Old Doctor Who - Part 5

[Ambient Sheep]

...I'm sorry, but I just can't watch that scene where he tantalizingly holds a Jelly Baby up to his mouth. Eurgh. Gives me the shivers.

"Tom's putting it in now..."

[purlieu]

Ian Levine has commissioned a reconstruction of The Daleks Masterplan, or at least episode 1, I'm not quite sure. AI-assisted to put a bit of animation over the telesnaps, it is.... mostly bad and sometimes terrible. But perhaps it has a future. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgK_Z3Y3ABI

Yeah, with AI developing at the rate it is, a professional version of something like this in a few years will probably look pretty good. But then that wouldn't come with a passive aggressive video description from Ian Levine, so would it really be worth it?

[Norton Canes]

The Invasion of Time 3:

The Gallifreyan wilderness looks like one of the most bitterly cold location shoots ever - proper Claws of Axos-tier stuff - to the extent that Louise Jameson and the guest performers are so frozen they can't even form basic facial expressions. And it doesn't help that the Outsiders literally live up to their name, apparently living with no shelter whatsoever - even their table lives outside. I know location shooting's usually much preferable to studio work, what with being richer and more atmospheric and that, but I can't help think having these exchanges take place in a cave or hut set would've resulted in some better performances. Oh well, this is The Invasion of Time.

Also, Tom Baker still weirdly trying to give off serious stage actor vibes when, and only when, playing against John Arnatt.

[McDead]

This one really is a bag of old toss, but I do enjoy it RIGHT UP TILL THE SODDING SONTARANS ARRIVE then the whole thing wobbles right off a cliff. All that running around the "TARDIS" is insufferable as well. Couldn't have thrown up a few roundels, could they, given it a bit of verisimilitude? Who was the production manager on this? Oh.

[Alberon]

End of season story though so the money had probably long run out. Plus the UK had just gone through a period of very high inflation so what meagre budgets they did have would have been decimated by it.

The whole thing is still a big pile of wank though even without that.

[McDead]

End of season story though so the money had probably long run out. Plus the UK had just gone through a period of very high inflation so what meagre budgets they did have would have been decimated by it.

The whole thing is still a big pile of wank though even without that.

Having watched this season fairly recently, I've developed the theory that they blew almost the whole seasons budget on the fantastic looking Image of the Fendahl (with its night shoots, quality guest artistes, model work and hulking fendahleen costumes), which is why every story after that looks like total arse.

[The Roofdog]

I have two copies of Simon Guerrier's recent David Whitaker biography if anyone would like one for the price of postage from London, simply slip into my DMs.

[Norton Canes]

All that running around the "TARDIS" is insufferable as well. Couldn't have thrown up a few roundels, could they, given it a bit of verisimilitude?

The thing is, filming the TARDIS interiors on location was a glorious opportunity to make it look really unique. I love Castrovalva as much as the next person but who needs roundels when the inside of the TARDIS is a derelict Victorian lunatic asylum? What better metaphor for the state of the Doctor's mind could you wish for? Also, the transition from studio to film could've been a magical, Wizard of Oz-like moment, leading to surreal scenes inside the ship. The biggest let-down is that this opportunity goes begging and the production crew manage to make a potentially spectacular location so dull. I mean, the repeated stairwell gag is okay, but comes at the cost of seeing the same place over and over again.

Even with the rushed filming, a missed chance to create something really special. 

Anyway, episode four is where it really starts to unravel. Up to now there's been a modicum of interest and suspense, but it's all thrown away as most of the running time is spent trying to send the dullest invaders ever packing. As Rob Shearman says in Running Through Corridors vol.II, the Vardans have to be rubbish for the episode's punchline to work.

Tell you what, though - despite having seen the climactic appearance of the Sontarans like maybe a dozen times, I've somehow never clocked that fantastic growly music which soundtracks that shot of them on the stairs. Just goes to show - there's always something new in store.   

[McDead]

The first reveal of the Sontarans is excellent, I have to grant that. The way it's framed and lit is really nice, they really look like a force to be reckoned with.

[Norton Canes]

The story's biggest twist is that episode five is actually really enjoyble. Now we're done with all that tiresome subterfuge it's a proper runaround with some proper monsters (and a villain for whom the word oleaginous was surely coined).

