The Androids of Tara
The search for the fourth segment of the Key takes the Doctor and Romana to the planet of Tara, which appears to be right out of a mideval idyll, complete with princes, dukes, a princess locked in a cell, swordsmen, horses... and androids. Romana recovers the segment fairly easily on her own while the Doctor goes fishing and K9 sulks in the TARDIS, but she falls into the clutches of Grendl of Gracht, a man obessed with becoming king. Prince Reinhart of Tara is next in line for the throne and Grendl attempts to thwart that by kidnapping the prince, only to have the Doctor put an andoid prince on the throne instead. To make matters even more confusing, Romana is a dead ringer for the princess Strella. And dead is what everyone will be if Grendl gets his way ...
I watched this with Jay. Can you tell? What started out as enjoying the show and maybe making the odd crack about lame production values has now evolved (or devolved) into us running our own commentary through the whole adventure. And to be fair, we did enjoy a bit of the commentary on the DVD, listening to a (probably) drunk Tom Baker lusting after the obviously embarassed Mary Tamm, and asking who's that and who's that as people appear on the screen. "Is that Stuart Fell?". I'm sure some of the other names he mentioned were either porn directors of names he'd pulled out of the phone directory. Jay spotted Henry from Punky Brewster in a crowd scene. Really.
Tara has some interesting characters. Swordsman Farrah is too pretty, all blonde and lithe. Madama Lamia is a fantastic evil womam, doing Grendl's bidding and making him androids when he demands it. Pity that she and every woman on Tara have some infatuation with scuplting their hair across their foreheads and cheeks. "Is that the Mara?" Jay asked. Romana does her bit for the fashion conscious by dressing in something that everyone on Tara is wearing that year. And she even got K9 to agree with her. And NOBODY else was dressed like that. At all. What would Vivian Westwood say?
Grendl struck us both as a bit of a pervert, like he'd enjoy striking people in the face with a certain part of his anatomy. And that nose. "Is that Cyrano de Bergerac?" I asked. He has a requisite henchman named Till who looks like he should live under a bridge somewhere. "He's hot," Jay said. I hope he was kidding.
Oh right, K9 was in this too, wasn't he. Good dog. Came when called for. Shot an android. Blew out a couple walls. Yay dog.
The location work done for the show was just incredible, using forests and streams and an interesting little building that was a mishmash of Olde Englande style archetecture with a distinct Japanese influence on the inside. And some big castle too, which I've seen somewhere before. On a postcard, I think.
For The Androids of Tara there seems to be less of a sense of urgency about the whole Key to Time issue, made more obvious by the Doctor's decision to stop and rest and go fishing and have some fun with the locals, even if that fun is initially under duress. And we laughed along where we were supposed to, for the most part. And then it was over.
"Is that it?" Jay asked.
NEXT EPISODE : THE POWER OF KROLL
I watched this with Jay. Can you tell? What started out as enjoying the show and maybe making the odd crack about lame production values has now evolved (or devolved) into us running our own commentary through the whole adventure. And to be fair, we did enjoy a bit of the commentary on the DVD, listening to a (probably) drunk Tom Baker lusting after the obviously embarassed Mary Tamm, and asking who's that and who's that as people appear on the screen. "Is that Stuart Fell?". I'm sure some of the other names he mentioned were either porn directors of names he'd pulled out of the phone directory. Jay spotted Henry from Punky Brewster in a crowd scene. Really.
Tara has some interesting characters. Swordsman Farrah is too pretty, all blonde and lithe. Madama Lamia is a fantastic evil womam, doing Grendl's bidding and making him androids when he demands it. Pity that she and every woman on Tara have some infatuation with scuplting their hair across their foreheads and cheeks. "Is that the Mara?" Jay asked. Romana does her bit for the fashion conscious by dressing in something that everyone on Tara is wearing that year. And she even got K9 to agree with her. And NOBODY else was dressed like that. At all. What would Vivian Westwood say?
Grendl struck us both as a bit of a pervert, like he'd enjoy striking people in the face with a certain part of his anatomy. And that nose. "Is that Cyrano de Bergerac?" I asked. He has a requisite henchman named Till who looks like he should live under a bridge somewhere. "He's hot," Jay said. I hope he was kidding.
Oh right, K9 was in this too, wasn't he. Good dog. Came when called for. Shot an android. Blew out a couple walls. Yay dog.
The location work done for the show was just incredible, using forests and streams and an interesting little building that was a mishmash of Olde Englande style archetecture with a distinct Japanese influence on the inside. And some big castle too, which I've seen somewhere before. On a postcard, I think.
For The Androids of Tara there seems to be less of a sense of urgency about the whole Key to Time issue, made more obvious by the Doctor's decision to stop and rest and go fishing and have some fun with the locals, even if that fun is initially under duress. And we laughed along where we were supposed to, for the most part. And then it was over.
"Is that it?" Jay asked.
NEXT EPISODE : THE POWER OF KROLL
Labels: K9, Romana, The 4th Doctor, The Key to Time
posted by Sean Hoover @ 9:59 AM
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