A Shot in the Arm

Every year I debate whether or not to get a flu shot, and then winter passes by and no skin has been broken. Fear of needles plays no part, and I understand the science behind it. I have no deep-seeded phobia, or high minded politics. It's apathy really. I just never get around it.

Fever and fatigue are the two nasty little indicators of the flu and this weekend they came knocking with a vengeance. I've been known to wash great piles of dishes during a cold bout, but I can barely raise the remote control this time around. So it is that I settle down with a large glass of orange juice (liberally spiked with Russian vodka) and a hefty roll of toilet paper to watch The Ribos Operation.

The opening credits make me dizzy, so I lay my head to the pillow and wait for the blast of bright light as the White Guardian appears on the scene. When I was 14, the Key to Time season was a major cause for excitement. After drifting away from Doctor Who for several months, I discovered it back on KVOS 12's schedule at midnight on Saturday night. And so began my mythical awakening as devoted fan.

The problem with drinking spiked orange juice through a straw is....well you get that burst of vodka right to the brain. Appropriate as the camera pans up on Romana. It may have been broadcast in 1978, but this icy Time Lady fits right into the 1980s of Joan Collins and Linda Evans.

The Ribos Operation is what I call "lean in and listen carefully" Doctor Who. (I should note that the current television convention of creating complex story arcs laced with clues and viewer loyalty nods is not at all the same thing). This story is all about the pleasures of a witty, cleverly drawn Robert Holmes script. They had me when the White Guardian informed the Doctor that "nothing" would ever happen to him if he didn't take on the quest for the Key to Time. Smart and playful dialogue is the nectar of the gods (which I guess would make the likes of Aaron Sorkin an Archangel). George Spenton-Foster, for his part, stays mostly out of the way allowing Paul Seed to be shouty to his heart's desire (and no offense to him as he seems to have a great sense of humour about it in the accompanying DVD featurette), and the set designer to raid the recent BBC production of Anna Karenina. Unfortunately Spenton-Foster leaves the camera running too long on the Shrivenzale.

Garron and Unstoffe--bloody brilliant! And bless you Binro, I always tear up when you learn you were right. And the Seeker, oh what a worthy addition to the pantheon of loony Doctor Who hags. In my somewhat feverish delirium, I begin to speculate on crossover fan fiction involving the marriage of the Seeker and Richardson (he of the mystical deer antler in the picture above) from the HBO show Deadwood. He would follow her around like a puppy dog, while she would bellow about lost car keys and together they'll start a new age antler cult.

Outside it's snowing unrelentingly (it's been a hellishly long winter), but inside I revel over the joys of onscreen winter and snow. Even when it's polystyrene, I have a bit of a fetish watching people freeze off their tits off (Dr. Zhivago is my favourite film of all time). Oh wait, I love this part: the Doctor, Romana and Garron are all leaning into each other in a rock crevasse. It's so camp and I never get tired of it.

And then as my eyelids start to get heavy, it's time to watch the jethrik transformed into the first segment of the Key to Time. I love gimmicky gadgets and I always loved the sense of accomplishment as they raised it up to behold it's shiny plastic-y-ness. Doctor Who with purpose. We were on our way. To the toilet for the time being...

Original viewing date: September 8, 1984

Spirit: Russian Vodka with orange juice (by my reckoning that's a screwdriver to the eye).

Music: "Sunglasses at Night" by Corey Hart.

The Break Up

You never really see it coming. Everything seems fine, you're going along thinking it will last forever and then suddenly...it's over. Perhaps things weren't quite what they had been. I grew complacent. I stopped paying close attention, while you suddenly stopped splurging on the good effects and the better directors (not that I'd have known a David Maloney from a George Spenton-Foster at the time). The shine had simply gone off (or perhaps the bright lights had just come up)...

The Invasion of Time came right before the breakup. I remember it fondly. We were going home to meet your family. A stuffy lot they were. Smug, arrogant, insular. Were they in for a shock when the barriers started to come down. You'd think they'd never seen tin foil before! It was two and a half hours of fighting and bickering. Suspicion and intrigue. Banishment to the backyard with the crazy cousins. And then the big farewell. Hell, more like an abrupt WTF by-your-leave.

The harbinger of most failed relationships is when they exist inside a bubble. Outside of bribing my sister to sit on the couch with me, no one I knew was watching; no one ever mentioned Doctor Who. Truth be told, I felt a little embarrassed for my commitment. This was the golden age of Return of the Jedi, and The Wrath of Khan or on television: Knight Rider and The A-Team. To be fair we were kinda stuck in the past: 1974 to 1976 to be specific. We had the cultural divide to be sure. Mixed marriages never work is the old adage. But that was the very appeal behind my fascination. Too bad my parents weren't on board. They never could see your charms. "Crazy googled-eyes," my father called you. "Doctor Who-who-who," my mother intoned like an owl.

