Planet of the Spiders

After his traumatic involvement in Operation Golden Age, Mike Yates goes to a meditation retreat to regain his sanity. Trouble is, some of his fellow meditators are up to no good, conducting secrret sessions to tap into unknown powers for their own uses. Knowing that the Doctor and the Brigadier would not necessarily trust him, Mike calls upon Sarah. The Doctor, meanwhile, receives a package from Jo Grant: she is returning the Metebelis crystal that he gave her as a wedding gift as its presence is causing troubles amongst the South American tribes she and her husband are working with. The crystal is the object of yet more trouble, though; giant intelligent spiders from Metebelis use the mediation centre as a bridgehead and take over Mr Lupton in their attempt to recover the crystal for their own uses. Sarah is transported to Metebelis and the Doctor follows, and they discover the truth of the plan: the Great One, a spider of enormous size, has built a crystal web and needs the final crystal to complete it in her mad quest for ultimate power.

Spiders. Creepy. There are few people who will say that they love spiders, and the sight on a giant one leaping onto Lupton's back sends shivers down many a spine. Unfortunately the CSO effects of the time meant that any shots involving the spiders moving across the floor are not very well executed, and they look brown, not black like the static models used in the spider council chamber.

Mike Yates has done well. He must have received a good retirement package after his UNIT discharge to afford all his swanky attire (nice ascot, Mike) and his sporty new car. He's perfectly right to suspect the Brigadier and the Doctor might be suspicous of him, but why Sarah decided he was safe to be around again is anyone's guess. Her reckless journalistic spirit, perhaps. Her fashion sense needs work this time though.

Ah the Doctor. It's almost as if he knows his regeneration is out there waiting for him; the script is peppered with subtle hints about change, about endings and beginnings, and his convenient conversation with fellow Time Lord K'Anpo Rinpoche (who is hiding at the meditation centre after leaving Gallifrey - but doing so without running off with a TARDIS) leads to the first proper discussion about regeneration, for the sake of Sarah and for us at home, who have never really heard the logic behind why it happens. And the Doctor goes out with style; the script is packed with tense moments, including the Doctor's near-fatal wounding by a spider guard, and his irradiation by the crystals in the Great One's cave. When the regeneration does come, the Brigadier and Sarah are both on hand to see their friend's features fade away and be replaced by a complete stranger.

Just before the Doctor regenerates, he emerges from the TARDIS claiming that he has been lost in the time vortex and that the ship finally brought him back. Sarah says it has been about three weeks since he disappeared, which leaves some interesting space for additional third Doctor adventures with him lost in time and slowly dying from the radiation, all the time trying to get back to Earth.

But what if the Doctor regenerated in the TARDIS, or somewhere else, and never returned to Earth? Before we go on with the televised series, let's look at another of the Big Finish Doctor Who Unbound range...

NEXT EPISODE : FULL FATHOM FIVE

PS : 6:49 AM EST now...

The Ghosts of N Space

The Brigadier is a man of many secrets it seems; who would have guessed that he has an uncle who owns a castle in Sicily? While visiting on his Easter holidays, the Brig discovers that a mob boss from America is trying to pressure his uncle into selling his castle to him. Having none of it, the Brig gets ready to intervene and then discovers that the castle is haunted by hideous monsters. The Doctor soon arrives at the Brigaider's behest, and Sarah Jane Smith also shows up, coincidentally being on vacation with her friend Jeremy Fitzoliver. The castle is the site of a potential breach between the regular space time continuum and what the Doctor calls "N Space", or null space, where every person on Earth has a counterpart N-form. The gangster, Max, is attempting to merge with his own N-form and become immortal, and the key to his success lies within the castle. The Doctor realizes that there is no easy way to stop a castastrophe and takes Sarah first into N Space, and then into the castle's past to discover the origins of the breach and hopefully find a way to stop it.

As with The Paradise of Death, this is another adventure reuniting the third Doctor with Sarah and the Brigadier for a radio adventure. This time it is 6 episodes in length, which is perfect for a couple days' commute to and from work. The theme music used is a bit jarring when enjoying the adventures in their intended sequence; although Ghosts was recorded in 1996 the theme music chosen was the 1980's version, not the 1970's version from Pertwee's own era and not the current (at the time) version from the Sylvester McCoy series. The actors sound as if they are still in the show, though, even if Pertwee's voice has aged a bit more than the others. Talking of voices, the squeaky annoying voice of Maggie, Max's companion bimbo, is provided by Sandra Dickinson, ex wife of fifth Doctor Peter Davison. And then there's pseudo-companion Jeremy; whiny and wimpy in Paradise of Death he seems to have grown a pair this time. Sure he's still a wimp but he's not such a bad wimp anymore, his presence actually being useful for a change and not just someone for Sarah to feel superior to.

The whole concept of N-Space is a bit of a continuity issue; in the 1981 adventure Full Circle the TARDIS will pass into another universe referred to as E-Space, different from what is referred to in that adventure and the subsequent three as "N-Space", or normal space. But who cares, we're having fun here.

It's too bad there are no more audios along this line, but Jon Pertwee died shortly after it was broadcast. Still, perhaps it was the combination of these two radio plays and a Radio 4 adventure called Slipback (featuring the 6th Doctor and his companion, Peri, in 1986) that helped pave the way for the success of the Big Finish line. Speaking of theose, there's one coming up, but first, back to television for Jon Pertwee's final adventure as the third Doctor...

NEXT EPISODE : PLANET OF THE SPIDERS

PS it's 10:33 PM...

The Monster of Peladon

50 years after his visit to Peladon with Jo, the Doctor returns with Sarah to find that the planet's membership in the Galactic Federation is not proving to be as fruitful as promised. The Federation is at war with the forces of Galaxy 5 and needs the mineral trisilicate for it's efforts, and it can be found in abundance on Peladon. Trouble is, the mining guild are effectively on strike and talking armed rebellion against the Queen and those in her court who get all the benefits of the Federation. The Queen herself is little more than a child, only ascending to the throne because Peladon had no son, and thus the real power is held by Chancellor Orton, who is also high priest. The situation is made worse when it appears that the spirit of Aggedor is on the loose attacking the miners who work with the Federation equipment, but the Doctor, having met Aggedor himself previously, suspects some kind of trickery. While Sarah talks womens' lib with the Queen, the situation worsens as the Ice Warriors arrive on the scene with their own agenda for Peladon, the trisilicate, and the Doctor.

Brilliant. A trip back to a previous setting to see how things have changed after the Doctor's presence all those years ago - brilliant! Peladon is still steeped in superstition where Aggedor is concerned, but unlike Hepesh before him, Ortron is loyal to the Federation and the duties that come with membership, although as soon as Aggedor is brought into the situation he gets edgy about where his loyalties lie. Queen Thalira is a cowed monarch, holding no real power until Sarah teaches her how to be gutsier, which will save her life in the end. Good old Alpha Centauri is back, twittering away as always and waving his tentacles at everyone. And those Ice Warriors... classic at last, the bad guys through and through; there are five different sculpts to the helmet this time to add variety to the ranks, although one looks like it is grinning foolishly the whole time. Their mouths do not move as easily as they did in their debut back in 1967, so they are lead by Commander Azaxyr, one of the most vocal and brutal Ice Warriors to date. My nephew, Parker, is a huge fan of the Ice Warriors and asked if he could sit in for this adventure, and he actually applauded when Azaxyr got his comuppance. THAT is what Doctor Who is all about if you ask me; the power to protray characters you can laugh with, miss when they're gone, or cheer when they are given their just desserts.

