Overview: Doctor Who Classic: Season 26

This last season saw the bond between Doctor
and Companion grow stronger than it ever had
before.

Written 1/7/12.

The last season of Doctor Who's original run was certainly worthy of heaped praise. Even the much-maligned Battlefield contains a lot of interesting ideas that more than stand up to the heavyweights of the Ace Trilogy, three stories that form some of the best Who I've ever seen. The characters are perfect, the settings are very well executed and the sheer level of sci-fi/fantasy quality is absolutely superb. In previous seasons I've liked the stories ironically, seeing past their faults and just enjoying them warts and all. It's come as a great relief that in Season 26 I haven't had to do that at all - it's been one great story after another.
     The story opens a bit shoddily, with Battlefield's attention-grabbing premise of UNIT and the Brigadier trying to hold up a story that is fundamentally overstuffed. It's the only place where Season 26 falls down, and that's a shame, but the ideas within this first story are still on par with the rest. The Arthurian Parallel Universe is an awesome idea, and with the right execution it could have dwarfed everything else. As it stands, the only thing coming close to decent is the characterisation of Morgaine, which is enjoyably complex. It's nice to see the Brigadier one last time, but his and UNIT's presence don't make up for a story where half of the characters are uninintentionally hilarious in their sheer incompetance.
     The next three stories visit Ace's past, and this in-depth examination of her history is what makes her one of the most well-developed Classic Companions. In Ghost Light we see her troubled childhood, in Curse of Fenric her maternal issues and her manipulation by both The Doctor and Fenric, and in Survival we see her home town and her fight to seperate her own ego from her id. Adding to this are the hints, in her blatant flirting with certain guest characters, that Ace is a bisexual, making her the first LGBT companion. It's a shame that this wasn't allowed to come through on screen, especially as RTD paved the way into equality the moment he came back.
    Of the three stories in the Trilogy, my favourite is probably The Curse of Fenric, which shows the Seventh Doctor at his most manipulative, although not directly. He doesn't do as much direct scheming as in Remembrance of the Daleks and The Happiness Patrol, but it does reveal in part that he's been planning to use Ace to defeat Fenric ever since he met her on Iceworld. It's also got a great atmosphere and a great set of characters, all of which are utilized to their optimal potential.

This series had some great villains, including
a more subtle and controlled Ainley Master.

    This season has some awesome villains, and they're all really complex, which makes a change from the norm. Morgaine is honourable and wise, willing to both kill a woman to test her worth and to cure a blind woman as an act of charity. Light and Josiah Smith are metaphors for the Evolution Versus Creationism debate, with Light as the Creationist so afraid of change that he's willing to harm those around him and then himself. Fenric is dark and scheming, a master chess player who has manipulated hundreds of people over a thousand years. And The Ainley Master gets one last chance to try out his more subtle characterisation, creating a villain that is, for Who, truley unique in his priorities.
     As a final season, we couldn't have asked for anything better. The last third of the Cartmel era, and by extension the end of the Original Run, is an absolute triumph in variety of complex characterisation, setting and theme. The brilliance exhibited here only emphasises the tragedy that so few people were watching, and that this saw the last Who produced by the BBC for a decade and a half. After this, I'll be heading to Bidmead to finish the JNT era as a whole. Before I go though, I just have to say... thank you, Professor. But I've got to go. We've got work to do.

Thanks.

Review: Doctor Who Classic: Survival

The Doctor and the Ainley Master have one
final battle.

