Two fans of Doctor Who, one marathon viewing of every episode of the series from 1963 to the present.

Running through corridors is optional.

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Story #40 - The Enemy of the World (1967-68)

Sarah -
The beginnings of Doctor Who stories can often be misleading, but it's hard to think of a story that has mislead us as much as this one! We start on a quiet, lovely beach in Australia. The Doctor runs to the surf and dispatches Jamie and Victoria to fetch the pails and spades, presumably so they can make a sand castle. Suddenly, a hovercraft appears and they're under siege, only to be rescued by a helicopter.

And with that, a lovely child's day out at the beach turns into a Cold War-ish thriller!



Harry -
Jamie and Victoria handled their first helicopter ride quite well, considering they'd just seen their first hovercraft and been shot at. I like how they go with the flow and trust the Doctor implicitly.


Sarah -
Companions really have to learn to roll with it, don’t they?


Harry -
This story felt like a 60s thriller from the get go. And no wonder there's so much action - the director is Barry Letts, whose era of Doctor Who would be synonymous with action thriller stories.


Sarah -
In this story, the Doctor's moods change as quickly as the storyline - playful to pleasant to suspicious. He definitely doesn't trust Astrid and Kent. They inform the Doctor that he is a dead ringer for Salamander, the planet's would-be dictator, and try to convince him to pretend to be Salamander for their own ends. The Doctor's mistrust is well-founded when Kent calls in Security Chief Bruce, forcing the Doctor to impersonate Salamander.


Harry -
This really is a different kettle of fish. We are on Earth, but it is at a time in our future. I wondered if the Doctor thinks of the era as Earth's past? Is this a kind of "future historical" without any robots or aliens? I obviously had a lot of time to think while watching this one.


Sarah -
It’s a bit timey-wimey, isn’t it?


Harry -
I'll accept that it's an Earthbound story and just run with it. After all, Patrick Troughton gets to play two roles!


Sarah -
And has a ripping good time! I have to admit that it took me a while to realize that Salamander's accent was meant to be Mexican.


Harry -
Maybe from the German part of Mexico?


Sarah -
With a swing though the Ukraine. I honestly couldn't figure out what Troughton was trying to do, but it grew on me eventually – even if it was nowhere near an actual Mexican accent. It matters not a whit because Patrick Troughton is having so much fun being the baddie!


Harry -
Because it was a mishmash of accents, it became unique unto itself, which made the portrayal all the more distinctive. Troughton certainly relished his dialogue-chewing moments.


Sarah -
His Salamander is threatening simply because he is so calm. Troughton's underplaying of the role is absolutely perfect, accent be dammed!


Harry -
About halfway through the story, I thought to myself, "jeez this is a sort of Doctor Lite story." Then I remembered that Troughton had been on screen more than anyone. His Salamander was a success in that respect.


Sarah -
He successfully created a new character, that’s for sure.


Harry -
Still, the story is laced with uncertainty and paranoia. Can the anti-Salamander faction be trusted? The Doctor readily sends Jamie and Victoria off to play spy games in Hungary (love the supersonic rocket travel!), but he seems reticent to do much else but sit and bide his time.


Sarah -
This is one of the oddest things about the story. The whole scheme to send Jamie and Victoria off to play spies is designed entirely to convince the Doctor that he should get involved. I couldn’t stop thinking that it was lazy writing to get the Doctor out of the way while Troughton rips up the scenery as Salamander.


Harry -
At the same time, the evil of Salamander got a very slow reveal. For the first couple of episodes, he is only mentioned as a threat and a menace to the world. This would-be dictator oozes slime, but it's not until halfway through the story that the bodies start piling up.

But before we get to the meat of the story, how about our espionage all stars, Jamie and Victoria!



Sarah -
They were brilliant! Both actors made the most of their screen time and do a great job with the material. While I was never really convinced that their half-assed plot was going to work, I knew they were fully committed to it!

And speaking of fully committed performances, how about Reg Lye as Salamander’s cook? If we’re only going to get one remaining episode of this story, I’m so glad it’s the one with his brilliant performance! There are times when six-episode stories can feel really padded, and then there are times when six episodes are exactly right because they allow time for little gems like Lye’s performance as Griffin, the put-upon gourmet!



Harry -
Griffin's world-weary quips gave this story some much-needed humanity. All the other characters were pretty stock and predictable, but you can't go wrong with a chef who replies to violence with: "I know the food's bad but you don't have to go that far."


Sarah -
He was a delight.


Harry -
After Griffin shuffled out of view for the last time, the fun ended and the remaining story became a chore to watch. It didn't help that Jamie and Victoria - the characters that we the viewers most relate to - disappeared for an episode and a half.


Sarah -
Holiday time again! I imagine them on a beach in Ibiza, knocking back fruity drinks.


