"Heroin Screws You Up": Nightmare of Eden

When I was at University, I showed two Doctor Who videos to my housemate and best mate, who had never watched Doctor Who in his life (he was a Trekkie). They were The War Machines and The Nightmare of Eden. These probably seem a weird choice of first stories to show a non-fan. They just happened to be the two VHS tapes I had bought from the Virgin Megastore (remember those?)that day. He laughed out loud when Nightmare of Eden opened with the model shot of the spacecraft. He suggested it looked like a washing up liquid bottle. Actually, that is one of the best model shots in Seventies Doctor Who. After watching the two serials, he concluded that Nightmare of Eden was the more interesting story, but he preferred the 'kindly grandfather' of William Hartnell's Doctor to Tom Baker (a shame he didn't watch An Unearthly Child). I think watching that VHS of Nightmare of Eden was a profoundly negative experience for me. I had loved the novelisation of Nightmare of Eden as a child and watching the actual serial just seemed so disappointing. Everything looked so depressingly cheap. After, that I never bought a Doctor Who VHS again.

The Eden jungle set looks good and it might have been a better story, had we spent more time there, but unfortunately, most of the time we are on a spaceship set that is very flat and dull looking, as well as far too brightly lit. The Mandrell costumes are no worse than most other Doctor Who monster costumes, but the way they filmed lets them down. We see so much of them and under such bright lights, they inevitably look hilarious. Equally hilarious are the uniforms of Officers Fisk and Costa. They look very... Village People.

It is not just the sets and the costumes that are bad, we also get some uninspiring acting. The worst offender is Lewis Fiander, playing Tryst. He completely sends up the character he is playing, refusing to take the story seriously. Even the regulars don't help much. The scene with Tom Baker getting roughed up by Mandrells is embarassing. Romana comes across as just a little too smug. If there is any story to give ammunition to JNT's argument that the TARDIS crew had become too clever, this is it.

A lot of fans praise Nightmare of Eden for offering an 'intelligent' story about drugs. As a professional drugs worker, I find it really annoying. It offers a very cliched Daily Mail idea of drug addiction. It follows the common assumption that you only need to try drugs once and you will be addicted forever. This really is not true. Heroin can be very addictive, but I have known users who only use heroin occasionally without becoming opiate dependent. It also offers the rather extreme scenario of a drug that is certain to kill you. Did the writers really imagine that people would actually use a drug that causes certain death? This is a horribly patronizing and insulting view of drug users. Drug users may make choices that are unwise, but they are not stupid. Maintaining an habit with inherent risks is a bit different from using a substance that kills you.




There are a few good lines in this story, but otherwise, there is not much to love here.

Seeds of Doom

I am one of the few Doctor Who fans who is not keen on the Philip Hinchcliffe era. To be honest, given that horror is not everybody's cup of tea, I am surprised there are not more of us. I really struggle with the Hinchcliffe/ Holmes delight in gruesome painful deaths. They really pushed the show too far in a violent direction. Philip Sandifer, who often says things I agree with, ends up being a very uncritical defender of this period of the show. Yet when it comes to Seeds of Doom, he admits that the critics of Hinchcliffe have a point here. He points out that in this story, the producer cannot plead that the horror is fantasy and not realistic violence, with Dr. Who brandishing a gun, beating somebody up so badly he ends up in hospital and instructing a mercenary to make a Molotov cocktail. This is Doctor Who doing a big dumb action thriller. It does feel quite right, with Dr. Who at the beck and call of government agencies, investigating clues like a detective and the final resolution coming from an air strike.

Yet for all that I detest the excessive of violence of this story, I still can't bring myself to dislike it. I certainly enjoy a lot more than anything in the season that follows it. On the most basic level, it's got a big tentacled vegetable monster in it. I like man-eating plants and I like big tentacled monsters. The concept of an alien monster being dug up out of the Antarctic ice and menacing an isolated base (yeah, The Thing) always works. The direction and effects are superb, as you would expect with Douglas Camfield at the helm. We also get memorable characters like Harrison Chase, Scorby and Amelia Ducat. Although it is a six-part story, it does not feel too long or padded. It maintains a much better sense of pace than Genesis of the Daleks or Talons of Weng-Chiang. So I just can't dislike this. Seeds of Doom is a guilty pleasure of a Doctor Who story.

TARDIS Eruditorum Volume 5: Tom Baker and the Williams Years, by Phil Sandifer

When I discuss Phil Sandifer or link to posts on his blog here, I often get comments expressing disdain and contempt for Sandifer. I suspect a lot of the people who like my blog are the sort of people who can't stand Sandifer and the views he represents. I do not share such feelings at all. I very much enjoy reading his writing. Yes, I often disagree with him, but I actually agree with him just as often. I don't share his politics, but is that important? I get frustrated by the way he comes across as so angry and bitter, but I have plenty of my own faults.

Sandifer wisely decided to split the massive Fourth Doctor era in half. This book therefore covers the less well appreciated Graham Williams era, along with the brief period of Season 18, in which Tom Baker worked under John Nathan-Turner.

I criticised the previous volume on the Hinchcliffe era because I felt Sandifer allowed his love of Seasons 12-14 to cloud his judgement and overlook some of the faults of those stories. It lacked the more objective critical perspective of volume 3 on the Pertwee era. In this volume, he gets his critical perspective back. He shows a real awareness of the faults of the Williams material, yet he also shows a genuine appreciation of what is great about it. There were definite flaws to the Williams era, it's low production values, its occasional tendency to silliness and the way it became dominated by Baker as an out of control lead man, yet it was also immensely fun. I don't think Sandifer regards Season 18 as quite the high point of Doctor Who that I consider it, but he is also well aware of its depth and creativity.

Sandifer begins the book with contemporary culture, looking at the Sex Pistols and the Punk movement. He later relates this to The Sunmakers, seeing that serial as the strongest expression of the Punk aesthetic in Doctor Who. I remember in the blog comments when he was covering this period, Sandifer got quite a bit of criticism for his use of Punk as a paradigm for understanding the Williams era. I think the criticism is to some extent fair. One can perhaps vaguely see something punkish about that story, but otherwise, Punk does not register at all in Doctor Who until the Seventh Doctor stories. I remember somebody arguing that intellectuals and writers tend to overemphasise the importance of Punk as a cultural movement. Heavy Metal was much more popular with the working classes in the late Seventies and early Eighties and intellectuals generally despise Metal.

Coming into the first story of the Williams era, The Horror of Fang Rock, Sandifer discusses the common view that this is essentially a Hinchliffe type story. Sandifer points out that Horror of Fang Rock lacks the grandeur of Hinchcliffe stories, offering a far more mundane setting. Where an Hincliffe adversary would be a cosmic threat, the adversary here is just a lone alien scout. The stakes are lower. There is also the suggestion of the story as being in some way a critique of the Hinchliffe era, with the enormous body count and the sheer callousness of the Doctor's reaction to the carnage.

Unsurprisingly, our author identifies The Invisible Enemy as the first bad story of the Williams era. He sees it as being let down primarily by its poor designs, as well as the more general faults of Bob Baker and David Martin. Sandifer is not overly impressed by Image of the Fendahl, arguing that it's use of Von Daniken's ideas are clumsy and problematic.

Leaving Doctor Who to address the appearance of Star Wars on the scene, Sandifer takes a well deserved swipe at Joseph Campbell. He also points out that the new trick of George Lucas was to tell fantastic adventure stories using the visual trappings of science fiction, without the hard Sci-Fi concepts that had previously been the bread and butter of science fiction. Inevitably, discussion of Star Wars leads on to an examination of the Underworld, which like almost everybody else, he regards as a failure. He points out that Bob Baker and Dave Martin's work is effective when backed up impressive visuals from the production team and in this story, the visual effects are a massive letdown. The author praises The Invasion of Time for treating the viewers as intelligent people, with its apparent subversion of the Doctor as moral centre of the story. He sees the story falling down in the way it treats the Sontarans as another race of pointlessly returning monsters and the Time Lords as utterly pathetic.