I found some of the production values disconcerting, though. The mines of Peladon are shot on video in the television studio for the most part, but for action sequences or pyrotechnics the sets were rebuilt in a film studio, which makes for some odd shifting between two different grades of picture quality for what is essentially the same location. Also a bit unsettling is the climax of episode 4 (there are 6 all told) where the Doctor disarms miner Ettis in a swordfight but the tide turns and the Doctor gets one of the most brutal on-screen beatings of the series; he is headbutted, run into a wall and punched out repeatedly. Sure, it's been said that the Doctor deals with violent people sometimes, and in the novel version of the story Terrance Dicks removes a lot of the beating from the text, but I noticed that Parker was distressed watching the hero getting the stuffing beaten out of him, much like vampire slayer Buffy taking a pasting from the Ubervamp in her final season. But again, the reaction is down to emotional connection; guys are beat up on TV all the time in other series or on UFC programs, or even in professional wrestling, but they're strangers to the casual viewer; after several years the Doctor has become a friend of the audience, and when anything happens to him, we all feel it.

So, a very good one in my opinion. And in Parker's. sadly it's the last time we'll see the Ice Warriors again. They only clocked up four appearances but managed to enshrine themselves in the top monsters list right along with the Daleks and the Cybermen. Here's to their return in the new series in 2007 (I hope - it's not even a rumour at this point but it would be a great idea...).

NEXT EPISODE : THE GHOSTS OF N-SPACE

Death to the Daleks

En route to the galactic luxury world of Florana, the TARDIS becomes stranded on the planet Exxilon, its energy sucked away by some unknown force. The Doctor and Sarah find themselves on a barren world inhabited by savages, and a mysterious pristine city towering over the landscape. An expedition from Earth has also been stranded on Exxilon in their search for a rare mineral that will cure a plague that is wiping out their colony worlds. Trouble is, a force of Daleks has been sent to the planet for the same reasons, although the Doctor doubts their motives. Humans and Daleks form an uneasy truce as the Daleks discover that they have no energy for their weapons, but that will only last until the Daleks develop substitute weapons and resume their murderous ways. But the Daleks are the least of the Doctor's worries, and he seeks to unravel the mysteries of the city.

I don't know why people don't like this story. It's got Daleks! It's got better Daleks than Day of the Daleks and it has Daleks out of their element with their weapons not functioning, leaving them as helpless as those they would crush and destroy. Helpless Daleks have never been encountered before, and even the disarmed ones from Power of the Daleks knew that they were in control of their situation without their weapons. In fact, Daleks without their power to exterminate would only be examined twice in the future; in the audio Jubilee and the new series adventure Dalek. But trust the Daleks not to be down for long, and when they reinvent the machine gun for their own use, they're back to their old style. The guns actually do fire but there's this wierd ticking noise that comes, and some bad ricochet sound effects. And the Dalek colouring... they're painted silver for some reason.

Exxilon suffers from bad casting; another rock quarry. A very bad paper mache boulder. Some sad puddles of water. And the city appearing as a very bad CSO effect, until episode 4 when it is revealed that it has been made out of wax. The peoples of Exxilon are realized as well as they could be, their bulging eyes and bald heads obviously latex masks but somehow they don't demand a lot of explaining, they're just accepted. The subterranean Exxilons like Bellal are a bit different with their oddly glowing skin, but to their credit you can only see one actor's eyes behind the mask the whole adventure. That's got to count for something.

Jon Pertwee is obviously not doing his own stunts anymore; some editing could have saved me from noticing that it is just some guy in a wig in some of the fight scenes. And speaking of fights .... when Sarah encounters an Exxilon after it sneaks into the powerless TARDIS, rather than scream or faint she beats the living crap out of it with a crowbar. That's my girl! This is the first time we see her in the console room, and the room itself has become a lot smaller than it was back in 1963. And speaking of the old days, the power loss that strands the TARDIS draws some parallels to the plight of the ship and its crew from The Edge of Destruction, although Sarah never gets worried about something getting in... until it does.. and I've already said how she deals with that little trifle. The Doctor does not find the TARDIS' plight as traumatic as the first Doctor did; he's either gotten jaded to outside forces attacking his ship or he's suffering some kind of lingering disconnect after being exiled to Earth and deprived of his symbiotic link with the ship.

I want this one on DVD soon. And not just because it'd be nice to have it in episode format (the VHS copy from Playhouse Video - a dreaded name from the past! - has all four episodes wound together into a movie format, and you can really see the difference in quality between what copy of episode 1 they have and the rest of the adventure) but it would piss off the people who don't like it. This is a good Dalek story as far as I am concerned; their chemistry with the Doctor is a bit diminished I'll grant you, but hey they get to show themseles as more innovative, coming up with a new weapons design and shooting Exxilons off cliffs for sport. A total of three Daleks meet flashy deaths on screen, and another one just screams a lot.

NEXT EPISODE : THE MONSTER OF PELADON

PS That logging issue still remains.. it's 9:52 PM right now.

Invasion of the Dinosaurs

The Doctor and Sarah return to London to find that, shades of The Web of Fear, the whole place has been evacuated. The deserted streets are being looted, and UNIT has been called in to investigate the sudden appearance of dinosaurs. The Doctor suspects that the dinosaurs are being brought forward in time rather than appearing on their own, but every time he attempts to make any kind of investigation his efforts are stymied by General Finch, who has Mike Yates helping him. Sarah finds herself on board a spaceship full of people who believe they have left Earth for a new planet which is unspoiled my pollution and technology, but in reality uncovers the key clue to a plot to roll back time and return Earth to a supposed "golden age" before humans evolved and change history.

The first episode of this story only exists in black and white as it was simply called Invasion to conceal the presence of the dinosaurs, but the only colour copy of that episode was junked, mistaken for the first episode of the 8 part Patrick Troughton adventure with the Cybermen from 1969. What we have on VHS is much like the release of Planet of the Daleks, with 5 episodes in colour and one in black and white.

Oh the dinosaurs. I had actually never watched this one in its entirety before, so I knew who I wanted on board for this treat: Jay. Armed with trans-fat laden belated birthday cake and our best sense of humour we watched the ponderous plodding of the BBC's best plasticine dinosaurs and... well.. laughed a lot. And whimpered. Almost cried too. Make no mistake, folks: these dinos are BAD. I know it's terrible to moan about the quality of the effects from back then but we were both reminded of the original Land of the Lost at times. And the shimmering blue screen CSO effects... Jay has a hard time not screaming at the TV to turn up the... something... he's a tech boy, he knows how to make CSO look better than that. This is an example of the BBC getting ambitious but not having the ability to realize it properly. I have seen on a website an alternate cover for the video and the tyrannosauras rex on the cover is nipped from Jurassic Park. If only.

As far as the story is concerned, though, very very good. A far reaching conspiracy drawing in people from all levels of government and the military, matching them up with a scientist with a theory about rolling time back. Mike Yates, probably driven wacko by the events surround Global Chemicals in The Green Death, has joined the conspiracy (either that or he really misses Jo Grant) and finds himself with a gun on the Brigadier. Sarah tries to retain her journalist attitude and tries to get an exclusive but instead gets stuck on a spaceship with people with pants that are too tight, after narrowly missing being dinosaur food. But in episode 2 she gets some of the best affirmation anyone around the Doctor can get: he refers to her as his assistant, showing that he has no hard feelings about her initial suspicions of him during their adventure with Lynx and Irongron. And she proves herself once again by finding the heart of the conspiracy for the Doctor, even if she can't get to him right away and tell him about it.

But those dinosaurs. Yikes. No, Jay, I don't know why. I wish I did.