I'd forgotten that the TARDIS interior stuff doesn't happen until the final installment, so what we get here is a pretty gripping battle of wits between the Doctor, aided by the sly Borusa, and Stor, with Kelner in tow. I don't think Derek Deadman does too badly - in this episode, at least, before removing his helmet. As with David Gooderson in a couple of years time he's saddled with aping the voice and mannerisms of an alien adversary's most celebrated performer and makes a decent enough job of it, with guttural menace and very, er, shoulders-heavy posture.

Best moment of the episode without doubt, though, is Rodan's matter-of-fact "Have you got a screwdriver?". Beautiful.

[mjwilson]

I remember being incredibly impressed by the twist of the Sontarans showing up as the real baddies (but from the Target novelisation, and also in my defence I was only a nipper).

[Norton Canes]

And episode six... happens. There's just about enough decent stuff there for it to get a pass. The ancillary power station is fun just for the Sontaran's disgusted reaction to the Arnolfini portrait and the carnivorous plant looks like it cost half the episode's budget. Even the infamous deck recliner slip-up is forgivable since the very next thing the Doctor does is try to hold up the pursuant Sontaran by throwing another one at them.

Eventually though the plot just shrugs its shoulders and gives up, leaving the Doctor to sort things out with a big gun. Good job Graham Williams got his desire to have the Doctor piece together an apocalyptic weapon to save the whole of space and time out of his system in this story, otherwise next season might have seen the quest for the AK to Time.

As for the departure of Leela... you can come up with as much head canon as you like to replace her patently nonsensical explanation that she's suddenly fallen for Andred. My guess is that she's in fact

Spoiler alert

fallen for Rodan. Please get onto this, Big Finish.

[close]

I guess ultimately, the important thing is that Williams and Anthony Read managed to cobble enough together to save the story from being lost. And that Baker gets to end the season with a big grin to camera.

[Norton Canes]

After just about making it through The Invasion of Time I thought I'd catch up on some other stories I've only re-watched a couple of times and alighted upon The Hand of Fear.

It's funny, the regularity with which Horror of Fang Rock (and sometimes Image of the Fendahl) are described as bearing all the gothic hallmarks of the Hinchcliffe era, but no-one seems to have spotted that Hand of Fear really belongs in season 15. The names Baker and Martin on the script are the giveaway - they may have written (the uncharacteristically focussed) Sontaran Experiment but I'll only ever associate them with the Pertwee and Williams eras. Hand of Fear in fact foreshadows The Invisible Enemy with its epic/messy (delete according to preference) structure hopping from location to location with scant regard for its protagonists, who come and go on the capricious narrative's whim. 

The story's probably most famous for seeing Liz Sladen's departure but also making their swansong is director Lennie Mayne, who appears to have been hiding his location filming skills under a bushel as he reaches almost Michael Ferguson levels of brilliance with some wonderfully composed shots, most notably that zoom into a road mirror showing Sarah approaching the Nunton complex. The fisheye lens shots and the quarry scenes aren't too shoddy, either. Shame the studio stuff is so uniformly drab - though those huge, hooded Kastrian thermal coats are fantastic and wouldn't look out of place on a catwalk show.

All a bit hokey so far and diminishing Hinchcliffe's reputation for running a tight ship.

[Alberon]

The Hand of Fear is one of those that really stuck in my mind from the original broadcast (when I was 7). Mainly for posessed Sarah-Jane and that shot of the hand in the lunchbox. Simply done, but very effective.

The story tails off badly at the end when the female Eldrad is replaced with the male one (I've no idea what 7 year old me thought about that) but the departure scene is pure gold.

[Norton Canes]

Mainly for possessed Sarah-Jane and that shot of the hand in the lunchbox. Simply done, but very effective

Yeah, iconic moments, without which the story would dip below par. I just think it's telling that even given a succinct brief - fragment of alien creature arrives on Earth and possesses companion with the aim of reassembling itself - Baker and Martin can't make the narrative flow sensibly.

[superthunderstingcar]

Eldrad must live.

[Psybro]

Contact must live.

