Story #136 - The Twin Dilemma (1984)

Harry -
Pass the gin, Sarah.


Sarah -
Brave Heart, Old Boy. And don't worry, I bought the extra-large bottle.


Harry -
After the sad demise of the Fifth Doctor, one might have hoped that JN-T and crew might have eased us into a new Doctor. No such luck. It's regeneration crisis times a thousand with this new bloke. If he was any more in your face he'd come right through the screen.


Sarah -
Adios, feckless charm -- it's time to strangle the companion! I remember all too well my complete shock the first time I watched this regeneration. It's still a bit shocking, but I was able to appreciate the subtleties in Colin Baker's performance. There are so many bombastic moments that overwhelm the contrite moments when he's overwhelmed by the guilt of his actions. Peri is not far off when she diagnoses him as having a "manic depressive paranoid personality." This is the most bipolar regeneration crisis we've seen so far.


Harry -
It's notable that Peri's initial reaction to the new Doctor is negative, guiding us the viewers to take the same position early on. I don't know if any of the Doctor's lines were meant to be humorous, but everything is lost in Colin Baker's overwhelming delivery. There's definitely a lot of Colin here. Nicola Bryant is practically flinching during some of his outbursts.


Sarah -
We've seen companions dismayed and suspicious after a regeneration, but we haven't had anyone look like they want to throw themselves out of the TARDIS before now.

Colin's camp delivery of the Doctor's assessment of his new look made me laugh: "A noble brow. Clear gaze. At least it will be, given a few hours sleep. A firm mouth. A face beaming with a vast intelligence. My dear child, what on Earth are you complaining about?" He clearly was trying to bring something to it. Can we blame poor direction by Peter Moffatt?


Harry -
As with all regenerations, it's time for a new wardrobe. Oh yes, the new wardrobe.

I'll get the tonic and ice. Lime or lemon, Sarah?


Sarah -
Screw the mixers -- just pass me the bottle!

Is there anything left to say about the coat? It's dreadful and ridiculous. The only compensation is that we get to riffle around in the TARDIS wardrobe a bit. Look, it's the Second Doctor's coat and trousers! The Third Doctor's jacket and Tegan's coat! Ah, the memories of better days...


Harry -
There isn't much left to say about the coat. It's one of the worst decisions ever made by a Doctor Who showrunner. There's an interesting theory floating around that JN-T (who was no stranger to loud, tacky attire) essentially created the Doctor in his own image. I hate the coat. You hate the coat. Everyone in the universe hated the coat, except the one person that mattered.


Sarah -
There are several clips in the bonus DVD footage of Colin on chat shows, wearing the coat and gamely answering questions about it. Knowing how much he hated the costume, it's impressive that he was able to defend it. That's why they call it acting, eh?


Harry -
This is a unique story in that we got a mid-season regeneration. Well, there was one story to go, anyway. What I would have loved was if everything in this story was a one-off, reflecting the Doctor's regeneration fits. The clothes selection, the manic behaviour, the rudeness! Wouldn't it have been better if the next season started with the Doctor having settled down -- a less bombastic, less arrogant Doctor, dressed in muted shades -- and everything about this story just a momentary abberation before we got to the good stuff? Like David Tennant spending a story in his jim-jams before getting down to it. Unfortunately, this was the template that the following season's writers had to work from, so they continued with the Doctor that was set down in this story. JN-T was very wrapped up in the convention scene at the time, and might have been convinced to take that alternate path had someone offered it up, but alas. Oh, what might have been.


Sarah -
So, what did you think of the actual story?

Regeneration crisis aside, I was dreading "The Twin Dilemma", which may have turned out to be a good thing. It could almost only be better than expected. My memory of the story and everything in fan culture made me expect that it would be unwatchable, but it's certainly not the worst Doctor Who. My one-sentence review: "The Twin Dilemma -- at least it's not Time-Flight!"


Harry -
As a Doctor Who story -- especially for a post-regeneration story -- it's not bad at all. While the tempest rages aboard the TARDIS, we see cutaways to a futuristic household. A pair of twin teenage boys behave like a pair of teenage boys, dissing their dad before he steps out for the night. The twins play video games when an old man suddenly materializes in the middle of the room. The boys seem more impressed than alarmed by the feat. I mean, that sort of occurrence happens to all of us at some point, no?


Sarah -
Perhaps it only happens to maths geniuses? That would have left the two of us out.

On a side note, remember the sisters dressed as the twins at Chicago TARDIS a few years back? Those were amazing costumes.


Harry -
They do an impressive job every convention. 

The old man who has appeared calls himself Professor Edgeworth, and promises to return when the twins' dad is home. But he suddenly seizes the twins and they all dematerialize, landing on a ship in outer space. Cue the feather-headed alien pilots! They looked like something out of the Hartnell era.


