067 Frontier in Space

Started 26-Feb


Well that has not aged well.


Ostensibly (and as claimed by Barry and Terrance) this is 'about' the Cold War and the politics of detente.


But it is actually a pretty crappy runaround.


The capturing and locking up rate is at hypercritical. The costuming is good work on a poor budget.
The lighting and set design is adequate.

The politics is out of date and the concerns are a mixture of WW2 and Cold War fears. The plot is almost made up on the spot and the story is unsatisfying and at times unclear.

The space travel physics are just naive. There is obviously no relativistic mechanics visible but surely it takes more than a few hours or days to travel from Earth to Draconia. In ep 4 & 5 this is achieved in maybe a day? Very sloppy writing.

Characters are dull or barely credible at best. The President, General Wiliams, the various Draconians, the Ogrons, the Master. All under par. The Master is almost comical in this.

So what is this really?

This may have been familiar political allegory back in 1973. There is a horrible rumour that it's a rip off of James Bond in You Only Live Twice (1967).


This is ageing badly.


ABM Rating 2.30/4.00
LJM Rating 1.75/5.00
SPJ Rating 4.35/10   

No. 55 (out of 67)

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066 Carnival of Monsters

 Started 23-Feb

Plot is unlike the norm. No alien invasion/mad scientist sh*t here.

Dialogue is written well.

FX are bumbling along but effective enough.

Resolution is satisfying.

This is a pretty good DW story.



ABM Rating 3.76/4.00
LJM Rating 4.25/5.00
SPJ Rating 9.80/10   

No. 2 (out of 66)

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065 The Three Doctors

 Started 21-Feb

Take away the extra Doctors and the delightful Doctor-y arguing and you got two things.

1) A new genre of DW story (the celebration-y, anniversary-ey, thing)

2) a pretty little plot which is fairly slight but based on either the Wizard of Oz or The Tempest...


The Marathon blog is starting to race. We've done Series 9 in record pace. Day.. started 30-Jan, Time.. finished 20-Feb


ABM Rating 2.80/4.00
LJM Rating 4.25/5.00
SPJ Rating 8.20/10   

No. 15 (out of 65)


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064 The Time Monster

 Started 16-Feb


Watched the RSC DVD version of 2010.

The Time Monster is in parts utter drivel and lyrical classical drama.

The first episode has some ludicrous shit in it... the dreams for instance.

Eps 2,3 and 4 seem like so much filler/runaround

Eps 5& 6 are like a bolt from the blue. The acting is a little stagey perhaps but Ingrid Pitt, Aidan Murphy, George Cormack and Susan Penhaligon portray the scheming courtly intrigue with cod classical Greek pathos. It is actually award winning level.

I think the "stop trying to write in time paradox bollocks into every scene" message has a great deal to do with this.

The scene where Kronos is released and Atlantis is destroyed leaving Galleia with her head hanging in shame is stunning, chill up the back of the neck stuff. It's tragic, exciting, and amazing..

The last ep has a great wrap up and a conclusion that is satisfying. Much better than the last ep of The Daemons (Barry and Robert's last effort...)

A whole point each for each of the last 2 eps.

And series 9 is done.


ABM Rating 2.99/4.00
LJM Rating 3.20/5.00
SPJ Rating 7.30/10   

No. 29 (out of 64)

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063 The Mutants

 Started 11-Feb

It's probably a mistake to analyse this as political allegory.... the obvious tropes about colonialism. The Marshall as bluff colonial military boss man intent on resisting change to the status quo for reasons of self interest imagined as 'patriotism'. There are factions of the locals, split by levels of co-operation with overlords (really levels of collaboration.) Ky is rebel, rebel, rebel. Varan is more obsequious. Both are betrayed or treated with disregard by the Marshall.
Stubbs and Cotton are characters of the man in the street. Whatever happens doesn't really matter much to them but thy know it's over, just a matter of when.
Sondergaard is the intellectual struggling to understand the real process of Solonian changes. Jaeger is the tool of the idealogical Skybase leadership.
We've even got the useless idiot windbag executive (governors from Earth): the administrator (Geoffrey Palmer) and the Investigator (Peter Howell)
This is a mix of the Indian partition of the 1940's and Rhodesia of the 1960's (without obvious black people).

So the establishment are fools or madmen, the people lose until they overcome their own internal division, and the truth is waiting to be revealed in order to solve the fight. This is full of right-on cliche and revolutionary tropes.

I'm pretty sure Terrance Dicks didn't write i (he admits distaste for liberation philosophy on the dvd "making of" doco.... And I doubt Bob Baker and Dave Martin wrote it (these guys are first time writers here with obvious interest in other sorts of ideas). So how was it written? I would love to know.

As a SF story it's a better experience.... the theme of long term metamorphosis is used cleverly. The conservative political ideologues are dumb and ignorant as the local inhabitants. The complicated impasse is presented in ep1 with the Doctor's injection mission to provide the ancient tablets as some sort of mysterious solution. The plot stalls after a few episodes since the 'mysterious solution' is so hard to understand.

Obviously there's an interesting, untold back story about how the Timelords got hold of the ancient tablets and why they consider it important for them to be delivered to Solos at this particular time.(Why not years before? Why do it all? They are forbidden to interfere but here they are doing so without that much cover.)

But there are some muddled things. For instance, Jaeger's use of a maser to kill off the atmosphere and metamorphosed sections of teh planet is a doubtful choice. Masers work in the unltraviolet and are likely to tend to sterilise vegetation. The plan he pursues in later episodes is devastation and destruction plain and simple.