Eldrad has been made.

[purlieu]

Eldrad must live.

Incorrect.

[superthunderstingcar]

Eldrad must live.

[Catalogue Trousers]

Yeah, with AI developing at the rate it is, a professional version of something like this in a few years will probably look pretty good. But then that wouldn't come with a passive aggressive video description from Ian Levine, so would it really be worth it?

'Hey Ian, remember Clutch Cargo?'
'Shut UP! Fuck OFF!'

[The Roofdog]

Sorry, got to this point in the S15 box and have to vent:

Underworld is comfortably the worst Doctor Who story of the seventies. You have to wait till Twin Dilemma till you see something this fundamentally shit again. It looks like mud for the reasons we all know, sure, but I'm not sure fans acknowledge how poor the script is. Every element of it is so tired (rebellious underclass living in caves, turns out mad computer is running the show, everything is allusions to classical myths) that even the Pertwee era had long given up on it.

On the plus side, I enjoyed Invisible Enemy a lot more than I expected to (the first two episodes are actually good!) so maybe I should write more about that.

[Norton Canes]

Look on the bright side - you've got The Invasion of Time up next!

[McDead]

TIOT - shambles as it is - absolutely craps on Underworld. Couldn't finish Underworld, utterly dreary stuff. I like the guns, that's it.

Nice to hear some positive chatter about The Invisible Enemy - I like this one too, and think it's really underrated and uniquely weird in a way that only Who can be.

[purlieu]

I love The Invisible Enemy, lots of fun. I also think the first episode of Underworld is fantastic, even if the rest of it never lives up to its potential.

[Norton Canes]

It's usually the third episode of four-part stories that drags, but Hand of Fear steals a march with a second instalment that couldn't be treading more water if it was trying to stay afloat in the middle of the Atlantic [nb. improve this metaphor in final draft]

At least a few more cast members arrive to show that the Nunton complex wasn't being run by two people. No sense in paying a bunch of actors for the whole of the first episode if they're only in the last few minutes, I guess. It's just a shame the rigor demonstrated by the accounts team couldn't be applied to the script editing, because there's no escaping it, this is basically the same plot spun out twice over, with first Sarah then hapless technician Driscoll in thrall to a disembodied Kastrian, bringing the Nunton reactor to the brink of catastrophe. The fact we do it all again is particularly disappointing because Watson's affecting little call home is rendered pretty inconsequential.

But by far the biggest let-down resulting in this largely stagnant 25 minutes is that we're half way through the story and we still haven't met its biggest selling point. Just have Judith Paris Eldrad step out of the reactor as soon as the Doctor's rescued Sarah! I can only assume Robert Holmes was too busy researching the finer points of Gallifreyan presidential accession to have knocked this jumble into shape.

(I mean - surviving a crawl through a 200°C cooling duct because you're 'quick'?)

[Norton Canes]

Oh yeah, forgot to mention - I got to the scene where Watson's on the phone as a fly crawls across his forehead and at the exact minute the fly went out of shot, a real fly landed on my monitor. It was like the Hand of Fear fly had literally flown out of the screen. Proper gave me a start.

Anyway

You do have to wonder what the production team were thinking. "Yeah, we'll bring Judith on ten minutes into episode three, then pretty much kill her off at the end. I'm sure the viewers will have had more than enough of her by then".



Damn, she's utterly magnificent. It's almost like you can swat away any criticism that the Hinchcliffe era didn't deliver powerful female roles with the riposte "But Judith Paris". Feel like I could roll off reams praising her in all her lustrous, topaz-encrusted glory, those saucer eyes nervously devouring every aspect of the strange world in which she finds herself and the new form she's acquired, constantly appraising everything she sees and hears to determine each possible advantage and threat, working out which of her powers function at any moment and to what extent. Appropriately for a silicon-based life-form (yuck, that sounds so Star Trek) she seems at once indurate yet dangerously brittle, constantly aware of her vulnerability - and Judith Paris brings out every shift in her demeanour with a mesmeric range of expressions, coupled with that mercilessly resonant voice. It's a gift role which she absolutely devours.

One thing I did wonder, though - considering Eldrad initially adopts a female form because Sarah was the first human she possessed, did the production team ever consider giving the part to Lis Sladen? Would have been an interesting test of her range.

