The Gotham Society

Doctor Who and the Silurians. I’ll just go ahead and get...

Tue, 14 May 2013 17:15:16 -0500

Doctor Who and the Silurians.

I’ll just go ahead and get it out of the way. Yes, that is the title. I know he’s not Doctor Who, he’s the Doctor. No, this doesn’t mean that calling him Doctor Who in real life is okay. I don’t care what it says in the credits or in the title, when refering to the character you always call him, The Doctor. Not Doctor Who, not Doc, not Dr. Who, just, The Doctor.

Anyway, this serial, which from now on will just be referred to as The Silurians, mostly to save time, is really quite good. But it does highlight some problems that are inherent with the classic series, as well as a few that are unique to itself. The costumes for the Silurians are not great. It’s very obviously a man in a rubber suit, and the heads do look a bit like a duck. The sets do wobble, a bit, and it’s very obvious they were on a budget, but the way they creatively use the sets makes it look like they were able to build a lot more. Plus this is one of, if not the, first use of blue screen in the series. And like all blue screen, especially that of the time, it stands out a lot. Plus, and this is not something that is inherently typical of the series, the music is not great. The idea behind it is interesting, the composer wanted to use medieval instruments for the Silurians’ musical cues, because they were from the distant past and that would give it an old other worldly effect. But what actually happens is a rather comical score, that undercuts the sinister intent of the Silurians, and makes them seem more comical instead.

But despite this, The Silurians is a wonderful story. The villain is never extremely clear cut, just a series of characters who are trying to do the best thing, as they see it. The story takes it’s time, but never feels like it’s padded out. Jon Pertwee and Nicholas Courtney are wonderful, and you feel that even though they end on opposite sides of the argument, they still have a great respect for each other.

It is a great story, and one of Pertwee’s best.

It’s the 70’s! New Decade, New Doctor, New Monsters...

Mon, 13 May 2013 17:15:41 -0500

It’s the 70’s! New Decade, New Doctor, New Monsters and now in color!

Spearhead from Space is the first serial with Jon Pertwee, the Third Doctor. At the end of The War Games, the Doctor is convicted of meddling in time, and the Time Lords exile him to Earth, taking away his knowledge of how the TARDIS works, and forcing him to regenerate.

The Doctor finds himself in the middle of a plot by the Nestene Consciosness, and their army of Autons, to take over Britain. And with the aid of The Brigadier, Liz Shaw, and the rest of UNIT the Doctor is able to defeat the plastic menace.

Spearhead from Space is a bit odd in the history of Doctor Who, usually, and it’ll become more pronounced later on, Doctor Who was shot with video in studio, and with film on location, giving it a very distinct look. But this serial was shot completely on location and on film, making it look completely unique compared to the rest of the show. And as a consequence of that it is the only Classic serial that can be released on Blu-Ray.

The Second Doctor Era

Mon, 13 May 2013 15:01:57 -0500

The Second Doctor is the Doctor. That statement is, admittedly, a little strange. They are all the Doctor. But with Two, for the first time, you see the Doctor actually being the Doctor.

With the First Doctor, he’s almost a secondary character, he lets his companions take the spotlight. But starting with Two, he’s the hero. He’s the one that goes in and tries and enact change. And this portrayal has become the portrayal of the Doctor. Or at least the predominate one. He is still the manipulator, and he never stops being that, but he has grown and does his best to do the right thing. The Doctor in An Unearthly Child would never contact the Time Lords in The War Games to fix everything.

The Second Doctor is fun, he’s funny. He’s been described as a cosmic hobo and crazy uncle, and both describe him perfectly. He’s great.

Plus some of the best stories in the history of the show happen during Troughton’s tenure, including Tomb of the Cybermen, my personal favorite story.

Season 6

Mon, 13 May 2013 10:00:41 -0500

Unlike Season 5, which was very much about it’s formula, Season 6 has no formula. In many ways it’s one of the most experimental seasons of Doctor Who. Some of those experiments fail, but others succeed spectacularly. It is one of my favorite seasons, overall, and with one of my favorite companion teams, Jamie and Zoe. It’s simply wonderful.

The Dominators - 5

The Mind Robber - 9

The Invasion - 9

The Krotons - 5

The Seeds of Death - 8

The Space Pirates - 4

The War Games - 10

Season 6 - 7.1429

There are a lot of interesting facts about The War Games....

Sun, 12 May 2013 17:15:38 -0500

There are a lot of interesting facts about The War Games. Longest surviving story, well as long as you don’t count Trail of The Time Lord as one story, which I don’t. It’s the last Second Doctor serial. It’s the last serial of the 60’s. It’s the last story to be made in black and white. It’s also the first time we discover that the Doctor is a Time Lord. It’s also the first time we travel to Gallifrey, although it wouldn’t be named for awhile yet.

But those are just facts. What The War Games is, is a fast paced story, that twists and turns and never feels like it’s ten part length. It is without a doubt, one of Troughton’s best stories and is only comparable to The Caves of Androzani for a Doctor’s exit. It is without a doubt one of the absolute best Doctor Who stories ever made.