In contrast to Underworld, Sandifer sees The Ribos Operation as the story that truly gets the new paradigm of Star Wars right in Doctor Who. The grand cosmic drama is shifted to a rather more small scale story about inter-planetary fraud, yet is used to frame this narrative. Graham Williams' bonkers idea about cosmic dualism is subverted by Robert Holmes with the portrayal of the White Guardian as just another colonial master and the Doctor visibly rejecting the notion of subordination to him. Answering Lawrence Miles criticism that Mary Tamm does not take her role seriously, Sandifer argues that she is not supposed to; Romana is there to mock and ridicule the Doctor and the very premise of the story. In a separate essay on whether the Guardians can be regarded as a legitimate part of the Doctor Who canon, he points out some inconsistencies between the Guardians in Season 16 and in the Davison era.

Regarding Pirate Planet, Sandifer defends this story, arguing that its genius lies in fooling the viewer into complacency. It seems like a light-hearted story, but it turns out to be a tale of genocide on a monstrous scale. I was overjoyed by his positive evaluation of The Stones of Blood, as this rather maligned serial is one of my favorites. He writes:

"It's a genuinely enjoyable subversion of the by now standbys of the Hinchcliffe era that goes into some of the most fun Doctor Who has ever had at being anti-authoritarian, and with a new sort of authority figure. We haven#t seen the Doctor do the legal system in a while. It's also another nice step in the larger anti-epic, thanks to the Megara. The Megara are, after all, keepers of justice, and what is justice if not maintaining fairness and balance? And of course, the Megara are shown to be ridiculously blinkered and silly, striking another blow against the basic assumptions of the Key to Time."

He also acknowledges The Androids of Tara as a well made and enjoyable story, if lacking the coneptual depth of The Ribos Operation. Power of Kroll he views as a cynical hack-job, handed in by the usually brilliant Robert Holmes because he was fed up with the show. He also unsurprisingly treats the Key to Time finale, Armageddon Factor as a disappointment, while recognising that at its conclusion, it brings itself in line with Robert Holmes in subverting the premise of the story arc. He takes a brief look at The Auntie Matter, viewing it as a sad, but enjoyable piece of nostalgia, like much of Big Finish's output.

Sandifer moves from Season 16 to talking about Margaret Thatcher and the Winter of Discontent. I'm afraid our author comes across as quite hysterical when he talks about Thatcher, viewing her as the 'raw embodiment of all evil.' He says this description was initially a joke, but he seems to seriously paint Margaret Thatcher as the politial equivalent of Voldemort. I find his attitude rather disappointing. One might expect that it is the mark of an intelligent adult that they can disagree with the policies and view of a political leader while according them some basic respect. I'm not quite sure, however, that Sandifer really understands the concept of respectful disagreement, at least not when it touches anything vaguely political. His attacks on the late Baroness Thatcher, along with his comparing the late Mary Whitehouse to a school bully he once encountered show something of a lack of maturity and perspective.

Fans have endlessly criticised Romana's regeneration scene in Destiny of the Daleks, including Lawrence Miles in About Time. Sandifer offers a great response to this:

"I mean what, does Miles just want Lalla Ward to put on a Mary Tamm wig and roll over before Davros enters and shouts 'Leave the man, it's the girl I want?' Say what you want about the opening scene, and I'm certainly not going to pretend it's the shows finest hour, but there is a job to be done and it gets it done with a minimum fuss."

Personally, I quite like that scene and it is positive prove that Time Lords don't have to have white skin after regenerating. Moffat should have remembered that scene and given us a black or Asian Doctor after Matt Smith. Sandifer appreciates the sheer glee that Lalla Ward brought to the show. Mary Tamm's difficulty taking the stories seriously worked in its own way in the Key to Time, but Lalla's insistence on taking the stories deadly seriously is quite welcome. As might be expected, Sandifer is unimpressed on the whole with Destiny and it's return to Dan Dare style space adventure.

You don't need me to tell you that Sandifer thinks City of Death is a good story. The Creature from the Pit, however, is more contested ground. Sandifer sees a strong political message in this story (which was perhaps lost in the direction), with Lady Adrasta representing the same ruthless capitalism as Thatcher. Moving on to Nightmare of Eden, our author brings up an interesting fact; that Bob Baker has written three Oscar-winning films, namely the Wallace and Gromit animated features. He sees in this the fact that Bob Baker (and his former writing partner, Dave Martin) were at their best when producing stories that were structured around visual events rather than dialogue. This means that the writing duo were quite ill-suited to the William years, with the centrality of Tom Baker's comic dialogue and the generally unpolished visuals. Sandifer agrees with Lawrence Miles that Horns of Nimon is, like Underworld, a failure to understand how to use the epic scope of mythology in science fiction. A large part of this is the budgetary constraints and the disappointing visual aspects of the production. He argues that this accounts for Robert Holmes demoralisation and disenchantment with the program. On the lost story Shada, Sandifer comments "So Shada is at once better than the manifestations of it that we have and clearly inferior to the heavenly ideal that some have made of it." He offers some very interesting discussion of the different variations of Shada, including among them, Douglas Adam's DIRK Gently's Holisitc Detective Agency, which was essentially a reworking of the story. After a discussion of Gareth Roberts' novel The Well Mannered War, we get an interview with the man himself, which offers some insights into Williams-era appreciation.

In a commissioned essay, Sandifer addresses the question of whether it makes sense to talk about a 'JNT era.' Given the considerable differences in style between the script editors employed by John Nathan-Turner, it is difficult to identify a unifying theme for 80s Doctor Who. He finds a paradox in JNT's desire to tone down the humour of the Williams years, while seeing Doctor Who primarily in the paradigm of light entertainment. He finds something of a resemblance between the work of JNT and RT Davies, in that both men treated Doctor Who as 'event television' working the stories into the broader picture of television broadcasting.

Taking a look at other science fiction shows of the late 70s/ early 80s, our author is unimpressed by Quatermass (1979), sadly describing it as 'one hundred minutes of Nigel Kneale yelling at the damn kids to get off his lawn." On the other hand, he admires David Maloney's adaptation of Day of the Triffids. He also has much praise for Sapphire and Steel and suggests David McCallum's performance as Steel was an inspiration for McCoy's Doctor.

The Leisure Hive is viewed as the start of JNT's new 'event television' approach. Sandifer points out that in every way, the serial broadcasts the fact that Doctor Who has re-branded and reinvented itself. He connects this to the new relationship between JNT and fandom, what he cleverly calls 'the fan-industrial complex.' On Meglos, his most interesting comments relate to the way that the Chronic Hysteresis works as a kind of magic. He views the introduction of Waterhouse's Adric in Full Circle as a spectacularly bad casting decision. Nevertheless, he acknowledges both the dramatic strength of Full Circle and Bidmead's new aesthetic vision for the show. He feels that State of Decay has some great ideas, particularly its reinvention of Time Lord mythology, but it is let down by a less than impressive production. Personally, I think State of Decay reaches a pretty high standard, but perhaps I'm not the best television critic.

We get an enjoyable diversion by way of a look at 2000 AD, one of the better known British comics. At the heart of this comic was Judge Dredd, the future law-enforcer with his perpetually humourless expression and huge gun. Sandifer says of it:

"But what's interesting about Judge Dredd is that underneath the extravagant violence there is a rather wicked bit of intelligent satire. The entire premise of it rapidly becomes that the audience is rooting for a character who is obviously a bad guy, while the villains are often perfectly sympathetic characters. In the first major storyline, Dredd violently puts down a rebellion of robots who are shown to have free will, and who are rebelling against conditions that are clearly slavery- a rebellion that would, in any normal sci-fi story, treat them as the good guys."

Examining Warriors' Gate, Sandifer asks what Bidmead really understood by magic and science. He suggests that what Bidmead objected to was plots in which the Doctor wins simply because he's the Doctor. Instead, he wanted to see the Doctor winning the day through the rules and structure of the narrative worlds he enters. This essentially fitted with the original vision of David Whittaker and with the first two Doctors. However, the brash and bold showmen Doctors of the Seventies were incompatible with this paradigm, hence the need for Tom Baker's departure. In the departure of Romana, Sandifer sees the resolution of his 'Problem of Susan;' we finally have a companion who outgrows her role and becomes a potential protagonist on her own. Sandifer argues that The Keeper of the Traken is structured like a Shakespearean comedy, but subverted into a tragedy at the end by the death of Tremas. When we finally get to Logopolis, our author gives us one of his experimental pieces. The Logopolis essay is written as a 'choose your own adventure.' It is written in beautiful poetic language, but it's one of those occasions when I largely fail to understand exactly what he is trying to say.