Harry -
...which left us with stock characters doing stock things. There was an awful lot of dialogue to sit through, with nary any action at all. I guess Barry Letts had blown the budget on the hovercraft and helicopter in part one, leaving us with little else the rest of the way.

Salamander's descent to the bomb shelter was a nice twist and breathed some life back into the story, but by that point I was eager to get to the end.



Sarah -
This strange development definitely piqued my interest. What the heck was going on?


Harry -
It was definitely a "what the--" moment.

The Doctor did less in this story than any other. I kept wanting him to do something and seize events by the throat, but it never happened.



Sarah -
The Doctor really took a backseat to Salamander in this story, which is unfortunate. More interaction - or even some interaction - would have been exciting.


Harry -
Yeah, there was no confrontation between the two until the very last scene, and of course the BBC had to junk that footage. Damme!


Sarah -
I guess Salamander being tossed into the void of space was at least interesting.


Harry -
The story played itself out, and the baddies (or at least, one faction as opposed to the other) got their just desserts. It was weird that the story ended with a cliffhanger - in fact, the best cliffhanger of the whole thing - with our friends splayed across the TARDIS floor in terror!


Sarah -
So may baddies to choose from in this story. The revelation that Salamander and Kent were in some kind of plot, which involved keeping a group of people trapped in a bomb shelter for years was just bizarre.

A very confusing and poorly written story with a few good performances and nice moments.



Harry -
I doubt we'll be watching this one again any time soon.


Sarah -
If we did, it might only be to catch a glimpse of Jamie in his hot (in more ways than one, no doubt) rubber guard’s uniform.

Best Line: "People spend all their time making nice things, and then other people come along and break them." (At least the Doctor got a few good lines in while he was doing Sweet FA.)

Favorite Moment: Griffin’s put-upon rant.

Lasting Image: Troughton as the sneering Salamander.

5/10



Harry -
Best Line: The hostile exchange between Jamie and the creep, Benik: "You must have been a nasty little boy." "Oh I was. But I had a very enjoyable childhood."

Favourite Moment: Benik terrorizes Kent by... smashing all his crockery.

Lasting Image: the hovercraft.

5/10



Sarah -
For those playing along at home, there are only 5 stories with lost episodes remaining.  Onward to the Web of Fear!


 



Our marathon continues with Story #41 - The Web of Fear...

Thursday, September 6, 2012

Story #39 - The Ice Warriors (1967)

Sarah -
I’d just like to begin by saying that when I launch my own international agency to combat glaciers, I know exactly how I want the uniforms to look. Martin Baugh may have just created my favorite uniforms ever in the history of Doctor Who. I’m sure it’s the black and white that makes me love them so – can you imagine how dreadful they would look in color?


Harry -
They look like a futuristic British Winter Olympics team! I remember seeing a colour photo of those uniforms, and each one was a splash of rainbow hues. Very creative and memorable.


Sarah -
I take it all back! I just tracked the color images down and they’re smashing!

http://www.kittensdirect.com/colourise/season5.html

My international agency will definitely have those unis!


Harry -
There's definitely a "Yellow Submarine" feel to that look.


Sarah -
In any case, the team at Brittanicus Base, in all their sartorial splendor, is struggling to hold back the glaciers that are slowly taking over the planet as a result of global cooling. (Global cooling? This really is science fiction!)


Harry -
A wacky premise but let's go along with it.


Sarah -
While the techs battle the icebergs with their computer system, Arden, a scientist with an archeological bent, is on the glacier with his team, where they find what they think is an ancient human. While the scientists’ excitement at finding the body is a reasonable human reaction, their cavalier attitude when one of their party, Davis, is killed in an avalanche is almost chilling (no pun intended). They tote the iceman’s body back to base, with hardly a look back or mention of poor Davis, who stays on the glacier.


Harry -
My favourite thing in this story might be how everyone pronounces glacier as "GLASS-ear."


Sarah -
They need someone to show up with an overdone American accent to pronounce it “GLAY-shur.”


Harry -
The avalanche was well done, but I agree with the strangely cavalier attitudes towards Davis' death. I still have Toberman in mind!


Sarah -
Poor Toberman.

Meanwhile, the TARDIS materializes on its side and Jamie suspects they’re just a bit farther up the mountain in Tibet.



Harry -
The Doctor really botched that landing.  Yet another story begins with madcap comedy.


Sarah -
I love this scene, when everyone is all happy and jokey coming off their Tibetan adventure. Even when they enter the Brittanicus Base, it’s still all fun and good times.


Harry -
Brittanicus Base threw me for a loop. As with "The Abominable Snowmen", we aren't really given a definitive date for when the story takes place. We opened with the futuristic control centre, which it turns out is just a room inside a Victorian manor, which on the outside looks like some sort of science building whose doors slide up and down with the wave of a hand. Bizarre!


