The Sylvester McCoy Era - Final Thoughts

Harry -
As we take a look back on the final era of classic Who, I can't help but feel sentimental. I didn't watch the McCoy era until I reconnected with Who in my 20s. In my mind these stories are always "early 90s Who."

Of course there's no such thing, as those were the wilderness years following the show's cancellation.


Sarah -
Seasons 24 and 25 were both broadcast on WTTW in 1989, so the McCoy era is firmly rooted in the late 80s for me. I didn't see the season 26 stories until later in the 90s, so they almost felt more like a sad postscript than new Doctor Who.


Harry -
Do you remember when you found out that Doctor Who had been cancelled?


Sarah -
Do I ever! It was announced on WTTW that the BBC had stopped production and I was devastated. It just didn't seem possible. WTTW continued to broadcast Doctor Who until the summer of 1991, but not in its usual Sunday night time slot, so I eventually lost track of when it was on and stopped watching. I had boxes full of VHS tapes, so I could always get a Doctor Who fix when I needed it, but it wasn't the same.


Harry -
I lost track of the show in the late-80s, so the news never hit me as one of those "I remember exactly when..." moments. I just read about it one day and figured that the show was now consigned to be part of my childhood.  I was so wonderfully wrong!


Sarah -
One of my favorite books is The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. In the book, Oscar gets his nickname, Wao, when he dresses up as Tom Baker one Halloween and his friend Yunior (the narrator) says he looks like Oscar Wilde. Later in the book, Yunior observes that he knew things were bad with Oscar when he wasn't upset by the news of Doctor Who's cancellation. The Doctor who references aren't the reason I love the book so much, but I knew exactly what Yunior when I read the book in 2007. If you were a Whovian back in the day, you wouldn't just carry on after getting the news.


Harry -
Not knowing anything about all the behind-the-scenes stuff that led to the show's demise, I initially had negative feelings towards Sylvester, somehow blaming him for being "the last Doctor". It was wrong-headed thinking of course. Once I caught up to his stories and especially when I got to know Ace, I took a real shine to that era.


Sarah -
Poor Syl, just another BBC victim. I'm happy you've seen the error of your ways.


Harry -
He came in after the chaos of the Colin Baker years. JN-T was given one last chance and rebooted the entire show with new production look and feel, new writing and script editing, and a new star. I have to admit that Sylvester's first season is not the greatest, but once they hit their stride the show really took off again.


Sarah -
Season 24 isn't the strongest, but you can see the changes slowly coming.


Harry -
Script editor Andrew Cartmel brought forward expansive stories with big ideas, and JN-T delivered some very cinematic-style adventures like "Remembrance of the Daleks" and "The Curse of Fenric". Even quickie stories like "Silver Nemesis" and "Survival" showed ambition to be bigger than just a TV show.


Sarah -
You could have almost understood canceling the show at the end of Season 23, but each season of the McCoy Era was stronger than the last. In the end, I guess we should be grateful that we got three more seasons.


Harry -
Stupid BBC man. The show was back on an upward trajectory in my opinion.


Sarah -
I really love Sylvester McCoy. To be fair, I'm one of those fans who loves all the Doctors. Some more than others, of course, but every one of them is dear to me. I know there are many who really dislike McCoy's Doctor, which always makes me a little sad. His performance is delightful and his chemistry with Sophie Aldred is among the best in Doctor-Companion history.


Harry -
His hamminess could grate at times, but like the Second Doctor, silly behaviour was part of his cover. I didn't mind it at all this time around.


Sarah -
I will always remember how delightful they were at Chicago TARDIS and Sly's kindness towards my very shy daughter. Meeting them was amazing.


Harry -
It was a highlight of our conventioneering.


Sarah -
Oh, Sophie, Our Sophie! I feel like I could go on and one about Ace for hours. I know we are of one mind on this and both rank Ace as one of our all-time favorite companions. Ace is so different from any companion who came before her and is pivotal in the series history. So many of the the themes in Ace's story will become the prototype for Rose's character sixteen years on.


Harry -
Ace is amazing, end of story.

She was the first of the Doctor's friends to be given depth and backstory. She wasn't just tagging along and asking questions in every adventure. The Doctor challenged her to confront her demons, and pushed her to dark places. He treated her like shit at times! But he always meant well and it made Ace all the stronger.