The production is on a similar level to other series 9 stories. There is a notable debut from costume designer James Acheson (still one of DW's few Oscar winning alumnuses, Peter Capaldi and Richard Todd are the only others, I think)


The Mutants is better than its reputation. But it's not anywhere near perfect.


ABM Rating 3.02/4.00
LJM Rating 3.25/5.00
SPJ Rating 6.81/10   

No. 32 (out of 63)

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062 The Sea Devils

  Started 6-Feb


We watched the 2008 DVD version which shows a noticeable jump in picture quality between ep3 and 4.

The Sea Devils is spectacular and iconic in the same way as The Daemons or Spearhead from Space. Lots of film and stunts and action, action, action. The plot moves rather slowly in ep 3 (mostly escaping from prison) and ep4 (moves from escaping Sea Devils on a beach to the diving bell).


The dialogue Master/Doctor is never better than in this story.

Clive Morton is was a very classy actor.His casting was a coup and his role became almost sympathetic in subtle ways. The man is a vain, ignorant fool. His patriotic vanity is exploited ruthlessly by the Master. His demise in ep4 is throat lumpening and possibly the best moment in Series 9.


The continuity problems
Generally charging about in boats and subs (and other vehicles including scooters and motor boats) in a few minutes/quick jump cuts all seems unlikely.

There is a particular problem with day/night in ep5 and 6. The initial Naval bombardment is reported by the Naval commander to be 'in position by 1350 hours' and then there's several trips to and from the Sea Devil base including by submarine, jet boat and hovercraft. These all take place before nightfall. Uhuh...

The Naval hardware, pictures of explosions and gun batteries is all stock footage (and some of it is obviously used more than once.)


The episode ends in this are problematic.

• Ep 1 a wheezing figure approaches Jo the Doctor in the dark on the sea fort... clunky edit to grams
• Ep2 after a long-ish sword fight (episode under-running is it?) treacherous and stunningly surprising knife thrown.
• Ep3 being chased by the Master and Trenchard and then their escape cutoff by prison guards, the Doctor and Jo are confronted by a Sea Devil as it rises from the waves on the beach. If this was the first reveal of a the Sea Devil and if it was edited properly this would be stunning. But it's not.
• Ep4 .That diving bell scene as an episode end is rather unsatisfying. It needs an edit to speed it up.
• Ep5 Doctor, Jo, Hart casually walk out of the HMS Seaspite office to go do what they're doing next. Suddenly a Sea Devil appears. Again the editing ruins the surprise as the previous few mnutes show the Sea Devils sneaking into the base unchallenged in broad daylight.

The Seas Devils is well remembered because of the monster costumes and the action sequences. It was one of the few DW's to get a second repeat in the 1970's in the UK. It was an early colour recovery of Pertwee's in the 1980's.

ABM Rating 3.04/4.00
LJM Rating 4.25/5.00
SPJ Rating 7.50/10   

No. 15 (out of 62)

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061 The Curse of Peladon

 Started 3-Feb

Worthy but dull. Probably a story that does not benefit from being viewed in order, marathon style. Nowhere near as exciting as the last story or the next.

Some good acting.
Young David T pulls some seriously cliched lines right into shape with anguished asides and stuff...  I guess this piece is a vehicle for Pertwee and Manning to show their talents. They work well and look and sound great.

Some dull acting. 
Hepesh and most of the other Pels (Grun and a guard Captain). Torbis lasts about a minute and is killed off. Bennion and Caldinez make a reasonable fist of Ice Warriors even though the role is not much and as always with Ice Warriors it's fibreglass shell acting. Same but less of a role goes for Fell and Churchman as Centauri and Grumbar and Bale as Arcturus.

The direction and special effects and production are all unspectacular. This show depends on the story.

How is it? Well.. ...

The European Common Market allegory is kinda obvious not to say a little strained by more recent 'Brexit' politics.

But here are some questions... which political position does the story (or any character) advocate and why?
Hepesh is clearly against joining the Federation but for simplistic 'tradition' reasons.
The delegates are presumably are for it because it's their job.
Peladon (the King) is in favour but is manipulated and compromised (and weak).
The Ice Warrior position is just odd. Short of security muscle they seem to serve little function to the plot.

What is Arcturus up to and why?  What's his goal?

The story seems to be missing something more interesting. We're watching a minor squabble while the actual story is taking place off screen at Galactic headquarters (or somewhere). The characters are well enough drawn but the story needs some work....

Why are some of the delegates named after stars?


The actual plot is the Peladon court in conflict among themselves and the delegates facing various threats from the nativist Peladon faction (the Arcturus sabotage, the Doctor sacrilege/trial by combat, the Royal Beast showdown). There seems such little of actual consequence at stake beyond the individuals particular careers. If Peladon (the planet) joins or doesn't join the Galactic Federation what's gonna happen to whom and why would they care? What sort of decision are the delegates meant to make? Is it no or yes? What would the reasons (or the outcome) be?

Once Hepesh is killed in the conclusion presumably the next step is to make the decision and join the federation. But the story is cut off just as the real Earth delegate turns up (at last....)

The plot in the sequel features a fight for riches between poorly paid miners (all fellers for some reason but let's wait till we get to it), local bosses and off worlders over the supply of a mineral which Peladon has and everyone else wants.



The main problem with Peladon as a society is the distinct lack of females. No wonder their King proposes to the first earth girl he meets!!!!

Dull but worthy.


ABM Rating 3.01/4.00
LJM Rating 2.10/5.00
SPJ Rating 5.70/10   

No. 42 (out of 61)

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