117 Four to Doomsday

Started 30-Nov



Looks great. Has some good bits. But the regular cast are very uncertain and not necessarily finding their feet.

Janet is a different crazy this week. Sarah is quiet and nice and seems hardly there at all. Matthew is all over the shop. Peter is squeaky and making it up as he goes along.

Stratford Johns, Paul Shelley and Annie Lambert are effective and interesting.

Philip Locke and Burt Kwouk are kinda shallow and lacking in believability.

The plot is kinda silly. There's a story missing in 'why does the alien want to make a visit/return/invasion and pillage mission over such a very long distance.

This is probably not as bad as some other reviews have placed it. It's just not very good.



ABM Rating 2.50/4.00
LJM Rating 2.58/5.00
SPJ Rating 6.60/10   

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No.77 (out of 117)

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116 Castrovalva

Started 24-Nov

This is a game of two halves.

P 1 and 2 are set in the TARDIS and show the initial escape from the Master.

P 3 and 4 are set within the world of Castrovalva.

The direction is very imaginative from first time director Fiona Cumming (at this point she was sorta famous for B7 Rumours of Death).

The Castrovalva eps are pretty good. The level of inventive use of abstract geometric concepts is ambitious and presented in a way that still interests viewers nearly 40 years on. *Recursion, space time traps, 4 pharmacies in a little place like this, Shardovan, can you see what I'm talking about? Not in my mind no, but in my philosophy.

Cast is still developing but Ainley as the Master is peaking. The cackling is starting to work. Later it gets ridiculous but at this stage it remains in the credible zone. The Castrovalvans, Sheard, Waring, Wylie as Mergrave, Shardovan, Ruther are very good.

Janet and Sarah are developing well. Waterhouse is... Waterhouse.

Peter is fond of reminding the fans that this was not his first go in the role. As far as the viewer is concerned, this is his debut. And it's good. Basically the only thing he was obliged to do was not be anything like Tom Baker. Gone is the arrogance, the over confidence, the anger. Present instead is lack of certainty, exasperation, crap jokes. For Doctor Who in general, not just Tom, that stuff is actually new. It's not for nothing that Peter is regarded as one of the top3 most technically adept actors to be DW.

This is an intellectual and pleasingly abstract beginning to a new era of DW. Peter Davison is credited as the Doctor now (previously the credits said "Dr Who").

Even at the time it was conceded that Doctor 5 as always gonna suffer in comparison to the much more famous Tom Baker. The 4 decades since have done little to allay that problem.

The fifth Doctor rushes out of the gate here and for various problematic reasons goes where it goes.


ABM Rating 3.48/4.00
LJM Rating 3.81/5.00
SPJ Rating 7.50/10   

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No. 39 (out of 116)

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K9 & Company

The main reason this is terrible is the awful script.

It talks incessantly for 35 minutes and then there's a pretty routine racey, chasey bit for about 5 minutes and then a all better happy chatty scene at the end that's tailed by K9 attempting to sing a Xmas carol.

Can we rate it?

Yes.

Should we count it?

No.


ABM Rating 1.80/4.00
LJM Rating 2.00/5.00
SPJ Rating 4.00/10   
 



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115 Logopolis

 Started 18-Nov

This is notable for the variance of style. Tom is a distant, greying figure. There's a string of new odd companions.

Even at this distance in time it gets difficult to analyse this objectively. It is very moody and affecting but also confusing, crazy (especially all the collapsing galaxies stuff in p4).

The problem is the Logopolitan project to sustain the collapsing universe is subverted and essentially stopped by the Master's meddling. Then it is saved by the Doctor and Master's efforts in late p3/p4 to transfer the control of one CVE to Earth's Pharos project.
This maintains, for what, a quarter of an hour before the Master uses the opportunity to threaten the universe with entropic annihilation (this would not be instant BTW). Then the Doctor sacrifices his life to stop this.

Where does this leave the universe? I think it's going down the drain. That's a pretty big loose end...