Sarah -
I love the Jacondans! Those are some seriously impressive alien costumes -- absolutely classic.

The twins' father returns home to find them gone and traces of Zanium, a residue of transmit, in their room. Realizing they've been kidnapped, he alerts the authorities and Lieutenant Hugo Lang is dispatched to track them down.

I'm not going to lie, Harry, I found Hugo to be quite a dish back in the day. He looks a proper rude boy with those suspenders and Ian Curtis haircut -- exactly what my teenage self was after.


Harry -
Hugo Lang, Space Cop. I like. We'll see plenty of handsome and hunky males in these stories as the JN-T era rolls on, and that's perfectly fine with me.


Sarah -
We've got to take what we can get.


Harry -
As the Colin Baker era rolls on, we'll see something I always found highly amusing: the extreme close up cliffhanger. There are three of them in this story alone!  At the end of part one, Lang's spacecraft is shot down on Titan 3. The Doctor and Peri rescue him and bring him aboard the TARDIS. When he comes to, Lang pulls a gun on the Doctor, proclaiming him a murderer. EXTREME CLOSE UP ON COLIN'S FACE OF SHOCK, AND ROLL CREDITS!


Sarah -
It's fortunate Colin can bring the shock. Unfortunately, theses cliffhangers just made me laugh.


Harry -
Fortunately the space cop is subdued and the threat comes to nothing. While the TARDIS had come to Titan 3 so that the Doctor could take up a life of contemplation as a hermit, Lang was there in pursuit of the Jacondan ship. Edgeworth and the twins landed there and the boys were immediately put to work on some calculations for a powerful energy source. Their taskmaster is Mestor, who needs their genius to advance his ambitions.


Sarah -
I thought the whole "I'm going to live a life of contemplation and you will be my disciple" scene was amusing. Peri's "WTF?" response was hysterical.

DOCTOR: Titan Three. Thou craggy knob, which swims upon the oceans of the firmament. Receive this weary penitent.
PERI: I think I'm going to be sick.


Harry -
HAHAHAHAHA!

The Doctor and Peri go for a recce underground, eventually running into Edgeworth. Only the Doctor recognizes "Edgeworth" as Azmael, a fellow timelord.


Sarah -
Azmel's reaction to their arrival is just as amusing as Peri's

DOCTOR: We came to Titan Three of our own free will.
EDGEWORTH: Who in their right minds come to Titan Three of their own free will?


Harry -
HAHAHAHAHA!


Sarah -
I love the scene when the Doctor realizes Edgeworth is his old friend Azmael. His memories of their drunken night around the fountain sound exactly like something the Fourth Doctor would have gotten into.


Harry -
Can totally see that. Actually, any of the first four Doctors might have had that wild night at the fountain.


Sarah -
It's hard to imagine it happening after that.


Harry -
True.

Back on the TARDIS, Lang wakes up again and does what any of us would do: he enters the wardrobe of a total stranger and changes into the loudest shirt he can find. Who among us can say we haven't done that?


Sarah -
We've all been there. And who hasn't been tempted to hide a gun's powerpack in the loudest shirt we can find?

The Doctor is horrified by Azmael's plan to use the twins to do Mestor's bidding and implores him to stop. Not believing that he has a choice in the matter, Azmael locks the Doctor and Peri in the base and hightails it out of there with the twins and Jacondans. What he doesn't know is that Noma has set the base to self-destruct. The Doctor starts out trying to break the combination lock on the base, until Peri alerts him to the self-destruct mechanism. He immediately starts to work on modifying the transporter, sending Peri to the TARDIS, where Hugo is waiting. She expects the Doctor to arrive after her and can only think the worst when the base explodes.


Harry -
PERI: Oh no, Docterrrrr!

EXTREME CLOSE UP ON PERI'S FACE OF GRIEF, AND ROLL CREDITS!


Sarah -
I can only imagine Nicola hated that final shot.


Harry -
It turns out that Peri's grief was premature. The Doctor fades back into existence, having set the transporter slightly ahead of time before correcting it. I did like his comment to Peri immediately afterward: "You know, I'll never understand the people of Earth. I have spent the day using, abusing, even trying to kill you. If you'd have behaved as I have, I should have been pleased at your demise." This line anticipates something of Peter Capaldi's Doctor, who is made aware of his appalling rudeness and uses cue cards to help him overcome it -- or at least to be less appallingly rude to people.


Sarah -
It's a good moment and Colin plays it well.

My absolute favorite moment of the story is in episode 3 -- when the Doctor bursts into Azmael's lab, shouting, "Villain! Murderer!" I laughed so hard I had to pause the DVD and then rewatched it twice. There was no scenery left for Colin to chew after that moment!


