List: My Five Favourite Companions

The Companion. Ever-changing, the role of The Doctor's friend has offered up a wide variety of characters. Here I'll discuss my top five companions (of the Who I've seen). Written 17/3/12.

Hi, Jack. Or do you prefer Captain?

5 - Jack Harkness - John Barrowman, 2005-10

You know, however much I take issue with in Nu Who, there are elements which I can't help but enjoy. In The Empty Child, RTD and Moffat co-created Captain Jack Harkness, the swarthy time-travelling omnisexual conman who fell under The Doctor's spell and decided to reform. He became something of a series-poster boy, an embodiment of RTD's style and taste that never quite went away, especially when he was granted his own spin-off show. Because of this passage, Jack is perhaps one of the most interesting characters in all of Nu Who.
     On his own, he was great fun, but at the end of his Season 27 appearances Jack was made immortal. This is the key to his character, but it's also his biggest flaw. His immortality added dramatically to his "cool factor," the catalyst of his rise to fame, but in later appearances it didn't gel with his characterisation. For someone eventually older than The Doctor himself, it's weird that Jack is still as irresponsible and slightly stupid as he is. He has none of the sincerity, none of the perspective that a man who has lived over two millenia should have.
     So why, then, is he on this list? It's simple. Jack is an awesome character; he emanates cool and always brightens the screen. He may not be the best-written character, but you always know that you'll be getting a mix of charm, wit and sci-fi goodness whenever he's around.

Mary Tamm has a plan.

4 - Romana I - Mary Tamm, 1978

The essence of style and sophistication, Romana I is here simply because her second incarnation irritates me. As a concept, Romana was brilliant - two Timelords, travelling the cosmos together with their societal differences allowing both characters great potential for development. Mary Tamm's take on the character embodies this and executes it in a brilliant way.
      There was a habit with some earlier companions for them just to become weak-willed girls who always needed The Doctor's help to rescue them or to explain to them what was going on. Baker's companions really began to challenge this. Arguably this started with Liz Shaw in 1970 and later Leela, but the next season in 1978 blew this out of the water with Romana, who was just as smart (if not more) than The Doctor and was in a constant battle to outshine him. Mary brought her wit and charm to the role, and her character is one of the best things about the already brilliant Key To Time arc.

She's smiling here, but really she's dying inside.

3 - Peri - Nicola Bryant, 1984-6

So most fans of the series are asking, why is Peri on this list, when she's mostly whiney and is one of the most obvious examples of the "Something for the Dads" phenomenon. Well... Peri is just my companion.
     Context. Two of the earliest Classic Whos that I ever had were given to me by my Aunt, who probably attained them by means that we won't discuss here. They were Revelation of the Daleks and The Two Doctors, and along with the 1999 release of The Five Doctors, they made sure that from childhood, I adored Eighties Who over all else. There isn't a logical reason to why I like her, but really it's probably her love-hate relationship with Six, which always struck her into the more positive light.
     Her story was ultimately a tragic one; a girl who fell in with an attractive man, and forced to accept it as he changed into an unsavoury character. In the end she was either possessed and killed, or forced to live out the rest of her life with Brian Blessed (I don't know which is worst.) However, Peri's constant optimism and good attitude helped her to become the first companion whom I connected with.
     And she was pretty hot, too. But that's irrelevant.

Red Dwarf did start at roughly this time...

2 - Ace - Sophie Aldred, 1987-9

Ace, the nickname of Dorothy McShane, is a controvertial character. Some in the community see her as a desperate attempt to make Doctor Who "for the kids," with her already-outdated slang and Dave-Lister-esque costume. Ace was a girl from the Eighties who by some magical occurance found herself in the future, on a human colony called Iceworld. Just as Seven ditched Mel, he picked her up and they spent the rest of the Classic Series together.
     Andrew Cartmel had some weird ideas for the future of Who, and ultimately some like me are glad that his storyline was cut off at Season 26, but his vision produced some very, very good writing. Ace is a direct result of this, and her character is arguably the best written in the Eighties. Her entire life has been a ploy by The Doctor to fight a variety of evil enemies, and in turn he helps her to overcome her poor beginnings and eventually mature into an intelligent young woman.
      If she's so good, then, why is she only Number Two? Ace is good in the Classic sense of the word, like most Pertwee and T.Baker stories, but she doesn't capture my heart in the way that maybe Peri or Nyssa do. She was a fitting companion to end the series on, and showed how much the companion role could do with a modern attitude.

From Princess to Doctor.