Sarah -
I think Cartmel gets all the credit for Ace's character development. There were so many companions who started out strong, but fell victim to writers who were more interested in creating their own characters than they were in developing the companions. (I would cite the Fifth Doctor Era as the prime example of this conundrum.) Cartmel developed Ace's story arc and maintained discipline among his writers. For that alone, he will always have my gratitude.


Harry -
In this era, JN-T rolled out all the classic baddies -- including Daleks, Cybermen, the Master and the Rani -- and we also got to catch up with Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart one more time. In terms of new monsters, a lot of them were human. Thinking of scummy types like Gavrok in "Delta and the Bannermen," Helen A in "The Happiness Patrol," and the evil clown in "The Greatest Show in the Galaxy." The two real "monstery" monsters that come to mind from this era are the Destroyer in "Battlefield" and good old, game playing Fenric. I believe Fenric is the only McCoy era creation to have made subsequent appearances in the Whoniverse, via Big Finish.

Which of them stand out for you, Sarah?


Sarah -
I loved seeing the Brig, Sabalom Glitz, and Ainley's Master one more time -- the Brig most of all, of course. Fenric is the most substantial of baddies introduced in this era. We should track down those audios for future listening. 

"Remembrance of the Daleks" has always been, and continues to be, my favorite Seventh Doctor story. This time around, I especially enjoyed "The Curse of Fenric" and "Battlefield", and I still have a soft spot for "Paradise Towers".


Harry -
My McCoy era soft spot goes to "Delta and the Bannermen." Remembrance for sure is a favourite. From the final season, Fenric ranks highest.


Sarah -
So, we did it. We made our way through all 26 seasons of the classic era and here we are in the wilderness years. Having lived through them the first time, it's a relief that we don't have to wait so long for more Doctor Who. If I can borrow a line from the Doctor: 

There are worlds out there where the sky is burning, where the sea's asleep and the rivers dream, people made of smoke and cities made of song. Somewhere there's danger, somewhere there's injustice and somewhere else the tea is getting cold. Come on, Harry, we've got work to do.


Harry -
We have a couple of stops to make in the wilderness years. Let's do it!

 





Our marathon continues with the 1993 special, Dimensions in Time...

Story #155 - Survival (1989)

Harry -
"Come on Ace, we've got work to do."

And with that, the curtain comes down on this season, on the McCoy era, and on twenty-six years of classic Doctor Who.

As for us, Sarah, let's raise a glass to the five-and-a-half years we've spent watching or listening to every moment of it.


Sarah -
It feels almost impossible that we've reach this point. The Seventh Doctor Era felt so far away when we started this project, inspired by Running Through Corridors, Vol. 1.


Harry -
We owe it all to Rob & Toby for putting us in motion.


Sarah -
Remember when we had our copies signed by Rob and Toby at Chicago TARDIS 2011? We never would have guessed that we'd end up finishing the entire classic era before the second volume of the book came out! (But I must admit I'm looking forward to getting Volume 2 at this year's Chicago TARDIS.)


Harry -
Cannot wait for Volume 2. This time we'll be able to compare our reviews with theirs.


Sarah -
The 70s is my favorite decade of Doctor Who, so I'm sure I'll want to re-watch everything once we have the book.


Harry -
Absolutely.

As for "Survival", it was a funny way to end Season 26, wouldn't you say? Instead of a grand finale that is standard now, we got a light three-parter.


Sarah -
We end with a whimper, after the bang of "The Curse of Fenric".


Harry -
Ace wonders what her old mates are up to, so the Doctor whisks them back to good old Perivale on a Sunday afternoon. It's quiet, almost too quiet, and there's nobody around Ace's old haunts.


Sarah -
Oh, Perivale, we hardly knew ye. After two seasons of hearing Ace describe Perivale as the worst place in the universe, it turns out to be incredibly ordinary.


Harry -
The Doctor was bored out of his mind! He practically had to invent a mystery to amuse himself. Missing youths, a demonic cat, celebrity grocers, it's got to be trouble.


Sarah -
Well, to be fair, it usually is trouble.


Harry -
Ace drags the Doctor to the local youth club. There, a self-defence course is taking place, led by the almost Pythonesque tough guy, Paterson.


