FTA: Doctor Who Classic: Revelation of the Daleks and Mindwarp

This seventh volume of articles from Celebrate, Regenerate! covers stories from the later Sixth Doctor.(See here for more on this project.)

Revelation of the Daleks
(Main article.)

Even by the standards of Dalek stories, Revelation is just weird. Named after the frankly insane final book of the New Testament, the final story of Season 22 puts the focus on Davros for the first time since Genesis, giving Terry Molloy's version of the character the room to breathe. The result is a performance that invokes the power of the original, and is infinitely more fun and slimy. The same can be said for the rest of the story, which is brave in the way that it celebrates the grotesque parts of human nature. If Genesis of the Daleks was a BBC documentary, then Revelation of the Daleks is Horrible Histories.
      And yet it’s still funny, in a really sick way. Saward manages to perfectly balance a mix of horror, disgust and dark humour, making us reflect upon the less palatable aspects of human nature. Particularly striking is the scene in which Natasha has to kill her father -  a scene where music, lighting and the script come together to create a moment of genuine tragedy. (Made worse, in fact, by the realisation that she shares her name with Saward’s own daughter.)  And then there’re the little things; Jobel’s dismissal of the President’s wife as a foaming nuisance, the guard who picks his nose, Jobel’s death due to injection of embalming fluid.
     Sure, it’s not something that you perhaps want over your Saturday teatime, but the story itself is undoubtedly a work of genius. By sticking the Sixth Doctor and Peri on the outskirts, it gives the impression that the world of Who works fine without them, that there are forces of good and of evil, that this is a living world rather than one that only comes alive whenever the Good Doctor makes an appearance. We get colourful characters like the exceptional Orcini, or the creepy Jobel, or the tragic Tasambeker. Revelation is in itself a revelation, a revelation that a story doesn’t have to be focused on the Doctor to be good as long as the writing is up to scratch. Perhaps no one expected it to be Eric Saward that was delivering this message, but regardless of the writer, Revelation of the Daleks is a story to be celebrated – not just for its quality, but for its creative audacity too.

Mindwarp
(Main article.)

The second part of the Trial of a Timelord season, Mindwarp’s four episodes are characterised not only being very confusing, but for being deliberately. Where its spiritual prequel Vengeance On Varos sought to attack the use of excessive horror in television, Mindwarp takes it one step further by being deliberately manipulative in itself. On its own, its plot and story may make very little sense, but in the context of the Trial arc and considering the Valeyard’s manipulations, it quickly becomes one of the cleverest stories of the season.
     The standout of the cast is BRIAN BLESSED’s first and sadly only appearance in Who. While Blessed can do subtle performances, such as in the lauded I Claudius, I think he simply enjoys the more boisterous roles that he’s famous for. Mindwarp is no exception to this; Blessed gets to scream, shout and monologue, and he provides the story’s best line by far – “"Ok. Today prudence shall be out watchword; tomorrow we will soak the land in blood." He also allows the story to cement its theme of human brutality in all its different forms – the scientifically-driven evil of Dr. Crozier; the physical beast of Dorf; the banal commercialism of the Mentors; the uncontrollable actions of the cave-creature and the blood-thirst of Yrcanos. It’s all about the difference between evil actions committed because one wants to commit them, or as part of their immediate nature, and it asks the audience the simple question: which scenario describes The Doctor’s actions here?
     And, for the first time, Doctor Who uses the Unreliable Narrator trope. It’s actually really interesting to see the way in which the serial lets the Valeyard play to the audience’s expectations; we know now that The Sixth Doctor’s portrayal in the flashback as a heartless torturer was a manipulation of the evidence on the Valeyard’s part, but to an unforgiving public who already disliked the character, this would be perfectly believable. The serial, through the Valeyard’s manipulation, challenges the audiences’ view of the Sixth Doctor, ultimately trying to send him on the road to public acceptance. Not that Mindwarp succeeds in that aim. What it does do, however, is provide a really interesting piece of TV, and a brilliantly tragic end for one of my favourite companions.

Thanks.

FTA: Doctor Who Classic: Attack of the Cybermen, Vengeance on Varos and The Two Doctors

This sixth volume of articles from Celebrate, Regenerate! covers stories from the early Sixth Doctor.(See here for more on this project.)

Attack of the Cybermen
(Main article.)