Finally, in his overall summary, Sandifer praises the sense of fun in the Graham Williams era. For all that he appreciates the dark and epic stories, he cannot fail to enjoy City of Death or Androids of Tara. He suggests that even the weakest stories of this period, such as Nightmare of Eden are enjoyable to watch with friends and snack food.

The Creature from the Pit

For me, the Graham Williams era seems very hit and mess. On the rare occasions when Graham Williams got things right, as in City of Death or Androids of Tara, the results are glorious. Sometimes there is a delightful sense of fun pervading some of the shoddier serials of the era, yet often the shoddiness is all that comes across. In the midst of all this era's problems is the unrestrained Tomfoolery of the show's lead actor. The Creature from the Pit is unfortunately one of those stories which particularly showcases the problems with the show in this period. It ably demonstrates just how necessary it was for John Nathan-Turner to come on board at bring the program into shape.

For a serial of this era, the production values in this are a little higher than usual. The jungle sequences filmed in Ealing studios are very impressive and the 'indoor' sets are not bad either. The costumes are also particularly lavish. Unfortunately, the alien monster Erato is rather less impressive and his resemblance to something else makes him a little embarrassing to watch.

Myra Frances is enjoyable in her camp performance as the evil Lady Adrasta. Unfortunately, her adversaries, the gang of bandits are a silly bunch, who offensively modeled on Fagin. They demonstrate the repeated failing of Season 17 to take the stories seriously. As Phil Sandifer argued in his recent book, they are the oppressed underclass of this planet. The viewer should be led to sympathize with them, not laugh at them.

Organon seems to be a creation of Douglas Adams; there is no character quite like him in any of David Fisher's other scripts. He serves no purpose in moving the plot, apart from a little exposition. He is there to deliver Douglas Adams style satire. If you like Douglas Adams' stuff you will love him, if you don't, then every minute of his presence on the screen will be annoyance.

This serial had Lalla Ward's first performance as Romana. With her haughtiness, she plays the role a little closer to Mary Tamm's style and she is dressed up in a dress that was rather more like what Romana no.1 would wear. This is not the Romana no.2 we see in other stories, yet I quite like the way she comes across as a sort of fairytale princess in The Creature from the Pit. It rather fits with the incredible earnestness and innocence with which Lalla Ward approached the role.

As usual for this period, Tom Baker spends his time wandering around the set delivering comics lines. The gag about Teach Yourself Tibetan is just daft.

There is probably a good story wrapped up in here, yet the failure of all involved to take it seriously means that it just ends up being a silly comic story in which any kind of social or political critique is lost.

On the positive side, it is a story about the Doctor exploring a strange alien world, something which happens very rarely in the BBC Wales series. For all that Graham Williams era ended up looking cheap, it did try it's best to give us exciting new worlds. With an exotic jungle planet with a peculiarly appropriate name and lavisly dressed natives, this feels like a story that might have been done and played straight in the Hartnell era. Erato would certainly have looked much more convincing in black and white.

Meglos

I am a huge fan of Season 18 and consider it to be the strongest season of the show (the only other contender being Season 25, which is let down by Silver Nemesis). Meglos is unfortunately the weakest story of an otherwise brilliant season. However, Meglos is not nearly as atrocious as it is sometimes considered by fans and shows the consistent improvement in quality between Seasons 17 and 18.

Central to John Nathan-Turner's agenda for his first season as producer was in improvement on production values after the sloppiness of the Graham Williams era. This is very much evident in Meglos, with the spacecraft design, the costumes and the the appearance of Zolpha-Thura. Tigella is perhaps less effective as a planet, with the jungle looking a little unimpressive. More importantly, the brilliant musical score helps to give the worlds of this serial an haunting sense of atmosphere. As even critics of Meglos agree, the spiny make-up effect on Tom Baker is extremely impressive and disturbing. Meglos is certainly an interesting character, a disembodied intelligence manifesting in a cactus. It reminds me a bit of Vulthoom from the Klark-Ash-Ton story in the Cthulhu Mythos.

We also get Jacqueline Hill returning to the show in the role of Lexa. Admittedly her part as a closed-minded fundamentalist is a rather cliched one, with little for her to develop, yet she still gives a lovely performance.

The Chronic Hysteresis is rather less impressive, as well as being scientific nonsense. The scene goes on rather to long, even if Lalla Ward does a good job of appearing distressed by the absurd situation.

I always love carnivorous plants, so I quite like the Bell Plants, even if they are not terribly impressive. It would not be long before the BBC put Doctor Who completely to shame with the brilliance of its Triffid monsters in their own series.




Part of the charm of Meglos is that it is an old-fashioned space adventure that goes to strange and exotic worlds. The presence of Jacqueline Hill is rather appropriate, as it very much evokes the spirit and style of the Hartnell era. This willingness to create exotic worlds is something sadly lacking in the new series.

TARDIS Eruditorum Vol.4 : Tom Baker and the Hinchcliffe Years, by Philip Sandifer

Phil Sandifer will never know just how much joy each new volume of his TARDIS Eruditorum brings me, even if I have already read most of the essays on his blog. I often disagree with him, but he never fails to bring fresh insights into the show.

I would suggest part of what made the previous volume on the Third Doctor so strong was Sandifer's personal dislike for much of that era. His strongly critical position helped to give him an objectivity towards the material. This seems to be sorely lacking in the fourth volume. Sandifer, like so many Doctor Who fans, loves the Hinchcliffe era and regards it as the high point of the show. I got the impression that he was actually surprised on his blog when those of us who are more critical of the Hinchliffe stuff came out of the woodwork in the comments section. Sandifer manages to criticise some of the serials and I daresay he upset some of those who love Talons of Weng-Chiang and try to excuse its racism. Yet on the whole he tends to praise most of the story as much as he can justify while still addressing some of their more problematic elements. I therefore found this volume perhaps a little less interesting than the three previous volumes that had been rather more nuanced in their analysis.


The Fourth Doctor era of course begins with a Barry Letts, not a Hinchliffe story. Sandifer sees two important aspects to Robot; the establishment of UNIT as superflous and unnecessary and the establishment of 'cleverness' as being central to the new Doctor's character. He argues that the Fourth Doctor is particularly endearing to geeks who see 'cleverness' as their own defining value.

As is typical of fans, Sandifer celebrates Ark in Space as one of the high points of the show. He sees this story as introducing a new tendency to disturb and frighten. He offers some discussion about the nature of scariness in Doctor Who. Personally, I have never quite understood why so many fans hail Ark in Space as a classic. It's a good story, but I always feel it is a little overrated. Likewise, he showers praise upon that eternal favorite Genesis of the Daleks. He makes the interesting claim that this story introduces postmodernity to Doctor Who, arguing that this story destabilizes a central concept of Doctor Who, namely the Daleks. He takes the view that Dalek history was altered by this story, a concept that I regard as anathema, as one who confesses one absolute unchanging Doctor Who continuity. He does offer, an interesting explanation for how Dalek history is altered. He proposes that the effect of Genesis was for Davros to be killed earlier than in the original history, resulting in the Daleks becoming weaker in his absence and later needing to resurrect him.

You can always rely on Sandifer to come up with an interesting redemptive reading. I'm not sure that 'redemptive reading' accurately describes his take on Revenge of the Cybermen. He persuasively argues that the main purpose of this story is to show that bringing back the Cybermen is a rubbish idea, thus justifying the lack of 'returning monster' stories in the next season. Revenge proves to the viewers the need for Doctor Who to move on.

I have never watched Terry Nation's Survivors. Having read Sandifer's 'Pop Between Realities' essay I don't ever want to. It really does sound like an awful program. Having read this essay, I would be curious to get his thoughts on Wyndham's Day of the Triffids.

He makes some interesting comments about the similarity of Terror of the Zygons to the Pertwee era. Planet of Evil will never be on anybody's list of classics, but Sandifer does come up with some fascinating ideas about that story. He talks about the collision in this story of two incompatible universes and the Lovecraftian sense of the alieness of the antimatter universe. He suggests that while the production might not be altogether convincing in realizing this, it still has an impact. In discussing the novel Managra, he says a little more about postmodernity. He argues that while the Doctor Who of Graham Williams was more playful and self-aware, the Hinchcliffe era was when Doctor Who became postmodern.