Sarah -
Paterson is a classic Doctor Who tough guy, who's just waiting to be taken down a peg or two by upcoming events. The moment I find most interesting is when he recognizes Ace and admonishes her for leaving without letting her mum know where she is. It's really the first time we see the consequences of a companion disappearing with the Doctor -- a theme Russell T. Davies will pick up sixteen years hence. (But let's not get ahead of ourselves...we'll be there soon enough.)


Harry -
Considerably less time. It's often pointed out that Ace is the prototypical new era companion, with a backstory that we get to delve into, and with characters from her personal life who we get to meet.


Sarah -
She is definitely the prototype. There are so many future echoes, especially in this final season. I love the moment when they run into Ace's friend Ange, who is surprised to see her -- having heard that she died...or moved to Birmingham. Is there a difference?


Harry -
Ange makes it sound like there isn't. The Doctor meanwhile is hot on the trail of that lumpy black cat, which is zapping random suburbanites out of existence. Just as the Doctor is about to grab the ferocious little feline, Paterson comes blundering up behind him and they both get zapped. 

They land on some strange planet with scrub terrain and cheetah people. The cutest, deadliest cheetah people. And who should be manipulating them from inside a darkened tent but...the Master!

Anthony Ainley makes his final televised appearance. We last saw him mucking about the Matrix during the "Trial of a Time Lord". Now he's gotten close to the cheetah people, somewhat too close it seems.


Sarah -
The Master feels like an afterthought in this story. He seems to be stuck there as much as the Doctor and Ace, who gets zapped just before the Doctor and Paterson. Always one to make the best of the situation, the Master may think he's controlling the cheetah people, but maybe not so much.


Harry -
Once everyone lands on the planet of the cheetah people, the Master gives us a cue by describing it as a place that "bewitches you." Basically he's saying that when shit happens that doesn't make a whole lot of sense, that's okay because this planet doesn't make a whole lot of sense. 

One thing is for sure, it's a place where in order to survive, you must win the contest of survival of the fittest, because only the strong survive, and writer Rona Munro made sure to work quotes and discussions about surviving things into the script as much as possible, so that we know the theme is all about survival.


Sarah -
We missed an opportunity not playing the "Survival" drinking game. You'd be sloshed by the end with all those references.

Ace, meanwhile, is reunited with her friends Shreela and Midge and a new bloke named Derek (who's wearing the exact Bowie t-shirt I had back in the 80s) and decides it's up to her to sort them out and get back home. That's our Ace, always ready for action!


Harry -
It's clear Ace is always the leader among whatever friends she makes.


Sarah -
The Doctor and Ace soon meet up again, right as a unsuspecting milkman is zapped to the cheetah planet. A melee ensues, with the Doctor warning everyone else not to run. Alas, there's a lot of running going on, playing right into the cheetah people's hands...er, paws.


Harry -
The Doctor yelling frantically for everyone not to panic and run seemed to have the opposite, comedic effect. Tuff guy Paterson is the first to lose his cool, of course. I loved how his clothes were the only ones that became increasingly shredded as the story went on.


Sarah -
That was brilliant. He was slowing crumbling to pieces under the pressure.


Harry -
In the mayhem, Ace is separated from the group and she saves Karra the cheetah woman from drowning. They bond, they talk about the hunt. They go on the prowl.


Sarah -
Karra, of course, is played by the brilliant Lisa Bowerman, who is best known as the voice of Bernice Summerfield on Big Finish Audios. It delights my fannish heart that she appears in the final televised story and then goes on to portray the Seventh Doctor's next companion.


Harry -
She is one of the key people who bridges the classic and wilderness eras. I don't know if Benny has met up with any of the new Doctors yet, but she had a fun whirl with Iris Wildthyme on Big Finish audio.


Sarah -
I love that story.


Harry -
Both the Master and the Doctor know that they are helpless in this place, but neither will admit it to the other. Actually, the Master is shameless enough to admit it. He lured the Doctor here expressly to figure a way out. What a guy! That's what frenemies are for.


Sarah -
Oh, those boys. I can almost hear the Rani rolling her eyes at them from wherever she's currently getting up to mischief.


