what with all her skittish screaming, but it does lead to a rather unintentionally funny slap from Leela that evokes something Vicki Lawrence would deliver on The Carol Burnett Show.

Reuben is written as the classic Luddite, distrustful of modern technology such electricity and the telegraph. His protectiveness of Vince is quite touching and only serves to underscore the tragedy when the younger man is murdered by the creature posing as his one-time mentor. One of the eeriest moments in the whole story comes when his doppelganger flashes the creepiest grin this side of Stepford.

Tom Baker trades in his deerstalker from the previous story for a bowler and takes command of every scene he's in. The 4th Doctor is at his rudest and most alien. Witness the look on Adelaide's face when he puts his feet on the table. Or when he calls for introductions and then changes the subject when it's his turn. One can't quite decide whether Baker is exploring alternative approaches to the role or he's just bored.

Ultimately the story may fall under the shadow of it legendary predecessor, lacking it's spills and chills, but it still holds up the style and quality of season 14. Next's week's adventure on the other hand...

Original viewing date: January 8, 1984

Spirit: Green electric jello shooters!

Music: Michael Jackson's, "Thriller"

Memoirs of a Geek Part 1

Late on New Year's Day 1984, the neighbourhood kids went tobogganing down a local hill. Unusually for the Comox Valley (below the mountains that is), it was snowing and everyone wanted to take advantage. My friend Dwayne came knocking at the door to call us out (my sister and I). She quickly donned her ski pants, mitts and hat. I wasn't to be moved. Doctor Who was on, and the story was really engaging. It was The Talons of Weng Chiang.

I often reflect on that night, about my choice. From one perspective, I was just another TV-addicted 1980s kid who'd lost sight of the more important things in life. As my dad used to say, "if I didn't live my life to the fullest, I was going to wake up one morning and find that it had passed me by."

Thing is, I've spent many an afternoon plowing head first into a snowbank, before and since then. I've had some pretty great adventures out in the world. I've always had an over-active imagination, where a bike ride can become epic or a walk around a new city can take my breath away. I've sailed in waves so high I thought the boat would tip, and I was once convinced to go water-skiing on a whim by two strangers who needed a third.

And yet, I still recall the excitement and fun of that night more than 25 years ago when I was completely drawn into Robert Holmes faux-Victorian epic. I remember distinctly grinning from ear to ear as I watched Leela taking supper with Professor Litefoot. Or entranced by Jago and Casey exploring the depths of that creepy old theatre.

The magic is still there, more than 25 years later. Sure there is the rather problematic issue of the representation of Chinese characters (in particular, John Bennett's casting as Li H'sen Chang), but one has to take the rough with the smooth. For an excellent article on the subject I recommend Graeme Burk's excellent article "Talons of Stereotyping" originally printed in issue #113 of the fanzine Enlightenment and reprinted in 2010 as part of the Mad Norwegian Press anthology Time Unincorporated.

The edited Talons "movie" was one of the first stories I bought on VHS. It took to squeaking in my machine after a while, but I still loved nothing more than to sprawl out on the couch on a Sunday afternoon and watch it. To this day I can always find something to marvel at. Like how Dudley Simpson incorporates bits of the ditty "Daisy" into the incidental music. How can you not love a story that has a ventriloquist's dummy that's actually a robot with a pig's cerebral cortex. Or has a reference to Reykjavik! My God, the story quotes Pilgrim's Progress (Litefoot: 'He that is down, need fear no fall').

There is snow on the ground as I type, and I've enjoyed this treasure too many times to tell. Did I miss something all those years ago on that snowy New Year's Day? Only a fan and a true geek can answer that.

I feel a little sad as season 14 closes. There are still many stories I'm looking forward to, but I can't help feeling that I've once again left a special place and I feel a little sad. Honestly, nothing has disappointed me. I'm beginning t wonder if I'll ever be able to look at Doctor Who objectively. I hope not.

Original viewing date: January 1, 1984.

Wine: The appropriate thing to drink would have been port, but I just don't care for the stuff, so I picked a really good French Pinot Noir, Le Bourgogne, that I'm sure Professor Litefoot would have approved of.

Music: "Doctor, Doctor" by the Thompson Twins.

Whodunit?

"We've all got something to hide, don't you think so Commander?"

--Poul to Uvanov

Murder mysteries in Doctor Who are about as mystifying as "who mislaid the scissors?" in my house (I'll give you a hint: there are two of us and one of us is left-handed). By the beginning of episode 3 of The Robots of Death, it's pretty obvious who is behind the body count (or at least controlling the robots), even though the production team persists in halfheartedly hiding his identity.

But it's not really the point, is it? Whether it's The Rescue, Black Orchid, Terror of the Vervoids or The Unicorn and the Wasp murder mysteries are almost always merely the backdrop to a good Doctor Who story. The Robots of Death is a rich story full of incident, humour, mild social commentary and most of all interesting characters. Chris Boucher also gives us tantalizing bits of world building that aid the narrative rather than hinder it. Uvanov and Tilda are locked in conflict that springs from the elitism of "first families" which we can well imagine, and this weaves together nicely with the sub-plot of robot-phobia (aka Grimwade's Syndrome--a nice little in joke referring to Production Assistant Peter Grimwade's propensity for being assigned to Doctor Who stories featuring robots).

Doctor Who doesn't really suit the format of a true murder mystery. Whodunits are inherently talky and lacking in much action. They're more psychological in nature. By the time we'd been given a proper back story for Chub or Cass, you'd have a seven-parter! What Doctor Who does brilliantly is pastiche the atmosphere of a good mystery. The Doctor getting trapped in the mineral sorter while discovering a body or the use of the chilling corpse markers.

The design and production values still look so sumptuous and inventive all these years later. Because of the art deco look, they just don't seem to date (I noticed for the first time though, that Zilda's headpiece was used by the short little Romana during the Time Lady's regeneration scene in Destiny of the Daleks).

Tom and Leela are so brilliant together and offer such a different dynamic to Tom and Sarah. One can forgive the few scenes where Leela seems to suddenly act like a more sophisticated version of herself (like when she turned in her chair fingering a folder, and questioned D84).

Whether 14 or 41, this is Doctor Who at it's best!

Original viewing date: December 25, 1983.

Wine: A Pinot Noir from Chateau des Charmes in Niagara-on-the-Lake.

Music: "Mr. Roboto" by Styx. And yes the choice is a bit on the nose, but it's my blog!