1 - Nyssa - Sarah Sutton, 1981-3

Whenever I talk about the Eighties, I spend a lot of time talking about how bad things are and then making up excuses as to why on earth I love them as I do. Nothing embodies this more than my love for Nyssa, a character who in Season 19 was relegated to the third wheel as the two obnoxious whiners took precedent. Her potential as a character was overshadowed by the problems of her era, to the extent where I love her mainly on the fact that she managed to shine through at all.
     Nyssa is everything a companion should be. She's new enough to this world to be an audience identification figure and yet alien enough to be useful. She's naive enough to need guidance and smart enough to not get into trouble easily and to actually find The Doctor fascinating. Nyssa's leaving scene in Terminus always makes me tear up, because Nyssa isn't leaving because she feels like it, or because she's met a man. She's leaving out of a philanthropic princple, the desire to use her skills to help people and redeem herself after escaping a home-planet destroyed by the man who possessed her father, having learnt to grow up and take responsibility for her own actions.
     Ace is classically good. Peri is part of my childhood. Romana is what a companion should be, and Jack embodies everything a companion can be. Nyssa? She was a companion whom I grew to love even when she fell into the background. And that, in my eyes, makes her my favourite companion of all.

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.

Review: Doctor Who Classic: The Five Doctors (Revisited)

"Three Doctors and a Bloke In A Wig"

See here for my inital look at this story.

Doctor Who - Season 20, Story Seven - The Five Doctors (20th Anniversary Special)
No, not the mind probe!

The first time I tried to cover this story, I collapsed into gushing about how much I loved it because of its association with my discovery of Doctor Who. Without The Five Doctors, I wouldn't be posting Classic Reviews, and I certainly wouldn't have the ingrained love for Who that has defined my television experience for the vast majority of my life. But I am (or at least pretend to be) a critic, and that means that I have to look past the rose tinted spectacles.
     Of course, as this is the JNT Era, the title is a bit of a misnomer. Tom Baker refused to return to the series only two years after the end of his seven year tenure, and so his role was reduced to that of stock footage. William Hartnell had passed away in 1975, and so the production team decided to replace with with similarly aged actor Richard Hurndall. To this day that choice is incredibly controvertial; the First Doctor is shown through stock footage at the beginning, and the difference between the two actors is clear. There are also some clear differences in characterisation; unavoidable, perhaps, but ones that affect the story. Hurndall contains none of Hartnell's deep subtley in his blend of grouchiness and curiosity, with only the former being expressed. That at least can be explained by a different actor; the Third Doctor is a tad more pleasant than his 70s characterisation, and Five suddenly becomes endlessly bland. And is struck down by Spearhead Syndrome at the beginning of the story.

The Master attempts to help but turns evil anyway.

     There isn't so much a plot as there is a series of simple events, with heavy amounts of fanwank in-between them. The Daleks, the Cybermen, the Yeti and the Master return, the latter from only the previous story. We also see the Castellan and Borusa from Arc of Infinity, although Borusa has regenerated yet again. The Doctors and their seemingly-randomly assigned companions (Sarah Jane Smith, Susan. Tegan, Turlough and The Brigadier) all head to the Tower of Rassilon by themselves, and after Borusa reveals himself as the villain they gather in Rassilon's chamber and see Borusa turned into a sentient statue.
      What it lacks in plot or even decent characterisation is in its sheer fun value. It may just consist of trekking around parts of North Wales and treading very carefully down some corridors, but for fans or even long-time casual viewers, the ability to see multiple Doctors and Companions interacting is a big draw. That, and it's terrible. But The Five Doctors, unlike Time-Flight or parts of Arc of Infinity, is terrible in all the good ways. The acting is melodramatic and often camp, and some of the line-reads have become legendary for their complete failure to display realistic human behaviour. Of note is Paul Jericho's final line as the Castellan (see page quote) which has gone down in history as one of the worst acted lines in Doctor Who's history.

I love it, I love it, I love it!

     Really, The Five Doctors shouldn't work. Its writing is a bit of a shambles, expressed through caricature-like distortions of the Doctors' characters. But it's really, really quite fun and strangely enough I would recommend this to anyone who wanted to get into the show. The Five Doctors is a cornerstone in Doctor Who fandom, a television event that serves to competantly celebrate two decades of one of the best sci-fi shows in the world. And I adore it.

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: Pramface 1.6

Jamie is forced to deliver the baby himself.