Harry -
That bewitching stuff is kicking in. The Master is sporting fangs and cat's eyes. Ace and Midge also begin to show similar effects. While the Master harnesses Midge's homing instincts to zap back to Earth, for the Doctor it's a moral dilemma. By asking Ace to do the same, he risks trapping her in that mutant state. Ace decides: they are going back to Perivale.


Sarah -
I have to admit the whole cheetah transformation freaked me out just a wee bit, especially the second-episode cliffhanger when Ace turned to the camera with glowing eyes.


Harry -
The Doctor showed some concern, but I wish he had shown a bit more. But this being a three parter, everybody had to keep things moving and Ace zaps the goodies all back to Earth for the final confrontation, aka Part Three.


Sarah -
Things happen fast in part three and it's all quite brutal. Midge returns to the youth club and uses his cheetah powers to incite his friends to kill Paterson for sport.


Harry -
Midge reveled in his newfound powers, succumbing to the cheetah contamination. It didn't help him with his dress sense, though.


Sarah -
Midge's faux-leather jacket is vintage 1989! 

Karra is killed by the Master and returns to human form. Do we know why? I was so confused.


Harry -
Huge unexplained moment there. Were the cheetah people all humans underneath? Were they different types of aliens who had been zapped to that planet and contaminated? Maybe there's something about it in the Target novelization.


Sarah -
The Doctor and Midge race at each other on motorcycles, leading to Midge's death at the hands of the Master.


Harry -
The motorcyle crash was frightful because it was a rare moment where the Doctor hurls himself right into physical danger. Sylvester's Doctor did a lot more of this than I'd remembered. But in keeping with the light comedy touch that Sylvester brought to the show, he ends up buried headfirst in a pile of garbage and old furniture, arse over teakettle.


Sarah -
The Doctor and Master end up back on the Cheetah Planet while fighting each other. The Doctor nearly kills the Master before realizing what he's doing and swearing off violence before being teleported back to Earth.


Harry -
Sylvester was asked to do a lot of yelling throughout this story and it always sounded like he was holding back. She should have just let it all out and let the sound crew deal with it. Anyway, his final tirade somehow zaps him back to Earth again.


Sarah -
The Master is left behind.


Harry -
If the showrunners knew that this was the final season of Doctor Who, I wonder if they were tempted to kill off the Master. Barry Letts and Terrance Dicks were tempted to wrap the character up at the end of the Pertwee era, but for the tragic, premature death of Roger Delgado. There was an opportunity to do it here, this time in the Doctor's hands, but he couldn't do it.

The Master was probably left thinking he'd had enough of that place and its small time cheetah people and he would be better off teaming up with the Daleks...


Sarah -
Back on Earth, Ace is sure the Doctor died in the motorcycle crash.


Harry -
Again, Ace makes a friend and loses a friend in Karra. Just when it seems she's lost the Doctor too, he comes strolling up to reclaim his things.

The final shot of the two friends walking away from the scene, with the Doctor's speech, is the closing moment of the classic era. It was perfect -- closure without complete closure.

The Wilderness Era had begun.

Best Line: 
ACE: "Master? Who's he?" 
DOCTOR: "An evil genius. One of my oldest and deadliest of enemies." 
ACE: "Do you know any nice people? You know, ordinary people, not power-crazed nutters trying to take over the galaxy?"

Favourite Moment: When I noticed Paterson's clothes deteriorating with each passing encounter on the cheetah planet.

Lasting Image: The Doctor and Ace strolling away down the hill.

7/10


Sarah -
Best Line: "Do you know any nice people? You know, ordinary people, not power-crazed nutters trying to take over the galaxy?" 

Favorite Moment: The Doctor returning to Ace

Lasting Image: Karra on horseback

7/10

 



Our marathon continues with The Wilderness Era...

Story #154 - The Curse of Fenric (1989)

Harry -
From the opening images of foggy beaches and a sunken viking ship, "The Curse of Fenric" immerses us in the cinematic style that was a hallmark of the Andrew Cartmel era of Doctor Who.


Sarah -
If there's one thing Fenric has going on, it's loads of atmosphere. From the first shot, Fenric feels very different than your average Doctor Who story.