NEXT EPISODE : DEATH TO THE DALEKS

PS I can't seem to log the proper time anymore when I post... it's 8:41 PM EST.

The Paradise of Death

A new space theme park opens outside London, which is nothing that should demand UNIT's attention, until a dead man is found at its gates, his body mauled by a massive animal. The Brigadier investigates with the Doctor, and Sarah Jane Smith accompanies them in her capacity as a journalist with her photographer Jeremy Fitzoliver in tow. Space World offers spectacles of monsters from other planets and a new form of virtual reality that actually records experiences from people and implants them into others; technology that does not exist on this planet yet. The Parakon Corporation who own Space World are actually from the planet Parakon, the son of the Emperor directly overseeing the operation on Earth along with his slimy henchman, Tragan. The Doctor, the Brigadier and Jeremy follow Sarah to Parakon after she stows away in a spaceship and discover the planet has been lain waste with the weed crop Rapine; under normal circumstances it can be harvested and refined into any substance but it makes immense demands of the soil and the entire planet is being sucked dry of its nutrients. The truth of how the crop is being sustained is a well hidden secret, and once the Doctor discovers it he must call upon the oppressed denizens of Parakon to overthrow the evil that is spearheading the operation.

This adventure was written by former producer Barry Letts and produced for broadcast in five parts on BBC radio in 1993 - four years after the original series had concluded its final broadcast. Reuniting the third Doctor with Sarah and the Brigadier seems an interesting choice; I have a feeling this was supposed to be a UNIT story with Katy Manning as Jo Grant, but it does not diminish the effect of hearing them all together one bit. Jon Pertwee does sound noticeably older than he does on the televised episodes, but that hardly takes away from the fun of the audio adventure.

Maybe there's a bit too much fun though. In episode 5, the Doctor is forced into another trial by combat scenario against a notorious butcher which he defeats with ease, but before combat begins the Doctor is dressed as a clown and the opponant told that he has done so in a gesture of insult towards his mother. Riiiight.

Things like this you either love or you hate, whether you are a Barry Letts fanboy, a purist, or you simply love the show regardless of who writes the script. I personally found it amusing and fun; it made for a leisurely Sunday morning listen with a cup of tea this time, although in past it has served as audio entertainment for a road trip and even for something to listen to at the gym on the exercise bike.

And now... back to TV.

NEXT EPISODE : INVASION OF THE DINOSAURS

The Time Warrior

In the past of mideval England, while the King is away at the Crusades, captain Irongron and his band of cutthroats rampage unchallenged across the land, stealing and pillaging as they will. Even as local nobility try to band together to stop him, he finds himself with an ally to his cause; a Sontaran warrior named Linx who has crash landed and needs to repair his space craft. The mideval age does not afford Linx the facilities he needs, and he reaches forward in time to kidnap twentieth century scientists to do his work for him. Alerted to the disappearance of the scientists bu the Brigaider, the Doctor tracks Linx back through history and attempts to stop him from providing Irongron and his men with modern weapons that will make them unstoppable and ruin the course of human history. Along for the ride is journalist Sarah Jane Smith, who has stowed away in the TARDIS after suspecting that the Doctor was involved in the kidnappings.

BRILLIANT. My friend Dan raves about this story, and he has yet to say exactly why, but I think there are two essential reasons. Maybe three. The first would be the script, penned by the late Robert Holmes. I have always envied the British their extensive history and the many periods that have passed over their land, but British writers for Doctor Who get the pleasure of taking viewers back into those days, and Robert Holmes did a job par excellence, capturing every of the period characters to perfection. Credit along those lines also go to the actors who portrayed them, and the costume department for their attention to accuracy when designing and dressing the characters. The other reason would be the introduction of the Sontarans, who never made it to as many televised stories as they should have (4 in the classic series and none so far in the new one). Linx is not an essentially evil or corrupt character, despite his species' love of war and their ongoing hostilities with the Rutans; he is trapped far from home and must return and he does whatever it takes to get there. Other aliens or villains like the Master have worked to change history for their own needs but Linx's plan to supply weapons to Irongron is merely his payment for the services he needs; he doesn't care what happens to Earth, it is beneath his concern. The last reason for this one being so good is the Doctor's new take on companions; after Jo's abrupt departure he has been without anyone to make him his coffee and pretty much pander to his ego. Sarah Jane Smith has always been referred to as a departure for the companions, being the first "modern" woman to come into the show; she has a career, she is agressive, and she's not going to make the Doctor coffee or tea at his whims (how many times did we see Jo toting about trays of beverages for everyone?). The Doctor does not take offence to her spunk any more than he enjoyed Jo performing as the true assistant in his lab; he sees her as an individual and comes to respect her for her resourcefulness by the time they are set to return to their own time.

The question comes up though, why is the Doctor lingering on Earth now? He's been free for a year and is still working for the Brigadier and UNIT. With Jo having left him he could have slung his hook and just gone; he was keen enough to try and leave when he thought the TARDIS was fully functional back in Inferno, but now he's not too eager, returning to Earth as his home base between adventures. I have never heard anyone question this before, but there has been a lot of moaning about why the ninth Doctor was always on Earth and especially why was he so keen to keep returning to his companion, Rose's, home. Same reasons maybe? The Doctor-companion relationship between the third Doctor and Jo is in many ways the same as it became with the ninth Doctor and Rose; but with the third Doctor and Sarah one gets the impression that he enjoys having her around, but just not the same as he did with Jo.

Sarah, for the uninitiated, is in it for the long haul and is fondly remembered as one of the most popular companions on the series; although her tenure with the third Doctor was short, it does get a bit of a beefing up with the addition of some extra material in the form of books and radio plays...

NEXT EPISODE : THE PARADISE OF DEATH

The Green Death

Global Chemicals promises to bring cheap new sources of synthetic oil to the world, and bring new jobs and money to the people of the Welsh village of Llanfairfach where the coal mine has been closed down. Local activitst and bioligist Cliff Jones and his people at the Wholeweal community see it as a threat to world ecology, and as they protest, a man emerges from the old mine with his skin glowing a ghastly green. Within minutes he is dead. The UNIT crew soon arrive (the Doctor after finally making his trip to Metebelis 3 only to find it's not the paradise he had hoped it would be) and discover that Global's refining process creates tonnes of toxic waste which has been poured into the old mine and given rise to a colony of giant maggots. But the biggest threat behind Global is not the deranged manager, Stevens, but the mad computer, the BOSS, which has set its sights on world domination no matter the cost to humankind.

Who knew the Doctor was an environmentalist? In these days of global warming a story like The Green Death will still be relevant despite being almost 22 years old. Granted the mutated giant maggots and the huge flies they would eventually change into are an extreme realization of the threats of pollution, but that doesn't make them any less frightening when hoardes of them are seen swimming about in a pool of toxic waste and then erupting from the very ground as they tunnel to the surface.

The poor Brigadier and his crew at UNIT find themselves on a political tightrope with the Prime Minister himself ordering the Brigadier to place UNIT at the disposal of Global Chemicals despite the suspicious circumstances surround their link to the dead green men coming out of the mines. Was this another of the production team's swipes at the government, having made civil servants into interfering buffoons they now portray the PM himself as firmly on the side of big business? Despite his smacking down the Brogaider does what he does best: he blows things up. The mine. The maggots. Almost blows up Jo and Cliff too.

