Merry Who-mas

In the old days when we listened to Sony Walkmans and watched proper Saturday morning cartoons, there were no Doctor Who Christmas specials. Our festive time-travelling fare was whatever story happened to be aired during the week of the holidays.

The Mutants, Robots of Death and State of Decay were my yuletide extravaganzas. Each holds fond memories closely associated with the season. The Mutants even has a kind of quasi-religious subtext with the Doctor as a kind of Gabriel delivering a message of good news from the "gods", the evil Marshal (Herod) out to exterminate the Solonians, and Ky as another sort of angel-like figure proclaiming the good news (okay I'll stop now before my analogy snaps). The point remains, that any Doctor Who story can be a fun addition to Christmas!

This year I scheduled my re-watch of The Face of Evil on Christmas morning. It wasn't going to be possible to, er...download this year's special A Christmas Carol later on the day, so this seemed a perfect alternative. Boy was it fun! Yay, Leela. Omigod, it's the Doctor's face carved in a mountain. Yummy, it's Tomas wearing very little!

Sometimes Doctor Who is just plain fun. The story is an old sci-fi trope: backwards society descended from spaceship crash worships God that turns out to be computer, yadda yadda. But we get the added twist that the Doctor is responsible or the whole mess and the computer is MPD (with the Doctor being one of the personalities).

By comparison I was a little disappointed by A Christmas Carol when I finally got to see it. It was a bit more sombre than usual. Don't get me wrong, Steven Moffat's script was an extremely clever and inventive riff on the traditional tale. The dialogue sparkled, the imagery was interesting and there were lots of fun moments. It just wasn't the thrill ride I'm used to getting from a Russell T Davies script. As usual I watched most of the past specials over the season, and without any of the heightened expectation of watching for the first time, I enjoyed them all. The TARDIS car chase in The Runaway Bride is still on-the-edge-of-your-seat viewing and Voyage of the Damned never slows down! I'm not sure Moffat's take on the season will stand up to repeated viewings (I won't even get into the central controversy of the Doctor being able to manipulate the past within the narrative of the story--that begs some serious consideration). Time will tell.

But think about it, Christmas is about recognizable traditions. It's a ritual that re-stages the same story over and over again each year. In the cold, dark of the winter it's reassuring to have a narrative we know well that carries us through to the light. Conversely, each time we watch a new Doctor Who Christmas special we enter into the unknown. We judge it on all the strengths and merits of a regular Doctor Who story. We're too close to it and our judgment is often unduly critical. The Face of Evil has staying power and works brilliantly as the opener for several highly regarded stories. It offers hope and stability for the new year. Yes, I will attempt new things and stretch myself in ways that I never conceived. Unexpected events will test me, possibly set me back and force me to find new, creative ways to meet the future. But for this short period of time, during this "mid-winter feast" I can stop, catch my breath, and revel in the familiar, comforting stories of the past.

Merry Christmas and may the New Year be grand!

Original viewing date: December 18, 1983.

Wine: Sparkling wine + orange juice = Mimosas! Nothing goes better with Christmas morning or Doctor Who viewing.

Music: "Say, Say, Say" by Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney.

Game Changer

So on Saturday night we decided to bite the bullet and buy a new 40' Sony Brava HD TV. Now I realize that The Deadly Assassin is just run-of-the-mill-looking television from the 1970s (albeit in cleaned-up DVD shape), and I know in no way does it draw upon the full potential of our new TV. Yet, my viewing experience seemed light years ahead of where it had been the week before. It gave the trip to Gallifrey an extra little lift in the Time Lord loafers.

The Deadly Assassin is a game changer, no matter how you look at it. After this solo outing, no longer is it the Doctor and Sarah--it's the Doctor and companion. Because for the first time in history, a Doctor carries a story pretty much on his own. Sure he gets to play off of Spandrell and Engin, but the Fourth Doctor is front and centre in a new way. Mind you it wouldn't have worked indefinitely. Having the Doctor talk to himself so much is a bit self-conscious.

From the moment we get the scrolling prologue and voice-over, everything feels differently. Like a television series beginning a new season with big changes. Except, the tone still feels recognizable. Hinchcliffe/Holmes is still driving the car, but they've shifted gears up to third. It must have been positively epic for viewers at the time, the Doctor goes home. History tells us that many fans were spitting blood. Gone were the Time Lords of The War Games. In their stead were aliens more at home in Westminster: cynical, conniving and vain. Thank God Robert Holmes decided to bring it all down to Earth. I cannot imagine watching the boring, lifeless Time Lords we eventually got in Arc of Infinity. Apart from the gripping, surreal action in the Matrix, the best parts of the story involve Borusa, Runcible and the daffy double act of Spandrell and Engin. Even the Master is kind of throwaway in the story.

