Story #152 - Battlefield (1989)

Sarah -
One of the things I appreciate about this era of Doctor Who is that you can see the effort being put into the series. The production team may strike out a lot, but they're definitely swinging for the fences. "Battlefield" has its problems, but it's also got ambition and I have to admire that.


Harry -
Yes, this much is admirable about "Battlefield". For most of season 26, the crew will be pushing to instill a cinematic quality to the show.

It's too bad no one thought to tell the actors this. Everyone overplays their roles, taking panto acting to a whole new level. From Sylvester's face-pulling to Sophie's "BOOM!", from Mordred's panto laughter to the I-don't-know-what-she's-going-for-here inconsistency of Bambera, it's all so bad -- with one gleaming exception. On her third go-around on Doctor Who, Jean Marsh steals the show as Morgaine, playing it with just the right tone of cold fury.


Sarah -
Jean Marsh is AMAZING! She dominates every scene she's in and is a wonderfully complicated baddie. Yes, she's willing to unleash the Destroyer to devour the entire world, but she also pays her son's bar tab by restoring the sight of the inn owner.


Harry -
That was a thoughtful touch.


Sarah -
Marsh's Morgaine remains my second-favorite of her Doctor Who characters. The first, of course, being Sara Kingdom, who is finally reunited with her brother, Bret Vyon -- aka our beloved Brigadier.


Harry -
Funny how they ended up in another story together, two decades later.


Sarah -
I love that Nicholas Courtney returns for this story. The establishing scenes with Doris are lovely and they look so happy.


Harry -
That is one hell of an estate they have. It looks bigger than the old UNIT headquarters.


Sarah -
I think my house is bigger than the old UNIT HQ! The arrival of the Doctor, of course, means the Brig will be called back to action for King (King? How far in the future is this meant to be if Charles is on the throne?) and country.


Harry -
I wondered about that. The whole "when do UNIT stories take place?" debate has always baffled me. Even though it takes an entire episode for the Brig to join the action, it's great to see him again.


Sarah -
He's ready to get back in the saddle again, but perhaps not ready to meet his replacement: "The officer who requested the information on the Doctor, this Brigadier Bambera. Good man, is he?" Um, no so much, Brig. 

Bambera. Oh, Winifred Bambera. What a missed opportunity. It's quite impressive that a woman of color was cast as the new head of UNIT, but the story undercuts her at every point. She's initially presented as a strong leader and it's all downhill from there. She gets into a fist fight with Ancelyn when she takes him into custody and ends up making googly eyes at him.


Harry -
That was ridiculous. When Lethbridge-Stewart arrives and reasserts the casual sexism of the 70s (or whenever!), she fumes at his chauvinism, but as the story goes on she becomes just one of "the girls".


Sarah -
I was enraged that the story ended with Bambera heading out with "the girls" (in her full UNIT kit) to do some shopping. WTF? The leader of UNIT heads off for a spot of shopping while the men folk stay home to tend to the housework? Bah!


Harry -
So, so ridiculous.


Sarah -
And then there's the worst line of all: "You're all under arrest. You and your freaky friends." Made my heart hurt.

In retrospect, "Battlefield" is an important story in the history of UNIT, as it forms a bridge from the homespun early days to the UNIT of the current series. We know that Bambera will turn out to be a trailblazer for those who come after her, but I still wish she had a better story.


Harry -
I hope that this case was the one that sparked a wholesale reorg of UNIT into a proper, professional outfit. As a covert military operation, they were utterly shambolic. Setting up camp with a nuclear missile in full view of the locals, letting a mysterious man and woman traipse straight into the Brigadier's mobile HQ, and getting their arses summarily kicked by a bunch of fantasy LARPers. What a debacle!


Sarah -
They should count themselves lucky for not ending up hanging upside down from a tree in their smalls!


Harry -
I can't even begin to explain what this story was about. So, in Ben Aaronovitch's view, King Arthur, Morgaine and Mordred were figures from another dimension, whose spaceship rested at the bottom of Lake Vortigern. They reappeared in contemporary Earth (or whenever!) to prepare to fight one more battle. I think? It's a common trope in Doctor Who that aliens or some sort of science fictiony business is what gave rise to popular myths as we know them. The mighty Sutekh being the source of Egyptian mythology and artwork, for example.


