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.

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.

Why I hate Pyramids of Mars

Pyramids of Mars is hailed by many fans as one of the greatest stories of the series. I dissent totally from this conclusion and would argue that it is the most overrated Doctor Who story ever and illustrates some of the failings of the Hinchliffe era. There are of course many far worse Doctor Who stories, but this one is particularly obnoxious by virtue of the praise that is lavished upon it.

When I first watched Pyramids of Mars I was expecting to really love it. Nevertheless, I found myself not enjoying it at all. What really struck me was the bleak, depressing tone of the story. There is a real lack of warmth or humour in it and only the regulars and a few extras avoid being killed off. I didn't find a lot to enjoy in this serial.

Robert Holmes' great strength was in creating interplay between interesting characters. This is completely missing in this story. Dr. Warlock and Lawrence Scarman are not given space to develop as characters and Marcus is just a zombie. Despite being a nasty stereotype, Namin had the potential to be an interesting villain, but he is killed off all too quickly. The subplot with the poacher was pointless. All these characters are introduced simply to be mummy-fodder.

This leads to something that bothers me a lot about the Hinchcliffe producership. Eric Saward's time on the show is rightly criticised for some of its excessive violence. However, sensitivity to Mary Whitehouse's assault on the show seems to blind fans to the excessive fantasy violence of the Hinchcliffe era. These stories seem to revel in death and pain, seeking to appeal to the morbid curiosity of the viewer. We see this in Pyramids of Mars. There may not be any blood or gore to look at, but there are some really horrible death scenes in this. The poacher being crushed by the mummies and Lawrence being killed by his own brother are just nasty. Did you notice how long it takes both Warlock and Namin to die? They howl in agony for ages. This stuff is really not suitable for a children's show. I think there is something utterly tasteless about both this story and the Hinchcliffe era in general.

As with many Hinchcliffe stories, Pyramids of Mars looks to horror movies for inspiration. In this case, it is all those Mummy movies, the Hammer horror version in particular. The trappings of these films in Pyramids of Mars are only superficial, however. A mummy is interesting and disturbing because it is a walking corpse, not because it is wearing bandages. A robotic mummy is just a really banal idea.

We are back in Von Daniken-land with another ancient alien. When you have aliens appearing in every other story, an ancient alien is not terribly interesting in itself. Pyramids of Mars attempts to give this a Lovecraftian twist, making Sutekh a being of god-like power. Furthermore, the story attempts to portray Sutekh as a force of nature, a force antithetical to all life. There are three problems with this.

Firstly, a totally evil god-like being like Sutekh inevitably lacks interesting motives. Simply wanting to destroy everything just for the sake of it is a bit dull. A character like this needs to play off another villain with more recognisable motives. Namin could have fulfilled this role, but he was killed off early on and replaced with Marcus the zombie puppet.

Secondly, the story is too held down by the conventions of science fiction to do a genuinely Lovecraftian turn. The story tries to portray Sutekh as a god-like being, however, he never really behaves like one. Gods don't need to build rockets or use robots. These are the things that science fiction aliens do, and that is basically what Sutekh is.

Thirdly, for all the brilliance of Gabriel Woolf's vocal performance, Sutekh is essentially a man in a mask. We are told that he has the power to destroy the universe, but we are never quite made to believe he can do this. We see Sutekh tormenting the Doctor, but otherwise there is no real demonstration of the Doctor's power. It would have been better to have shown a lot less of Sutekh and to make him more a force of nature than a personality. This is what was done with Fenric in Curse of Fenric. Fenric was very much kept in the background until the end. He was more of a conceptual evil than a villain.

Unlike a good deal of the classic series, Pyramids of Mars attempts to deal with the nature of history and time travel. This is handled in a rather clumsy way, with the Doctor apparently taking Sarah to an alternate 1980 in which the world has been devastated by Sutekh. This makes no sense, as Sutekh is not a time traveller and cannot alter history. Sarah suggests that this is a trick and I think she was right. I think the Doctor was took Sarah to one of Jupiter's moons or some desolate planet. He knew that Sutekh would fail to destroy the earth, but he had no idea what other harm Sutekh might cause, so he tricked Sarah to keep her motivated. That is my theory anyway. In any case, the idea that history can be altered in this story is actually undermined by the fact that history is fulfilled in the end by the fire burning down the priory. This seems to suggest that what will happen will happen.

To be to fair to Doctor Who fandom, many fans are quite conscious that there are problems with this story. It is acknowledged that the scene on Mars is just padding and that there are massive holes in the plot, for instance the question of why Sutekh does not build the rocket in Egypt or the puzzling nature of the alternate 1980. I just don't think there are enough 'good bits' in this story to compensate.

Season 13

Season 13, along with Season 14 is among the most popular years of Doctor Who. That puts me into a rather lonely position in not particularly liking it.

The popularity of Season 13 is unsurprising. It has Tom Baker at his strongest. He had a good relationship with Philip Hinchcliffe who was able to keep him from trying to dominate proceedings. The Graham Williams era would demonstrate what could happen when Tom Baker was not kept on a tight leash. Most of the stories in this season are reasonably good. The production values are strong when compared to some of the disasters of the Williams era.

