Old Doctor Who - Part 5

[Norton Canes]

David Troughton is wet as the Atlantic as the King - who bizarrely is also called Peladon

It was a thing, wasn't it, rulers being referred to by the name of their country - to strengthen the links and that. Pretty sure it happens in Shakespeare anyway.

[daf]

King Earth
King Heaven
'King Hell!

[superthunderstingcar]

It was a thing, wasn't it, rulers being referred to by the name of their country - to strengthen the links and that. Pretty sure it happens in Shakespeare anyway.

The Duke of Gloucester was called Gloucester.
The Earl of Kent was called Kent.
The King of France was called Louis.

So it sometimes applied, but not always.

[Bingo Fury]

Objectively, I can't really defend The Curse of Peladon as a story, but it always had a special aura for me. A big medieval-ish stone citadel lit by flaming torches felt like the perfect location for a Doctor Who story, and it was broadcast around the time of the power cuts, when I would have my fingers crossed that the electricity would hold up long enough to get to the end of the episode before the lights went out and we had to break out the candles.* The Three Doctors thrilled me more, Carnival of Monsters was clearly a superior story, Day of the Daleks was my exciting first glimpse of the Doctor's legendary nemesis, but The Curse of Peladon evokes the dark and chilly early-70s winter evenings like no other.

* I can't be absolutely certain that power cuts hit during the run of this specific story, but that's how I remember it.

[Replies From View]

The Earl of Sandwich was a ham-fisted old cunt

[Ambient Sheep]

At least it's not The Monster of Peladon.  Am currently wading through that and my God it's boring me even more now than when I was nine...

[Catalogue Trousers]

From the last thread -

"28 episodes, BritishHobo? That's insane!"

I recall Tat Wood watching the entire Pertwee era over Christmas and writing about it like a bad trip.

Any chance of a link? While his research isn't always all that it could be, and he does seem to have a big, groundless vendetta against Terry Nation and all his works, I'm very fond of Tat's writing...

[Norton Canes]

Yeah Curse of Peladon is mint. Is Arcturus really so obviously the bad guy? Surely some level of double bluff was intended, what with him looking so unpleasant. Muddying the waters still further is the great conceit that the Ice Warriors might no longer villains - and as a result, Izlyr becomes an intriguingly developed character.

If nothing else, it's a relief to finally get away from Earth for a whole story.

[Bad Ambassador]

From the last thread -

Any chance of a link? While his research isn't always all that it could be, and he does seem to have a big, groundless vendetta against Terry Nation and all his works, I'm very fond of Tat's writing...

Sorry, it was hard copy only and buried in the attic.

[Bad Ambassador]

The Curse of Peladon: Episodes Three and Four. The Doctor explains he didn't know about the shrine, while the King knows nothing of the tunnels under the castle where he's lived all his life. Jo asks him to be flexible given the Doctor's diplomatic status, so the sentence is commuted to trial by combat with Grun. He also proposes to Jo, hoping she can help modernise the planet. Hepesh offers the Doctor an escape route and lets slip he has a powerful ally. He heads into the caves and fashions a hypnosis device, with which to pacify Aggedor, but Jo finds them and frightens the creature off.

The Doctor returns and explains that Aggedor is just a trained animal, but he is taken to the pit, where he and Grun fight. The Doctor gains the upper hand and lets the champion live, but Arcturus fires on him. Ssorg is quicker on the draw and kills the traitor. Hepesh flees as the others deduce they were in league, with Arcturus hoping to sign a mining treaty outside Federation jurisdiction. The King asks their help in combatting the impending civil war, while Grun turns against Hepesh, whose guards leave him for dead. Jo and Izlyr persuade Alpha to support the King, but find they are cut off from their ships.

Hepesh's guards capture the throne room and take the King prisoner as the Doctor and Grun find Aggedor and hypnotise him again. Hepesh offers the delegates an exit strategy as the Doctor appears with the sacred animal. Hepesh tries to assert control, but it mauls him to death and the King orders the rest to surrender. Speculating that the Time Lords piloted the TARDIS to Peladon, the Doctor prepares for the coronation as Jo tearfully rejects the King's proposal. The travellers head for the throne room as the real Earth delegate arrives, and they make a quick about turn, heading into the recovered TARDIS and departing just as the delegates enter and watch in bafflement.