In his essay on Pyramids of Mars, he acknowledges a segment of fandom that is less impressed by Seasons 12-14, singling out Pyramids of Mars as the story that is up for debate. This is probably correct; plenty of fans of Hinchcliffe-Who admit there are problems with Genesis of the Daleks, but disliking Pyramids indicates a dissatisfaction with this era. He offers a defense of Pyramids (while characteristically and rightly acknowledging the racial stereotyping in it). I personally don't feel that he engages with all the problems with this story. He makes the interesting suggestion that Pyramids comes into two categories of imperfect story, those which are flawed but innovative and those which are unoriginal but well executed.

Thankfully, Sandifer makes no attempt to defend the unwatcheable Android Invasion. Unsurprisingly, he celebrates the brilliance of The Brain of Morbius. He links this brilliance to the theme of alchemy, which he has often identified as a long-running theme in Doctor Who. It is in dealing with Seeds of Doom that he adopts a more critical stance. It is this story he suggests, that comes closest to the violent sensationalist show that Mary Whitehouse thought Doctor Who to be. I am glad he acknowledges this as a problem with Seeds of Doom, however, I do think this is a wider problem with Hinchcliffe-Who. I feel very uncomfortable with the delight that these stories seem to show in portraying painful, agonising deaths. There is something very morbid about the way so many characters are killed off horribly. Sandifer seems to feel that this is better than the way so many UNIT soldiers and yokels are killed off left right and centre in Pertwee stories, but personally I dislike both. I tend to value stories that have lower body counts altogether, such as Three Doctors or Androids of Tara.

My childhood memory of listening to Doctor Who and the Pescatons is very fond. Sandifer is unimpressed by this early audio and I suspect I might not be if I listened to it today. He discusses the nostalgia aspects of this release and praises Baker's performance in Pescatons. Coming back to the televised stories, he addresses the subject of hard Sci-Fi and materialism in Masque of Mandragora. He follows this with an essay on the complexities of TARDIS translation. I have always been a bit uncomfortable with the idea of the TARDIS doing the work of translation; this just does not seem to be how it works in the Classic Series. Coming to Hand of Fear, Sandifer contrasts this story with Claws of Axos, showing how that serial was more effective. That makes me happy, as I rather like Claws of Axos. On Sarah's departure, he comes back to the 'Problem of Susan' that he sees as having been a problem for the show from the beginning. Unsurprisingly given its significance, the Deadly Assassin essay is rather long. He offers some complex thoughts about narrative collapse and conspiracy theories before addressing the issue of continuity and how this story relates to previous depictions of the Time Lords. While he is not somebody who obsesses over continuity, he defends Deadly Assassin from the charge of rebelling against past continuity. Moving on to Face of Evil, Sandifer talks about Cargo Cults, on Robots of Death he analyses the handling of Leela's character.

Sandifer deserves a lot of respect for his criticisms of The Talons of Weng-Chiang. Unlike me, he is somebody who has a genuine liking for that story, yet he is ready to call it out for its shocking racism. He has taken a lot of flak from fans over this and has been accused of being 'politically correct.' Politically correct or not, he is somebody who is willing to confront racism whenever it manifests itself and I admire that. He also rightly attacks the turning of Leela into an Eliza Doolittle figure. He sees the underlying fault of the story as a cynicism and a desire to amuse and entertain without offering any kind of political or social critique.

The part of the book that really bothers me is the essay on Mary Whitehouse. For Sandifer, Mary Whitehouse is the Great Satan, the destroyer of Doctor Who. He portrays her as part-Darth Vader, part-pantomime villain. He even describes her as a 'crazy woman.' I thought that was ableist language that we were not supposed to use. Where are those nice ladies at STFU Moffat when you need them? Even if we allow him to get away with calling somebody mentally ill as an insult, isn't it a bit nasty to caricature people whose views we disagree with? I found the whole chapter really unpleasant reading.

Sandifer is probably right that Mary Whitehouse had a poor grasp of what makes great television, but we are not all natural media critics. Whitehouse did change her mind sometimes. She initially criticised the children's game show Knightmare, then changed her mind after she watched the program and decided it was alright. Yes, she sometimes went too far. I am sure most people laughed their heads off when she called for the movie Four Weddings and a Funeral to be banned. Yet she evoked genuine sympathy and concern in the nation over television standards. I would suggest that with the appalling levels of violence and sexual immorality in television, she has been vindicated. I am very glad that I am not a licence fee payer and don't have to fund some of the filthy and wicked programs that the BBC puts out these days. Obviously, as a Doctor Who fan I would want to defend my favorite show from her criticisms, but I can't be the only one who felt the drowning scene in Deadly Assassin was excessive.

If accusing Mary Whitehouse of having been mentally ill and calling her an 'idiot' were not bad enough, Sandifer actually goes further and compares her to a bully he encountered in school. I just found this so unpleasant. He does seem to have an uncomfortable tendency to project his anger about personal circumstances on to political and social issues. I have never met the man. Perhaps he is a really delightful chap, but sometimes his writing does give one the impression that he can be quite an angry and bitter person.

In his concluding essay, Sandifer argues that the Hinchcliffe era was great because of the combination of Tom Baker who makes everything fun and safe, and the script writing of Robert Holmes who brings in terrible and scary things. It gives us the chance to enjoy being scared. This is true, but I think it is also legitimate to feel this era was a little too dark and excessively violent. Hinchcliffe had three seasons and I think that was enough.


As ever, Dr. Phil Sandifer has many fascinating insights and things to say about the show we love. I'm really looking forward to the next volume. I just wish he hadn't included such a sour essay on Mary Whitehouse.

"He speaks of many things. He speaks of the great journey of life" : The Horns of Nimon

I'm the original discriminating buffalo man
And I'll do what's wrong as long as I can
He'll do what's wrong as long as he can

I live in a labyrinth under the sea
Down in the dark as dark as can be
I like the dark as dark as can be
He likes the dark as dark as can be

I'll even attack you or eat you whole
Down in the dark my bone mills roll
Porridge for my porridge bowl
Porridge for his porridge bowl

The Minotaur's Song, The Incredible Strong Band



The cancellation of the ill-fated (but probably naff) Shada resulted in The Horns of Nimon effectively concluding the Graham Williams era of Doctor Who. This story is a perfect ending for that period, as it embodies many of the faults, yet also some of the strengths of the Graham Williams producership.

Like so many other Graham William stories, it all looks just a little bit cheap. There is the nagging sense that the BBC just can't be bothered to put that much effort into Doctor Who any more. One feels the same from the cast. Tom Baker can't be bothered to get into the story and just wanders about the set delivering comic lines, leaving Lalla Ward to do the Doctor's job. The guest cast are all pretty dull, apart from the co-pilot who is ridiculously hammed, and Graham Cowden who does not seem to be taking his role as Soldeed very seriously.

Yet like so many other Graham Williams stories, The Horns of Nimon does not fail to entertain. The script is witty enough to be funny and there is a tremendous spirit of fun, despite the sloppiness. Graham Cowden certainly should have played Soldeed much straighter, but he is still hilariously fun to watch. As much as he is hammed up, he is still quite an interesting character. I like the way he is convinced he has manipulated the Nimon when he has in fact been completely fooled. He speaks about the 'great journey of life' as though it is some deep philosophy, when actually it is an invasion plan.

While it is sad to watch Tom Baker giving such a lazy performance, it does give Romana the chance to be the main character for a change, confronting the villains and even acquiring some companions along the way. Lalla Ward was never a great actress, but there is a sincerity to her performance here that is quite lovely. She knew the children watching take it seriously, so she took her own role completely seriously. In that sense, Lalla understood the dynamics of children's television better than anybody else involved with the show at the time.




The Nimon looks pretty cheap and clumsy and it is difficult not to laugh at it much of the time. Yet clumsy monsters were not introduced into the show by Graham Williams. Even the Daleks looked a little bit silly. There is something remarkable about the way even the silliest of Doctor Who monsters can still come across as quite chilling. Despite their apparent silliness, the Nimon do have something of a menacing quality, particularly their voices.



