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Doctor Who: The Keeper of Traken (Review)

Posted on May 3, 2013 by Darren

To celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the longest-running science-fiction show in the world, I’ll be taking weekly looks at some of my own personal favourite stories and arcs, from the old and new series, with a view to encapsulating the sublime, the clever and the fiendishly odd of the BBC’s Doctor Who.

The Keeper of Traken originally aired in 1981. It was the first instalment in the “Master” trilogy.

He dies, Doctor. The Keeper dies!

– Tremas heralds the end of an era

Of course, the entire season has been less than subtle about the point, but The Keeper of Traken is the point at which Tom Baker’s final season builds to critical mass, and reaches the point of no return. Entropy, decay and death have all been crucial ingredients in the year’s collection of adventures, but The Keeper of Traken is the point at which it seems like our character has set himself on an incontrovertible course, a path from which he cannot diverge. Baker’s approaching departure gives The Keeper of Traken a great deal of weight, and helps balance a story that might otherwise seem excessive or overblown. There’s melodrama here, but it feels strangely appropriate.

Lawrence Miles has argued that Logopolis was the funeral for the Fourth Doctor. If so, The Keeper of Traken is his wake – and it’s fitting that Irish poet and writer Johnny Byrne should provide this strangely lively (if morbid) celebration.

Hell of a wake…

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: arts, Barry Letts, bbc, christopher h. bidmead, Deadly Assassin, doctor, doctor who, DoctorWho, Fourth Doctor, Gallifrey, Keeper of Traken, Master, Nyssa, science fiction, tardis, Tom Baker, Unearthly Child, William Hartnell | 2 Comments »

Doctor Who: Warriors’ Gate (Review)

Posted on May 2, 2013 by Darren

Warrior’s Gate originally aired in 1980. It was the third instalment of the E-Space Trilogy.

We found it.

Yes, well, that’s one of the advantages of living in a rapidly shrinking micro-universe.

What are the others?

Other what?

Other advantages?

Ah, well, it’s difficult to say.

– Adric, the Doctor and Romana discuss modern living

I’m actually very, very fond of Warriors’ Gate. It’s a piece of bold science-fiction that actually manages to accomplish what a lot of these stories in Tom Baker’s final season try to do. It offers an effective bit of speculative fiction while playing to the theme of entropy, decay and collapse. Both Stephen Gallagher’s fine script and Paul Joyce’s direction come together to produce a very thoughtful and clever Doctor Who story that manages to avoid a lot of the problems facing this era of the show.

More than that, though, it turns some of those disadvantages into advantages. After all, when else is the show’s tiny production budget going to produce something this beautiful?

Shades of grey…

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: arts, bbc, christmas, doctor, DoctorWho, fiction, Graeme Harper, John Nathan Turner, Lalla Ward, literature, Online Writing, Romana, science fiction, Stephen Gallagher, Story arcs in Doctor Who, tardis, Warrior, Warriors' Gate | 2 Comments »

Doctor Who: State of Decay (Review)

Posted on May 1, 2013 by Darren

State of Decay originally aired in 1980. It was the second instalment of the E-Space Trilogy.

You are incredible.

Yes, I suppose I am, really. I’ve never given it much thought.

– who says Romana and the Doctor weren’t meant for one another?

Just when it seemed that the John Nathan-Turner era was going to be all about hokey pseudo-science concepts and galaxy-conquering cacti, State of Decay comes along and offers a good old-fashioned gothic science-fiction adventure from long-time writer Terrance Dicks. It feels like a very conscious throw-back in the midst of an otherwise new and distinctive season, but I honestly don’t mind this story about vampires on an alien world, if only because it feels right that Baker should get to do one last gothic horror before he finishes up in the lead role.

Towering over the locals...

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: bbc, Brain of Morbius, Dick, doctor, doctor who, DoctorWho, E-Space, e-space trilogy, John Nathan Turner, Romana, State of Decay, Stones of Blood, terrance dicks, The E-Space Trilogy, Tom Baker, vampires | 5 Comments »

Doctor Who: Full Circle (Review)

Posted on April 30, 2013 by Darren

Full Circle originally aired in 1980. It was the first instalment of the E-Space Trilogy.

Why can’t people be nice to one another, just for a change?