Jo has changed in her time with the Doctor. In Nightdreamers Tom Arden hamfistedly makes some reference to Jo feeling that her time with the Doctor might be coming to an end, and in episode one of The Green Death she takes her first step towards that by refusing to accompany the Doctor to Metebelis 3 and go to pitch in with Professor Jones and his lot, regardless of what it may do to her UNIt career. The Doctor sadly remarks "the fledgling leaves the nest" and by the end of episode six, she indeed does; Jo falls in love with Professor Jones, a man she admits reminds her of the Doctor, only younger, and they are off to get married and take an expedition down the Amazon together. The Doctor is thrown by this - it is obvious that during his time on Earth he has grown attached to Jo like no previous companion, and he is visibly heart(s) broken, leaving the engagement party on his own and driving off into the sunset in Bessie. The devotion between the two characters has been very obvious during theit time together, one rescuing the other when it was necessary, and I found it most obvious when the Doctor goes down the mine looking for Jo in episode 2; he has not seen her since before he left for Metebelis 3 and when he does find her his relief at seeing her safe, and hers at seeing him coming to look for her, is what real friendship is all about. Jo always knew that if there was trouble the Doctor would be there to get her out of it, and the choice between a hero figure and a man she loved for similar qualities would be wrenching.

The season ends with the Doctor on his own, and who knows what he got up to next. Did he just hang around Earth with the Brigadier some more, or was he off on his own for a spell, just him and the TARDIS for the very first time? There is some interesting ground to be covered there and maybe one of the writers for the BBC novels will look into that, let us see how this Doctor functions without a companion to prop him up.

Alas there is no such interesting material to look into, so onward we go with the next season, the last set of adventures for the third Doctor...

NEXT EPISODE : THE TIME WARRIOR

Nightdreamers

The TARDIS is dragged down to a verdant moon with spotty gravity, where the Doctor and Jo encounter some bizarre courtiers prepping for a play in honour of a royal wedding. Trouble is, the bride wants the groom dead as their marriage is one that has been arranged against her wishes as a means to settle an ages old feud between their houses. She'd rather marry her cousin. And somewhere in all this is the rumour of the Nightdreamer King, and his annoying henchman Sly. And a giant worm in a chrysalis.

CRAP. This book is CRAP. How stuff like this can sneak into a range as inspired as the Telos novellas I will never understand; out of 14 books, this is the one clunker of the lot. Booo Tom Arden. Booo your obvious ripoffs of Midsummer Night's Dream. Boo your lack of proper narrative, your awkward obvious flashbacks to Jo and Latep on Spiridon. What is this, Taregt books?

Disappointing. Very disappointing. The Doctor and Jo in this novella are mere shadows of who they are on screen, and everyone else they meet are charicatures rather than characters. The threat of the Nightdreamer King doesn't stand up as much of a menace at all, but it's at least nice to see that Arden gave the third Doctor a speeder bike a la Return of the Jedi to run around on in between the trees.

Okay back to TV.

NEXT EPISODE : THE GREEN DEATH

The Wages of Sin

Now that the TARDIS is working properly at last, the Doctor looks up old companion Liz Shaw and offers her a trip seeing as she never got to experience the time machine in all its glory. Together with Jo Grant, they travel back in time to Russia in 1916 only to have the TARDIS go missing after their first night there. Liz's career as a scientist draws much skepticism as there was no such role for women in that age, and Jo finds herself under the spell of the infamous Rasputin.

Okay it's been a while since I read this book; it was published in February 1999 and I read it almost immediately. I know that being vague on the plot details is a bit of a cop-out but hey Tom Baker does the same thing on just about every DVD commentary he is part of. What I do remember, though, is that David A McIntee does another great job with his attention to historical detail, and even manages to make a reference to Boney M's "Rasputin", but subtley enough to not be cliche.

And that's all I know. I'd read it again but I can't find it.

NEXT EPISODE : NIGHTDREAMERS

Planet of the Daleks

Wounded in a shoot-out in the Master's base, the Doctor stumbles into the TARDIS and sets it in pursuit of the Daleks, then collapses into a coma to heal. Jo is unaware of the Doctor's powers to recover from such wounds and goes out into the night on the jungle world of Spiridon to look for help, and encounters a group of Thals. The Thals have also come to Spiridon in pursuit of the Daleks, to sabotage their research base which is working to learn the secrets of invisibility from the natives of the planet. The Doctor and the Thals infiltrate the Dalek base and find that there is an army of 10,000 Daleks on ice, cyrogenically suspended using the planet's molten ice core to keep their army fresh until the war with Earth and Draconia has lain waste to the galaxy. As the time draws near to reviving the army, the Doctor and Jo work with the Thals to thwart the Dalek plan and save the galaxy, but as the Dalek Supreme itself says, Daleks can never be defeated.

This was kinda crappy for a Dalek story. The sheer novelty of using the Daleks again is always something to make fans jump up and clap their hands, but after the initial excitement fades and you realize that it's not their best appearance, you just start giggling at it. Yes, Jay was there with me, and giggle we did. First at the jungle of Spiridon; it was so obviously rubber plants, and the lighting really needed to be attended to; Jo mentions that morning is breaking at one point and the whole sky lights up as if a switch is thrown. And in another incident in episode 2, the Doctor and one of the Thals struggle with a carnivorous plant and there is suddenly a spotlight on them. Episode 3 only exists in black and white, with no material available to colourize it as with previous adventures, so the whole atmosphere changes and it actually makes everything look better; the shadows become deeper, and there is an incredible shot of the Doctor and company running from Daleks who are briefly silhouetted against a corridor wall that looks like it was part of some gothic horror movie. The invisible Spiridons are conquered by the Daleks and forced to wear furs so they will be visible, which makes no sense at all; and when they are invisible on screen (it's a concept - work with me) they have to make their presence known by holding something - which is achieved by some sloppy CSO effects. The adventure has a little bit of location work to it, where two Daleks are tipped into pools of molten ice (scientifically impossible by the way but intreguing enough to me to not make it a big sticking point; after all we're talking about a show where a police box is bigger on the inside...), but the contrast between studio sessions and the location work is so jarring it shouldn't have been done at all. And Jo's hairstyle changes dramatically between those scenes.

Speaking of Jo, she attracts the affections of a Thal named Latep who wants her to come back to Skaro with him. Wisely she refuses; either she's not keen on him or she doesn't want to live on a bombed out radioactive world with the Daleks as neighbours. Or maybe the shopping isn't good there. In the end she chooses to stay with the Doctor, but there's a glimpse of a maturing Jo here, like maybe she's not going to stay much longer if the right offer comes along. But still.. wise choice on Skaro. In a few years it's going to get blown to smithereens.

Our Daleks look pretty good even if they're not at their best this time around. When they go on location to the ice pools they have an incredible mettalic black look that just doesn't make it to the studio sessions; the magic of grainy film vs sharp in-house viedo cameras. The Dalek Supreme makes its first appearance The Dalek Master Plan but with a shiny new golden paint job, and it is a bigger Dalek, one of the movie-style Daleks being pulled from storage and used to make it a bit more grand than its minions. Too bad whoever was operating it didn't know his lines; it flashes its lights in time with the lines for every Dalek but itself.

So back to Earth the Doctor and Jo go. And onto another adventure we go, back into the world of print...

NEXT EPISODE : THE WAGES OF SIN

Frontier in Space

Somewhere in the future, Earth's empire is expanding, and it has rubbed up against the empire of Draconia; noble reptillian bipeds who hold honour in high regard. After a war, a treaty is signed and both empires agree to stay out of each other's way in future. Suddenly out of nowhere each government begins to accuse the other of acts of piracy,a nd tensions begin to mount. The Doctor and Jo happen upon an Earth freighter as it comes under attack, but they see a raiding party of Ogrons, the ape-like minions previously employed by the Daleks. The Earth crew, however, see them as Draconians, and the Doctor and Jo are accused of collaborating to aid these raids. The Doctor realizes that there is a third party at work attempting to stir up a war for their own reasons; the Ogrons do not have the intelligence or resources to do this alone. And as the Doctor investigates, the Master appears on the scene, proving that there is evil at work. But as the Ogrons are working for the Master, the Master himself is in league with someone else who would see the two empires destroy each other and then move in to conquer what was left...