Pramface - Series One, Episode Six - Aaargh

Despite the fact that in some ways it continued to epitomise everything wrong with the series, "Aaargh" was by far the most entertaining hour that Pramface has produced so far. The characters were a lot better constructed, and despite the detatchment that I've felt for the past five weeks, I felt for these characters for the first time. The rest of the storylines made me chuckle and I just felt like for a change, Pramface knew what it was doing.
     Laura, debating on whether to get into a relationship with Jamie, has him take her shopping. While shopping, Laura's contractions start and they're unabgle to get back to the car. Laura's parents attend a conference and try and get frisky, while Jamie's parents go hiking in order for Jamie's Dad to reveal that he's been made redundant. Mike decided to run in a chrarity fun-run and then take the proceeds in order to buy a prostitute and lose his virginity. Beth gets wise to his plan and forces him to give the proceeds to charity. Jamie's Dad gives a touching speech over the phone to Jamie, helping him to deliver Laura's baby. As they're taken to A&E, the two protagonists admit to each other that they're not prepared for what's to come.
     It's surprising for me that this episode worked because of its characters, which in the past have been Pramface's weakest element. Fundamentally, Aaargh did what was necessary and didn't have so many overt attempts to comedy, and thus the humour was more subtle and character-based, which worked because after five weeks the characters have enough slow-dripped personality to be funny. As I said last week, the relationship between the two leads has only just developed, and that played a major part in making this episode more appealing.
     I wouldn't reccomend it, but I would be curious to see what a second series of Pramface could accomplish with these characters, especially as there were several arcs that were left as loose ends and there was a clear hook at the end for a series examining Laura and Jamie's attempts to raise a child together. I'll be looking for future developments and if this final episode has proved anything, it's that Pramface and it's characters can produce good TV.

Thanks.

Review: Lost 5.10: He's Our You

Sayid shoots at his juvenile torturer.

Sayid as a character is one that soon goes off the rails in terms of characterisation during this season. Throughout the first four season he's the muddled mixture of science and faith; the conflicted Muslim atoning for the crimes he committed in his army days and with the intense physical and technological skills required to assist the Survivors in any way possible. The moment that Lost's mystical BS starts to arrive here in Season Five, Sayid's characterisation evaporates and this episode only really serves to tie up the loose ends of his off island storylines.
     Off the Island, we see the point where, after The Economist, Ben tells Sayid that there's no one left for Sayid to assassinate. This leads Sayid to do charity work in the Caribbean, as we saw back in The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham. After the events of that episode, Ben comes and tells Sayid about Locke's death, giving him the instructions that he acts upon when he rescues Hurley from the mental institution. Even later, after the events of Ben's stand-off with Sun in This Place Is Death, Sayid meets Ilana at a bar. She tricks him and claims to be in the employ of one of the businesses whose head Sayid assassinated, and thus is forced onto Flight 316.
     In 1977, young Ben gives Sayid a sandwhich but is attacked by his father for it. Sayid is interrogated by Dharma's interrogation expert and is given truth serum, revealing details about all of the Survivor's origins as well as information about Dharma that even they don't know yet. Later that day, the Dharma leaders take a vote on whether or not to kill Sayid. The vote is unanimously yes. Sawyer attempts to release him but he rejects the offer. Later, Ben does the same and the two escape into the jungle. Taking his last opportunity, Sayid shoots young Ben and runs off.

The torturer is tortured.

      Despite the fact that he was in tight circumstance and that the future Ben would "ruin" Sayid's life, there really is no precedent in attacking a child. I have no sympathy for Sayid's post-island and then post-return plight whatsoever; he had a choice. He chose to kill those men, despite his four seasons worth of character development that showed that he had rejected murder after everything he did in the past. Sayid ceases to become an interesting character because his motivations are contradictory without being deliberately so. I don't know why Ben killed Locke, but there are lots of reasons for it. The only reason for Sayid's actions are ones that directly contradict the actions they defend.

    He's Our You took the character of Sayid and made him into a caricature of his former self. It robbed him of any credibilty as a developing human being, and that's why this bugs me. This episode, as all episodes on Lost are, was technically brilliant, but the content foreshadowed a turn in the series' writing that will become ever apparent as we head towards the finale of my Lost reviews.

Thanks.

NEXT WEEK: A fine example that Whatever Happened, Happened.

Film: The Hunger Games

That facial expression? Get used to it.

The Hunger Games - 2012, Directed by David Ross, Written by Suzanne Collins, 12A  
Written 25/3/12
"May the odds be ever in your favour."

