The long dark night of telesnaps begins....
Series 3 kicks off in September 1965 with this one. This series is probably one of the most challenged and challenging. Here are the facts: there were 3 producers (Lambert, Wiles, Lloyd), 2 story editors (Tosh, Davis), about 6 companions (depending on who gets counted), the longest ever serial, shortest ever (not a) serial, the greatest ever number of episodes, the second most missing episodes. (All this makes Verity's two years look even better IMHO.)
Ratings were still high but by the end of the series this could no longer be relied on. The figures show a fall of about half during "The Gunfighters". Average of the 10 episodes before and the 10 episodes after shows this.
It's often cited that Wiliam Hartnell's declining health was what lead to his replacement approximately a year after this serial but I think that the production office instability and plunging ratings look like equally important reasons. We'll see...
We watched a fairly distorted LC recon of Galaxy 4 recovered from an old VHS tape. (Apart from the recovered episode 3 of course.)
This story is a strange mixture of progressive and traditional.
The voice of the Rills sounds quite old fashioned and makes me not like them at all. The Drahvins are really dumb and seem incredibly childish. Credibility is not won with a modern audience by either of these features. And the Chumblies get sooo boring really quickly.
The basic story is an inversion of the Beauty and the Beast idea. But the Drahvins are slight and unengaging as characters. The main character Maaga is cynical and harsh in tone. That's the 'beauty'. The Rills are slightly pompous but otherwise kinda reasonable. That's the 'beast'. The added notion of the exploding planet is testing credibility also. (Think for a minute.... why is it exploding? What is causing it? Doesn't look like it's exploding...)
The story makes little sense.
I think the Drahvins' guns get reused in Genesis of the Daleks....(Thal guards in part 3...)
I've always thought of this as a dense, hard to understand missing episode story. I was unsure if I ever actually got it. Actually it's not that great...
ABM Rating 2.00/4.00
LJM Rating 0.75/5.00
SPJ Rating 2.00/10.00
Peak Ranking No. 18 (out of 18)
Link to Cumulative Rankings
Link to Rankings Scoreboard
0.75 out of 4
ReplyDeleteThis story was clearly written by an old, white male; what is even up with the Drahvins??
The actress of Maaga, I'm gonna give her credit, she tired her best with that poorly written role, and her crazy but subtle acting (esp. with the eyes) during her monlogue made it slighty more meorable- if not for the content, but merely the performance.
Th chumbleys look R I D I C U L O U S in the final chase scene/s.
I think this story had a lot of padding ( that bit where Drahvin 3 tries to wack the chumbley by sneaking up on it)
WHY WAS THE PLANET GOING TO EXPLODE????? THAT DOESN"T EVEN MAKE SENSE!! WTH??!??