There's very little more to it than that. The supposed allegory for the UK's entry into the EEC is very superficial and little more than an inspiration for the plot. Izlyr being the sole voice in support of the Doctor after he saved his life shows some interest in developing the Ice Warriors, but the Doctor never seems to atone for his misjudgement of them. Jo also shows a bit of guts in getting the delegates into line, but this is very thin material on which to hang a whole story. I'm sure it appealed to the young with the bunch of monsters in a spooky alien castle, but looked at objectively it's a waste of time.

[Gurke and Hare]

Just wait till you get to Monster. More of the same, but six episodes of it,

Spoiler alert

and it's even more obvious who the baddie is.

[close]

[Bad Ambassador]

The Sea Devils: Episodes One and Two. The Doctor and Jo pay a visit to the Master in his prison, a castle on an island in the English Channel. They are greeted by governor Trenchard, an ex-colonial type, who boasts of their security precautions and casually mentions some unexplained sinkings in the area. The visit is cordial but awkward, with the Master insisting he is a changed man, but after they go it is clear he has Trenchard under his thumb. Intrigued by the sinkings, the Doctor heads for the nearby naval base where a surviving lifeboat is stored. He is arrested while examining it, noting that it was sunk by a directed heat ray from underneath.

Base commander Captain Hart, a seafaring Lethbridge-Stewart, is unconvinced, and once Jo arrives with their UNIT credentials the Doctor says he wants to visit the sea fort Hart's men are converting and which is in the middle of the last known positions of the lost ships. They head out there and explore, but their boat suddenly explodes before they find the dead body of a maintenance man and the other half-crazed, babbling about "sea devils". Finding the radio gone, the Doctor looks for a transistor radio to convert into a transmitter, but come face to face with a bipedal reptile that attacks him with a heat weapon and chases him back to the crew room.

The creature is repelled by the Doctor electrifying the door and it leaps back into the sea. The Doctor theorises they are an aquatic relation to the Reptiles from Wenley Moor, and were awakened by the work at the sea fort. Next morning, Hart's AdC Blythe notes the Doctor and Jo have been registered as missing persons, so a helicopter is sent to the sea fort and rescues them. Hart is incredulous at the Doctor's story, while Trenchard suddenly appears for an urgent discussion about golf club politics. Meanwhile, the Master, wearing full naval uniform, climbs from the back of Trenchard's car and helps himself to supplies from the electronics store, knocking out a CPO on the way.

Trenchard finally leaves and Jo spots the Master outside as the CPO raises the alarm, albeit too late to stop the governor passing through security. The Doctor and Jo return to the prison to see the Master, and finding communications from Trenchard's office dead Jo is sent back to UNIT to have the entire staff at the prison replaced. The Master tells Trenchard he can talk the Doctor around, but knocks out a guard, stealing his gun and knife. The Doctor visits his cell, and the Master pulls the gun, but the Doctor disarms him and engages him in a sword fight. He wins, but as he turns his back the Master pulls out the knife and throws it at his head...

Lots of lovely location work shot at sea make this immediately engaging and very open, and although the plot is a little thin, there's lots of character business and enjoyable details. Very dynamic direction from Michael Briant as well, shooting the sea fort chase at Dutch angles and having matching zooms from location footage of buildings onto set windows. No reason why there should be a rack of swords outside the prison cell of the world's most dangerous man, but that just lets them have another exciting and well-edited action scene. Refreshing!

[Gurke and Hare]

Thing that doesn't get said enough: the Sea Devils are the worst looking monsters in the series, worse than the Magma Creature and the Taran Wood Beast. It might be entirely down to the string vests but the wobbly heads don't help.

[Replies From View]

It's been a while since I've seen The Sea Devils, but my memory is they're pretty solid monsters until they're revisited in Warriors of the Deep and they clearly can't hold their own heads up anymore.

One fact I love about The Sea Devils (with my memory of the details hazy again) is that the model makers for the story were visited by somebody in the MOD who wanted to know why they knew the correct number of propeller blades that kind of submarine would have.

[Norton Canes]

The more I think of "Dr Who", the more it depresses me and I can't bear the thought of it. I hope it never happens...