Doctor Who - Season 26, Story Four - Survival
Written 1/7/12

This has been a sad time for me, to say the least. Despite the fact that Doctor Who returned triumphantly 16 years later (and I should know, I was there), I still feel a tad poignant knowing that I've just watched the end of Doctor Who's original run. Survival could have been a disaster, but it did a lot of things in unexpected ways and, along with the rest of Season 26, it's another great example of Who done right. While it's not perfect, it's a fitting end to the 26 year run that pioneers both its adventurer spirit and its focus on character.
     In the final part of the accidental Ace trilogy, The Doctor follows one of Ace's offhand requests and takes her home to Perivale to meet her old friends. To her surpise, they're all missing - taken by what appears to be a mysterious cat, controlled from afar by a shadowy figure. Soon Ace has been taken, and The Doctor goes with her, alerted to the true nature of their situation - people are being taken to the planet of the Cheetah People, a place where people are transformed and possessed by their own primal rage, and where the planet responds empathically to the mood of its inhabitants. The Doctor must make sure that Ace does not succumb to the planet's allure, and that his enemy, The Master, doesn't manage to do any more damage to Earth than he already has.
     Ainley at times is a bit subdued as The Master, but it's a brilliant portrayel that oozes sophistication. For the once, he's not trying to control the Universe or even escape - his motivations tie into the themes of the story, about survival and desperation. The Master only wants to escape the Cheetah Planet and prevent himself from being absorbed by the planet's power. Apparently this was what he originally wanted to go with, all the way from Logopolis, and I so wish he had, because he's so wonderfully intimidating in the part. It's a shame, really, because the next story, 7 years later, saw another Master being incredibly camp. Given the power of the Ainley Master here, I despair more about the state of his character in the modern era - the horrendous Eric Roberts, the boring Derek Jacobi and the absolutely ridiculous John Simm.

Ace and Karra have a great chemistry, as she tears Ace
away from everything she knows.

     Survival also finished off Ace's story in style, beautifully showing her conflict between her older, confident side and the primal, possessed Ace attracted to the planet and its people (especially a Cheetah woman named Karra, who has a lot of lesbian chemistry with Ace despite the script having to be reeled back.) This episode does more than any other to cement the character and her dynamics with the Doctor, and it's absolutely perfect. She's flawed, but not in a really irritating way, and she has genuine reasons for being torn between both sides.
      The episode's theme was perhaps an incredibly ironic one. Even though this was never meant to be the final story of the season (that was Ghost Light, in which we find the final filmed scenes), the episodes focus upon survival against all odds does seem rather fitting for a show that had survived so much and was at an all time high. I have absolutely no idea why it was cancelled, but the general consensus was that after the controversy of the Saward Era and the show's rescheduling to run opposite soap giant Coronation Street, so few people were watching that it wasn't worth it any more. The show was put on indefinite hiatus, and in 1990 it was officially cancelled, as had nearly happened three years prior. Survival is a perfect ending to a great season, and to the Original Run. I've had a lot of fun with the Cartmel Era, and I'm gonna miss it.

Thanks.

Review: Doctor Who Classic: Ghost Light

The Doctor plays many games at once...

Doctor Who - Season 26, Story Two - Ghost Light
Written between 28th and 29th June 2012

Ghost Light certainly didn't feel like Doctor Who, but that was a good thing, because it felt like something much better and bigger. It's almost the definition of High Concept, and in this form, I love it. In certain areas of the fandom it gets a bit of flak for being as such, many people requiring mulitple viewings. I wasn't such a person, although that was probably because I knew the basic plot before I watched it unfold, the concept having fascinated me as a child. It was also the beginning of the Ace trilogy, three stories accidentally arranged so as to provide one last burst of character development for this brilliant companion.
      As a thirteen-year-old girl, Ace was angered when her friend's flat was firebombed by racists. Finding herself in the haunted house named Gabriel Chase, she was scared by the place and burnt it down. The Doctor brings her to the house, 100 years prior, to face the evil she felt those years ago. It turns out that the house is controlled by the hypnotised puppet of evolutionary scientist Josiah Smith, a strange figure who is revealed to have been shedding inferior forms and has a Neanderthal butler. Josiah is left over from an alien science expedition who last visited the planet in the late Ice Age, intended upon cataloguing all life on Earth. Josiah rebelled against a powerful being known as Light, and now plans to assassinate Queen Victoria and take over the Earth. Light is revived, Smith's plan is foiled and after The Doctor shows Light that he too is changing, the powerful being self-terminates.
     The entire story is a powerful metaphor surrounding the acceptance of the Theory of Evolution in popular culture. This is highlighted at the beginning, where a priest dismisses Smith's belief in Evolutionary theory (from his advanced alien nature) as blasphemy, and is rewarded with transformation into an ape. Smith himself is someone who has accepted Evolution as empirical fact (he wants to take over the British Empire.) His rebellion is against Light, whose angelic appearance reveals his role as Religious Fundamentalism, so determined to reject Evolution and/or any change in their worldview that they'd rather destroy the Earth. The beauty of Ghost Light is that like most metaphorical Who, it can be interpreted in so many different ways.