Sarah -
Victoria suggests they leave when danger seems imminent, but the Doctor responds with his usual “No, let’s go in!” attitude. Jamie’s a bit miffed to be labeled a scavenger, but not enough to dampen the mood.


Harry -
Our heroes enter the base and meet the crew. The Doctor almost immediately leaps into action to prevent a disaster. This was another charming Troughton moment, watching him bounce from console to console, issuing orders.

Leader Clent is not amused. I wasn't too wild about him, to be honest. Pompous, arrogant, a slave to protocols and computers and the exact opposite of the Doctor as is pointed out repeatedly. The Doctor is very anti-technology here, which was odd.



Sarah -
It was, wasn’t it? Even after preventing a reactor explosion, the Doctor spent much of his time breaking protocol and trying to show up the technicians and scientists. It was amusing when Clent gave the Doctor a challenge to see if he was really the scientist he claimed to be. Troughton’s performance as he drags the answer, which he knew all along, out to the last second was delightful.


Harry -
I liked the Doctor's line: "I think you might try trusting human beings instead of computers."


Sarah -
There are so many great lines in this story:

“We’ve been on retreat in Tibet. We are sanctifiers.” The Doctor, explaining why they don’t know about the glacier crisis.



Harry -
"He's got a printed circuit where his heart should be." Penley disparages Clent's obsession with computers.


Sarah -
“Well, looks aren’t everything you know.” The Doctor’s response when Varga says he looks like a scavenger.

Going back to the uniforms, I’m not their only fan, it seems. I loved the scene when Jamie asks Victoria if she would consider wearing one, much to her embarrassment. The chaste flirting between the two of them is so sweet.

Unfortunately, this sweet moment won’t last long.



Harry -
To this point I like Victoria's character. She's shown endearing flashes of personality and isn't there just to scream at things. Well, in this case she's there to be kidnapped!


Sarah -
I quite like her, too. I think she’s gotten the shaft in fandom. Deborah Watling does a great job with the character and deserves more respect than she gets!


Harry -
Agreed.


Sarah -
Poor Victoria. Varga, the Ice Warrior, newly thawed, knocks out Jamie and takes her hostage!

What did you think of Penley, the rogue scientist, and Storr, the scavenger? They’re a bit of an odd couple, but seem to share a sense of purpose and hatred of the base scientists.



Harry -
They were a strange pair. A couple of shaggy wildmen at first, creeping around the base and adding to the incongruity of things. As we learn more about Penley and his falling out with Clent, he gains depth as a character. Storr just whinges about everything. Although he met an undeserved end at the hands (gloves? pincers?) of the Ice Warriors.


Sarah -
I appreciated Rob’s point that Penley’s and Clent’s rich character development is the sort of thing that you can do in six episodes, but would never make it into the current series. Brittanicus Base certainly feels lived-in.

Penley also gets in one of my favorite lines of the story. When Clent says there is no hope, he responds with, “You mean hope happens to be inconvenient.”

So good, the Doctor could have said it himself!



Harry -
The whole story seems to be built on contrasts. At one point, the story has broken out into a bunch of character pairings: the Doctor and Clent, Penley and Storr, Victoria and Varga, and Jamie and Arden. The biggest contrast is obviously the pro and con sides of the computer debate.

Maybe there were too many pairings, but something in this story just didn't click for me. It started to drag in the second half, when everything revolved around finding out what kind of engines powered the Ice Warriors ship. Not exactly high adventure.



Sarah -
Some of it was a bit pat, but the performances made up for a lot of the problems I had with the script. Everyone is in top form and doing all they can with the material.


Harry -
The Warriors were interesting to look at and I loved the makeup - especially those weird pouting mouths - but they got a bit dull too. Maybe it was their slow movements or the whispering voices, probably both, but I'm left wondering why the producers would have wanted to bring them back again.


Sarah -
Definitely not the most compelling baddies. One wants a little zing in one’s monsters, no?


Harry -
I would have liked a little more zing in this story too, but they can't all be gems.

Best Line: Whenever someone said "glacier."

Favourite Moment: The Doctor enters the ship and sees the Ice Warriors, says "Oh my word!" and does an about face before they surround him. Classic Troughton moment!

Lasting Image: The Ice Warriors' mouths.

6/10



Sarah -
I liked it a bit more than you, but I think that’s a tribute to the actors.

Best Line: The Doctor, reacting to the thought that he should take a weapon as he goes to treat with the Ice Warriors, “Well, I’m not going to fight a duel!”

Favorite Moment: Jamie suggesting Victoria put some oomph into her wardrobe.

Lasting Image: Those groovy unis, of course!

7/10



 


Our marathon continues with Story #40 - The Enemy of the World...