Old Doctor Who - Part 5

[Replies From View]

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. 

Similarly, my first experience of Doctor Who that wasn't Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy was the 1992 Pertwee repeats on BBC 2.  It was stories from his earthbound Quatermass style of story that made me realise I'd actually love Doctor Who.

[Alberon]

My first experience with Doctor Who (that I can recall) was the near episode long chase sequence from Planet of the Spiders, either on first broadcast or a repeat a year or so later.

I am old.

[Replies From View]

I am old.

Lol check out this man born in either the late 60s or early 70s!

[pigamus]

My first Pertwee was Death to the Daleks, which I've always liked and never been able to see as shit as its reputation

[frajer]

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

He was quick to shut down that mine in Llanfairfach.

[daf]

I used to think it was the Sea Devils coming out of the sea cliffhanger - but after looking at the dates, the latest I could have seen it would have been the second Omnibus broadcast in May 1974 - which, as I'd have been 3 and a half at that point, is not really credible.

However, I definitely had the memory of something like that - which I now think must have been the Cabbage Monsters coming out of the lake in Adric and the Cabbage Monsters Full Circle.

[Replies From View]

He was quick to shut down that mine in Llanfairfach.

Shifting that lot to the service industry, where they needed to furnish british rail passengers with tuna sandwiches and plastic cups of tea.

[BritishHobo]

Did any of you watch K9 and Company as children? I've just watched it, and to be honest its title and opening credits feel like they would be misleading regarding the amount of K9 content. It's clearly a Sarah Jane Investigates show by another name.

[superthunderstingcar]

He was quick to shut down that mine in Llanfairfach.

I don't think that's third Doctor specific - even as early as the 1960s the first Doctor was keen to stop them from mining in Bedfordshire.

[Replies From View]

I don't think that's third Doctor specific - even as early as the 1960s the first Doctor was keen to stop them from mining in Bedfordshire.

He wanted all the head-smashing rocks for himself.

[McDead]

He wanted all the head-smashing rocks for himself.

Doesn't matter how many billions of lives you save, how many wars you avert, how many sci fi monstrosities you stop dead in their tracks - you try and smash one caveman's head in and they never let you forget it

[Replies From View]

William Hartnell was furious it couldn't be him in the same bus as Rosa Parks.  He would have ignored the FUCK out of those events.

[Bad Ambassador]

The Mutants: Episodes Three and Four. The two transmat to the surface and the Doctor tells Varan to cut it out as they're on the same side. Jo and Ky are driven deeper into the cave by a crowd of mutants, but Varan tracks them down though not before Jo has run off into a trippy CSO cavern, from which she is rescued by a silver figure. The Doctor hands Ky the box, which opens to reveal four small stone tablets, on which Ky recognises the ancient Solonian language exterminated by the Overlords. Varan leaves to lead his village against the humans as the Marshal sends Stubbs and Cotton to the surface to flush out the escapees with gas grenades.

The despot overhears them cheerily greeting the Doctor and sets an explosion to seal them all in, but the silver figure returns and leads them to a lead-lined chamber. It is revealed to be Professor Sondergaard, a researcher who crossed the Marshal years earlier and was assumed dead. He believes that changes to Solos' ecosystem are normal but have been affected by the Marshal's experiments. Jaeger is ordered to start ionising the atmosphere as most of the Doctor's party flee the caves, with he and Sondergaard staying behind to decrypt the tablets, the Doctor realising it is a calendar referring to the planet's five-hundred-year-long seasons and their connection to the radiation deeper in the caves.

They head off to explore as Varan, who is starting to mutate, addressing his remaining warriors, who also look a bit peaky. Stubbs, Cotton, Jo and Ky are forced to surrender and be used as shields for an attack on Skybase. The Marshal gets word that an Investigator will shortly arrive from Earth, while the Doctor and Sondergaard find a green crystal and head to Skybase to analyse it. Varan's party beam up but are caught in an ambush, and as the ionisation rockets launch, gunfire blasts a hole in Skybase's hull, sucking Varan out into space as everyone else grabs onto the fittings to avoid the same fate...

