The Easter Sunday special of ‘Jonathan Creek‘ – The Judas Tree – features the Doctor Who duo of Sheridan Smith and Paul McGann, previously only heard on BBC Radio 7 or via download as Lucie and the Eighth Doctor. Worth a look, I’m sure. Seems like perfect timing given the return of Who this weekend.
Category: The Classic Doctor
“Life’s not a game son. I’m teaching you the art of survival…”
Survival… I’ve had this sat on top of the video pile for a while. Sunday afternoon seemed as good a time as any to watch it again.
I love the Doctor’s characterisation here, keen to find a mystery at the bottom of a cat food tin. Perivale seems over-grown and near derelict, bereft of inhabitants except a few scant ‘survivors’. However, the analogies and comments all seem too heavily laced with references to survival; and action, and acting, a little too wooden compared to the Who of today. Sylvester and Sophie act, but it feels like the plot’s so leaden they can’t drive much energy into it. The Doctor, fascinated by the black cat, spends the whole first episode chasing it and basically failing miserably, before engaging in a spot of pointless wall-crawling reminiscent of the pointless ice wall abseiling from ‘Dragonfire’. Ace pursues her friends, many missing for weeks, but doesn’t really seem to care either about what might have happened to them or what the Doctor might be up to.
In many ways, Episode 1 feels like a role-playing game adventure run badly. The gamemaster seems to have lost control of the players, uncertain how to guide them towards the plot while they wander hither and yon doing whatever they want to do. Mid-way through Episode 2, with cats feasting and fighting, we get a vague hint of a purpose – but nothing much. The Master appears to have become trapped on the Cheetah Planet and infected with some feline DNA, separated from his TARDIS; but, quite why The Doctor might find a solution The Master could not doesn’t make sense. Couldn’t The Master trap one of the prey teleported from Earth and infect it, then use it to head there? Surely he could then use resources left behind from his previous visits to Earth to either get back to his TARDIS or trick someone into helping him get to wherever he left it.
The idea of a living planet that enjoys a symbiotic existence with it’s inhabitants has potential. The world can only survive while the Cheetah People live on, but their feline instincts mean they live to fight, live to feast. When people engage in battle with the inhabitants, they become part of the chain of existence, an element of the relationship. Midge and Ace do battle – the former more violently than the latter – and both become infected with the Cheetah People DNA.
Anyway… I can’t feel too mean towards this story, the final episodes of the old series. Littered with things to fault, driven by a plot full of holes like Swiss cheese and filled with pantomime cat people, Survival spells the end of an era. I loved Ace and the Seventh Doctor – and they’ll always occupy a soft spot in my fan boy heart.
“There are worlds out there where the sky is burning, and the sea’s asleep, and the rivers dream. People made of smoke, and cities made of song. Somewhere there’s danger, somewhere there’s injustice, and somewhere else the tea’s getting cold! Come on, Ace — we’ve got work to do!”
Just watched Sylvester McCoy making a brief guest appearance on ‘Al Murray’s Multiply Personality Disorder’. Not the highlight of his comedy career exactly, playing doctor (ha!) to Murray’s gay Nazi. Still, nice to see him on telly again.
Having thoroughly enjoyed the return of the 5th Doctor in ‘Time Crash’, I celebrated the almost-New-Year by watching the 7th and 8th Doctors in ‘The TV Movie‘. I can’t help but appreciate the camp humour and Hollywood-style entertainment delivered in this extended slice of fun. I know, from the audio adventures, that Paul McGann certainly has what it takes to make a great Time Lord.
I watched the full uncut version on this occasion, for the first time since the original release in 1996. The full cut contains some more bullets and a morbid final scream from the dying 7th Doctor, on the operating table, but I fail to understand what all the fuss was about and why the TV censors chose to enforce the changes. The TV Movie contains many of the elements of the series to come – like the Doctor’s encouragable name dropping, the moments of passionate romance, and even the hand-in-hand run with Grace that mirrors the 9th Doctor and Rose running across the bridge in ‘Rose‘. The Master continues to use and dispose of anyone assisting – or obstructing – him with customary indifference… Mrs Saxon should feel relieved she didn’t go the way of Bruce’s wife.
Certain elements necessitate the interests of a fan boy to make any sense… You can forgive the half-human element if you accept the line when the Doctor tells Grace he could choose to change his species upon regeneration and that the 7th Doctor had drifted far enough from humanity to want to make an enforced return to something less otherworldly. It was he who chose to give up his Time Lord existence within the pages of ‘Human Nature‘, while the 8th Doctor would later become completely human in the New Adventure novels of the BBC. On the other hand, parts make complete sense and don’t need excuse now that Russell has delivered three seasons. The TARDIS restoring Chang Lee and Grace to life closely resembles the restoration of Captain Jack by ‘Bad Wolf’ Rose and the miraculous return of the Doctor in ‘Last of the Time Lords‘ – so, why not… Nothing out of the ordinary there.
