FTA: Doctor Who Classic: The Five Doctors, Warriors of the Deep and The Twin Dilemma

This fifth volume of articles from Celebrate, Regenerate! covers stories from Season 21. (See here for more on this project.)

The Five Doctors
(Main article.)

The Five Doctors was where I started with Who, all the way back in 2003 when I first watched the Special Edition DVD and fell head over heels in love with Doctor Who. I was running around the playground pretending to be a Dalek two years before any of my friends had heard of them, and one of my favourite playground games was “Raston Warrior Robot.” I did what all children tend to do with DVD and video at that age; I watched it again, and again, and again until the disk itself was so out of commission that I had to order the 2008 release just to be able to see it again. It’s a story that stands at the centre of my love of Doctor Who, and I cherish it like no other.
     As a starter story, it’s got everything. The concept of regeneration is explained so fluently, and you get to sample the second-to-fifth Doctors (and an approximation of the first) without breaking a sweat. As a child, I was drawn to everything – the trek through the Death Zone, the ancient myths of Rassilon, the hallucinations in the corridors, the swooshy CGI time-scoop taking away old companions, and most of all I loved the Cybermen; their deep booming voices and their few vestiges of humanity peeking through their spandex. (Ooh, sounds rude.)
      What did The Five Doctors tell me about this strange new “Doctor Who”? It told me that this was a show with a lot of great ideas and a rich history filled with a wide variety of monsters, heroes and companions. It was tense, it was scary, but it was also a hell of a lot of fun. The Five Doctors did what it was intended to do, and in a really profound way it is to date the greatest celebration of Doctor Who’s rich and varied history.
    Until the 50th, that is. We hope.

Warriors of the Deep
(Main article.)

In the past, I've realised that I’ve been very kind to a gamut of Doctor Who stories that many would consider… less than adequate. My optimism when it comes to Who has been challenged many times, but none more so than the 1981 story, Warriors of the Deep. The story is a rare example in Doctor Who of when The Doctor has a bit of an off-day. Here, there is no doubt that the Doctor’s is a Pyrrhic victory; everyone bar the main cast is dead by the end, some in incredibly gruesome ways. After Johnny Byrne’s other stories, which celebrated human kindness and ingenuity, it’s a bit of a shock that the attempt to channel Cold War themes translates roughly into a theme of, “Sentient beings have the capacity to do horrible things, and you shouldn't trust anyone.”
     Now that doesn’t make the story bad, necessarily, but it does make it a bit of a downer. I can celebrate the beauty of a tragic opera just as well as I can the rhythm of a Madness song. What I’m essentially saying, and I don’t mean to sound pretentious here, is that Warriors of the Deep is a piece of high-class art. Stop snickering. What Warriors attempts, and ultimately succeeds, in representing, is that the state of paranoia caused by the Cold War only causes us to lose our humanity. The Silurians’ motives, while perhaps alien to us, are completely in line with the frighteningly paranoid people on both sides of their futuristic war. These people have become so consumed by war and death that their motivations are now as alien as those of our reptilian brethren. The guard who refuses to open the door to allow Tegan and The Doctor escape from the Myrka; the bomb controller, whose reluctant actions under hypnosis represent man under the Cold War, and the Sea Devils, whose presence reinforces the absurdity of each side’s power blocs.
     Warriors of the Deep isn’t much to look at, and if you want to try to treat it like a traditional Doctor Who adventure then you’re not going to get much out of it. But take it as a metaphor, as a warning, and then perhaps it’s possible to ignore the special effects failures, ignore the wet paint of the costumes, and see it for the masterpiece it really is.

The Twin Dilemma

(Main article.)

I found myself in what I then considered to be a very perilous position when I first sat down to watch The Twin Dilemma. The end-credits rolled after episode four, and… and… I liked it. I bloody loved it, and I could see absolutely no reason (beyond the whole momentary-strangling thing) why it was the subject of such venomous assaults as I had seen in Fandom. It was then that I and fandom decided that for the most part, we had a serious disagreement. 

     The best thing about the story, when you get past the run-of-the-mill story with its traditional villain, setup and nods to the past, is by far Colin Baker’s performance as the unstable and out-of-control early Sixth Doctor. His spasmodic episodes of villainy tow a line between frightening and funny, and especially towards the end of the episode one begins to wonder whether The Doctor is in on the act, and is simply using his condition in order to get away with doing whatever he damn well wants. It’s incredibly refreshing and it embodies what I love about the Sixth Doctor – he doesn’t care about what others think of him as long as he manages to both enjoy himself and save the day. 