On Sunday, I went with some friends to see The Hunger Games, a film that is getting a crap-load of good marketing right now. Hailed as the new Twilight, the film promised to mix great teen drama with actual themes like the rich/poor divide and the superficiality of modern society. And if it had done that, I would not be writing this review.
     The Hunger Games is an adaptation of the first in a trilogy of books, written by Suzanne Collins. It concerns a futuristic vision of America called Panem that is split into twelve "districts" of varying economic status and the central Capitol, whose elite residents control the wealth and power of the other districts. In remembrance of the quashing of the districts' past rebellion, two young people are taken from each district and forced to participate in a televised fight for the death in a Truman-esque dome. Katniss Everdeen (Hereafter Catnip) is from the rundown District 12, and volunteers to help save her sister from being chosen.
     At The Hunger Games' core, there is a set of very interesting and very relevant ideas trying to burst out. There are varying comparisons to modern America's perception of shows like American Idol and the X Factor, trading admiration for freedom from public humiliation. There was also some biting political reference to the 1% controlling the 99%, which is an important issue the world over. But that had to be channelled through the characters and through the medium, and that just didn't measure up to the standard that it had set for itself. The background inklings of this themology was there but it never got a chance to really shine through, and when it did it didn't correlate with the foreground action.

Catnip, Peeta and The Facial Expression.

     I was told by one of my friends, who have actually read the series, that Catnip's major personality trait is a staunch will and a sombreness inherant in her life that made it difficult for her to smile. This, I can clearly say, did not translate through to screen, and it simply appeared as if Jenniffer Lawrence was emanating Keanu Reeves' acting repetoire with her single facial expression. And even with this in mind, I didn't get, "stony and resolute" from her performance, I got "stony and wooden." This may have worked in the Arena scenes in which she was fighting for her survival, but in the exterior scenes where she had to win over both her friend and the population of the Capitol, she just doesn't come across as a likeable character.
     One of the things that people have been comparing to Twilight are the hints of a love-triangle between the central female protagonist and the weak pretty guy (Peeta) and the rustic strongman (Gale). These characters never met, and thus this didn't materialise, despite a few romantic overtones. These romantic overtones were channelled into the thematic aspect, being manipulated by the team as a PR device to get the public to route for District 12's fighters. For me it felt too little too late - there was no real representative of what the average Joe got out of the Games in the first place, and setting up a love-story wouldn't change that. The Hunger Games seems to forget the brutality of its own premise.
     However, there were some characters who shined above the rest. Stanley Tucci played an extravagent blue-haired show-host presenting the Games, and provided some of the film's best satire and comic relief. On the heroes' side was endearing past-winner Haymitch (Woody Harrelson), whose initial apathy fell away into a noble character that felt a lot more warm than our protagonist. Other than this, a lot of the characters fell into single dimensions. The "evil" alliance of teens in the Games stripped the situation of any moral ambiguity. The President of the Capitol punished his underlings without consideration for future action. The cute little girl had to die, if only to squeeze as much out of the scenario as possible. That last one really got me, because The Hunger Games spent so little time really lamenting the Games' potential for suffering that the death of this character, who we'd seen for a maximum of five minutes, didn't really hit me as much as they wanted it to.
     There were a few other nitpicks, especially in the details of this dystopian future. Why are there no guns? Why do the poorer areas of the US look like they're pre-Civil War, and yet everyone has a television? Why does the international community not care about this brual totalitarian regime? How does the world of The Arena work? How were the makers of the show able to conjure creatures out of midair? Why does anyone watch this damn show? If you compare this to Pleasantville, director David Ross's previous effort and one of my favourite films, it covers up these details in a really competant way. They weren't vital to the film, but they did take me out of it.
     David Ross's direction seemed to take an odd turn here, and while it was quite proffessional for most of the time, there were long stretches where he employed shaky cam. This is a clique in Hollywood born in The Blair Witch Project, one that really, really needs to die. The first 20 minutes of the film can at times be nigh unwatchable due to the weird cuts and shaky cam, and it adds absolutely nothing to the film except a migraine. Elsewhere, the same technique is used to disguise really shoddy fight choreography and keeping things at a PG-13 rating.
     And yet. I still enjoyed myself, and I'd still see both the sequels. Why is a very difficult question to answer. Likely, it was because I see potential in what The Hunger Games trilogy can do, and because I loved the rich aesthetic. The aesthetic was highly deriviative and didn't make much sense, but it was still incredibly modern and the time spent in the capitol was a lot more interesting from a science-fiction point of view than the incredibly repetitive running through the same stretch of jungle. Regardless of what I think of the film's characters or message, this is a very beautiful film in both its grand set-pieces and in its visual depiction of the human race.
     The Hunger Games is deeply flawed in several places, and it feels more embryonic than it really should. But I'd still reccomend you go and see it, because at its heart it's a story with a lot of potential. The action stuff in the Arena wasn't for me, but it has captured the hearts of many others and I'm sure that things will have improved by the sequel, Catching Fire, in November. It's sad to see such potential go to waste from the director of one of my favourite films, but I can only hope that the more political sequel will remove any comparisons with prior works and allow Suzanne Collins' trilogy to really stand out.

Thanks.

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.