The strong chemistry between Elisabeth Sladen's Sarah and Tom Baker's Doctor is often cited by fans as one of the strengths of the season. I am not so sure of this. What we fan reviewers call 'chemistry' is something that you don't really see in real people having real conversations. Very few people are able to come up with a quick reply to everything that a close friend says. The dialogue between the Fourth Doctor and Sarah is just too quick, too smart and a bit too knowing. This points to the big problem with Sarah Jane Smith. No matter how popular she may be with fans, she is simply not believable as an human being. She is a composite of all the characteristics that conservative fans and writers want to see in a companion. It is as though she has been genetically engineered to be the Doctor's Companion.

In Season 13 we start to see the writers become overly reliant on reproducing the plots of famous horror and science fiction movies. In fact, every single story of this season is to varying extents, a Doctor Who adaptation of another film or story. Most obviously, Brain of Mobius takes after Frankenstein and Pyramids of Mars takes after The Mummy. More subtly, The Seeds of Doom is influenced by John Carpenter's The Thing From Another World. I think it is a fair to describe the Hinchcliffe producership as a 'one-trick pony.' For all the faults of the Graham Williams era, his producership at least offered a wide variety of different kinds of stories instead of the one-note reliance on horror. In my judgment, the Season 18 attempt at the Hammer-style, State of Decay is far superior to these Hinchcliffe horror serials by virtue, not only of it's being a one-shot attempt, but also by a far more polished production.

Related to the horror aspect of this season is the increasing violence of the stories. I don't view the Doctor as a pacifist and resent the suggestion of later writers that the Doctor never kills (one of the few things I liked about The End of Time was the Tenth Doctor's admission that he had killed people in the past). He is not Batman or Superman. I don't have much of a problem with the Doctor killing Solon with cyanide gas. I just feel that there is a bit too much death and violence in these serials. While the violence is mostly fantasy and unrealistic, there is often a suggestion of gruesomeness. There seems a real desire to arouse the morbid curiosity of the viewer. I think Pyramids of Mars is particularly tasteless in having a character killed by his zombified brother and another character crushed between two robot mummies. You might not see any gore, but it is horrible and sadistic.

I think fans really need to reevaluate whether this season is really as glorious as it is generally considered.

Terror of the Zygons- 8/10

The textbook story of alien infiltration.

Planet of Evil- 4/10

What is the point of remaking Forbidden Planet without the big robot and that girl in the short dress skipping around?

Pyramids of Mars- 5/10

Even more overrated than Genesis of the Daleks. There are so many things that I hate about this story, so I'll save further comments until I write a proper review of it. In short, a clumsy attempt to combine Hammer horror and science fiction.

The Android Invasion- 2/10

A tedious remake of Terror of the Zygons with robots instead of shape-shifting aliens. The worst story of the whole Tom Baker era (at least The Sontaran Experiment was only two episodes long).

The Brain of Morbius- 9/10

An attempt at remaking an horror classic that is not only fun to watch, but also inserts some interesting ideas.

The Seeds of Doom- 8/10

A really entertaining story with a great script. The Krynoid is an impressive monster and Chase is a brilliant villain. On the other hand, it is excessively violent and does come a little too close to making the Doctor into a James Bond-style action hero.

The Android Invasion

The Kraal are planning to invade earth using androids and/or a deadly virus.

This is my least favorite story of the Tom Baker era. Give me Creature from the Pit, Underworld or even The Invisible Enemy. This story is just rubbish.

I found this so tedious to watch. It has some really lazy, generic storywriting.

There is simply no decent plot. So much of this story makes no sense. What is the point of the fake English village? Why do the Kraal build androids when they could just drop the virus and let that kill off humanity? How could Crayford possibly be fooled into thinking he is missing an eye? What about the Kraal invasion fleet?

The Kraal look decent enough visually, but they are typically boring militaristic types. There is some nice location work in the English countryside and Milton Johns at least puts in a decent performance as Crayford.

It is nice to see Ian Marter again as Harry Sullivan, but this just reminds the viewer how heavily this story draws on Terror of the Zygons.

The Phillip Hinchcliffe years were simply not as good as some fans make out.

Planet of Evil

The Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith land on a mysterious planet and lots of people get killed.

This story is one of the lesser considered stories in what is generally regarded as the golden age of Doctor Who.

The story takes some inspiration from The Forbidden Planet movie. There is the suggestion that the anti-matter universe is a kind of hellish, demonic realm. Thus, the horror element of the Hinchcliffe era is maintained. A nice eerie atmosphere is generated throughout this story.

The jungle is quite effective, perhaps because of the very dim lighting. The split level spacecraft is also great. The CSO anti-matter monsters are maybe not so good, however.

Sarah Jane Smith has never really convinced me as a character. She was always just a bit too bold, a bit too plucky and always holding a good smart one-liner handy. I think Elizabeth Sladen's performance was always too knowing. In Planet of Evil this is especially apparent.

The guest characters are rather stereotyped, the paranoid military commander and the obsessive scientist, plus the hapless crew to die off one by one.

The transformation of Sorenson seems rather too much like the Primords in Inferno.

It seems odd that the Sorenson survives, given the typically high body count in Doctor Who. So many people died because of his irresponsibility.

There is the question of whether the Morestrans are humans originating on earth. I think some of the dialogue, as well as the Morestrans names suggests that they are descended from earth colonists.

On the whole this is not the most impressive story, though it is better than The Android Invasion.