The Space Pirates is so dull it even puts the Doctor, Jamie and...

Sat, 11 May 2013 17:16:27 -0500

The Space Pirates is so dull it even puts the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe to sleep.

This is Robert Holmes second script. And if it and The Krotons was any indication, he wasn’t to go far. Luckily his next story is better. Anyway, The Space Pirates is kind of a western in space, more so than Star Trek was. But it really just falls flat. Thing is, if it was worst, I’d have more to say, but it’s just dull.

Seeds of Death is pretty great. Sure, the space jumpsuits are a...

Fri, 10 May 2013 17:15:16 -0500

Seeds of Death is pretty great. Sure, the space jumpsuits are a bit silly, but the story it’s self is pretty exciting. The Ice Warriors want the Earth for themselves, so using seed pods that will terraform the Earth into a planet more habitable for the Martians.

But what it is is a pretty clever throwback to Season 5’s ‘base under siege’ structure. Unlike most of the rest of the season, this is a very straight forward and simple Doctor Who story. It’s not trying to introduce a replacement for the Daleks or trying a new or clever idea of what Doctor Who can be, it’s just Troughton by the numbers. And because of that it works really well.

Plus, got to love an Ice Warrior.

Robert Holmes, the writer of The Krotons, would go on to be one...

Thu, 09 May 2013 17:15:47 -0500

Robert Holmes, the writer of The Krotons, would go on to be one of the best writers, and for some, including RTD, the best writer, in the history of Doctor Who. But The Krotons is not his best story.

It’s pretty clichéd all around, even for the time. Oppressed society, that doesn’t even realize it’s oppressed. Enter the Doctor, who sees the world as it really is and tries to enact change to stop the oppression. The design of the Krotons is not bad, and the fact that they’re a crystalline organism is pretty neat, but overall it’s just a pretty average Doctor Who serial.

For those following along, so far there have been two prototype...

Wed, 08 May 2013 17:15:00 -0500

For those following along, so far there have been two prototype UNIT stories in Doctor Who. First there was The War Machines, in which modern London is attacked by the Intelligent Computer WOTAN and his War Machines, and the First Doctor aids the military in stopping it. Then there was The Web of Fear in which The Great Intelligence and the Yeti attack the London Underground and the Second Doctor meets, then, Colonel Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart. Both of those use characters and ideas that would eventually factor into the fundamental change that comes with the Third Doctor. But before that we get The Invasion which is the actual first full UNIT story.

This story finds the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe on earth in modern day Earth. Well 1960’s Earth. Well maybe the 1970’s but we’re ignoring UNIT dating for now cause, well, it’s complicated and I’m just going to blame it on the Time War anyway. The TARDIS is invisible and needs new circuits cause getting back from the Land of Fiction messed it up. Immediately they get wrapped up in some industrial intrigue involving missing scientists and other strange goings on on the campus of International Electromatics. Plus Zoey talks a computer into exploding.

The Invasion is your basic Doctor Who alien invasion story. They sneak around, influencing events till at the end they go full scale and attack from the shadows. So no surprises there. But still it’s an expertly played version. As an admitted huge fan of the Cybermen, this design is my favorite throughout the history of Doctor Who. They are the most refined and elegant of the 60’s Cybermen. The later Cybermen in Revenge of the Cybermen, the 80’s and the New Series, just over complicate this design (although the ones in Nightmare in Silver are looking pretty good, but still a little over designed).

I’ll talk about UNIT more when we get to Pertwee, mostly because they factor in much more. But here, in their first story, they work wonderfully. You really get the sense that they are humanities first line of defense, and the Brigadier and Sergent Benton are great, as always.

This was the first story to have it’s missing parts animated. I’m not that big of a fan of this style of animation, (and of the only other released story with animation, Reign of Terror, is not much of an improvement), but it does work, and gets you through the story. I’m hoping that we’ll get more animation of the missing episodes, and with the forth coming release of The Ice Warriors, The Moonbase, and The Tenth Planet, it looks like we may get all 106 missing episodes animated, although probably not before the 100th unless animation costs go down, but one step at a time.

Opps

Tue, 07 May 2013 22:32:27 -0500

I did the math. I have to watch/review one serial a day to make it to the 50th. Which shouldn’t be too hard, but man. I don’t know if I can keep that pace. Never do the math. Never do the math.

The Mind Robber is a very strange story. The first episode is a...

Mon, 06 May 2013 17:15:35 -0500

The Mind Robber is a very strange story. The first episode is a haunting, even terrifying episode. The other four parts are a strange trip in to wonderland and are even quite comical and don’t exactly fit with the first episode. But overall it balances out to be a pretty great serial. I don’t want to go into too much detail because, while not a life ending spoiler, half the fun of watching it is trying to figure out exactly what’s going on.

The Dominators is average. It’s not got much good going...