Some of the Graham Williams' stories excel in world-building and we see this here. This story very much feels like a shapshot of a much larger history between these planets. Underworld tried to use mythology to create a sense of epic grandeur, but failed miserably at this. Oddly, The Horns of Nimon seems to actually be more successful at this. Perhaps it is the fact that it does not take itself so seriously, or perhaps it is the operatic look of the sets and costumes.

It is often pointed out that this story was broadcast at Christmas time. It certainly does have a pantomime feel that is appropriate to the festive season. Perhaps that is the best time to watch it on DVD. It's not one of the best stories of it's era, but I don't think it is a bad one either. It's not quite accurate to call it a failure as nobody was trying particularly hard in this period of Doctor Who. The Horns of Nimon is a story that should be enjoyed for just being fun and over the top.

Underworld

Underworld is one of the stories most hated and derided by Doctor Who fans. I'm not sure I hate Underworld personally, but I don't feel able to defend it. There is very little to like about this story.

The idea of the Time Lords as gods, intervening in a culture is interesting, though this idea is largely forgotten. The set of the Minyan spaceship is a great design, but this serves to reflect on how poor and cheap the 'alien city' set looks. We could regard the presence of cave people as a nod to An Unearthly Child.

The use of CSO to create cave scenes was a bold move. It is generally agreed that the results are disappointing, but I am confident that had they used corridors for these scenes, Underworld would have looked even cheaper and more underwhelming.

The performances do not help. The Minyan crew have been on a quest that has been unsuccessful for a thousand years. They should seem weary, perhaps bitter and possibly half-crazed. None of that comes across in the guest cast performances.

The intention of this story seems to be to create the sense of epic space fantasy, along the lines of Star Wars. To that intent, it borrows the myth of Jason and the Argonauts to try to create that mythic feel. Unfortunately, the borrowing feels so obvious that it feels rather false. There is no sense of the creation of any sense of fictional history, such as we get in Star Wars. The use of big science themes also seems to run counter to the intent. Star Wars had spaceships and robots, but it never dwelt on hard science themes, that would have distracted from its operatic grandeur. Underworld aspires to be great space fantasy epic, but in the end it is a dull and bland science fiction story.

Revenge of the Cybermen

Revenge of the Cybermen was the first Target novel I ever read. It was my first experience of Doctor Who after reading the 1966 Dr Who Annual (how weird is that as an introduction to Doctor Who?), before watching any televised stories. I immediately followed it by reading the novelisation of Moonbase, purchased at the Doctor Who Exhibition at Longleat Safari. A few months later, I watched Revenge of the Cybermen on VHS and loved it as much as I had loved the novel. Over thirty years later, I am confronted by the fact that fan orthodoxy holds this story to be rubbish.

It is interesting how this story has become the classic example of the rubbish returning monster story. Remarkably so, given how there seem to be far worse candidates, such as The Sontaran Experiment in the same season and Death to the Daleks in the previous season. Phil Sandifer offers the interesting notion that the story is meant to be rubbish, making way for the more original returning monster-free serials of the next season. Of course, I doubt fans watching it at the time saw it that way. I'm pretty sure most viewers enjoyed watching Dr Who do battle with the Cybermen again. I'm also pretty sure people watching the it when it was the first ever VHS release must have loved it too. When considering the faults, it is worthwhile considering the fact that the celebrated Hinchliffe era was perhaps not always as perfect as fans like to think. Every Hinchliffe story has problems and weaknesses, with the possible exception of Brain of Morbius, which is the closest the era came to perfection. Ark in Space has unconvincing monsters and lacks atmosphere due to an overlit set, Genesis of the Daleks is horribly padded, Terror of the Zygons is an unoriginal working of earlier stories, Planet of Evil has a terrible script, Pyramids of Mars has a dreadful final episode and The Android Invasion is unwatchable.

The Cybermen are probably not at their best here, but they are fun. While they suffer for being in colour for the first time, they look effective in the darkness of the cave scenes. Why complain about the Cybermen's apparent anger and hands on the hip gestures? The claim that the Cybermen have no emotion at all has always been a little dubious. The creation of yet another weakness for the Cybermen seems unnecessary, but it seems a small one. We have not yet reached the point where a gold coin will kill a Cyberman; the Vogans' presumably gold bullets just bounce off their armour.

The script for this story is weak, with some really awful lines ('I sometimes think your friend is not quite right in the head' Sometimes? He's only just met him!). Yet there are still things to like about Revenge of the Cybermen. The location shooting in the caves of Wookie Hole with the use of underground river is very effective. The set designs are fantastic too. The Beacon set looks great, as do the ornate chambers of the Vogans. The special effect of the Beacon hurtling toward Voga is not great by today's standards, but I was impressed when I saw it on video in 1990. The Cybermat is clumsy, but it looks more menacing than the original Cybermat in the Sixties. While there are things in the plot that do not make a lot of sense, this is a fast paced story with plenty of tension and excitement.

I love the Vogan designs. They look distinctly non-human, yet still capture individual personalities. Kevin Stoney and David Collings do a splendid job in their roles. Michael Wisher is also good, despite being underused. His use of an handkerchief is a very nice touch.

Tat Wood and Lawrence Miles say in About Time that Vorus and Tyrum are basically another version of the Nice Sensorite and the Nasty Sensorite, or the Old Silurian and Young Silurian. This is not really true, as they are much more complex than this. Tyrum is afraid of outsiders like the Nasty Sensorite, yet he is friendly to humans when he meets them and is appalled by Kellman's murders. Vorus wants to make alliances with the outside world, yet he is hostile to humans who do not fit into his plans and has no qualms about murdering them. These are characters who are not defined by their factional politics. Despite being non-human aliens from 'the planet Zog' they feel like real people. Kellman, the human double agent also makes a great villain. I love the way he smiles as Tyrum describes how wicked he is.

Tom Baker is still settling into his new role at this point. Once or twice here he comes across as though he is not taking the story seriously, something that would become a problem in later years. Thankfully, Hinchcliffe managed to keep Tom in check most of the time after this story.

You have to love Harry Sullivan. He is so at ease with everything. The way he says 'Steady on, old chap' as a Vogan manhandles him is infinitely lovable. As somebody afflicted with dyspraxia, I can't help thinking that Harry also has 'Clumsy Child Syndrome.' It is horrible to see the Doctor being so mean to him. Sarah Jane Smith is also pretty horrible to him too. Sarah is not at her best here, mostly being used as a damsel in distress, though she is pretty resourceful, crossing the underground river in the Vogan boat. She is wearing nice pink socks too.

Revenge of the Cybermen is not the greatest of Doctor Who stories, but it is not nearly as bad as some fans make out.

The Auntie Matter (Big Finish audio)

The pleasure of hearing Mary Tamm reunited with Tom Baker for this audio drama was tinged with the sadness of her recent passing. I really loved Mary Tamm's Romana who was a pleasure to watch in every moment of her stories.

As a pastiche of the work of PG Wodehouse, this story is very good fun. It has all the elements that made those works great; light-headed young men, country houses, wily butlers and menacing aunts. Yet as a Doctor Who story it is not that interesting. It's plot is predictable and unoriginal. The idea of an alien villain stealing human bodies to prolong her life has been done rather a few times before.

I didn't feel very inspired by Tom Baker's performance. I didn't feel the crazed eccentricity for which his television performances are remembered. This may be down to the fact that he is not given any memorable dialogue. It seems to be Reginald that got the best lines in the story. As the Doctor and Romana are split up for most of the story, we end up mostly missing out on what was best about their team, their interaction.

I really hate to complain about the late Mary Tamm, but what happened to her accent? She used more Estuary vowel sounds in this than a BBC news reader. The state of the Received Pronunciation is in a really bad shape when the poshest companion no longer sounds posh.

It's a fun story that is worth a listen, but don't expect too much. But the choice of title was great.

The Deadly Assassin

In the view of many fans, the great sin of The Deadly Assassin's is its revision of the Time Lords. The all powerful Time Lords of The War Games are replaced with a cast of senile Oxford dons and Anglican bishops. Being the first substantial portray of Dr. Who's home planet, this story must have come as something of a disappointment for many long term viewers.

As a young fan, my perception of Gallifrey was shaped by the post-Deadly Assassin stories. The Invasion of Time was one of my favorite Target novels, and The Five Doctors was the first VHS release that I watched. I was rather disappointed by the lack of Chancellory Guards and Staser guns in The War Games.