Harry -
The chase continues, as it's on to Jaconda! We soon discover that the planet is a paradise rendered to dust by the giant gastropods who have taken over, and whose ambitions stretch far beyond it. Here is where we learn of Mestor's incredible ambition. He wants the twins to calculate a means of moving entire planets into the orbit of Jaconda, providing the wasted planet with a new source of supplies. It's celestial engineering on a mind-bending scale. We won't see this kind of madness again until Davros tries to pull it off in "The Stolen Earth / Journey's End".

Ourtraged, the Doctor turns on Azmael. Lang gets clubbed. The Jacondans seize Peri, meaning to kill her.

DOCTOR: No! Periiiii!

EXTREME CLOSE UP OF THE DOCTOR'S FACE OF GRIEF, AND ROLL CREDITS!

It's amazing. Three straight cliffhangers with extreme close ups.


Sarah -
Well, at least it's consistent.

The Doctor rediscovers his compassion and springs into action when he thinks Peri's in jeopardy. The Doctor convinces Mestor that he can help with the planet moving project.

Meanwhile, Mestor decides not to kill her because he likes the way she looks -- yet another creepy alien putting the moves on Peri.


Harry -
NOMA: Why don't you kill her?
MESTOR: I find her pleasing. Pleasing!

My entire body cringed. So awful.


Sarah -
We're going to have to withstand a lot of sexual harassment of Peri in the coming weeks.


Harry -
Turns out, Azmael is not so hot at celestial engineering. The Doctor points out that if two smaller planets are moved into orbit around Jaconda, they will eventually be pulled away and crash into the sun. Double facepalm for Azmael.  Woops!


Sarah -
D'oh!


Harry -
At least this helps foil Mestor's master plan, which not only involved feasting on the resources of the two smaller planets, but then propagating the gastropod race by scattering with millions of extremely durable eggs across the universe. All rather brazen.


Sarah -
Mestor was really playing the long game with this plot.


Harry -
I said at the beginning that this story was not bad, but it gets let down by a sham ending. His plans exposed, Mestor attempts to telepathically take over the Doctor's body. Some conveniently bottled acid comes in handy. The Doctor hurls it and it shatters over an exposed Mestor, who proceeds to bubble, gurgle and melt in a very satisfying fashion. Sadly, Azmael dies too.


Sarah -
But not before a trip down memory lane with his old friend, the Doctor.


Harry -
Then, we get treated to an unexpected panto scene featuring Mestor's feathery Jacondan chamberlain, who bows and scrapes and begs to come aboard the TARDIS. It was so stupid but I loved it. The Doctor shoos him away, says something rude to Lang, then barges into the TARDIS with Peri on his heels. That scene was like the entire Colin Baker era in microcosm.


Sarah -
Fasten your seatbelt, Old Boy, it's going to be a bumpy couple of seasons!


Harry -
DOCTOR: "I am the Doctor, whether you like it or not!"

We're going to need a lot more gin.

Best line: "Something's very wrong. Oh no, has it come to that? Regenerate, yet unregenerate."

Favourite moment: the panto chamberlain scene at the end.

Lasting image: The Doctor, Peri and Lang in the TARDIS, wearing the loudest clothes in the universe.

6/10


Sarah -
Best Line: "I am the Doctor, whether you like it or not!"

If that's not a mission statement, I don't know what is.

Favorite moment: "Villain! Murderer!"

Lasting image: The Doctor bursting into the lab shouting "Villain! Murderer!"

6/10

Our marathon continues with Story #137 - Attack of the Cybermen...

Story #135: The Caves of Androzani (1984)

Harry -
The saddest thing about viewing all the Davison era stories in succession has been watching all our friends depart the show, one by one. And now, the Fifth Doctor.


Sarah -
I find this departure particularly painful because Davison goes out on the highest note of the Fifth Doctor's era -- and one of the highest notes in the series' history. "The Caves of Androzani" regularly tops lists of best Doctor Who stories with good reason. It's absolutely brilliant and Peter Davison gives one of his best performances as the Doctor.


Harry -
What a contrast from "Planet of Fire", where the Doctor was practically a tourist as the story played itself out around him. Here, he explores, climbs, gets captured, escapes capture, runs, carries, gets executed, crash lands a spaceship, saves his friend's life at the expense of his own, and finally, he regenerates. WOW.


Sarah -
Imagine if he'd been given this much to do over the previous seasons!


Harry -
It was fitting that Davison's most Pertwee- and Baker-esque performance came in a story that felt so much like a Third or Fourth Doctor adventure. And look who wrote it -- hello Bob Holmes!


Sarah -
I was getting a drink during the opening, so I missed the writing credits. Halfway though episode one, I thought to myself, "This has got to be a Robert Holmes story." You can't miss the mark of the master!

"The Caves of Androzani" is also Graeme Harper's directorial debut in Doctor Who, having previously served as assistant floor manager and production assistant. His direction breathes so much life into the story, which is attributed to his direction from the floor, rather than the production booth.