A lot of my other articles in this book have waxed lyrical about my history when it comes to Who – how I came to the show from old DVDs and repeats and was already versed by the time the New Series came to cement my love. Attack of the Cybermen represented something of a new stage in my appreciation of Who that came about two or three years ago when I decided that this New Series wasn’t keeping me topped up and that I really should go back to my roots in the Classic Series. The first Classic Who DVD that I went out and bought was one that I remembered from when I was a kid – Attack of the Cybermen, a tale that is the epitome of what I love about the series.
      I’ll not beat about the bush and assume, due to all of his hallmarks being present, that we can call this a Saward story. Saward’s multi-strand dynamic allows most of the plot to happen outside of the realm of our two squabbling main characters – at least for the first half of the story. Those squabbling protagonists are somewhat of an acquired taste for many Who fans, often making them dismiss Six’s era completely. Me? I like them, and they’re the highlight of the era – I just really enjoy seeing the two characters bouncing off of one another and I really, really like it when Six’s enjoyable arrogance is counteracted by Peri’s wit. Of course, this doesn’t happen very often… but it’s worth the wait when it does.
      The ineffable Maurice Colburne also gets a chance to really stretch his wings after playing a very supportive role in the previous season’s Resurrection of the Daleks. Lytton is slimy and charming, strong and yet vulnerable – you never quite know where you stand, and that means that Lytton becomes the singular attraction whenever he’s on screen. The Doctor’s final declaration that he had misjudged Lytton, when the characters spent the best part of five seconds together in Ressurection, is a bit silly, but that’s what it’s all about, in the end.
      I know that Attack of the Cybermen is in most quarters considered “bad” but in my experience… there’s just something there, a charm, a flick of the tongue, something that keeps me coming back. Unlike Time and the Rani, which I know is hilarious, the reason why I like Attack so much so far eludes me… but it’s probably a mixture of heady nostalgia, my favourite villains and a Doctor whose performance gets me interested every single time. It’s not perfect, but I don’t think Attack ever really wanted to be.

Vengeance On Varos

(Main article.)

One of my favourite films is 1999’s The Truman Show, and one of the main reasons for that the way that it managed to predict and fully take apart the concept of Reality TV several years before it arrived on our screens. Little did I know that Vengeance On Varos manages exactly the same feat 15 years prior, all the while infusing it with the 80’s trademark satire and horror. Vengeance doesn’t so much attack 80’s TV so much as it brings it to its knees, by not only criticising the creators of video nasties but also the audience willing to watch them.

      The story is famous amongst detractors of Colin Baker’s Doctor for the scene in the second episode where the Varos facility’s guards end up falling into the acid bath. It’s an interesting cultural phenomenon in its own right that some disliked the character so much that they actually remembered the scene to implicate the Sixth Doctor in their deaths. As strange and fascinating as it is, it’s one small scene in a much bigger picture. Every step of the way, video nasties are criticised in a variety of ways, from their purely profit-driven nature (in Sil and his cronies) to the way in which they influenced the market. It was also a jab at the expanding role of the media in politics, to the point where “democracy” is dealt out from the living room.

      The story’s best feature though has got to be Arak and Etta. While their scenes were tacked onto the end of production, they still have a profound effect on the story’s potency, helping to reflect the attitudes of the people of Varos; without them, we would be left with trying to find a compromise between the rebellionist views of Jondar and the madness of the Mentors. They are a direct lifeline to the audience at home, calling out to them to have some standards. And they’re funny, too. 

      The most important thing in Vengeance on Varos is not the gore, or the silliness of people transforming into birds, although that does form part of it. It’s about the way that ideas influence people; and it tries to promote an awareness of those ideas in the viewer. And, as we can see by the controversy it created, it’s an aim that the writers very much succeeded at.

The Two Doctors

(Main article.)

I’m a bit of an anomaly when it comes to your average Who fan. Most fans my age started with the new series in 2005, and explored the Classic Series from there. Well, I didn’t. I started with two stories; a DVD of The Five Doctors, and the VHS of this story, The Two Doctors. In hindsight, this explains a hell of a lot about the areas of the series that I like, as The Two Doctors contains almost everything that I love about the series – expansive continuity, fun monsters, complex villains and political messages that never really know what they’re doing. Oh, and running. Lots of running. 

      Colin Baker is on top form as his arrogant and somewhat abrasive Doctor, but at every stage of the way he shows just how awesome he is. From the waterside recollection of tasty gumblejacks, to his fear that the death of his younger self would destroy the Universe, to the despair at the lengths that his old friend Dastari has gone to gain favour with his own creation. If there’s any story from Season 22 (which I love, if no-one else does) that I would use to introduce someone to the series, it would definitely be this one. Why? A few reasons. For one, it’s got the best use of the Sontarans since their first story, with creator Robert Holmes returning to write for them after their embarrassing use in Season 15’s Invasion of Time. For two, it’s by far the most normal and certainly accessible multi-Doctor story, and it requires pretty much zero knowledge of previous stories; it’s one of the only stories from this era that doesn’t have a lot of continuity.