I still laugh out loud at the chalk outline of the fallen President, or Borusa's tampering with the truth. The only thing missing is an old Time Lord stashed away somewhere actually playing the organ in the narrative. That would be brilliant.

Too bad most of the subtleties of the story went over my head at 14. Most of my enjoyment came of the fan-wanky thrill of seeing the Doctor's home planet or the Matrix sequences (they reminded me of the Star Trek episode "Arena"). Now I couldn't care less--it's just a fantastic and inventive story that shifts gears in the same way that say Inferno does. One minute you think you've got the gist of it and then it takes a 180 turn. Rather like the series as a whole. And because I watched the story in re-editing movie version, I was never aware of the freeze-frame cliffhanger controversy until years later. In fact I would argue that the story is one of the few that holds up well in movie-format.

Liqueur: I decided to watch the story on Sunday morning, so Bailey's Irish Cream in my coffee seemed the obvious choice.

Original viewing date: December 11, 1983. (Okay, I've taken a stand and decided that KVOS was quite consistent with showing all their stock of Doctor Who stories in chronological order, thus they must have played Revenge and I just plain missed it!)

Music: "Major Tom (Coming Home)" by Peter Schilling.

The Holy Mother

If Doctor Who was a religion, than Sarah Jane Smith would surely be the Blessed Virgin, if for no other reason than for her incredible staying power.

She burst onto the scene in all her mid-70s-TV-feminist glory, hands on hips, shouting at men with medieval attitudes as companion to Jon Pertwee's Doctor. She morphed into the spunky, endearing best friend of Tom Baker's Doctor. Later after her departure in The Hand of Fear, Elizabeth Sladen was invited back on a couple of occasions (to no avail) to reprise her role as the ever popular journalist (once for the Key to Time season and later to bridge the Baker/Davison transition). An unsuccessful spin-off series, a return for the 20th anniversary, multiple returns in the new series and a second (and successful) spin-off series this time bearing her character's name.

Her place within the Doctor Who mythos is really quite remarkable. Who else holds such a distinctive position? She really does get a great send-off here. It feels completely authentic and just a little work-a-day (in a good way). It plays both ways: you almost feel that Doctor will return to collect her once he's finished with his Gallifrey business, and yet it also has that sense of finality too. Like they both know it, but aren't able to admit it.

Looking back over seasons 12 & 13, I just don't buy Russell T Davies' little bit of retcon, asking us to believe that Sarah had any kind of romantic feelings for the Doctor. But the bond was really strong, and I can certainly see her pain at being left behind. As my friend Graeme points out, there's much more evidence to indicate that there might have been something going on between Sarah and Harry.

The Hand of Fear has a very fresh feel and must have seemed quite contemporary at the time. I love the creepy way Liz Sladen choose to play the possessed Sarah, almost as if Eldrad has misinterpreted the character's spunky/cute attributes (in the same way that animators mistake human attributes in the creep-fest that is The Polar Express).

The simple effects for the hand itself are excellent, resulting in a superb cliffhanger to episode 2 where the silicon appendage suddenly comes to life.

Still love that simple scene where Professor Watson calls home to talk to with wife during the nuclear crisis. Moments like that make me love Doctor Who all the more.

My 13/14-year-old memories: The Hand of Fear will always have a special place in my heart. In a motel room in Kenora, Ontario did I see my first ever episode of Doctor Who. It was probably on TVOntario but it might have been a PBS affiliate, I'll probably never know. My family was driving across Canada from Nova Scotia to BC following our return from a 4 year stint on an air force base in West Germany.

After bugging my mom for some change to get a root beer from the pop machine, I flipped on the TV and started surfing through the channels. Doctor Who caught my attention immediately. I was glued to my seat until the shocking moment that Eldrad was skewered with the poisoned spear. Needless to say I flipped futilely through the channels the next night in Moose Jaw, vainly hoping to find the next part. It would be another year and a half before I agreed with Sarah that "I quite liked her, but couldn't stand him."

Number of times someone proclaims "Eldrad must live!": 22 (almost all of these are in episode 2 spoken primarily by Sarah and Dr. Carter, with the Doctor saying it 3 times in a row as a point of clarification; we also hear "Somebdoy must live" and "Eldrad lives!")

Original viewing date: Episode 3 - August 1982; Full Story - November 27 or December 4, 1983

Spirit: Bombay Sapphire Gin, the choice drink of silicon-based lifeforms everywhere.