The 1963 Doctor Who diaries of Waris Hussein – part one

For the very first time, the veteran director shares his personal journals from 1963

[Alberon]

Fantastic stuff! Love the bits on the conflicting opinions on the pilot episode.

We recorded the pilot episode of Dr Who last Friday [27th September] after a traumatic week of rehearsal with uncertain timing, rewrites, arguments about scripts, complaints about rehearsal rooms and in spite of all a latent optimism, hoping for the best under the circumstances. Come Friday and we were delayed by set problems because of [designer] Peter Brachacki's vagueness throughout the session.

I had not made things any easier by demanding a great deal of camera movement from the crew and had to make do with two heavy pedestals and two circular, Centre-type ones. Whatever the cause, my slowness or Peter's inefficiency, we managed only one run-through, two runs in the spaceship sequence before the take. Somehow the technicalities clicked, as they always seem to do in the devious world of television.

We ran well on time and had a chance to reshoot the ship [Tardis] because the doors didn't close properly and Bill Hartnell fluffed. Sydney Newman sat up in the box and I added a few choice words to keep up with his transatlantic mentality! Even Donald Wilson seemed to approve through his avuncular, bland, pipe-screened exterior.
After the whole business, Sydney asked Verity and me to have dinner with him to discuss the result. Verity dropped Bill Hartnell at Charing Cross so under Sydney's edict and patronage I sat in his Jaguar and he criticised my profile shots and pushing into close-ups from long shots. Eventually a meal at the Fui Tong [a Chinese restaurant] and then Sydney's extraordinarily contradictory observations. The cast in his opinion was not entirely successful. He was disappointed because they showed no sense of humour in their performances, especially Bill who was not quaint and mischievous enough. "He should be like the upper-class Steptoe." Barbara should be a prissy woman who got on Susan's nerves, and Susan wasn't at all what Carole Ann made her. Carole Ann was too like a stunted woman and should in fact be a gangly gamine. (Hayley Mills type.)

Verity said the Steptoe image was a bit far-fetched as he was only successful as a pauper and there couldn't be such a thing as an upper-class Steptoe. I defended Bill and Carole by saying I was responsible for the way I had portrayed them. Altogether the evening was negative except that although Sydney liked my handling of the thing he might ask us to do the thing again after we have seen the edited pilot on Tuesday [1st October]. I don't think I'd mind doing it again but I don't want to change the cast. Meanwhile I'm looking at the second episode and my heart sinks at the thought of it.

'Upper class Steptoe.' That would have been something to see.

[Norton Canes]

Beats 'cosmic hobo'!

[daf]

Great stuff - bit surprised he seemed to treat astrology predictions seriously, rather than just a bit of made up fluff - which it clearly is!

[McDead]

Absolutely wonderful, I'd read a whole book of that. I was amused at him having to explain the reference to Thermopylae to a modern generation.

[Bad Ambassador]

The Sea Devils: Episodes Three and Four. The knife misses, Trenchard enters, the Master claims he was defending himself and the Doctor is arrested, just as Jo evades the guards and flees into the grounds. The Master works on an electronic device and explains to the Doctor he intends to reawakens the Amphibians and help them wipe out humanity, acting purely out of spite for his imprisonment. Hart briefs Commander Ridgeway, who sets off in his submarine to investigate the sinkings. With the Master out of the room, Jo signals to the Doctor to cause a fuss, sneaking into the cell behind the guard and freeing the Doctor. The submarine loses power and is entered by an Amphibian, who takes control and has the vessel piloted to the sea fort, while the Master finds the Doctor and Jo are both free.

The Master tells Trenchard his device, a replica of those used by the "enemy saboteurs", is ready for use and activates it as the Doctor and Jo head for the beach and an Amphibian rises from the surf and pursues them. They escape through a minefield, using the sonic screwdriver as a detector, as Trenchard watches incredulously at the sea monster running back into the water. With contact lost with the sub, a search is ordered and Trenchard starts worrying about contacting the authorities, immune to the Master's casual assurances that he needs to finish his machine first, though it appears to be working perfectly as some kind of communicator.