Harry -
It begins quietly. Having departed the desert planet Sarn, the TARDIS lands in another desert, this time on Androzani Minor. Intrigued by some tracks left in the sand, the Doctor leads Peri towards some caves. These fleeting moments are the only stress-free time they will have together. Before long, Peri slips and tumbles down an opening in the caves. She lands in some webby muck that burns her skin and that of the Doctor when he examines her. Little do they know it, but their clocks have just begun ticking.


Sarah -
The moment when Peri slips is almost played for laughs and it really is quite unexpected when she topples over. We have no idea, of course, that she's stumbled into unrefined Spectrox and spread it to the Doctor.


Harry -
It's the unrefined stuff that will get you. Little do they know it, but they are also about to stumble into the middle of a hostile situation involving a business conglomerate that's mining the planet, some renegade gunrunners, and a mysterious saboteur and his band of android soldiers -- all battling over the life-enhancing drug Spectrox.


Sarah -
I love the political drama in this story. So many factions, so much double-dealing and backstabbing. Such Bob Holmes brilliance!


Harry -
Episode One might be one of the fastest moving episodes in all of Doctor Who. Once the Doctor and Peri plunge into the middle of things, we meet the various antagonists in rapid succession. Trau Morgus is the devious businessman who monitors developments from the safety of his headquarters on Androzani Major. (I love the glowing pastel shades of his office set -- so futuristically 80s.) Stotz is leader of the gunrunners who lurk in the shadows, alternately attacking the soldiers sent to flush them out, and fighting off the monstrous bat creatures that inhabit the caves. Last, and most creepy of them all is Sharaz Jek. He first appears as a Phantom of the Opera kind of character, but he takes a very unpleasant turn before long.

Oh, before we even get there, the Doctor and Peri are executed by General Chellak's soldiers. How very Bob Holmes!


Sarah -
Fortunately, Sharaz Jek managed to swap out the Doctor and Peri with a couple of androids, who take the bullets while the real Doctor and Peri are whisked off to Jek's lair. What seems like a rescue soon turns creepy. Jek becomes the first in a long series of characters to become obsessed with Peri. His scenes with Peri are some of the most uncomfortable endured by a companion since the attempted rape of Barbara in "The Keys of Marinus". Poor Peri.

The Doctor and Peri discover that Salateen, Chellak's right-hand man, is also being held captive by Jek, which means Chellak has an andoid double agent on his team. The plot thickens!


Harry -
I can't think of another Doctor Who story where we meet so many different villains all at once.


Sarah -
I'm not sure I would classify them all as villains. They're each serving their own interests, none of which line up with those of the Doctor and Peri.


Harry -
True. Interestingly, it will be the "military" characters Salateen and Chellak who turn out to be the most sympathetic to the plight of the Doctor and Peri. I can't say much for the acting of Robert Glenister or Michael Cochrane, who deliver some terribly panto laughs and screams as the story plays out.


Sarah -
Gleister's performance is confusing. His android Salateen is perfect. Even before he knows it's an android, Chellak seems unsettled by Salateen's too-perfect anticipation of his needs. The "real" Salateen starts out panto and morphs into a hero by the end of the story.


Harry -
However, John Normington and Christopher Gable were casting masterstrokes as Morgus and Jek. Normington's smooth, unblemished face is perfect for a Spectrax fiend. His opposite, Jek, is hidden under a mask, but the disgustingness of his character comes out in Gable's voice and the spidery movements of his hand as he strokes Peri. Total creep out.


Sarah -
Brilliant casting on both counts.


Harry -
And those asides by Morgus. I love them! He's so rich and powerful he can break the fourth wall if he damn well pleases.


Sarah -
Those are some of my favorite moments in the story. Morgus is just so reprehensible! We know, like all robber-baron villains, he will eventually get his comeuppance, but he gets so many opportunities to be the baddest baddie in the story!


Harry -
Jek is obsessed with Morgus. He and his androids collect and control access to the Spectrox. In exchange for it, he demands the head of Morgus. They were once partners in the conglomerate, but Jek was betrayed, disfigured in a mudburst and abandoned to die. Deep inside the caves is where he established his lair, plotting revenge. The arrival of Peri set him off. When she and Salateen escape back to Chellak's headquarters, he goes mad with rage, then kidnaps her back like a total psycho.


Sarah -
A lesser writer would just make Jek a ranting psycho. Holmes gives him a backstory that makes the character so much more interesting, and almost sympathetic.


Harry -
Almost, but not quite.

I have to mention here that Nicola Bryant delivered an amazing performance in this story. Her discomfort and distress as she was menaced by both Jek and the Spectrox toxemia were very realistic.