Rob Shearman identifies this as a strangely considerate episode, focused on returning Eldrad to Kastria and featuring a lovely scene where the Doctor and Sarah confess they worry for each other. There does seem to be some further foreshadowing of Sarah's imminent departure, with Sladen making the most of her final chance to slip in a few warm-heartedly witty asides. I've never unreservedly loved the way she's played the character but this was all rather affecting, as the end approaches.

[Norton Canes]

It's always heartbreaking when a beloved cast member departs one of your favourite shows. You've watched them, adored them, enjoyed both their character and the interpretation they've brought to the screen; you've been with them through the ups and downs, their trials and tribulations, the good times and the moments they've been in desperate peril. You've identified with them and in turn they've almost become a part of you, the emotional umbilical between you and the show. When they've gone, so acutely do you feel their loss, you're subsumed by a genuine urge to grieve. It's like a little part of you is vanishing with them.

And so, in the fourth episode of The Hand of Fear, we bid a poignant farewell to Judith Paris. Oh and Sarah goes too.

We also kiss goodbye to anything even vaguely good about the story. Its last great trick is to pulverize Eldrad's female form, at the same time crushing every subtle nuance of her character, replacing them with a one-note blustering obelisk who slips effortlessly into the role of generic megalomaniac (a metaphor for the treatment of female roles in the Hinchcliffe era..?). I guess ultimately, The Hand of Fear went though the rewrite mixer so many times it ironically also mutated into a senseless mosaic of broken fragments. Shame, because it had one or two neat ideas (a couple of which ended up in Underworld...)

[frajer]

I wish I liked Hand of Fear more as it's got all the right elements but such a relentlessly duff script. There's definitely diamonds to be found but so much bloody rough to wade through.

I remember when Elisbaeth Sladen passed away, BBC4 repeated it (makes sense, as her final story) so as a family we gathered around to watch some Classic Who goodness actually being broadcast again. Exciting! Or should have been.

As the only Who fan in the house, it was pretty dispiriting for everyone to watch Ep 1 of Hand of Fear and see that it was in fact quite dull and plodding. I tried the old "I promise there's loads better stories than this" but it never works, does it?

[Norton Canes]

Shame, because the first episode of the Hand of Fear has a lot that a casual viewer, vaguely acquainted with the old days of Doctor Who, should enjoy - a quarry, the Fourth Doctor and Sarah joking around, Sarah being possessed and acting all weird. Sadly there's very little in the way of suspense to keep people engaged. If nothing else, the hand itself should feature a lot more and be foreboding, like the Krynoid pods in the Seeds of Doom, or do some spooky stuff like the skull in Image of the Fendahl.

[Ron Maels Moustache]

Finally got around to watching Invasion Of Time this week, which was the one Tom story I had still never seen.

Well...that was underwhelming.

It's not just the cheap sets and obvious budget shortcomings that hamper it, but the utterly flat, lifeless direction from Gerald Blake that fills the whole thing with a sense of listless ennui, totally lacking in energy or drama. This isn't helped by a plot that feels like they were just making it up as they went along (which I have the feeling they definitely were by Part 6). What's the point of the Doctor hypnotising Rodan? Why did the chase need to take place inside the TARDIS, instead of say, moving the action to another location (e.g. on Earth) where the footage would make more sense? Why does the almighty key look like it belongs with someone's garden shed?

I think this is also the only time I've just found Tom's antics to be just irritating rather than in any way entertaining. Even outside of the whole Vardan-fooling subterfuge the Doctor is such a dick to everyone in this story that I was thoroughly sick of him by the end. Colin-tier levels of obnoxiousness.

I did like Rodan though, you can very much see her as the prototype for Romana in terms of being a more capable female assistant who can meet the Doctor on his own terms. I have know idea if they ever considered having her stay once Leela left but it would've made sense.

Honestly, if you'd told me there was Doctor Who story filmed in an abandoned mental hospital and I didn't know it was this one I would've been quite excited by the idea, but this story just makes no good use of the location at all. Just think of what Robert Holmes could've done given a location like that. Wasted opportunity.