     And sure, the story doesn’t really fill its runtime, but even the filler scenes (the trip to Seville, especially) only serve to highlight not only how damn beautiful the setting is, but also how fun the series can be when simply walking around in its world. So what if the story’s messages are a bit brutally expressed? This is a world full of intriguing characters – Dastari, the Androgums, the Sontarans, Oscar Botcherby – and it never fails to entertain despite not really doing anything. And in my eyes, any story capable of doing that is worthy of great praise. And a good chuckle or too. 

Thanks.

Overview: Doctor Who Classic: Season 22

Six and Peri got better. Eventually.

Doctor Who - Season 22 (1985)
Written 26/4/12

Season 22 is derided by so many fans that I almost feel sorry for it. Even I, a Sixie fan, felt a little intimidated by the sheer hatred with which both The Twin Dilemma and Timelash are treated. For me, this examination of Season 22 has been a real opener about both how good Who can be across its run, but also how much I'm prepared to forgive and forget when it comes to fandom.
     So what does it do so well? Tone is certainly something that Season 22 excells at with relish, and these six stories are incredibly laden with thick atmospheres filled with dark humour as well as a thick satirical streak. This season challenges what Who can do, trying to turn it into a fully-focussed social tool. Vengeance on Varos warns against video-nasties, The Two Doctors preaches about Vegetarianism. This is a season that wants to be a lot more than it manages, and I have to at least acknowledge that effort.
     If there is a major fault in all this, it's the very fact that despite being so great at atmosphere, the stories end up being a bit fluffy. The 45-minute format was in its teething stages, and the writers' inability to give stories the same pacing as before left the series with many saggy areas. The Two Doctors is one of the most egregious examples, its three episodes being so fluffy that with swift editing one could condense them down to a single hour of television and not loose anything particularly important. However, the stories are still enjoyable, and for me that's really what's important.
    So, as a change from the usual Overview style, I'm gonna do some best and worsts.

Molloy's Davros has his best performance.

Best Story
This is difficult, but really it has to be the incredibly thick and atmospheric Revelation of the Daleks. Molloy's smooth take on Davros, combined with Saward's standard multi-thread yarn means that this is 90 minutes of pure Doctor Who darkness, taking the grotesque nature of everyday life and exposing it for all to bear, along with some gallows humour and searing satire. That said, a close contender is Vengeance on Varos, whose dark commentary on our obsession with Television in all aspects of life makes it the one thing in the season that really stands out above the rest. Both of the these stories are definitely worth your time, even if you dislike Six.

The Cybermen get a bit carried away.

Worst Story
There aren't really any stories in this season that I hate, but if I had to pick a worst story, then it would be Attack of the Cybermen. It breaks my heart to say so considering how much I love it, but Attack suffers the most heavily from its lack of direction and after spending the first half building up, it wanders off into nonsense quite quickly. The ending is totally anti-climactic and even the worst recesses of Androzani weren't so depressingly bleak. Marks are also lost from The Two Doctors for that bit of fluff with Oscar Botcheby.

The Rani is just awesome.

Best Villains
In a season filled with Daleks and Cybermen, this is another difficult choice. At the end of the day,  I have to say that The Mark of the Rani gets it by an inch. The Rani is an intrigueing character and she really makes her story stand out from the norm. She's not a cackling villain bent on world domination; she's simply a scientist with very little moral conscience, and that strikes a chord against the rest of the villains (the Master especially) in the rest of the Saward Era.

Why are you here?

Worst Villains
Campy Cybermen aside, the worst monsters of this series had to be the Sontarans from The Two Doctors. Robert Holmes, the original creator of the Sontarans, arrived to give them a decent send-off, but they're here for sheer uselessness. They help the Androgums take over the space-station, ponce about a bit and are then killed by Chessene rather ungracefully. They're not here because of their execution, like in The Invasion of Time - rather, they just didn't need to be anywhere near. Special mention goes to Timelash for the rather unfortunate Morlox creatures, but the story's central villain The Borad is actually quite good. 

Best Guest Star
Points again go to The Mark of the Rani for the wonderful Kate O'Mara, who brings a lot of life to the role. Better, however, is the Governor from Vengeance On Varos, played by Martin Jarvis. His performance is one of the story's highlights - the official who is slowly realising the corrupt nature of the system he's in and has to try and decide between preserving the old ways and making real change. The Governor is a character who we have to slowly warm to, even when we see that his own system tortures him for sport, and Jarvis' performance is spot-on. Mentions go to Timelash's Paul Darrow and Revelation of the Daleks' Clive Swift and Alexei Sayle. And Patrick Troughton, of course.