The Doctor and Jo make it back to the naval base, but Hart remains incredulous of their story and the search is called off for the night. Sonar detects activity off the coast by the prison, and a squad of Amphibians come ashore, killing the guards and Trenchard and liberating the Master. With no one answering at the prison, Hart, the Doctor and Jo lead a platoon to investigate at dawn and find the carnage, while the sub is detected closing on the sea fort. The Doctor asks to inspect the sea bed there and they all head out on a salvage vessel. The Doctor goes down in a diving bell and sees an Amphibian outside but loses contact, and when it is brought up to the surface, it's empty...

Somewhat slight on story, but packed with action and engaging character detail. It's moments like Trenchard getting out his service pistol or the Doctor's sandwich antics or Blythe bringing the sonar operator a mug of kai or the Amphibian that takes over the sub being nicknamed "Green Gilbert". It's stuff like this that make so much more convincing, even though the size of Fortress Island is a bit of a question mark. The music is famously very divisive, but I like it. It sounds like it's being played underwater.

[crankshaft]

The Doctor taking Jo's sandwiches is one of the worst things he's ever done, and is proof that the third Doctor is the worst. What a cunt.

[Replies From View]

He is a Tory.  Proto-Thatcher.

[McDead]

I've never bought this, not for a moment. He's definitely more establishment than the other Doctors, and he's not afraid to name drop if he thinks it'll score an advantage, but he's got far too much perspective on human affairs to be bogged down by trendy seventies ideas of free market capitalism.

[daf]

He is a Tory.  Proto-Thatcher.

You can tell which election it was from the size of her bouffant.

[Replies From View]

I've never bought this, not for a moment. He's definitely more establishment than the other Doctors, and he's not afraid to name drop if he thinks it'll score an advantage, but he's got far too much perspective on human affairs to be bogged down by trendy seventies ideas of free market capitalism.

I was joking of course.  It's just very Thatcher-esque to "snatch" the sandwiches of a lowly worker.

[Bad Ambassador]

The Sea Devils: Episodes Five and Six. At the naval base, Whitehall dickhead Walker arrives to solve the crisis and immediately patronises Blythe and orders breakfast. He tells Hart he intends to order an attack, despite the risk to the Doctor and the sub crew. In the Amphibian's base, the Doctor appeals to their chief to let him negotiate a peaceful settlement, but the Master appears and says that mankind is weak, and that their conquest will be easy. The chief, however, is swayed by the Doctor's call to avert war and share the planet, just as Walker forces Hart to launch the attack.

The Chief orders the Doctor killed, but he escapes in the bombardment and finds Ridgeway and his number two in a cell. He releases them, and they head back to the sub, where Ridgeway kills Green Gilbert and they manage to escape by firing torpedos through the wall of the Amphibians' underwater harbour. Arriving back at the naval base, the Doctor reads Walker the Riot Act for his small-minded, insular sabre-rattling and says he is going back their base to try again as a gesture of goodwill. Before he can leave, the Amphibians attack in force and take over the naval base. The Master tells the Doctor he needs his help to build an override for the Amphibians' faulty revival systems, just as Hart helps Jo escape from their locked room through the vents and Walker panics about his own skin.

She makes it out and finds the Doctor, who tells her while the Master is out of earshot that he's going to cause a distraction. They test the override, but its piercing signal disables the Amphibians, letting Jo release Hart - Walker cowers in a cupboard - and they head to the beach and take a hovercraft for the mainland. The Master disconnects the machine and apologises, and work is completed just as the vessel returns, disgorging naval ratings from Portsmouth led by Hart who mount a running battle to retake the base. The Master gets away and heads off in a speedboat pursued by the Doctor, and they are met by the retreating Amphibians.

Back in charge, Walker decides on a nuclear strike as the Chief Amphibian has both the Doctor and Master locked up as mammals cannot be trusted. The Doctor cheerily tells his cellmate that he has sabotaged the machine and that they have at most 10 minutes. They escape the cell and pick up the survival gear that had been stripped from the sub. Hart orders a hovercraft to the attack area before the strike, in case the Doctor has managed to get away, and it picks up both of them, though the Master immediately collapses in a seizure and the device goes off, destroying the Amphibian base. The hovercraft is met by Jo and Hart, as the Master's body is carried out. The Doctor pulls off its mask to reveal a hypnotised sailor, as the Master waves from the controls of the hovercraft and heads out to sea.

