The Leisure Hive

The war between the Fomasi and the Argolin lasted 20 minutes, and during that fight the planet Argolis was laid to waste, its survivors made sterile by the radiation. As a monument to the horrors of war, the Argolin have built the Leisure Hive, a galactic tourist attraction, which showcases the latest developments in the science of tachayonics. Just as the Doctor and Romana arrive the first accidents begin to happen and guests begin to die, immediately pushing the Time Lords to the front of the suspects list. The Doctor suspects sabotage and finds himself and Romana working under duress with experiments to roll time back and rejuvenate the last Argolins. Only after a dosasterous experiment ages the Doctor by 500 years does the true purpose of the experiments come to light: a mad Argolin named Pangol intends to replicate himself a thousandfold and take the planet back into a war...

The Leisure Hive is the season premiere for 1980, ushering in the new age of Doctor Who under the guidance of new producer John Nathan-Turner. In a departure from the previous years of the program, the theme music is changed and played with synthesizers and an actual guitar, the opening sequence is remade into a moving starfield with the Doctor's face formed out of the stars, and the show's new "neon" logo is introduced. A few other visual changes were made to the show with this massive revamping: the Doctor's costume changed to a darker overcoat, hat and scarf, and the police box exterior of the TARDIS was changed again to the "pyramid" roof version, and that would stay until the show's final regular episode.

Now the actual episode. Jay and I watched this one together but we enjoyed a guest for this as well, in the form of my friend Jim. Jim is relatively new to the classic episodes of Doctor Who, his interest only recently piqued by the Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant adventures, so I felt he needed a bit of a view on where the series came from. Of course, he was warned that Jay and I pretty much just talk through the shows, but he still took part. Brave brave soul.

K9 makes a very short appearance at the beginning of part 1 as he and Romana take a walk along the beach at Brighton, his voice restored to normal, but then he's sidelined again for the rest of the show after a disasterous encounter with the water. K9 go boom. "That wasn't very smart of him," Jay muttered. Of course, who's really to blame; was K9 stupid or was Romana being a bitch by throwing a ball into the water?

The Hive struck us all as being pretty claustrophobic for a vacation resort; a small place, it seemed, with radioactive sand outside. Not really what I call relaxing. And you have to come in by shuttle. And it takes a long time for them to land. A long long time. It was actually one of the longest shots of the production, with an equally long stretch of synthesizer music being played, although by the time it was over it felt more like an anthem had been run through. The BBC music people showing off again, we figured. "Make the synthesizers stop," Jay pleaded.

Argolins die in an interesting way. They have these tall beehive hairdos (which made us wonder about the title again) and at the top this little pyramid with small balls attached, and as the littlke balls drop off the Argolin in question would age. If only Clinique knew about this planet. If only this planet knew about Krazy Glue.

The rapid ageing of the Doctor during the time experiment is an interesting twist; he goes forward 500 years and comes out all wrinkled and with white hair and a beard, showing that a Time Lord can indeed age a lot before regenerating. The last time the Doctor discussed his age he was somewhere around 750 years old, and he managed to age 500 in the same body, hinting at the longer end of a Time Lord life cycle. At least the temptation to throw a different actor into the scarf for the episode as some "future" Doctor was resisted, but I think it would have been fun if the process had been to age him backwards and Jon Pertwee emerged from the experiment.

Effects? There were a few. The landing of the shuttle. The exploding hourglass was okay although the visual effects layered over it at first were a bit lame. And the sequence where Pangol is replicated in the tachayon generator is a bit.... bad. But it was 1980, and still miles ahead of what had been done previous on the show. The new season, and the new Doctor Who had arrived in style, keeping in touch with the same show that it was in 1963 even if it didn't look like it at first. I remember when I was in grade 6 I saw this one for the first time and until I actually saw Tom Baker's face in the starfield I thought I had the wrong channel.

So another adventure viewed and enjoyed, even if Jim was left wondering if Jay and I really like the series or if we are just telebullies picking on a show that can't defend itself back. It's okay, we do like it. It's all done out of love.

NEXT EPISODE : MEGLOS