Worst Guest Star
Never has a significant historical figure resembled Adric as much as in Timelash, where young HG Wells was given such treatment. It wasn't really David Chandler's fault; the character just seemed to be a tad irritating - always disobeying the Doctor's clear orders and nearly getting him killed. From Revelation of the Daleks, Jenny Tomasin's Tasambeker is often quite whiny despite how much I feel for the character. She's the story's only downpoint, really.

Season 22 is one of my favourite seasons so far in my examination of Classic Who, regardless of how much that may astonish some other fans. It's a brilliant, brilliant collection of stories that showcase Colin Baker's Doctor and has a metric tonne of excellent performances, musical scores and atmospheres. I love it, and if you give it a chance, then I think you might too.

Thanks.

Review: Doctor Who Classic: Revelation of the Daleks (Revisited)

Colin and Nicola don't get much to do, but their
characterisations are better.

See here for my inital look at this story.


Doctor Who - Season 22, Story Six - Revelation of the Daleks
Written between 22nd and 24th April 2012

And so we bookend Season 22 with a story from Eric Saward, delivering what will come to be known as his best script for the series. Revelation is gothic and dark, positively dripping in black humour and an air of the grotesqe. The direction by Graeme Harper changes what may have been a depressing script into one of the most captivating stories of Six's era. It isn't a story that gives The Doctor and Peri a lot to do, but the story is so packed full of other interesting characters that you don't really care.
     One of the things you immediately notice is Graeme Harper's direction. The man who brought us the phenomenal Caves of Androzani knows exactly what to do and unlike the white-washed sets of the rest of the era, every scene is atmospheric and moody, from the freezing cold exterior to the deep, dank bunker at the heart of Tranquil Repose. Adding to this immensely is the music, which despite being a heavy techno slur is instantly iconic and sets each scene well. Pre-Murray Gold, this is by far one of the best scored stories in Who history.

Glass Daleks! It's every nerd's
dream!

     The story has its fair share of interesting and well-acted characters and subplots, which all compliment the subject's themes. The slightly creepy Jobel (Clive Swift, Keeping Up Appearances) is the dark horse here, as well as his desperate female aide Tasambeker and his underling Tarkis, who remain healthily skeptical of their "Great Healer" Davros. Davros himself is here in his Terry Molloy incarnation, which after Michael Wisher's original is by far my favourite, if only for the fact that he spent so much time studying and perfecting the role. Revelation shows the Molloy Davros at his very, very best - manipulative, scheming and constantly aware of the million plans that his enemies use against him. Also of note are Eleanor Bron's Kara, Davros's rebellious business partner, her assistant Vogel (Hugh Walters, in his campest role yet), the badass bounty hunter Orcini (William Gaunt) and the weird and wonderful DJ (Alexei Sayle) who sarcastically comments upon the fates of those in suspended animation below him. Altogether, Saward spins about five different strands at once, and for once, it all works.
      The Doctor and Peri, despite being a small part of those five storylines and only arriving on-set in the second half, are much more amicable towards one another than in previous stories in the season, and Colin is the most pleasant he's ever been. The character development angle that they were going for at the end of Season 21 actually bloody worked, and it's such a shame to know that instead of the original Season 23, we got the shambles that was the Trial. One bit that really got me was a strange sequence where the two are required to get over a wall, and the two talk about something vaguely euphemistic before it's revealed that Peri has broken the Doctor's pocket watch. It's strange, and yet it really displayed a good sense of chemistry between the characters that would continue and be a lot more obvious in the next two stories.
      But the thing that everyone remembers the most about Revelation? The grotesque style that the serial embodies is both instantly memorable and immediately close-to-home. For the first time we see Davros slowly transforming a human into a Dalek, and the scene where grave-robber Natasha has to euphemise her half-transformed father is chilling and gruesome in a close-to-the-nerve way. Much mention is made of corpses and their various states of decomposition; one grave-robber worries that their corpse will collapse into a puddle, while Jobel makes mention of the President's wife "beginning to froth." There's something in almost every scene that acts upon our fear of body-horror, but not enough to de-sensitise us to it in the way that maybe Attack of the Cybermen or The Two Doctors does. At the end of the day, the tone really works well in making the final Revelation - that Davros has been turning the corpses in Tranquil Repose into high-protein food - that bit closer to home.

Yes, this image is from the original review. What of it.