Harry -
I liked the slow buildup in part one. In between cuts of the Red Army soldiers landing on the beach and that image of the sunken ship, the TARDIS lands at a secret WWII naval base. Ace has dressed for the period, and the Doctor has cranked his "enigma" setting on high.


Sarah -
Mysterious Doctor is turned up to 11 in this story. From the moment they emerge from the TARDIS, we know something is going on.


Harry -
The Doctor is stamping about with "that look" on his face. Something is definitely up and it's not just the murky Soviet activity on the beach.


Sarah -
This isn't the first story where the Doctor knows more than Ace and doesn't tell her what's going on, but it is the story where Ace reaches her breaking point.


Harry -
Her furious confrontation with the Doctor near the end of the story is electric.


Sarah -
Still that's yet to come. For now, I love Ace's outfit, especially her snood. I learned from the info-text that it was custom-made by the costume designer's mother. Sophie had to wear hair extensions to fill it out, but I can't think of anyone else rocking the look like Ace!


Harry -
As always, the Doctor marches right into the place as if they own it. There, they meet Dr. Judson, a codebreaker who cracks German messages on the Ultima machine, a supercomputer. The base commander is Millington, an emotionless man who lurks in an office filled with Nazi paraphernalia. Millington is also obsessed with local viking lore. Actually, obsessed is too kind a word. He believes that Judson will help him translate runic messages found under a local church -- messages that will give him access to ancient powers derived from an entity called Fenric.


Sarah -
Dr. Judson's character was inspired by Alan Turing and writer Ian Briggs has said he used Judson's disability in place of Turing's homosexuality. He wanted to suggest that Judson and Millington had a past sexual relationship. The story certainly suggests secrets in their past, but of course none of that was explicit in 1989.


Harry -
It's no wonder the Doctor's got "that look" -- he's got to deal with Soviet invaders, a lunatic base captain, a malevolent entity from the depths of time, and we haven't even touched on the Haemovores yet. These monstrosities lurk beneath the waters at Maiden's Point, the vampiric creations of an even larger monstrosity from Earth's future. The Ancient One is supposedly the last living creature from a future Earth destroyed by chemical pollution, thrown back in time by Fenric. Wow, that's a lot to take in. This is definitely one of those stories that improves with repeat watchings.


Sarah -
I had to watch it twice and enjoyed it so much more the second time around. A nice touch I noticed on second viewing was that the Haemovores had an assortment of costumes to illustrate that they were from different times in history. I completely missed that the first time.


Harry -
That was neat. 

Once all of the menaces have been introduced, the story picks up speed. Despite being somewhat of a runaround for the Doctor and Ace as they pick up one clue after another, there's always a feeling of dread urgency to the piece.


Sarah -
Unlike some stories in Doctor Who history, the previous episode recaps are very brief. There's just no time.


Harry -
One amusing side note is that each of the cliffhangers ended with closeups of Sylvester's face, but he held himself in check and they didn't have the wild-eyed intensity of a Colin Baker closeup.


Sarah -
That's such a hallmark of the 80s, but Syl was wise to not attempt Colin levels of intensity.


Harry -
On the surface "The Curse of Fenric" a multi-villain horror thriller, but beneath that Briggs looked at the morality of war, the power of faith, and so much viking lore. We see the Doctor in all-out manipulative mode. We learn some more of Ace's backstory. There's so much to chew on, it's one of the best written stories we've seen for some time.


Sarah -
It's such an amazingly multi-layered story. My only regret is the twelve minutes of footage that didn't make it to the screen. We chose to watch the original broadcast version, but there's also a Director's Cut, which was assembled by Mark Ayres from Nicholas Mallett's notes and includes ten minutes of new footage. Have you watched it? I want to, but felt I should wait until after our discussion.


Harry -
I remember watching the "movie" version when I first bought the DVD, but now I want to watch it again!

I have to point out a couple of guest performances in particular. Everyone is really delivering here, but Janet Henfrey as the wonderfully named Miss Hardaker put in a brilliant couple of scenes. You wicked, wicked children, haha!


Sarah -
I adored her performance! I always think of her as Mrs. Bale on As Time Goes By and couldn't help waiting for Miss Hardaker to give us the Shipping Forecast.