Flawed at heart and a failed pilot, The TV Movie nevertheless delivers a hefty dose of high entertainment, complete with a breathtaking TARDIS makeover and a fine new Doctor. I can but hope that Russell T Davies will do the right thing and give us a televised glimpse of the 8th Doctor and the role he played in the Time War. I’m sure Paul McGann would relish finally having the chance to tread the boards as the Time Lord again and get the chance, at last, to continue the tradition of taking part in the regeneration sequence. No need for Chris to participate – now that we have a recognizable regeneration special effect, we just need the 8th Doctor to make some great sacrifice and suffer a mortal injury… then mid-regeneration, cut back to the 10th Doctor recounting the tale to Donna (or Martha… or whoever!).
I’m getting all excited about this evening now… so much so that I’m writing this entry when I really don’t have much to say. All these pictures of Peter and David simply make the whole wait nearly too much to handle… but, I’m sure I’ll struggle through somehow and will have the recorder ready to save this 7-minute special for posterity.
I sincerely hope that the man who put the wow-factor into ‘Blink’ will deliver an entertaining, engaging and exciting micro-sode… I know that anything would be better than ‘Dimensions in Time’ (or whatever the last ‘Children in Need’ episode was called), but I’m hankering after a story that will raise it above simply just being better.
I’ve been listening to ‘Neverland‘ on the way to work – another excellent 8th Doctor adventure from Big Finish.
The Doctor and Charley have to face up to the reality of their situation – Charley should have died when the R-101 airship crashed in the 1930s. The Time Lords intend to make the Doctor answer for his interference, but is that all they desire? In truth, their interest lies with Charley more than the Doctor, as she represents the key to accessing a domain outside of time and the possibility of the return of a hero of Gallifrey… or, perhaps, its final doom.
While you can’t honestly get the most out of this adventure without listening to some of what has gone before – you can’t fault it for entertainment value. As well as Romana and other Time Lords, the story features Battle TARDIS and temporal torpedoes that put me in mind a few BBC line books where the Time Lords of the future showed their truly warlike tendencies under pressure from Faction Paradox.
Excellent stuff!
Stumbled across a great arrangement of the theme from the TV Movie, remixed by a guy called Hardwire. Highly recommended – and you can download the mp3 file from several places online – including this one at whomix.
It struck me that Gwen and Peri experienced similarly dubious life-threatening assaults, in Cyberwoman and Vengeance on Varos, respectively.
In the latter, while the Varosians struggle to deal with the Doctor, they send Peri and a rebel off to undergo weird DNA regression therapy that brings out the inner animal in those treated. Peri promptly starts a steady, uncomfortable transformation into a bird – feathers and all. However, the Doctor manages to stop the process at the last moment and the significant changes simply fade away, leaving Peri weakened, confused, but ultimately unharmed. Odd, considering the maniacal scientist responsible for the experiment seemed so darn certain the procedure had gone too far to stop.
For Gwen, the impending danger came in the form of enforced cyber-conversion. The cyberwoman dispatches Owen with a slap and then forces Gwen into the cyber-convertor. Gwen screams as electricity courses through the frame and then the automated cyber-conversion module above her opens up to reveal various whirling blades and slashing scalpels. Whirl, slash, whirl, slash… the machine hangs there for an age, apparently getting no closer to Gwen from the looks of the long shots, until finally Jack manages to get Toshiko to shut down the main power. Whirl, slash, whirl, slash… whirl, stop. Considering the speed of cyber-conversion seen during the attack on Torchwood in London, this machine must have been in need of a service or something. Gwen would have been screaming for hours before the darn blades even got close to cutting her up…
Really, if you’re going to expose people to impending peril or permanent transformation into a budgie, at least make the danger seem real.
The Talons of Weng-Chiang – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
The Doctor brings Leela to Victorian London to see how her ancestors lived, but is rapidly drawn into a fiendish plot involving Chinese tongs, disappearing women, an Oriental stage magician, a murderous ventriloquist’s dummy and giant rats in the sewers.
Had the pleasure of watching this story for the first time the other night… Well, over the course of two nights, as I watched the concatenated VHS version. The story represents a superb example of Doctor Who at its very finest – with great villains, atmosphere and fine location filming. Yes, I can see perfectly where some might label the story racist – with the whole business of those dash distrustful Chinese – but I wouldn’t dream of faulting it for that – and I can see why fans have rated the story so highly. I loved the Professor Lightfoot character and would have appreciated the chance to see a little more of him, perhaps as an ongoing companion rather than a one-off. He reminded me of Terry Jones for some reason… probably the manner of speech and facial expressions.
The giant rat proved the finest element, without doubt. A finer animal I have not seen since my childhood watching Rentaghost! I watched with my 10 year old son and he found it hilarious, as various members of the cast suffered vicious attacks from this dubious and utterly unconvincing predator of the Victorian London sewers. Perhaps Russel T. could bring the rats back for the next series?