     But beyond the metaphorical interpretation, the serial returns very successfully to gothic humour of the style prized by Robert Holmes in the 70s. The Cartmel era seems very successful at returning to old-school scares, and this story is no exception; as well as the Haunted House mechanic, we have freakish insectoid experiments, zombie-like creatures and people being turned to stone. It's also got this smog-thick atmosphere that makes every moment all the more delicious, and matches not only McCoy's darker costume but also his much darker persona.

Light cannot accept Change.

     Where the serial does fail is in the characterisation of its many minor characters. It was originally meant to be a four-parter, and one can see this, as it feels as if all of the important bits like atmosphere and theme have been left in while the rest was sojurned out. Some of those minor characters could have been really powerful, but it's left as a bit of a hodge-podge instead. The most egregious example is by far the mother and daughter of the house, who, having been released from their hypnosis by The Doctor, are instantly frozen by Light to stop them from changing further.
     That scene in particular brought home for me the realisation that we're getting close to the end of the Original run. It just happens to be, due to the series' rearranging, the final scene ever shot for the 63-89 series of Doctor Who. I'm glad that even in this near-final story, Doctor Who continues to be intelligent, exciting and as brilliant as ever. On to the end, gentlemen.

Thanks.

NEXT WEEK: The show won't survive Survival. Let's see how it all ends.
P.S. I already covered The Curse Of Fenric.

Review: Doctor Who Classic: Battlefield

The Brigadier and Bessie make their last
appearance.

Doctor Who - Season 26, Story One - Battlefield
Written 25/6/12

Merlin! That great yet troubled series staring Colin Morgan... sorry? Oh, no, this is Season 26 of Doctor Who! Sorry about that. Yes, for the first time (and the last) Doctor Who decided to deal with the concept of Arthurian Legend, another of Britain's myths that the show has entrenched itself into.The writer of last season's excellent Remembrance of the Daleks brings us this pseudo-Arthurian tale, and while it tries to be like that former story, it ends up stuffing itself in the process with too many characters and too many conflicts. (The opposite, I can say, of the TV Show.)
     Having discovered a nuclear bomb at an archeological dig, UNIT are called to the scene, led by Brigadier Winifred Bambera (Angela Bruce, who previously played the Female Lister in Red Dwarf). Thunderstorms abound at a castle near Carbury and the mysterious Lake Vortigern. The Doctor arrives just in time to watch UNIT battle a group of warriors enter from another Dimension, one in which Arthurian Myth is all true and where a version of The Doctor is known as Merlin. Using his influence amongst their culture, he joins old friend Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart and a large cast of characters to defeat Mordred and his mother, Morgaine, before they bring their war to our world.
     It's certainly nice to see UNIT again, but they're nowhere near as strong as they were previously, especially with the leadership of Angela Bruce's lacklustre Brigadier, whose incompetance turns her character into humourous slapstick. Indeed, the entire story has an air of the comic, with knights running around the countryside fighting horrendously choreographed battles in an almost Pythonesque way. And after such issues with ye-olde language being thrown about in Silver Nemesis, by far the worst story of the previous season, this continues to be laughable and silly. "Ere" was used no less than three times, for goodness sake. And there are so many characters, many of which have very little reason to be there AND very little to do, to the point where this is still true after four of them are randomly carted out of the story. Luckily the Brig gets some badass lines here or there, especially in the end, where he kills the Destroyer.

Morgaine is a great villain.