Sarah -
Exposing Earth mythologies as the product of alien encounters is always a reliable Doctor Who theme. It's surprising that they never got around to the Arthurian legends before this.


Harry -
Anyway, UNIT stumbles over the affair, as do the Doctor and Ace. They take possession of Excalibur, the prize that Morgaine is seeking. She dispatches her son and the LARPers to get it back. Repeated battles ensue. It was all very tiring. I would have taken it more seriously if they hadn't inserted awkward moments of comedy at random moments. Like Bambera hitting on Ancelyn, or the appearance of turbocharged Bessie. It felt like another "throw in everything but the kitchen sink" anniversary story, really.


Sarah -
It's all over the place, but there are some nice moments. I liked Ace's relationship with Shou Yuing, especially the scene in the chalk circle when they have to overcome anger and paranoid to work together. Ace seems to end of making local friends in so many of her stories -- a companion's companion, if you will.


Harry -
Yeah, so much of Ace's reputation is marked by her surly moments and her affection for explosives.  I'd forgotten how often she bonded with other people throughout her adventures with the Doctor.


Sarah -
I would have liked to see Shou Yuing's character developed a bit more. Really, almost all of the characters could have used more development.


Harry -
Agreed.  Shou Yuing just sort of breezed in and out of the story, we never found out her background.


Sarah -
We've seen many Doctor Who stories with large casts of well-developed characters, so it's not impossible. With the exception of Morgaine, they're all a bit one-dimensional.


Harry -
Even the monster got short-changed.  The Destroyer shows up, rattles his chains and makes lots of menacing threats, but never does all that much.  Nice makeup work by the costume department, but it seemed wasted here.


Sarah -
And then there's the music, which undercuts the story at every opportunity. I won't miss the backside of this era's awful, tinny, jarring music.


Harry -
Argh.  Yes, the music was really getting to me here.  I used to think more fondly of the music of Sylvester's era, probably because I sometimes listen to the soundtracks on their own.  I thought I'd be a stronger defender of the scores of this era, but within the stories themselves, these are terrible.

Well, we made it through possibly the roughest patch of this era.  Let's have some "Ghost Light"!


Sarah -
Best Line: "Exotic alien swords are easy to come by... Aces are rare."

Favorite Moment: Ace removing Excalibur from the stone when no one is paying attention.

Lasting Image: Ace emerging from the lake with Excalibur.

6/10


Harry -
Best Line:
ACE: "Doctor...?" 
DOCTOR: "Don't worry, Ace. It's only a trap."

Favourite Moment: After single-handedly dispatching the Destroyer, the Brig tells Ace that the Doctor is all hers and he's going home to Doris.

Lasting Image: Morgaine.

4/10

 


Our marathon continues with Story #153: Ghost Light...

Story #151: The Greatest Show in the Galaxy (1988-89)

Harry -
Well, my string of warm and fuzzy feelings about this era was bound to end sometime. And it has.


Sarah -
You held out far longer than I did. 

There are a lot of things I'll tolerate in Doctor Who -- wonky sets, bad performances, interesting stories let down by their production, not very good stories elevated by production and/or acting -- but I cannot abide Doctor Who being boring. I was so unengaged by this story that I couldn't even become angry about its contemptuous depiction of its own fans. I just wanted it to be over.


Harry -
By the end, I found the Gods of Ragnarok to be the most sympathetic characters. They were sitting there bored to the point of rage and I felt for them!


Sarah -
I have never related so strongly to any baddie before this. I was ready to turn everyone to ash by the end of it.


Harry -
I don't know if the story was supposed to be an allegory of Doctor Who (ie. the TV programme) struggling to avoid the wrath of almighty forces (ie. the heads of BBC) by proving its value to them, but that's what I got out of it.


Sarah -
The allegory wasn't particularly subtle.