Music: "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" by Cyndi Lauper. I have a very distinctive memory of first hearing it at our class Christmas party.

Number 6

Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, you still get picked last for the team. You're sort of the least of the best. Like Aquaman in the Super Friends. You can't blame The Masque of Mandragora for the fact that season 14 is one of the best in Doctor Who's history.

Lovely set design, reasonably interesting characters and fantastic location filming at Portmerion: there is much to love about The Masque of Mandragora.

And the Doctor is fascinating to watch in the story. He seems so in control; he’s a man with a mission, he’s gonna clean up his mess, dodge the local political intrigue, and put out the red firecracker. In some ways it’s a very unusual Doctor Who story with its diffuse, triangulated plot: Count Fredrico wants to do away with his nephew, the rightful heir of San Martino, and he employs the help of the local astrologer Hieronymus, who in turn (with Helix help) has bigger aspirations to be head cheese of the world. Fredrico seems to sense the bearded one and the cult of Demnos are a bit of a threat so he tries to take them out too. Many peasants get slaughtered, and Sarah’s on sacrificial lamb duty.

I must confess that the ending thoroughly confused me. I get the basic idea that the Doctor saves the day by using himself as a human grounding wire, draining the Mandragora Helix. But doesn't the Helix have a central intelligence? So once he drained off the Hieronymus part, didn't the rest of it inhabiting the other acolytes know what was going on?

The cliffhanger at the end of episode three is fantastic, mind you, with Hieronymus removing his mask to reveal blank light and then Fredrico being stuck down in all his arrogance. Maybe that's the problem, the subsequent ending to the story never really surpasses that moment. Ultimately, the whole thing suffers from being too diffuse. Instead of one big show-stopping finale, we got stages of defeat for the Doctor's antagonists. And when the end finally came, I never really doubted for one moment that it was the Doctor behind Hieronymus' mask. I guess I just wanted something more clever. Or perhaps for Giuliano to play a more pivotal part in the big showdown. In a Davison story he would have been the pseudo-companion!

But Doctor Who’s difficulty with endings could be viewed as a by-product of one of its great strengths—it always, always (well almost always) shoots for the moon. Star Trek TNG or other sci-fi series are mere procedurals by comparison, concerned with reasoned, neat stories that make a clear point, with no greasy fingerprints on the door-frame. Doctor Who is messy and inventive like play. With great whimsy, romance and imagination comes great corners to be backed into.

When you're nicking gorgeous costumes from the BBC wardrobe department and mingling with the ghosts of The Prisoner on the grounds of Portmerion who has time for tediously laid tongue twisters of technobabble. Scary, faceless cultists and a bon vivant Doctor tripping executioners with his scarf and jumping onto every horse in sight is what you pays yer money for.

What really would have made the story more interesting, besides a better ending, was if Guillermo had had more of a personality or even just a few more character beats. But I suppose he was a goody in the classical sense (where actors talk about how they’d much rather play a baddy).

Of course season 14 is about to ramp up and I’m quite excited about the weeks to come. Doctor Who is at its height and if Mandragora isn’t quite stellar, it has much to recommend it.

My 14-year-old opinion: Back then the plot never really held my attention. My memories are of creepy Hieronymus and his funky beard, the masks, Sarah picking oranges and the copious use of horses in the story.

Original viewing date: November 20 or November 27, 1983

Wine: What else, a half decent Chianti (served without fava beans) from the Rocca delle Macie.

Music: "Eyes Without a Face," by Billy Idol.

To Every Who There is a Season

My Doctor Who story cravings are often tied to the seasons of the year. As a Canadian, I have an emotional attachment to the changing of the seasons. Each with its own memories and rituals. Not surprisingly, a particular story is most often associated with the time of year I first saw it. Tom Baker stories are Fall and Winter, Peter Davision stories Spring. Hartnell, Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy are tied closely to the Summer. Pertwee floats a bit more around the calendar year, but he's probably best viewed in the Fall (although for some odd reason The Mutants is a Christmas story?!). Troughton, alas, never seems long enough to merit a season.

There can be other considerations too--Doctor Who stories like Black Orchid, Silver Nemesis will always feel Summer-y by virtue of what's going on in the story. Ditto on The Daemons, although it fits well at both Halloween and May Day. Despite its chilly backdrop, Dragonfire is a light, breezy Summer tale.

The Seeds of Doom is a Fall story in every respect: the crackling fire in Chase's library, the laconic shadows everywhere and the golden, decaying leaves. It's just so bloody sensual in this respect. All the running around on the Athelhampton House grounds provide a great distraction for the healthy does of capture and escape (which is never excessive, considering this is a 6 parter).