Harry -
And if you blinked you might have missed her, but there was Anne Reid as Judson's nurse. She's attacked by Haemovores at the end of the story, but she'd come back as a Plasmavore years later in the New Who story "Smith and Jones". Henfrey would return to do another turn as a Hardaker-esque character in "Mummy on the Orient Express".


Sarah -
I love when Doctor Who actors return to the series -- no matter how long it takes. Anne Reid is another actress I adore seeing in anything. If you've not seen Last Tango in Halifax, you really should. She's incredible.


Harry -
As Millington presses Judson to crack the final code to release Fenric's power, the Haemovores emerge from the sea and begin a slow rampage. The soldiers, the priest, Miss Hardaker, no one is safe.


Sarah -
And the only thing that can save them is their faith. The Doctor manages to save Rev. Wainwright the first time the Haemovores approach him, but not so much the second time. The British bombing of German cities caused Wainwright to lose his faith and he can't fake it. 

The Doctor thwarts the Haemovores with his faith in his companions, chanting their names to stop the attack. Unfortunately, I didn't realize what he was saying until the second viewing, when I had the info-text turned on. The first time, it just sounded shrill.


Harry -
After following him around blindly for three episodes, Ace has finally had enough. She knows the Doctor knows more than he's letting on, and demands answers. I loved this scene! The Doctor relents and explains who and what Fenric is... just as the Ultima machine cracks the final code. The Doctor and Ace rush into the computer room too late to stop the entity from possessing Judson's body and delivering that spine-tingling line: "We play the contest again, time lord."


Sarah -
Now THAT'S what I call a cliffhanger! If I had to wait an entire week for the next episode, I would have lost my mind! (My PBS station showed the omnibus versions, so cliffhangers didn't figure in my original viewings.)


Harry -
The story ramps up another gear in part four as everything threatens to slip out of the Doctor's control. We learn that he trapped Fenric in the "shadow dimensions" 1,700 years in the past and now the entity wants to exact revenge. It's up to the Doctor to finish the chess match that they have been playing over the aeons.

Millington, almost willfully blind to what's happening around him, has our friends hauled outside before a firing squad. Fortunately, Sorin's troops save them with a rapid rescue. Millington cracks and is left to wander around the base, raving about Fenric and his powers.

With the Doctor temporarily out of Judson's grasp, Fenric goes on a killing rampage of his own. There was another chilling moment when he directed the Haemovores to kill Nurse Crane and walked away absolutely beaming with delight. He then gives the Ancient One the task of releasing the poison gas and killing all life on Earth. Fortunately, the Doctor talks him out of it. The Ancient One instead seizes Fenric (who has taken possession of Sorin's body) and destroys the both of them with the gas.


Sarah -
Turns out the Ancient One isn't half-bad after all!

In the end, Fenric is really Ace's story and Sophie shines throughout. As she tells the Doctor, she's not a little girl anymore. She begins to develop a relationship with Comrade Sorin and uses her womanly charms to to seduce and distract a young soldier to help the Doctor. Poor Ace never gets to keep a romantic interest, does she?


Harry -
That's another hallmark of both the Cartmel and Virgin New Adventures eras: Ace's perpetual revolving door of friends and love interests.  It's amazing she put up with so much.


Sarah -
Her scenes with Kathleen and Baby Audrey are lovely. She's immediately drawn to the novelty of a baby when she sees Audrey, but repulsed when she learns the baby's name is the same as her hated mother. Her developing friendship with Kathleen continues the tradition of giving Ace a gal pal and softens her feelings towards the baby. She takes them both under her wing and helps them escape the base, which makes it even more devastating when she discovers Kathleen is her grandmother and Baby Audrey is her mother. That is some timey-wimey stuff right there!


Harry -
Fenric delivering the news through Sorin's body was especially cruel.


Sarah -
The most brutal scene is the moment when the Doctor has to make Ace lose her faith in him so that the Ancient One can destroy Fenric. This is still one of the most painful moments in Doctor Who history for me. The Doctor derides her as social misfit and emotional cripple and claims he knew all along that Fenric had planted Ace in the TARDIS. Poor Ace is shattered and reduced to a crying puddle on the floor. It's heartbreaking.


Harry -
After letting the Doctor completely brutalize Ace's psyche, it would have been grossly unjust for the producers to simply end the story with Fenric's destruction.  Thankfully, there was enough time at the end for the Doctor to patch things up with Ace.  But I don't think she'll ever quite trust him again.

