Dr. Who: Season 14
1976
The Mask of Mandragora
Writer ~ Louis Marks
15th century San Martino by way of Portmeirion.
A somewhat Gothic TARDIS control room introduced. Men in robes trying to summon forces they barely know for an attempted power-grab in subterranean shrines continues the Gothic feel.
The Doctor versus a sparkler effect.
Elisabeth Sladen’s slightly tongue-in-cheek and knowing performance does much to keep things on the keel of entertainment, despite regularly being relegated to Damssel In Distress.
Although the mash-up of genres and tropes is what ‘Dr. Who’ excels at – TV-style historical recreation, Gothic horror, science-fiction – this one is a little average. The ending is also both underwhelming and alarming: the Doctor does a little play-acting and leads the worshipers to fry themselves.
The Hand of Fear
Director ~ Lennie Mayne
Writers ~ Bob Baker & Dave Martin
The one with the creeping hand. And it doesn't top that moment.
How can they tell the difference between a quarry and an alien planet (a nice in-joke)?
Episode two is mostly filler (must make most of that nuclear plant or whatever: let's run around!). Episode three ends on a quite unexpected cliffhanger, as far as these things go.
Eldrad is a villain with some substance, Judith Paris conveying the confusion, until reincarnated as Stephen Thorne who just thunders around in pantomime mode.
And it's true that this season already has a lot of mind-control and possession of Sarah-Jane, so it's no wonder she left with a rather nice end note.
Enjoyable enough if perhaps not reaching its potential.
The Deadly Assassin
Director ~ David Maloney
Writer ~ Robert Holmes
The one with the truly nightmarish manifestation of The Master.
Tom Baker gleefully mugging "I don't need a companion!" at the camera.
The other Time Lords revealed as Elitest snobs and doddery old men. Holmes’ script deepens and sets the Time Lord mythos in motion.
A whole episode of that particular Seventies style "In A Nightmare!!" scenario (bombed in a quarry! stumbling through faux-jungle! pursued by semi-faceless hunter! almost crushed by a ... miniature train?). There is something appealingly dated about this – ‘Sapphire and Steel’ mastered the form and feeling.
The train makes for one of the most wet blanket of cliffhangers whereas the Doctor being drowned is the one that set apparently Mary Whitehouse all fiery and out to destroy Dr Who (and arguably, with some success: opinions on a postcard).
And The Master shrinking his victims always seemed uniquely horrible to me.
The Face Of Evil
Director – Pennant Roberts
Writer – Chris Boucher
The one with Mount Doctor Baker.
Hello Leela. One for the dads. Maybe, and even if Baker didn’t like her character (probably thought he didn’t need a sidekick - and didn’t I read he even suggested a cabbage as a companion?) she actually complements him well, however unlikely this may seem. Louise Jameson’s plays dead straight and resourceful rather than just savage-and-stupid.
Is Leela the only woman in the tribe…?
There’s substance to what looks like a dodgy tribe enactment being that way for good pulpy sci-fi reasons as there is to The Doctor realising his do-gooding has consequences that might lead to invisible monsters resembling a nod to ‘Forbidden Planet’. This and a computer driven mad by The Doctor’s input, forcing him to confront his hubris a little fun.
Some decent facing-off-in-a-corridor work.
The Doctor screaming at himself is quite memorable.
The Robots of Death
Writer ~ Chris Boucher
Special effects by toys and some superior corridors. And there’s no avoiding that, even as Seventies kids, we all knew those red eyes were made with bicycle reflectors. But these are typical shortcomings for old ‘Who’ and doesn’t distract at how memorable and great the robot designs are.
The robot
designs hint at pretences of elegance and plushness, but it is of course an
early warning against AI and the
influence of Asimov’s Law of Robotics always lurks in the background of such
things. Certainly, the robot’s uncanny valley unnerved me as a boy.
There is also a little social commentary, the kind that vintage ‘Dr. Who’ has always been good at, has always had in its DNA: the managerial crew of the mining ship are just barely useful layabouts, letting the robots do the work. There’s some nice set design by Kenneth Sharp that makes the ship resemble a plush hotel rather than a workspace.
Talons of Weng-Chiang
Director ~ David Mahoney
Writer ~ Robert Holmes
For me, Dr Who at its zenith. The mash-up of all that Victorian pulp creates a delightful concoction: vaudeville, Sherlock Holmes, Fu-Manchu, opium dens, Jack the Ripper, Eliza Doolittle, even a little Phantom of the Opera are all namechecked. The giant rat is an unfortunately lacking effect (best to turn on the new effects option) but Mr Sin remains creepy and arguably even additionally disgusting when we know its origin.
Of course, much of this is undone by use of yellowface for John Bennet as Li H'sen Chang. Even so, Bennet gives Chang and almost regal dignity with a great, deluded but sympathetic send-off. And there’s a flicker of knowingness when Chang makes the retort that “I understand we all the look the same.” But there’s no getting past the yellowface and of-the-period racism, or references to “midgets”, even if it feels of-a-piece to penny dreadfuls and the Yellow Peril.
But Robert Homes packs it full of great dialogue for everyone, for a six-parter there’s no real padding and just when you think you have it pegged, there’s the introduction of a great Jago and Lightfoot duo. Plenty of horrible detail alluded to, assassins in laundry baskets, a bad guy defeated just by pulling out the battery…
This has always been a favourite
since I was a kid, and even with its disqualifying ingredient – which isn’t
even incidental – there’s so much to enjoy. A quintessential Dr. Who romp. And
Mr. Sin is still unnerving.
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