– the Doctor is still an optimist at heart

I have to admit, I’m kinda a bit frustrated with these “arcs” that Doctor Who was so fond of in the late seventies and into the eighties, with themes like The Key to Time, or The Black Guardian Trilogy or even Trial of a Timelord serving as an excuse to tie a bunch of distinct stories together with a few shared elements, mostly confined to intrusive opening and closing scenes rather than anything especially substantive. In particular, The E-Space Trilogy feels especially odd, because it’s located inside a larger arc exploring the final year of Tom Baker’s tenure, with entropy and decay evident everywhere. Being entirely honest though, it does help that Full Circleis a solid and clever little story, which genuinely feels like something quite different than the typical Doctor Who adventure.

Forget the spy who came in from the cold, it’s the Marshmen who came in from the mist!

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: Adric, Andrew Smith, bbc, doctor, DoctorWho, E-Space, Full Circle, Lalla Ward, Peter Grimwade, Romana, Sarah Jane Smith, Smith, tardis, The E-Space Trilogy, Tom Baker | Leave a comment »

Doctor Who: Meglos (Review)

Posted on April 29, 2013 by Darren

Meglos originally aired in 1980.

To control the output, it will be necessary to increase the violence of the emissions.

Then you’ll be in danger yourself.

Well, hardly. I’m a Time Lord. Having lived in the future I can hardly die in the present.

That can’t be true. That’s a philosophical paradox.

No, it’s merely beyond your comprehension.

– Meglos and Deedrix get their “parody” on

Meglos is one of those stories that has undergone something of an alternative interpretation among Doctor Who fans. Much like The Web Planet went from “a brave attempt to realise a truly alien world” to a “complete and utter embarrassment”, Meglos has gone from “that episode where a talking cactus tries to take over the universe” to “that parody where a talking cactus tries to take over the universe.” In fairness, looking at the serial, it is very hard not to see Meglos as an intentional and subversive parody of a bad Doctor Who story, but I have to concede that it doesn’t stop the adventure from being a bad Doctor Who story itself.

Okay, not every review this week is going to open with a close-up of Tom Baker in distress...

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: bbc, cactus, decay, doctor, doctor who, DoctorWho, entropy, Gallifrey, Jon Pertwee, Meglos, parody, Romana, tardis, Time Lord, Tom Baker, Web Planet | 3 Comments »

Doctor Who: The Leisure Hive (Review)

Posted on April 28, 2013 by Darren

The Leisure Hive originally aired in 1980.

Look what you’ve done.

What have I done?

You’ve got the century wrong, you’ve got the season wrong and you’ve got K9’s sea-water defences wrong.

Well, I can’t get everything right.

Just something would be a help.

– Romana and the Doctor really do seem like an old married couple, don’t they?

The Leisure Hive represented a bold new beginning for the show, as it saw John Nathan-Turner move into the role of producer, very quickly putting his mark on the show with a new theme tune and opening sequence, a stronger emphasis on science-fiction and arguably a very “gimmick-y” approach to the show itself. Nathan-Turner would go on to be the longest-serving – and most controversial – producer of the show, serving in the role until the series’ untimely cancellation in 1989. It really is quite tough to discuss The Leisure Hive without getting side-tracked on to any number of tangents, isn’t it?

Is Baker getting to old for the role?

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: Androids of Tara, bbc, Brighton, Caves of Androzani, David Fisher, decay, doctor, doctor who, DoctorWho, Douglas Adams, entropy, John Nathan Turner, Leisure Hive, Romana, The Leisure Hive, Tom Baker, Twin Dilemma | Leave a comment »

Doctor Who: The Armageddon Factor (Review)

Posted on April 27, 2013 by Darren

The Armageddon Factor originally aired in 1979. It was the sixth and final part of The Key to Time saga.

The Key to Time was perhaps the first conscious attempt to tell a season-long story in Doctor Who. Sure, we’ve had elements of an arc before. The first season, for example, gave the Doctor himself a character arc where he evolved from cowardly curmudgeon into an unlikely heroic figure. Jon Pertwee’s second season was given the Master as a linking element. Tom Baker’s Doctor embarked in a pretty much unbroken series of adventures from Robot through to Terror of the Zygons, with the ending of one serial seemingly leading directly into the next. None of these were necessarily that ambitious and you could argue they evolved more by chance than by design.