As the future history of Earth goes, this adventure would predate the colonial decline seen in The Mutants by several hundred years, yet be somewhere around the same time as the expansion days described in Colony in Space. The Pertwee years of Doctor Who seem to be set either on Earth in present day where the UNIT continuity is maintained or in the future, painting a picture of the future in bits and pieces. The future history stories are not necessarily linked by plots but are set far enough apart that one can allow for changes in the Earth's status as a galactic power due to the passage of time in between the portrayed events. To actually try and draw some kind of link between everything is sheer folly, but that doesn't stop it from being fun at all.

Jon Pertwee once said that the Draconians were his favourite monster to work with because their costumes were a half mask, allowing the actor's real eyes and mouth to be seen moving when speaking, as opposed to other monsters where the masks covered everything. I like the Draconians myself because some time was spent developing their culture in the story, and alluding to the Doctor's previous (and unseen) encounters with them when he was granted the title of a Noble of Draconia. The Draconians are what the Silurians would probably have become if they had evolved further and developed space travel, if that is any kind of indicator as to the complexity of their society, although the Draconians answer to an Emperor, a position that is granted through a bloodline, and the Silurians refer everything to their council.

Did I like Frontier in Space? Yes. Mind you I did feel a few sequences were getting a bit long, like the Doctor and Jo being hauled in and out of prison cells for interrogations, and the Doctor's sentencing to the penal colony on the moon (maybe the same base used for the Gravitron now that weather was no longer controlled from there - see The Moonbase) could have been easily done somewhere else on Earth. Introducing the Master back into the season in episode 3 made the whole problem of a 6 part story seem less obvious, and there is a proper movement of story from episode to episode rather than a whole new script at the end of episode 4. But this story isn't necessarily all on it's own as the revelation of the Master's allies leads directly into the next adventure, Planet of the Daleks. Ooops I blew that surprise. Yes, the same tired threesome of Daleks that we running Earth from a closet in Day of the Daleks make their appearance halfway through episode 6, and then take off for their base to rally the troops to sweep into the warring galaxy and exterminate Humans and Draconians alike.

And speaking of Day of the Daleks. Yes, Dan, I know you liked it. BUT. The conclusion of that story closes the time loop that was its premise, the whole reason why the adventure was, if you will, a conclusion which would negate the future where the Daleks were in control of Earth, and thus get rid of the reasons why the guerillas came back in time to change the future, and pretty much ensure that the whole thing never happened anyways. So if that's true, how did the Doctor and Jo recognize the Ogrons and make specific mention of their past association with the Daleks? If I ever meet Terrance Dicks, the script editor for those years, I am going to ask him.

NEXT EPISODE : PLANET OF THE DALEKS

Carnival of Monsters

Despite being back in service, the TARDIS is working along her usual lines and takes the Doctor and Jo not to the planet Metebelis 3 but to a ship in the Indian Ocean. A ship menaced out of nowhere by a pleisiosaur. A ship where the passengers and crew forget everything that has happened to them in a 10 minute period and go back into a loop. And a ship where a giant hand reaches out and plucks the TARDIS from its landing place. The ship is part of a mobile exhibiton inside a Miniscope, a banned device that has come into the posession of a pair of Lurman entertainers trying to bring joy to the people of Inter Minor. Also on display inside this machine are Ogrons, Cybermen, and a fierce breed of caterpillar monsters called Drashigs. The Doctor and Jo spend a lot of their time clambering through the circuits trying to escape, while on the outside of the machine, political intregue has the Miniscope and the Lurmans being used as devices to potentially unseat the planet's government. The Lurmans are the first aliens allowed to land on Inter Minor, and if the Miniscope containment systems fail, there will soon be many many more arriving...

All the elements are here to make for a classic Robert Holmes script, most notably the double acts aside from the Doctor and Jo; the Lurmans, Vorg and Shirna, and the scheming slightly moronic Inter Minor officials Orum and Kalik. The Drashigs are a good new monster for the universe of Doctor Who, right down to their alarming shriek/howl. There is also the start of a bit of mythology here with the establishment of Inter Minor as part of a star system that has never met humans before and refers to them as "Tellurians"; the same galaxy will be revisited in Holmes' 1985 script The Two Doctors.

After hitting the palatial Gerard Square to get moustraps and McFood, Jay and I dove into Carnival of Monsters to enjoy the Doctor's first trip away from Earth with his restored freedom. It is good to note that the Doctor does not show any signs of rust from his long period of exile, and Jo is quite adept to travel in the TARDIS even after only going to a handful of destinations during her time with the Doctor.

The effects of this episode left us giggling a bit; the inside of the Miniscope was made up with what the budget would allow it seems, and it's the same small area just shot from different angles every time. After a while it became very easy to predict the things that the Doctor and Jo were about to climb over, duck under, and slide down. And what they couldn't build, they used yellow CSO effects to simulate. The marsh location used for the Drashig planet is something never done in Doctor Who at this point in its history, and the pyrotechnics of the Doctor igniting pockets of marsh gas to drive the Drashigs off are realized very well. The big stumbling point, and point of much sniggering, was the makeup for the people of Inter Minor. The functionaries were all given masks that didn't quite fit, and the skin underneath was not coloured to blend in so the skin of the actors could be seen easily. As for Kalik and his contemporaries, they are all made up grey faced but somehow the make up artists kept forgetting to go right to the edges of their eyes and mouths. Also, their bald head pieces wrinkled in places, and if one of the actors moved his forehead too much they could come free.

There's also this fight scene, if one can call it, between the Doctor and one of the officers of the ship. There is some gentlemanly reference to Queensbury rules before the slugfest gets going, and the Doctor manages to best his opponant (who is played by Ian Marter, who will return in a more famous role in two seasons' time) with a gut shot that makes the man actually fall down. I can but quote Jay on this one to sum it up: "What was that?" I'll tell you what it was: the Doctor being violent again! No other Doctor in the show's history has been so keen to raise his fists and slug it out as the third Doctor; one day I am going to make a proper tally of how many people he knocks down or renders unconscious.

For now, though, the Doctor is free to roam once more. And very soon he will find himself embroiled in more intregue in Earth's future, and on the cusp of a war between two empires...

NEXT EPISODE : THE FRONTIER IN SPACE

Deadly Reunion

Before his fateful meeting with the Doctor in what was called "The London Event" where the Yeti roamed the tunnels of the Underground, Alistair Lethbridge Stewart was a lowly second-lieutenant tasked with the mapping of roadways in and around Greece after the end of World War II. During his time with the regular army he witnessed many things on the battelfield, but also had his own encounter with an alien race who had been on Earth for so long they were reverred as gods. One of them was named Hades, the lord of the Underworld. And the other was Sephie, short for Persephone, and Alastair fell in love with her. Such was the power of his love that he mounted a rescue attempt and freed her from Hades' lair, but to protect him from those memories, Sephie blocked a portion of his mind and sent him back to normal life. Later in years, now running UNIT and with the Doctor as his scientific advisor, Brigadier Alistair Lethbridge Stewart is confounded with a series of unexplained events that seem to lead back to a small village where a wealthy family preside, and a massive outdoor pop concert is being staged. And, where Hades is making a new bid for world domination.