I told you it's confusing... and next episode it's completely forgotten.

Luckily the recent Brian Schmidt Nobel prize winning work proves from observation that the Universe is not just continuing to expand but expansion is accelerating. So we can actually relax.

After JNT's first season DW is serious again. The jokey nonsense that Horns of Nimon was, the pathetically undramatic Creature from the Pit, the special effects sh*tshow of tape on the walls Nightmare of Eden is replaced by an attempt to make the show meaningful and serious. Even if the carpet bombing of logic and reason as found in Destiny of the Daleks may unfortunately remain in place.

ABM Rating 3.27/4.00
LJM Rating 3.49/5.00
SPJ Rating 7.40/10   

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No. 52 (out of 115)

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Just before we say bye to Tom....

This Marathon has been going since 30 April 2018.

We completed DW ep

553

(The Keeper of Traken p2) on Tuesday 12 November which is

562

days into the DW Marathon Blog.

So we probably need to catch up.


Date calculator website https://www.timeanddate.com/date/timeduration.html

114 The Keeper of Traken

 Started 11-Nov

Well made and with good performances. Costume and design are working well also with Gaudi style and Art Nouveau flourishes liberally applied.

Tom seems cranky and distant. He's doing that not looking at the other actors thing all the time now.



ABM Rating 3.28/4.00
LJM Rating 3.99/5.00
SPJ Rating 8.45/10   

No. 37 (out of 114)


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113 Warriors' Gate

 Started 7-Nov

The rating seems a bit high at 91.9%... just out of the so far top ten.

Ambitious... yes
Perfect... not really

I'd say it's a very high achiever due to production and direction and imagination but a story that owes very little to performance of the key cast


Tom is phoning this in. Lalla is better but she's inconsistent. Matthew is all over the shop like normal. John is ok and has some good lines for a change but the die seems cast against K9 at this stage.

The rating score is deserved. This is DW that adds to the legend. It is the kind of story that DW should do more of. No earth invasions, no space battles, no arch villains, no space pirates, no jungle planets. But time folding plots, micro universes with variable physics and relatable characters... this is what makes it good.


The funny cynical crew of the Privateer are good to watch. Rorvik as played by Clifford Rose has some cringey moments including his pay off a the end of p4. Kenneth Cope as Packard is entertaining. Freddie Earle and David ?? as Aldo and Royce are standouts. The dialogue for all these guys is some of the best written in DW history...

The plot is complex and stands up well 40 odd years on.

There is no classic baddie/monster. The Tharils have obvious shortcomings in their past. The Privateer crew are unscrupulous and amoral at best... detestable slavers at worst. Characters are deliberately greyed and it works wonders for the story. Major strength this.

There are some weak SFX but they are outweighed by the good ones. The frame of the gateway mirror and booms in shot and the like are easy to forgive. The use of framestore to depict the Tharils riding the Time Winds is particularly brilliant. It could have been a cheap CSO nasty but the use of a 80's poop video look and feel actually works in an imaginative way here.

Compare the way the CSO'd virtual space appears in Warrior's Gate  to the CSO'd virtual space appeared in Underworld. Whole scenes achieved in a way that's technically identical but the expectation and the effect is much different.

The production problems (Paul Joyce's 'firing', the complaints by the Lighting engineer, the overruns) are remarkable. The last minute adaptations of some effects (the use of the Powis Castle B&W photography) was sublime and richly effective. Use of the lightweight handheld camera (see teh climax of p2) gives new POV shots and creeping action tracking shots.

Sometimes production troubles seem to make DW better somehow. It's counter intuitive but it can happen. (eg, Spearhead from Space it worked but in Robot is where it did not.)

Peter Howell's incidental score is a remarkable achievement. Bettering Paddy Kingsland's Full Circle/State of Decay soundtrack is no mean feat. (Wait for Paddy's Logopolis soundtrack but...)

If only all 80's DW was like this. Complaints from fans at the time about 'it's too complex', 'I can;t understand it' seem like unnecessary nonsense nowadays.