I haven't felt that much relief at the end of a Doctor Who story for some time. The threat of Fenric was genuine and scary. I'll say it again, everyone acted the hell out of this one, the production was top notch and the pacing was perfect.  We all could have used a refreshing swim after this one... but maybe not at Maiden's Point.


Sarah -
Ace performs her own baptism, diving into the now-safe waters. It's a lovely moment.


Harry -
It's a shame the show was picking up steam again, with only one story left in the season.


Sarah -
Best Line: "I'm not a little girl anymore."

Favorite Moment: Ace diving into the water. It's a relief that it's all over!

Lasting Image: The Haemovores rising from the water. 

8/10


Harry -
Best Line: "We play the contest again, time lord."

Favourite Moment: Fenric escapes and takes possession of Judson's body.

Lasting Image: Judson possessed.

8/10

 

Our marathon continues with Story #155 - Survival...

Story #153 - Ghost Light (1989)

Sarah -
I have to admit, Dear Harry, that I've been looking forward to the Sylvester McCoy era since we started our marathon five and a half years ago. My memories were rosy -- the Doctor and Ace running through corridors and having mad adventures, Ace beating on a Dalek, Arthurian legends, and costumes that didn't hurt my eyes. Maybe it was the time. I was in college in the late 80s and watched many of these episodes around the time I met the future Mr. Smith. Perhaps my memories were colored by being young and in love.


Harry -
I missed the McCoy era during its initial run and only started getting caught up with it in the 90s and 00s. Watching it again all in order has been a treat.


Sarah -
Mr. Smith is still indulgent of my Whovianism, allowing me to raise the children in the one true faith fandom. I thought it would be fun to rewatch some the Seventh Doctor stories together, but have found myself apologizing repeatedly. (Before watching "Revelation of the Daleks", I promised, "No, really, this one is GOOD!") I'm so happy I made the decision to watch "Ghost Light" on my own. 

The end of the story found me numb, wondering what the what I had just watched, so I turned to the internet to try to make sense of this mess. Apparently, to truly understand and appreciate the perfection of "Ghost Light", I need to watch it multiple times. That's not going to happen, so I'm left asking, "What the what was that?"


Harry -
You know how Whovians like to draw up lists of stories that they would show to new or potential fans? This would be the among the last ones I would put on that list. Once you read enough reviews and analyses of "Ghost Light", it does start to come together, but the fact that you have to read a lot of reviews and analyses to figure out what the hell is going on is pretty damning. The story itself is reasonably simple, but told in such a disjointed manner with all sorts of bizarre asides, it leaves you cold.


Sarah -
I would never let a newbie near "Ghost Light"! I imagine "Ghost Light" would be more successful if it had one more episode. In the accompanying documentary, Andrew Cartmel discusses the brutal editing that happened prior to production and during filming. If only we could cut one of the horribly padded episodes of "The Greatest Show in the Galaxy" and give it to "Ghost Light".


Harry -
Rather than torturing ourselves over the story, maybe we could focus on specific details. Like the sets! This was the final story of the classic Who era to be entirely shot in-studio, and the BBC historical department pulled off another corker. Gabriel Chase is a delightfully creepy Victorian manor filled with stuffed animals, gliding servants, ticking clocks and furnishings that look so old and heavy you can practically smell the mustiness of the place.


Sarah -
The sets are incredible, as are the costumes. If the BBC can't turn out a proper historical drama, they should just turn the lights out. I particularly liked Ace's understated Victorian dress. If you had to put Ace in period clothing, that was the way to do it.


Harry -
Ace and Gwendolyn in their gender-bending tuxedos was a nice bit of subversion.  I think at least three of the male characters reacted to Ace's appearance.  

There were many reminders throughout the story of how socially closed-minded the Victorian era was.  Grown men gasping at Ace's collarbones.  The "church" character smugly dismissing the theory of evolution as "Darwinian claptrap."  Worst of all was Inspector Mackenzie's appalling racism when faced with Nimrod.  "The Talons of Weng-Chiang" is always disdained for its depictions of racism in 19th century Britain, but Mackenzie's rant against a vaguely defined foreigner was shocking.  It was delivered with just the right pitch, and it's sad to think that the same things are still being said across the pond.  In terms of immersing us in the mindset of the era, they did a great job.