Fri, 03 May 2013 17:15:24 -0500

The Dominators is average. It’s not got much good going for it, but then it’s also not got anything that’s just horribly bad. Well maybe the Quarks are really bad, but the idea of them isn’t too bad, and the design isn’t too bad, the voices are, but that’s really beside the point. It moves along well enough, and the idea behind the whole episode is solid, even if the execution isn’t.

The basic idea is that a completely peaceful race of pacifist are invaded by a race called the Dominators who are their polar opposites. But what actually ends up happening is that the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe end up running around a quarry for five episodes, where each cliffhanger is the same, the insubordinate Dominator, the one on the right in the photo, tells the Quarks to ‘Destroy!’ something or other.

So not bad, not good, just average.

Season 5

Thu, 02 May 2013 17:15:37 -0500

Season 5 is the ‘Base Under Siege’ season. What this means is that a small group of people in a defensible area are besieged, overtly or covertly, by an outside force. In this season, six of the seven stories show elements of this format. And it works for the most part very well, even if each week does become very predictable. Of the three seasons that are mostly lost, three, four and five, I could definitely argue that this is the one I want found and whole the most. That has more to do with the overal quality of the season as a whole. Three was definitely feeling the end of Hartnell’s rein and the internal strife did not help things feel cohesive. And four, while revitalized by the introduction of Troughton, is a bit more hit and miss. But season five is just fun Doctor Who with crazy monsters and running around. But really I want it all found or animated, which could happen sometime before the 100th.

Anyway for those who are just joining us, or wish for a reminder, what follows are my individual ratings out of ten for each story. I use the whole scale, with a 5 being average, not 7.

Tomb of the Cybermen - 10

The Abominable Snowmen - 9

The Ice Warriors - 6

The Enemy of the World - 9

The Web of Fear - 9

Fury From the Deep - 7

The Wheel in Space - 7

Season 5 - 8.1429

We need to talk about Zoey. Zoey is awesome, is crazy smart,...

Wed, 01 May 2013 17:15:26 -0500

We need to talk about Zoey. Zoey is awesome, is crazy smart, sometimes even smarter than the Doctor. She’s great and this is her first story, The Wheel in Space.

The Cybermen are my favorite monster. Sure that might be my Star Trek: The Next Generation roots showing, but the idea of someones humanity and individuality being lost, either by choice or by force, is truly terrifying for me. Granted that’s not showcased in this particular serial. What is, is a basic and formulaic ‘base under siege’ story that is the format for this whole season.

The Cybermen want to invade Earth and the first step in that is to take out the Wheel. So for six episodes they use stealth and subterfuge to try and take over the base and it works pretty well. In this, Zoe’s introduction, she acts more like a walking computer than she does in later stories, but with her addition we get to what is for many the defining TARDIS team for the Second Doctor, if not for the whole show.

Admittedly I can’t tell you much of what happened in Fury...

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 17:15:50 -0500

Admittedly I can’t tell you much of what happened in Fury From the Deep, mostly because I was busy and listened to this lost story in October and it’s nearly May now. But what I can say is the version I have, the first cassette version, has Tom Baker reading it, and by reading I mean narration to go along with the recorded TV track, as the Fourth Doctor recalling the adventure. It works really well. The later CD release have Frazer Hines, and if it’s anything like the other lost story sound tracks, it’ll be closer to the original broadcast in presentation. But the story it’s self is pretty interesting and was one of the more impressive visually, if the behind the scenes video is any indication.

Lost Doctor Who makes me sad. So many great important moments...

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 17:15:31 -0500

Lost Doctor Who makes me sad. So many great important moments are lost and this is another one of those. The Web of Fear marks the first appearance of, then, Colonial Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, played by the late, great Nicholas Courtney.

As for the story itself, it’s really quite fun and gloomy. A sequel to The Abominable Snowmen, The Great Intelligence returns, this time sending the Yeti to attack the London Underground.

All around a great atmospheric story that I can’t wait to actually see, eventually.

I love The Enemy of the World. Unlike every other story in this...

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 17:15:44 -0500

I love The Enemy of the World. Unlike every other story in this season, which follows the ‘Base Under Siege’ formula, The Enemy of the World is a globetrotting political thriller. And Patrick Troughton plays both the Doctor and the villain, Salamander. And he’s simply wonderful.

I must admit, The Ice Warriors did not grab me. (And by...

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 17:16:17 -0500

I must admit, The Ice Warriors did not grab me. (And by consequence that fact, as well as some unforeseen personal problems, lead to me getting very far behind on these review, things) So I can’t really say I’ve given it a fair shot. I’m a big fan of the Ice Warriors as a monster, so I need to give this story a second chance. The fact that the two episodes of this story that are missing are being animated for the release in August and with that release I’ll definitely give it a second chance.

I’ll be starting back up my posts about my Doctor Who Marathon next week. They may not be very...

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 21:38:44 -0500

I’ll be starting back up my posts about my Doctor Who Marathon next week. They may not be very detailed, but they should be interesting enough. Enjoy.

You. Me. All of Doctor Who. Where do you want to start?

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 20:57:41 -0500

You. Me. All of Doctor Who. Where do you want to start?