I can see a young Steven Moffat taking notes.



ABM Rating 3.50/4.00
LJM Rating 4.54/5.00
SPJ Rating 9.75/10   

No. 11 (out of 113)

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112 State of Decay

 Started 4-Nov


Great direction, good performances, nice sets and costumes.

This could have been silly.. we're only 4 stories from "the Hoons of Nimon" after all... but has some dramatic credibility. (The scene where the Doctor and Romana discuss the vampire war, and the bit where the Doctor finds out about bowships are stonkingly good.)

Impressive debuts for Peter Moffat and Paddy Kingsland (apart from Meglos p1 which was produced after this anyway).

Terrance's script for the Vampire Mutations had a worryingly long gestation but the story came out ok and only has nitpick level faults. (eg. Aukon talks about breeding dullness into 20 generations of peasants on 1 page and 1000 years of feudalism on others.)

Emrys James (noted RSC actor), Rachel Davies (long TV career including the terrifying misandrist Mrs Malcolm in Cracker - Men Should Weep) and William Lindsay (Captain in Blakes 7 - Animals) were all very good as the Witch Lord Vampire set Three Who Rule. Easily the best non-meta DW villains since Magnus Greel. (Scaroth and The Pirate Captain are meta SF villains). (Meta SF https://online.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/abs/10.3828/extr.2002.43.1.04?journalCode=extr )

Christine Ruscoe as set designer finished her 3rd DW story (after Pyramids and Hand of F) with another top effort. Her CV is pretty good https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0750604/
(Crackerjack!, Z-Cars, Doomwatch, Paul Temple, Jackanory Playhouse, The Lively Arts, Grange Hill, Worzel Gummidge, The Ruth Rendell Mysteries, Midsomer Murders, Rosemary & Thyme... not to be sniffed at.)


Costumes were done by Amy Roberts who didn't start here (Image of the F) and certainly didn't end here either (Keeper of T etc) but she has a damned impressive CV (https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0730820/ ). (1990,  An Englishman Abroad, Traffik, Brassed Off, Ultraviolet, Collision, Mrs Biggs, Call the Midwife, The Tunnel, Cilla, The Crown... Amy Roberts is an industry heavyweight.)


1980 ends with this story. Next ep is in the new year.

In DW history, 1980 is like 1966. 1980 gave us The Horns of Nimon and the production failure of Shada. But also the revolution (so far) of 4 serials of Season 18 (3 ok out of 4). The producer and the Script editor were replaced (Graham Williams and Douglas Adams were replaced by John Nathan Turner, Barry Letts and Chris Bidmead). There's a Doctor retiring and a new one announced. There's companion movement (one Timelady and a robot dog to an air hostie, a maths dweeb and a science princess). Then there's Tom and Lalla getting engaged and married and making the biggest mistake of their lives but that is strictly not any part of DW's narrative.

The UK TV ratings were a roller coaster in 1980... high 8's for Horns, mid 4's for Meglos and mid 5's for State of D.

1966 had a new Doctor and wildly differing qualities of DW stories (Toymaker, Gunfighters, Smugglers but also Power of the Daleks, Savages, Masterplan) Companions went from Steven Taylor (only time there was a sole male companion) through Dodo, then Ben and Polly and finally adding Jamie Macrimmon. Production office rang the changes also (John Wiles and Donald Tosh through Innes Lloyd and Gerry Davis)

UK were the same rollercoaster shape for Season 3... mid 9's for Masterplan, mid 4's for Smugglers and  7's for Power and Highlanders.

Things that weren't in common were on screen Doctor regeneration and the number of Dalek stories but there are certainly plenty of similarities. Anneke Wills was already married to Celestial Toymaker Michael Gough in 1966, so... that isn't weird at all.




ABM Rating 3.21/4.00
LJM Rating 4.19/5.00
SPJ Rating 8.30/10   

No. 34 (out of 112)

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