Dr. Who - season 14

Dr. Who: Season 14

1976

 

The Mask of Mandragora

Director ~ Rodney Bennett

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

Director ~ Michael E. Briant

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. 

Dr Who: The Visitation

Peter Moffat,1982, GB, 4 episodes

‘Dr Who’ is comfort food for genre fans. The TARDIS is a genius narrative device for getting the protagonist anywhere, anytime so that it covers everything from the Gothic to alien planets, and that ability to go anywhere is key to the Doctor’s longevity. Oh, that and regeneration. It can just make up the rules as it goes along, more-or-less, so when things get sticky, just move the goalposts and add something new to the mythos. And always the monsters and aliens. That’s a big part of what we came for.

Oh, but let me make this clear that I’m mostly talking about the original series now, some way into Colin Baker.  The new era riffs too much on The-Doctor-as-Rock-Or-Pop-Star-God for my taste. I mean, I like the way The Doctor would just turn up in the middle of a world or universe threatening situation and sort out the bigger plot: it was never just about him, but rather what he did to resolve the threat. But David Tennant was good at the manic-zany stuff and I liked the way Matt Smith would just walk in a room and be both charming and sinister simultaneously.

With ‘The Visitation’, we are with the Eighties “nice” Doctor, Peter Davidson. Well, I say that but he’s a dick to Adric throughout... I know that Adric (Matthew Waterhouse) is generally considered the least liked companion, but, I mean, you have Ace? And I always found Tegan (Janet Fielding) more annoying and tedious, although she really isn’t so grating in this story. The story by Eric Seward is vintage ‘Dr Who’ storyline: the TARDIS ends up somewhere unplanned (Heathrow several hundred years too early in an attempt to return Tegan) just as an alien invasion is kicking off; the TARDIS crew get involved, run to-and-fro a bit, have run-ins with the locals and the aliens and thwart the invasion. What distinguishes this one is that the alien threat, the Terileptils, are intending to use the Black Death to wipe out humanity to take over Earth themselves… somethingsomething. On the commentary, the actors talk about how in rehearsal they would question the logic, but when you see the story in action, it all makes a holistic sense.

There’s a definite need to go with the flow with ‘Dr Who’: has a series ever relied on its audience’s generosity? It’s true that ‘Dr. Who’ was always a triumph of imagination over execution. There’s a kind0f free-for-all logic that carries you along and entertains away so that you are enthralled and critical in equal amounts and you are just left with a hub of enjoyment. You say: “Oh, don’t leave the TARDIS Adric, because that’s stupi - oh, he’s captured! Pfft!” Question marks on the collar? *groan* Is the android wearing… cricket gloves? But it really doesn’t matter because there’s a wholehearted enjoyment of genre tropes that make The Doctor’s adventures addictive and pleasurable and overcomes its glaring flaws. There’s the claw shot. Unconvincing explosions. Forced drama for padding, but perhaps less here than usual. The cliff-hangers aren’t so much, somewhat perfunctory. Threat of beheading? Someone will interrupt next episode so it doesn’t happen.

The clunky monster suits delight in their hand-made fallibilities: the Terileptil designs are bright and memorable – something like an amalgamation of armadillo and iguana? – using the animatronic lips to make them look more like they are actually talking. The fact that Michael Melia plays the Terileptil Voice as straightforward instead of over-exaggerated grounds the outrageousness and any impracticability of the costume. On the other hand, Michael Robbins gives a prime example of how to ham it up handsomely for ‘Dr Who’ as the story’s requisite Doctor ally in just the right way that is fully enjoyable without falling into laughability; although the commentary tells that he thought this was the worst thing he’d ever done. It’s a shame if he was not having as much fun as his performance is.

And ‘The Visitation’ doesn’t really have that one special effect that really requires a flagon of generosity from the audience to get over (like the rat in ‘The Talons of Weng-Chiang’, or the clam-like threats in ‘Genesis of the Daleks’, or K-9 going sooo slowly, etc, etc…). There are the usual deus ex machinas and just pure luck to solve things, but also some nice conceits like the spangly android dressing like Death to scare the locals. And in typical ‘Dr Who’ fashion, it sneaks in some agreeable nastiness with a defigured alien face, a briefly bubbling Terileptil corpse and witch-hunts.

But why do we see so little of the other Terileptils?

I first saw this as a teenager and the final twist that The Doctor caused the fire of London always stuck in my memory. You know when the background to a Doctor story is historically based that he is going to be involved or responsible somehow. It’s not at all an exemplary story, but it was a ratings hit and it’s solid old school ‘Dr Who’ entertainment that ticks all the right boxes, good and bad, but that’s all part of its popularity.