Sarah -
It's also an amazing cast of wonderfully talented actors.


Harry -
Where to begin?  Each of the characters at Gabriel Chase are stock stereotypes of the era, but the actors bring them to life.  Michael Cochrane as Redvers Fenn-Cooper, the big game hunter.  Sylvia Sims as the head housekeeper who turns out to be Lady Pritchard.  Ian Hogg as the disturbed and disturbing lord of the house.  Carl Forgione as an utterly believeable neanderthal man.  John Nettleton as the loathsome Reverend Matthews.  Everyone brings their all to it, playing their roles with the confusion wrought by all the weirdness and illusion going on around them.  Then John Hallam appears as Light... and blows the doors off the place (literally).


Sarah -
The performances are definitely what makes "Ghost Light" watchable. They look like they're having a blast!


Harry -
I remember the first time I watched "Ghost Light", sinking ever-deeper in bafflement, and then Light appeared.  Glowing and high voiced, Ace thinks he's an angel.  But it turns out he's an alien entity that had spent centuries cataloguing life on Earth before going into hibernation.  The form he took was adapted to the planet.  Over time I've gotten used to Hallam's performance, but on first viewing it was so "out there".


Sarah -
It's definitely over the top, but somehow it works in context.


Harry -
If this was a story by Douglas Adams, Light would have burst forward as a comedic bureaucrat and the whole thing would have been revealed as a cosmic farce.  But Light is no joke.  At first he's confused (join the club), then stunned by what has happened on the planet during his hibernation.  Finally, denial turns to rage and he wants to destroy the whole damn place for daring to evolve and ruin his catalogue.  It is kind of farcical.


Sarah -
As a librarian, I understand his desire to have an accurate catalogue, but I've never been tempted to destroy a project when it didn't work out...


Harry -
Another thing that baffled me was when Reverend Matthews picked up a banana and suddenly experienced reverse evolution, and ended up displayed like an animal in a glass case.  Of all the "WTF?" moments in this story, it was the ultimate "WTF?".  Who controlled that, Josiah?  Was he able to use some of Light's power?


Sarah -
I stopped asking questions by that point.


Harry -
The only thing I enjoy about this story is watching the Doctor and Ace manoeuvre their way around a pastiche of Victorian stereotypes and horrors.


Sarah -
I love Ace's WTF response to Victorian mores. Showing up in menswear is a brilliant transgression.


Harry -
As Light fumes and prepares to destroy the planet, Josiah casually announces over dinner that he'd like to assassinate Queen Victoria.  Alright then.


Sarah -
Sure. Why not?


Harry -
Ultimately the whole thing becomes too clever for its own good.  The Doctor himself admits that "Even I can't play this many games at once."  No kidding!


Sarah -
Everyone has their breaking point -- even the Doctor.


Harry -
All it takes to stop Light is for the Doctor to overwhelm him with the facts of evolution, and he disperses in fading rage.  A hundred years later, Ace will burn the house down.

It all makes perfect sense after the 50th viewing or so.


Sarah -
We should mention that, while "Ghost Light" wasn't the final story to be broadcast, it was the final story to be filmed. What an odd note for the actors to go out on. No one knew it would be the last.


Harry -
I don't want to leave this review on a total negative, so I will mention that Marc Platt remains active and has gone on two write some great stories for Big Finish.  I wonder if he'll ever get to write another story for TV?


Sarah -
I hope he gets another chance. So, instead of watching Ghost Light 49 more times, how about we move on to The Curse of Fenric?


Harry -
Yes, let's.


Sarah -
Best Line: "Cut the homespun twaddle!"

Favorite Moment: Control leaping out the window. It was the perfect bizarre moment for this story. 

Lasting Image: The maids emerging from the cupboard

4/10


Harry -
Best Line: "Scratch the Victorian veneer and something nasty will come crawling out."

Favourite Moment: Nimrod shares his memories of encountering Light in the prehistoric era, and how his wild world is now lost "in a desert of smoke and straight lines".

Lasting Image: Ace and Gwendolyn in tuxedos.

5/10

 



Our marathon continues with Story #154: The Curse of Fenric...