As an older fan, my enthusiasm for Chancellory Guards and Staser guns has waned. I have come to prefer the idea that the Time Lords are a god-like race with incredible power. There is a lot in The Deadly Assassin that I dislike. Yet I still find something likable about the idea of the senior Time Lords being a bunch of Oxford academics. It is also undeniable that the visual iconography established in The Deadly Assassin has become a fundamental part of the show. The genius of Lawrence Miles can be seen in the way he has combined Robert Holmes' Gormenghast Time Lords with the elemental Time Lords of the The War Games. In a clever nod to The Deadly Assasin, his Book of the War tells us that the senility of the senior Time Lords is just an act:

"their mumbling, even their occasional deafness is often quite carefully orchestrated. Nowhere on the Homeworld is there a House so ready to work its will by planting the correct whisper in the relevant ear, by making murmured suggestions so subtle that after the fact nobody remembers who spoke. While House Dvora moves with an efficient unstoppable openness, the mandarins of Lineacrux are so softly spoken, so serene, so elderly that in this brutal new War age even those who should known better rarely remember how ruthless these 'senile old men' might possibly be."

It must be pointed out that the view of the Time Lords given in The Deadly Assassin was not a sudden departure. The Three Doctors had shown them to be less than all-powerful, and Genesis of the Daleks and Brain of Morbius had shown them to have a shifty side. This development shows a considerable departure from how the Dr. Who's relationship with his people was originally conceived. The Hartnell Doctor was an exile, but from the beginning he showed a genuine desire to return to his homeworld. When Susan speaks about her planet, it is described as a beautiful place, with its burnt orange sky and silver trees. The Gallifrey of The Deadly Assassin seems such a miserable and grim place that it is hardly a surprise that Dr. Who would want to leave it. If Gallifrey is like that, there is no longer any sense that the Doctor has suffered loss or sacrificed anything in leaving it. For this reason, I very much prefer the idea that Gallifrey is a beautiful and magnificent place, whatever the faults of its ruling elite.

If this serial can be forgiven for its depiction of Gallifrey, and I'm not sure it can, it cannot be forgiven for its appallingly badly thought out plot. The Master's scheme makes no sense and the Time Lords society makes even less. Are we really expected to believe that the Time Lords have been completely unable to figure out the nature of the Rod and Sash of Rassilon and that they have no idea where their electricity comes from? I very much agree with the Prosecution case (presumably Lawrence Miles) in About Time, which castigates The Deadly Assassin's plot as utterly contrived:

"But perhaps the real trouble with "The Deadly Assassin" is that aside from the occasional snack-bite of political satire, everything here is so thoroughly contrived that it's alien in all the wrong ways. The script makes up new rules for Time Lord society minute-by-minute, so what chance does the audience have of feeling as if it's any of their concern? If the Doctor reaches a dead end then a new piece of Time Lord technology or custom can be invented to help him get to the next scene, and if characters aren't in the right places then they can be shifted around by Time Lord "traditions" which everybody knows about except the viewer."

For some reason fans seem to love episode three with the nightmare sequence in the APC Matrix. I don't understand why, as it does nothing to advance the plot and feels tediously long. I have a real dislike of dream sequences in fiction. If what the character is experiencing is not real, why should the viewer or the reader care about it? It is just a string of scary events strung together without actually going anywhere. What is more, this episode indulges the worst aspect of the Hinchcliffe era, a morbid delight in pain and cruelty. It is easy to laugh at Mary Whitehouse, but this episode pushes up the violence in the show to a level that is probably not quite appropriate for younger viewers. The BBC made a wise decision in bringing Hinchcliffe's producership to an end after this story.


What I enjoy most in this serial is Angus Mackay's performance as Borusa. Borusa is such a wonderful character, a school teacher turned into a Machiavellian politician. I love the way the schoolboyish way Dr. Who addresses him as 'sir.' There is such a deep sense of respect between the two characters, which adds to the beautiful poignancy when Davison's Doctor exclaims "What happened to you, Borusa?" in The Five Doctors.


For all its failings, The Deadly Assassin makes a bold attempt to tell a very different kind of Doctor Who story. We get to see the Doctor on his own planet, stripped of the reassurance of his scarf and without a companion to rely on. I don't like this story, but I appreciate the attempt to experiment and do what had not been done before.

Genesis of the Daleks

My first experience of Genesis of the Daleks was listening to the audio recording. I was given the cassettes for Christmas in 1991, shortly before going on holiday to Cyprus. I was ten years old at the time. I later watched the repeat in 1993 and read the novelization again and again. The thing is, I loved Genesis of the Daleks not because I thought it was a great Doctor Who story (I have no idea what stories I considered to be great when I was ten or twelve; I probably did not think in those terms). The reason I liked Genesis was because it had lots of guns and Nazi-like uniforms. As a boy I loved guns and Nazi uniforms. I am one of those Englishmen who have a suspicious enthusiasm for Nazi uniforms. As an adult, I have rather fallen out of love with Genesis of the Daleks, even though I still quite like the look of Nazi uniforms.

I really do understand why people love this story so much. Great work from the regulars, an amazing performance from Michael Wisher as Davros, great direction, some nice designs and most of all, a sense of grand cosmic drama. Yet for all these strengths, quite a number of things really bother me about this story.

The biggest problem I have with this story is the basic premise. Dr Who is instructed by the Time Lord to prevent the creation of the Daleks. This seems to go against everything we know about these guardians of history. To eradicate the Daleks from history would surely completely disrupt the web of time, altering the very history of the universe. Yet Dr. Who says it is 'feasible.' Even though it would surely alter his own personal history? What would happen to Susan if there was no Dalek-ravaged earth for her to settle on? How would Ian and Barbara get back without the aid of the Dalek time machine? I understand the show has moved on from the sensible days when you couldn't change one line of history, but this is surely going a bit far. Maybe it was the Black Guardian in disguise, or Faction Paradox, or maybe the Time Lords were just having a laugh at the Doctor's expense. Perhaps they would have whisked the Doctor away if he had come close to actually destroying the Daleks. But that still doesen't explain how he thinks it is 'feasible.' You can try to retcon this and talk about the Time Lords foreseeing their own destruction in the Great Time War, but that is still a retcon at the end of the day. What we see in this story is at odds with everything that has gone before.

In general, I am not a big fan of origin stories. Sometimes they work, but they do run the risk of undermining their subjects. Sometimes an origin is best left to the imagination. We could never have a satisfactory origin story for Dr. Who himself. I do think that Genesis of the Daleks undermines the concept of the Daleks somewhat. In their debut serial, the Daleks were a kind of force of nature, a physical manifestation of the military devastation unleashed upon Skaro. Here they are reduced to the creation of yet another mad scientist. This is made worse by the return appearances made by Davros in future Dalek stories, overshadowing his creations.

I also dislike the crass literalism of this story. It has been obvious since the very second Doctor Who serial that the Daleks are supposed to be a bit like Nazis. Was it really necessary to make this obvious by making their forbears dress in fascistic uniforms and jackboots? The viewer is being treated like an idiot. This is the same kind of crass literalness that makes Azal look exactly like a traditional image of Satan, as if the viewer did not already get all the other Satanic references in The Daemons.

As with the Nazi uniforms, I think the serial goes a little too far in trying to capture the visual feel of the First World War. I really do appreciate the efforts to create the sense of a dark, brutal and hopeless environment. I also think the scene with the Thal soldier tormenting Sarah is essential. It shows that the Thals are just as bad as the Kaleds. In fact, they are probably the aggressors in this war, given that we are told in The Daleks that they were warriors, while the Daleks (Kaleds?) were philosophers and teachers. Yet I can't help thinking that the grim imagery is not how I like to see the Daleks. There is a definite sense of Sixties kitsch about the Daleks, that actually works well with their scariness. There is something comical about the Dalek appearance that makes them all the scarier and this does not work well with the darkness of the setting. I rather miss the original image of Skaro as a strange and exotic place. On this score, the origin story in TV21 fits the Daleks rather better.