And when The Invasion of Time ended I tuned in the next week as always, cause that's what I did. Stupid me, I thought we were moving to the next step. And then it was back to Robot. At first it was nice to relive "the way we were". But I was antsy, I wanted to advance to the next phase. Oh the disappointment. Then the disenchantment set in. We had a couple of halfhearted make-ups. And then suddenly one Sunday evening...you just weren't there . A couple of months later we did The Android Invasion on a Sunday afternoon. We chatted. But it was the same old same old. I didn't even recognize you anymore: same face but different somehow. I started seeing someone else. V was much more exciting. Oh the drama. V was so deep with it socio-political undercurrents. And it was nice to be with someone that everyone was talking about. Lizards eating mice! I felt special.

It's strange to look back after all these years together: 28 more or less in total. I've got you under my skin. We've had our ups and downs. Another break up in 1991 - thought that one was permanent. I still regret throwing all your books in the dumpster, I should of at least gotten a couple of bucks for them. But when a mutual friend brought us back together it was like magic. That's when I started writing you all those enlightening love letters.

[The Invasion of Time is such a watchable story, full of incident and great moments. Sure the production values are shite and the last two episodes are a complete runaround, but they're entertaining if not particularly sharply drawn. The buildup to the Vardan's arrival is quite effective and ominous, to bad about the ultimate materialization of the actual Vardans. It's also curious to watch the throwaway scenes of nameless Time Lords' chatting. Whereas comparable scenes in The Deadly Assassin are full of wit and satire, here they're purposeless bits of techno-babble, as if someone observed that the scenes were expected, but had no concept of what made them great. It's also fascinating to observe that absolutely nobody is in charge. There is a massive vacuum of power on Gallifrey and one gets the sense that Borusa is content to wile away his time in his study, making course corrections only when they're necessary. Such a shame that he even bothered to take on the mantle of Lord President later on--it would have been a great experiment to see what would have happened next!]

This week an old friend died. Seems like we've lost quite a few over the past years. He was particularly special, being present at the beginning of all this. Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart was a rock throughout a good chunk of Doctor Who; a steady presence offering a foil to much of the madness. Whether he was cool and steely in The Invasion and Spearhead from Space, or broad and pompous in The Three Doctors and Robot, he was a welcome addition to time and space. Rest soundly old soldier, you will be greatly missed.

Sarah Jane Smith: It's started Brigadier.
The Brigadier: Here we go again.

Dedicated to Nicholas Courtney (1929 - 2011)

Original viewing date: February 11, 1984

Wine: 120, a Sauvignon Blanc, honouring 120 patriots who helped lead Chile to independence. I'll admit that's what we had in the house. After mixing some inadvisable alcoholic choices at Saturday night's retro 80s dance party, I merely sipped from this forgettable wine.

Music: 99 Luftballoons by Nena.

Thou Shalt Not...

Doctor Who should never be boring. Such a commandment ought to be etched in stone.

The program's format is remarkably elastic. Stories can have the most outrageous imagery, characters or plot points (aliens with big bull heads, henchmen made of licorice all-sorts, or the Doctor regaining strength a la Tinker Bell). We might question the wisdom of the production team at times, but we should always feel something: love, anger, fear, exasperation. Contentious yes, dull never. Robert Holmes knew this well when he wrote The Deadly Assassin. The Doctor can't return home and spend 90 minutes amongst God like brethren. He wisely deduced that they needed to be decadent, scheming and vain like...we in the real world.

Underworld was another story I missed back in 1984. Not quite sure how that happened. In fact the first time I saw the story was with my friend Graeme, eight or nine years ago. We made margaritas. I fell asleep half-way through episode one. I have vague memories of Trogs running to and fro, lots of smoke and Tom Baker's hair looking like a bad Photoshop crop.

I've been dreading the re-watch (I even had to buy the blasted DVD), but I was determined to give it an honest try. Episode one was dull and talky with a couple of interesting ideas. The back story with the Time Lords could have been interesting, but nothing was ultimately made of it. I was fascinated by Tala's regeneration. but it did nothing more than reinforce that they'd been on the quest for generations. My first year creative writing prof would have put a big red "x" through the whole sequence.

Episode two introduced the ridiculous looking Trogs, was completely pointless and then the story just crawled to an unsatisfying finish.

So went wrong? Here's my best attempt to figure it out:

1) Uninteresting and unmemorable characters. The only reason I remember any of these bland characters is because they're meant to correspond to their counterparts from Greek mythology. Clever on paper but not much further than that. Herrick has a half-formed personality, but in a good Doctor Who story he'd be 4th string. I'm told that one of the Trog extras actually played the lead in Francois Truffaut's Two English Girls--this advanced her to the front of the line in terms of interest. What this story needed was a Professor Marius (The Invisible Enemy) or a Professor Watson (Hand of Fear). 2) Weak writing: when the scripts aren't densely expositional, they're unwritten. It feels like once Martin and Baker mapped out how they would fit their scripts into the Jason and the Argonauts framework, they brushed there hands together and said "done". I suppose it was a no-brainer that the Oracle of Delphi should become a controlling super computer, but frankly that's just dreadfully predictable in its execution. It would have been much more interesting if the Oracle had been programmed with the actual Greek myth and was forcing everyone to play it out.