Fist note is I think I got the timing wrong for this book; several references are made to events somewhere between Terror of the Autons and The Mind of Evil, so that is probably where I should have put this one. But no biggie; the emphasis here is on the story of the Brigadier, not necessarily on the continuity of the Doctor's UNIT years. The Brig's military past is never really talked about in the series, and as the years go on it's more about his future and his post-UNIT days, so who better than to pen this story than the team of producer Barry Letts and script editor Terrance Dicks; the men who made the Brigadier and directed the course of Doctor Who through the Jon Pertwee era. Such is the focus of their task that the Doctor doesn't even figure into the story until page 125 of the novel, at which point it becomes his story again, the Brigadier's Greek exploits sidelined for a while.

I'm about to tread on some holy ground for some when I say this: but I don't like Terrance Dicks' prose style. He's contributed some fantastic scripts to the show, and the odd novelization of the television episodes for the Target line do get it right from time to time, but overall I find he never gets the sense that writing a novel is going to require a bit more is the line of description than what he offers as narrative. Scenes are described vaguely, action comes across more as stage directions, and dialogue is presented in a very "said the Doctor" and "said Jo" sort of way. The first chunck of the book seems to have been written differently and I can only surmise that Letts wrote that part and left Dicks the rest, the two offering insight to each other from time to time where the story was concerned, but not commenting on each others actual writing. Just compare the more vivid descriptions of Lethbridge-Stewart's experiences in Greece, the adventures on board the HMML 951, and the officer camaraderie therein to the later bits with the faceless mob of briefly described drug addicts, and even the less intense characters of Sephie and her family and you will spot the difference.

Barry Letts should have written the whole thing. I can sense the cult of Terrance massing outside with their pitchforks and flaming torches already.

NEXT EPISODE : THE THREE DOCTORS

The Time Monster

Masquerading as Professor Thasceles, the Master is using a university research programme to devise a time machine known as TOMTIT (transmission of matter through intersistial time) as a means to control a mythical creature called Kronos. The Doctor recognizes the creature by name and reveals that it is one of a race of Chronovores, creatures that live outside of the space-time continuum and feed on temporal energy. With the help of Jo and UNIT, the Doctor frustrates the Master's plans enough to drive him to journey back to Atlantis to capture a crystal that will give him power over Kronos. The Doctor and Jo follow and must face many threats, amongst them the mythical Minotaur, and the wrath of Kronos itself.

Whoa, I say. There is far too much going on in this story. My precis doesn't really reflect that, but here we have another 6 episode story where episodes 1 through 4 all take place in the university grounds and then inside two TARDISes, and in episodes 5 and 6 we get the whole Atlantean thing crammed in. Don't get me wrong: this is a fun story complete with all our favourite UNIT people, the Master, and some fantastic dialogue, but I personally would have enjoyed less of the lead-up in modern times and more time spent in Atlantis, an approach I suppose I have become used to with the new novel and CD audio ranges. This is, incidentally, the third time Doctor Who has destroyed Atlantis: the first was back in 1967 with The Underwater Menace, and then it was alluded to in The Daemons as one of Azal's failed experiments that was destroyed. So okay we have a slight continuity issue to deal with. But who cares about that; I'm sure Atlantis was a big place, it's possible that Azal's experiment was done before the events in The Time Monster. And as for Professor Zaroff and his fish people, who is to say what might have evolved out of the Atlantean ruins after Kronos smashed it to pieces. And then comes a very significant moment in Doctor Who history: the Doctor tells Jo about his past, alluding to living in a house halfway up a mountain and seeking the advice of a wizened hermit under a tree. The last time the Doctor spoke of his past directly was in Tomb of the Cybermen, telling Victoria about his family, who we assume would be dead the way he spoke. Tidbits like these are few and far in the televised series; the next significant mention will not come again until 1989.

The Time Monster gets a bit ambitious with the design and effects departments, creating a whole new TARDIS console room in some funky retro white plastic roundel scheme (that is, by the way, never seen again) and an impressive set for the Atlantean temple in episode 5. Episode 5 itself suffers from some bad editing when the TARDIS materializes, and the effect of the Doctor's TARDIS separating from the Master's.. well.. I can see strings.

There are some acting alumni worth mentioning here: Ingrid Pitt as Galleia, Queen of Atlantis (and a bit of a power mad one as well, willingly chucking her ageing king for a fling with the Master), and Dave Prowse as the Minotaur. For the uninitaited, or those who live under rocks in the sci fi community, Dave was the body of Darth Vader in episodes IV to VI of the Star Wars movies. And, let me say, Dave has FANTASTIC pectoral muscles. Or, at least, he did. One of the best chest moments in Doctor Who, although I can hear others shouting that there is a better one in 1984's Planet of Fire.

And here endeth the season. The Doctor has limited control of the TARDIS again, but he's still not free of his exile. So he's stuck on Earth for a while yet. So before we carry on to the 10th season of the show, let's stop and read a book.

NEXT EPISODE : DEADLY REUNION

The Mutants

Earth's empire is in decline. Unable to sustain a vast empire anymore with her own resources exhausted, Earth is slowly cutting its colonies free. The planet Solos has been in the empire for 500 years and on the eve of its independence, an Earth official is assassinated by the Marshal of the conoly and the blame thrown on the natives. The Marshal has plans to keep Solos as his own world, but first he has to contend with the fact that the astmosphere is poison to humans, the natives hate humans and want them all to leave, and there is a startling amount of mutation in the native population, turning humaniods into insectoid monsters that are hunted and killed as sport. Into this situation come the Doctor and Jo on a mission for the Time Lords to deliver a special package to Ky, a Solonian leader, and they are caught up in the Marshal's insane scheme, their own lives at risk.

As timelines go we have already this season seen Earth as a member of the Galactic Federation, so that would place The Mutants and any of Earth's imperial era stories somewhere before the events on Peladon. Why Earth was wasting time trying to colonize a planet with a poisonous atmosphere, though, is anyone's guess. No wonder the empire never held if this is any indicator of how it was being run. The Marshal is not exactly the kind of man you want running things as governor of your planet either; he's prejudiced and only out to perpetuate his own needs and hold onto whatever power he has. The title charcaters, the mutants themselves, are not pretty and rank as some of the scariest monsters in Doctor Who history, even if they are not as motivated and powerful as Daleks or Cybermen.

The Mutants marks the third time the Time Lords have seen fit to send the Doctor on an errand for them, and this one will have all sorts of repercussions down the road once it is over, which makes one wonder how many other Time Lord agents are out there on missions for them. And how do they equate this sort of thing with a policy of non-interferance - something they themselves put the Doctor on trial for and exiled him to Earth as a result. He doesn't seem to mind though, and Jo doesn't mind charging along with him to the unknown after getting used to her first off-planet experience in Colony in Space.

So we've seen another alient planet, one that looks not like a gravel pit, but the scrubby brush that grows around a gravel pit. Maybe it's progress, but we all know that gravel pits are what made the Doctor Who universe what it is. And corridors. Lots and lots of corridors. And failing corridors, some pretty cool location work in some funky-lit caves.

Ahead, though, is not a gravel pit, but modern Earth. And ancient Atlantis...

NEXT EPISODE : THE TIME MONSTER

The Sea Devils

The Doctor and Jo pay a visit to the Master at the high security prison that has become his home. Located on an island, it is the perfect escape-proof facility, with a naval base as a neighbour across the quay. A series of mysterious sinkings prompts the Doctor to assist the navy with their investigations, and it is revealed that the Master has coerced the prison warden to assist him in contacting the Sea Devils, underwater cousins of the Silurians, who are behind the attacks. The Master seeks to ignite a war between the Sea Devils and the humans, but just as the Doctor tries to broker peace once more, the navy attacks and drives the Sea Devils further down the road to war. Once again, there can be no peace between the two races, and the end result is another massive loss of reptilian life.