     And everyone remembers the story for the strangling bit, yes. It is a bit over the top, and I would have toned it down a bit, but I don’t object to it in principle. The New Series is all about showing us how dark The Doctor can be, and this is just an extension of that. Instead of showing him brooding over an act of slight moral ambiguity, The Twin Dilemma takes the bulls by the horns and exposes a raw part of The Doctor’s id, taking the audience into the potential evil that lies within him – as we see later in The Valeyard and The Dream Lord. 

     What does The Twin Dilemma ultimately do? It introduces a new Doctor and does it in style. So what if the story’s a bit one-note, when the main character is this good so early on in his career? Of course, some people aren’t going to agree with me. But when it comes to this story, I have no dilemma at all. It’s underrated, fun and I love it.

Thanks.

FTA: Doctor Who Classic: Mawdryn Undead, Terminus and Enlightenment

This fourth volume of articles from Celebrate, Regenerate! covers the Black Guardian Trilogy. (See here for more on this project.)

Mawdryn Undead
(Main article.)

In 2003, channel UKTV Gold broadcast all of the Classic Series, in detail, to celebrate the show’s 40th Anniversary. At the time, I was around six or seven, and I lapped it up. One of the earliest stories I remember from those reruns was the fascinating Mawdryn Undead, a story whose checklist approach could have ended up badly but instead revealed a brilliantly twisting tale of treachery, deception and time-travel. Peter Grimwade’s way of apologising for writing the previous season’s Time-Flight, it was written with the prerequisite that it must introduce new companion Turlough, start the Black Guardian Trilogy and feature show-favourite Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart.
     Turlough’s character was unfortunate in that his execution throughout the series didn’t live up to his premise. But what a great premise that was. Turlough was the first companion who had worked his way onto the TARDIS for nefarious purposes, and the first who actively tried to kill The Doctor. As a villain, Turlough wasn’t just cackling evil – he was also incredibly frightened, both of his own actions and of the wrath of The Black Guardian. It was his fear, as well as his origins as an exile of a corrupt society, that drove his actions and his villainy.
     The Brigadier’s return, despite throwing up all sorts of issues due to dating, is very welcome, with Nicholas Courtney arriving in the place of the planned return of Ian and Barbara, the Doctor’s first companions. Despite his last-second inclusion, Courtney is still excellent in the role, and subtlety alters the way he plays the character between the two time zones. The 80s Brigadier is older and wearier, while the 70s Brigadier is much more alert and to action. Although it would have been great to see those old companions again, The Brigadier is a welcome substitute and more than makes the role his.
     The story can possibly be best remembered for its use of the Two-Streams story technique, with Nyssa, Tegan and Mawdryn running around in 1977 and The Doctor and Turlough using The Brigadier’s memory in 1983. It’s something that wouldn’t be done again until the Moffat era, and it’s a great use of a time-based dynamic that was strangely rare within the Classic Series. Add that dynamic to the weirdness of the Mawdryn mutants, the wonderfully hammy performance of Valentine Dyal and the return of the Brigadier, and you’ve got a recipe for a bona fide Who classic.

Terminus

(Main article.)

Apart from old stories like The Sensorites and The Web Planet, there is no Who story in my mind that gets as much flack for being “boring” than Terminus, the second part of the Black Guardian Trilogy. The same allegations, unfortunately, that go out against its companion focus, Nyssa of Traken, introduced in 1981 as a guest character who was then added to the companion roster for no apparent reason. However, I must make an admission here: I really got to like Nyssa when I first saw Five’s era, and so her departure in this serial had me in tears.

      And that’s all anyone seems to remember about it, really. Nyssa in this story does come under the shadow of the Fanservice monster, strutting about in a transparent nightgown that leaves very little to the imagination, but that I feel doesn’t end up detracting from the characterisation that goes on here. Nyssa, having spent a season and a half in the shadow of the Doctor’s louder companions, finally steps out and finds some purpose in her life. Unlike a lot of other companions in this era, she leaves The Doctor not because she’s found a better offer, because she’s upset with him or even because she had to. She left because she had the opportunity to help people, and because it was the right thing to do.