No other story during this re-watch has given me a greater feeling of nostalgia, happy memories, and a sense general well-being. Whether it's the body horror (at its pinnacle here--poor Keeler), the radical change in locations from Antarctica to the Home Counties (and anyone who knows me, knows how much I like films or TV shows with snow--even fake snow), or how much the story makes me laugh-out-loud.

The Seeds of Doom is just so damned funny. In the best Doctor Who way, the humour is completely integrated into the action and the horror. The characters are all stock, but they're so brilliantly played with such wonderful lines. Harrison Chase (the effete megalomaniac), Emelia Dukut (the canny eccentric), Sir Colin (the brilliant straight man), Hargreaves (the loyal and long suffering butler) and of course the gloriously cynical, can't-help-but-love-him Scorby.

There's a wonderful scene where Chase rails about why he is surrounded by idiots, Scorby suddenly appears and Hargreaves gives him a dry, withering look. Love it, love it. And Hargreaves is always a perfect balance of dignified toady and horrified bystander. He's clearly appalled by what has happened to Keeler, but in Hargreaves proper world, Mr. Chase knows best.

Of course the story isn't perfect. Once Chase goes completely nutty under the influence of the Krynoid, he's somehow less interesting, and solving the whole thing with a couple of well placed RAF bombs is hardly satisfying.

Wow, I can't believe the curtain has fallen on season 13 so fast. It's a very consistent season in terms of tone, and style. Whereas both seasons 12 and 14 have strong currents of transition, (whether in front or behind the camera), here things hold relatively steady. Over the past several weeks Tom and Liz have built up their famous rapport almost effortlessly, and that's definitely going to up the resonance of The Hand of Fear in a few weeks. Curiously, I've had almost no changes in my feelings or attitudes to season 13 stories (yeah sure, Androids has slipped further, but that was almost expected). But the funny thing about Doctor Who is that, come the right circumstances, any story can suddenly find the right season--let the pub arguments commence!

Original viewing date: November 13 or November 20, 1983

Wine: In honour of Harrison Chase I picked up a Pinot Noir called "megalomaniac." Why it made for a great gimmick, unfortunately it wasn't a very good wine. It was too light and tasted vaguely of cotton candy!? Graeme texted me that the perfect wine for The Seeds of Doom would be called Green Cathedral. If I'm ever making small talk with a vintner, I shall wholeheartedly suggest the moniker.

Music: "True" by Spandau Ballet. It just defined the times. No link--thank EMI.

Doctor Solon or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Body Parts

I was having a lot of nightmares at the end of November 1983, but they weren't provoked by The Brain of Morbius. That honour belongs to the ABC telefilm The Day After, a harrowing portrayal of the events leading up to, during, and after a nuclear war. While it may seem like a dated curiosity now, at the time it haunted my waking and sleeping worlds. Suddenly, I began suffering dreams where I was desperately looking for a place to hide, or trying to find my family. Curiously, I never quite got to the apocalyptic part after the blast--it was always the confusion and horror of the moments leading up to it. I guess that's true of all horror--it's the fear and tension of what's to come, not the actual "boo"!

I remember some critics charging that by the end of the story, the characters were already "picking up their bookstraps" and starting to rebuild with true Yankee gumption. A comparable, but much more graphic British TV film about nuclear devastation, Threads, would further traumatize me not long after.

Deciding how much to push the horror envelope has been an eternal battle for producers of Doctor Who (with Mary Whitehouse looming in the shadows). After all, Doctor Who was and is a programme for children, primarily. The Brain of Morbius has many creepy and disturbing ideas (much like Frankenstein which it riffs), and rates high on the gothic horror metre thanks to Robert Holmes rewriting of Terrance Dicks original script. It's hard to imagine the story with a robot creating Morbius' body rather than the inimitable Solon. But again, at 14, the campier aspects of the production helped to counterbalance the horror elements.

The format of Doctor is a wonderful container for horror, because we know that the Doctor will win in the end. No matter how bad things get, he'll save the day(things are a little more complex in the new series, but there is always hope). There is no chance of a happy ending after a nuclear war.

Many of the ideas stuck with me though. The idea that Solon wanted the Doctor's head (literally) disturbed me, and when Sarah was blinded and had to make her way around the horrific landscape of Sarn, I felt a few chills. And don't get me started on the Sisterhood (again kudos to the make-up artist for giving Maren such a hard and intense look).