It is often claimed that Genesis of the Daleks has a great moral depth. Moral depth my foot! Look at Dr. Who's famous 'Have I the right' speech. Prior to making this speech he had been quite happy to destroy the Daleks. Then as soon as he has made this speech, his Kaled allies tell him that will halt the Dalek production and presumably destroy the incubated Daleks. The Doctor is delighted. This makes him look like a moral coward who prefers others to do his dirty work. Then later he decides to blow up the incubator room. Finally, it turns out that destroying the incubator room won't stop the Daleks anyway. Can anybody see any meaningful contribution to ethical philosophy in all this?


In the end, Dr. Who claims that the Daleks have been set back a thousand years in their development. Really? Are the Daleks really unable to clear away a bit of rubble? The destruction of the incubator might seem more of a problem, but the Daleks don't seem worried about it, so they can probably breed some new embryos within a year or so. While the Discontinuity Guide absurdly claimed that Dalek history had been re-written after this story, Remembrance of the Daleks makes clear that the Dalek invasion of Earth happened on time. I think the events of Genesis change absolutely nothing. I think the Doctor is simply trying to make Sarah feel better.

It is rather hard to get past the absurdity of the idea that this is a war that has lasted thousands of years despite the fact that the Thal and Kaled cities are within walking distance of each other, especially given that weapons of mass destruction had originally been used to fight it. This is made even sillier when we find out that the Kaled have an hidden passage into the Thal city. This is a cardboard planet. When we first saw Skaro in The Daleks, it was a diverse place, with mountains, plateaus, petrified jungles and swamps. Now it is just a rocky battlefield (that looks like a quarry) and two cities. It is amazing how Skaro actually looked so much bigger in a television studio.

Just how rubbish is Davros' scientific elite? They have been in operation for fifty years (and not just working on Daleks), yet it is perfectly obvious that the Thals are technologically superior in every way. They have laser guns (courtesy of the Drahvins), they can build a rocket armed with distronic explosives and the Kaleds suspect them of using robots. You would think that somewhere along the line, the Kaled leaders would have asked Davros what he was doing with their funds.


Peter Miles has rightly been praised for his fantastic performance as Nyder. He really is a pleasure to watch in this story. Yet Miles' fantastic performance only draws attention to the lack of characterisation of Nyder. We are given no sense of Nyder's motivation. We want to know why Nyder is so fanatically loyal to Davros. It cannot be put down to blind fascistic loyalty, as Nyder has clearly made an active choice to give his loyalty to Davros over and above the Kaled government and military leadership.

One actor that deserves a bit of extra praise is Guy Siner as General Ravon. He's such a great character; I adore the way he can't deliver two sentences without launching into a speech. He's not altogether a bad guy, either, note his sympathy towards the Doctor in the Kaled city.


I don't deny that this production has it's strong points and is certainly enjoyable, yet it is a story I have major issues with and one that I do not care for. The Daleks was a much better story than this.

Robot

I really like Robot. It's actually my favorite story of Season 12 and my favorite pre-Graham Williams Tom Baker story. It has such an easygoing sense of fun that I find impossible not to adore.

One of the irritating and cliched traditions that this show has been saddled with is that the Doctor is unstable immediately after his regeneration. Hence, in new Doctor stories, we get several episodes (or twenty-five minutes in the BBC Wales series) where the Doctor does absolutely nothing. Castrovalva is among the most irritating of these offenders. Robot stands out considerably from this tendency, contrasting with Spearhead from Space before it. The newly regenerated Fourth Doctor is certainly chaotic and eccentric in his behaviour, but it does not stop him jumping into the action right away and proving himself a skillful detective.

It is often said that Robot could easily have been a Pertwee story. On the surface of it, this seems the case. We have the old UNIT team, crazy scientists and crazier science. Yet there is a really crucial difference. The difference is easily missed and it's the presence of an interesting and entertaining villain, Miss Winters. Try as I can, I just can't imagine Miss Winters fitting into a Jon Pertwee story. With the suave presence of Delgado's Master, it's easy not to notice the lack of memorable villains in the Petwee era. The Tom Baker era, in contrast, was rich in brilliant bad guys and girls.

Miss Winters is the very model of the Tom Baker villain. She is self-important and megalomaniac, but most important of all, she is utterly humourless in such a way that she actually becomes rather funny. This is brought out by her contrast with the clownish and shambolic Baker Doctor. The self-important Pertwee Doctor could never have made that contrast with Miss Winters.

Hilda Winters is of course a completely over the top character, with all subtexts blazing (some lucky guy was going to help her repopulate the Earth Day of the Triffids-style). She is adorable for it and in the end she is a figure of fun. I particularly like the fact that she survives the story, no doubt to receive an extended stay as a guest of Her Majesty. The Sarah Jane audio Mirror, Signal Maneuver reveals that she spent fifteen years in jail after Robot. Mirror, Signal, Maneuver unfortunately misunderstands her character. I really don't buy the idea of Miss Winters masterminding a further criminal plot years later. Her incompetence and silliness adds to her fun. I rather prefer to imagine her leaving prison to be some harmless crank who writes insane articles in Paranormal magazines, or something like that.


While nodding to the previous era, Robot certainly lays the groundwork for the new Hinchliffe era with its borrowing from classic films, in this case King Kong. Yet the light and easygoing nature of this story makes it stand out from the Hinchcliffe standard. There is so much sunshine in this serial. It very much has an holiday feel. That is why I love it.

The Talons of Tired Tropes

Another fan favorite, another beloved Hinchcliffe story that I am about to complain about? In my defence, I will point out my praise for The Brain of Morbius in the last post. However, once again I must express my disagreement with a fan consensus, in this case, that The Talons of Weng-Chiang is a classic story.

My low opinion of The Talons of Weng-Chiang is shared by many fans who have more love for the Hinchcliffe era than I do. There are plenty of fans who feel that Talons does not compare favourably with the more popular Genesis of the Daleks or Pyramids of Mars (as it happens, I think Talons is better than Pyramids of Mars). So the faults in this story are not simply my bias coming out as a Hinchcliffe critic.

It is easy to understand why The Talons of Weng-Chiang is so popular. There is some wonderful humour in this story, including that delightful moment when Leela has supper with Lightfoot. We have incredibly strong performances from Louise Jameson, John Bennett, Christopher Benjamin and Trevor Baxter. The production values are very strong, though this being a period drama, it does have an unfair advantage over the more overtly science fiction stories. David Maloney's direction cannot be faulted and he would later go on to produce the BBC's astounding adaptation of The Day of the Triffids. Mr. Sin is wonderfully creepy.

Despite all its manifest strengths, Talons is let down by some very significant weaknesses. Perhaps the most obvious one is the appalling racism of this story. Talons is an unashamed throwback to Fu Manchu stereotypes of sinister orientals kidnapping young women. In defence of this it is sometimes pointed out that Lhsen Chang is a well developed and complex character. That may be true, but he is still a stereotypical superstitious and treacherous oriental, who cringes before a white man and who is played by a white actor to top it all.

The Eliza Doolittle subtext with Leela is also a bit suspect. The whole idea of the Doctor teaching Leela to be civilized has some rather unappealing connotations, however funny it might be for the Doctor to promising to reward Leela with an orange. Leela's sudden enthusiasm for dresses and going to the theatre seems completely out of character.

The plot is seriously padded, unsurprising given that it is a six-parter, but still not excusable. It takes Greel six episodes to recover the time cabinet and then to delay the action further, his men just happen to forget the key! We are treated to a parade of captures and escapes that delay the action as long as possible. This padding makes Talons one of the more tedious stories to watch.

Talons of Weng-Chiang betrays the somewhat sadistic delight of Hinchcliffe-era Doctor Who in painful deaths. There is an awful lot of disturbing material, from the life force being drained from young women (why women, we might ask?), the suicides of the Chinese gang-members and Chan dying slowly after his leg gets chewed up. None of this is portrayed very graphically, but there is clearly a very tasteless enthusiasm for pain and butchery on display. Stripping Leela to her underwear and splashing her with water was not a good move in my book either.

What I dislike most about this story, however, is that it is just a mass of Victorian cliches thrown together in the belief that this is rather clever. I have never quite understood the appeal of Scooby-Doo-Victoriana, but for some reason its incredibly popular, hence the rise of the absurd genre of Steampunk. Perhaps this was all rather original in 1977, but with the endless parade of cartoonish Victorian tropes in horror, fantasy and science fiction, Talons of Weng-Chiang feels a bit too much for me.