As the title suggests, a lot of this adventure happens in and around the sea, and with the co-operation of the Royal Navy this ambitious plan was realized. A lot of stock footage was provided of course, but there is extensive location work on a naval base and on a ship equipped with a diving bell. In a show of what was high tech for it's day, a hovercraft is also used to aid Jo's escape from the base, and her return with armed reinforcements to counter a Sea Devil incursion. Why the Royal Navy had two sea-doos standing by is a bit of a mystery but they provided a good high speed chase for the Doctor and the Master.

The idea of the Silurians having undersea counterparts is an interesting one, seeing as most alien menaces have one look, one species, one mode of dress, and everything else that is homogenized. The Sea Devils are designed to appear aquatic as opposed to the land-based look of the Silurians, complete with impressive fins on their heads (which were actually made as hats to make them appear that much taller) and some funky mesh wear. Only the chief Sea Devil actually speaks, in tones that one would expect from a giant reptile, the others just scream when they are shot or blown up. We don't get much of a look at their technology though; with the adventure being 6 episodes long and including so much location work it's possible there wasn't time or budget to build something for just a couple episodes, for the Sea Devil threat is not brought forward until the end of episode 4.

Prior to then, the plot is more concerned with the Doctor and the Master crossing swords (literally at the climax of episode 2) and the bluster and bull of Trenchard trying to keep the goings on at his prison a secret. Trenchard gets replaced as the annoying man in authority by a private parliamentary secretary, who does nothing more than demand food and give orders, and just to make you hate him more, there's a close up of his mouth while he's eating. In Claws of Axos we were treated to the wheedling Chin as government representative, and now this, which makes me wonder if the Doctor Who production crew had some big axe to grind with the British government at the time.

I keep saying this more and more, but I really want this one on DVD sometime soon. It's a classic Jon Pertwee adventure, even if it does suffer from what the late producer John Nathan-Turner said was the problem with 6 episode stories, being that the plot develops in such a way that it feels like a 4 episode story with another 2 thrown on for the heck of it. 3 of Jon Pertwee's 5 seasons follow the format brewing here: 2 adventures of 4 episodes, and 3 epic 6 episode stories, which efectively reduces the amount of scripts to 5 per season, as opposed to the 13 we enjoyed in the 2005 season.

So next up, 6 more episodes. With the Master escaped and on the loose, he's going to pop up again sometime soon.

But not just yet.

NEXT EPISODE : THE MUTANTS

The Curse of Peladon / The Face of the Enemy

The troubled planet of Peladon stands on a pivotal moment in its history; the King has applied for his planet's admission to the Galactic Federation to better his people's lives, but supersition and terror are standing in his way. While delegates from the Federation arrive to negotiate, an apparation of the planet's royal beast, Aggedor, stalks the passageways of the palace. The Doctor and Jo arrive on a test flight with the TARDIS, and after the ship is sent crashing down the side of a mountain are mistaken for the Federation delegates from Earth. Amongst the committe is the many tentacled Alpha Centauri, the truncated Arcturus, and a pair of Ice Warriors, who the Doctor immediately suspects of treachery. But in the future, the Ice Warriors are no longer an agressive race bent on conquest, and Mars is a founding member of the Federation. It becomes apparant that the trouble is an internal matter, with a faction of the royal court fearing Peladon's admission to the Federation as a threat to their soverign ways, and the Doctor must uncover the traitors on both sides while Jo dodges the earnest romantic overtures of Peladon himself.

This story should have started the season, not that farce of a Dalek tale. We are presented not only with a complex and rich culture on Peladon, but with a cluster of aliens; two new creatures and an old enemy changed their ways. For a monster, Centauri is not at all agressive or intimidating but a gentle, nervous creature that wants only peace, even if it is a little hung up on details. The Ice Warriors are incredible as always, noble and proper, but this time without vicious intent, making then perfect allies for the Doctor. This would be the only time the Ice Warriors appear in the show as good guys, but later adventures with them in print would pick up this thread again - even seeing them as guests at companion Bernice Summerfield's wedding. I like the Ice Warriors as benevolant aliens rather than marauding monsters; in science fiction television it is too easy to take something inhuman and make it evil and bent, rather than develop it as something good, and not misunderstood.

With all these aliens comes a challenge to the wardrobe and costume department, one they rose to with great flair. The attire of the people of Peladon is primarily a royal purple, robes on the noble, battle kilts on the soldiers. David Troughton (son of Patrick) gets a bit shortchanged as the King, though; he's either wearing shorts or a short kilt but with high boots that look like... umm... stockings. Wierd. But hey he's all man, chasing Jo about and wanting to marry her. Maybe it's his cross-dressing ways that really put her off, not her budding romance with Mike Yates that is mentioned in episode 1 and then never again. Well, she has effectively stood him up on a date by going off with the Doctor, so no wonder the whole relationship is going tits-up.

Curse of Peladon has a fun Canadian connection to it. For a while the BBC archive didn't have a copy of the adventure at all, but all four colour episodes were at TV Ontario and were returned in one lot. It's on VHS right now but would make a good additioon to the DVD line in 2006, I think.

Meanwhile back on Earth, Mike is fuming over Jo having stood him up, and the Brigaider finds himself in need of scientific advice in the Doctor's absence. Drafting from the scientific community worked before with Liz Shaw so UNIT calls on a noted scientist and his wife: Ian and Barbara Chesterton. Events around UNIT are taking a nasty turn with criminal warfare on the rise, and a threat apparantly outside of Earth itself growing, the Brigaider is forced to also turn to the imprisoned Master for assistance as well.

Adventures without the Doctor were commonplace by the time The Face of the Enemy was published in 1998. The Brigadier and UNIT had already been used in a more contemporary setting in the ReelTime pictures VHS movie Downtime, but having a UNIT adventure running parallel to the Doctor's absence is brilliant. Involving Ian and Barbara is nothing short of genius, bringing back two of the original companions to show that their lives did indeed have a happy ending, and that they have a son and were able to get back to normal after their years in time and space with the Doctor. Their son was already mentioned in the prologue of the novel Byzantium and this is set some time after that vingette. With the Doctor on Peladon, his former companions never do get to meet him and have to go through the whole regeneration explaination, which would just detract from the story itself. The Master works well without the Doctor as a foil, matching wits with the Brigadier and the Chestertons but never overcoming them; their association with the Doctor has changed them all, and they are able to keep his old enemy in check while trying to work with him.

The other continuity note I will make is something of a spoiler, but as this book is listed as out of print now it's unlikely anyone is reading this right now and looking forward to getting their hands on a copy. Mind you, if you ARE reading The Face of the Enemy or plan to some day, stop right now. Close your browser. Thank you. Right. I was not a fan of author David A McIntee's work when he first penned the seventh Doctor new adventures novel White Darkness, but as he produced more work I found myself going from non fan to big fan, and it's because of novels like this that I like his work. McIntee pays such strict attention to continuity it's like he is on some mission to interwaeve his own contributions to Doctor Who so tightly with others that we accept his as official and discount lesser works. McIntee's forte was the historical adventure until he hit the sci fi payload with Lords of the Storm, and with Face of the Enemy he ties together elements from his second Doctor missing adventures novel The Dark Path (which I did not mention because I dopn't have a copy to go back and check anymore) and the apocalyptic television serial Inferno to create this story's central plot device: a benign alternate universe Master captured by the people of Inferno's Earth, and his TARDIS being used to allow the desperate people from that reality into ours to escape and plunder. Amazing. And brilliantly presented on page. And there's even a quick nod given to Miss Hawthorne and the people of Devil's End.