     Despite having a very weak link towards actual Arthurian mythology, I thought it was a great adaptation of the concept. The Doctor's character ultimately derives from the Merlin archetype; less, perhaps, than characters like Gandalf and Dumbledore, but he shares a similar role as the mystical mentor. The best part of their role in the story was very much the character of Morgaine, who was a very complex villain in a really good way. To cross continuities, she shares a lot of features with the early version of her counterpart Morgana in Merlin, with a dark villainous streak tempered by a genuine level of respect for those around her. She wants to turn our world upside down in her battle with Arthur, but she still pauses to respect the dead at a WWII memorial and cures a blind woman. The day is only saved when The Doctor tells her that Arthur is long dead, and she mourns for her worthy adversary.
      Battlefield on its own is a great romp, and I certainly wouldn't warn you away from it. But it falls prey to the same things that Silver Nemesis did, albeit in a less dramatic way. It's overstuffed, overlong and instead of the epic Arthurian Yarn we were promised, we got a bit of a runabout. I was expecting Camelot, not Monty Python and the Holy Grail. It wasn't a complete disaster, and it certainly is enjoyable, but not in a memorable way.

Thanks.

Review: Doctor Who Classic: The Curse of Fenric

Fenric lives!

Doctor Who - Season 26, Story Three - The Curse of Fenric. Written 17/2/12.

It's the Holidays, and as a change from the norm, this week's Classic Who Review is of a Seventh Doctor story, The Curse of Fenric. I've always viewed the McCoy era with a great deal of apprehension, steming mainly from the way that Andrew Cartmel's influence changed the show as it headed towards a style more fitting of the late Eighties/early Nineties. And Mel. Eugh.
     One of Who's greatest tragedies, if one ignores the turmoil that struck the rest of the Eighties, was how much the show was improving right at the end. Andrew Cartmel may have been working on a plot to make The Doctor into a god, but his influence was having a profound effect of the show and the final season in 1989 is often considered the best of the Eighties. The Curse of Fenric comes right in the centre of three stellar stories focussing on Seven's companion Ace, and it is everything Who ought to be - a runaround with witty dialogue that works on both a basic level and on a greater metaphorical one. It's daunting.
     The story follows The Doctor and Ace in 1943 at an Army Camp in Northumbria. Russian spies have arrived just in time for creatures known as Haemovores to reawaken in the oceans, marking the return of the grand evil Fenric. While army-representative Commander Millington wants to use the Enigma machine to trap the Russians after the war is over, scientist Dr. Judson uses the machine to play a strange Norse code. The code triggers the Heamovores' rise in numbers, and Fenric - whom The Doctor trapped away hundreds of years ago - is able to return once more. The Doctor exercises his grand plan, and manages to trap Fenric once more - but not before telling Ace about his manipulation of her life.

Ace's character is developed significantly.

     This story shows one of the key features of the Seventh Doctor that really highlights Cartmel's grand plan. We find out the reasoning behind The Doctor's acceptance of Ace as a companion back in the Season 24 story Dragonfire; she is a Wolf of Fenric, one of the descendants of Fenric's gaolers in the Viking era. This Doctor is manipulative and scheming, and is taking up plans he set in motion during his first incarnation (as in Remembrance of the Daleks in Season 25).
     Ace is also a key part of this story and this unintentional trilogy of stories at the end of the series run (Ghost Light, The Curse of Fenric and Survival). The way the character is written exposes how Ace has had so much development in her relatively short tenure; she starts as an inexperienced girl stranded in space and eventually becomes a grown woman, able to exploit both her intelligence and her sexuality. There's a scene where Ace needs to distract a guard, and does so by using this bizzare method of flirting that's both tacky and completely mesmerising.
     The Haemovores, marine-like vampires from Earth's future, are very well produced and at times are quite chilling. They would be copied by Toby Whithouse in 2010, for The Vampires of Venice. However, the vampires and their fear of faith don't quite pay justice to the story's wide array of themes. On one hand the story examines Nordic beliefs about evil and the afterlife, and on the other it dives straight into Cold War politics, an issue that was still potent even as the Soviet Union began its slow collapse. 

Better than Being Human...

     The Curse of Fenric's themology and character work is stunning. In comparison to the Saward era, it blows it out of the water. Despite my love for that period of Doctor Who, Fenric has convinced me that I was very wrong to dismiss this era of the show, and it remains a classic example of how good Doctor Who can be at any point in its history. I wholeheartedly reccomend that you check it out, no matter what era of Who you like.

Thanks.

NEXT WEEK: We resume our Five marathon with Warriors of the Deep.