Sarah -
She really is so good. A few days ago Peri was on the beach and now she's facing death on another planet while trying to negotiate her way between a series of extremely disturbing situations and characters. Bryant captures the chaos of the situation while maintaining a strength of character. It feels like a long time since we've seen a companion given such strong material to work with.


Harry -
I'm getting angry thinking about it!

Meanwhile, the Doctor has slipped away ahead of everyone, crawled through a gun battle between the gunrunners and the cave bats, and gotten himself recaptured by Jek. He is handed over to Stotz, the leader of the gunrunners and they depart for Androzani Major.


Sarah -
We haven't talked about Stotz yet. How good is Maurice Roëves? He feels so dangerous -- threatening his crew to keep them in line, playing all sides, and not hesitating to kill anyone who gets in his way.


Harry -
He played the gunrunner role perfectly, throwing in a dash of rogueish charm, but not too much.

This is where we find out that Morgus is playing all sides -- funding the gunrunners, betraying (and murdering) the president, and assigning emergency negotiating powers to none other than... Trau Morgus. He announces that he is going on a mission to Androzani Minor to personally negotiate a settlement with Jek. It's all coming to a head fast and furious -- especially when the Doctor hijacks Stotz's ship and sends it hurtling back the other way.


Sarah -
Now THAT"S a cliffhanger!


Harry -
I have a bit of a quandry about this. A conundrum if you will. I don't want to derail us on a long analysis, so maybe I'll save it for our Davison era recap post. Please remind me to remember!


Sarah -
Oooo, a conundrum. I can hardly wait!


Harry -
Back to the crash scene. Actually, we never see the crash scene, or the crash itself. Clearly a massive hole in the production budget there, but we do get a good chase scene over the hills and dunes of Androzani Minor.


Sarah -
Chases are much easier on the budget than crashes, no?


Harry -
It was a lovely set of sand dunes. I wonder where that was filmed.

There's a final gun battle in the caves as all sides converge once again. Under the obvious sham of a peace negotiation, Morgus arrives with Stotz's troops to steal Jek's Spectrox store -- but not before finding out he has been deposed as head of the conglomerate by Krau Timmin (haha Morgus!).


Sarah -
Krau Timmin is awesome. She appears to be Morgus' faithful assistant, but she's just biding her time until he's exposed. Brilliant!


Harry -
I loved her feet-on-the-desk punctuation mark.

As well, Morgus has just been indicted by the presidium and faces a lifetime on the run from justice. What a turnaround. In the mayhem that follows, Jek and Morgus have their final showdown, which proves fatal for both of them. They didn't really explain the device that (presumably) killed Morgus, but after being shot, Jek draped himself over the arms of the android Salateen for a poetic visual.


Sarah -
Jek's final words -- "Salateen, hold me" -- are almost heartbreaking, as he collapses into the android's arms.


Harry -
Jek had been tending to a dying Peri when the Doctor arrived. With everyone dead or dying, our hero races down to the lowest levels of the caves in search of the milk of the queen bat -- the only known antidote to Spectrox toxemia. Carrying Peri back to the TARDIS, the Doctor looks like he's been through hell. The blood on his forehead, the mud and filth on his clothes, and his weakening state as he just manages to give the antidote to Peri. It was a thrilling race against time and I loved it.


Sarah -
Did you realize that the two women in the story -- Peri and Timmin -- are the only ones who survive?


Harry -
I didn't realize that Holmes knocked off everybody but the ladies.


Sarah -
Not a good day for the blokes. Everyone else is dead as the Doctor stumbles into the TARDIS with Peri in his arms. Unfortunately, there is not enough antidote for both of them and this Doctor's time is up.


Harry -
And then, regeneration.


Sarah -
Our first mid-season regeneration since 1966!


Harry -
"It feels different this time." It looks different too. The Davison changeover gives us a hint of the loud, fiery regenerations that will be standard in the current era. The Doctor's memories come flooding back -- Adric's death haunting him to the end, and a flurry of voices ring through his mind as his body regenerates. Everything builds up to a cacophonous climax that was inspired by the finale of The Beatles' "Day in the Life." BOOM! It's the end of an era. Farewell to the gentle, smiling, ever-so-affable Edwardian cricketer. At least we finally found out what the celery was about.


Sarah -
It's heartbreaking that his final word is "Adric."


Harry -
And then, Colin Baker sits up... and within seconds, he makes me miss Peter Davison already.


Sarah -
It's hard to erase all the Sixth Doctor baggage and try to remember how we felt when we first saw Colin Baker sit up as the regenerated Doctor. I have to admit that this time I found myself thinking Colin was quite handsome...until he opened his mouth to chastise Peri.


Harry -
The greatest of Fifth Doctor stories ends on such a sour note, with a new, arrogant Doctor snarking at Peri from the get-go. Ugh. It's a shame that Peter and Nicola couldn't have more adventures together. But that's where Big Finish comes in!