I just can't summon up any enthusiasm for this at all. There's a real air of "that'll do" on the whole story. The sets are OK, the effect passable, everything is operating at minimum wattage. Six-part stories need a continuous stream of new ideas, settings or twists to sustain them, or at least some engaging characters, but all we get is Sondergaard, a likeable fellow with a wobbly accent who gives the Doctor someone to explain the plot while Jo tries to count on her fingers.

[superthunderstingcar]

Doesn't matter how many billions of lives you save, how many wars you avert, how many sci fi monstrosities you stop dead in their tracks - you try and smash one caveman's head in and they never let you forget it

How do we know that caveman wouldn't have grown up to become Cave Hitler?

[Norton Canes]

Well this came out of the blue - there's a Future Shock short story in this week's 2000 AD by first-time contributor

Spoiler alert

Elizabeth Sandifer

[close]

...which was in itself something of a shock

[McDead]

How do we know that caveman wouldn't have grown up to become Cave Hitler?

His vibes may just have been absolutely awful, it's impossible to say.

[Bad Ambassador]

The Mutants: Episodes Five and Six. Everyone just walks away from the big hole in the spaceship wall, with the Marshal putting Jo, Ky, Stubbs and Cotton in front of a firing squad, but they are interrupted by Jaeger, who announces the rockets all went wrong and now Solos' soil is being poisoned rather than the atmosphere changed. Jo suggests the Doctor is an agent of the Investigator, so he is to return to the planet to catch him and force him to use particle reversal to clear up the environmental catastrophe before the vicar comes for tea Investigator arrives.

The Doctor sends Sondergaard back to the caves and heads on alone, evading the search party and returning to Skybase, where he is caught trying to free the others. He is told to work with Jaeger and concocts a plan to fix the soil, requiring them to take the transmat offline. The others escape their bonds and try to contact the Investigator as Stubbs holds off the guards, but he is killed and the rest make for the transmat only to find it shut off and are caught. The Doctor and Jaeger start fixing the planet and the Marshal tells them to continue until Solos has a homocentric atmosphere. Sondergaard gathers a group of mutants as the Investigator's ship arrives and Ky, Jo and Cotton are thrown in the radiation storage chamber, which will flood when the ship refuels.

They escape by climbing through the fuel pipe into the ship and out through the airlock back into Skybase, while the Investigator takes control and the Doctor is forced to back up the Marshal's wild claims. When the others appear, he immediately accuses the Marshal of mass murder and attempted genocide, to which he responds with deranged ramblings that persuade the Investigator. Sondergaard arrives with a mutant to bolster the Doctor's claims, but the Marshal shoots it, changing the Investigator's mind again. Cotton and Ky are thrown back in the chamber where Ky collapses, while the Doctor, Jo and Sondergaard barricade themselves in the lab to examine the crystal, the Doctor theorising it catalyses the next stage in their evolution.

The Marshal breaks in and has all but the Doctor thrown in the chamber, the crystal going with them. As the Marshal rants about the Investigator's crew being the first settlers on New Earth, the combination of the radiation and the crystal accelerates Ky's mutation through the mutant phase into a rainbow-coloured floating telepath. He passes through the wall, freeing Cotton-Eyed Joe Cotton and Jo on his way to the lab, where he vapourises the Marshal. Sondergaard will stay to assist the other mutants in their transformation and Cotton is appointed acting Marshal until Earth withdraws, as the Doctor and Jo slip away.

Just a great big shrug. The Marshal is a cartoon villain, a ranting buffoon despite being a genocidal despot. It's impossible to take him seriously, and this undermines the rest of the story. There are some progressive ideas about race and colonialism, and an interesting attempt at an international cast with characters from the West Indies, Sweden, Germany and Birmingham, but there's no real depth to anything, just a lot of running around, bad CSO and literal fireworks to cover up a dull and uninteresting story filled with bizarre holes. The nadir of the Pertwee era to date. It's can't possibly get any worse, can it?

[daf]

Yes - I'd say you've hit rock bottom there!

As I mentioned previously, I really hate future colony stories - and the Pertwee ones are my least favourite examples of those. Tedious mining bollocks and bickering bureaucrats - it's just all so bum-numbingly BORING!