Strong characterisation, exciting action and some excellent location work make up for the loss of the previous serial's nuance. Walker is clearly the most odious non-villain to date, more interested in stuffing his face with toast than trying to save lives, and even minor characters get fun moments - Blythe's sarcasm behind Walker's back, the sub crew carrying on their pontoon game in captivity and Hart being a tough, no-nonsense leader of men during the assault on the base. Edwin Richfield is terrific as the Brigadier's aqueous cousin, and it's a shame he never came back. A blockbuster story, rightly loved.

[Bad Ambassador]

The Mutants: Episodes One and Two. A box materialises in the Doctor's lab, which he realises is part of a mission for the Time Lords. He and Jo set off in the TARDIS, arriving on a Skybase orbiting the planet Solos, an Earth colony in the 30th century. The planet's atmosphere cannot be tolerated for long by humans, and some of the Solonians are starting to mutate, leading to the dictatorial Marshal hunting them, largely for sport. A group of Solonians including rebellious young Ky and tribe leader Varan transmat to Skybase for a conference with the "Overlords", with the former agitating for freedom and blaming the mutation on Earth's interference. One of the arriving party is found to be a mutant and flee into the corridors.

The Marshal enlists Varan to a scheme, while the Doctor and Jo encounter the mutating aide, who is killed by guards Stubbs and Cotton. They take the travellers into custody, but are determined clockwatchers and treat them cordially. The Marshal is admonished for the security breaches by the Administrator, who tells him that Solos is being given independence immediately, as the Empire can no longer sustain itself, and dismisses the Marshal's proposal of colonising the planet as this would wipe out the Solonians. The Administrator also speaks to the Doctor and Jo, who bluster they are sent by the authorities from the exhausted Earth, but the paranoid Marshal bristles and suspects them of being Solonian spies. The Doctor tries to give the box to both, but it will only open for the intended recipient.

The conference with the Solonians starts, and the Doctor slips away to attend with the box, but Varan's son shoots the Administrator mid-speech. The Marshal blames Ky, who flees and brushes against the box which starts to open. He grabs Jo as a human shield and transmats to the planet, escaping outside and overpowering guards, taking an oxymask for Jo. The Marshal strikes a deal with the Doctor to open the box in return for Jo's rescue, so he is escorted to Skybase's lab and Professor Jaeger, who is working on the planet's atmosphere. The Marshal kills Varan's son and tries to kill the leader to tie up the loose ends, but Varan escapes.

The Doctor tries particle reversal on the box, glimpsing some objects inside, but Jaeger thinks this could be used on the atmosphere. Ky tells of his people's suffering under Earth's colonial rule as they shelter in a cave, as Stubbs and the Doctor find Varan, convincing the guard to help them. They tell the Marshal Varan is dead, and he replies Jo is at a medical facility. The Doctor is appalled at the planned terraforming of Solos, but hears the truth about Jo from Cotton, who joins his side as well. They plot to get Varan and the Doctor off Skybase, but when they meet at the transmat, Varan tries to kill him...

This is pretty dull. There's lots of very blunt political material about colonialism, apartheid and racism, but the characters are very flat and straightforward with little depth, and there's almost none of the fun detail that made The Sea Devils come to life, save Stubbs and Cotton playing chess in their lunch hour and grumbling about what a dick their boss is. My attention was sliding off almost immediately.

[A Hat Like That]

It's been a while since I've seen The Sea Devils, but my memory is they're pretty solid monsters until they're revisited in Warriors of the Deep and they clearly can't hold their own heads up anymore.

One fact I love about The Sea Devils (with my memory of the details hazy again) is that the model makers for the story were visited by somebody in the MOD who wanted to know why they knew the correct number of propeller blades that kind of submarine would have.

I've read the same story, it is basically an Airfix model they customised a bit.
In any case, # blades relates to the sound made and so can be tracked. If you wished to.

[A Hat Like That]

The Mutants really is desperate.

As said earlier, this is when I first caught the UK Gold repeats in the early 90s. Somehow - somehow - I was away for only the duff ones, so I've very fond memories of Pertwee and all the UNIT/Action by HAVOC adventures. 

[Norton Canes]

Typical Bob & Dave innit - the only way it retains any interest is because they keep firing more bizarre ideas at it