     There’s a lot more to this story, though, than the loss of Nyssa. Steven Gallagher returns as writer from Warrior’s Gate in Season 18, and the general tone of the story is deliciously thick; as atmospheric as a Jovian storm cloud and just as filled with jeopardy and paranoia. The use of the plague analogue is perfect, especially for me who finds stuff like that incredibly unsettling. (Let’s just say that I bought a few facemasks in the summer of 2009). There’s also the use of several Norse themes, which are fun, and the timely tradition of being of a Who story that can be struck into different metaphors. In the beginning, Terminus is the Barge on the River Styx, ferrying souls to the afterlife. By the end, the serial takes a turn for the positive, and Terminus becomes a wonderful metaphor for the NHS, with the Vanir (NHS staff) no longer slaves to Hydromel (money) and allowed to focus on healing their patients.

     I think the thing that makes so many dismiss Terminus is that not a lot of people liked Nyssa’s character and thus weren’t engaged with her story. Me? I think that it’s a wonderfully complex and thematic masterpiece, wherein both Nyssa’s and the Vanir’s fight for freedom and expression compliment one another, all the while set to a backdrop of The Doctor saving the Universe once more.

Enlightenment

(Main article.)

Fans who’ve grown up on the standards of the new series are sometimes far too quick to attack the production values of the Classic Series, going on tirades about wobbly sets, tin-foil monsters and shoddy CSO. Whenever my friends say such things, I point them here, towards Enlightenment, one of the Classic Series’ most visually impressive stories. There are no wobbly sets here, and the highly conceptual script matches up to the brilliant visuals. Here we find a race more long-lived than the Time Lords; a race whose longevity has robbed them of all imagination and emotion, and who must parasitically live off us inferior “Ephemerals” in order to satiate their boredom. Unlike the end of the series’ other major arc up to that date, The Key To Time, this story also provides an excellent end for the experimental Black Guardian Trilogy.

    The entire first episode takes place below decks, leaving the ship’s true nature as a space-faring vessel for the episode’s cliffhanger. Indeed, this story has some quite good cliffhangers: the nature of the ship, Turlough diving off into the vacuum of space and Lynda Baron hypnotising Tegan into becoming her weapon. Baron’s performance as Captain Wrack always slightly weirds me out, because Baron was a big part of my childhood in her Come Outside series. Her performance then, for me, becomes strangely hypnotising; a kind of cackling evil that really says how much she was enjoying the role. The same is true of the celebrity cameo Leee John (not a typo) who is delightfully camp. 

     Turlough’s final introductory story sees him betray both The Doctor and The Black Guardian in various ways, as his fear and madness drive him to various different aims. One moment he’s desperate to get rid of the Black Guardian’s influence, until he concedes to him and tries to work his way into Captain Wrack’s affections. Like the rest of the script, the incredibly clever twist lies in the question of what Enlightenment really is – the ability to distinguish between right and wrong. It’s implied that immortality by its very nature encourages amorality, and that our short time on this Earth is the very reason why we should be nice to one another. With all of the modern fuss about dodgy morals in Doctor Who, I can’t think of a better one, more intelligently conveyed. Enlightenment, appropriate to its name, is one of the most cerebral stories in the entire JNT era, and is an absolute delight.

Thanks.

Overview: Doctor Who Classic: Season 20

Season 20 was the Anniversary Season, and so JNT pulled out all the stops. We saw Omega, the Mara, and the Guardians, as well as the introduction of two new companions! That didn't go so well. Regardless, Season 20 saw some differences in characterisation across the board.

Davison steps up to the plate.

Five (Peter Davison) - That's how it all started
(All Season)

If anything, Season 20 saw Davison's Doctor become the more intellectual Doctor that the character is always stereotyped as - and rightly so. He stops Omega with some jiggery pokery and is only able to kill The Mara through sheer force of will. Notably, Davison's Doctor now has the confidence to take the story's heroic role, and he spends less time in this season trying to explain himself.
     The Doctor does get awfully devious around the Black Guardian Trilogy, where he manages to feign an ignorance of Turlough's intentions. There's always a shadow of doubt being cast over how much he is aware of and how much he is hiding. The only really applies in Mawdryn Undead and Enlightenment; in Terminus he is allowed to show Season 19's more emotional side as Davison is genuinely sad about Nyssa's leaving.
     Overall, one can say that Davison's Doctor is now longer the new guy. He is the hero, and this is the peak of his era.