     Revelation is an instant classic and is one of the only stories that the era's haters can get behind. As someone who adores Colin's era, I think that Revelation is the cherry of the top of a brilliant season and deserves more credit as one of the most humourously dark stories in all of Who. The first time I reviewed Revelation I looked at it as a Dalek story, and now I look at it as a story in its own right I can see just how exquisitely well-written it is.

Thanks.


NEXT WEEK:I round off Season 22 with an overview.
THIS FRIDAY: I review my last Saward story when I revisit Resurrection of the Daleks.

Review: Doctor Who Classic: Timelash

The Doctor faces the mutated Borad

Doctor Who - Season 22, Story Five - Timelash
Written between the 21st and 22nd April 2012

The Twin Dilemma, if you remember, was a story that I loved despite its terrible reputation, and while I recognised some of the shoddy acting I didn't really see what everyone found so offensive about it. This wasn't the story that its placing deserved. And it's happened again; Timelash is another competitor for one of the worst Who stories of all time, and yet I can't see that much wrong with it. My ability to love Doctor Who has made this season's set of reviews a lot more difficult for me. I was expecting to be ranting right now about how terrible this story is, but I just don't get it.
     The story is set on the planet Karfel, where the formerly peaceful planet has become a brutal dictatorship run by the elusive Borad, his chosen representative, the Maylin, and an army of robots disorientated by mirrors (which have been banned.) They execute their prisoners by throwing them into the titular Timelash, a time-tunnel which either disintegrates them or lands them in 12th Century England. The Doctor, seeing this time-tunnel, follows it backwards and ends up on Karfel just as the Borad has shifted his staff around. It turns out that Maylin Tekker (the wonderfully hammy Paul Darrow) wants The Doctor to retrieve Vena, the daughter of the last Maylin who rebelled against the Borad, from the Time-Lash. Before he can argue, the Doctor discovers that the Borad's forces have kidnapped Peri and are holding her hostage in the caves of the dreaded Morlox beasts.

Paul Darrow's Tekker is delightfully hammy.

     Sixy follows a diversion in the tunnel and ends up in the 19th Century, retrieving Vena and picking up a stowaway in the form of a young man named Herbert. Upon their return to Karfel they stage a coup and The Doctor takes time to retrieve a special crystal from the Time-lash that has the ability to absorb energy and release it exactly ten seconds later - allowing him to both deflect enemy weaponfire and make his image lag ten seconds behind. Sixy rescues Peri and finally confronts the Borad, a former politician called Megelen who was voted into power and then, after a horrific accident, became half-human, half-Morlock. It's his intention to kill all life on Karfel and mutate Peri into being his mutant bride. Luckily, the Doc is able to use the crystal to trick him, and after saving the day he takes his 18th century stowaway home, to become HG Wells.
     A mere two serials after we met George Stevenson in doontoon Nukassel, we get to meet HG Wells in a story that's heavy influenced by his work. The Doctor's machine lets him be The Invisible Man, the Morlox and the pure citizens of Karfel are very reminiscient of Wells' The Time Machine, the war between the Karfelons and the Bandrils is a War of the Worlds and the Borad's transformation is from The Island of Doctor Moreau. Like George Stevenson, his presence isn't really vital to the plot, but here it's an acknowledgement of the story's themes rather than a random cameo.

HG Wells marvels at all this technobabble.

     Near the end of the story The Doctor is forced to fly the TARDIS into a missile to prevent a war that Maylin Tekker inadvertantly started with neighbouring planet Bandril. The Doctor never explains how he survives this impact, and thus it's held up as an example of the story's poor writing. As far as I can see it, what's the problem? The TARDIS is damn indestructable - that's what he said before he went out, and that's the obvious reason why he's not space debris. Often it feels like people just try to find excuses not to like Timelash, and I really, really don't know why. They say the Time-Lash looks like tin-foil. Not as much as the Vardans. They say that the ending was already done once before. Go figure, we're on Year 22 by this point.
     Timelash doesn't deserve the scorn it gets by any means. It stands in between two a lot more epic stories and thus it's odd for some that it appears to be a simply told Doctor Who adventure, quite like The Twin Dilemma was. In its soul are some very good, consistant sci-fi ideas, as well as a few subtler nods towards the show's past than the others stories of the season mananged. Timelash is on par with the rest of the stories of this season - a bit fluffy, but absolutely perfect in tone and character. And you need to watch it to find that out.

Thanks.

NEXT WEEK: I finish off Season 22 as I receive the Revelation of the Daleks. Erm... Revisited. As part of Season 21 Fridays, I try not to get buried in Frontios.