Sarah -
Thank you Big Finish! Now please take all my money!


Harry -
We'll have plenty to gripe about in the coming weeks, so let us raise a glass to Bob Holmes, Peter Davison, Nicola Bryant, all of the guest cast, Graeme Harper and all of the crew -- you produced one of the all time classics of Doctor Who. This might be the closest I'll ever get to a 10 rating. If every adventure was as brilliant as this one, the show would never have gone off the air.


Sarah -
I raise my pint to them all!


Harry -
It's hard to let go, knowing what's ahead. Perhaps we could have one more toast for Peter.


Sarah -
If we keep toasting, can we stop it from happening?


Harry -
Wouldn't hurt to try.

Best Line:
STOTZ: You'd better turn this ship around Doctor!
DOCTOR: Why?
STOTZ: Because I'll kill you if you don't!
DOCTOR: Not a very convincing argument actually, Stotz, because I'm going to die soon anyway...

Favourite Moment: the action packed chase scene after the offscreen spaceship crash.

Lasting Image: Sharaz Jek being utterly creepy.

9/10


Sarah -
Best Line:
SHARAZ JEK : "Don't mock me, Doctor. Beauty I must have, but you are dispensible.
DOCTOR: "Thank you."
SHARAZ JEK: "You have the mouth of a prattling jackanapes... But your eyes... they tell a different story."

Favorite Moment: Morgus breaking the fourth wall

Lasting Image: The Doctor carrying Peri back to the TARDIS

10/10

 


Our marathon continues with Story #136: The Twin Dilemma...

Story #134: Planet of Fire (1984)

Sarah -
I've had a bit of an uncomfortable realization while watching "Planet of Fire". Remember how annoyed we were when all the Rose fangirls and fanboys hated all over Martha the moment she was introduced in Series Three?


Harry -
Do I!


Sarah -
I have to confess that was me when the Perpugilliam Brown era began. My heart was firmly set against her from the beginning -- mostly just because she wasn't Tegan. Not that the horrible American accent helped.


Harry -
The moment something new and different appears onscreen, it's one of the grandest traditions for a swath of Doctor Who fandom to shout at the top of one's lungs: "I DON'T LIKE IT! CHANGE IT BACK!"


Sarah -
I'm usually the kind of fan who accepts changes as inevitable -- it's just part of watching Doctor Who and complaining is useless. That said, Peri really rubbed me the wrong way for most of her run.


Harry -
Peri had a tough act to follow, but props to Nicola Bryant for giving it her all.


Sarah -
Having not been a fan of Peri pretty much since "Planet of Fire" first aired on WTTW on 30 December 1984, I have to admit I wasn't super excited about revisiting her stories. I was prepared to have all my anti-Peri bias confirmed, but that didn't happen. She really wasn't all that bad. I even found myself sympathizing with her. The accent, of course, is still rubbish.


Harry -
The story of Nicola's casting, and her accent, and how it all came together in the character of Peri have been told and retold countless times. While rewatching "Planet of Fire" for the first time in years, what I found myself listening for were the audible tics in Peri's speech that give away Nicola's true nationality. Once in a while, we hear a drawn out English vowel sound where a sharper American one was required (like when she says "all"). It's a little amusement to enjoy on the side while taking in the story.


Sarah -
I remember getting into a strong disagreement with my friend Marc when Peri made her debut. He insisted Nicola Bryant was American so I spent the next episode making a list of all the things she said that were just wrong. To be fair, even Bryant was bothered by some of the dialogue they gave her and fought to make changes.


Harry -
I have to admit, this time around I found myself taken in by the story despite being totally prepared to hate it. Multiple branches coming together on the planet Sarn, multiple outcomes for the many characters, and multiple revelations along the way. Were all your memories of the story reconfirmed, or were you pleasantly surprised this time around, Sarah?


Sarah -
I was quite pleasantly surprised. I didn't remember too many details going in. Lanzarote, the egregious bikini shots, and Turlough dropping his drawers to save drowning Peri were about all I remembered about this story.


Harry -
So much skin in this one! In Lanzarote anyway. After a mysterious object is hauled aboard a vessel by hunky Professor Howard Foster, his stepdaughter Peri announces that she's leaving the island to travel to Morocco with a couple of British lads. They argue about it and Howard eventually strands Peri aboard the vessel, causing her to miss her flight.


Sarah -
Howard is such a dick! He lures Peri out to the boat by pretending he's going to give her money for Morocco and then traps her there. Things get even creepier later in the story when she's in the TARDIS having nightmares about Howard mistreating her. There is one seriously disturbing backstory there.


Harry -
There is one disturbing Boston accent there too.


Sarah -
Is that what it's meant to be? There were moments when I thought he might be Australian.