Nyssa slipped out of the series
in a slip.

Nyssa (Sarah Sutton) - I can't go with you
(Arc of Infinity to Terminus)

Nyssa's main character development starts in Season 20, up to her heart-breaking (well, for me anyway) leaving scene. She lost her naivity and grew up, gently shedding her inhibitions. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately for a generation of teenage boys) this was mainly shown through her slow removal of more and more clothes, culminating in her leaving scene, in which she wears see-through underwear.
      In Arc of Infinity, it's clear that she's been able to spend a bit more time with The Doctor and has thus become a lot confidant in herself. That first episode also shows her, of all people, willing to use weapons to fight to save The Doctor from execution. In Snakedance she finally changes out of her regal gear and begins to show signs of independance. Mawdryn Undead has her a little empty and guilible of Mawdryn's claims, but this plays into her concerned nature and sets up her leaving in Terminus. And then, strangely enough, she sets up some of the newer series by being the first companion to give The Doctor a kiss.
       Nyssa was the most promising of Davison's companions, but she was horrifically misused in her tenure. This was mostly because she was a little too smart, too well written. However, the character will remain, in my mind, Five's best companion.

Terry Wogan calls Enlightenment,
"The battle of the bodices."

Tegan (Janet Fielding) - I guess you're stuck with me
(supposedly re-joins in Arc of Infinity, All Season)

Tegan was never really gone. That's the official story, and one really begins to see the effect that JNT's insane demands had on the series. Tegan's arc was over - she had been taken home after an entire year of trying to get her there. And yet she's brought back in, with little to no reason for her return besides, "I guess you're stuck with me."
      One thing I do love about her presence is that The Doctor seems to share my feelings. Over the course of the season he shows incredible disdain for Tegan, and this even enhances his trauma over Nyssa's leaving. You could expect, now she wants to be here, that her abrasive personality would soften. It doesn't. In Snakedance she nearly releases The Mara upon the Universe, and in Enlightenment she nearly blows up the White Guardian.
     As part of JNT's sudden decision to make Doctor Who sexy (after 19 years of stark asexuality), Tegan was pulled out of her uniform and into a series of ill-fitting corsets. Unlike Nyssa, where her outfit change reflected a similar change in personality, Tegan just looks silly. The peak of this is during Enlightenment, where she, for a part, dresses up in a corset (pictured) that she bearly fits in.
      Tegan continues to be a pain despite the consistency of her appearance in Five's era.

Turlough (Mark Strickson) - Alien Schoolboy

Mwhahahahahahahaha!

(Mawdryn Undead onwards)

Turlough was another whim by JNT. His character, created in the summer of 1981, was randomly inserted into the Black Guardian Trilogy at the conception stage. The character was seen as a risky move - someone whose loyalties were consistantly being questioned. For the first three stories of his tenure, he was trying to kill Five on the orders of the Black Guardian.
     As Davison and Strickson often point out, the concept is fundamentally flawed. Once Turlough has stopped trying to kill The Doctor, what then? He remains devious and murderous in nature. Why is he even with The Doctor once he gets off Earth? He's afraid to return to Trion until the next season, and so his Tegan-esque, "take me home" line at the end of Enlightenment is rather silly. We'll cover where Turlough goes wrong in the next Overview, but here he just doesn't do as he's written to.

Thanks.

P.S. Kamelion doesn't count. And even though it's sorta part of Season 20, The Five Doctors is coming next Monday.

Review: Doctor Who Classic: The King's Demons

Five and The Master talk to Kamelion.

Anthony Ainley wasn't a bad Master. Really. But in Five's era he often got the short straw. He was campy, over the top and definitely hammy. He wore disguises, often unnecessarily, and his plans made little sense. The King's Demons was the last of these bad Master stories, and it also features the appearance of one of the most misguided decisions in the entire 48 year history of the program. Kamelion.
      The last story of the Anniversary Season was due to be a story called The Return, which would bring back Davros and the Daleks for a spectacular story before the Anniversary itself. However, 1982 saw several striking problems that wiped the story out, rippling back through the production all the way to Mawdryn Undead. The King's Demons was then left as the final story of the season. To make matters worse, JNT had wanted to bring back the idea of the Robot companion, in the form of the shape-shifting android, Kamelion. The robot had been "found" by JNT whilst looking for a replacement for K9, and it was quite impressive - apart from the constant breakdown problems and the fact that it looked spectacularly creepy. Thus, he was only ever in two stories - this one, and one of my next Classic reviews, Planet Of Fire.