[Gurke and Hare]

It's can't possibly get any worse, can it?

It can't, I'm sure the next one will be a huge improvement.

Can't believe they got Geoffrey Palmer to be in this.

[dontpaintyourteeth]

Starting Planet of the Spiders tonight

[Bad Ambassador]

The Time Monster: Episodes One and Two. The Doctor is woken from a nightmare of volcanoes, the Master, a trident-shaped crystal and a Minoan civilisation by Jo, and is convinced there is meaning in it. A recent eruption in Santorini trips the Doctor's memory about Atlantis and he tells the Brigadier he needs to send out an all-points bulletin for the Master, based on the dream he's just had, before building a TARDIS detector that looks exactly like a cock and balls. At the Newton Institute, the Master is posing as Greek professor Thascales and working on a project called TOMTIT, a prototype matter transmitter that relies on the same crystal from the Doctor's dream.

He is assisted by women's libber Ruth Ingram and man-shaped bundle of quirks Stuart Hyde, and sends Ruth in his stead to a reception which Lethbridge-Stewart is to attend, accompanied by Benton, but not before putting institute director Dr Percival under the 'fluence. Ruth and Stuart try an unauthorised test, which sets off the TARDIS detector, and the Master is livid while Stuart notes the crystal still glows after the power is cut. The Doctor and Jo follow the trail down to the institute as the Master, disguised in a radiation suit, conducts a demonstration for the Brigadier and other visitors. He yells out to someone or something called Kronos as the Doctor and Jo arrive and time appears to slow.

With the Master fleeing, the Doctor helps Ruth shut the machinery down, but they find that Stuart has been aged by 50 years. The Doctor realises that Thascales is the Master as a delirious Stuart cries out to Kronos, and Lethbridge-Stewart orders his men to the area, takes control of the institute and leaves Benton to supervise TOMTIT. The Doctor explains to Ruth that Kronos is a god-like being that exists outside time and was worshipped by the Atlanteans, and that the crystal exists both there and here at the same time. They go to check on Stuart as the Master attempts to lure Benton away, but fails and the soldier gets both him and Percival at gunpoint before being knocked out. He activates TOMTIT and a priest-like figure in Minoan clothing appears...

What is it with Atlantis and entertainingly crap stories? A ridiculous jumble of nonsense, as if a class of schoolchildren submitted the script and it was shot by mistake, added to the return of Paul Bernard, so we get the Master introduced with less fanfare than Benton, more terrible editing and Roger Delgado forgetting to use his Greek accent in some of his scenes, as well as the delirious early scenes where the Doctor tries to convince everyone that the dream he's just had of the same stock footage used in Inferno's title sequence is a forecast of dire peril "for the entire created universe!" It's not as bad as The Mutants yet, because the firehose of silliness is keeping the attention at least, but it's early days.

[dontpaintyourteeth]

Starting Planet of the Spiders tonight

Fell asleep

[Norton Canes]

Before, during or after?

[dontpaintyourteeth]

Somewhere during the second episode I think

[daf]

working on a project called TOMTIT, a prototype matter transmitter that relies on the same crystal from the Doctor's dream.

Yes Doctor, It's a project about Particles Entering Near Interstitial Space, we like to call it . . .

[Norton Canes]

Somewhere during the second episode I think

Ooh, then you'll have missed the Doctor driving a hovercraft over a tramp

[Norton Canes]

"working on a project called TOMTIT, a prototype time travel device designed to gather more information about Pertwee's successor and how he'll behave in the studio"

[dontpaintyourteeth]

Ooh, then you'll have missed the Doctor driving a hovercraft over a tramp

I need to start it again when I'm more awake

[superthunderstingcar]

The Time Monster is an incredibly fun, watchable story, and if taken on those terms is bloody brilliant.

[Catalogue Trousers]

My first Pertwee was Death to the Daleks, which I've always liked and never been able to see as shit as its reputation

Sure, it's corny - but it has Daleks, Bellal, a mysterious super-powered City, zombie anti-bodies, Dalek clarinet music, Duncan Lamont. and tinned-peas-and-Smash Space rations - lovely stuff!