Harry -
The TARDIS databanks are inconclusive.

Meanwhile, the TARDIS has honed in on a signal and landed nearby. The Doctor ditches his long coat and sweater and has a look around while Turlough and Kamelion remain aboard.


Sarah -
I imagine a bit of rummaging through the TARDIS wardrobe in search of the jaunty little waistcoat he wears for the rest of the story.


Harry -
He finally got to change his look, however slightly.

Remember Kamelion? I sure as hell didn't. He's not only been missing since "The King's Demons," but he hasn't been mentioned in all this time. When the shape shifting android has a sudden screaming seizure in another room of the TARDIS, even the Doctor seems startled to remember him.


Sarah -
What was Kamelion doing in the weeks (months?) since the TARDIS visited medieval England? Lost in the TARDIS? Trapped in a cabinet somewhere? Meditating in the cloisters?


Harry -
This is one of my beefs with the JN-T era. We'd see characters introduced by one writer, then sidelined or ignored altogether by subsequent writers who didn't fancy writing them into their stories. Throughout the three-companion Davison era, we've often seen one or two of them sent away to wait inside the TARDIS because there wasn't anything for them to do. In Kamelion's case he was banished right out of the console room and out of our consciousness. What's the point of introducing characters if you won't do anything with them? This lack of consistency (or maybe it's a lack of discipline on the part of JN-T and Eric Saward) is another strike against the era.


Sarah -
That list is getting fairly long.


Harry -
Back on the vessel, Peri packs her remaining money, passport, and the mysterious object with the intention of swimming to shore and selling it. Halfway there, she tires and starts going under. Turlough spots her on the TARDIS scanner, strips down and dives in to rescue her. After carrying her back to the TARDIS, he notices the object she had with her -- it's clearly something he recognizes.


Sarah -
Oh, look! The symbol on the mysterious item is also imprinted on Turlough's arm. A mystery! Could it be Turlough is finally going to have something to do in a story beside trying to kill the Doctor or save his own skin? To be fair, he did go out of his way to save Peri, which I guess counts as character growth in the Saward era.

While asleep in the TARDIS, Peri begins to have her aforementioned creepy dream about Howard when Kamelion picks up on her thoughts and transforms himself into Howard. Things are rapidly become more uncomfortable.


Harry -
The Peri-Howard relationship is (thankfully) left unexplored. For now, Peri has Kamelion-Howard to deal with while the Doctor and Turlough go outside to explore the new location where the TARDIS has landed. Or rather, she has Kamelion-Master to deal with. He's baaaack!


Sarah -
Like a bad penny!


Harry -
Meanwhile, things are heating up on the planet Sarn!


Sarah -
Quite literally. The local volcano is about to blow!


Harry -
On this desert planet, the people are split between the adherents of the monotheistic deity Logar -- a kind of fire god -- and the non-believers, who find themselves pitched alive into a fire if they cross Timanov, the local elder tyrant.


Sarah -
Who seems to be singularly obsessed with burning the non-believers.


Harry -
Timanov is played by Peter Wyngarde, who gives it his Royal Shakespeare Company best, infusing the character with quiet menace and the occasional flash of temper towards Malkon. The youth, who bears an arm branding identical to that of Turlough, is hailed as the chosen one even though he is really just a puppet for Timanov.


Sarah -
Wyngarde's performance is masterful -- it's hard to watch anyone else when he's on screen.


Harry -
He's clearly the Guest Star of this one. As for Timanov, I suspect he might not have as much sway over the locals as he believes. Others take the piss out of him throughout the story and he barely bats an eye, like when the Master calls him a gullible idiot, or when he speaks of his encounter with Logar:

DOCTOR: Timanov, have you actually ever seen Logar?
TIMANOV: Yes, once, when I was a boy.
DOCTOR: Where?
TIMANOV: It was the summit of the fire mountain. The fire god spoke to me, encouraged me to inhale the gases. I felt intoxicated, invigorated. I felt reborn.
AMYAND: You were drunk.


Sarah -
I have to admit that exchange made me laugh out loud.


Harry -
This tiny settlement is the place where all of the story's threads come together, for various reasons, and with a few surprise revelations.


Sarah -
It seems young Malkon may be Turlough's brother, their father's ship having crashed on Sarn when Malkon was just a wee lad.

Can you think of any other companion whose entire backstory is revealed in their final appearance? In a series that excels in neglecting companions, Turlough has to be high on the list of the most neglected.


Harry -
Another classic quote from this era:

DOCTOR: Why have you never mentioned your home planet before?
TURLOUGH: No particular reason.

Good grief! Either no writer over the past two seasons was arsed enough to give Turlough a backstory, or JN-T and Saward weren't arsed enough to assign it to someone. We'll see another example of "You're leaving? Here's all the detail we've been meaning to fill in," in the next story.