      The two-episode-long story sees The Doctor and crew arrive in medieval England, where King John is behaving rather off-colour - he doesn't mind the fact that a TARDIS has just arrived in the middle of his jousting match. The crew are constantly refered to as "Demons", but are entertained in court. It becomes apparent that the King is an imposter, as a messenger arrives from London with knowledge of the real King. The Master's paper-thin disguise is soon revealed, and he turns the court against The Doctor. The Master and The Doctor discuss Kamelion and banter about their abilities. As The Master controls Kamelion via his will, The Doctor manages to overpower The Master's mind and prevent Kamelion from being used for evil. They escape, and The Master goes off to fight another day.

Kamelion is... creepy. Really creepy.

     The Master's disguise is another topic of contention. Even before the disguise appears, Ainley's voice is instantly recogniseable and the disguise doesn't even bother to change his face. He's also playing to another stereotype again, this time of the French. This is the last of The Master's disguises, though, so we can be grateful for that. Kamelion is downright creepy. Seriously, it's frightening how uncanny valley this thing is. It's not child-friendly.
     At the end of the day, The King's Demons is a bit of a waste of time. The period details and atmosphere are gorgeous, as in the previous two-parter Black Orchid, but it's nowhere near as fun and due to The Master's hijinks it doesn't really go anywhere. The King's Demons lost, for now.

Thanks.

NEXT WEEK: The Five Doctors Revistited! Woo! Also, look out for my Season 20 Overview this Friday.

Review: Doctor Who Classic: Enlightenment

Turlough considers Enlightenment.

Doctor Who - Season 20, Story Five - Enlightenment

Enlightenment is a unique story in many ways. It presents itself first as a pseudohistorical, but very soon it becomes apparent that this story is much deeper than it appears. Even more importantly, the story justified the Black Guardian Triolgy by taking a brilliant concept and building it around the Black Guardian and his counterpart. For the first time, Turlough shows some promise as a companion and his presence is justified also.
      When The White Guardian contacts a damaged Tardis, The Doctor follows his co-ordinates and finds himself on what appears to be a 17th Century ship. Upon cohorting with the crew, he is taken to meet the Officer class - a group of people called Eternals with telepathic powers, who occupy space but not time. The Eternals have the ability to conjure into being whatever they find in the minds of time-occupying beings (known to them as Ephemerals), and because of the boredom of eternity use this power to entertain themselves.
     The Eternals on this ship happen to be part of a race, organised by the White and Black Guardians. The winner of the race would acheive what the Eternals call, "Enlightenment," a powerful prize that they believe will allow them to have emotion and imagination of their own. The Black Guardian abandons Turlough, and he throws himself off-board to escape his wrath, finding himself floating off to another Eternal ship commanded by Wrack (Lynda Baron), who is also in service of The Black Guardian. In their pursuit of Enlightenment, Wrack's ship has destroyed the majority of the other competitors using powers from the Guardian. The Doctor saves Turlough and finally sets his mind against the Black Guardian. When they inadvertantly win Enlightenment, Turlough rejects the Black Guardian and the White Guardian explains that Enlightenment is in fact the choice between Good and Evil.
     The core ideas of the story are a lot more consistant than the previous two stories in the triolgy, focussing on the very nature of human morality. The Eternals are emotionless and thus amoral; they may display emotional tendencies but everything they experience is robbed from mortal beings. Their contempt for mortality is only matched by their lack of imagination or drive - they rely on the Guardians to organise activities for them, and take everything they knwo from the Ephemerals. While Wrack's chaotic activities do oppose Striker's starch Upper-Class pride, it's allegance to a Guardian rather than a true sense of right or wrong.

Captain Wrack works for The Black Guardian.