Harry -
Depicting the gods as cruel, impatient and without a shred of humanity must have gone over like a lead balloon in the BBC Controller's office, but that's fine. Depicting fanhood the way it did was not fine. JN-T may have been okay with biting the hand that feeds, but it was not okay to slap the show's supporters in the face. We can all relate to the Whizz Kid's boundless enthusiasm for the Psychic Circus. I think we've all been there. For the show to characterize that enthusiasm in the cringey way they did was awful.


Sarah -
Poor Whizz Kid, doomed for being a Barker. Not cool, JN-T. Not cool.


Harry -
But before we get to any of that, let's spend an entire episode watching everyone travel to the scene of the action. That's always a promising start...


Sarah -
OHFORCRYINGOUTLOUD! The first episode had to be the most useless in Doctor Who history, with the lamest cliffhanger I can remember -- the Doctor asking Ace if they're going into the circus. We've just spent the whole episode getting you to the damn circus, but keep us on pins and needles about whether or not you're actually going in. What a shock when they enter the tent at the beginning of episode two. Who saw that coming? 

I may have been too bored to be angry while watching, but it's apparently caught up with me now!


Harry -
I made a point in my notes that the "Are we going in or aren't we?" back and forth eventually got excruciating. Before that, the encounter with the fruit stand lady was mildly amusing... until they actually ate some of her food offerings. People should never eat food on camera. It never looks pleasant.


Sarah -
That was VILE. Surely, there should have been some other way to kill screen time.


Harry -
They enter the circus! The pace suddenly picks up as the Doctor is picked out of a sparse crowd and invited to perform. Naturally he's delighted and makes his way forward. Ever-skeptical, creeped out by the clowns, and sensing that this story is going nowhere, Ace bolts.


Sarah -
Once again, Ace becomes the only reason to watch a story. What would we do without Sophie?


Harry -
The Doctor ends up stuck in a cage with a cluster of other people who were lured to the Psychic Circus by its mass-mailed promos. There's the grunting Nord, vandal of the roads.


Sarah -
The lamest vandal in history!


Harry -
There's Captain Cook, a pompous windbag. There's also Mags, the Captain's companion and a native of the planet Vulpana. Nord is called forward as the next contestant in the circus's talent contest. He steps into the centre ring and delivers a strongman performance, winning a series of "9" scores from the judges. Then he's asked to make a joke. Unable to think of anything, the judges turn on him with a score of zeroes, after which he is immediately killed. You never know what you'll see next at the Psychic Circus!


Sarah -
The rapping ringmaster seems a bit forward-thinking for 1988. Not that he managed to be any less irritating than any other part of the story.


Harry -
At first I was impressed by the Ringmaster's American accent. Then I discovered he was played by Chicago's very own Ricco Ross. He's still active on TV in the States. Do you recognize him from anything else?


Sarah -
I didn't recognize him, but looks like he's been in tons of stuff.


Harry -
As the story drags on, the Doctor cottons on to Ace's suspicions and realizes that something sinister is going on.


Sarah -
I was really bothered by the way he kept dismissing Ace's concerns. Listening to Ace usually turns out to be the right choice.


Harry -
The people running the circus and luring people to their deaths were not always this way. It used to be a friendly hippy circus with high ideals until something -- or someone -- threw a shadow over it. The performers know but they won't say. And so it drags on, with the Doctor and Ace facing danger and eluding capture in various scenes. Seriously, this one would have been better as a three parter, there was so much padding here.


Sarah -
Oh, how I kept wishing for a three-parter!


Harry -
Finally, the Doctor works his way into an arena built of ancient stones. There sit the Gods of Ragnarok, eternally bored and demanding entertainment. I have always disliked their appearance, their demands, everything about them. It's the Celestial Toymaker all over again, only this time there's three of them. Oh the irony in that this story pivots around characters who are bored.


Sarah -
We feel their pain!


Harry -
As Ace, Mags and Kingpin track down a Powerful Medallion which holds the secret of the Gods' power, Sylvester gets to do some magic tricks. He genuinely seemed to enjoy himself during that bit.


Sarah -
I suspect he may have been the only one. It all felt a bit smug to me.


Harry -
Anyway, medallion arrives, they toss it to the Doctor, he deflects the lightning bolts of death, and brings the whole damn thing crashing down around the Gods.