Sarah -
I imagine Barry Letts sitting in front of the television, just shaking his head at the lack of care being given to the series at this point. There was none of that in the Third Doctor era!


Harry -
Wasn't Barry supposed to be a guiding hand at the start of the JN-T era? Maybe he had already stepped away from it by this point. I don't want to give too strong an impression that I didn't like this story. I did enjoy watching everything come together on Sarn.


Sarah -
I don't think our problems with the story are due to Peter Grimwade's script. It's a good, well-paced story. (She said, casting her eyes in a Sawardly direction...)


Harry -
Despite Timanov's tyranny, the locals experience a crisis of faith when Logar is exposed as a myth. The Master arrives, meaning to harness the restorative powers of the numismaton gas inside the volcano to recover from an accident he suffered during a tissue compression experiment. Turlough soon realizes that some of the locals are survivors of his father's crashed ship and they are Trionians like himself. The Doctor of course sees the big picture: this volcano is going to blow. Amid all that, we still have time for the Master-influenced Kamelion to stalk Peri across the sweeping landscapes of Sarn.


Sarah -
Poor Peri. Imagine, you're on an island holiday one moment and the next thing you know you're being chased across an alien planet by and intergalactic sociopath! I have to admit she did a good job of holding her ground through it all.

While watching the Master-Peri chase, I was thinking about how fluidly Ainley moves in his performance. He may be over the top in many aspects, but he moves almost as if he's dancing. His run across the landscape was wonderfully graceful. You know, for a homicidal lunatic. I had the same thought when he skipped across the chessboard in The Five Doctors.


Harry -
Ainley's nimble athleticism came from years of playing rugby and cricket.


Sarah -
Ah yes, that would do it. He moves like a cat.

Turlough contacts the home planet to send a rescue ship to Sarn, despite fearing that he'll be sent back into exile. But wait, there's been a chance in the regime and all sentences have been rescinded! Hooray!


Harry -
The revelations come fast and furious in part four. Some of the locals are from Trion, others are genuinely local. Ultimately, the religion of Logar is rejected in favour of a departure on the rescue ship. Beaten but unbowed, Timanov's final act on camera is to turn toward the flames, seemingly to commit a final act of zealotry upon himself.


Sarah -
It was crazy, but at least true to his character.


Harry -
After an amusing cat and mouse chase with Peri in his TARDIS, the Master is restored to full size by the numismaton gas, but is comsumed by the flames despite his pleadings to the Doctor. Having just watched the Master get burned alive, the Doctor then grants Kamelion's wish and destroys it with the Tissue Compression Eliminator. Apparently it works just as well on non-biological matter, as the Master demonstrated with the fire suits earlier.


Sarah -
Ah, Kamelion, we hardly knew ye. No, seriously, we didn't know you at all.


Harry -
What a waste.


Sarah -
I kind of loved the Small Master in a Box. Pity about the burning and all -- do you think he'll be back?


Harry -
Well, if so then I'm sure we'll get a convincing explanation of how he survived the fires of Sarn.

And just when we find out who Vislor Turlough is, he splits. The Doctor never really warmed to him and rightfully so. I didn't either. Sadly, this will be the last male companion we will see for some time.


Sarah -
When we watched "Mawdryn Undead", I mentioned that Turlough is a companion that I often just forget about. After revisiting the character, it's easy to understand why -- he's rarely given anything to out outside of trying to kill the Doctor or save himself. I quite like Mark Strickson, but Turlough definitely goes down on the list of neglected Doctor Who companions. I imagine he and Dodo will hit it off at the next neglected companions reunion.


Harry -
With Tegan, Turlough and Kamelion all gone, the only person left to accompany the Doctor is Peri. She assures him she doesn't have to be back at school for a while, and he agrees to let her come travelling with him (which makes no sense since he's a TIME TRAVELLER and all, but I'm done with the nitpicking for now).


Sarah -
Right? What was that? Who care how long her school vacation is -- YOU'VE GOT A TIME MACHINE! Sheesh.

Overall, "Planet of Fire" is a decent story, which I enjoyed watching.


Harry -
I liked the story, but the viewing of it was a bit dull. Despite the exotic landscapes, desert-settings are always drab.


Sarah -
Best Line:
"I am the Master!"
"I'm Perpugilliam Brown, and I can shout just as loud as you can!"

Favorite Moment: Peri standing up to the Master.

Lasting Image: Small Master in a Box.

6/10


Harry -
Best Line:
"Have I seen everything today. A transgalactic payphone, a stepfather who turns into a robot, and a robot who turns into a gangster."

Favourite Moment: Whenever someone took the piss out of Timanov.

Lasting Image: The Kamelion-Master bounding after Peri.

7/10

Our marathon continues with Story #135: The Caves of Androzani...