    The actors playing the Eternals on Striker's ship are creepily emotionless, but they all show their own signs of character. Keith Barrat's striker is persistant and determined despite his lack of drive for the rest of life. Christopher Brown plays the slightly frightening Marriner, who through Tegan's mind falls in love with the simple concept of mortal life. Lynda Baron, on the other hand, is very hammy as Wrack, and often at times her bodaciousness clashes with the nature of the Eternals as a race.
      And, after some silly costume design from both Mawdryn Undead and Terminus, this story looks gorgeous. The Eternal's obsession means that the ships are beautifully detailed with period features - what the BBC do best - and the costumes are straight out of historical dramas. The production values in creating a race in space are incredibly high, and it's clear where the majority of the trilogy's budget went.  
      Enlightenment corners off our trilogy with another brilliant Sci-Fi idea, only this time the plot isn't clouded. Weaving The Guardians into plot made it all seem rather relevant, and the final story in Turlough's turmoil-filled encounter with the Black Guardian provides excellent closure for his opening development and for the arc that it occupies.

Thanks.

NEXT TIME: When Robots Fail Because Their Owners Die! See you next time in The King's Demons.

Review: Doctor Who Classic: Terminus

The Doctor tries to save The Universe.

Doctor Who - Season 20, Story Four - Terminus

Terminus is another story that I vaguely remember from childhood, although more for its rather ambitious premise rather than anything that actually happened. It's Nyssa's final story, and I must admit that over this Five marathon I've become rather attached. Peter Davison had it spot on when he said that Nyssa was Five's perfect companion, and despite the fact that the crowded Tardis robbed any of the companions of really powerful moments with the lead, Nyssa had some of the best natural chemistry with him. Terminus, rather appropriately, signifies the end.
     Somewhat strangely for a Who story, it starts and ends in situe. JNT was a big fan of arcs, as evidenced by his use of them four times during his seven-year era. The story itself is far from conventional, and this often causes many fans to label it boring. It's not boring at all - it's dark, dreadfully dark in a brilliant way. Funnily enough, this comes from Steven Gallagher's dark script and not from the Black Guardian.
     Turlough sabotages the Tardis, causing it to latch onto the nearest ship. This happens to be a strange ship being scouted by two raiders called Kari and Olvir. They soon discover that the ship is a Plague Liner, headed to dock with the space-hospital Terminus at the exact centre of the Universe. Nyssa is infected by Lazar's Disease and is taken into Terminus to be "cured," a process which usually kills the sufferers. The Doctor, while trying to save Nyssa, comes across the station's workers, the Vanir, who are being used as slave labour - paid only in temporary cures for Lazar's Disease.
     Curious about the ship's centric position, The Doctor investigates in the high-radiation zones and theorises that the ship used to be able to time travel. A while ago, the ship travelled back to the dawn of time and emergency protocols led it to dump a high quantity of radioactive waste into "the Void". This, The Doctor theorises, caused the Big Bang, and if the ship were to destabilise again then a second explosion could destroy the Universe. More of Turlough's machinations begin this destabilisation, but the Doctor manages to stop it. Nyssa, having been healed by the facility, realises that she could improve upon the design and turn the facility into a working hospital, as well as freeing the Vanir from slavery by synthesising the drug they need. In a scene that still moves me to tears, Nyssa decides to stay, and The Doctor reluctantly agrees.

Nyssa recovers, and makes up her mind.

    Terminus's main problem plotwise is that it takes two very distinct ideas and melds them together, like two written-off cars welded into a knock-off banger. Both ideas are interesting in their own right - the Leper Colony plot exploits a lot of our modern fears about disease and sickness, as well as mixing in some great references to Norse mythology. The Big Bang plot is pure sci-fi goodness and it's rightfully what I remembered the most about the story. Sure, the science is a bit iffy, but it's a great link back into Castrovalva and the explanations are better.
     Turlough's continuing presence only serves to highlight the issue that three companions is too many. One of the reasons that Nyssa was so badly used over the course of her tenure was that she often fell into a "surplus" position due to her more brainy nature. She doesn't leave the Tardis in Kinda, spends a lot of time there on her own in The Visitation, does the same in Earthshock and then gets posessed in Time-Flight. On the contrary, Terminus uses Nyssa rather well, and her gradual increase in confidence throughout the beginning of Season 20 is rather interesting. Arc of Infinity saw her travelling with The Doctor alone, and saw her use weapons a hell of a lot more than before. In Snakedance, she finally changed out of her "costume", and through these two stories from the Black Guardian, Nyssa gradually loses her inhibitions. (And her clothes.)
     Turlough and Tegan spend the entire episode trapped together in claustrophobic conditions, hiding in Terminus' air vents. Their subplot does nothing, goes nowhere and wasn't even filmed at the same time as the rest of the story. As a part of the Black Guardian Trilogy, Terminus has no place. Other than Turlough setting the plot off, his presence in the story after that can be largely ignored. It's ridiculous, and while this isn't the worst of JNT's arcs it isn't exactly engaging. Tegan's useless.
     But that ignores the character work on Terminus, which while a little blunt for Kari and Turlough, excells everywhere else. The sick Vanir theorist Bor, whose rambling reveal his knowledge of the truth. The deep, seething rivalries between the Vanir leaders. The touching moments at the end, where Nyssa becomes the first companion to ever kiss The Doctor, albeit on the cheek. For the first time in Who, the relationship between companion and Doctor felt real and, fundamental to the entire premise of the Fifth Doctor's characterisation, human.