3) An over-reliance on CSO. There was no budget for sets, so they pushed the boundaries of CSO. Kudos for trying, but it just doesn't work. Mind you it's not the biggest sin of the story, it just increases it's snooze factor. It's also quite obvious that it provided a sort of black hole of attention that no doubt absorbed the attention of the actors, director Norman Stewart and the rest of the production team. As an actor, how do you improvise or create a genuine moment when you're trying to hit complicated marks all the time. Tom Baker and Louise Jameson have the home court advantage, being seasoned pros in their respective roles.
4) Dull, workmanlike direction. Doctor Who is known for running through corridors, but that's practically all we get here (with the possible exception of running across bridges and floating down vertical corridors. While, I'm sympathetic to first time director Norman Stewart's challenge of working with that much CSO, much of the story feels visually repetitive.

5) The Nostalgia Factor: Colony in Space was the first complete televised story of Doctor Who I ever saw. The sort of story most people would abandon to watch grass grow. Painfully slow and earnest in the best Malcolm Hulke fashion. Love it to tears. Because it was my first. Result: Underworld doesn't stand a chance with me.

Hell, I was so displeased with my viewing experience that I was moved to write a short review on Amazon.ca. I'd much rather watch Mawdryn Undead or The Runaway Bride which both make more of the few intriguing ideas in this story.

Number of times we hear "the quest is the quest": 10 (plus 4 "the quest is over")

Original viewing date: 8 or 9 years ago

Spirit: Margaritas!

Music: The thumping in my head the next morning after too many Margaritas...

The Tequila Sunrise Makers

Generally speaking I go in for nice clean mixed drinks like dry vodka martinis or gin 'n tonics (occasionally I'll make myself a spicy Caesar). I'm mystified by the endless coloured bottles of curacao, galliano and triple sec that my partner mixes together like a mad scientist.

Tequila is a bit of an exception. Every once in a blue moon I love a good margarita or a tequila sunrise. I like the spectacle or perhaps the ritual of preparing them. Pulling the blender out from the back of the cupboard or blowing the dust off the grenadine bottle. Chopping up lemons or limes and frosting the glasses. Works particularly well in the summer. I have fond memories of my friend Graeme and I playing "which Doctor Who story shall we watch" accompanied by an icy margarita on a humid August eve (or sipping these green giants after tackling the formidable freeways in Los Angeles to locate a sought-after Chevys).

Back in the day, The Sun Makers was most likely served up with Old Dutch Zesty Cheese Tortilla Chips and a Hires Root Beer. Or if I was too tired to stay up late on that Sunday night, a bowl of Cheerios the next morning in front of the betamax (with my mother trying to shoo me out the door to school). Over time I developed my little rituals of obtaining various snacks from the corner store for the week's story (movie versions of the stories I should reiterate). Sometimes I would bribe my sister with the snacks to get her to watch a given story with me. I treated no other television program with the same intentionality.

And so it was with much anticipation that I plopped an umbrella into my drink and sat down to watch a very different Robert Holmes story. Smack dab in the middle of season 15 it offers up a bright spot amidst a sea of somewhat disappointing stories. It's like nothing that's come before, belonging more rightfully among later fare like The Pirate Planet and City of Death. Witty scripts full of interesting ideas, wonderful moments and endlessly quotable dialogue.

Right off the bat we have that bizarre and hilarious scene with poor Cordo trying to pay his father's death taxes to a woman in a window 3 feet above him (when I watched Terry Gilliam's Brazil years later it immediately evoked The Sun Makers).

The story is so full of Robert Holmes moments, and sharply drawn characters. And in that typically Holmesian way each are both hilarious and disturbing simultaneously. I mean I really shouldn't derive such pleasure when the pompous Hade is thrown over the side of a building--but anything less would have been a supreme disappointment for his character. Unpleasant human beings like Mandrell and Veet somehow worm their way into our affections because they eventually see that the Doctor is a man with a plan. While most of the stories during the Graham Williams era have middling ineffectual direction, Holmes scripts are so winning that they almost demand that some scenes work. Perhaps most successful is the cliffhanger to episode 3 which is quite effective and tense in the midst of the laughs. I think the story works so well precisely because it still manages to takes certain parts of the plot seriously.

Leela also seems to be back in good form after a couple of meh stories for her character. Her warrior instincts are used well and despite being part of a painfully slow assault in a golf cart, all of her scenes have nice tension. Tom Baker is headed full steam towards his new breezy irreverent interpretation of the role, but there are still hints of his old gravitas.

Ritual has been such an important part of this rewatch. As I've noted before, having a weekly date with classic Doctor Who has made it fresh and exciting. I love perusing the aisles of the Summerhill flag ship LCBO for an interesting wine (or the challenge of finding one that fits thematically). Carving out time from a busy weekend. Reminiscing about my earlier experiences with a story. Closing my eyes and listening to a song that takes me back to those days.

A good tequila sunrise is about anticipation and rediscovery. It's a bit showy, with bright colours and a bit of theatricality. But there's a bit of a kick at the bottom and it creates great memories.

Original viewing date: January 29, 1984

Spirit: Tequila Sunrise -- with duty free tequila!

Music: "Relax" by Frankie Goes to Hollywood.

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"