The look of the story is fantastic. I can't remember a colour Doctor Who story employing such a skilled use of shadows. They really give the story an added element of texture, depth and menace. And the effect of the Doctor being transported from Solon's lab by the telekinetic Sisterhood is chilling.

While it's fun to play "what if" and imagine Peter Cushing in the role, Philip Madoc owns his portrayal of Solon. It's like he's reading the dialogue directly from Holmes' macabre and stylish mind. His fixation on the Doctor's head always has the perfect distracted quality.

Tom and Elizabeth are also in top form. From his revealing and petulant stew at the start of the story right through to that subtle and hilarious moment when Sarah tells the Doctor he's "too late" and he grabs his head to see if it's still there! Sarah has lots of little moments like when she pours her spiked beverage out or doesn't scream when she first encounters the "Chop Suey" body.

These days the bomb has dropped far below my angst awareness, and I'm more likely to wake from a nightmare after watching AMC's The Walking Dead. It's ultra-real depiction of a zombie apocalypse has taken that genre to truly frightening places, not the least is its realization of redneck racists, withdrawn wife beaters and incontinent vulnerable seniors. I guess that's where my psyche is at--thank God for the gentle world of hissing covens and splattered brains.

Original viewing date: November 6 or 13, 1983

Wine: A Jean Bousquet Argentinian Malbec (made with organic grapes apparently). As the nights get colder, a good throaty Malbec always hits the spot--unfortunately this one has a metallic note that marred the experience.

Music: "Mad World," by Tears for Fears. After watching the story I went out to a retro 80s dance party at Dovercourt House (they hold it once every month). It was like a shower of nostalgia.

Diminishing Returns

Nostalgia can often raise up a mediocre or bad Doctor Who story to a higher place in my esteem. The Android Invasion is certainly no gem, but when I first watched it at 14 it had a number of elements to recommend it. A creepy first episode with a twitchy UNIT soldier falling over a cliff, a desolate little hamlet with a handful of mysteries and a pub with a single date on the calendar. We also got the return of Harry Sullivan and Sgt. Benton (yes, like the calendar, he will always remain Sergeant to me).

And of course it reminded me of the classic "fembot" episodes of The Bionic Woman. As a kid I was a massive fan of Jaime Sommers and her cybernetic counterpart Steve Austin. The fembot episodes were my favourites. The bug-eyed dopplegangers seemed invincible and the sight of them removing their faces freaked the ever living poop out of me. So when Sarah got tossed down to the ground like a rag doll and her face went the other direction, I couldn't help to be hooked.

Sadly, re-watching The Android Invasion over the years has been a case of diminishing returns. I guess the plot never really made sense, but this time around I just found myself a bit distracted and bored. The whole thing is a big throwback to classic UNIT stories, and yet it has none of the oomph of those stories. Guy Crawford is introduced rather matter-a-fact-ly and never really makes much of an impression (Milton Johns does a much better toady later on in The Invasion of Time). Once the mystery is gone, the jig is up.

Ultimately, it's a collection of Terry Nation bits with none of the polish on--it's just sort of thrown together. The Kraals are pretty generic (their motivations seem cribbed from the Zygons) and while their "rhino" design is an interesting idea, in 30 years Russell T Davies and his production team would ultimately best it. Every cool moment, like the Doctor jumping face first out a window is matched with a rubbish bit like Sarah tripping and hurting her ankle. I guess we can give Barry Letts credit for the former and Nation the latter.

Again, I quite liked the setting: it brought to mind the village from the new series story Amy's Choice. It was a nice touch that Sarah had prior knowledge of the village, but unlike say Tegan's connection to her grandfather in The Awakening, there's no real emotional connection to heighten the tension. There's a bit more of that later when Sgt. Benton and Harry show up, but then it's rather wasted when we get almost no interesting stuff with them later in the real world.

It would also have been nice to have one final goodbye to Harry, particularly since he never returned in any future stories. I guess it's indicative of the "phoned-in" quality of the story.

Random observations:

• Sarah is wearing clogs that look remarkably like crocs (no wonder she tripped)


• Colonel Faraday feels like a parody of the worst excesses of latter Petwee era Lethbridge Stewart. It's probably fortunate that Nicholas Courtney was spared being in the story


• Curiously, we have a scene where Benton is chastising his kid sister on the phone. It's a nice bit of business and seems surprising in the story. Makes me yearn for a proper UNIT story.

Original viewing date: October 29, 1983 or November 6, 1983

Spirit: Gin and tonic. Specifically Bombay Sapphire. It had to be a quintessential English pub drink and I wasn't up for lager or ale.

Music: "If This Is It" by Huey Lewis and the News.