It's not often I am impressed to this length with a BBC novel; I find the bulk of them to try to achieve too much, and their authors not disciplined enough to know when to stop. But this one... wow. Perfect. PER-FECT.

Now back to television.

NEXT EPISODE : THE SEA DEVILS

Day of the Daleks

A high ranking diplomat attempting to broker peace in the face of a new world war is attacked in his home by a man who vanishes into thin air. The Doctor and Jo investigate and encounter soldiers from the future who have come back in time on an assassination mission which they believe will change the future. And in that future, Earth is dominated by the Daleks. After a series of wars the planet was left defenceless and wide open to invasion, and all remanining humans were sent to work for the Daleks under the watchful eye of turncoat humans and fierce Ogrons. The Doctor realizes that the freedom fighters who are attempting to unseat the Daleks have created a temporal paradox and actually started the chain of events that will lead to their own subjugation - a chain that must be broken to free Earth from the Daleks once more.

I don't always like stories like this, but only because they never end properly. By definition a temporal paradox does not end but keeps playing through time like a loop, and if that loop is broken there would be no trace of it at all in the end. That said, if we remove the reason for going back in time in the first place, then no-one should actually go back in time, and the whole chain of events should never happen. I saw this happen once on an episode of Star Trek : Voyager and was pleased that they of all production teams got it right. Here, though, we get a resolution (and a pretty limp ending too) and in future there will be reference made to it where no-one should actually remember anything.

The other interesting point in this whole "alternate" timeline take is the time it takes place in; UNIT stories are all pretty much accepted as taking place in the year they were broadcast (in this case 1972), aside from a few references that leave people wondering if maybe UNIT was in the 80's as a vision of the future. Either way, the Dalek-occupied Earth in this story is set 200 years in the future, so call it 2172. The original Dalek invasion of Earth from the Hartnell era was set in or around 2164, and came about under completely different circumstances. None of this is mentioned in the script of course but I just thought it would be fun to point out.

I don't know why the Daleks were used for this. Terry Nation had taken away the Dalek rights following The Evil of the Daleks and came crawling back to the BBC when his dreams of franchises in the United States never materialized, so someone must have decided it would be a good time to use them now that they had been missing for 4 years. I have this feeling the script was actually written for a completely different alien menace and adjusted to fit the Daleks. The thing is, they don't actually do much. It's painfully obvious that there are only three of them being used for filming - two grey and one gold "chief" Dalek and for the most part they sit in their control room and bully the waxy-faced humans who are serving them. In episode 4 they finally go on the offensive, but by then it's too late to impress, and they're just plain boring. Their voices are not the best either; two completely new performers provided the voices this time around, but they're not very good.

As season premieres go, this was pretty weak. Thankfully the rest of the season ahead is going to be good, and the next few appearances of the Daleks (there will be a Dalek story each season for the next 4 years) are going to be better than this. I'd like the Restoration Team to get on this one please, only to get it on DVD so I can retire the old laserdisc I watched this on (there were only 2 Doctor Who adventures put on laserdisc in the 90's, the other being The Five Doctors from 1983).

Next, the Doctor goes back into space at last, while Earth is put in peril again in his absence...

NEXT EPISODES : THE CURSE OF PELADON / THE FACE OF THE ENEMY

The Daemons

At a small village called Devil's End, an archaelogist is getting set to cut open an ancient barrow called The Devil's Hump. BBC 3 is there live, broadcasting the dig across the country, and it raises the ire of not only the local white witch, Miss Olive Hawthorne, but it grabs the Doctor's attention as well. The Doctor rushes to stop the dig but is too late, and an ancient alien force is unleashed, sealing off Devil's End with a heat barrier and trapping the Doctor, Jo, Benton, Yates, and the villagers of Devil's End together - with the Master! The Hump is actually the final resting place of a spaceship belonging to Azal, last of the Daemons, and opening it has caused Azal to arise at the Master's call. Armed with the stone gargoyle Bok and hostile villagers, the Master intends to persuade Azal to hand him his power; the Daemons gave knowledge to mankind all through the ages and now view Earth as an experiment destined for the bin. The Doctor realizes that Azal will destroy the world if he does not act, but it is Jo who saves the day with an act of self scarifice, even though she doesn't die.

This is Jon Pertwee's favourite story, and I can sort of see why; it is a good example of a hidden evil and dark power in a place where you wouldn't expect it. The regular cast is at their best, Roger Delgado giving us a totally malevolant Master, which is made all the sweeter when he is finally captured and arrested by UNIT. Of course, Jay and I find all sorts of fun where normally one wouldn't; like the fight scenes between the UNIT men and the posessed villagers. The Brigadier's "date" with the woman who may one day be his wife. Azal the hairy Daemon who should by rights be at O'Grady's bear night on Fridays. We're not quite sure when Jo became an animal rights activist, running to interrupt the Master's sacrifice of a chicken to Azal. The spectacle of the villagers attempting to perform their May Day celebrations amid all the horror around them is surreal at best, especially when they turn on the Doctor and spank him with a bladder on a stick. Lucky they're superstitious though and accept Miss Hwthorne's claim of the Doctor being a wizard. "Daughter of light," Jay cackled, almost rolling off the couch. Maybe that's why she blinks so much; she likes the strobe light effect it creates. We're not sure if she can even see; she's always looking in the wrong direction when she speaks, but she's got her limited strobing sights set on Benton, appearing to ply him with booze in episode 3. "What's the witch doing behind the bar?" Jay asked. "Helping herself, it seems," I observed. Must be nice. And why, I ask, is the lightning in episode 1 timed right with the thunder? Anyone knows that is never the case. And the sound of BBC lightning... "All the same," says Jay. Not so much a thunderclap but someone waving a sheet of metal around in front of a microphone. And maybe dropping something down the stairs as well.

We've noticed something about the third Doctor. He has his own lexicon of insults and barbs. Everyone who displeases him is an idiot. A buffon. A numbskull. A nitwit. We love it. One night we're going to go to the bar and try to use all these terms, although they just seem so natural coming from such an elegant, stylish character as the Doctor; they just roll off his tongue. Again, though... "Daughter of light,"

The Daemons was actually the first adventure to be colourized for it's home video release, and it met with better success than others have. Episode 4 is still in its orginal state, so we get some perfect clarity, but the rest if downgraded from the merging of colour with black and white. This makes the shimmering edges of bluescreen effects even worse though, and the sequence of Azal materializing and growing to gargantuan size at the climax of episode 4 and opening of episode 5 suffers from it. And it's an odd length as well; 5 episodes, the only story of this length ever in the classic series. The show does succeed in the atmosphere of fear in the small village as things begin to go wrong; I was tempted to pair this with a viewing of a movie called Gargoyles just for fun, their culture melding with that of Azal. Mind you, Gargoyles is no Daemons and should apparantly "just be thrown away" according to my buddy Joe Bifolchi. (Whose name I have included in full should he ever want to Google himself and see what comes up... HI JOEY!!!)

And that's the end of season 8. The Master in custody and locked away, the Doctor and Jo dancing gaily around the May Pole with the good people of Devil's End (and I ask you - if the village was named that, how could they NOT see disaster looming). Enjoy the rest, Doctor; you're about to meet some old enemies...

NEXT EPISODE : DAY OF THE DALEKS

PS See my blog for The Chase from March 2005... it's been updated.