We watched the LC recons of ep1,2,4,5 and BBC DVD's of ep3,6.
This is the first serial to have both music and sound effects done by the Radiophonic Workshop.
This seems better than I remember.
But it's very thin material.
The plot... base under siege with all the usual tropes, merely enhanced by the addition of **some** girls. There's three types here: Gemma, the smart one, Tanya, the dolly bird one, and Zoe, the juvenile one) is at least there. Regrettably, that's progress (actually). The ep2 Tanya/Leo exchange about 'pretty noses' in groan inducing.
Plot = Base under siege being infiltrated by Cybermen. That's the same as 2 out of three previous stories featuring Cybermen. This time just two (count 'em) Cybers. This is not innovative. The Cybers' costumes are only slightly revised. Notable new thing is the teardrop notches.
The Cybermats are reused and cute. The security on the Wheel space station is pretty hopeless. Duggan's discovery of Cybermats eating his so called key material (the made up 'Bernalium' which he just keeps in boxes any old where) should be a reportable incident but amazingly he doesn't get sacked for trying to hide it.
The Wheel is unexpectedly large and spacious and kinda arty and designed within. Modern 21stC space stations are cramped and functional looking (messy?) inside.
Quite why the Wheel has a Xray laser for 'defence' (against what?) and why it's so easy to disable with such chemicals as Jamie (or anyone) can just find lying around in the space station are very important yet unanswered questions. Again the security here is unexplainedly lax. Aerospace engineering is often focussed on reliability, simplicity and redundancy. That is, it won't break, but if it does it's either very easy to fix or there's another one we can use instead. The Xray laser is 0/3 on this.
The ep3 stuff about a 'star going nova' which in turn is the cause of a meteorite storm is wrong (and silly).
Maybe there's an unconscious desire by the space station people to be taken over by the Cybermen? Or they don't care about their jobs? Or the briefly mentioned 'back to Earth' campaign has some actual chance of succeeding through incompetence, indolence, lethargy in the space service?
There's some advance in video effects on show in the two eps that survive. The 'solarization' effect when the Cyberpods burst is new gear for mid 1968. (It's severely dated now but it would have been very *wowee* back then.) The overlay sparks and zaps from Cybermen are improved also.
The series 5 finale has a reputation for being a damp squib. It's not undeserved.
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In series 5 the show has hit new heights of scripting and directing but also scraped the bottom with trying to include hard science that is wrong or silly. The stuff that is unexplained or unexplainable has more credibility in dramatic terms than the misunderstood and misapplied technical gubbins. That is Web of Fear is better than Ice Warriors.
In series 5 there were 3 all time classic serials out of 7, 2 so-so serials and 2 which weren't so good. The series is much more stable and reliable than series 3.
This is the best season yet of DW according to the trend of our scores.
There are more changes coming. The transition to colour and the slashing of yearly episode count (along with concomit adjusted production schedule - 2 eps each fortnight instead of 1 per week) are the big ones. Also changed (with Enemy of the World) is the TV standard. the show is now shot on 625 line video instead of 405 line. How the new cameras coped in Lime Grove Studio D is unrecorded but it may not have been all bad since newer cameras would have been smaller and more light weight. At some point in the next year the colour video recorders would be delivered. Did any series 5/6 DW ever get recorded in colour? Ah fantasy... Obviously such recordings never survived.
Lime Grove Studio D was only partly used for Wheel in Space. Over the next year use of Lime Grove Studio D was phased out. Last ep to use it at all was Space Pirates ep1.
We have reached a point where the next 28 eps after Wheel in Space are moving pictures status. That's a great encouragement. Unfortunately the next cab off the rank is The Dominators.
Just 5 recon eps to go. Hold on, peeps.
ABM Rating 2.20/4.00
LJM Rating 3.00/5.00
SPJ Rating 5.50/10
No. 29 (out of 43)
Link to Cumulative Rankings
Rankings Scoreboard
SPJ 5.5
ReplyDeleteLJM 3