Sarah -
Um, hooray. I guess...


Harry -
The Doctor strolls out of the circus tent seconds before a final tremendous explosion. That's my favourite moment of the whole thing. Too bad it took way too long to get to that point. Again, this would have been better as a three parter, but there's not point going on about it. This circus is over and not a moment too soon. Let's move on!


Sarah -
It's really the only memorable moment from the story. I'm so ready to move on!


Harry -
Best Line: "Anybody remotely interesting is mad, some way or another."

Favourite Moment: the Doctor strolls out of the circus tent just before the explosion.

Lasting Image: Ian Reddington as the demented Chief Clown.

5/10


Sarah -
Best Line: "You're just an aging hippy, Professor." 

Favorite Moment: Ace wearing the Fourth Doctor's scarf. My favorite moment has absolutely nothing to do with the story. How sad is that? 

Lasting Image: The Doctor walking from the explosion. 

4/10

 



Our marathon continues with Story #152: Battlefield...

Story #150: Silver Nemesis (1988)

Harry -
I was looking forward to watching this story again after many years. My memories of "Silver Nemesis" were not the greatest.

Certainly the strongest memory was that this was an epic triple-threat adventure for the Doctor and Ace, as they fended off three -- three! -- different groups of villains. This was definitely "bums in seats" material from JN-T. We've already had a Dalek story this season, and now we get Neo-Nazis, Elizabethan conspirators, and Cybermen. Wow!


Sarah -
I couldn't shake the feeling that I'd seen this story before. Oh wait, I did -- TWO stories ago. "Silver Nemesis" feels like a 14th-generation copy of "Remembrance of the Daleks". It's pretty much the same story with the addition of a weak script, flat direction, and the most over-the-top guest stars Doctor Who has ever seen.


Harry -
Savage, Sarah! But I see your point. Multiple factions converging, conveniently, in England to recover a lost relic of incalculable power. We've just seen this one.


Sarah -
I'll have to warn you that I have some very strong feelings after watching this story. What a huge disappointment for the official 25th Anniversary story. 

"It's the 25th Anniversary? Let's give them Cybermen -- and make them extra silver!"


Harry -
They were so shiny.

I did like watching part one, as the various strands came together outside Windsor Castle. 

The Neo-Nazis holed up in South America was right out of The Boys from Brazil. De Flores, played by Anton Diffring, started off as the perfect icy teutonic mastermind.


Sarah -
On an episode of Scooby-Doo, maybe! I found his performance so irritatingly dull and so on-note. And what was with his troops? What that the gayest camouflage ever? I was waiting for them to form a kick line and break out in Life is Just a Bowl of Cherries. They were so camp!


Harry -
De Flores did get less menacing as the story went on. He started off icy and brutal, and I could imagine him as the kind of leader who was forever disappointed by his campy troops. By the end, he just wandered from scene to scene imagining himself enslaving the entire planet.  I mean seriously, what was his plan?  

a) play some Wagner
b) assemble a corps of eight to ten shock troops
c) seize alien technology
d) enslave planet

He's missing a few steps there, I think.  

Pro Tip: no character with an ascot ever enslaves a planet.


Sarah -
Seriously!


Harry -
Lady Peinforte was more mysterious. Played by Fiona Walker, we didn't even learn her name until several scenes in. Is she a rogue time lady? Is she a black sorceress? Whatever she is, she possesses both the knowledge of time travel, and the cold-bloodedness necessary to kill her mathematician. I liked the scene where she and her hired hand Richard imbibed some kind of potion that carried them screaming to the exact same spot, 350 years into the future. Imagine waking up one day to find your house has become a restaurant.


Sarah -
Happens all the time, I imagine. I had a flashback to "The Awakening" and imagined everyone in 1988 Windsor thinking, "Good Grief, more fucking Civil War reenactors!" as Peinforte and Richard wandered around town.


Harry -
Everyone from 1988 seemed to take their fancy dress in stride. Other than the two lunkheads who mistook them for social workers.


Sarah -
The skinhead scene is so out of the blue that it almost works. When the Doctor discovers them later in the story, hanging upside down from a tree in their small clothes, Mr. Smith commented, "Another JN-T fantasy come true." Having read Richard Marson's book, I suspect it's not far from the truth!