Nyssa and Five hide.

     Terminus takes a couple of good ideas and gets lost along the way, but the character work for The Doctor and especially for Nyssa makes this a vital story in Five's era. I love it, and it's a shame to see Nyssa go. Goodbye, Nyssa of Traken.

Thanks.

NEXT TIME: The Eternals and the Guardians in Enlightenment.
P.S. Nyssa spends half the story in her underwear. There, I mentioned it, ok?

Review: Doctor Who Classic: Mawdryn Undead

The Brigadier. Awesomeness.

Doctor Who - Season 20, Story Three - Mawdryn Undead

Mawdryn Undead holds a special place in my heart. When I was much younger, I'd run downstairs at dawn and watch the omnibus of Classic Who on UKGold. Mawdryn Undead is the first complete story that I remember. Fittingly enough, it's actually a very dark story, as well as one that has to juggle a lot of elements and doesn't always suceed. However, its quality does live up to my memories of it and it's a thoroughly enjoyable- and intelligent - watch.
     One day, John Nathan Turner gave editor Eric Saward a set of intructions for a story to introduce the character of Turlough, an alien masquerading as a public schoolboy. Saward decided to combine this plot with a script he received from writer Peter Grimwade as a consolance for his previous story, Time-Flight. In order to provide something interesting, the team decided that Turlough would be influenced by the entity known as The Black Guardian, who was last seen in Tom Baker's "Key To Time" season. Also, because of the Anniversary Season, JNT also insisted that an old companion be brought back.
     The story initially follows Turlough as he meets The Black Guardian, who offers him the chance to return home in return for his service in killing The Doctor. The school is also home to The Brigadier, who has retired from UNIT and now works as a mathemathics teacher. The Doctor, Nyssa and Tegan end up on a strange ship on a fixed orbit, passing Earth for six years at a time. The ship has a dimensionally transendental pod attatched to it that just happens to be near Turlough's school.

Spaghetti-headed Mawdryn

     Turlough pops up to the ship, and runs into The Doctor, who heads back down with him to disable a signal preventing the TARDIS' movement. Before he tries to kill The Doctor with a rock, the transmitter explodes and due to some spatial timey-wimey event, the Tardis is sent six years back in time to 1977, where a younger Brigadier helps Nyssa and Tegan out. The Doctor follows the action in 1977 via the 1983 Brigadier's memories - Nyssa and Tegan find a regnerating mutant called Mawdryn, who they believe is a deformed regeneration of The Doctor. Mawdryn returns them to the orbiting ship, and using the Pod, The Doctor, The Brig and Turlough arrive on the ship at the same time.
     Mawdryn is soon revealed to be part of a race that stole technology from the Time-Lords, intending to give themselves eternal life. Instead, the eight beings now undergo constant mutation and change, in constant agony. They ask the Doctor to give them his remaining lives in order to end theirs. The Doctor tries to refuse, but they have infected Tegan and Nyssa with a disease that will kill them if The Doctor tries to escape. He prepares to give up his lives, thus killing him, but the two Brigs meet and the resulting energy burst is enough to allow the mutants to die. Turlough, still affected by The Black Guardian, joins the Tardis crew.
     This story's costumes aren't very good. The mutants' costumes appear out of nowhere, Turlough's shoes are for some reason bright red, the Black Guardian has a dead bird on his head and Mawdryn's spaghetti-like head dress is... odd. However, that didn't do a lot against the story, where the focus is very much on the twisting turning plot.