As for Leela's first outfit in the first episode, not a good choice if he wanted Leela to be inconspicuous. Wearing bloomers for riding a bicycle or doing sports was not unknown in Victorian times, but it would have been a shocking choice of outfit for walking around London and would have aroused disapproval.

The Brain of Morbius

Readers of this blog will know that I have a strong dislike of the Hinchcliffe era of Doctor Who, which is bizarrely considered by most fans to be the strongest period in the show's history. In my judgment, The Brain of Morbius is the stand-out story of the Hinchcliffe era, the one that truly exemplifies the strengths of this period. The other so-called 'classics' of Hinchcliffe Doctor Who such as Genesis of the Daleks, Pyramids of Mars and Talons of Weng-Chiang are all marred by very significant flaws. The Brain of Morbius is not perfect, but its faults do not significantly detract from it.

The Brain of Morbius is an adaptation and re-telling of the story of Frankenstein and his monster, with all of the Hollywood trappings of that story. This is not in itself a bad thing. Doctor Who has often thrived on borrowing and adapting other stories. In particular, Brain of Morbius adds some very interesting elements to the story, with the renegade Time Lord Morbius and the Sisterhood of Karn. This delightful borrowing is perhaps overshadowed buy the fact that every other story in this period of Doctor Who was in some way an adaptation of a classic story or movie. For all the brilliance of this serial, it is a reminder of just how much a one-trick pony the Hinchliffe era was.

The title is one of the endless 'something of something' variations, but it is a very arresting one. It's a title that captures the tongue-in-cheek nature of the serial. The Brain of Morbius is a really fun story with some lovely moments of camp humour, such as Solon's delight in the Doctor's head and Condo's fascination with Sarah.

The exterior sets are not very realistic and have a theatrical feel, but I have no problem with that. The castle of Morbius is beautifully designed and creates a delightful Gothic feel. The Brain of Morbius is a story brimming with atmosphere. I particularly like the dance sequences and the oriental flavour of the Sisterhood of Karn. There is a strong sense of Goth Exoticism about them, just like a Dead Can Dance record. The Goth movement in the 80s was often more about the exotic than it was about the Victorian (and things Victorian can get very mundane).

I imagine this story must have been very terrifying for younger viewers, with the story openning with the hideous insect creature (borrowed from The Mutants) and the blind Sarah menaced by the Morbius monster. The serial generated a lot of controversy from Mary Whitehouse. I do think the violence in this story could have been toned down a bit, though I don't see why the brain on the floor was such a fuss- that was an obviously fantastical scene. People who say the Doctor is a pacifist clearly have not seen this story; it is quite striking the way the Doctor is prepared to kill Solon in cold blood, as he does here.

The performances are strong from all the cast here, especially Madoc who really brings the character of Solon to life and manages to make him alternate between ranting maniac to camp charmer. Elisabeth Sladen does some great blind acting. Some reviewers have complained about Ohica's wild-eyed stares, but with the character's lack of interesting lines, the actress had to do something to make an impact.

The story is a little let down by a rather linear plot. It is obvious from the first episode that Morbius will return with Solon's aid and the Doctor and the Sisterhood will need to join forces to stop him. The mind conbat scene feels a little like an afterthought to pad the story out a bit. It does seem a bit surprising that the machine to facilitate this duel just happens to be in Solon's lab.

The faces in the mind-duel have raised a good deal of controversy. It is clear that the production team wanted to drop the hint that the Doctor had several pre-Hartnell incarnations. This is a position I most vehemently reject for five reasons. Firstly, there are clear references to the First Doctor being the earliest Doctor in The Three Doctors and The Five Doctors. Secondly, the First Doctor is strikingly different to the other incarnations in that he has grown old. It is clear that the First Doctor has been around for a good deal longer than the other Doctors. The aging of the the Hartnell Doctor seems to point to his being the original form. Thirdly, despite his aged appearance, the Hartnell Doctor shows the most immature behaviour among the Doctors, leaving aside the instability of the Sixth Doctor. If the Davison Doctor was an old man in a young man's body, the Hartnell Doctor was a teenager in an old man's body. Fourthly, with his oval face, the unidentified Gallifreyan Doctor in the astounding novel The Infinity Doctors has an oval face that suggests Hartnell. There are canonical difficulties with The Infinity Doctors, but if it is accepted as canon, it fits best as a pre-Unearthly Child story. Fifthly, Hartnell being the original Doctor just feels right. We started the show with him. He is where it all began. I would much rather believe that Morbius had a fetish for silly hats than that there were incarnations of the Doctor before Hartnell.

A rather less discussed issue is how this story fits into the chronology of the Time Lords and the exact point of Gallifreyan Mean Time. If the Sisterhood of Karn is contemporaneous with the Time Lords (which the Virgin novels seem to indicate), that would strongly point towards the far future as the date for Gallifreyan Mean Time. Personally, I prefer to see the Time Lords as inhabiting the past (which is why the Doctor feels freer to meddle with future history than with the past) and therefore the connection between the Sisterhood adn the Time Lords must be a bit more muted (the Virgin novels themselves tend to view Gallifrey as located in the past). There is no indication in The Brain of Morbius that the Sisterhood are themselves Gallifreyan. Perhaps the Pythia of Gallifrey founded the Sisterhood, but the other Sisters are not Gallifreyan and inhabit a different time zone to the Time Lords.

The Leisure Hive

The Leisure Hive has always divided fan opinion, mainly because it featured the introduction of the aesthetics of Doctor Who demanded by new producer John Nathan-Turner. The prevailing view these days seems to be that there is nothing very special about this story. My own view is that The Leisure Hive is a very good story and that its strong production values are a breath of fresh air after the sloppiness of Season 17.

It's hard to imagine what it must have been like for a viewer in 1980, seeing the new title sequence and hearing the revamped music for the first time. This title sequence is followed by a disconcerting long shot of Brighton beach. People say its too long and pointless, but it creates such a wonderful sense of eeriness. There are few things as bleakly enchanting as a British seaside in bad weather. Then we get the temporary destruction of K9. That irritating entity who plagued the Graham Williams era is thus removed from the story. JNT had the right idea getting rid of the robot dog.

One of the most striking things about The Leisure Hive is the strong visual quality of it. It has great camerawork, strong and impressive sets and some well conceived video effects. While the Foamasi do look like walking beanbags, the other costumes are very well designed, especially those of the Argolins. The popping of the pods as they age is a great idea. The yellow of their robes adds to the strong sense of colour in the serial, contrasting with the bold burgundy of the Doctor's new costume. The Leisure Hive is a serial that is meant to look good and succeeds.



There is a striking change in tone too. While The Leisure Hive has its moments of humour, there is none of the silliness that dogged the previous season. It is played straight and every actor is taking it seriously. Tom Baker is no longer joking around and acting more like a stand-up comedian than a lead actor. There is a sobriety to his tone. The Doctor also now comes across as vulnerable. When he turns into an old man, he really does seem ancient. We are made to feel that he really could drop dead. However, my favorite moment in The Leisure Hive is when the Foamasi agent is trying to communicate to the Doctor in it's own language. The Doctor taps its arm affectionately and says "I wish I knew what you wanted, my friend." There is just such a sense of warmth and kindliness in that gesture and line that is a testament to the skill of Tom Baker as an actor.



As ever the Fourth Doctor and Romana II make a great team. Their disdain and lack of awe in what they see of the leisure hive make up for the heavy-handed technobabble and sciency stuff going on. Lalla Ward was never the greatest actress in Doctor Who and her screaming fit at the climax comes across as a bit weak, but she always makes an impression when she is on screen. The sailor suit is another of those great Romana outfits. She looks adorably cute in this.

As I said, everybody is taking this story seriously, unlike much of what we saw in Season 17. The guest cast do some great work. Meena is definitely the best and her subtle relationship with Hardin is a nice touch. There are plenty of authoritarian lunatics in Doctor Who, but the young Pangol is definitely one of the most compelling and believable. As for the lawyer Klout, not only does he have a fantastic, Dickensian-style name, but despite not saying a single word, he conveys such a sense of menace in every scene he appears.



Fans ought to look more kindly on The Leisure Hive, for it was an excellent opening for a new era of Doctor Who.