Harry -
Aye.


Sarah -
I went back and forth on Walker's performance. Most of the time it was much too much, but I quite enjoyed her near the end when she was sitting on a bench muttering, "All things will soon be mine."


Harry -
She went insane quite well. I didn't get her lunging into the rocket and becoming one with the nemesis statue, but I guess that was part of its power.


Sarah -
And I loved her scenes with Ms. Remington, the random American who seems to show up for no other reason than to be a cameo for Dolores Gray:

PEINFORTE: All things will soon be mine. 
REMINGTON: I guess they will, honey. 

Of course, but that point I had given up on the story and was looking for anything worth remembering.


Harry -
The limousine ride was so overplayed for laughs I hated it.


Sarah -
I have to admit hate-loved it. It was ridiculous, which made it perfect for "Silver Nemesis".


Harry -
So after a ferocious gun battle in which most of De Flores' troops were slaughtered by the Cybermen (so disappointing), everyone splits up, then gathers again at the site of Lady Peinforte's future tomb, and future-future safari park.


Sarah -
Of course they do.


Harry -
It must have been chilling for Richard to see his own gravestone, complete with the year of his death. And yet he held it together better than Lady P.


Sarah -
Richard was such a sad, but loyal, little man. He didn't deserve any of this.


Harry -
I like to think he was an ancestor of Richard Branson in a kind of Blackadder way.  The resemblance was there.


Sarah -
That is so perfect that I've just added to my head cannon. Like Baldrick, he can only get smarter in future lives.


Harry -
You're right about this story, Sarah. By the time part three rolled around, it was just a series of chases and escapes which is ridiculous for a short three-parter.  JN-T must have thought it sounded amazing on paper.  "The Doctor and Ace will race against time to stop a secret Gallifreyan weapon falling into the hands of not one, not two, but three competing evil factions: a mysterious time travelling lady, a band of Neo-Nazis, and Cybermen!"  Have to admit, it sounds great on paper.  But the fact that it was mostly chase scenes means they put little else into the story.  We never find out Lady Peinforte's back story, which is the one thing I would have liked to know in more detail.

And... we were all reminded of the completely ridiculous design flaw that the Cybermen still hadn't gotten around to correcting, ie. their fatal allergy to gold. It was amusing to see little old Ace and her slingshot take out a whole gaggle of them with some gold coins. But on the other hand it was also quite silly.


Sarah -
Which brings us to the only thing that worked for me in this story -- ACE! Once again, Sophie Aldred outshines everyone else on screen. She made the story watchable -- from the Courtney Pine concert to her final battle with Cybermen. My favorite moment is when she admits to the Doctor that she's afraid, but won't leave his side when he offers that she can go back to the TARDIS. That's our Ace!


Harry -
Ace was WICKED.  And she and the Doctor got to wear a fez.  It's interesting to see the bits and bobs of the past that Steven Moffat picks up and brings to the new series.


Sarah -
Mr. Smith and I were happy to see the fez pop up. I'd forgotten that.


Harry -
I remembered that this story had a bit of a bad rep, and my memories were not entirely positive, but I found myself liking "Silver Nemesis" more than I thought I would.  It's got a lot of flaws, but the chemistry between Ace and the Doctor is wonderful.  I love how they spent every other scene hanging around, listening to music, or just lying in a field while death and mayhem gathered elsewhere.


Sarah -
Their chemistry really is the best thing about this era of the series. 

Best Line: Lady Peinforte: "This is no madness. Tis England."

Favorite Moment: Ace bravely standing by the Doctor's side

Lasting Image: Lady P. and Richard walking through contemporary Windsor.

4/10 


Harry -
Best Line: 
DOCTOR: Don't you find it embarrassing asking for autographs?
ACE: Not as embarrassing as forgetting what you set your alarm for.

Burn!

Favourite Moment: Ace and the Doctor chillaxing in the countryside.

Lasting Image: the super silvery Cybermen.

7/10

 



Our marathon continues with Story #151: The Greatest Show in the Galaxy...