The Black Guardian controls Turlough.

      The story juggles three or four different plots at a time. It wasn't like Doctor Who had done nothing to do with the concequences of Time Travel before, but Mawdryn Undead was the first time in a while that exploited that plot device in a Moffatian way. Events in one time clearly effect events in the later in a way that's only fully clear after the episode, and it's fun to try and focus on the exact aspects that change. Turlough's machinations aren't that interesting in the long run, but they'll come to a fore a few weeks down the road.
      Mawdryn Undead is quite dark for what it was - an effective juggling of many, many different plotlines and aspects that by rights shouldn't have been there. But despite this hodgepodge, the story is really enjoyable and hits on a lot of thematic levels - about change, for better and for worse. It's got a lot of visual problems on the surface, but beneath that there's a lot to enjoy.

Thanks.

NEXT WEEK: Nyssa... leaves? Let it not be so.

Review: Doctor Who Classic: Snakedance

Lon (Martin Clunes) is possessed by The Mara.

Doctor Who - Season 20, Story Two - Snakedance

While Kinda was brave and experimental, its plot wasn't necessarily that action-packed. It was certainly very deep and touched upon a lot of themes that Who doesn't look at usually. But, like the Kinda of Deva Loka, Kinda feels a little primitive when compared to its sequel, Snakedance, which formed the second story of the anniversary season. Arranged much more like a regular Who story, Snakedance takes the main themes of Kinda and beefs them up into an exciting, tense piece of science fiction.

     Unusually for the Anniversary season, JNT decided that Kinda needed a sequel and so asked writer Christopher Bailey to return to the series. Now that editor Eric Saward had a much bigger grasp on the series, Bailey's abstract style was channeled into something more fitting the programme's usual setup. Snakedance follows The Doctor and Tegan as they find that The Mara still inhabits Tegan's mind, and has guided them to its home planet of Manussa, where the Federation (very Trek) believe that the Mara was destroyed 500 years prior, and celebrate its destruction decennially. While The Doctor tries to convince the head of the local Museum that the Mara has returned, it manifests fully in Tegan and plots its full return.
     A much frowned upon rumour on Manussa is The Legend of the Return, in which The Mara will re-manifest at one of the anniversary festivals. This intrigues spoiled Prince Lon (a pre-Men Behaving Badly Martin Clunes), until he too is posessed by The Mara's charms. Their efforts revolve around The Great Crystal, which The Doctor realises will focus the mind energy of all those looking at it, allowing a strong mind to conjure energy and matter from pure thought. The Doctor consults with Dojjen, an elder who escaped the city to try and prevent The Mara's return, and upon its manifestation The Doctor is able to break The Mara's hold and kill him once and for all.

The Mara shows off its powers.

     Like Kinda, this is primarily Tegan's story, and Janet Fielding gets a lot more to do as The Mara. The performance is much more toned down than it was in her erotically charged Kinda scenes, but it's still genuinely creepy and The Mara's backstory makes it much more interesting than the seemingly random apperance on Deva Loka made it out to be. Importantly, The Mara feels like it has more of a presence - like the villain's promise of false fears and mental torture, the entire culture that we address in Snakedance has this creature on his mind.
     One thing to really love in Snakedance is the humanity expressed in the characters. There are some camp archetypes, but they stem from very real personalities. Lon, played by Martin Clunes, is despite his camp demeanor, incredibly subtle in his teenage lust for excitement, to the extent that he would not mind being possessed by an evil demon. All of the characters, from the Researcher to a five-minute-wonder of the Fortune Teller.
     Plus, this story is visually awesome. It's remarkable. The lighting is perfect, moody and atmospheric instead of the bright washout of some other Eighties stories. The set design is great, as is the subtle maniulation of film and video to provide us with some great atmospheres. At times I completely forget that the marketplace, reminiscent of Morocco, was in fact a set.

The Mara is finally defeated.

     Snakedance, while maybe not as outwardly ambitious as its predecessor, is still incredibly enjoyable due to great performances and a stellar script. In my little marathon, this is my favourite Five story so far, and this is true for many others. Snakedance takes Kinda and makes it work like a regular story, and does so in a spectacular fashion befitting the anniversary season.

Thanks.

NEXT WEEK: We begin the Black Guardian Trilogy as we remeet The Brig in Mawdryn Undead.