So, The Key to Time represented a bit of a learning curve, an attempt to tie a season’s stories together using an over-arching concept. As I’ve discussed quite a bit in my reviews of the season, the result was a little clunky, with those concepts seemingly clumsily shoe-horned into a separate bunch of adventures. That leaves the finalé, The Armageddon Factor to do the heavy-lifting with regards to The Key to Time saga. Unfortunately, the pay-off feels a bit jumbled, over-wrought, disorganised and non-sensical, as it juggles a wealth of elements that never add up to more than the sum of their parts.

While a great many Doctor Who six-parters suffer from being too long, too padded, too stretched for their story and concepts, The Armageddon Game feels curiously over-stuffed, lacking a tight focus on the interesting elements and too many distractions clogging up the story.

The problems are crystal clear…

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: Armageddon Factor, arts, bbc, Black Guardian, Cold War, doctor, DoctorWho, fiction, Jon Pertwee, Key, literature, Power of Kroll, science fiction, Story arcs in Doctor Who, tardis, Time Lord, White Guardian | Leave a comment »

Doctor Who: The Power of Kroll (Review)

Posted on April 26, 2013 by Darren

The Power of Kroll originally aired in 1978 and 1979. It was the fifth part of The Key to Time saga.

What? Well, you’d better introduce me.

As what?

Oh, I don’t know. As a wise and wonderful person who wants to help. Don’t exaggerate.

– the Doctor and Romana meet the locals

The Power of Kroll is a strange little serial, apparently the result of Robert Holmes being told to create the largest monster even on Doctor Who. Holmes wasn’t necessarily convinced that this was the best idea (and one can sense that from the story), but the adventure isn’t quite the mess that most people would have you believe. At the very least, it serves as a dry run (see what I did there) for the much stronger Caves of Androzani, but it also has an interesting idea or three along the way.

The power of CSO, more like...

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: arts, bbc, Carnival of Monsters, Doctor (Doctor Who), doctor who, law & order, Online Writing, Robert Holmes, Romana, The Key to Time, the Power of Kroll | 2 Comments »

Doctor Who: The Androids of Tara (Review)

Posted on April 25, 2013 by Darren

The Androids of Tara originally aired in 1978. It was the fourth part of The Key to Time saga.

Ah! That takes me back… or forward… that’s the trouble with time travel, you can never remember…

– The Doctor

There are some things that I know I should probably feel guilty about – cases where my opinion is so clearly distinct from the general consensus that I feels some sense of obligation to apologise for my radical and far-out ideas. While it falls just short of that mark, I honestly enjoy The Androids of Tara as the best story of The Key to Time. I’ll concede it isn’t as masterfully written as The Ribos Operation, nor as full of wonderfully clever constructs as The Pirate Planet, but The Androids of Tarais a refreshingly small-scale adventure that manages to accommodate the awkward humour that this era of the show is accustomed to, while remaining an excellent adventure in its own right.

Eyes without a face...

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: arts, bbc, City of Death, doctor, Doctor (Doctor Who), doctor who, fiction, Fourth Doctor, Online Writing, Peter Jeffrey, Pirate Planet, The Androids of Tara, The Key to Time, The Prisoner of Zenda | Leave a comment »

Doctor Who: Stones of Blood (Review)

Posted on April 24, 2013 by Darren

Stones of Blood originally aired in 1978. It was the third part of The Key to Time saga.

Doctor, might I ask you a personal question?

Well, I don’t see how I could stop you from asking.

Are you from outer space?

No.

Oh.

I’m more from you’d call inner time.

Ah.

– Professor Rumford and the Doctor clarify things

Stones of Blood was a bit of a landmark for the television show. Not only was it the 100th Doctor Who story broadcast, but it also aired remarkably close to the show’s fifteenth anniversary. The Three Doctorshad demonstrated that the show could celebrate its anniversaries in style, but producer Graham Williams seemed to want a more restrained celebration of the show’s run – vetoing an early scene in the TARDIS where Romana and K-9 give the Doctor a birthday cake and a present (a new scarf). Instead, it was decided that the show would celebrate its time on the air by returning to two of its more defining genres, blending those two distinct types of story into one four-part adventure. So we end up with a story that is half gothic horror and half outer space adventure.